PRO WRESTLER TAKES MBA TO WWE / 0 6 A UNIFORM APPROACH TO POLICE TRAINING / 22 WRITE ON: HOW WORD PROCESSING CHANGED HISTORY / 26
WINTER 2017 / Connecting the University of Maryland Community
TERPS ON TAP BREWERY-OWNING ALUMS CR AF T QUALIT Y CLOSE TO HOME PG. 30
WINTER 2017 / VOL. 14, NO. 2
L E T T E R F ROM T H E E X E C U T I V E DI R E C T OR
PU BLISH ER
Peter Weiler VICE PRESIDENT, UNIVERSIT Y RELATIONS ADVISERS
Brian Ullmann ’92 ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS
Amy Eichhorst EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
Margaret Hall EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CREATIVE STRATEGIES MAGAZIN E STAFF
Lauren Brown UNIVERSIT Y EDITOR
John T. Consoli ’86 CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Hailey Hwa Shin ART DIRECTOR
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Steffanie Anne Espat ’15 Gabriela Hernandez Allison Blum Le Brian G. Payne DESIGNERS
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Jagu Cornish PRODUCTION MANAGER
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t h i s pa s t e l e c t i o n s e a s o n ,
I encourage you to show your Americans saw their counpride by working with fellow Terps try divided by political to serve those less fortunate in your ideology and rhetoric. community. Visibly and loudly share As graduates and friends your pride by wearing our colors, of the University of cheering at sporting events, visiting Maryland, however, we campus and connecting with other have so much in common. alumni in your area or with the We possess a bond as Terps. We same affinity or special interest. share pride and loyalty for the uniLastly, for those of you living versity. And wow, do we have much in Maryland, I invite you to comto be proud of. municate with your state and We are proud that Maryland federal elected officials about is consistently ranked as a top 20 something we can all agree on: public research institution and a top the importance of support for the 10 best value. We are proud of our University of Maryland. 38,000-strong student body, which The Alumni Association recently includes an admitted freshman class launched the Terp Advocacy Netwith an average gpa of 4.21. We are work, which enables alumni and proud of our faculty, which boasts friends to have their voices heard in two Nobel laureates, three Pulitzer Annapolis and in the halls of ConPrize winners, 60 members of the gress. If we speak with one voice, national academies and scores of we can create positive outcomes for Fulbright scholars. our students, faculty and campus. We are proud of our 352,000To learn more about this new proplus alumni, who live in every state gram, visit alumni.umd.edu/tan. in the nation, who are entrepreneurs, In the words of Maya Angelou, business leaders, government lead“We are more alike, my friends, than ers and teachers—and who inspire we are unalike.” Let us revel in our future generations. shared experience as Terps. Most recently, we are proud Best, that University of Maryland is the nation’s first Do Good campus, dedicated to inspiring a culture of philanthropy and social innovation, Amy Eichhorst where entrepreneurial thinking Executive Director drives positive social change for the University of Maryland betterment of all. Alumni Association
YOUTU BE .COM /UMD2101
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. COVER “Terps on Tap” Illustration by Gabriela Hernandez
F E A R L ESS I D EAS Every issue of Terp features examples of how UMD transforms the student experience. This time, we further highlight those stories with a “ .” We’ll do the same in future issues on our efforts to turn imagination into innovation, discover new knowledge and inspire Maryland pride.
TRANSFORM THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE 08 / C ollege Connections 11 / C an Germs Go the Distance? 12 / In Perfect Harmony
13 / A Family's Hat Trick in Lacrosse 17 / D iscovering Fire 20 / C enTerpiece
departments
CONTENTS WINTER 2017 / VOL. 14, NO. 2
IN BRIEF
02 The Wheel Thing
features
22
A UNIFORM APPROACH
02 A Pilot at Rest
As police departments nationwide face scrutiny on racial bias, umd professors design a training program to help local law enforcement see beyond black and white.
03 Ask Anne CLASS ACT
04 Best Face Scenario 06 Hype Man 07 Sample (Re)size
BY LIAM FARRELL
C AMPUS LIFE
26
08 College Connections
SAVE AS
In his highly regarded book, Maryland scholar Matthew Kirschenbaum tracks how word processors changed how we write.
10 Confessions of the “Wimpy Kid” 11 Can Germs Go the Distance? 11 A Gateway to Maryland History
BY CHRIS CARROLL
12 In Perfect Harmony
30
13 A Family’s Hat Trick in Lacrosse
COVER STORY: TERPS ON TAP
INNOVATION
From big-city beers to suburban suds to farmhouse ales, alumni create quality craft brews close to home.
14 Hold the Salt 16 Clear Cuts 17 Discovering Fire
BY CHRIS CARROLL
18 Maternal Mortality on a Troubling Rise 19 Faculty Q&A CENTERPIECE
20 Shining a Light on Arts Experimentation
FEARLESS
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
37 Digitally Connected
B O LD. FU N . S M A RT. CU R I O US . PRO U D. Find new stories every week at terp.umd.edu.
PARTING SHOT
38 Jumping at the Opportunity
RECENT WEB E XCLUSIVES THAT YOU MAY HAVE MISSED :
• A Greatest Hits List of Finals-Week Offerings to Testudo • Terps Honor Fraternity Brother’s Memory by Donating Dream Golf Outings • “Aw”-lert! Grad’s Bestselling Books Celebrate Animals’ Unlikely Friendships
IN BRIEF
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The Wheel Thing st u de n t s , ca m pus e m pl oy e e s a n d e v e n v i si t or s are trekking around College Park faster than ever, while hardly putting their feet on the ground. The University of Maryland and the city have teamed up with the private company Zagster to launch mBike, a bike-sharing service on campus and beyond. Thanks to a grant from the state Department of Transportation, riders have been able to borrow bikes since May from any one of 15 locations on campus or around town. They
just download an app or visit zagster.com/mbike to get an access code to unlock a bike. Riders pay an hourly, monthly or annual fee. “It’s awesome,” says Anna McLaughlin, assistant director in the Department of Transportation Services. “It’s about giving people options to get around, not having to wait for a bus and being on your own time schedule. It’s just super convenient and fun, and on top of that, it’s a little bit of exercise, it’s healthy, it’s not polluting and you don’t have to find a parking space.”–lb
A Pilot at Rest A U.S. Air Force officer presents a flag to Terry Harmon during a military funeral for her mother, pioneering female aviator Elaine Harmon ’40, at Arlington National Cemetery on Sept. 7. The subject of a feature in the Spring 2016 issue of Terp, she flew stateside military missions during World War II as one of nearly 1,100 members of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (wasp). She died in April 2015 with plans to have her ashes placed at Arlington, but an Army rule change that year closed the cemetery to wasp members. The Harmon family helped lead the fight to overturn the ruling, and last May, President Obama signed a federal law that reopened the cemetery to wasps.–cc
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PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
ASK ANNE Questions for Anne Turkos, the university archivist
THURGOOD MARSHALL WITH CLIENT DONALD GAINES MURRAY, WHO WAS DENIED ENTRY INTO THE UNIVERSIT Y OF MARYLAND LAW SCHOOL , AND ANOTHER ATTORNEY, PROBABLY CHARLES HOUSTON, DURING COURT PROCEEDINGS.
