in this issue KEEP ON FOOD TRUCKING PG. 2 “TRIVIAL” PURSUIT PG. 3 / ACCOLADES PG. 3 POWERFUL PORTAL PG. 6 / BOOKSHELF PG. 6 TOUCHING TOLERANCE PG. 7 / NEW HERITAGE PG. 8
between the columns a newsletter for faculty & staff of the university of maryland NOVEMBER 2016
BUILDING A BETTER BRAIN NEW COLE TO FO CUS ON TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY P G. 4
FOOD TRUCK HUBBUB BY LAUREN BROWN
getting a meal on the go in College Park has taken on new meaning this fall with the launch of two food truck hubs. Following Prince George’s County’s passage of a law last October allowing food trucks to operate in groups, a pair of Terps with a rebuilt quesadilla truck has recruited seven other vendors so far to rotate in and out of two locations in the city. David Engle ’15, M.S. ’15 and Chris Sczlega ’17, owners of the Q Truck, also started College Park Ventures to run the hubs at 7413 Baltimore Ave., former site of the Little Tavern, (5 p.m.–midnight, Thursday–Saturday) and 5850 University Research Court, next to the College Park Metro station in the newly named Discovery District (11 a.m.–2 p.m., Monday and Wednesday).
Engle hopes to have at least 20 vendors on the sites, part of the Greater College Park initiative to revitalize the community through new downtown amenities, academic buildings, and research partnerships and startups. In other words, deciding your next meal during or after work just got a lot harder.
WHAT ARE YOU HUNGRY FOR? FULL FARE?
NO
BOB MARLEY FAN?
YES
COLD COMFORT?
YES
YES
NO
LAND OR SEA?
LAND
Follow the crowd: Black velvet
Bay’s Soft Ice Cream
Swizzler Hot Dogs
Fancy fare: Bourbon Madagascar vanilla
Don’t put on airs: J(ersey) Dawg
The Q Truck
Feelin’ Crabby
YES
Eat big: Crabster, with 7 oz. of crab, lobster meal
Be dainty: Single lobster slider
SMOKED Meat Market: Tropical Chicken Quesadilla
Feeling wild? Curry Goat or Oxtail
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SEA
Pretend you’re classy: Leonardo Dog Vinci
Jammin’ Flava
Go traditional: Jerk chicken & plantains
YES
PREFER SOUTHERN?
NO
NO
Midnite Confections Cupcakes
ALL AMERICAN?
NO
Vegetarian heaven: Garden Harvest, ThreeCheese, Whiskey Mac & Cheese or Quesa-Caprese
Hardy’s BBQ
Blow diet to smithereens: Smoked BBQ meat fries
Show self-restraint in front of co-workers: Salad
Smokin’ sandwiches: Pulled pork, beef brisket or chicken
SMOKED OR FRIED? FRIED
Chicken & Waffles
Blow diet to smithereens: Fried chicken strips & cheesy mac
PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
WHO IS A “JEOPARDY!” CHAMP New Professor Wins on Way to UMD BY LAUREN BROWN
at age 6, courtney paulson
and her little sister figured they’d found a loophole in their parents’ strict TV rules: “Jeopardy!” was approved as educational programming. Back then, the first-grader, now a new assistant professor in the Department of Decision, Operations and Information Technologies, could only rarely shout out any of the answers (or, in this case, questions) on the syndicated game show. But it began a lifetime of fandom that culminated this fall when she opened the 33rd season of “Jeopardy!” as its returning champion. Paulson won $11,700 during her first appearance in July before being felled by the competition in September. But she was genuinely pleased to reach the stage at all. “If I had to describe the experience in two words, they were ‘low expectations,’” she says. “I never at any point thought I was going to be on the show.” It’s not that she was unprepared. Growing up in Minnesota, Paulson played trivia games with her family, signed up for the “Jeopardy!” e-newsletter (which she still gets) and auditioned in Chicago for its Teen Tournament. She wasn’t selected then, but took the show’s 50-question online test every now and then while she attended the University of Central Florida.
