PAST REMINDERS DYNAMIC DUO Defending national champion Terps resemble 2006 team
Matt and Kim talk about performing at Stamp Student Union tonight
SPORTS | PAGE 8
DIVERSIONS | PAGE 6
Friday, October 30, 2009
THE DIAMONDBACK Our 100TH Year, No. 44
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
University improves sexual health ranking Provost Improved website, student satisfaction leads to No. 12 position in Trojan survey BY DARREN BOTELHO Staff writer
The university is one of the 20 most sexually healthy colleges in the countr y this year, largely thanks to a revamped website, according to a study by Trojan, the well-known condom company. In Trojan’s annual sexual health report card, the university jumped from last year’s spot at 63 to land at No. 12 out of 141 institutions graded. The report card is based on student satisfaction and website accessibility rather than on measurements of sexual activ-
ity or sexually transmitted infections at the university. Trojan’s report card grades take into account student responses to Facebook surveys and the number of resources offered by the University Health Center, said Bert Sperling, the president of the company that collected the data, Sperling’s BestPlaces. Sexual activity and sexually transmitted infection rates were not considered, he added, because it would be impossible to accurately gauge those figures.
see HEALTH, page 2
aims to raise courses’ difficulty
The University Health center supplies free condoms for students. Services like these helped the university achieve a No. 12 ranking in a national sexual health survey. CHARLIE DEBOYACE/THE DIAMONDBACK
Budget could derail quest to increase ‘academic rigor’
CRADLING AVIATION
BY BEN SLIVNICK Senior staff writer
The motto “First in Flight” is emblazoned on North Carolina license plates, hinting at its great flying history. In Ohio, license plates read “Birthplace of Aviation,” a phrase intended to claim the Wright brothers as their own. But little do most North Carolinians, Ohioans or Marylanders know, College Park has some aviation history of its own to brag about. The College Park Airport, located about a mile away from the campus off of Paint Branch Parkway, is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first flight to take off from its runway this month, as well as its status as the oldest continuously operating airport in the world.
Nearly every faculty member with a hand in shaping the university’s academic future has a different buzzword for how classes are changing. University President Dan Mote stresses that they’re becoming “more interesting.” Ira Berlin, the chair of the General Education Task Force, wants to see classes “more engaging.” Provost Nariman Farvardin, for his part, often talks about raising the university’s “intellectual rigor.” But for undergraduates at the university — the one that finished second in this year’s Princeton Review rankings of students who NARIMAN FARVARDIN study the least — the PROVOST bottom line is this: Classes are about to get harder. “I can tell you that there is a concerted effort at this university to raise the, oh, let me call it ‘intellectual rigor’ in the education experience of the students,” Farvardin said. He argues that increasing academic standards is essential to the university’s goal of raising its national rankings, and efforts to meet this goal have already begun. The administration unveiled a new Honors College last month; new general education courses premiered on Testudo last week; and departments across the university are rethinking their curricula in an effort to up their academic ante. But the changes, Farvardin acknowledged, are “something that’s easier said than done.” The provost will have to work around dwindling state appropriations and lower-than-expected fundraising to marshall the university’s 13 colleges toward elevating the university’s academic reputation. RESOURCEFUL THINKING Farvardin said funding remains the greatest hurdle to the university’s academic aspirations. Reaching the university’s goals, he said, will require upgrading and replacing ancient classrooms and adding more tenured faculty to the university’s payroll. But the state government can be painfully slow to deliver on capital projects — funding for a university teaching center approved in 1987 still hasn’t materialized — and a hiring freeze has already stunted at least
see AIRPORT, page 2
see ACADEMICS, page 3
College Park Airport celebrates a century of flight BY JACLYN BOROWSKI Staff writer
JACLYN BOROWSKI/THE DIAMONDBACK
CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS | 2009
Candidates balance studentresident tensions in District 3
Pirouetting professors
Incumbents, challenger differ on rent control BY AMANDA PINO Staff writer
Municipal politics in College Park is often defined by a single issue: the tug-of-war between longtime homeowners, often raising families, and short-time student renters, for whom the city is sometimes little more than a faceless background to a blurry four years of drinking, partying and studying. Nowhere is this tension clearer than in District 3, the historic heart of the city, which includes Fraternity Row, the Old Town neighborhood, downtown, South Campus Commons and the Knox Boxes.
TOMORROW’S WEATHER:
BY KARA ESTELLE Staff writer
There, incumbents Stephanie Stullich and Mark Cook are defending their seats against Robert McCeney, a 44-year-old elementary school teacher. Tension over a city rent control law has symbolized the debate. Stullich, 48, who works for the federal Department of Education, and Cook, 46, a technology and performance management adviser, ran uncontested in the 2007 elections. Both support rent control on singlefamily homes, which the city narrowly reapproved this summer, as a way to discourage students from living in neighborhoods
see DISTRICT 3, page 3 Sunny/70s
INDEX
These professors don’t just spend their nights grading papers. At the first annual “Dancing with the Professors” event last night, four professors paired with Ballroom at Maryland student dancers to hop, trot and waltz their way to glory. The competition was modeled after the popular TV show Dancing with the Stars, complete with three judges — experienced dancers who gave feedback and
see DANCING, page 2 CHARLIE DEBOYACE/THE DIAMONDBACK
NEWS . . . . . . . . . .2 OPINION . . . . . . . .4
FEATURES . . . . . .5 CLASSIFIED . . . . .6
DIVERSIONS . . . . .6 SPORTS . . . . . . . . .8
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