University of Maryland Giving Newsletter: January 2017 | Passion

PASSION A N E W S L E T T E R F OR S U PP ORT E R S OF T H E U N I V E R S I T Y OF M A RY L A N D / JA N UA RY 2 0 17

TO INSPIRE MARYLAND PRIDE / CURIOSITY TO DISCOVER NEW KNOWLEDGE / INSPIRATION TO TRANSFORM THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE / BOLDNESS TO TURN IMAGINATION INTO INNOVATION

BUILDING A BETTER

BRAIN New Cole to Focus on Traumatic Brain Injury

Namesakes Give $3M More to Hillman Entrepreneurs / PGS. 2-3 Foundation Gift Brightens Plans for MilkBoy ArtHouse / PG. 7

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AIMING FOR THE STARS MARS Hillman Entrepreneurs Program Helps Launch Students’ Careers

By Chris Carroll

DAVID AND SUSAN HILLMAN

The University of Maryland is the proud flagship institution for the state of Maryland, with a mission of service that compels us to discover new knowledge and apply it for the betterment of our citizens. As the state’s flagship, we also serve as a source of pride for alumni and friends across the globe.

We find pride in our scientific breakthroughs, in our students’ and faculty’s innovative and entrepreneurial endeavors, and on the playing field. Every time they don the red, black and gold, our outstanding student-athletes proudly represent our university.

The new Cole Field House project brings together all of these components in one unique facility. Cole will be home to the Terrapin Performance Center, a state-of-the-art indoor practice facility for our football program. It will also house the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, providing design-thinking seminars, collaborative workspaces and support for the next generation of entrepreneurs.

The Center for Sports Medicine, Health and Human Performance is another key component of the Cole project. In partnership with the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the center will bring together researchers from both campuses to study critical areas of brain and behavior, including traumatic brain injury.

The combination of academics, research, innovation and athletics will make Cole Field House a facility unparalleled in higher education and will represent a point of pride for our campus, and our state.

To those of you who have supported this project, thank you. You are part of something truly special and exciting. I am pleased to share more details about this and other projects in this newsletter. Take a look and you’ll agree that we’re doing so much to Inspire Maryland Pride.

Go Terps!

Sincerely,

Peter Weiler Vice President, University Relations

0 AEROSPACE ENGINEERING MAJOR Hermann Kaptui Sipowa ’17 has long dreamed of climbing out of a spacecraft onto the surface of Mars, but as he struggled to pay rent and tuition at Montgomery College, the recent immigrant from Cameroon couldn’t even see a path to a four-year degree, let alone NASA’s astronaut program.

Then a counselor at the community college posed what seemed like an odd question: Could he be an entrepreneur?

“She described it as someone who strongly wants to bring about change and apply their knowledge to make other people’s lives better,” he said. “I identified myself in that, and she filled out the application that changed my life.”

Soon, Kaptui Sipowa was accepted into the Hillman Entrepreneurs Program, which helps students at Montgomery College and Prince George’s Community College afford an education at the University of Maryland while fostering a dynamic community of motivated entrepreneur-scholars at all three locations.

He’s one of dozens of Terps who are thriving through the David H. and Suzanne D. Hillman Family Foundation.

It established the program a decade ago and has continued to support it, most recently with a $3 million gift to fund scholarships and operation of the center.

It’s a way of strengthening

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LEARN MORE ABOUT SUPPORTING THE HILLMAN ENTREPRENEURS PROGRAM BY CONTACTING HEIDI BRUCE, DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI AFFAIRS AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE OFFICE OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES, AT HABRUCE@UMD.EDU OR 301.405.6851.

communities and families in the locations where David Hillman established and grew his successful real estate management firm, Southern Management Corp., says Suzanne Hillman, who is also a trustee for the University of Maryland College Park Foundation.

From their own entrepreneurial

success, the Hillmans wanted to nurture an “entrepreneurial ecosystem” to give students opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t have had, and develop ethical, community-focused leaders.

“When we started making some profits, investing in our communities where our buildings are located was something we

wanted to do,” she says. “We wanted to give back, and when trying to decide how to give back, we thought education is really the greatest gift you can give someone.”

The program broadly defines the term “entrepreneur,” says its director, Gül Branco. About 40 percent of students (numbering 107 at UMD and 30 each at the two community colleges) are pursuing business degrees, and the rest study subjects ranging from computer science to public health. The thread that unites them is a desire to make a difference, whether it’s leading space exploration or starting a revolutionary business, Branco says.

