BASEBALL IS BACK: Maryland tops Rhode Island to win its first home series of the season, p. 12
NOT SPICY ENOUGH: Hot Ones made it from YouTube to your TV screen, but it’s just OK, p. 9
The University of Maryland’s Independent Student Newspaper ONLINE AT
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Graduate activists still fighting for union rights
“it’s been kind of a taboo” UMD’s new disability studies minor aims to destigmatize the study and perception of people with disabilities By Chloe Goldberg | @ChloeGoldberg10 | Staff writer
They sparred with lawmakers at the State House on Friday ANNAPOLIS — Sen. Delores Kelley (D-Baltimore) wanted to make one thing clear on Friday: Her sympathies were with the University of Maryland graduate student activists who sat before her, asking once again for the right to unionize. She lamented the conditions under which graduate students work, offering up stories from her own experience as a teaching assistant at Purdue University in the 1970s. More than once, she directed incisive lines of questioning at officials, at one point underlining the disparity between what the University System of Maryland spends on athletics versus what it spends on graduate assistants. But, throughout the twists and turns of the Senate Finance Committee hearing, Kelley interjected her support with a cautionary refrain. With legislation aiming to enact sweeping reforms of Maryland’s public schools tugging at the state’s budget this year, the students’ bill — which would give collective bargaining rights to graduate assistants at system institutions and two other state universities — wasn’t likely to make it to the Senate floor. by
Angela Roberts @24_angier Senior staff writer
Peter leone, the director of the disability studies minor and a faculty member in the education college, has been advocating for a disability studies minor for years. julia nikhonson / the diamondback
In her Disability in Community class, Carolyn Fink takes a unique approach to the traditional lecture. She sends her students on a mission — what she calls an “accessibility scavenger hunt” — to search the campus for places that students with disabilities might
See union, p. 8
find difficult to navigate.
administration
Undocumented coordinator to leave in June
Gradually, her students start to question their surroundings, she said. They notice how far away disability seating is from the front of a lecture hall. They wonder why sign language interpreters aren’t at concerts. Raising awareness about issues that people with disabilities face is a key component of the university’s new disabilities studies minor, which includes Fink’s class. The minor is being offered for the first time this semester, marking the end of a years-long approval process and the start of what many say is a more inclusive approach to education. “I think historically, talking about disability, it’s been kind of taboo,” said Peter Leone, the minor’s director and a faculty member in the education college. “We’ve either put folks with disabilities out of sight out of mind, or we’ve patronized them. And the course and the minor is a first step in normalizing the idea that disability is a valuable thing to study.” Leone has been teaching a special education course on the history of disability for about ten years. Year after year, he found his students were surprised by all they didn’t know about disabilities, and were eager to learn more. It wasn’t just those studying to become special education teachers, he said — there was interest across the board. With the help of other professors in the education school, Leone set out to create a 15-credit minor that takes a holistic approach to the study of disability. Instead of focusing on teaching and rehabilitation, the minor analyzes the concept of disability over time, and how culture, education and technology have shaped society’s understanding of the topic. The professors received a $15,000 grant from the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to establish a similar minor in 2014, but efforts to organize the minor fell through early in the planning stages. The President’s Commission on Disability Issues, an advisory board that advocates for students with disabilities, became involved with the minor’s development in 2018, securing more widespread
She rejected a contract that would broaden the scope of her role Undocumented student coordinator Laura Bohorquez Garcia said she will leave the University of Maryland in June, opting out of a new contract that would have allowed her to stay at the school under a different title. Last week, Bohorquez Garcia was offered an expanded position, titled “Immigrant, First Generation and Transfer Student Coordinator,” that included the duties of her current position with additional responsibilities. She declined the offer on Monday, she said. “I said no because I don’t think the position that was presented to me would serve students the way I think they should be served,” she said. Bohorquez Garcia, who offers financial and emotional support to undocumented students through programming and counseling, has been in the role since 2017. As part of her job, she’s done research on how universities across the country are supporting their undocumented students. Many have resources this university does not, she said — such as legal immigration clinics, undocumented student resources centers and a larger staff devoted to the undocumented community who can answer questions based on recent trends in immigration policy. “I think that as someone who has done work at the national level and doing research at what other institutions are doing, we’re seeing there are more pieces to programming that need to be added,” Bohorquez Garcia said. by
Lillian Andemicael & Clara Niel @thedbk
See MINOR, p. 8
campus
SGA frustrated with presidential search Legislators say more student voices should have been included in the selection process, call on Darryll Pines to hold open forums The University of AmandaHernández Maryland’s @amandavhernan SGA voted Staff writer Wednesday to call on the school’s incoming president to meet with them and hold open forums focused on student concerns. Officials announced last week that Darryll P ines, current dean of the engineering school, would take over as the university’s president in July. At Wednesday’s meeting, students by
expressed frustration that their perspectives weren’t valued in the search process. David Pontious, Student Government Association legislator and bill sponsor, urged his fellow legislators to vote in support of the measure to ensure that the voices of the student body are heard and respected. “It’s time to forge ahead,” he said. “Making sure the students voices are heard — making sure that we understand what the incoming president’s priorities
are, that he understands what our priorities are.” The resolution received a vote of 31-0 with one abstention. Hunter Petit, the business representative and one of the supporters of the bill, said he believes the vote was a step in the right direction, helping ensure the SGA can continue checking the administration and representing the concerns of a diverse population of students. “If the SGA was given more
See undocumented, p. 8
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of a voice in terms of decisions on campus, I think that would be reflective of the diversity of the campus,” he said. In September, the SGA unanimously passed emergency legislation calling for more student involvement in the search for current President Wallace Loh’s replacement. Prior to the passing of the emergency legislation, the co m m i t te e h a n d l i n g t h e selection of presidential finalists held a forum open to See sga , p. 8
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