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Thursday, July 1, 2010
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THE DIAMONDBACK Our 100TH Year, No. 145
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
Gunman robs student on College Ave. Fourth mugging in two weeks is latest in series of crimes, including holdup at D.P. Dough BY LEAH VILLANUEVA Staff writer
Athletics Director Debbie Yow oversaw an unprecedented expansion of the Terrapin athletics department. FILE PHOTO/THE DIAMONDBACK
A student was robbed at gunpoint as he walked back from the College Park Metro Station along College Avenue early Wednesday, police said, the latest of four muggings in and around the Old Town neighborhood in the last two weeks. According to a crime alert sent out Wednesday morning, three men in a green Toyota pulled up behind the student near the Dartmouth Avenue
intersection, and one of them displayed a black handgun as they demanded property from the student. A spokesman for the Prince George’s County Police wouldn’t say what, if anything, the men actually stole from the student. Six days before, in another College Avenue robbery, police said two female students were attacked and robbed of their purses by two other women at the Dickinson Avenue intersection. Robberies in the area also occurred on Calvert Road
and near the Old Leonardtown dorm last month. These incidents also join a recent robbery and a theft at the Campus Village shopping center near the University View. Two gunmen held up the D.P. Dough store early Sunday morning, police said, and a thief grabbed money from the cash register at the tanning salon next door two weeks before, according to salon employees. As of Wednesday, police said they had made no arrests in connection
with the crimes. In last Thursday’s mugging, two people described as black women in their 20s approached the two students just before 2 a.m., began punching them and knocked them to the ground, according to a crime alert sent out last Thursday. The robbers grabbed the students’ purses and fled; the students were not injured. Police described the suspects in the Wednesday morning incident as
see ROBBERIES, page 2
Yow to leave university SELECTIVE for N.C. State SHELLFISH Athletics director led Terrapins for 16 years
University psychologists study crayfish decision-making skills
BY RICHARD ABDILL AND JONAS SHAFFER Senior staff writers
Athletics Director Debbie Yow is leaving to take the same position at N.C. State, this university’s athletics department announced Friday. Yow was formally introduced at N.C. State at a press conference Friday afternoon. The search for her successor will begin immediately, according to university President Dan Mote. Yow served as athletics director for the past 16 years, overseeing a dramatic and financially sound expansion of the athletics department while publicly sparring with some of the Terps’ biggest names. Senior Associate Athletics Director and Chief Financial Officer Randy Eaton was named interim director Monday and will take over July 10. “Much of the credit for how far we have come as an athletic program clearly goes to our coaches and staff,” Yow said in a statement Friday. “These are the hardest-working and finest people I have ever known.” The Gibsonville, N.C., native is the younger sister of legendary N.C. State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow, who died of cancer last year after leading the Wolfpack for 34 seasons.
BY CLAIRE SARAVIA For The Diamondback
After years of experimenting with crayfish, a team of university psychologists has opened the door to studies of more complex organisms with the goal of eventually understanding the human brain functions responsible for decision-making. The researchers found that the 3.5 cm-long crustaceans could make a form of value judgment — when confronted with shadows that simulated predators, they were less likely to try to propel themselves to safety if they sensed food was nearby. “We’ve shown that there’s a balance between avoiding getting killed and getting to a potential food source,” said William Liden, a recent graduate who co-authored the study recently published online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. “We’re showing how an animal reacts to stimuli and how its neural network is set up to make this economic decision.” The short-term aim of recent crayfish experiments was to isolate the neurons that are activated in the animals during decision-making processes, said psychology professor Jens Herberholz, the study’s
see CRAYFISH, page 3
see YOW, page 8 MATTHEW CREGER/THE DIAMONDBACK
No solace in summertime
Professor confirmed to Justice Dept. post
Despite break, campus heats up with activity after May finals BY RICHARD ABDILL Staf f writer
Ever y spring, thousands of university students flee the campus for summer vacation, leaving behind their classes, their stresses — and their bicycles. About 80 bicycles that were abandoned after the semester ended were rounded up by several university departments Monday, according to Department of Transportation Services Assistant to the Director Beverly Malone. When the semester ends, bicycles are tagged as abandoned and owners have three weeks to claim them. If they don’t, they are removed and put under a ramp in the Regents Drive Parking Garage, Malone said. But tagging tossed-away two-wheelers is only the
beginning of the university’s work transitioning into the summer months. Summer in College Park used to be a quiet affair, a break from the academic activity of the fall and spring semesters; some students returned for summer classes, but the campus was for the most part dormant. But not anymore. Summer school has ballooned to 10,000 students in recent years, according to Director of Operations and Maintenance Jack Baker, and camps and organizations are constantly migrating in and out of the campus. While the number of visitors to the campus this summer hasn’t been of ficially compiled yet, Conferences and Visitor Ser vices Associate Director Tom Flynn said there were 15,858 people living on the campus at some
TOMORROW’S WEATHER:
Laub will direct research branch BY SOHAYL VAFAI Staff writer
Figuring out what to do with the bikes abandoned at the end of the spring semester is just one of many tasks university officials oversee in the summer. MATTHEW CREGER/THE DIAMONDBACK
point last summer. “Fifteen years ago, certainly, the summer was pretty quiet,” Baker said. “That has really changed. … There’s no such thing as a down time for the campus.” University Police don’t get much of a break either. “We do have a reduced call level for service, but we don’t reduce staffing as much as we used to,” police spokesman Paul Dillon said. “It’s a lot busier in College Park during the summer than it used to be.” But Baker said having
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people on the campus is actually more ef ficient for the university, providing people — who are paying to be here — to fill buildings that would have other wise been populated only by researchers and a handful of administrators. “There’s never been a building that we could just close down and not use,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than having a building that just sits there using utilities.”’ Many have complained of
see SUMMER, page 3
NEWS . . . . . . . . . .2 OPINION . . . . . . . .4
FEATURES . . . . . .5 CLASSIFIED . . . . .6
A university criminology professor is on track to head the research wing of the U.S. Department of Justice after the Senate unanimously confirmed him last week. John Laub, who had taught here since 1998, will go on leave from the criminology and criminal justice department when President Barack Obama swears him in as the director of the National Institute of Justice. The swearing-in is expected to take place sometime this summer, at which point Laub will be responsible for directing the agency’s research initiatives and the related grants it issues. In his dozen years at the university, Laub taught a variety of criminology courses and studied the behavior of criminals over time as well as the juvenile justice DIVERSIONS . . . . .6 SPORTS . . . . . . . . .8
system and the history of criminology, according to his faculty biography. Obama nominated JOHN LAUB him for the CRIMINOLOGY Justice De- PROFESSOR par tment post in December. “He’s a terrific teacher, one of the best,” said Sally Simpson, chairwoman of the criminology and criminal justice department at this university. “He’s taught both undergraduate and graduate students and served on numerous committees — I can’t even count them all.” Student reviews posted to resource site OurUMD.com
see LAUB, page 2
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