“We look for students who are resilient, who are persistent, who are driven, can think outside the box and who want to become leaders and take on challenges,” she says. “Then what we do is inspire them, empower them and teach them how to be entrepreneurial.”

It leads to frequent internships—and jobs—with firms like Deloitte, PwC, Acccenture, Ernst and Young, Morgan Stanley and more, she says.

Kaptui Sipowa, who plans to start an engineering Ph.D. program next fall, says the experiences in the program have been just as critical as the scholarship support.

“To have that connection to a group of people with the same will to change things, it makes you push yourself,” he says. “Any day you feel a little down, you just look around at this group.”

If he walks on Mars, he says he’ll remember the Hillman family helped put him there.

“Their input in my life was the exact point where my dreams were ignited,” he says. “I began seeing myself as someone who was moving toward being an astronaut, rather than just wishing I could.”

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BUILDING A BETTER BRAIN New Cole to Focus on Traumatic Brain Injury

FROM THE PLAYING FIELDS OF THE BIG TEN to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, traumatic brain injury

(TBI) has become a pressing medical issue. Yet those at risk aren’t just athletes strapping on football helmets or soldiers climbing into Humvees—they are drivers navigating the highways, children turning cartwheels in the yard and the elderly maneuvering tricky stairs.

Some of Cole’s biggest supporters share why they’re backing the project: “ COLE EQUALS COLLABORATION. WE’RE SUPPORTING COLE BECAUSE THIS PROJECT BRINGS OUT THE BEST OF MARYLAND: TWO CAMPUSES AND MULTIPLE SCHOOLS PARTNERING IN MEDICAL SCIENCE, CLINICAL PROGRAMS, ATHLETICS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP TO CREATE SOMETHING WE CAN ALL BE PROUD OF.”

“ I PRACTICALLY GREW UP IN COLE. I STILL HAVE MY DAD’S TICKET FROM THE HISTORIC TEXAS WESTERN GAME IN 1966! I BROUGHT MY KIDS TO THEIR FIRST GAMES AT COLE, AND THEY BOTH ENDED UP GRADUATING FROM UMD. I KNEW MY FAMILY NEEDED TO BE A PART OF THE NEXT GENERATION.”

“ WE SUPPORT COLE BECAUSE WE’RE COMMITTED TO BUILDING A FIRSTCLASS ATHLETIC PROGRAM AT MARYLAND. TO BE COMPETITIVE IN THE BIG TEN, WE NEED TO RECRUIT THE NATION’S TOP TALENT, AND COLE WILL GIVE US ONE OF THE VERY BEST ATHLETIC TRAINING FACILITIES IN THE COUNTRY.”

—Barry and Mary Gossett

—Don Scheeler ’85

— Rich ’62 and Laura Novak

TO LEARN ABOUT SUPPORTING THE NEW COLE FIELD HOUSE, CONTACT VERONICA MEINHARD, SENIOR ASSOCIATE ATHLETICS DIRECTOR AND CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER, AT MEINHARD@UMD.EDU OR 301.405.3677.

In 2010 alone, more than 2.5 million emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths were associated with TBI, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And as awareness and reporting of these injuries rise, so do questions for researchers.

“What factors control the different recovery rates for TBI?” asks University of Maryland, College Park biology Professor Elizabeth Quinlan. “What can be done to promote recovery and response?”

The Center for Sports Medicine, Health and Human Performance in the new Cole Field House at UMD will be at the forefront of tackling this public health problem and advancing the science of sport in a partnership with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB).

The center, co-directed by Quinlan and Dr. Alan Faden, the David S. Brown Professor in Trauma at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (SOM), will bring together the scientific expertise of UMD with the clinical faculties of SOM in Baltimore. It is the latest collaboration between UMD and UMB through the MPowering the State initiative, which is designed to leverage the strengths of the two institutions.

“The breadth and scope of this center is well beyond what currently exists in other sports performance centers,” Faden says. “It is intended to harness unique and complementary capabilities across the two campuses.”

The new Cole, expected to be completed in 2019, is bringing academics and entrepreneurship, football operations and athletic training together under one roof. It will have more than 40,000 square feet of research and clinical space for experts in neuroimaging, genomics and biomechanics, and an orthopedics clinic will take advances from the lab to the broader community.

Kevin Plank ’96, founder and CEO of Under Armour, pledged $25 million to launch the project and has called Cole an opportunity to “define a new era for Maryland.”

The driving focus of that new era will be to address

one of the most important medical issues of modern life.

“A significant percentage of the population will suffer a head injury,” Faden says. “The number of individuals affected is considerably larger than previously recognized.”

