Terp—Fall 2010

Terp Cover Fall 2010 FINAL:Terp Cover Summer -FINAL 9/17/10 5:23 PM Page 1

TERP

CONNECTING

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COMMUNITY

VOL. VOL.1, 8,NO. NO.11 FALL 2010 2003

The

Highs Of

Loh Academic’s Experience, Life Story Propel Him to UMD Presidency 3

CANCER ANSWER 20

I

DIGGING UP IRISH ROOTS 24

I

A GARDEN FOR REFLECTION 31

TERP publisher Brodie Remington Vice President, University Relations advisory Board J. Paul Carey ’82 M.B.A. Managing Partner, JPT Partners John Girouard ’81 President and CEO, Capital Asset Management Group Anil Gupta Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Strategy and Organization, Robert H. Smith School of Business Beth Morgen Chief Administrative Officer, Maryland Alumni Association Danita D. Nias ’81 Assistant Vice President, Alumni Relations and Development Vicki Rymer ’61, ’66 M.B.A., ’83 Ph.D. Teaching Professor, Robert H. Smith School of Business Keith Scroggins ’79 Chief Operating Officer, Baltimore City Public Schools Lee Thornton Professor and Eaton Chair, Philip Merrill College of Journalism magazine staff Lauren Brown University Editor John T. Consoli ’86 Creative Director Jeanette J. Nelson Art Director Monette A. Bailey ’89 Mandie Boardman ’02 Cassandra Robinson Tom Ventsias Writers Kimberly Marselas ’00 Cathleen McCarthy ’82 Contributing Writers Gail M. Cinoski M.L.S. ’10 Photography Assistant Stacey Jones ’10 Christie Liberatore ’13 Magazine Interns Kathy B. Lambird ’94 Production Manager E-mail terpmag@umd.edu Terp magazine is published by the Division of University Relations. Letters to the editor are welcomed. Send correspondence to Managing Editor, Terp magazine, 2101 Turner Building, College Park, MD 20742-1521.

Or, send an e-mail to terpmag@umd.edu The University of Maryland, College Park is an equal opportunity institution with respect to both education and employment.

University policies, programs and activities are in conformance with pertinent federal and state laws and regulations on non-discrimination regarding race, color, religion, age, national origin, political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

Dear

Alumni and Friends,

each fall, i’m inspired by the passion and curiosity of new students walking our campus and the faculty who shape their knowledge in countless ways.

This semester started with an announcement about an especially promising new member of our community: Wallace D. Loh, who will become university president on Nov. 1.

Loh comes to us from the University of Iowa, following previous positions in higher education, public service and law. His poignant personal back story (see Page 2) makes his potential influence on the university and our goals all that more exciting.

As a member of the search committee that selected Loh, I am thrilled by the possibilities his leadership brings. His life and professional experiences make him a perfect fit for Maryland and the trajectory we are charting.

During a lengthy national search, Loh stood out to me because he did more than pay lip service to the importance of public education. Decades of hard work instilled in him great respect for the opportunities found at the best universities: He came to the U.S. alone in 1961 to pursue the education that would propel him through life. He earned four degrees and mastered four languages.

Despite these significant accomplishments, he remains humble and approachable.

Today, he is a vivacious family man who can identify with both new freshmen and the seasoned faculty and administrators who have made Maryland what it is.

As a new era begins, I look forward to Loh motivating and enabling Terps—including students, alumni, faculty and staff—to be the best that they can be.

I was excited that Loh was on hand to welcome another person to the Terrapin family. On Sept. 7, he introduced Kevin Anderson as the new director of athletics.

Anderson comes to Maryland from the United States Military Academy, where he directed Army’s athletics department. I look forward to watching him help lead our Terps to winning seasons.

This issue of Terp highlights more changes at Maryland.

This semester, the College of Arts and Humanities launched an initiative in digital humanities, media and culture. One of the faculty members leading the program is Hasan Elahi, who uses the trappings of wired life to illustrate how surveillance, borders and frontiers can change lives. He should know: Elahi was mistakenly added to the FBI’s terror watch list in 2001 and now publicly documents his movements to keep his name clear (see Page 28).

And in physics, an intriguing new research collaboration has grown out of the multidisciplinary work of doctoral student Colin McCann and the National Cancer Institute (see Page 20). The partnership is designed to create diagnostic tools and treatments with the Center for Cancer Research.

It is truly an inspiring time to be a Terp.

Danita D. Nias ’81 Assistant Vice President Alumni Relations and Development

2 Big Picture Sciences complex construction; UMD president named; new focus on health equity; and more 6 Terp online Arts collaboratory video; an expert on home energy efficiency; ever-growing class notes; and more 7 Ask Anne Real deal on the seal; presidential candidate debates; and more; 8 Class Act Inspirational paracyclist; movie producer rides again; and more 12 m-file Energy-saving green walls; protecting soldiers’ heads; students’ media addictions; and more 16 Playby-play Football films’ restoration 17 SpotlIght Gamer Symphony Orchestra scores 18 Maryland Live First Year Book; homecoming events preview; and more 31 In the Loop Garden of reflection; determined dentist gives back; dining points donations; and more 36 Interpretations Campaign’s home stretch

departments

features 18

wish you were here

More than 20,000 postcards in the university’s collection document American travel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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COLLABORATING FOR A CURE

Faculty and doctoral students in the physical sciences team up with cell biologists at the National Cancer Institute to research novel diagnostic tools and treatments. By Tom Ventsias

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REDISCOVERING THE WILD IRISH WEST

Anthropology students working in Baltimore County are digging up clues to a long-gone community of roughand-tumble Irish immigrants. by cathleen mccarthy

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DIGITAL DEFENSE

Associate Professor Hasan Elahi, an artist in the digital humanities, fought back after being labeled a terrorist by using his website to prove his innocence. By monette bailey

photos courtesy ofUniversity of Maryland Libraries

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bigpicture charm

& kisses

Paul Schulman Jr. ’07 and Vickie Kalasinsky ’07 celebrated their Aug. 14 wedding in Terp style, with a ceremony at Memorial Chapel, UMD football buses ferrying guests to the reception and a four-tier confection by Charm City Cakes, of "Ace of Cakes" TV fame. The bride and groom met at band camp their freshman year, so the cake featured Testudo, the Mighty Sound of Maryland Marching Band on Chapel Field and even Director L. Richmond Sparks calling out directions from his cherry picker. —LB

Physical Sciences Complex Starts Taking Shape The elliptical glass cone (top) of the complex will reach from the atrium to the sky, providing natural light for the collaborative space and corridors on three floors.

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Construction is under way

on a new research and teaching facility that, when completed in 2013, will rank among the world’s finest in helping scientists unlock the secrets of the universe, advance discoveries in quantum physics and develop new disease-fighting techniques using biophysics.

The $128 million Physical Sciences Complex broke ground in May, with Gov. Martin O’Malley saying that “discoveries, technologies and innovations … hold the promise and potential to remake our economy by unlocking the solution to how we can better feed, fuel, protect and heal our planet.”

The 158,068-square-foot architectural jewel will house

the university’s physics and astronomy departments, as well as the interdisciplinary Institute for Physical Sciences and Technology and the Joint Quantum Institute, or JQI, a partnership between the university and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The centerpiece of the JQI collaboration will be the Laboratory for Advanced Quantum Science, featuring intricate temperature controls and vibration and electromagnetic radiation isolation capabilities that allow for groundbreaking research in cryptography, advanced computing and the design and use of sophisticated sensors. —TV

wedding photos by roberts photographers; rendering courtesy of hdr cuh2a

�

Inspiring Academic Named UMD President Wallace D. Loh arrived in the United States at

age 16 with little more than $200 and, he says, “an unwavering faith in the promise of this country.”

Nearly 50 years later, the noted academic and public servant has been named the 33rd president of the University of Maryland. He succeeds Dan Mote, who stepped down in August after leading the university through 12 years of advancement.

“I am thrilled to be a Terp,” Loh proclaimed at an August event where he and his wife of 25 years, Barbara, were introduced to university community. Loh said his is “a story that can only happen in America, because it is not a story about me. It is a story that the American dream continues.”

Loh was the unanimous choice of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents to lead the state’s flagship campus. He was selected after a six-month national search chaired by Donald F. Kettl, professor and dean of the School of Public Policy.

“Higher education is about providing opportunities for students and helping them fashion their own futures,” Kettl says. “And there is no better example that I can imagine than the life story that Dr. Loh brings to this job. The campus community is very excited about the prospects of the Loh presidency.”

Loh, who speaks four languages, was born in Shanghai and spent his childhood in Lima, Peru.

His parents sent him to the U.S. after instilling in him the values of “family, education and work, in that order.” After landing in Iowa, he earned his bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, a master’s from Cornell University and a doctorate from the University of Michigan, all in psychology, as well as a law degree from Yale Law School.

Loh most recently was executive vice president and provost at the University of Iowa, where he oversaw budgets, personnel and planning in the university’s 11 colleges and other academic units. He also served as dean of the University of Washington Law School and has worked in the Washington state government as a senior policy adviser to the governor.

credit by john t. consoli photos

“What has this man not done?” said Brit Kirwan, University System of Maryland chancellor.

Loh anticipates his top priorities at Maryland to be attracting and retaining the best faculty, improving the local community and “making sure that the students of today and tomorrow have the same opportunities that I have had.”

He has already made a commitment to support Maryland students with financial need, pledging a gift of $100,000.

He assumes his role as president on Nov. 1, with Nariman Farvardin, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, serving as interim president until then. —TV

Wallace Loh, shown (from top) with wife Barbara, USM Chancellor Brit Kirwan and predecessor C. D. Mote, Jr., was born in China and emigrated from Peru to Iowa in 1961.

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Growthspurt

D

ean Patricia Steele, in her second year leading University Libraries, is known for re-imagining traditional storylines in her field. She’s been launching a series of novel changes and advancements at Maryland, all designed to improve patrons’ experiences.