I RECENTLY READ A GREAT BOOK, “WHERE WIZARDS STAY UP LATE: THE ORIGINS OF THE INTERNET,” BY KATIE HAFNER (1998). SHE WROTE THAT ONE OF THE DEVICES THAT MADE IT WORK WAS CALLED AN INTERFACE MESSAGE PROCESSOR (IMP). I’VE READ ONLINE THAT UMD WAS THE LAST PLACE TO HAVE ONE, AND I’M WONDERING IF THE UNIVERSITY STILL HAS IT AND IF SO, WHERE IT IS. —dan hardisty ’10 Tripti Sinha, assistant vice president and chief technology officer in the Division of Information Technology, helped us with the answer to this one. Back in the mid- to late 1980s, the university’s old Computer Science Center had an imp for about a year. It was replaced by the then-new nsfnet network. bbn Technologies, the contractor now known as Raytheon bbn Technologies, removed the imp from campus when it was decommissioned.
Q: I HAVE ALWAYS HEARD THAT FUTURE U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE THURGOOD MARSHALL WAS REJECTED FOR ADMISSION BY THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND SCHOOL OF LAW IN 1930 BECAUSE THE INSTITUTION WAS STILL SEGREGATED. BUT AFTER HE EARNED HIS LAW DEGREE FROM HOWARD UNIVERSITY, HE SUCCESSFULLY REPRESENTED A BLACK APPLICANT TO THE STATE LAW SCHOOL WHO HAD BEEN DENIED ADMITTANCE DUE TO RACE. DO YOU HAVE MORE INFORMATION ON THE HISTORY OF UMD’S RACE DISCRIMINATION LAWSUITS? —jan pottker m.a. ’71
Actually, Marshall stated on more than one occasion that he never applied to the umd School of Law. He did, however, successfully represent Donald Gaines Murray in his bid for admission five years later. Information about the Murray case and similar lawsuits may be found in the records of the Board of Regents and the president’s office. Coverage of these legal actions also appears in a number of newspaper resources accessible in the umd Libraries, including The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, The Baltimore Afro-American and The Diamondback. In addition, the Libraries hold a number of secondary sources that examine various aspects of these cases.
Q: CAN YOU HELP ME FIND A FALL 1968 ARTICLE IN THE DIAMONDBACK REGARDING GAYS ON CAMPUS? AS A FRESHMAN, I ANSWERED A REQUEST FOR GAYS ON CAMPUS TO SPEAK TO A REPORTER, WITH ANONYMITY BEING PROMISED. MY INTERVIEW WAS PUBLISHED, AND I’VE NEVER FORGOTTEN THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING HEARD REGARDING MY STRUGGLE WITH SOCIETY TO COME OUT OF THE CLOSET. BTW, I WON : ) —christopher andrew maier ’72 After a lengthy and unsuccessful search of The Diamondback microfilm (I can’t wait until the paper is fully digitized and searchable online!), it turns out that the article you remembered was in a controversial student magazine of the period called Argus. The additional clues you provided, including your quote, helped us locate the article, “The Silent Minority,” in its second 1970 issue.
IMP PHOTO BY ANDREW ADAMS; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS & PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, VISUAL MATERIALS FROM THE NAACP RECORDS [LC-DIG -PPMSCA- 09709]
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CLASS ACT
ALUMNI PROFILE / SARAH COOPER ’98
Best Face Scenario Terp Draws on Experience in Book Lampooning Business Culture sarah cooper ’98 has been spying on your office’s most tedious and pointless meetings. Either that, or the comedian, writer and former Google and Yahoo executive mined her own experiences to skewer the inanities of business culture in her new book, “100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings.”
1. Furrow your brow and tilt your head. This face says, “That idea sounds familiar. Oh, yeah, because you stole it from our competitor.”
4. Look tired. This face says, “Who the hell keeps scheduling meetings for 8 a.m.?”
In it, Cooper tackles such worrisome, timeless concerns as how to convince your co-workers you care, how to nail the big pitch by not saying much of anything, and how to handle impromptu meetings like a ninja. Below is an excerpt from our favorite: what to do with your face in a meeting. (Validation! We’ve struggled with this, too.)–lb
2. Point your chin down and purse your lips. This face says, “I love it when you tell me how to do my job.”
5. Squint your eyes and frown slightly. This face says, “Did you just offer me plain tap water?”
3. Raise your eyebrows and smile. This face says, “Someone brought cupcakes??”
6. Smile slyly. This face says, “Yes, I am still working on that.”
FIND MORE OF COOPER’S HUMOR, FEATURING HER WHIMSICAL ILLUSTRATIONS, AT THECOOPERREVIEW.COM. AN EXTENDED VERSION OF THIS STORY IS AVAILABLE AT TERP.UMD.EDU.
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FROM " 100 TRICKS TO APPEAR SMART IN MEETINGS: HOW TO GET BY WITHOUT EVEN TRYING" © 2016 SARAH COOPER (ANDREWS MCMEEL PUBLISHING)
CLASS NOTES Submit your class notes and read many more at terp.umd.edu.
7. Close your eyes. This face says, “I’m listening very intently, I swear.”
10. Smile widely. This face says, “Great speech, boss.”
13. Get a blank look on your face. This says, “Worst. Idea. Ever.”
16. Scrunch your nose. This face says, “Was that a fart?”
8. Put your chin on your fist. This face says, “That’s an interesting perspective, Nathan; tell me more.”
11. Look excited. This face says, “Hey! Almost beer thirty!”
14. Look around the room. This face says, “Is anyone writing this down?”
17. Recoil with fear. This face says, “You just wrote on the whiteboard with a permanent marker.”
9. Raise your eyebrows and point. This face says, “Oh right! We did forget to document that decision.”
12. Smile and turn your head to the side. This face says, “Didn’t I see you at the gym last night?”
15. Furrow your brow and smile. This face says, ”Schedule another meeting to discuss this? Sure.”
18. Take an air of superiority. This face says, “My mere presence adds value to this meeting.”
TAYLOR CUMMINGS ’16, the most decorated women’s lacrosse player of all time, was signed by Under Armour to represent that sport for the brand. She’s a member of the U.S. national team and competed in the new United Women’s Lacrosse League with the Baltimore Ride. She also started offering lessons, camps and clinics through Taylor Cummings Lacrosse.
