Ace of Cakes chef comes to campus; Art Attack adds second opening act | READ STORIES ONLINE
THE DIAMONDBACK THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2009
99TH YEAR | ISSUE NO. 117
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
Univ. may add costly fine arts master’s
With his back against the wall Gary Williams took a long road to becoming men’s basketball coach, facing adversity at every step
Program has annual price tag of $500K
BY MARK SELIG Senior staff writer
T
alk to Gary Williams long enough and surely some topic in the conversation will cause the 20-year Terrapin coach to reminisce about his career in basketball. He will link his approach to his days as a high school coach in Camden, N.J. He will reference his own playing career at the university when discussing athletes who supplement mediocre talent with knowledge of the game. He will laugh about the fracases Big East teams regularly engaged in when he used to coach at Boston College. So in the midst of a chaotic season for Williams, which featured a verbal spat with the Athletics Department, a bevy of criticism vis-à-vis his recruiting ability and a home fan-base that was divided in support, Williams reminisced to a worse time. When a reporter asked him if
BY TIRZA AUSTIN Staff writer
The university is considering a master’s program that will cost about half a million dollars a year but will only attract about ten students every three years. Administrators said the Master of Fine Arts degree in Performance will enable the university to attract gifted artists from across the nation and take advantage of the Washington region’s growing reputation as one of the nation’s best performing arts areas. They also point out that the program is expected to attract heavy philanthrophic support — Robert and Clarice Smith, two of the university’s largest donors, have already pledged to support it. But the program’s relatively small cohort for such a high cost has some asking questions about whether it’s an appropriate use of university funds during an economic downturn. “Whenever I see that kind of a price tag for that few amount of students, I hesitate,” said undergraduate student senator David Zuckerman. “It looks like a good program if we have the money for it.” Zuckerman is a member of the senate executive committee, which voted to send approval of the program to the full University Senate earlier
Please See WILLIAMS, Page 8
Please See MASTERS, Page 3 ADAM FRIED/THE DIAMONDBACK
RHA seeks healthier options in shop Residents complain Leonardtown store should carry food for cooking BY DANA CETRONE Staff writer
(Left to right) Scientists Nicole LaRonde-LeBlanc, Melissa Resto and Barbara Gerratana discovered an enzyme that could help combat tuberculosis. JAMES B. HALE/THE DIAMONDBACK
Univ. scientists discover key to new TB drugs
The RHA is pushing Dining Services to offer healthier foods in the Leonardtown convenience store. The move, Residence Hall Association members said, aims to give students living in New and Old Leonardtown convenient, healthy options for their meals as an alternative to dining in Route 1 restaurants, which are closer to the
apartments than either of the university’s dining halls. Its two main requests were for fresher fruit and ingredients students could use to cook their own meals. “Right now there are only snack foods, which are unhealthy and you can’t use them in the kitchen,” said Sam Lengyel, the chairwoman of the RHA committee that advises Dining Services. “We want to put in more produce and cookable foods.”
Staff writer
TOMORROW’S WEATHER:
Please See RHA, Page 2
Harris calls for ‘new model’ of student leadership different from current SGA
BY JEFF NASH
Please See STUDY, Page 2
venience store would offer kitchen-friendly supplies. “Some of the ingredients are for baking, and if they had some stuff to season food with or something that I could use to make like a marinade for, that would be pretty cool,” sophomore kinesiology major Phil Cobb said. “I mostly cook, I occasionally treat myself to something a little
Promising more than a Slurpee machine
Enzyme could help combat latest forms of fatal disease A team of university scientists has cleared a major scientific hurdle that should lay the foundation for the development of new drugs to combat tuberculosis, a disease that killed 1.8 million people in 2007. The team uncovered the structure and function of NAD+ synthetase, an enzyme essential for the survival of tuberculosis-causing bacteria, that could help scientists develop drugs to fight the deadly disease. Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Barbara Gerratana led the study, “Regulation of active site coupling in glutamine-dependent NAD+ synthetase,” which was published on March 8 in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. Graduate student Melissa Resto and Assistant Professor Nicole LaRondeLeBlanc also contributed to the study. “I am hoping that now with the structure and characterization in hand, a drug effective against latent tuberculosis will be developed, thus contributing to the eradication of this disease that still is one of the world’s major killers,” Gerratana wrote in an e-mail. Gerratana said no current treatments are effective against the latent form of TB, but targeting the NAD+ synthetase enzyme could be key to fighting both active and latent bacteria.
In addition to fresher fruit, the committed listed vegetables, bread, larger quantities of flour and ground beef as some of the foods that would make the convenience store more accessible for students who want to cook. “A lot of the complaints are that none of it is for people who cook and that it’s basically a glorified 711,” said Taylor Cole, a member of the committee. Students said they wish the con-
ment and politics and English major, said his party stands out for its lack of connection to the curIn eighth grade, SGA presiden- rent SGA. “Students are really unsatisfied tial candidate Malcolm Harris ran for student body president and lost with the SGA right now,” said Mary Yanik, the Student — to a Slurpee machine. Power Party’s Life Sci“The other kid promences legislator candiised a free Slurpee date. “We know we machine, and I lost and could do it better, that’s he won,” said Harris, why we’re running.” who leads the Student Unlike its three comPower Party. “I feel like petitors, the Student that’s what’s happening Power Party is comall over again. I can’t prised mostly of students promise you a Slurpee who have little to no SGA machine, but we’re runexperience, which Harning an issue-based ris lauds as a necessary campaign and we can MALCOLM change. get results.” HARRIS “For years we’ve To Harris, the promises of other presidential candi- been electing the same people dates are like the Slurpee machine over and over again,” he said, not— great in theory, but unlikely to ing that the three other presidenmaterialize. Harris promises his tial candidates all ran with party will address issues, includ- Jonathan Sachs’ Students Party ing several the other parties’ plat- last year. “We need a new model.” The new model, Harris said, forms ignore, by grassroots organizing and protesting. Harris, a sophomore governPlease See HARRIS, Page 3 BY MARISSA LANG Senior staff writer
Members of the Student Power Party break through a banner that reads "Russell Contract" to represent their goal of ending a university contract that buys apparel the group says is made in sweat shops. JAMES B. HALE/THE DIAMONDBACK
Student groups locked out of administration building Activists sought Russell Athletics, univ. records BY MARISSA LANG Senior staff writer
Student activists were locked out of the Main Administration building yesterday while attempting to deliver a public records request to university President Dan Mote. The Student Power Party and Feminism Without Borders
Showers/60s
INDEX
attempted to deliver a request for the release of e-mail and communication records between the university’s director of trademark licensing, Joe Ebaugh, and Russell Athletics — a university licensee that delivers orders for university apparel — yesterday afternoon after running a lap
Please See PROTEST, Page 3
NEWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
FEATURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 CLASSIFIED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
DIVERSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . .6 SPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
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