Have Your Books and Eats, Too No need to sneak your cup of coffee or blueberry muffin into McKeldin or the Engineering and Physical Sciences libraries. The Libraries lifted the ban on food and drink in two of the seven campus libraries on a trial basis in the spring, and administrators have been pleasantly surprised to see students eat and work without making a mess. The only caveats to the policy change? No toasters, coffee makers, Crock-Pots or pizza deliveries.

Find Indoor Open Space McKeldin Library has started renovating its second floor to feature a “learning commons,” a space that encourages students to leave their study cubicles and collaborate with their peers.

It will include computers, plenty of outlets to recharge laptops and quick access to the collections and services students want. Once completed, the Libraries envision the commons as a modern, open and welcoming environment for students to converse and learn.

Access Virtual Collections Some of the newest additions to the Libraries’ research collection don’t take up shelf space.

Like the Libraries’ 300 other electronic databases, the 25 new arrivals are accessible online to anyone with a valid university user name and password. They include a Wall Street Journal historical collection that spans nearly 100 years, the full-text version of the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper database and Ethnographic Video Online, which offers more than 750 hours on the study of human culture behavior.

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New Center Advocates Health Equity While health-care professionals know more than ever about

preventing chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes and certain types of cancer, getting that information out to the public—particularly to minorities—remains a challenge.

A new center in the university’s School of Public Health will address this problem head-on, through research, innovative educational programs and working with local organizations to make for healthier communities in the state and beyond.

The Maryland Center for Health Equity, launched in May, features five community health researchers recruited from the University of

Pittsburgh. Led by Stephen Thomas, they intend to refine their successful series of “low-tech, high-touch” programs, such as sending doctors

“ The people in the state of Maryland deserve the best that health science can offer, where they live, work, play and worship.” —Stephen Thomas and nurses to places where people feel comfortable—a business, community center, local church or barbershop, for example—to provide free, regular blood pressure checks, echocardiograms and prostate cancer and audiology screenings.

“The people in the state of Maryland deserve the best that health science can offer, delivered to them in a respectful manner

where they live, work, play and worship,” says Thomas, an expert in behavioral science and health education who is joined by colleagues Sandra Crouse Quinn, James Butler, Craig S. Fryer and Mary A. Garza.

Maryland’s established framework of programs committed to eliminating health disparities was a key factor in the team’s decision to move here, Thomas says. These

include the Herschel S. Horowitz Center for Health Literacy, the nation’s first academic center dedicated to improving health and closing the health disparities gap; and the Madieu Williams Center for Global Health Initiatives, which devotes particular attention to public health needs in Prince George’s County, Md. —TV

Ledo Doesn’t Cut Corners in Move to College Park Craving a classic square pizza with smoked provolone cheese? It just got a lot closer to campus. The original Ledo Restaurant, based in Adelphi since 1955, has moved—ovens and all—to downtown College Park.

Owners Jimmy Marcos and Tommy Marcos Jr. have replaced the green, faux leather booths and wood paneling with a more modern look in a new building across from city hall. But they want the popular Terp eatery to maintain its distinct personality while it reconnects with the university.

“It’s an updated version of the restaurant, but we’ve incorporated the same feel,” he says. “We want to be the same place we’ve always been, a family restaurant.”

College Park Planning Director Terry Schum says the restaurant’s arrival is leading the way in the revitalization of downtown, begun with the opening of a $7 million parking garage above the new Ledo.

“They’re a destination restaurant, so people will make the effort to come to College Park and eat there,” says Councilman Mark Cook. “They’re even at a place that has plenty of parking, which is a novel idea.” —SJ

ledo photo by john t. consoli

Brothers Tommy (left) and Jimmy Marcos Jr. are reconnecting with loyal Terps at their new location in downtown College Park.

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terp online

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terp.umd.edu

inspiring, intriguing and informative—that’s the kind of original content you’ll find on our website, www.terp.umd.edu. it offers additional insights to the stories in print and opens new windows to Maryland’s world.

Living with focus After you’ve read the feature on Associate Professor Hasan Elahi and the digital humanities, you can learn more online about the three new living and learning programs launched this fall: Digital Cultures and Creativity and Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Honors College and Global Public Health in College Park Scholars. terp.umd.edu/living

expert on call

on

Keith Herold, an associate professor in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, is one of the faculty mentors guiding students preparing for the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011. LEAFHouse, Maryland’s 2007 entry, took second place in the quadrennial contest the National Mall. If you’re looking for tips on making your home more energy-efficient this fall and winter, Herold is here to help.

terp.umd.edu/experts

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seeing is believing The new Michelle Smith Collaboratory for Visual Culture in the Department of Art History and Archaeology is reshaping research, teaching and learning in those fields and beyond. Take a video tour to see the changes for yourself.

terp.umd.edu/collaboratory

class notes Our ever-expanding roster of alumni news includes an upcoming triple wedding of three Terp sisters, with the maid of honor a fourth Terp and the proud dad a former dean of the journalism school. Do you have your own news or photo to share?

Send it in!

terp.umd.edu/classnotes

photos by john t. consoli; collaboratory photo courtesy of university video; illustration by jeanette j. nelson

ask Anne Questions for Anne Turkos, university archivist for University Libraries, may be sent to terpmag@umd.edu.

Q. I read recently that the university had its 150th anniversary a few years ago. This would match with the 1856 date. However, the university seal on my diploma and my class ring has three dates:

1807, 1856 and 1920.

What happened to the 1807 date?

—Mark H. Donaldson

A. You are correct that the 1856 date represents the founding of the campus in College Park. The 1807 date refers to the establishment of the medical school in Baltimore, and 1920 represents the year that the Baltimore and College Park campuses merged to form the University of Maryland.

Q. Is it true that a Maryland graduate came up with the idea for presidential debates? —Elizabeth Burzenski ’10 A. Fred A. Kahn ’60 was an early proponent of national presidential debates. In August 1956, Kahn sent a letter to UMD President Wilson H. Elkins in which he proposed to have the U.S. presidential candidates from both political parties together on the same platform to answer questions from a panel of college students.

Kahn also wrote the chairmen of the Democratic and Republican parties, Maryland Gov. Theodore McKeldin and Eleanor Roosevelt. She responded to Kahn that she “felt this might be something that would arouse the interest of young people all over the country.”

Mrs. Roosevelt also sent a letter regarding Kahn’s proposal to James Finnegan, Adlai Stevenson’s campaign manager, endorsing the idea. The first debates, between Kennedy and Nixon, occurred four years later. The precise impact of Kahn’s proposal on these now-standard presidential campaign events is unclear, but his idea did receive national press exposure.

photo by john t. consoli; illustration by jeanette j. nelson

Q.. Could someone explain the “Greek Week” story behind the photo, above, that appeared in The Diamondback on April 25, 1977? —Greg Lovell ’87 A. The times they are a-changin’!

Based on the article, Kappa Alpha Fraternity was raffling off a quarter-pound of marijuana. The contest organizers supposedly told police they were giving away $125, the street value of the pot.

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alumniprofile

Cyclist of Hope

In July, Downing won the 2010 London Paratriathlon with a time of 44:53. She participated as part of her advocacy for including paratriathlons in the Paralympics.

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Tricia Downing ’91 was a competitive cyclist back in September 2000, showing off her new Giordana bike to a friend, when she was struck by a car and paralyzed from the chest down.

Now she’s a world-class athlete, competing in half-Iron Man triathlons and duathlons from her hand cycle.

She shares her inspirational story of redefining “able” as a globetrotting motivational speaker and in her newly published book, “Cycle of Hope: A Journey from Paralysis to Possibility.”

“It was a cathartic thing for me,” she says, adding that once she decided to start writing, it only took her two weeks to finish the book.

It chronicles the hole she had to climb out of as she found a new way to live. After being told she’d be confined to a wheelchair for life, Downing became determined to once again enjoy the freedom of competitive cycling.

The Denver resident didn’t waste any time, contacting the Challenged Athletes Foundation from her hospital bed to request a grant to buy a hand cycle. At first, Downing could barely manage two or three miles behind the three-wheeled bike. Six months later, she completed a half-marathon. She later became the second female wheelchair racer to complete an Iron-distance triathlon: a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run. In other words, she propels herself more than 140 miles using only her arms.

She is also director of Camp Discovery in her native Colorado, which offers activities such as tennis, golf, hand cycling and scuba diving for other women in wheelchairs, in hopes of helping them reinvent themselves.

Since she rarely has female competition in her races, she also sees the camp as an opportunity to train other women to compete in triathlons.

She has appeared in numerous health magazine and newspapers, including Muscle and Fitness and The Denver Post. Downing won Sportswoman of Colorado inspiration and triathlon awards in 2003 and 2005, respectively. She’s also a spokeswoman for the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

Lisa Newman, Downing’s best friend since high school, says it was hard watching her relearn life in a wheelchair. Trish, as she and others call her, e-mails reports to family and friends after every race.

“I sit and read them and I cry,” Newman says. “I cry in celebration. She’s just incredible, the amount she can endure and still carry on.”

Newman tears up as she tells a story about her niece, who competed a few years ago in a swim marathon fundraiser and swam more laps than anyone expected. When asked how she did it, the girl said she kept thinking to herself: “Trish Downing, Trish Downing, Trish Downing.” —SJ

race photo by steven walker; headshot by Mark woolcott

alumniprofile

The Hit-Maker Like one of the protagonists of his Cinderella-story

travel 2011 Egypt & the Eternal Nile April 29-May 15 Guided by an expert Egyptologist, delve into ancient Egypt and its treasures. Begin your adventure in Cairo, home of the Egyptian Museum and Pyramids of Giza, and end in the Mediterranean port of Alexandria.

Chianti & the Italian Riviera May 16-25 From the silvery olive groves of Tuscany to the turquoise seas of the Italian Riviera, Italy is a country that always delights.