UNISSA CRUSEFERGUSON ’14 won an open audition in Baltimore to appear as a dancer in “Hairspray Live” on NBC in December. The actressdancer learned the news from a WBAL reporter knocking on her door. She’s also co-artistic director for the nonprofit youth hip-hop troupe Mighty Shock DC and a company member of Culture Shock DC and Capitol Movement Dance Co.
Retired U.S. Army Capt. FERRIS BUTLER ’03 received Lockheed Martin’s inaugural Fighting Spirit Scholarship for wounded veterans. Butler, who lost both feet to an improvised explosive device he encountered in Iraq in 2006, is the recipient of the Purple Heart, along with the Bronze Star and Meritorious Service medals. Through the scholarship he will earn his pilot’s license through the nonprofit Able Flight.
President-elect Donald Trump picked SEEMA VERMA '93, the founder and CEO of a health policy consulting firm, to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She helped design Indiana Gov. (and Vice President-elect) Mike Pence’s model for Medicaid in that state.
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ALUMNI PROFILE / DEAN MUHTADI ’08, MBA ’11
Hype Man Muhtadi Journeys from Terps to Turnbuckles long before he started jumping from the top rope in purple, pink and yellow trunks, wwe Superstar Mojo Rawley (aka Dean Muhtadi ’08, mba ’11) had to learn how to get up off the mat. Despite only four wins in his high school football career, Muhtadi regularly woke up at 3 a.m. to run wind sprints. With no promise of an athletic scholarship at umd, he walked on to the football team as a defensive lineman and became one of the strongest members of the squad. And despite an injury that threatened to end his athletic career, he gave up a stable job and salary at Merrill Lynch and earned a shot at a childhood dream in the ring with wwe. “I had to work 10 times harder just to get noticed,” he says. “I never had the luxury to not stay hyped.” “Hype” is the keystone of Muhtadi’s identity as Mojo Rawley. Along with Zack Ryder, he’s half of the tag team duo “Hype Bros” that last year graduated from the wwe “nxt” brand to wwe’s “SmackDown Live.” In a world where persona is as important as physical fitness, Muhtadi is a boundless ball of multicolored enthusiasm who implores his more than 94,000 Twitter followers to “#stayhyped!” There’s always been some Mojo in Muhtadi. As a kid, he and his brother watched wwe’s “Monday Night Raw,” but
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football had a clearer path than sports entertainment. After two years playing at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, Muhtadi came to umd (where he still holds several strength and speed records) and then suited up briefly for the Green Bay Packers and Arizona Cardinals before getting derailed by a calf injury in 2010. After a grueling, 18-month rehabilitation, Muhtadi attracted the interest of wwe through the connections of a friend. And ignoring the warnings from inside his mba brain—“Financially, it would have been the most illogical move of all time,” he says— Muhtadi took the leap. “It was actually less difficult of a decision than I thought it would be,” he says. “I thought I was perfect for this. This is what I was born to do.” But even dream jobs require hard work. He was dogged by further injuries during his four years in nxt, and for someone used to being liked by everybody, Muhtadi had to develop a thicker skin for the barbs from a vocal strain of wwe fans who criticize his full-throated intensity as a one-note act. And true to his business background, Muhtadi says his character is still evolving as he learns how to balance his funloving Mojo side, sweating through three shirts and a towel while dancing in a club, with the take-no-prisoners gridiron determination of his Dean side. “It’s a continued process of self-discovery,” he says. “This is the only career I’ve heard of where I can be both guys. The cool part is, I’m just getting started.”–lf
PHOTO COURTESY OF DEAN MUHTADI
ALUMNI PROFILE / KEOLU FOX ’08
Sample (Re)size Geneticist Promotes Research for the ‘Least, Last and Left Behind’ as a umd senior , keolu fox ’08
entrenched himself on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, building a rapport with African-American women there before asking them to help identify genetic markers linked to an aggressive type of breast cancer. He soon learned his work with anthropology Professor Fatimah Jackson—as focused on high-risk individuals as on the blood samples they might donate—was rare in the research world. Co-founder of the nonprofit IndiGenomics, Fox is now a geneticist on a mission to promote research for the people—especially indigenous and minority communities traditionally left out of DNA sequencing and clinical studies. “I want to be there for the least, the last, the left behind,” says Fox, 30, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego. “That’s the biggest form of activism. It’s not about hashtags. It’s finding the problems and creating cohesive solutions.” During a February 2015 TED talk, Fox decried the fact that 96 percent of genome-wide association studies have been conducted on people of European descent—despite widespread recognition that people with different ethnic backgrounds are more prone to certain conditions and metabolize drugs differently. Excluding minorities from the sequencing process means predictive tools and treatments might ignore their specific needs, further widening health disparities. Some overlooked populations also carry protective forces that deserve a deeper look: Inuits in Greenland who rarely develop
PHOTO BY RYAN LASH/TED
“you look at the right genes and you could understand the
underlying mechanisms .