Paulson was finishing her doctorate in statistics at the University of Southern California when the show invited her to come in as one of two alternates during a taping in April. Convinced she wouldn’t be selected, Paulson was enjoying seeing host Alex Trebek and how the show came together— until her name was called. “The idea of failing in front of 4 million people, I wasn’t crazy about that,” she says. But she dominated throughout the episode, and won on an answer that touched on her knowledge of Latin, sports and universities, as she was hunting for a job: “This Catholic university gets its name from the Latin for ‘new’ & ‘house’ & was in the news in Spring 2016.” (What is Villanova University?) A statistician who describes herself as risk-averse, she made a modest wager of only $300 to seal her victory. She’s still smarting about her second performance on the show, even though she suspected she was doomed when she saw the categories of “British Poetry” and “Asian Islands.” But she enjoyed spending her winnings on a reliable, used Honda Civic. See? Risk-averse.
ACCOLADES
Assistant theatre Professor JENNIFER BARCLAY won the 2016 Smith Prize for Political Theatre.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND GOLF COURSE was named one
of the best campus courses by Golfweek Magazine. TOM PORTER and ROSELINA ANGEL, animal and avian sciences professors, were named fellows of the Poultry Science Association.
UMD was named one of the healthiest colleges in America by health and fitness website Greatist.com.
Associate History Professor RICHARD BELL was elected as a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a member of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, and to the board of trustees of the Maryland Historical Society.
Associate theatre and performance studies professors ESTHER KIM LEE and JAMES HARDING were elected as vice president for publications and to the executive committee, respectively, for the American Society for Theatre Research.
JEOPARDY! PHOTO COURTESY OF COURTNEY PAULSON
Merrill College Dean LUCY DALGLISH was elected to the American Society of News Editors’ board of directors.
FEARLESS IDEAS Every issue of Between the Columns features our students and faculty inspiring Terp pride. We’ll do the same in future issues on our efforts to transform the student experience, turn imagination into innovation, and discover new knowledge.
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BUILDING A BETTER BRAIN NEW COLE TO FO CUS ON TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY
from the playing fields of the big ten to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, traumatic brain injury (tbi) has become a pressing medical issue. Yet those at risk aren’t just athletes strapping on football helmets or soldiers climbing into Humvees—they are drivers navigating the highways, children turning cartwheels in the yard and the elderly navigating tricky stairs. In 2010 alone, more than 2.5 million emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths were associated with tbi, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And as awareness and reporting of these injuries rise, so do questions for researchers.
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“What factors control the different recovery rates for tbi?” asks University of Maryland, College Park biology Professor Elizabeth Quinlan. “What can be done to promote recovery and response?” The Center for Sports Medicine, Health and Human Performance in the new Cole Field House at umd will be at the forefront of tackling this public health problem and advancing the science of sport in a partnership with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (umb). The center, co-directed by Quinlan and Dr. Alan Faden, the David S. Brown Professor in Trauma at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (som), will bring together the scientific expertise of umd with the clinical faculties of som in Baltimore. It is the latest collaboration between umd and umb through the MPowering the State initiative, which is designed to leverage the strengths of the two institutions. “The breadth and scope of this center is well beyond what currently exists in other sports performance centers,” Faden says. “It is intended to harness unique and complementary capabilities across the two campuses.” The new Cole, expected to be completed in 2019, is bringing academics and entrepreneurship, football operations and athletic training together under one roof. It will have more than 40,000 square feet of research and clinical space for experts in neuroimaging, genomics and biomechanics, and an orthopedics clinic will take advances from the lab to the broader community.