Embrace the best of these two storied regions while exploring their attractions in Chianti and on the Levante coast.

blockbusters, Mark Ciardi ’83 has worked his way onto Hollywood’s roster of MVPs. Drafted right out of Maryland to a pro baseball career, he’s become the producer of sports-themed movies including “The Rookie,” “Miracle,” “Invincible” and, coming this month, “Secretariat.”

Ciardi played six years for the Milwaukee Brewers and in its farm system. He had moved to California to train, and by the time his big league days were over, he had made enough connections in the film industry to take a swing at a career at producing.

With his background, Ciardi appreciated films about real-life underdogs becoming sports heroes. “Everyone likes a good second-chance story. Sports entertain and move people. It makes for a great canvas to tell a story,” he explains.

Ciardi sees movies through the entire creative process. “It starts and ends with the producer. You’re always working on different projects at once, all at different stages. I could be working on scoring one film, while editing and previewing another while simultaneously marketing the next project,” says Ciardi. Picking his favorite part is easy: “The first time you preview your movie to an audience, when it works, it is unbelievable.”

Most Marylanders will recognize the name Secretariat. In 1973, the thoroughbred became the first U.S. Triple Crown champion in 25 years, taking the laurels in the Preakness Stakes held in Baltimore. Ciardi’s latest movie, starring Diane Lane and John Malkovich, is based on the horse’s career and the unlikely success of its owner and trainer.

Earning his marketing degree at Maryland and playing baseball taught Ciardi what he needed to do to accomplish his goals. “When you don’t fear success and you take risks, that’s when you achieve it.” Continue to look for Ciardi in the closing credits as he continues to write his own success story. —MLB

Producer Mark Ciardi ’83 (bottom, right) works on the set of “Secretariat” with actors Kevin Connolly (bottom, left) and John Malkovich (below, center). Ciardi returned to campus in September for a preview screening of the film.

The Great Journey through Europe June 12-22 This unique journey exudes the spirit of the 19th-century “Grand Tour” through the heart of Western Europe. Explore Heidelberg, Cologne and Strasbourg; travel through the Swiss countryside; and cross the backbone of Switzerland.

For more details on these and other tours featured in the Travel 2011 program, visit www.alumni. umd.edu or call 301.405.7870/ 800.336.8627.

travel photos courtesy of the alumni association; “secretariat” production photos courtesy of mayhem pictures

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Master of Social Media Adam Ostrow ’04 doesn’t scan just a few e-mails in the morning. He sifts through thousands of messages, websites and Twitter and news feeds. As the editor-in-chief of Mashable.com, Ostrow—with help from staff members— taps every possible resource to determine the best fodder for what’s become the definitive blog on social media news.

Ostrow’s success began with his Terp connections. A distinguished graduate of the Hinman CEOs program, he launched the social network site Mindsay with Brian Klug ’01. The two met at an entrepreneurship meeting at Maryland while Ostrow was a senior journalism major.

The pair’s network, which attracted more than 50,000 people in the first year, is still running today. To promote their creation, Ostrow began blogging for Mashable founder and CEO Pete Cashmore.

“I started to contribute more and more, and as Mashable continued to grow, Pete put me in charge of the editorial department. We were doing 3 million page views a month then,” Ostrow says. Now it gets more than 30 million page views per month.

“Mashable has skyrocketed to be one of the most popular news websites for anyone involved in having a voice on the Internet,” says Will Sullivan, an award-winning interactive developer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “When people ask me for proven, modern models of success in online publishing, Mashable almost always comes up as an example and as a resource to teach them more.”

Sharon Feder, Mashable’s managing editor, has been working with Ostrow since the two started at the company.

She says he taught her most of what she knows about keeping tabs on social media.

“I think for Adam, it’s a 24/7 job. Even on weekends he’ll make time to go to industry conferences and events,” Feder says. “He really is taking Mashable beyond just social media, and that has a lot to do with his passion in other areas.”

Since Ostrow has been at the site’s editorial helm, it’s undergone a redesign and added content covering business, entertainment, mobile and Web video.

Ostrow also uses his expertise to write commentary and consult within the technology community. He says things have changed a lot since he first became interested in social media during the ’90s when AOL chat rooms were popular.

He says his participation in the community doesn’t harm his coverage of it.

“It adds some experience and credibility to the reporting,” he says. “If you have hands-on experience and understand the dynamics of what you’re talking about, you can give the kind of analysis that lets people really understand the story.” —SJ

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“ If you have hands-on experience and understand the dynamics of what you’re talking about, you can give the kind of analysis that lets people really understand the story.”

—Adam Ostrow

Ostrow helped lead Mashable’s U.S. Summer Tour, stopping in cities to network and conduct interviews in a partylike atmosphere.

photo by john t. consoli

byalumni Manhattan Terps Rally for Alumni and Maryland the university of Maryland Alumni Association celebrated the achievements of several New Yorkbased Terps at a fund-raising event this summer in New York City.

“Maryland in Manhattan: An Evening to Celebrate Alumni and Friends” drew more than 400 enthusiastic guests to the Metropolitan Pavilion. The event honored a veritable “who’s who” among New York’s movers and shakers while generating support for Maryland student scholarships and alumni programs. The distinguished honorees were Harvey Sanders ’72 (New York Alumnus of the Year), William Greenblatt ’79 (Entrepreneur of the Year), Jason Finger ’94 (Technology Industry Award), Ali Hirsa M.S. ’93, Ph.D. ’98 (Finance Industry Award) and Avis Richards ’80 (Nonprofit Industry Impact Award).

Joy Bauer ’86, New York Times bestselling author and nutrition expert for NBC’s “Today” show, served as master of ceremonies.

Special guests included former university president Dan Mote and men’s basketball head coach Gary Williams ’68. Guests enjoyed cuisine and beverages from elite restaurants and spirit companies, silent and live auctions, a sweepstakes and live entertainment.

The Terrapin spirit soared throughout the evening in the Big Apple and continues to sweep the nation. With three newly chartered clubs last year, alumni are getting involved where they live in support of their alma mater. To find a local or affinity club near you and for more information on efforts going on in your area, contact the Maryland Alumni Association at alumni@umd.edu. —MLB

alumni photos by baer studio; alumni books by john t. consoli

1 1. New York Alumnus of the Year Harvey Sanders ’72 (right) with fellow Terp Richard Finkelstein ’72 2. William Greenblatt ’79 (left), recipient of the Entrepreneur of the Year Award, with presenter Albert King ’82 3. Avis Richards ’80 received the Nonprofit Industry Impact Award

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5 4. Jason Finger ’94 accepting the Technology Industry Impact Award 5. Ali Hirsa M.S. ’93, Ph.D. ’98 is presented the Finance Industry Impact Award by Bonnie Bernstein ’92 6. The evening’s master of ceremonies, Joy Bauer ’86, the “Today” show's nutrition and health expert

FDR’s Republicans illuminates the debate over foreign policy that took place in the United States prior to World War II. Robert E. Jenner Ph.D. ’95 approaches this issue from the perspective of the GOP members of the House and Senate who eventually came to support the Democratic president.

Lainey Pike can tell you everything you need to know about the people in her family just by letting you know how they died. The Snowball Effect by Holly Hoxter ’03 takes readers on a journey through Pike’s life as she tries to pull away from everything familiar and make peace with a parent she never understood.

Amid a tough job market and other contemporary challenges, family psychologist Brad E. Sachs Ph.D. ’83 advises parents on helping their 20-somethings to achieve financial and emotional independence in Emptying the Nest: Launching Your Young Adult Toward Success and Self-Reliance.

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m-file newsdesk University of Maryland faculty are the source news media turn to for expertise—from politics and public policy to society and culture to science and technology.

“The data leave little doubt that the deciding factor in the shift of opinion toward the Obama administration is disappointment on the IsraeliPalestinian issue.”

“I wouldn’t bet my car on this theory. I might bet a good meal. We can’t think of another theory that works as well.”

Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Chair

co-author of a study that found a vio-

for Peace and Development, on his

lent collision with a galaxy knocked a

annual Arab opinion poll, Asian News

spinning black hole off its axis twice,

International, Aug. 5, 2010.

Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2010.

Christopher Reynolds, astronomy,

“I don’t agree with Paul Krugman about everything. But I do agree with him about this: It’s economically stupid and morally wrong to tolerate high unemployment for an extended period if there's anything we could responsibly do to avoid it.”

William A. Galston, public policy, in an essay on lowering unemployment, The New Republic, Aug. 2, 2010.

“This has been a spectacular year for ants. I’ve gotten more calls than any time in the past 10 years.”

Mike Raupp, entomology, on the ant infestation of 2010, The Washington Post, July 20, 2010.

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Cell Phone Technology Kills Background Noise The problem of troublesome background noise disrupting your cell phone conversation might soon be a thing of the past, thanks to new technology being refined in the A. James Clark School of Engineering.

A team of researchers led by Carol EspyWilson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, is perfecting a “speech extraction” technology for cellular phones.

It features sophisticated software that can greatly minimize secondary sounds such as emergency sirens, wind or other people chattering.

Espy-Wilson, an expert in engineering, linguistics and speech science, says the technology is not only cost-effective, but also compact and easy to install on existing cell phone platforms.

Spurred by the culture of entrepreneurship in the Clark School, the six researchers are in the early stages of commercializing their invention. “We realized the software has a lot of potential, and decided that instead of passing it along to someone else, that we could market it ourselves,” says Espy-Wilson.

Their startup, OmniSpeech LLC, got a big boost in May by winning the high-tech category in the university’s $75K Business Plan Competition. OmniSpeech is now in the Clark School’s VentureAccelerator program and expects to start marketing its software to consumers early next year. —TV

ant illustration by Christie Liberatore

Continental Style Geochemist Roberta Rudnick was elected in May to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of her work advancing the understanding of the Earth’s continental crust. She and her geochemist husband, Bill McDonough, who directs the university’s plasma mass spectronomy lab, are on sabbatical this academic year doing field research overseas. Terp’s Lauren Brown talked to her between trips to China and the Pacific Northwest.