these are extremely
valuable to medicine .” keolu fox ’08
heart disease, a group of short-statured Peruvians for whom cancer is an anomaly. “These are the people we should be sequencing,” Fox says. “You look at the right genes and you could understand the underlying mechanisms. These are extremely valuable to medicine.” Fox began questioning genetic variations as a boy in Hawaii, where native people susceptible to leprosy were exiled to the Kalaupapa peninsula for more than 100 years. As a researcher, he questions why more isn’t being done to understand the obesity epidemic among American Samoans and other islanders. He has examined genes that increase hypertension and diabetes risk among African Americans in studies designed to attract minority participants. To increase genetic information available to researchers, Fox says, drug makers and major laboratories should prioritize diversity among staff and study participants. But getting everyone on board isn’t as easy as asking the right people. It was only 2010 when the Havasupai tribe in the Grand Canyon was awarded $700,000 from Arizona State University after learning genetic samples collected from members had been used in research beyond the initial study. IndiGenomics provides consultations to tribal and local bodies—including the National Congress for American Indians— to help them move past former abuses and become advocates. “They should be treated as partners, not subjects,” Fox says.—km
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CAMPUS LIFE
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College Connections
For Rolf, a computer science major with a serious yet friendly demeanor, the stress of mounting academic requirements caused reactions he couldn’t control. “I’d begun having trouble talking to people and interacting,” he says. “I actually started getting a little paranoid.” His father, Jon Rolf M.S. ’91, mba ’95, remembers trying to New Group Builds Social and Communication talk his son through the problems that threatened his ability to Skills for Terps With Autism remain in school. “It was scary,” he says. “He was freaked out. He was basically ov erw hel med by the dem a n ds of college life, David shutting down.” Rolf ’17 repeatedly froze in his tracks while walking to class, as David’s counselor, Jo Ann Hutchinson, director of umd’s other students quizzically diverted around him. Accessibility and Disability Service, told the elder Rolf about Another Maryland student who tried to hand in a required an autism group she’d been planning with Dow-Burger and form to a professor became so flummoxed when told to give it Nan Ratner, professor in hesp and director of umarc. to a teaching assistant that he stuffed it in his bag and forgot Ratner, an expert in pediatric language disorders, has long about it. A third, unable to cope with schedule variations, worried about a so-called “service cliff” for autistic students repeated the times and days of upcoming tests from morning leaving high school, where comprehensive educational to night so he wouldn’t forget. supports are mandated by law. Community college transfer Welcome to the daily struggles of Terps on the autism students like Rolf, who’d lived at home until moving into spectrum. Montgomery Hall in January As intelligent as any other 2015, face similar challenges. umd students, they live with “We tend as a society to be a neurological condition very interested in trying to deal to be very interested in trying to deal that creates varying degrees with communication of difficulty in verbal and problems in children to set with communication problems nonverbal communication, them on a better path, but social interaction and many times, resources dwinsensory processing. dle when these children beto set them on a better path, Now, a new campus come young adults,” she says. but many times, organization—the Social Enter signa, which features Interaction Group Network weekly group sessions where for Students with Autism participants work through when these children (signa)—is helping social communication issues them develop the skills and learn self-advocacy skills. to successfully negotiate Members also attend weekly higher education. individual therapy sessions NAN RATNER, DIRECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND signa started the fall with hesp graduate students, AUTISM RESEARCH CONSORTIUM semester with just four and practice successful social participants out of 19 selfinteractions in regular outings identified students with autism on campus—and likely a with typical peers. much larger number of students on the spectrum who haven’t And starting in October, signa members were each teamed come forward. up with an undergraduate hearing and speech student for Kathy Dow-Burger, an assistant clinical professor in the daily “check-ins” to discuss planning and interactions with Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences (hesp) developed peers and professors and to provide a respite from the isolation the signa program and oversees the group. some students with autism face. “There are a lot of misconceptions about people with signa, along with the campus Lutheran student group he autism, but they want the same things everyone else does,” attends, helped David Rolf regain his bearings, Jon Rolf says. says Dow-Burger, associate director of the University of “It wasn’t the only thing that did it, but the group was there Maryland Autism Research Consortium (umarc). “These when he needed support and people to see and to talk to,” he says. guys want friends, they want girlfriends, they want to do well With news of the group starting to spread, some adminin school and get jobs.” istrators have worried signa might get overwhelmed with But autism spectrum disorder often makes it tough to students seeking support. maintain normal connections to both peers and instructors, “That’s a problem we’ll welcome if it happens,” Ratner says. while planning and organization are far bigger hurdles than “We want to get overwhelmed.”–cc for typical students.
“We tend as a society in children
resources dwindle
become young adults.”
PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI; ILLUSTRATION BY MARGARET HALL
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Confessions of the “Wimpy Kid”
A FEW NOTES FROM KINNEY:
He spent four years filling one Mead sketchbook (in teeny handwriting) with ideas for his first book. That turned into the first three “Wimpy Kid” installments.
Jeff Kinney ’93 is just as funny a storyteller in person as he is in his mega-bestselling series of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” books. Best known during his years on campus for drawing the comic strip “Igdoof” in The Diamondback, he returned to campus in October with his mother, Patricia Kinney ’74, M.Ed. ’81, Ph.D. ’87, for a panel discussion with College of
Kinney is glad he didn’t initially see he was writing for children because it kept him from moralizing.
Education faculty about the motivating power of his books on reluctant young readers. But first, he shared a series of charming, self-deprecating and insightful tales about his life, and volunteered that the three
180 million copies of his books are in print, translated into 52 languages.
IGDOOF
most stressful experiences he’s ever had all took place at the University of Maryland: “I was in Gymkana, and one of the things I did—but did not do well—was I flipped over a stack of people at basketball halftime shows. The most I could clear was six people. At a Maryland-Duke game, I was going to be the first guy to flip over the stack. Somehow Testudo got involved, and he climbed on top of the stack, and his head is, you know, that big, and it made for, like, eight people. I was thinking, I can’t clear that, and I was waving him away. The whole crowd of 20,000 got on their feet and started cheering, and I just had to go for it. I did a half-flip and rolled onto Testudo and crushed all of those people.”
“I lived in Leonardtown, and had a class in what’s now Susquehanna Hall whose whole purpose was supposed to prepare you to give a 20-minute speech on the last day. I was really good at last-minute stuff, so I knew if I stayed up all night that I could do the speech. At 1 a.m., I decided to take a little nap, and I woke up seven minutes before my speech was to start. So I was running as fast as I could—it was a 20-minute walk!—while writing the speech. I’m not going to tell you how that ended.”
“During my very last moments on campus, I had finished this book, ‘The Igdoof Bathroom Companion,’ and I decided to advertise it here on campus. It was against the rules to put up things on campus, but I got the most bright neon green fliers you can imagine, and I put them on every white pillar on campus. I figured people would see them, they’d be taken down and maybe I’d get scolded. The next day I woke up and it had rained overnight, and I started walking around campus and the fliers weren’t there—the rain had soaked through the fliers and stained all of the white pillars on campus. And that’s how I left campus. I was a vandal.”
When writing, he commits to it for 16 hours per day for six weeks. During that time, he listens to a complete book every day.
All of his books run 217 pages, in part because he likes how they look together on a bookshelf.
Kinney named his 11th and latest book “Double Down” to express his commitment to stick with writing the series.
He was inspired to illustrate his books by his experience at UMD of reading an entire textbook the night before a final. The photos and illustrations, he says, were “little islands” between blocks of text. “I still give readers little islands to swim to. They think, ‘I can do that.’”
WIMPY KID
KINNEY’S FINAL “IGDOOF” STRIP, THE DIAMONDBACK , DEC . 13, 1993.
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PHOTO BY THAI NGUYEN; ILLUSTRATIONS BY JEFF KINNEY
Can Germs Go the Distance? Students’ Project on Space Station to Focus on Astronauts’ Health ASTRONAUTS ON A MANNED MISSION
can’t exactly make a U-turn if a nasty disease strikes 10 million miles out. A bacterial infection, which could be anything from strep to anthrax, can pose serious and unique threats to their health, particularly since nasa has found evidence that bacterial motility—or ability to move—increases during weightlessness. Three University of Maryland pre-med students and self-described “space geeks” aim to expand our understanding of how bacteria behave in microgravity—and ultimately how to safeguard space travelers—when their biology experiment is launched in March onto the International Space Station (ISS). The research project by seniors Yaniv Kazansky, Aaron Solomon and Garshasb Soroosh was selected for the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, run by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. It’s the first UMD student experiment to catch a ride 249 miles into space, through a partnership between NASA and the low-orbit payload company NanoRacks. Solomon says their research has significance beyond the iss, as SpaceX aims to send a human voyage to Mars as soon as 2024 and NASA in the 2030s. “Space medicine is an emerging field, and how these pathogens act in space is still poorly understood,” he says.
