Between the Columns: February 2012

in this issue

NEW DIVERSITY OFFICER PG. 3 /

RESEARCH GAINS PG. 3 / TERP LOVE PG. 5 / BUILDING ENVIRONMENTAL INTEREST PG. 6 / PRESCRIPTION FOR HEALTH LITERACY PG. 6 / BOOKSHELF PG. 7 / ACCOLADES PG. 7 / A SPECIAL EXHIBIT PG. 8 /

Between the Columns at the University of Maryland february 2012

THE CAMPUS OF

NEW FACILITIES MASTER PLAN | PG. 2

The Campus of 2030?

To read the full plan, visit www.facstage. umd.edu/MasterPlan/ index.cfm.

5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE NEW FACILITIES MASTER PLAN

You’ve heard about the Purple Line and the Edward St. John Learning and Teaching Center. But what about other long-term plans for the university landscape? The 2011–2030 Facilities Master Plan envisions a campus that respects its architectural heritage and demonstrates environmental stewardship and sustainable practices.

Now under review by the Board of Regents, the plan calls for the following improvements over the next two decades:

Creating a more bicyclistand pedestrian-friendly culture, with more trails and paths connecting campus entries, parking lots, transit hubs, residential communities and major campus destinations. The plan also recommends improved safety through signage and lighting.

Consolidating surface parking lots into planned parking garages, and allowing land to be used for sports fields or to return to its natural state for recreation.

Transforming the industrial and service area fronting Route 1 into a new face of the campus linking to the city of College Park: the retail, residential and entertainment complex now called East Campus.

Using landscaping to define and enhance campus gateways, districts (the plan identifies eight on campus), open spaces and more.

Replacing lower, sprawling academic and residential buildings with higher-density ones that make better use of valued, limited land.

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FIRST CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER PROMISES COLLABORATION / By karen shih More than 30 years after earning her doctorate at Maryland, Kumea Shorter-Gooden appreciates the visible diversity she sees everywhere, from the student body to the administration.

But the university’s first associate vice president and chief diversity officer, who started Jan. 1, knows there are still improvements to be made.

“How do we reshape the university so that it better addresses and connects with the cultural values and predispositions of groups that are diverse?” says ShorterGooden, a licensed psychologist.

Her top priorities include making sure underrepresented students, faculty and staff have not only access to the university, but also the tools they need to succeed. The Latino community, a fast-growing population in the state and at

UMD RESEARCH AWARDS

11%



IN FIRST HALF OF FY12

$236 M VS.

$262 M Photography by John T. Consoli

the university, requires special attention and engagement, she says.

All students, regardless of background or major, must be educated to function in a globalized society. To address all these issues, it’s important to understand how people experience diversity on campus, she says. After years of handling equity issues across nine campuses at California-based Alliant International University, she knows different schools and colleges have different needs.

“We’re all serving the same agenda,” she says, “but diversity doesn’t work if it’s foisted on people.”

Offices that report to ShorterGooden include the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Education, the Nyumburu Cultural Center and Office of LGBT Equality.

“I have an opportunity to really figure out who is doing what and to pull these different pieces together to serve the community more effectively,” she says.

HTTP://ALUMNI. Shorten URLs in Terp Style UMD.EDU/S/1132/ , 1COL.ASPX?SID=1 developed by the A. James Clark School of Engineering, allows anyone with a university ID 132&GID=1&PGID= to make a Maryland version of the popular tool.

1257&CID=2267&E Suggested by a student after seeing other universities create their own branded links, the CID=2267&CRID=0 site—ter.ps/submit.php—also allows users to customize the shorter links to track clicks. And a &CALPGID=61&CAL smaller bookmark can be dragged to a browser’s bookmarks toolbar.

CID=1763 Since its fall launch 95 people have created A NEW TERP-CENTRIC URL SHORTENER

452 links, with nearly 18,000 clicks registered

HTTP://TER.PS/8C

Facilities Management and the Office of Sustainability will roll out new recycling and trash bins beginning the week of Feb. 13. The blue-and-black containers are an effort to bring a consistent message to the university’s recycling initiatives and reinforce the campus’s goal of reaching a 75 percent recycling rate by 2013.

FEBRUARY 2012 btc 3

Matters of the

Love research? Maryland’s faculty includes experts on all matters of the heart—from love and relationships, to cardiovascular disease, to the origins of Valentine’s Day. With the arrival of the holiday and American Heart Month, we introduce you to a few of these researchers and scholars.

So put down the Russell Stover chocolates and chew on these instead:

JUDE ANN CASSIDY

NORMAN EPSTEIN

HELIM ARANDA-ESPINOZA

JUDITH P. HALLETT

professor of psychology

professor of family science

associate professor of bioengineering

professor of classics

A healthy heart comes not just from Cheerios and a treadmill. It also comes from having secure connections to people. Cassidy explores the benefits of healthy long-term relationships. A widely published researcher, Cassidy, along with her graduate students and colleagues, is currently examining links between how children’s relationships predict components of their adult risk of heart disease.