TERP: What exactly are you looking for during your field research?

RUDNICK: Tiny pieces of the Earth’s mantle and deep crust. We use volcanoes as poor man’s drill holes. The deepest-drilled hole on Earth is 12 kilometers, which isn’t even halfway into the Earth’s crust. So if we want samples of this inaccessible part of the Earth, we have to go to places where the Earth has been faulted and these rocks have come to the surface, or where volcanoes have carried them to the surface.

TERP: You use the high-tech mass spectrometry lab to analyze the Earth’s real movers and shakers: rocks offering clues to the planet’s formation and evolution. Why is it important to know this?

RUDNICK: It’s curiosity-driven, a lot like asking, “Why study a black hole?” or “How did the Earth form?” Our Earth is the only planet in the solar system with continents. Why is that? And it has an enigma in that the building blocks (magma from the mantle) and the edifice (the crust) are differen t.

We’re trying to understand this mismatch.

TERP: For the past decade, you’ve served as editor-in-chief of the academic journal Chemical Geology, based in Amsterdam. How did you get involved, and why are you stepping down?

RUDNICK: It’s sort of a way to give back; it’s a service to the profession. I know how much I appreciate when my papers are handled well and efficiently, and I thought I’d learn a lot with this job, which I have—especially about human nature. But between the significant workload, the sabbatical and the fact I’ll be department chair when I return, it was time to say goodbye.

TERP: Since you and Bill met as undergraduates in college, you’ve spent your entire careers together, including at Australian National University and Harvard, and you sometimes collaborate on research. Do you talk a lot of shop at home?

RUDNICK: Probably too many dinnertime conversations for our son, Patrick. He’s a Terp starting this fall, majoring in physics. We’ve told him to find his passion and follow that. He says there’s no way on earth he’s going into geology.

Rudnick returned home from her latest trip to China with 215 kilos of rock to analyze.

credit by john t. consoli photo

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m-file Green Walls May Open New Doors

Tilley worked with University of Maryland Extension viticulture specialist Joe Fiola to determine the right mix of vegetation for his three-year green wall experiment.

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While ivy-covered brick walls are a tradition

on many college campuses, the plant-covered façades growing at Maryland’s research farm serve a more significant purpose than just decoration.

David Tilley, associate professor of environmental science and technology in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, is studying green walls and how they might reduce energy consumption. His is the only such U.S. research supported by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.

“I’ve always been interested in ecosystems and how they can be used to address human problems,” says Tilley, whose findings could eventually be used to determine credits toward environmental building certifications.

Commercial green wall products aren’t novel, but much of the science behind them has been done in Europe.

Tilley’s research may help the industry promote the walls’ money-saving

qualities, as well as their aesthetic appeal, in North America.

“Metrics of the benefits of vegetated green walls and systems have become mandatory for the growth of our industry,” says Reuben Freed, chair of the green walls group for Green Roofs for Healthy Cities and director of research and project manager for greenscreen, North America’s predominant supplier of green façades.

Greenscreen’s product is among those being tested by Tilley and master’s student Jeff Price ’10. In January, they planted eight varieties of grapes and native plants at the base of 12, 4-by8-foot panels. They include rigid, recycled steel systems; stainless steel cable lattices; stainless steel flexible nets; and thick manila ropes.

One goal: to determine if there is a correlation between species that use tendrils, like grapes, and ones that twine, like honeysuckle, and how well they climb the façades.

The testing is being done at the Central Maryland Research and Education Center in Clarksville, Md., where the team rotates the different panels onto the southern walls of two prototype buildings. Vegetation theoretically cools by reflecting solar radiance or turning it into water vapor, so each building is covered with dozens of sensors measuring radiation, temperature and wind speed. Data are collected every 10 minutes using a computerized system, with vital information from “the dead of summer” used to measure peak benefits.

Price will use mathematical modeling this fall to scale findings up to a full-size house.

A previous Tilley experiment with green cloaks—vegetation suspended over a building’s top—offers promise. Cloaks cooled inside temperatures by 11 degrees during summer, which would cut energy use by 18 percent, or $100 to $200, for the typical, 2,000-square-foot mid-Atlantic home. —KM

photo by edwin remsberg

Protecting Troops From Brain Injuries

A collaborative effort to study combat-related mild traumatic brain injury includes new imaging techniques, such as one demonstrated above, that can highlight neuron fibers in the human brain, helping identify any abnormalities caused by blast waves.

unplugged

American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq who walk away from blasts from improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, aren’t always unscathed: Since 2001, more than 125,000 cases of mild traumatic brain injury, or mTBI, have been reported in the two war zones.

In hopes of better protecting the military personnel deployed there, University of Maryland researchers have teamed with military experts and the University of Maryland School of Medicine to investigate new brain imaging techniques, develop alternative medical treatments and refine computer models that can predict the effects of IEDs. The Department of Defense is especially interested in better diagnostic methods, says Davinder Anand, director of the university’s Center for Energetic Concepts Development, which is coordinating much of the research. If undetected and untreated, he says, mTBI can lead to anxiety, depression and memory loss.

Soldiers most often suffer mTBI injuries when they are violently shaken in vehicles struck by

IEDs, or by the blast wave when devices detonate near ground troops, so Maryland researchers are investigating how the blast wave from an IED buried in mud differs from one covered with fine-grain sand. They’re also studying what rapid air pressure changes look like striking a Kevlar helmet versus unprotected soft tissue.

Relying on as little as three grams of explosive material—which under highly controlled conditions can represent almost 200 pounds of explosives— William Fourney, a mechanical engineering professor at Maryland, is gathering data for scientists at the nearby Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head.

They, in turn, are building computer simulations that could lead to preventative measures like special seats that deflect blast acceleration effects if a vehicle is hit by an IED. “The bottom line is we need a better way of understanding exactly what happens when explosives detonate,” Fourney says. “And by using sound scientific methods to predict those results, we can help the military protect its warfighters.” —TV

& unhinged

College students can’t function

without their media links to the world, describing going cold turkey for just one day in the same terms used by drugs addicts and alcoholics in withdrawal: “frantically craving,” “very anxious,” “jittery” and “crazy.”

“24 Hours: Unplugged,” a study conducted by the university’s International Center for Media and the Public Agenda, also found the instant gratification of texting, Facebook postings and cell phone calls has dramatically changed how 18- to 22-year-olds maintain their social ties.

A research team led by journalism Professor Susan D. Moeller, director of the center, asked 200 students in a media

literacy course to give up cell phones, laptops, iPods, BlackBerrys, television, radio and MP3 players last semester, then blog on private class websites about their successes and failures.

“The fact that I was not able to communicate with anyone via technology was almost unbearable,” wrote one.

“Honestly, this experience was probably the single worst experience I have ever had,” blogged another.

Moeller says the reactions surprised her research team. “What the students spoke about in the strongest terms was how their lack of access … meant that they couldn’t connect

illustration by jeanette J. Nelson; brain image courtesy of rao gullapalli

with friends who lived close by, much less those far away.”

The study also showed how college students are getting news in less traditional ways, relying on text messages, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter instead of television and newspapers.

In fact, it found that students hardly missed their TV sets, but without their cell phones, their sense of time was confused. And they were struck by the inconvenience of having to write by hand, rather than type.

More encouragingly, students in the study reported that during the hiatus, they most missed communicating with … their moms. —MAB

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play-by-play Archives’ Game Plan: Save Old Football Films The University of Maryland Archives are playing defense in hopes of saving a treasure of Maryland

sports history: more than 1,000 reels of film of the football team going back as far as 1946.

The Archives are preserving and restoring film gems such as the 1951 matchup against Navy (one of only two pieces of footage of the Terps’ first undefeated season), the 1957 “Queen’s Game” against the Tar Heels, attended by Queen Elizabeth II, and the 1984 “Miracle in Miami” victory over the Hurricanes.

The project is expected to cost $200,000; to date, $70,000 has been raised. The Archives are seeking both film donations and financial gifts from alumni and other donors, as much of the collection is in an advanced state of chemical deterioration, and many game films are still missing.

“In order to save an enormous part of our athletic heritage, we have to move, and we have to move quickly,” says University Archivist Anne Turkos.

The Archives collected the bulk of the film reels in 2002, when Maryland Athletics moved from Cole Field House to the Comcast Center. With the blessing of the Athletics staff, Turkos and her team hauled off about 700 boxes of audio and video recordings and documents. Six years later, another 350 reels were discovered behind the scoreboard at Cole.

Heat, humidity and light had severely damaged much of the collection: The films were torn, dirty or faded or had become brittle. Turkos estimates that left alone, most of the reels would be unsalvageable in less than five years.

The Archives contracted with Scene Savers, a Kentucky film-restoration firm, to restore more than 1,000 film reels, provide digital copies of them all and send the originals back to the university in proper storage containers.

When that happens early next year, the Archives will be able to respond to frequent requests from alumni and media for game films on file, either through digital or hard copies, and stream them on the Web. The Archives also hopes to create a sports archivist position to facilitate easy access to these resources.

Jonathan Claiborne ’77 has been touting the film preservation program during his color commentary on radio broadcasts of Terps football games. The former football standout and son of Hall of Fame Terps coach Jerry Claiborne also contributed to the project.

“People talk about Randy White being one of the greatest players—you can actually watch him play the game.

You can watch great games against ACC opponents. Or Jack Scarbath ’54, who scored the first touchdown in Byrd Stadium—we’ve got him on film,” he says. “People watch ESPN Classic. We’ve got Maryland Classic right here.” — LB

View restored films online by visiting www.terp.umd.edu and clicking on the link. To donate funds or missing films to the project, contact Turkos at aturkos@umd.edu.