TO MARS
Their experiment calls for sending dormant spores of a common bacterium to the ISS , where astronauts will activate them and allow them to grow and divide. Those samples will be compared with identical control samples on Earth to determine whether and how microgravity causes their genes to behave differently. “If there are differences, then those are potential targets for drugs,” says Kenneth Frauwirth, a faculty mentor and lecturer in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics. “We might either develop or select drugs that affect or compensate for those kinds of things.” The program award covers the cost of launching the experiment into space and the astronauts’ time conducting it. The students raised $4,137 through a LaunchUMD crowdfunding campaign in the fall to help pay for materials and data analysis procedures once it returns, and for travel expenses to watch the SpaceX rocket launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. “There’s nothing like fulfilling a childhood dream of flying to space— even if it’s by proxy of an experiment,” Solomon says.— LB
A Gateway to Maryland History local newspapers are a microcosm of history, both grand and small. The federal government shut down the Maryland Free Press, for example, because of its Confederate bent. Baltimore’s Der Deutsche Correspondent was a popular source of information for German immigrants before losing advertisers and closing during World War I. And the Prince George’s Enquirer chronicled the gentry’s local jousting tournaments. Since 2012, umd’s Historic Maryland Newspapers Project has been digitizing local papers like these to make them broadly and freely accessible to the public. The project, which was recently awarded a third grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, has put more than 200,000 pages online. Digitizing local sources of history is more important than ever, says University Libraries’ Robin Pike, one of the project directors, as libraries eliminate microfilm machines, researchers become more fluent online, and genealogy gains popularity.—lf
Visit terp.umd.edu for a photo slideshow of some of the most fascinating examples, going back to 1690. For more information about the project, visit lib.umd.edu/digital/newspapers.
ILLUSTRATION BY STEFFANIE ESPAT
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MASTERPIECE
In Perfect Harmony
umd and Phillips Partner on “Migration Series” Concert
the soundtrack: the brash blare of trombones, the wail of saxophones and the gentle hum of violins and violas. As musicians played their instruments, paintings depicting scenes of rural poverty or crowded cities were projected onto a screen overhead. The tempo picked up for figures in motion—on a train, passing churning smokestacks or heading en masse toward a common destination—and the tone turned brooding and mournful for figures seated at a table of empty plates or sitting slumped in front of a noose after a lynching. The Dec. 2 concert at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center brought together the Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band—two umd ensembles that don’t often mix—to perform composer Derek Bermel’s “Migration Series” in a major collaboration with the Phillips Collection, the noted D.C. museum that forged a partnership with the university in 2015. The 2006 musical composition was inspired by “The Migration Series,” a sequence of 60 paintings by Jacob Lawrence portraying the mass movement of African Americans from the South to the North between World Wars I and II. The Phillips Collection displayed
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all 60 of the “Migration Series” paintings from October to January; generally half are kept at the Phillips and half at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Caroline Mousset, director of music at the Phillips Collection, said Bermel’s “Migration Series” fit perfectly with her goal to organize a University of Maryland concert focused on the current global migration crisis. The fact that the piece was written for a symphony orchestra and jazz ensemble together was a bonus, as was its direct link between music and visual art, which the student musicians saw for themselves when they ventured to the Phillips before the concert. “It’s amazing how the composer was really able to evoke the moods of the panels,” said Morgan Daly, a graduate student in double bass performance. Patrick Warfield, associate professor in the School of Music, noted that the level of expertise demanded by the music, originally commissioned for trumpet legend Wynton Marsalis, “shows us what our students are capable of doing. They’re able to perform at an extraordinarily high level.”–sl
FROM TOP: PHOTO BY GREG SHEIL; JACOB LAWRENCE , THE MIGRATION SERIES: PANELS NO. 1, 31 AND 3 (1940 –41), THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION . LEARN MORE AT LAWREN CEM IGRATIO N . PH I LLIPSCO LLECTIO N .O RG
PLAYBYPLAY
A Family’s Hat Trick in Lacrosse State Standout Follows Father, Grandfather to Maryland as the state ’s all- time
high school leader in goals, points and assists, lacrosse phenom Louis Dubick ’19 was wooed by the likes of Johns Hopkins and North Carolina. But their recruiting pitches, no matter how enticing, couldn’t compete with a nudge from his grandfather, Harry Dubick ’51. “He pretty much said, ‘I’m so happy
PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
that you’re getting all these looks and offers, but we really want you to go to Maryland,’” Dubick says. “We” referred to the 10 members of the extended Dubick clan to attend Maryland. Louis is the third generation of his family to play lacrosse at the university: His father, Marc ’83, was a three-year letter winner who was part
of the 1983 Final Four team. Harry was recruited to play football, but opted for a bigger role on the lacrosse team. Back then, the eldest Dubick donned bulky, welder-like gloves to compete in the old stadium on what’s now Fraternity Row. Harry still has a place in the Terps’ locker room, where Louis uses a locker where his grandfather’s name is emblazoned as a team sponsor (above, second from left). College coaches had been salivating over Louis since his freshman year in high school. He went on to lead Winston Churchill High in Montgomery County to the state semifinals twice and the finals his senior year and was twice named to Harry Dubick ’51 The Washington Post’s All-Metro first team. “He’s got some natural gifts, in terms of his athleticism and quickness,” head coach John Tillman says, “but a lot of his success comes from who he is and how he does things.” Maryland has consistently ranked among the nation’s best teams, reaching the NCAA championship game four times in Tillman’s six years, including the past two. Despite an extremely talented roster, Dubick received ample playing time as a freshman and notched five goals and two assists. He says he doesn’t feel any pressure to uphold the Dubick name. He’s more interested in sharing his pride in the program’s tradition with his teammates. “I really appreciate being at Maryland because I’ve been around the program so long,” Dubick says. “I can truly understand how much this program means to people, to the state of Maryland, and to the guys that have come here before.” Harry Dubick died in 2014, but the rest of Louis’ family, unsurprisingly, are fixtures at Maryland Stadium on Saturdays in the spring. “As a father, you want your child to be successful and happy, but to be able to come and watch him perform for the school that we care so much about … it’s a great thing,” Marc Dubick says.—cw
