SCARLET YIKES: Maryland football rolls past Rutgers in Piscataway, 48-7, p. 10
29ROOMS: Local artists show work at traveling exhibition, p. 9
The University of Maryland’s Independent Student Newspaper ONLINE AT
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Monday, October 7, 2019
HEALTH
crime
Police investigate off-campus death P r i n c e G e o rge ’s C o u n ty
by
Jeff Barnes Police are investigating the @thejeffbarnes death of a man following a Senior staff writer physical struggle early Sunday morning on College Avenue. At about 1:55 a.m., police responded to the 5100 block of College Avenue for a towing dispute, the department wrote on Twitter. Upon arrival, police found two men involved in a physical struggle and separated them, the posts read. One of the men was unresponsive and taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced d ea d . T h e o t h e r m a n wa s ta ke n i n fo r questioning, according to the department’s Twitter feed. When reached for comment Sunday morning, a PGPD spokesperson said the department could not provide any additional information.
woods hall is home to this university’s anthropology department, which has been tracking reports of mold in the building since 2015 .
“The building itself is making us sick”
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nation
‘Like fire under ashes’
It’s the day before Jen Shaffer has to come into work at the University of Maryland’s Woods Hall, and she’s already anticipating the headache she’ll have around 3 p.m.
By Angela Roberts, @24_angier, Senior staff writer
Visa restrictions keep many Iranian students away from their families W i t h h e r fa m i l y a n ocean away, University of Maryland student Ghazal Arabi Darreh Dor is missing all kinds of things: a sister’s engagement, another sister’s surgery, her mother’s stint in the hospital. She hasn’t seen her siblings in ages, but she doesn’t dare travel home to Iran to visit out of fear she won’t be allowed back in the United States. The country is over 6,000 miles and a 14-hour flight from College Park. But for the international students at this university who call it home — of whom there were 88 last year, according to a count by the Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment office — it’s also years away. More than a year after the Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s travel ban, Iranian students continue to struggle. The increasingly stringent and unpredictable visa application process leaves many in the by
Carmen Molina Acosta @carmenmolina_a Staff writer
backpacks, books and picture frames are among the items covered in mold in Woods Hall. photos courtesy of umai habibah
See iran, p.7
julia nikhinson / the diamondack
Within a few minutes of walking into the building, she knows she’ll start to feel her sinuses clog up. Along with a long drive to campus, this is why Shaffer works from home as much as she possibly can — it’s hard to be productive when your head feels like it’s going to explode, she said. The anthropology professor has a pretty good idea of what is causing her symptoms: mold. Mold that shows up on ceiling tiles, walls and bookshelves. Mold that collects on the spines of her books, and made her throw her office couch away. “We want to be able to come into work and do our jobs, and it’s just super frustrating when our work is making us sick,” Shaffer said. “The building itself is making us sick.” Shaffer is just one of at least 15 faculty members and students in the anthropology department who have reported experiencing health problems — including rashes that pop up, respiratory issues and aggravated allergies and asthma — that they trace back to the mold that lingers over Woods Hall. Mold-filled dorms and apartments drew headlines throughout last fall; concerned students and parents reported moldy furniture and belongings in at least 10. Students in Elkton Hall, for one, were sent to hotels in College Park while mold remediation efforts took place. But all the while, the faculty members with offices in Woods Hall kept on working. Read more at ter.ps/woodsmold.
campus
UMD taps Virginia Tech’s Patricia Perillo as student affairs VP BY Jillian Atelsek & Sahana Jayaraman @jillian_atelsek | @sahanajayaraman Staff writers The University of Maryland announced Thursday that Patricia Perillo will take over as student affairs vice president, concluding a months-long national search. Perillo currently serves as the student affairs vice president at Virginia Tech, a position she’s held for seven years. She received her PhD in Public and Community Health from this university in 2002, university President Wallace Loh wrote in an email to the campus Thursday morning.
She will replace Linda Clement, who held the role for 18 years and worked at this university for over four decades before retiring in August. In the email, Loh called Perillo “a student-centered leader” who “is known for caring deeply about the student experience.” “Her colleagues laud her empathy, her passion to help students who need support, her even temperament, and her evenhanded management in conflict situations,” Loh wrote. When she visited this university last month and made her case to community members, Perillo said she’d draw on her experience at six
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institutions in her work to form relationships with students. Perillo told The Diamondback that understanding the culture and context of this university is among her priorities coming in. While she spent ten years at this university as a doctoral student, she said she acknowledged “ things have certainly changed” in the past two decades. Still, she said she was prepared for the challenge. “I am a solid, strong, thoughtful leader,” she said. “I know that.” She said she plans to work with student leaders to rebuild trust in See VPSA , p.7 Submit tips and corrections to The Diamondback at newsumdbk@gmail.com
The Diamondback is a publication of Maryland Media Inc.