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scorecard The Maryland women's lacrosse team rallied against five-time defending national champion Northwestern to take back the NCAA title. In front of a record-breaking crowd of 9,782 at Unitas Stadium on May 30, the Terps scored 13-11 over the No. 2 Wildcats and recaptured the championship for the first time since 2001.

Caitlyn McFadden ’10, the tournament MVP, scored two goals and added an assist. Junior Sarah Mollison, sophomore Karri Ellen Johnson and freshman Katie Schwarzmann led in scoring with three goals apiece.

The women’s lacrosse team members weren’t the only Terp athletes making headlines this year. Two former men’s soccer standouts represented the U.S. at this summer’s World Cup in South Africa.

Maurice Edu and Clarence Goodson landed on the final 23-man roster for the national team.

ACC Player of the Year Greivis Vasquez ’10 won the 2010 Bob Cousy Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Vasquez beat out 72 competitors from three NCAA divisions to bring home one of college basketball’s top honors, given to the nation’s best point guard.

Moving images courtesy of university archives; Mcfadden courtesy of gatorzone; edu courtesy of pes gaming ; goodson courtesy of us soccer

spotlight A Score for the Gamers Orchestra arranges, performs music based on video games Members of Maryland’s Gamer Symphony

Orchestra are known to find inspiration in the classics: a futuristic gunslinger or an Italian plumber.

The 5-year-old orchestra, one of the first university-based musical groups of its kind, brings music from video and computer games—the likes of “Halo” and “Mario Bros.” included—to its full symphonic potential.

“The music is great, no matter if you've played the game or not,” says Robert Garner ’06, M.L.S. ’11, president and flugelhorn player. “Music by Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu and Jeff Briggs is just as rich and evocative as Ludwig van Beethoven, Aaron Copland or John Williams.”

Student and alumni members of the ensemble, known as the GSO, select the games behind new pieces, compose arrangements for more than 100

photos by james garner

instruments and voices, and create 90-minute performances that regularly attract 1,000 spectators.

In addition to two major concerts annually, the GSO sponsors Deathmatch for Charity, a gaming tournament that benefits the Child’s Play Foundation. The charity provides toys, games and books to children’s hospitals.

The GSO also serves as inspiration to up-andcoming musicians who appreciate video games’ unique sounds. In 2009, after attending a Maryland concert, students at Magruder High School in Rockville, Md., formed their own gaming orchestra.

Co-founder Joel Guttman, now a freshman marketing major, says he is excited to perform on Maryland’s larger stage, where the GSO offers “more people, more sounds and a community.”

The community continues to grow nationwide.

Professional orchestras back large-scale productions that combine music, vocals and visual effects. “PLAY! A Video Game Symphony” drew more than 6,000 when performed by the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap.

Denise Cross, coordinator in the Center for Bioinformatics and Computation Biology, is the GSO’s first employee member.

She fell in love with its music at a 2008 performance, despite not recognizing most of the songs.

“The fact that these pieces can be removed from their gamer environment and enjoyed on their own is what makes it fascinating to me,” says Cross, who sings in Latin, Russian, Japanese or made-up languages while her husband, Joe, plays French horn and her daughter, Stephanie, plays viola.

A winter concert is scheduled for Dec. 11 at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Dekelboum Concert Hall. —KM

“ When you play the games for real, you can only enjoy them with a few friends. But in a concert hall, you get to rub shoulders with hundreds of people who felt the same excitement about [pivotal] game moments as you did.”

—Robert Garner, GSO president

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MarylandLive Fall at Maryland is all about warm welcomes, with the arrival of new students, the rollout of inviting performances, programs and exhibits for the public to enjoy and, of course, the return of so many alumni to Homecoming.

“Greetings from Vacationland: Early Postcards and the Rise of Leisure in the United States, 1890–1920” THROUGH JULY 2011 Hornbake Library University Libraries explore the emergence of the American picture postcard at the dawn of the 20th century, when growing numbers of Americans had the time to travel to vacation destinations. This exhibit features a selection of the university’s collection of more than 20,000 historic postcards on subjects including World Fairs, amusement parks, resorts, national parks and historic sites.

“Panther and Crane” Oct. 14–16, 8 p.m.

Oct. 16, 3 p.m.

Dance Theatre IBEX Puppetry’s Heather Henson carries on the legacy of her father, Jim Henson ’60, through her own artistic vision, using puppetry, animation, kite work, music and colored lights to weave a world of mythic imagery and dreamlike metaphor. “Panther and Crane,” commissioned by the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Md., tells the story of a young crane’s journey of survival through Florida’s ecosystem—its wild places and its sprawling manmade landscape.

The First Year Book Program Presents Sheryl WuDunn, co-author of “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide”

Alumni Association Homecoming Backyard Bash

Oct. 30 Three hours prior to kickoff Sponsored by GEICO

Oct. 27, 3 P.M.

Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center

Hoff Theater

hot li ne

“Women hold up half the sky,” according to a Chinese proverb, yet they are marginalized in much of the world. In this book, provided to all freshmen in hopes of encouraging a dialogue, Pulitzer Prize winners Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristof share the courageous stories of women in developing countries breaking free from lives of sexual slavery, gang rape or poor maternal health through education and microfinance strategies. They make a powerful case for how social entrepreneurs can help change the world.

Alumni Association 301.405.4678 or 800.336.8627 www.alumni.umd.edu Athletics 301.314.7070 (Ticket Office) www.umterps.com Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center 301.405.arts (Ticket Office) www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu First Year Book www.firstyearbook.umd.edu University Libraries 301.405.0800 www.lib.umd.edu/mdrm/gallery/postcards/index.html

IBEX images courtesy of CSPAC; postcards courtesy of hornbake library; homecoming logo courtesy of alumni association; first year book photo by john t. consoli

Open to all, but free for alumni association members, this celebratory event features tailgate fare, beverages and live music. Reunite with former classmates and friends at this all-inclusive party for alumni and friends in the center’s Moxley Gardens.

2010 Homecoming and Reunion Weekend

Oct. 29–30

Throughout campus Return to Maryland and come together with friends—new and old—during Homecoming and Reunion Weekend. The campus will be hopping with festive activities for all. Come play it again in 2010.

Homecoming parade filled with floats, live music, special guests and more.

Oct. 29, Main Administration Building Maryland Alumni Association Homecoming Festival and Backyard Bash with activities for the entire family, game fare and beverages.

Oct. 30, Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center (three hours prior to kickoff ) Maryland vs. Wake Forest. The Terps take on the Demon Deacons in an exciting ACC matchup.

Oct. 30, Capital One Field at Byrd Stadium

A you ng ph ysicist h elps pav e th e way for a n in novati v e pa rtn er ship in th e fight aga inst ca ncer

By Tom V entsi a s

Physics doctoral student Colin McCann arrived at the National Cancer Institute, or NCI, expecting to follow the research drill in his field: write equations, crunch numbers and get answers. ¶ What he got was a longterm run-in with a simple amoeba found

in most decaying soils and leaves, an “ah-ha” moment with a government scientist and the start of a major research collaboration to create new diagnostic tools and treatments for cancer. ¶ McCann, working with advisers from Maryland and the NCI, combined

the two disparate disciplines of physics and cell biology, quantifying data on how the amoeba cells “talk” to each other before migrating to a different location—and opening new avenues of discovery in the fight against cancer.

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Doctoral student Colin McCann, above, benefits from having advisers in disparate fields: Carole Parent in cell biology and Wolfgang Losert in physics, both shown behind McCann.

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hen I first started, it wasn’t exactly clear what type of knowledge or expertise that each side could contribute,” says McCann. “I’ve since come to understand very clearly why cell biologists approach their research the way they do.You can’t always fit the complexities of a cell into an equation.”

The work of McCann, his advisers Wolfgang Losert, an associate professor of physics at Maryland, and Carole Parent, a senior investigator at the NCI, formed the foundation for an agreement signed in May by the university and the NCI’s Center for Cancer Research establishing the Graduate Partnership Program in Cancer Technology.

The program, only the second of its kind with the NCI, joins Maryland faculty, graduate students and postdocs in less-traditional cancer fields such as computational biology, bioengineering, physics and math with government cancer experts in hopes of encouraging groundbreaking research into the devastating disease that kills more than a halfmillion Americans each year.

“I think scientific breakthroughs are made at the margins between disciplines—where different scientific

top photo by john t. consoli

fields overlap and people are not really sure where their collaborations may take them,” says David Levens, M.D., a senior NCI pathologist. “I will be surprised if this [research collaboration] doesn’t go somewhere important and interesting and practical.”

Levens helped spark the partnership, four years ago, when he came across a question in his genetics lab that he believed could be answered using sophisticated mathematical models. The problem, he says, is that while the National Institutes of Health is unsurpassed in its infrastructure and expertise, “it’s not the type of place where you can just pick up the phone and ask for a top-level mathematician or physicist to drop over and lend a hand.”

Drew Baden, the chair of Maryland’s physics department, happened to be a neighbor of Levens, prompting the professional version of borrowing a cup of sugar: Levens asked if he could use some of the university’s physics and math experts.

CI(t,i)=cos[θi(

“scientific breakthroughs are made at the margins between disciplines” —David Levens, M.D., senior NCI pathologist

“We have the premier physical sciences program south of Princeton, and with some of the nation’s best cell biologists and cancer experts located right around the Beltway at the NCI, it was a perfect match,” Baden says.

With Baden, Losert and others understood that the immense amounts of raw data being collected at the NCI through new imaging technologies and genomic sequencing machines could benefit from quantitative analysis provided by Maryland’s physicists and mathematicians.

“We can see much more than ever of what’s going on, but we need the models in physics and math to understand what it is we’re looking at,” says Losert, who will direct the new cancer technology partnership with the NCI. For McCann, the chance to work at the NCI seemed like a prime opportunity. He was already working with Losert on modeling the ability of cells to sense chemical gradients—a key step in understanding how cells migrate in complex environments.