Epstein draws from his roles a researcher, instructor and clinician to offer new insight into assessing and treating couples on the outs. He studies them in the United States and overseas, noting that Americans are more vocal and public in expressing affection than their Asian counterparts. Epstein also looks at current issues like how financial hardships can damage a relationship.

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Riding the new wave in health research that joins the physical and life sciences, Aranda-Espinoza uses his biophysics expertise to address the No. 1 killer in America today: cardiovascular disease.

Armed with tools like highend imaging devices, he focuses on how particular cells related to hardening of the arteries travel within the human body. He says the research could lead to safer biomedical devices, such as stents that are less likely to clog.

Hallett, who’s long delved into Roman holidays, says Valentine’s Day may have originated in ancient Rome as a fertility festival. The Lupercalia, held on Feb. 15, featured young men dressed only in goatskins playfully whipping female bystanders with blood-dipped strips of male goat hide. And while some historians debate his existence, Hallett believes St. Valentine was likely to have been introduced during the late Middle Ages, possibly to “Christianize” this celebration.

MNI / THE KISSING E A LU B EA N AT T Y / S TA F F S NT I N G A R E A R I D G SIO CUL ANA / OWBALL IN S E / H A S FA Y M K O F / P T H E S E / G A G E S AT TH E H E A LT H I G H T U T H E A R A D E L / N O A S S E E B A R / CO M M U N I T C E N T S O N C A I N Q U I L L O ’S S / M CO F FC H E A LT H / T H E C O Y E N E R / T H M P G -OP G I E H D E E LI TS / JAMM T U A N CM T H P U B - S H I R ” C I R C L I N G T ’ S H AG E N T E M M R O TO E E TT H E “ M / N AT E / T H E O A B E A L M E ION F ON /FR S / AD I O W A T R / S I N GIN AL C IND N E DE IC UC H O W S G H C T W ME P S E N T E R / R O C K I N T H E A M T / S T T S CD DAY / R E CO R D G A “ L N/ A R L A N E C T I O/ T HT H E J I B RE L D M E O L R O AW I N N I N G R E B D - / TE G ST R ES M IA L C H 1 /W E

JIE ZHANG

associate professor of marketing

Guilt and marketing.

They, rather than romance, fuel the retail frenzy of Valentine’s Day spending, says Zhang. Though consumers often buckle under pressure to give their sweethearts something special, “It’s not ‘The more you spend, the more love you show,’” she says. But she still expects spending on this holiday to top $16 billion, despite widespread economic problems.

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Photography by John T. Consoli

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Interested in more?

Visit www.umd.edu the week of Feb. 13 for more in-depth profiles.

Making a Splash / By lauren brown URBAN STUDIES PROGRAM BUILDS CHILDREN’S INTEREST IN ENVIRONMENT

AN URBAN STUDIES PROFESSOR gets children excited about their role in the environment by starting with a raindrop—and ending with a lot of cardboard.

Alex Chen this semester is teaching ninth-graders at Northwood High School in Silver Spring, Md., about field research, geography and the environment through his Follow the Drop of Water and Box City programs. He’s previously led them in Baltimore, D.C. and Olney, Md., schools.

In the first, he asks students how a raindrop falling in front of their school ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. Students produce an “audit” of the likely path, documenting houses, parking lots and the like, and what might pollute rainwater. Then they re-imagine the school and its surrounding community to reduce threats to the environment.

Last year, they laid out the neighborhood on a 20- by 25-foot map, with “buildings” made of tissue, cereal and shoe boxes, and features such as a fishing pond and bike lanes.

This year, the high schoolers will take photos, test water quality and upload their data into a computer mapping program.

“The decisions we make as planners affect children,” Chen says. “We have a responsibility to engage students in their community, to let them know they can have a voice in what gets done in their environment.”

Illustrations by Brian G. Payne

SPH OFFERS RX FOR HEALTH-PLAN CONFUSION / By Kelly Blake Having trouble making sense of complicated health plans? Wonder if you’re getting a good value for your money? No wonder that a recent survey by Consumers Union found that people dread buying health insurance more than doing their taxes or going to the gym.

The university’s School of Public Health (SPH), Consumers Union and the American Institutes for Research are taking on this problem, launching a partnership to help consumers make smart health plan choices with greater ease.

An estimated 180 million people with health insurance are struggling 6 btc FEBRUARY 2012

with this, and about 30 million more people will be buying health insurance in 2014, as required by the 2010 federal health-care reform legislation.

“But if consumers can’t understand health plan options, we won’t be able to achieve the public policy goals of reducing health-care costs and increasing access to care,” says Bonnie Braun, faculty scholar in SPH’s Horowitz Center for Health Literacy, who is co-leading the initiative.