Kevin Plank ’96, founder and CEO of Under Armour, pledged $25 million to launch the project and has called Cole an opportunity to “define a new era for Maryland.” The driving focus of that new era will be to address one of the most important medical issues of modern life. “A significant percentage of the population will suffer a head injury,” Faden says. “The number of individuals affected is considerably larger than previously recognized.” These injuries can cause depression, sleep disorders and cognitive decline and adversely impact a victim’s ability to function. Already, $3 million has been invested to fund cross-university, multi-disciplinary studies in brain and behavior, and injury, recovery and enhancement. Even though adult brains are much less “plastic” than those of children, research shows how to reactivate some flexibility. For example, exercise, intermittent fasting and cognitive training have the capability to limit the consequences of brain injury and to facilitate recovery. “Each of these potential therapies may tap into the same mechanisms to promote plasticity,” Quinlan says. “When is the most important time to learn? When you are stressed, when you are challenged, when you are in ‘fight or flight’ mode.” Researchers at Cole, with its community of coaches, athletes, scientists and clinicians, will explore the details of these processes by creating enhanced diagnostic tools and using
“big data” computing capabilities to map the brain’s litany of metabolic pathways and neuronal connections. “We are going to utilize a wide array of advanced research tools to study the mechanisms that lead to cell death or cell dysfunction after brain injury, with the goal of improving recovery and limiting disability,” Faden says. That is Cole’s starting point. But the true benefit, Quinlan says, is opening a door into a fuller understanding of the human brain. “The collection of experts from diverse fields will allow us to approach problems in an exciting and highly interdisciplinary way,” she says.
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BOOKSHELF
The tension over who gets to set school policy is at the center of THE FIGHT FOR LOCAL CONTROL: SCHOOLS, SUBURBS, AND AMERICAN DEMOCRACY,
by Assistant Professor of education CAMPBELL F. SCRIBNER.
A PORTAL TO NEW PERSPECTIVES Students Learn About Election’s Impact From Live Chats Overseas BY LAUREN BROWN
In THE PRODUCTION MANAGER’S TOOLKIT,
co-author CARY GILLETT, production manager for the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies, provides an introduction for new and aspiring theatre professionals.
English Professor STANLEY PLUMLY meditates on memory and the Romantic tradition in his new volume of poetry, AGAINST SUNSET.
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only 10 feet separated megan williams ’18 from two Honduran high school girls in matching uniforms as she asked what they thought of Donald Trump and his stances on immigration. But the distance was really closer to 1,800 miles, as Williams enhanced her education on global politics one October afternoon from inside a gold-painted shipping container parked in front of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Through the university’s partnership with the arts collective Shared Studios, Williams entered the 8 x 8 x 20-foot “portal” tricked out with immersive audio and video technology so users could speak to people in other portals around the world in life size and real time, as if they were in the same room. It provided a unique and timely opportunity for undergraduates in Jim Riker’s course, “Voting as if the ‘Real’ Issues Matter: Citizens’ Perspectives on the 2016 Elections,” to expand their awareness of key foreign policy issues up for debate this season. “It’s allowing students to get a broader perspective to hear from voices around the world about why the U.S. is so important in terms of its footprint and impact around the world,” says Riker, director of the Beyond the Classroom living and learning program.
“It’s the next best thing to giving a student a ticket and a passport.” This is umd’s second time hosting one of the 27 portals in circulation worldwide. Last fall, during the Clarice’s NextNow Fest, the focus was on artistic collaborations. While it was on campus from Sept. 9 through mid-November, the portal got plenty of other visitors, such as the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; Roshan Institute for Persian Studies; and more. “It’s really an opportunity for the campus community to make international yet profoundly personal connections,” says Megan Pagado Wells, associate director of the Artist Partner Program at the Clarice, who facilitated the uses across campus. That was true for Williams, an environmental science and policy major who campaigned for President Obama in 2012 and plans to teach Spanish someday. She was surprised at how little the Honduran teens knew about the U.S. presidential election—until they stumped her with questions about their own country. She said “getting slapped in the face” with her ignorance made her re-evaluate her own expectations. “This was the most valuable experience I’ve had at the university,” she said.
PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
TOUCHSCREEN TOLERANCE UMD Researchers Develop Mobile App to Short-Circuit Kids’ Racism BY CHRIS CARROLL
a new student sits alone by the wall during recess after others rebuff his attempt to play with them. A girl with an Aboriginal background wants to join in a dance exhibition at school, but another child says her people dance strangely. A youth pick-up soccer game excludes one would-be player—because she’s a girl. Those are several of the scenarios in a new app for 7-to 11-year-olds that Melanie Killen, a UMD developmental science professor, and her research team designed in conjunction with researchers in Australia to help children accept peers who don’t seem part of the “in” group. The project measures children’s stereotypes and biases using an iPad mobile app. The technology provides a new way to investigate children’s judgments, including their unconscious biases, as well as their motivation to stand up to group norms that exclude peers based on race, ethnicity, gender or other characteristics. “What’s really fundamental to this is the notion of crossrace or cross-group friendship, which is the No. 1 predictor… for reducing prejudice,” says Killen, who has studied implicit bias, prejudice and moral cognition around the world. “That’s because if you have friends of a different race, it helps you challenge stereotypes.” Development of the animated app—which
can run on phones, tablets or computers—was funded by the Australian anti-racism charity All Together Now. Elementary schools Down Under rolled it out in early October. Teachers guide children through eight lessons that center on choices about including or excluding other children who seem different. Children type short answers about why they made the choice they did, and how it likely made the included or excluded child feel. Killen and her team of researchers have started developing an adaptation for U.S. elementary students, and plan to conduct an intervention study with students in the Washington, D.C., area in the next year, she says. In addition to teaching tolerance and diversity, the app gathers anonymous data from responses that can be used for further research. “What’s unique about this tool is that it’s an intervention, but it’s also a diagnostic tool,” Killen says, that will provide deeper understanding into the development of childhood prejudice and racism.
DIVERSITY TIP BY HEATHER KIMBALL
Alumni Association Executive Director Amy Eichhorst and UMD President Wallace Loh congratulate the 2016 student Spirit of Maryland winners, Lauryn Froneberger ’17 and Kevin Bock ’17, at Homecoming on Oct. 1.
PHOTO BY GREG FIUME/MARYLAND ATHLETICS
We know the importance of a balanced diet, but do we take as much care for balancing the media we consume? When someone says something you really don’t agree with or understand, do you Google why someone might think that or feel that way? Do a quick audit of your daily reading material, your podcast feed, your movie and TV lists. What voices and perspectives are you missing?
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A WINDOW TO MARYLAND’S AFRICAN-AMERICAN HERITAGE Exhibit Explores Easton Plantation Life BY LIAM FARRELL
SUPPORT NEIGHBORS IN NEED
abolitionist frederick douglass is one of the most studied figures in American history, but the culture made by Europeans and African Americans where he lived on the Eastern Shore has not been described until now. umd anthropologists who excavated Wye House plantation outside Easton, Md., for 10 years share their findings on its cuisine, use of the natural environment and religion in a new exhibit at Hornbake Library, “Frederick Douglass & Wye House: Archaeology and African American Culture in Maryland.” “I’m interested in what Douglass does not deal with (in his writings),” says anthropology Professor Mark P. Leone, who curated the exhibit with former and current graduate students. “It is the world that blacks and whites made together.” By highlighting discoveries such as animal bones, cookbooks and
pollen, the exhibit, running through July 2017, shows the evolution of Maryland cooking and the role of plants in healing practices. The most important artifacts on display are a set of circles made from objects like crushed tobacco cans, the bottom of a glass jug and a wheel, likely from a small cart or barrow. Leone believes these objects are evidence of how traditional African religious beliefs began to blend with Christianity in the 19th century, particularly as the Biblical image of Ezekiel’s wheel became a key part of the African Methodist Episcopal church. “The circles and the wheel are one of the vehicles that show how Africans became convinced Christians,” Leone says. “This wheel in the context of this set of objects is unique.” Located in the Maryland Room Gallery on the first floor of Hornbake Library, the exhibit is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
the maryland charities campaign is a great way to conveniently contribute to charities through a payroll deduction. Visit mcc.maryland.gov through Dec. 16 to learn how you can help the thousands of individuals and families in our state who need food, shelter and medical care.
BETWEEN THE COLUMNS is published twice per semester by University Marketing and Communications. Story ideas are welcome and should be sent to Liam Farrell, managing editor, at lfarrel1@umd.edu or by calling 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.
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