If the physicists could develop quantitative models on the movement of healthy cells, it might give cancer experts new ideas on how to stop malignant cells from moving, or metastasizing, which is what makes cancer so deadly.

McCann set to work in Parent’s laboratory studying Dictostelium discoideum, a so-called “social amoeba” that is of interest in human cancer research because its life cycle of movement, chemical signaling and development are applicable to malignant cells.

He was used to chaos theory, nonlinear dynamics and statistical mechanics providing definitive answers to complex questions. But at the NCI, home to some of the world’s top cell biologists, biochemists and geneticists, McCann

came face-to-face with the incredible complexity of biological systems, where many factors can influence an apparently simple response. After a year of exhaustive analysis, frustration began to set in.

“I had gathered quite a bit of data, but started to ask myself, ‘What can we do Agreement Spurs with this? How can we analyze it in a New Research way that has some sort of biological

relevance?’” he recalls.

The agreement between the The answer came when University of Maryland and the Center another scientist in Parent’s for Cancer Research at the National lab began to take notice of Cancer Institute will include professional McCann’s extensive modeland academic exchanges. Projects under ing of the cell’s migratory consideration include having government movements: particularly, the researchers work with: signaling traits that told the groups of cells not • Computational biologists in Maryland’s Center only when to move, but for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology to where to go. help pinpoint genetic markers that might predict “Colin and Wolfgang why certain cells become malignant. have a means to quantify the data that • Researchers in the Fischell Department of are quite specialized, Bioengineering hope to design nanoscale drug and that I could not delivery systems that kill cancer cells and deliver do on my own,” says contrasting agents that can help identify cancer Parent. “There was a growths. This collaboration includes medical bit of a learning curve experts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. for the physicists when they got here, but I’ve • Maryland faculty in the Department of always had confidence” Mathematics to develop models in medicine that the collaboration and biology with an emphasis on tumor between Maryland and the immunology, cancer dynamics, immunity NCI would benefit everyone regulation and drug resistance. involved.

“Not only have we turned • Physicists in the university’s Institute for Colin into a cell biologist of sorts, Research in Electronics and Applied and this will help him immensely Physics to produce energetic in his career,” she says, “but the sources for cancer treatments involving particle therapy. people in my lab are now able to think more like physicists.” TERP

McCann is using the equation below to determine a cell's efficiency in "finding" a point of interest, like this glass pipette emitting an attractant (left).

os[θi(t)]=[ui(t)°̂ri(t)]/|ui(t)| 



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Digging up

JIrishv RootsL

by cathleen mccarthy

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anthropology dig in texas, md. explores post-famine immigration wave

O

n a steamy summer day, five Maryland students joke quietly as they shovel dirt by the railroad tracks near Cockeysville, a few miles north of Baltimore. So far, they’ve produced a pile of foundation stones and some shards of pottery and glass: a landfill.

Here at the bottom of Church Lane, a narrow road lined with shabby 19th-century duplexes and hidden from a Home Depot parking lot, the students—mostly junior and senior anthropology majors—are digging at the center of what was once a boisterous village filled with sweaty, hard-drinking Irish laborers and their families, so rough-and-tumble they dubbed their town “Texas.”

It’s been a century and a half since the Great Famine (1845-1852) devastated Ireland and accounted for nearly half of all immigration to the U.S. at the time. The students are in their second year of unearthing the gritty reality those immigrants faced in towns like this, sandwiched between the quarries and railroad tracks where they labored. “Texas is important on an international stage, as a part of the Irish diaspora and America’s heritage as a haven for immigrants,” says Stephen Brighton, assistant professor of anthropology.

He and his students are excavating this rural village settled in 1848, in hopes of revealing how those immigrants recreated their lives in the U.S. “Texas represents every forgotten and pushed-aside small industrial village rising too quickly during America’s Industrial Revolution, and then, in a few decades, just as rapidly disappearing when

cheaper sources were found,” says Brighton.

“What time, history and the broader memory forget are the people who were key to building America.”

Doctoral student Adam Fracchia ’06 serves as field director on the dig, having helped in the first stage of the excavation last summer.

He’s writing his dissertation on Texas and its relation to the building of Baltimore. “The Irish were brought here because they were cheap labor. This is a landscape of exploitation in a way,” Fracchia says. “The same mentality exists today. If you think about Texas as somewhere in China or India—we go where we can get the cheapest materials. When the industry becomes mechanized, you don’t need that anymore.

You don’t need these people and, in a sense, you don’t need this town.”

“It is high time something was done … to stop this system of high-handed rowdyism.”­ — Baltimore County Advocate (1853) Texas was designed in the style of a typical Irish village: A Catholic church was built in 1852 (and still stands) at the top of the hill while taverns (now gone) clustered at the bottom.

Those pubs were just as central to village life as the church. The most enduring was known at the turn of the last century as Doyle’s and, later, McDermott’s. It thrived even during Prohibition (temperance being a fad the local Irish chose to ignore) and lasted into the 1990s. A road was built on that site so it can’t be excavated, but Brighton and his team were excited to find a 5-cent beer token stamped “McDermott” last summer.

Doyle’s/McDermott’s was not the kind of friendly, corner pub an out-of-towner could wander into for a pint and a song. It was a watering hole for the local quarrymen, and woe to any stranger who wandered in looking for work.

Baltimore newspapers from that era carry reports

Assistant Professor Stephen Brighton (right) has been leading the investigation of the former Baltimore County community of Texas to learn more about the Irish immigrant experience.

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of mysterious beatings that took place late at night near the railroad tracks.“The village of Texas has again been the scene of a series of transactions that serve to show that the place is not wrongly named,” reported the Baltimore County Advocate in 1853.

“It is high time something was done … to stop this system of high-handed rowdyism.”

Additional reports from The Sun leave an impression of a town somewhere between a working-class Irish village and Deadwood, the cutthroat Black Hills gold-mining town made famous on hbo.

A handbill posted around town warned strangers from coming there to work “on peril of their lives.”

“They drove away anybody who wasn’t Irish,” says John McGrain, a Baltimore County historian.

“It’s funny, in many places, the Irish seem to have been downtrodden. Not so much in Texas.

The Irish laborers there were well-rooted and rather sassy. Some even rose to ownership of the small quarries.”

Tahitia Morin ’11 was part of the team that unearthed at least four saints’ medallions once owned by the Catholic settlers. Last year’s big find: a five-cent beer token.

Even the toughest among them showed up for Sunday services. St. Joseph’s still presides over the valley below, but nothing remains of the town center, demolished in the 1990s to build access roads for the Lefarge Texas Quarry. The sign marking the quarry entrance is the only visible evidence that there ever was a town called Texas.

McGrain is pleased to help Brighton and his students with background information.

“Archaeology gives you physical discoveries that anchor and amplify what’s been collected from printed sources and oral history,” he says. “It gives you one more dimension to work with. Maryland has had a tremendously successful run of archeological projects. I think it’s been a golden age for local archaeology.”

Following the trail of the outcast Irish occasionally leads Brighton and his students beyond the Maryland border. Last fall, they helped excavate a mass grave of 57 Irish laborers who contracted cholera while laying rails outside Philadelphia in the 1830s and were buried, unceremoniously, beside what is now a popular commuter route.

No bodies are expected to turn up at the Texas site. Brighton believes, from census data, that his students are excavating a dressmaker’s shop, located near the first homes built in Texas and just over the hill from the abandoned lime kilns. The students will spend the academic year analyzing their discoveries.

By early July, the students found several artifacts dating between 1830 and 1880, the period when Texas and Irish immigration were at a peak: four saints medallions reflecting the strong Catholic faith of the villagers, and children’s toys—marbles, fragments of a tea set, the china head of a doll known as a Frozen Charlotte. These reveal a sense of family and of leisure time. “We know now, for example, that the children weren’t simply carted off to work in the quarries 24-7,” says Brighton.

“It’s the silent majority, the everyday laborer and his or her family, that is represented in this type of archaeology,” Brighton says. “It manifests something almost everyone can relate to: our own heritage and history.” TERP

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1

TERP

winter 2010

Hasan Elahi,

By Monette Austin Bailey

a Bangladesh-born, Brooklyn-bred artist, was wrapping up a nine-country work trip in June 2002 when he learned he’d been put on the FBI’s terror watchlist.

Mistakenly accused of collecting explosives in his Tampa storage unit, a jetlagged Elahi was detained in the Detroit airport.

Over seven months, he and his family endured repeated questioning by the FBI; he underwent—and passed—nine polygraph tests; and agents combed through his many travel itineraries and personal information.

Then, with no explanation, he was cleared.

His sense of security shaken, his privacy violated, he began to take back some semblance of control—by giving away some of that privacy. He documents every meal and ATM transaction, his current location and even the restrooms he’s used and posts the evidence on his website, www.trackingtransience.net, for all to see.

Yet the more than 42,000 images don’t include him or other people and they appear haphazardly, often without captions or context. Now an associate professor at Maryland, he says. the FBI, or any other interested party, is welcome to sift through the data and organize it.

“It’s intentionally user-unfriendly,” he says, so that through the randomness, “you come to the realization that this could be you.”

Elahi, who has been featured on “The CBS Evening News,” in Wired magazine and even on “The Colbert Report,” is bringing his unique experiences, tech savvy and artistic creativity to the College of Arts and Humanities. He joined the faculty this fall with Tara Rodgers (women’s studies) and Jason Farman (American studies) as part of its increased emphasis on digital humanities, media and culture. [See sidebar.]

Dean Jim Harris says the college seeks to be a national leader in the field and this trio expands its expertise enormously.

“Hasan has made technology a daily part of his art form and life. Tara does the same with sound; we’re building a lab for her.

Jason is already experienced in finding ways for students to use all of this.”

Elahi’s art is fed by his tracking project.

Using the trappings of wired life, he explores “issues of surveillance, simulated time, transport systems, borders and frontiers.”