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INNOVATION
Hold the Salt
Researcher Tracks Human Cost of Keeping Roads Ice-Free
universit y geologist sujay k aushal was waiting to testify in Annapolis several years ago about problems caused by the salt spread each winter on Maryland roads when laughter interrupted the hearing. It was directed at the state lawmaker who’d raised the seemingly outlandish topic. “People were like, ‘What is this guy talking about—salt?’” says Kaushal, an associate professor in umd’s Earth Systems Science Interdisciplinary Center and the Department of Geology. “But people wouldn’t be laughing today.” For more than a decade, Kaushal’s research has documented rising salinity in surface water in Maryland and elsewhere, primarily the result of road salt. One of the consequences he warns about—corrosion of water pipes caused
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by the chemical breakdown of sodium chloride ice melter—reared its head in 2015 in Flint, Mich. There, as many as 12,000 children ingested excess lead in drinking water, putting them at risk for damage to their developing brains and nervous systems. Although news coverage focused on testing cover-ups, political recriminations and the potential health effects, salt contamination in the Flint River that caused corroded pipes to leach lead into tap water was the source of the problem. Here’s what’s really scary: Countless miles of aging municipal and residential water pipes nationwide are at the same risk, Kaushal says. Even he and his neighbors in suburban D.C. experienced brown water flowing from their taps in 2015, the result of
salinity spiking in the Potomac River. “It hit me that I have a small child in the house, and there could be elevated levels of harmful metals in the water,” he says. In addition to danger from corroding pipes, saltier water carries other risks. It can compromise entire ecosystems by harming aquatic life in rivers and streams, and it can injure people with sodium-sensitive health conditions like kidney disease. “When I worked for Baltimore City, I received calls a couple times from local hospitals with concerns about the level of sodium in drinking water because of what it could do to patients on dialysis,” says Bill Stack, deputy director of the nonprofit Center for Watershed Protection and former manager of Baltimore’s
ILLUSTRATION BY GABRIELA HERNANDEZ
NEWSDESK UMD faculty share their expertise with the media:
“Has anyone ever
complained about a male anchor wearing too bright a tie when he’s reporting sad news? For women, it’s always ‘They’re too dowdy, they’re too masculine, they’re too sexy.’ They’re always ‘too’ something.
”
JO PAOLETTI, AMERICAN STUDIES, ON THE MINNEAPOLIS NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST WHO CRITICIZED THE ATTIRE OF A NEWS ANCHOR REPORTING ON A CHILD-KILLER’S CONFESSION, IN THE HUFFINGTON POST, SEPT. 8.
surface water protection program. Stack began monitoring chloride in water in the early ‘80s, believing it was linked to failing septic systems. But as he watched the levels increase by more than 200 percent in two decades, the finger of blame swung toward the increased road salting that followed new development in Maryland. Stack was a co-author on Kaushal’s seminal 2005 paper that showed rising water salinity across the Northeast. And he’s watched a steady stream of science papers expand the findings in new directions, such as the effect of acid rain on salinity. “He’s one of the leading researchers I know of in using science to address practical issues,” Stack says. “His research is very applied, and he’s on the cutting edge.”
Limiting the salt won’t be simple, particularly during a winter like that of 2013–14, when frequent snowfalls prompted road crews to spread nearly 500,000 tons in Maryland. Safety requires some road salting, Kaushal acknowledges, but limiting the practice to what’s strictly necessary could help reduce environmental and health damage. Still, even in progressive Maryland, where the state is studying methods to implement some of the limits that lawmakers previously laughed at, the latest research shows that water salinity continues to rise. “I think salinization will continue building to a crisis level,” Kaushal says. “People are starting to pay attention— now it has to reach a point where there is a political will to address it.”–cc
“Often we will hear an older person say, ‘I can hear you, I just can’t understand you.’ This research gives us a new insight into why that is the case.” SAMIRA ANDERSON, HEARING AND SPEECH SCIENCES, ON A STUDY FINDING HEARING TROUBLES IN OLDER PEOPLE MAY STEM FROM THE BRAIN, NOT THE EARS, IN THE (U.K.) DAILY MAIL, OCT. 19.
“A police officer sees a situation where rocks are f lying or somebody is getting punched, they are not going to take the time to look at the press pass around your neck and say, ‘Oh, you.’” LUCYSH, JOURNALISM, ON THE ARREST OF REPORTERS COV DALGLIERING PIPELINE PROTESTS IN NORTH DAKOTA, IN THE BISMARCK TRIBUNE, NOV. 4.
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Clear Cuts Researchers Work to Make Wood Windows a Reality umd researchers have created a clear alternative to building materials that insulate poorly or keep interiors dark: transparent wood. Researchers in the university’s Energy Research Center have developed this material, which allows sunshine to pass through, like frosted glass, but can't be smashed and is more energy-efficient than typical glass windows. A team of researchers led by Associate Professor Liangbing Hu describe their work developing translucent wood in a paper in the journal Advanced Materials, and recently launched a startup called Inventwood llc. The team also published a paper on advanced energy materials describing how transparent wood can be an energy-efficient building resource. The process starts with immersing a 4cm square of wood in a cocktail of chemicals that removes the lignin, the substance that gives wood its brown color, and then infusing the newly
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translucent block with epoxy to harden it. Wood doesn’t conduct heat as easily as glass, so instead of heat escaping through a window in the winter and seeping in during the summer, it is trapped inside and blocked outside, keeping the indoor temperature more consistent. Even the grain of the wood is useful. “You have these very special channels that can guide visible sunlight into the house, independent of where the sun is,” says Tian Li Ph.D. ’15 (left), a postdoctoral associate and lead author of the study. The researchers say the primary challenge now is to develop techniques that allow for them to create larger pieces. “Right now the scale is a problem, because for any real application you would need at least palm-sized or bigger,” says Amy Gong (right), another postdoctoral associate. “We’re limited to the container’s shape.” The team is also working to decrease the haziness of the wood, hoping to reach the clarity offered by glass windows. Users
can easily see objects on the other side of the product only when they are close. Despite the current limitations, the technology is immensely promising, researchers say. “Transparent wood can generate tremendous energy savings in daytime lighting and air-conditioning,” Li says.– cw See how umd researchers create transparent wood at terp.umd.edu