Braun and her colleagues are collecting consumer input to measure their knowledge, ability and confidence to make smart health insurance decisions. The resulting guides will be used to educate them and inform public health policy. The goal is for people to be able to compare health plans and make the best, most affordable choice for their needs.

BOOKSHELF

accolades Michele Joy Gelfand, professor of psychology, is one of seven recipients worldwide of the new Anneliese Maier Research Award. Created

by Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, it recognizes the world’s top innovators in comparative cultural and conflict research.

Gelfand will use her nearly $335,000 prize to continue working on her widely recognized studies linking cultural and national conflict with societal norms and the degree of tolerance for those who deviate from those norms with researchers at Jacobs University Bremen.

In the School of Public Health, Dean Robert S. Gold has been named president of the Society for Public Health Education, and Family Science Chair Elaine Anderson became president of the National Council on Family Relations.

Jenny Roche Hodgson, undergraduate program director and advisor in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health, was selected by the Maryland Parents Association as the 2011 Outstanding Academic Advisor.

In the College of Education, Sharon Fries-Britt, associate professor of education leadership, higher education and international education, received the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s annual Mentoring Award.

Noah Drezner, assistant professor of education leadership, higher education and international

education, has been named an American College Personnel Association Emerging Scholar.

Gov. Martin O’Malley has appointed Kenneth Apfel, professor of the practice in the School of Public Policy, as a member of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange Board. It gives provides individuals and small-business owners a resource for comparing insurance products, buying coverage and obtaining federal subsidies.

In Lessons from the Podium: Public Speaking as a Leadership Art, Steven D. Cohen, graduate assistant in the Department of Communication, lifts the curtain on the techniques used by powerful public speakers and challenges readers to improve their own skills.

Kevin Roy, associate professor of family science, maintains in his new book, Nurturing Dads: Fatherhood Initiatives Beyond the Wallet, that care is not a mothers-only experience. Fathers providing more than financial provision, he says, give children a better start in life.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS CAMPAIGN TOTAL AS OF JAN. 29, 2012

$908,714,381

David Barbe, director of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute, was named a Champion of Change by the White House for his “work in helping to create highquality jobs in the United States.”

Richard Eaton Professor of Broadcast Journalism Mark Feldstein won the 2011 American Journalism Historians Association prize for his book, Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture.

President Wallace D. Loh is followed in the December main commencement procession by alumnus and astronaut Richard R. “Ricky” Arnold II M.S. ’92, who addressed the graduates. They are led by Mahlon Straszheim, associate provost.

Photo by Mike Morgan

Between the Columns is published twice per semester by University Marketing and Communications. Story ideas are welcome and should be sent to Monette Bailey, managing editor, at btwthecolumns@umd.edu or call 301.405.4629. ¶ The mailing list is generated through University Human Resources. Any changes to names and addresses should be made through ares.umd.edu.

FEBRUARY 2012 btc 7

After a 10-year, 15-venue tour around the country, “Successions: Prints by African American Artists from the Jean and Robert Steele Collection” returned to the David C. Driskell Center for an exhibit that opened Feb. 2.

For details, visit www.driskellcenter.umd.edu.

Driskell Exhibit Showcases Director’s Collection / By monette Austin Bailey AFTER THREE DECADES of teaching psychology at Maryland, Robert Steele (inset) retired, thinking he and his wife, Jean, would spend time expanding their nationally known art collection. His retirement lasted one month.

Since 2004, he’s served as executive director of the university’s David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora. It’s allowed him to professionally champion the contributions of oft-overlooked artists and nurture new talent—something the Steeles had done privately for more than 30 years.

The couple met at an Episcopal divinity school—Robert is an ordained minister—and have amassed more than 1,000 artworks by African Americans.

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Most are drawings, paintings and silkscreened prints or serigraphs. Jazz is a dominant theme, as is religion.

The Steeles gave 227 pieces to the center in 2009. A spring exhibit, in collaboration with the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, will feature the Steeles’ collection to illustrate the influence of jazz on visual arts. There will be complementary performances and discussions.

The Driskell center, named for the professor emeritus, scholar and collector, is a rarity on university campuses. “To have a major university that has devoted space and resources [specifically] to the African-American contributions to the American canon … We

are unprecedented,” says Robert Steele.

Its gallery hosts three to four exhibits a year and serves as an educational gathering place for artists, scholars, museum professionals and art administrators. The center is broadening its reach through collaborations and the digitizing of the collection and Driskell’s papers.

Pamela Franks, deputy director for collections and education at the Yale University Art Gallery, calls the center a “really dynamic presence on campus and in the field of American art.” She credits Steele and the staff for making the center a nationally recognized institution in just a decade. “The service he’s given is truly extraordinary,” she says. “He gave [the center] a public face.”