TRIAL BY FIRE
CAPTAIN CURTIS
Robinson’s first start could be against tough Hokie defense
Pirate Radio director Richard Curtis explains his move away from the romantic comedy genre
SPORTS | PAGE 8
DIVERSIONS | PAGE 6
Friday, November 13, 2009
THE DIAMONDBACK Our 100TH Year, No. 54
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER
Senators, students press officials Farvardin, Wylie defend decisions as signs show trust in administration is “eroding” BY DERBY COX AND ADELE HAMPTON Senior staff writers
Cordell Black speaks to students at the Nyumburu Cultural Center. He has largely avoided the protests over his dismissal. CHARLIE DEBOYACE/THE DIAMONDBACK
Students, faculty and staff grilled top administrators at a University Senate meeting yesterday, using the opportunity to voice concerns about the impact of budget cuts and to demand more input in the administrative process. Provost Nariman Farvardin said he welcomes suggestions regarding cost-saving strategies and how to best distribute budget cuts. But several in
attendance yesterday said there is a lack of transparency when it comes to financial matters and that they cannot access the information necessary to give meaningful feedback. “I can tell you that trust is eroding. And it doesn’t have to do with the budget cuts per se,” Vicky Foxworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Organizational Change, said at yesterday’s meeting. “It has to do with the processes. They are not inclusive as you believe they are, as you want
them to be, as you need them to be to keep this campus going the way you want it to go.” State budget cuts have piled up since the summer, forcing the university to trim $40 million from its coffers — in part by laying off staff, cutting programs and considering restructuring colleges. Most recently, in what administrators insist was a budget-driven decision, the university removed Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity
Quiet in the eye of the storm
Cordell Black from his post, spurring student backlash that led to a 600-person protest on the mall last week. Farvardin has said the university is committed to saving its most vital programs, but several who spoke expressed concern about the impact departmental cuts and mergers could have on academic quality. “In my college, there is a lot of distress about diversity programs that
see SENATE, page 2
Above the fray County Police helicopter unit patrols College Park’s skies BY NICK RHODES
While silent on protests, Cordell Black usually speaks his mind
Staff writer
Criminals of College Park beware — Prince George’s County Police have eyes in the sky. Housed in the nearby College Park Airport are two MD 520N helicopters. They are quiet, agile aircraft about the length of two cars and the height of an SUV. The air unit is called upon for a variety of reasons, ranging from high-speed vehicle chases to finding a nursing home patient who wandered away from their facility, police officials said.
BY BEN SLIVNICK Senior staff writer
As more than 600 students marched on the Main Administration Building last week touting megaphones, banners and indignation over the removal of a top diversity administrator, Cordell Black — the ousted official at the center of the controversy — sat in a doctor’s office. Even if he had not had the standing appointment, Black said he still would have avoided the hordes of students protesting in his name outside his office. The venerable Black, associate provost for equity and diversity, spoke briefly at a town hall meeting the night before but maintains the uproar is not about him. “It’s about what the students perceive as an erosion in the university’s commitment to diversity,” Black said. “I’m not influencing these students one way or another.” This decision to keep to the sidelines is a rare one for Black. Growing up in Detroit, he fought his high school’s policy of tracking black students away from a college preparatory curriculum. As a college student, he marched for civil
The unit gets about four to five calls every night requiring its immediate attention. The air unit, which was formed in 2000, is typically comprised of five pilots but is currently shorthanded — one of the pilots is flying for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. One of the remaining four is Cpl. Edwin Robertson, who joined county police in 1984 and has been with the unit since it started. He first worked as a tactical flight officer — helping navigate for the pilot — while working his
see HELICOPTER, page 2
see BLACK, page 3 PHOTOS BY JACLYN BOROWSKI/THE DIAMONDBACK
Students worry layoff signals shift in government department Lecturer taught program’s lone class on Latin America BY AMANDA PINO Staff writer
Some government and politics students are questioning the future direction of their department after news that the only professor specializing in Latin America and the Caribbean will not be returning to the university next year. Dorith Grant-Wisdom has lectured at the university for 16 years and is one of the few faculty members teaching courses on the developing world and globalization outside of the Middle East. Students fear her departure signals a trend in the department away from Latin America and underrepresented viewpoints. They also expressed concerns about a growing number of quantitative courses. Grant-Wisdom, who was born and raised in Jamaica and has traveled widely throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, declined to elaborate on her departure. She will teach courses in the spring.
TOMORROW’S WEATHER:
“In accordance with the requirements of my last contract, I had to resign July 2, 2010,” she said. “But I don’t wish to comment further.” Officials from the behavioral and social sciences college also declined to comment on Grant-Wisdom’s termination, but they said the department will retain professors who focus on the Third World and have studied Latin America. Students said Grant-Wisdom introduced them to unique ideas and that her absence would leave a gaping hole in the content covered by the major. “She really provides a Third World perspective. In her classes, you’re challenged to think of the United States the way other countries in the world think about the United States,” said senior government and politics major Sana Javed. “Not every student can handle that. But if you’re not going to be challenged in college, where will you be challenged?”
see GOVERNMENT, page 3
Showers/60s
INDEX
The journalism school will move into the high-tech Knight Hall this spring, but the debate about what will be taught and how technology will be used there has already begun. JACLYN BOROWSKI/THE DIAMONDBACK
The no-longer printing press Journalism school debates curriculum changes BY AMY HEMMATI Staff writer
Kevin Klose, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, carries the entire news industry in his pocket. “This is the new printing press, but it’s also the new reporter and the new fact-checker — it’s the new way of gathering information and publishing it,” he said, pointing to his
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FEATURES . . . . . .5 CLASSIFIED . . . . .6
BlackBerry. “One person can single-handedly post something online with the same capacity of an entire news organization.” As the news industry shifts toward evolving technologies, the skills journalists are expected to have upon graduation have also changed, leaving journalism faculty to debate whether and how to change the curriculum. “The process of writing itself is
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changing,” journalism professor Deborah Nelson said. “Writing was built around deadlines, and you would go through a linear process once: First you would get the story, gather the facts, find your sources, then you would produce copy, and after you would publish.” Now, Nelson said, the process is more cyclical as writers are under
see JOURNALISM, page 3
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