He claims that he came to the discipline of art without having any discipline. “I was one of those kids really interested in just about anything. You couldn’t major in that, and the structure of the school system didn’t fit with my lack of attention span,” he says with a laugh. “I switched majors, schools.”

An uncle brought him a college catalog, and Elahi discovered that with only 27 more credits, he could get an undergraduate art degree. “It sounds frivolous. Then I met

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Previous pages: “Interstate,” an artwork of digital images by Associate Professor Hasan Elahi (below).

“Un/Real Time,” seven-channel media installation, as installed at Hebbel-am-Ufer, Berlin, 2008.

some people that made me re-evaluate and focus on what I was doing well.”

He went on to earn a master’s degree in fine arts while picking up technical skills. Elahi has taught at several universities, including Rutgers, South Florida and, most recently, San Jose State, while producing his multimedia works.

“The way I create is idea-driven, not discipline-driven, such as being a painter or a sculptor. I think of creative problems to solve and which tools best articulate my idea. Sometimes I’m sandblasting marble.”

He’s had installations presented at major venues and events such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Sundance Film Festival and at the Venice Biennale in Italy. Earlier this year, the nonprofit Creative Capital provided funds to turn www. trackingtransience.net into an art project that debuted at SITE Santa Fe, a contemporary arts exhibition space in New Mexico.

At one end of a long, dark room, 21 monitors hang from the ceiling in a geographic representation of the United States.The upper left-hand monitor, for example, flashes images of the Pacific Northwest; the lower right one displays images from Florida.

“He’s got some very interesting ideas about making art,” says Michael Klein, an independent dealer and curator who works with Elahi. “He’s made real art out of a crisis, taken it to kind of an obsession: ‘I’m going to give you so much information that you’re not going to know what to do with it.’

“We’ve reached a level of insanity in America in that we’ve abandoned our freedom for some sense of security. Hasan’s work is trying to explore all of that with some sense of humor.”

While he may chuckle now, Elahi, an American citizen, wasn’t laughing when he learned that an anonymous tipster called the FBI to report he’d made a final rental payment on his storage unit on Sept. 12, 2001. It held no explosives, and Elahi was never

charged, but from then until 2003, he called the same FBI agent whenever he was traveling to let him know where and for how long. Then he took to sending e-mail messages with ideas like, “You should really consider vacationing here.” All he ever received in reply was, “Thank you, be safe.”

So intrigued was physicist and author Albert-László Barbási

by Elahi’s surveillance project and art that he devoted the first chapter of his book to him. Released in May, “Bursts: The Hidden Pattern Behind Everything We Do” outlines Barabási’s work on the ability, thanks to increasing access to people’s electronic paper trails, to predict bursts of human behavior from patterns of seemingly random events with approximately 90 percent accuracy. Yet Elahi’s thousands of miles traveled— approximately 100,000 last year—stumped Barabási’s system.

“He’s really a fascinating character. I call him an ‘outlier’ because of his unpredictability,” he says.

The pair collaborated on one of Elahi’s pieces at SITE: a data map Barabási created out of Elahi’s travel log covering one year, scrolling over a large orb on the floor. Simply, it is a mathematical representation of his travels.

Elahi looks forward to creating similar partnerships at Maryland, though with more of a focus on art as a profession.

He’d like to help students think about how they work, the business of being an artist. He directs a graduate colloquium and is developing a course to be taught in the spring in the Department of Art. He also works with undergraduates in the Digital Cultures and Creativity Honors living and learning community.

The university’s “incredible people,” location, connections to esteemed cultural institutions and commitment to high-level research make it a great place to work, he says. “And how can I resist being close to the NSA, CIA and FBI?” TERP

College Redefines Humanities With Tech Focus The College of Arts and Humanities is building its strength in the growing field of digital humanities, media and cultures, which encompasses everything from creating interactive novels and exploring virtual worlds to studying electronic music and cyber art.

Tara Rodgers and James Farman, assistant professors, and Associate Professor Hasan Elahi, joined the faculty this fall, fulfilliling Dean Jim Harris’ goal to bring “the

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best young professors in the world who are using technology in the humanities” to Maryland.

Rodgers (women’s studies) combines analog (vs. digital) synthesizers, computers, ambient sound and traditional musical instruments to create sound art. She also explores the cultural history and politics of music and technology.

“It’s crucial to ask how the intersections of gender, race, class … are implicated in who has access

to digital media,” she says.

Farman (American studies), former director of Washington State University’s Digital Technology and Culture program, explores gaming and theater cybercultures. He also helps students think critically about how they use new media, especially mobile technology, and how it “redefines the spaces we interact with … and the way we understand our environments.”

Digitally savvy students are also

learning from experts in the college’s internationally recognized Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and from faculty in the College of Information Studies’ Human-Computer Interaction Lab and other schools.

“We hope we’re preparing students for a world that is increasingly technology-driven,” Harris says. installation photo by Sebastian Heise Elahi photo by john T. consoli

New Chapel Garden, Labyrinth Plant Seeds for Reflection The campus community has long

been drawn inside Memorial Chapel to seek peace and spiritual renewal. Now guests can find it outside.

On homecoming weekend, Oct. 29–30, the university will officially open its Garden of Reflection and Remembrance, featuring a landscaped labyrinth, pathways and water elements that all encourage quiet thought, an oasis amid the bustling campus.

The project began more than three years ago, when Marsha GuenzlerStevens started thinking about how to answer a question posed by a student in her University 100 class: “Where do you go on campus to restore your soul?”

The director of activities and associate director of the Adele H. Stamp Student Union-Center for Campus Life secured

garden of reflection sketch by scott munroe

a $200,000 grant from the nonprofit TKF Foundation, which supports the construction of public green spaces in urban settings, called “open spaces, sacred places.”

The foundation worked with Guenzler-Stevens, a steering committee, the Division of Student Affairs, Facilities Management, the university chaplains and landscape architecture students to produce a design.

The garden’s most distinctive feature is a labyrinth 53 feet in diameter, made of gray granite, with plantings of thyme delineating the path. The journey through the intricate series of turns encourages visitors to be contemplative.

Reflecting the university’s commitment to sustainability, the walkways and pavers are made of recycled rubber and PVC. Near the West Chapel garden, a circular,

millwheel-like fountain sends water bubbling over the center. A second fountain slowly pours water over a flat rectangular block of granite to create a reflecting surface.

Through the use of the naturally purifying element of water, the incorporation of the labyrinth and the orientation on an east-west axis, to follow the rising and setting of the sun, the garden honors the many faith traditions on campus.

University landscape architect Scott Munroe, who finalized the design, says the site also adds a new botanical feature to the campus arboretum.

“It’s going to enhance the services and ability of what the campus provides, for spiritual building, for events, for giving the people a quiet place to go and re-center themselves,” he says. —LB

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Deaf Dentist’s Scholarship Puts Smiles on Undergrads’ Faces To Steven Rattner ’77, the 200-person chemistry

lecture class was an isolating cocoon of silence.

Fourteen years prior to passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, there were no sign language interpreters or other classroom accommodations for deaf students at Maryland. Professors who walked around the room made lip reading impossible. What Rattner did have was free access to the copy center to duplicate lecture notes shared by lots of helpful classmates and a determination to graduate and become a dentist.

Now one of only a few deaf or hearing-impaired dentists across the country, Rattner has 4,000 patients in his practice, at least 30 percent of whom are deaf. And he’s committed to helping other students facing challenges in earning their degrees.

“I’m doing very well now, and I’ve been reading and hearing about many students being unable to complete college due to financial difficulties,” Rattner says. “I feel it’s time for me to help.”

In 2004 he established the Rattner Family Scholarship to honor his father, who worked his way

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through college, and began making annual donations to help five students enrolled in Maryland’s biological sciences program at the Universities at Shady Grove. Rattner recently made a formal commitment to sustain this effort for the next five years. “And I hope to keep it going for the rest of my life,” he says.

One recipient, Amy Kallarackal ’09, now a microbiology assistant with the Gaithersburg biotechnology firm OpGen, says the scholarship made a difference for her family, especially because she had another sibling in college at the same time.

“I already had a lot of student loans, and the scholarship helped me complete my last semester with less debt,” says Kallarackal. “It also inspired me to work harder in my studies and finish my degree with an improved GPA.” Rattner’s own perseverance showed itself at an early age. He became an accomplished lip reader and began transitioning out of special education classes when he was 9 years old. By age 14 he was fully mainstreamed into the regular classroom.

photo by john t. consoli

$ “I’m doing very well now, and I’ve been reading and hearing about many students being unable to complete college due to financial difficulties. I feel it’s time for me to help.”—Steven Rattner ’77

“Growing up, I really had to work hard,” says Rattner, “but my family was wonderfully supportive and encouraging.”

When it was time to decide on college, however, his brother’s experience at Maryland gave Rattner pause.

“Barnett (’72, M.S. ’74, Ph.D. ’77) was a good student and could hear, but he initially had a tough time. I was afraid of what it would be like for me as a deaf student,” he recalls.

“But after two years at Montgomery College, I gained more confidence and transferred to Maryland to major in chemistry.”

William Higgins, associate professor of biology in the College of Chemical and Life Sciences, recalls Rattner’s confident determination. “When he got here, it was clear he knew he was going to go to dental school. Nothing was going to stop him,” says Higgins.

Rattner earned his degree in chemistry before going to the University of Maryland Dental School and again overcoming the lack of accommodations for deaf students.

Today his dental practice, with offices in College Park and Gaithersburg, Md., has 14 employees and often hires student interns from Maryland. —CR

Students Show Appetite for Dining-Points Donation Program The Student Government Association has a better way to use leftover dining points than end-of-the-semester food binges.

This fall, the sga is sponsoring a dining-points donation drive to raise money for fellow Terps in need. Last spring’s first such drive raised $44,700 for emergency financial aid, distributed through the Keep Me Maryland initiative.