Discovering Fire New Type of Flame Whirls in Engineering Lab at one moment, Huahua Xiao and his colleagues were staring at a tornado of fire raging in a quartz glass enclosure. In the next, all that was left was a whirling blue top of flame—stable, elegantly proportioned and unlike anything that anyone in a lab full of fire experts had ever seen. “When we saw it, we all became quiet,” says Xiao, an assistant research scientist in aerospace engineering. “Then we all said, ‘Oh my God.’” Human evolution and history have been intertwined with fire—both its uses and dangers—but finding new forms of it isn’t an everyday occurrence. Yet the team of researchers including Xiao, Glenn L. Martin Engineering Professor Elaine Oran and Michael Gollner, assistant professor of fire protection engineering, appears to have done exactly that. They introduced the flame in an August paper published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, dubbing it the “blue whirl.” Initially, they’d been studying fire whirls, tornadolike flames that can form during wildfires and greatly accelerate their spread. (The deadliest one in history towered over Tokyo in 1923 after an earthquake, killing tens of thousands.) Until recently, no one had considered the idea that they could be controlled and used for good. “People have mainly studied fire whirls for fun, or out of curiosity,” says Gollner. But suspecting they could be harnessed to clean up oil spills, the researchers were creating small ones in the lab by igniting slicks of the flammable solvent heptane on a pool of water. When they inadvertently created the right fuel and ventilation conditions, the blue whirl appeared. The color indicates it burns extremely cleanly and efficiently, Oran says, possibly making it a better tool to eradicate oil slicks than a regular fire whirl. (Although they didn’t present test results, the team confirmed crude oil can fuel the blue whirl.) It might also be perfect for other uses where low-emission combustion is needed, like clean energy generation. But applications will come later. For now, the team is still working to explore the characteristics and dynamics of this new type of fire—for instance, how big it can grow, and how hot it can burn. “It’s difficult not to speculate,” Oran says. “This is a phase no one’s seen before, and now we need to understand it.”–cc
PHOTOS BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
Watch the blue whirl come to life in a video at terp.umd.edu
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Maternal Mortality on a Troubling Rise NEARLY A DECADE AFTER the United States last published official statistics on how many women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, new UMD research reveals an alarming rise in maternal mortality nationwide. The study, published by Obstetrics & Gynecology and led by Marian MacDorman of the Maryland Population Research Center on campus, estimates the maternal mortality rate in 48 states and Washington, D.C., increased 26.6 percent from 2000–14. Deaths increased from 18.8 per 100,000 live births to 23.8. Two states were outliers: California’s rate actually declined, while Texas’ rate doubled. “These are really bad deaths. They are high-impact deaths,” MacDorman says. “The ripple effect in the community is huge in having a young mother die.” The U.S. has not published official data since 2007 because states unevenly implemented federally recommended revisions to death certificate questions dealing with pregnancy. MacDorman believes this lack of updated data is problematic, especially in light of a United Nations goal to reduce the worldwide maternal mortality rate by three-quarters. “A lot of interventions are data-driven,” she says. “If you don’t know what’s wrong, it is hard to fix it.” The study, conducted in partnership with researchers from Boston University and Stanford University, analyzed U.S. mortality data files from the National Center for Health Statistics and tried to correct for the irregular death certificates. MacDorman says the next step is determining exactly why so many pregnant women and new mothers are dying in America, when the World Health Organization found 157 of 183 countries had decreases from 2000-13. “There is a decade where we don’t know what the heck was going on,” she says. “It is very concerning.”–LF
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ILLUSTRATION BY HAILEY HWA SHIN
FACULTY Q&A / ARTHUR ECKSTEIN
Weather Report
History Professor’s Book Investigates 1960s Radicals It’s one of the most shocking stories of the 1960s and ’70s: A group of left-wing radicals bombs the State Department, the Capitol Building and the Pentagon but never serves a day behind bars. In the new book “Bad Moon Rising: How the Weather Underground Beat the fbi and Lost the Revolution,” umd history Professor arthur eckstein investigates the strange-but-true story of the organization called Weatherman and how the government underestimated and then overestimated the group’s power, unleashing a campaign of illegal surveillance and break-ins that ultimately ensured the perpetrators’ freedom. –lf WHAT ATTRACTED YOU TO DOING A BOOK ON THIS SUBJECT? A friend of mine emailed
me one day and asked if I would give a talk on conflict in 1960s left-wing activism. I thought that would be fun to revisit the past, my past. Weatherman is simply the most extreme version of us. I was a hippie, counterculture person. DID CONVENTIONAL PEACEFUL PROTESTS IN THE 1960S HAVE TO BE UNSUCCESSFUL FOR THIS GROUP, WITH ITS AGENDA OF VIOLENCE AND CHAOS, TO BECOME POSSIBLE? Weather
veterans don’t believe the movement failed and neither do I. It succeeded culturally and even politically—Nixon withdrew from Vietnam, he ended the draft. One of the ways Nixon defeated the far left was by fulfilling their major demands so that people had no reason to support a radical position. Gay rights, black rights (very
important to Weatherman), Hispanic rights, women’s rights—these were the ideals of the movement, and they have been to a large extent carried out. BY USING ILLEGAL SURVEILLANCE AND SEARCHES, THE FBI’S TACTICS MEANT THEY COULDN’T PROSECUTE WEATHERMAN. WHY DID THAT HAPPEN?
The fbi had two conflicting tasks: gather evidence for criminal trials, but also be the domestic intelligence agency. Gathering intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean you can use that evidence in a trial if it is gained illegally. But the fbi never captured any of the Weathermen. WAS THE DECISION TO AVOID HUMAN TARGETS, AFTER BLUNDERED ATTEMPTS, THE ULTIMATE REASON WEATHERMAN MEMBERS STAYED FREE? If they had gone ahead with lethal
bombings—which they only discussed for 90 days early on—Nixon would have declared a national emergency, and the fbi had a list of 11,000 leftists they were ready to round up. They survived because people didn’t think that they were doing anything really wrong. Blowing up property is not the same as killing. Because they didn’t kill, and because the charges were dropped against them, when they decided to give up they were able to integrate back into society. WHY HAS WEATHERMAN PERSISTED IN THE POPULAR IMAGINATION? The fbi made
Weatherman’s prestige. They set up famous wanted posters in every post office in the United States. Weather’s reputation is bigger than the facts. It’s theater, more than anything else.