These injuries can cause depression, sleep disorders and cognitive decline and adversely impact a victim’s ability to function. Already, $3 million has been invested to fund cross-university, multidisciplinary studies in brain and behavior, and injury, recovery and enhancement.

Even though adult brains are much less “plastic” than those of children, research shows how to reactivate some flexibility. For example, exercise, intermittent fasting and cognitive training have the capability to limit the consequences of brain injury and to facilitate recovery.

“Each of these potential therapies may tap into the same mechanisms to promote plasticity,” Quinlan says. “When is the most important time to learn?

When you are stressed, when you are challenged, when you are in ‘fight or flight’ mode.”

Researchers at Cole, with its community of coaches, athletes, scientists and clinicians, will explore the details of these processes by creating enhanced diagnostic tools and using “big data” computing capabilities to map the brain’s litany of metabolic pathways and neuronal connections.

“We are going to utilize a wide array of advanced research tools to study the mechanisms that lead to cell death or cell dysfunction after brain injury, with the goal of improving recovery and limiting disability,” Faden says.

That is Cole’s starting point. But the true benefit, Quinlan says, is opening a door into a fuller understanding of the human brain.

“The collection of experts from diverse fields will allow us to approach problems in an exciting and highly interdisciplinary way,” she says.

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ANOTHER SCORE FOR TERPS’ WOMEN GOLFERS

By Charlie Wright ’17

0 AFTER A CAREER SPENT

breaking gender barriers in the athletic world, an emeritus faculty member has continued contributing to the University of Maryland by supporting the women’s golf program.

Betty Smith came to the university in 1970 as chair of the former Department of Textiles and Consumer Economics. She chaired the Faculty Senate for two years, and for 11 years she served as Maryland’s faculty athletic representative in the Atlantic Coast Conference, making her the first woman to do so.

“I’ve always been interested in athletics, particularly women’s athletics,” Smith says.

She’s always golfed, having played many of the great courses in Ireland and Scotland.

When Smith retired in 1996, she made a $250,000 planned gift commitment to fund a scholarship for a female student-athlete, with a preference for golf, should it become a varsity sport. She has since fully funded it, and is now boosting that commitment to $400,000. Women’s golf, to her delight, was added as a varsity sport in 2000.

This fall, she donated her College Park home to the university while retaining the right to live in the house for the rest of her life. Upon her death, the proceeds from its sale will fund a scholarship for a second female golfer at UMD. “The life estate gift of my house is a great way to provide scholarship support since it provides tax benefits to me during my lifetime rather than after my death,” she says. “It also makes it easier for the executor of my estate since the house is no longer part of the estate.”

Emily Gimpel ’14 (left), who received Smith’s scholarship, now plays professionally on the Symetra Tour, the developmental tour of the LPGA, and plans to compete in 25 events next season. She says the gift advanced her career at the university and led to her success today.

“I had all the resources I needed to grow academically as a golfer and as a student,” she says. “I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today without being at Maryland.”

He joined the Terrapin Club himself and with his wife funded a full Athletics Donors Help Women’s scholarship for a member of the women’s Basketball, Football Teams basketball team. The couple, who also Elevate Their Game has a Terp daughter, Lauren ’18, and son Kyle, a Howard Community College

By Lauren Brown freshman, also helped send the team to 0 SCOTT WILSON DOESN’T JUST ATTEND EVERY HOME Italy last year and is supporting its trip to game for the women’s basketball team.

Taiwan to represent the United States in Or nearly every away game. No, he and the World University Games. his 16-year-old son also regularly show “As you get older, you realize the up for practice in the Xfinity Center. truth in what people told you about Yet he’s still touched when the giving back,” Wilson says. “Supporting student-athletes rush to greet him and Maryland Athletics is a great give Bradley, who has special needs, high combination of supporting sports and fives and hugs. educational opportunities.”

“It’s one of a million things I could tell He’s enjoyed getting to know Head you from getting to know the team and Coach Brenda Frese and her staff and the staff,” he says. openly marvels about the team’s talents, Wilson, a longtime supporter of particularly those of his scholarship Intercollegiate Athletics, and his wife students, Malina Howard ’16 and Ellen recently made generous new gifts Kristin Confroy ’18. supporting the women’s team and the Howard (pictured above, flanked by football program, yet he feels like he’s also the Wilsons), who graduated in three reaping rewards from the relationship. years, is now finishing her prerequisites He grew up in Colesville, Md., playing for medical school while working in sports outside, watching them on TV and Maryland Athletics as a Big Ten Fellow. seeing them at Maryland, where his dad “If it weren’t for Athletics and Scott was a Terrapin Club member.