“It is so wonderful to see the students uniting together to help fellow students,” says Sarah Bauder, the university’s financial aid director. “I’m amazed at how very unpredictable the economy has been, and it is impacting all segments of society.

No one is exempt.”

Keep Me Maryland, launched in 2009, has raised over $300,000 to provide aid to students hit by the national economic downturn. Appeals for emergency financial support are coming in at triple the historical pace, Bauder says.

In three weeks in March, the drive spearheaded by sga President Steve Glickman drew contributions from more than 1,180 students, for a total of $22,700. Longtime benefactors Suzanne and Murray Valenstein ’40 and Bob Facchina ’77 were inspired by the students’ efforts and matched the gift with $22,000.

“Continuing this program will help ease the burden that these students face and allow them to graduate as Terps,” Glickman says. “Current students collaborating with our alumni to give back to those in need truly embodies the Terp spirit.”—BC

$1 BILLION

campaign total

$765 million as of Sept. 30, 2010

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Band Alums Still Drumming Up Support

Economist’s Gift Values Teaching Business History

Bill Meyers ’61, who as a student led the percussion sec-

A new endowed teaching fellowship at Maryland will

tion of the Mighty Sound of Maryland, unexpectedly reprised that role earlier this year when the marching band gave him a surprise serenade at his 70th birthday party.

“I try not to let anything surprise me, but this one did,” Meyers says. He led the band’s rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In” as they saluted him and his wife, Karen, two of its own saints.

The Meyerses are steadfast band supporters who commissioned the “Hear the Turtle” terrapin statue that stands in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and have made enormous batches of candy turtles to fuel the band through practices. Most recently, they donated $10,000 to the band, allowing Director L. Richmond Sparks to determine how best to spend it. The money will help fund a band recognition event and the purchase of much-needed instruments.

To Bill and Karen, it’s all a way to give back to the group that gave them leadership experience, camaraderie and most important, each other.

“We’ve always had a soft spot for the band, obviously,” Karen says. As a student, Karen played the glockenspiel in Bill’s section, and he repeatedly informed her she had no rhythm. Nevertheless, they went on a first date during a band trip to Syracuse, N.Y. In June, Bill and Karen celebrated their 49th anniversary.

“I think that [the Meyers gift] is a testimony to the impact this band program has had in the lives of so many students over its 100year history,” Sparks says. —PK

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help show students that the best way to examine our economy today may be to look at its past.

The Robert H. Smith School of Business received $1 million from the Henry and Elaine Kaufman Foundation to support a teaching fellowship in business history, in affiliation with the school’s Center for Financial Policy. Henry Kaufman, a leading Wall Street economist who earned the name “Dr. Doom” for his bearish predictions in the ’70s and ’80s, believes a generous dose of historical perspective will help young leaders understand the human motivations behind the movement of capital.

“I always thought business history should be taught at a more prominent level in universities.You know what they say, those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it,” says Kaufman.

The gift followed his talks at the university last fall about the current financial crisis and his recent book, “The Road to Financial Reformation: Warnings, Consequences, Reforms.”

Starting in the spring, history Professor David Sicilia, the first Henry Kaufman Fellow of Business History, will teach an M.B.A.-level course on capitalism, what it —Henry Kaufman does and doesn’t do well and its workings at different times and places around the world. A course on financial history will be offered later.

“There are striking patterns between this and past crises and overexpansion of credit across the globe,” Sicilia says.

“Our students were born when Bill Clinton or George H.W. Bush was president, so they’ve heard about things like the S&L crisis of the ’80s or the Enron crisis, but now they’ll have an opportunity to study these things in depth and derive the historical lessons from them.” —CH

“I always thought business history should be taught at a more prominent level in universities.

You know what they say, those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it.”

kaufman illustration by web bryant

Make your mark on Maryland cheer join share volunteer give

As Wylie and Miriam Burgess unload boxes to move their daughter Erica into an athlete’s suite in Kent Hall in August, they thought about seeing her play in a Terps uniform for the first time.

“That will definitely be a Kleenex tissue day,” Wylie said.

Sentimental Sendoff Party for Atlanta Hosts Wylie Burgess ’87, president of the Atlanta Alumni Club, has long been a “go-to” person for parents and their future Terps. He answers questions between plays at football and basketball game watch parties, organizes recruitment events and hosts the Summer Sendoff party in his adopted hometown to bring together the latest crop of freshmen and their families.

This year, however, when Burgess and his wife, Miriam ’87, opened their home to 25 Atlanta-area students who said “yes” to Maryland, it was more than just another Summer Sendoff. Their daughter, Erica, was among the new freshmen, and they were taking on yet another role to support the university, that of Terrapin parents.

“We just felt so much excitement and pride that our daughter was really becoming a Terp,” Wylie said. “She had attended many of the past sendoff events, but this year it was her turn, and she was going with a spot on the Terrapin softball team.”

When Erica was 11 she had declared, “One day I’m going to play softball at Maryland.” That dream was never out of sight as she attended the alumni events hosted by her parents: She always added a class year of ’14 to her nametag.

photos by john t. consoli

By any standard, Wylie and Miriam are huge Terrapin fans. The license plates on their cars are “TERPS 1” and “4-TERPS,” for the four members of their family (a son, Steven, just started high school). They

meet people with a common bond, make business connections and also help the university build its base of support. “Our goal is to connect people back to the Maryland family,” he says.

“We just felt so much excitement and pride that our daughter was really becoming a Terp.”—wylie burgess ’87 regularly wear Maryland apparel around Atlanta and help host alumni gatherings, including an annual crab feast that attracts some 150 attendees. Plus they travel across the country to attend Terps football and basketball games, rarely missing a bowl or playoff appearance, and even get in a few softball games.

“Maryland is a very important part of our lives,” says Miriam.

“Maryland is in my heart; it’s a part of who I am,” adds Wylie, who grew up on basketball in Cole Field House, accompanying his season-ticket-holding parents to Terps games.

But when you live in another state, he says, you have to work to maintain those connections. The Burgesses have found that the Atlanta Alumni Club and events like the Summer Sendoff are great ways to

For brand-new Terps and their families, those connections often begin at the sendoff events, hosted this year by alumni in Northern New Jersey, Long Island, Philadelphia, Boston, Denver and Miami.

This year as the Atlanta students got acquainted with each other and alumni, the parents made plans for Family Weekend—and the Burgesses were leading the way.—CR

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Interpretations With New Leadership, Student Support Remains a Priority

“ The University of Maryland has stepped up to meet these challenges, through careful planning, quickly addressing unforeseen circumstances and an unstoppable Terrapin spirit that stares down any challenge.”

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the University of Maryland’s new president, Wallace D. Loh, officially starts on Nov. 1, but he has enthusiastically embraced the role already through his efforts to listen and learn about our community and his meetings with students, faculty, staff, alumni and other university stakeholders.

Loh has movingly talked about how education transformed his life, and how he wants current and future Terps to have the same opportunities he had. To reinforce this point, he and his wife, Barbara, recently made a gift of $100,000 to the university for need-based scholarships.

Their generosity reinforces the value of private support to the university as we press ahead to complete our Great Expectations campaign, which just topped the $765 million mark.

More than one-third of the campaign’s $1 billion goal—$350 million—is being sought for student support. Overall, more than 100,000 donors have already given to Great Expectations, with many offering not only financial support, but also mentoring, internships and employment opportunities for students.

Others have contributed to the Keep Me Maryland initiative, an emergency financial aid program launched last year.

More than $500,000 has been raised to help students at risk of leaving the university due to sudden economic hardship.

And that is thanks to alumni like you.

Victoria Yorke ’82 endowed a scholarship fund for undergraduates planning to attend medical, dental or veterinary school, while also supporting the advising program that helps students apply to these professional schools. Dan Rice ’91 has encouraged fellow Terps to take advantage of matching corporate gift programs that can turn

small gifts into a big impact for Maryland.

Bruce Berlage ’56 and his wife, Donna, support the Alternative Breaks Program, allowing students to participate in community service and help communities in need worldwide.

Your contributions make a difference and are more important than ever to maintaining the university’s commitment to quality education and affordable access.

The economic outlook remains uncertain, and state funding, now representing less than 25 percent of our budget, is stagnant or declining. But Maryland, by being more entrepreneurial, efficient and creative and through the generosity and involvement of its alumni, continues to meet all challenges.

That unstoppable Terrapin spirit and sense of purpose are stronger than ever at Maryland, and I would be remiss if I did not personally acknowledge the role that Dan Mote has played in its growth. Under his leadership, the university saw a tremendous increase in the quality of its students along with many new opportunities for them to learn and grow both in and out of the classroom.

Dan Mote built upon the leadership of previous presidents and helped a very good university transform into a great one. Now, with Wallace Loh set to take the helm, the university community has great expectations that he will elevate our university into one of the world’s best.

Dan Mote took a very good university and transformed it into a great university.

Now, with Wallace Loh set to take the helm, the university community has great expectations that he will elevate our university into one of the world’s best.

Brodie Remington Vice President for University Relations

photo by john t. consoli

y We take the status quo, crumple it into a ball and throw it in the trash.

We embrace challenges. We take what is undoable and do it. If a problem seems too big to overcome, we’re already working on the solution. That’s what it means to be a Terrapin.

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JOIN + GIVE

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Think of it as a Terrapin

two-point conversion.

Join the Maryland Alumni Association and make an annual gift through the Maryland Fund for Excellence this fall. It’s as easy as cheering for the home team.

With a single click or a solitary stamp, you can Join In and Give Back showing the world that you’re a whole Terp. Or join and give in person during Homecoming, Oct. 29-30. Come together with friends, cheer on the Terps and support Maryland.

For more details visit alumni.umd.edu.

By helping the university, you’ll feel like you’ve scored the winning touchdown!

V I S I T S U P P O R T U M . U M D . E D U T O J O I N I N A N D G I V E B A C K T O D AY.

* All gifts to the University of Maryland are tax-deductible as allowed by law. See your tax adviser for details.