Wilson’s family, it would have been very Wilson attended Maryland briefly, hard for my family to send me to college, then spent 24 years at Duron Paints and I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to and Wall Coverings. He retired as vice realize that I want to become a doctor,” president of operations and real estate she says. “The Wilsons are definitely part when the company was sold in 2004 to of the Maryland family, and that’s what Sherwin Williams. it’s all about.”

THEIR BEST SHOT

CORRECTION

An article in the September 2016 giving newsletter incorrectly identified the academic department of donor Anthony Ephremides, Distinguished University Professor and Cynthia Kim Eminent Professor of Information Technology. It is the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

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TO LEARN ABOUT SUPPORTING MILKBOY ARTHOUSE, CONTACT MARTIN WOLLESEN AT WOLLESEN@UMD. EDU OR 301.405.2993.

WITH CAFRITZ GIFT, IT’S LIGHTS ON AT ARTHOUSE

By Lauren Brown

0 Food and drinks won’t be all that’s on the menu of MilkBoy ArtHouse, an eclectic restaurant and performance venue under construction in downtown College Park.

The space, to be operated by the university’s Clarice Smith Performing

“ArtHouse will bring the community together in a lively and welcoming environment,” says foundation Chairman Calvin Cafritz. “The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation applauds this infusion of the arts into neighborhood development. We look forward to seeing how community

Arts Center and Milkboy, the company behind a live-music club and café in

members and students engage with this creative space and the arts

Philadelphia, plans to host everything from jazz, rock, pop and global music to

experiences offered there.”

comedy, poetry readings and films.

The property on Baltimore Avenue, known in recent incarnations as the

The D.C.–focused foundation, which supports local programs in the arts and humanities, education and more, has a long relationship with The Clarice.

Barking Dog and Terrapin Station bars, is being transformed into a 100-seat

It named the center’s most intimate performance space and in 2009 gave $1

cabaret, where guests can eat and drink while enjoying performances, a 300-

million for major technology upgrades in the center.

seat traditional club upstairs and a small art gallery.

“It’s a space where you can see contemporary and emerging art forms colliding with pop culture, a place of constant discovery and exploration,” says Martin Wollesen, executive director of The Clarice. “All sorts of different folks will come to participate because of the eclectic spectrum of experiences happening there.”

The unique ambitions of the public-partnership caught the attention of the Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, which is supporting the project

MilkBoy ArtHouse, when it opens in spring 2017, will play a central role in “Greater College Park,” the development or revitalization of 30 sites on and beyond the campus.

“It’s going to be an arts landmark on the border between the university and community—a literal bridge,” Wollesen says.

Wollesen, who opened a performance lounge, restaurant and bar at the University of California, San Diego before coming to UMD, says this

with a $200,000 gift. It will fund critical infrastructure such as lighting, sound

new partnership is the first of its kind for a university. “We are innovators

and technical equipment.

and pioneers.”

University Relations Office of Marketing and Communications 2101 Turner Hall, 7736 Baltimore Ave. College Park, MD 20742

WHY WE GIVE

BY ROBERT ’73 AND TERESA MILLER

Basketball is our real love. We have been to Final Fours and conference and NCAA Tournament games. For us, a 2.5-hour drive to see the Terps play is no drive at all, and we love running into friends and colleagues at games at the Xfinity Center and beforehand at Ledo and R. J. Bentley’s. It’s a way for us to stay in touch.

As longtime university employees and men’s basketball season ticket holders, we have a deep connection to the University of Maryland.

There is so much energy on a college campus, and it was such a dynamic place to work. From the business school to The Clarice to the development office, everywhere we went there was always a sense of being connected to a higher purpose.

Not every student has the financial resources to pay for the UMD experience, and that’s why we have made a bequest of $100,000 for an undergraduate scholarship in economics (Robert’s major). UMD has made a real effort to bring the best and brightest to College Park, and everything we can do to help bring in that caliber of student is worthwhile.

So we have also bequeathed $100,000 to endow a scholarship for the men’s basketball team. It’s a “thank you” for the enjoyment that basketball has provided us.

Giving back has been our way of trying to continue the progress that the university is making, academically and athletically. It is how you keep a tradition going, and it’s a nice feeling to know that once we are no longer here, part of us will continue to be a part of this university.

Robert Miller retired in 2009 as director of finance and administration for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

Teresa retired in 2005 as director of gift acceptance in University Relations.