PORTRAIT BY JOHN T. CONSOLI, WEATHER UNDERGROUND PHOTOS COURTESY OF ARTHUR ECKSTEIN
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CENTERPIECE
SHINING A LIGHT ON ARTS EXPERIMENTATION IMPROV COMEDY? CHECK. AERIAL DANCE? CHECK. A musical performance featuring an
instrument made of latex balloons? Believe it or not, check. The third annual NextNOW Fest in September turned the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center into a two-day extravaganza of nonstop music, theater, dance performances and tech-driven installations. The latest lineup featured 43 performances from artists including students and faculty members. Students worked behind the scenes, too: Christopher Wong ’17 (right) served as lighting designer in the Kay Theatre, setting the mood for a variety of performances, including those by comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade and music group Chargaux.—SL
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PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
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A UNIFORM APPROACH W IT H L AW E N FO RC E M E N T AC RO S S T H E CO U N T RY U N D E R S C R U T I N Y, U M D A N D A LO C A L P O L I C E D E PA R T M E N T T E A M U P TO H E L P C A D E T S S E E B E YO N D B L AC K A N D W H IT E By LI A M FA R R ELL
In an antiseptic classroom on the outskirts of Upper Marlboro, Md., a collection of young adults stand in a straight line, with their eyes closed, and are posed a series of questions. Are you right-handed? Take one step forward. Do you primarily rely on public transportation? Take one step back. Does your family own a computer? Take one step forward. Are you from a single-parent household? Take one step back. And so on, until the equalized starting line becomes a squiggle of people, visually representing how identity can move people ahead—or behind—their peers. Although it looks and sounds like the sort of exercise one would find in a corporate boardroom or college seminar, the participants this December day are not your typical employees or students: They are cadets from the Prince George’s County Police Department (pgpd). This “privilege walk” is one part of a new collaboration between the department and its neighbor, the University of Maryland, to have recruits consider the complexities of the citizens they will meet and recognize the inaccurate assumptions they may unknowingly take to work each day. It’s particularly relevant now, at a time when departments across the country have wrestled with accusations of racial bias. In a post-Ferguson America, pgpd is at the forefront of an enhanced training that takes into account “implicit bias,” the instinctive set of stereotypes and prejudices based on skin color, clothing, hairstyle or other surface traits. In other words, someone may not want to judge a book by its cover—but might do so anyway.
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Chief Henry P. Stawinski III, a second-generation pgpd policeman, thinks this is a new way to ingrain in his newest members what he calls the everyday “hard work of small things”: officers whose conduct in the vast majority of public interactions—traffic stops, neighborhood meetings, routine investigations—builds the trust needed during worst-case scenarios. “What we want the community to do,” he says, “is be confident that when there are problems, we will address them and we will do it effectively and in keeping with their perspective on what a just police force would do.”
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It’s been more than two years since white Officer Darren Wilson’s fatal shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown outside of St. Louis, Mo., sparked violent clashes between protesters and police, yet the frustration in the African-American community over law enforcement tactics hasn’t waned. To many, the deaths of Brown and other black males—Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile—at the hands of police are recent proof that American law and order has been less about peacekeeping than hostile occupation. Under the banner of “Black Lives Matter,” pastors, activists, youth and even professional athletes have used street protests, cell phone videos and the grassroots connections of social media to scrutinize police conduct and show how the criminal justice system has mistreated African Americans. Some police and their supporters have pushed back with cries of “Blue Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter” to argue that law enforcement isn’t targeting minorities, but simply fighting crime under dangerous circumstances.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRIAN G. PAYNE
The lethal potential in this conflict was realized in July, when a black Army veteran, allegedly angered by police shootings of black men, killed five police officers and injured nine others in a Dallas ambush. Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz, chair of umd’s sociology department, and Carlos Acosta, the pgpd’s inspector general, thought Prince George’s County could be the place for a new start. Although umd and pgpd had casually discussed partnering in the past, Acosta says, the department has gradually become less insular and more willing to open up to outside organizations for advice and input. “Academic institutions may not always give you good news, and that’s OK,” he says. “That’s the only way we get better on anything.” And the knowledge of umd Associate Professors Kris Marsh and Rashawn Ray—experts on race and bias—was available at a critical time. “Police forces across the country are realizing the only way they can deal with these tensions is engaging in dialogue and transparency with the community,” Korzeniewicz says. “Hopefully, the university can play some part.” With the recruits in December, Marsh and Ray started by demonstrating how pernicious stereotypes remain in an ostensibly enlightened society. On one day of training, Ray flashed through a PowerPoint presentation with social media photos: white college students at a “gangsta” party, complete with blackface and malt liquor bottles; a middle-aged white couple dressed for Halloween as former Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice and his wife, complete with darkened skin and a black eye to evoke a highly publicized domestic violence incident. “We can keep denying this stuff exists,” Ray told the rows of uniformed student officers. “Or we can say, ‘What do we do about it?’”
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On a rainy night, a police officer in his cruiser notices a car making an illegal U-turn. Flashing his lights, the officer pulls the driver over, gets out and approaches the lowered driver’s-side window. In this common scenario, the two individuals make snap judgments that could lead to an extraordinary outcome. Will the police officer see a threat? Will the driver be afraid for his or her safety as well? Marsh and Ray have conducted implicit bias sessions for two sets of recruits in the pgpd academy, educating them on the definitions and issues of race, stereotyping and discrimination, along with research on how these manifest themselves in policing. They want to make police officers think harder and longer about their actions on the job. “We’re hoping that when they see a Trayvon Martin or Tamir Rice, that they pause,” Ray says. “One second in these interactions is a very long time.” Research has shed light on what biases police and the general public hold and how they may play out in law enforcement. For example, a 2014 study of police officers and college students published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that both groups were likely to perceive black children as older and less innocent than their white peers. A 2015 study published in the science journal plos one found that unarmed black Americans are more than three times as likely to be shot by police compared to unarmed white Americans, with no relationship found with the local crime rate. Non-lethal policing has also been examined. Investigations of cities such as San Francisco, Ferguson, Chicago and Greensboro, N.C., found that police stopped black motorists far more often than white drivers even though contraband was found at a higher rate with Caucasians.
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Most notably, a federal judge ruled the New York City police department’s “stop and frisk” program unconstitutional in 2013; while 83 percent of those detained and searched were black or Hispanic, those groups made up only half of the city’s population. Of the 4.4 million stops there between January 2004 and June 2012, 88 percent led to no further police action. The goal for Marsh and Ray is to shift police officers away from the initial judgments that lead to bad results. “We have to unpack what ‘the appearance’ is highlighting,” Marsh says. “When you say ‘appearance,’ what’s that a code word for?” For part of the two-day December training, cadets watched a video from a “Candid Camera”-type television program showing the differences in how bystanders reacted to individuals stealing a bike in a park. A white teenager was given the benefit of the doubt, and largely ignored; a black teenager was confronted immediately, often with aggression; a white female teenager was frequently offered assistance by men. The discomfort with the video was palpable. Some cadets questioned the validity of the experiment: The black kid’s clothes were much baggier, and the white kid appeared older and gave more evasive answers to questions. Maybe a
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different day in that park, or a different park altogether, would produce a much different result. But when the gender segment received almost no such challenges, a few cadets stood to ask why everyone was so quick to rationalize away the race scenario. It was a window into how implicit bias doesn’t just function on race—it’s part of the human tendency to divide people into groups, from gender to the fans of rival sports teams. “People don’t think in individual terms,” Ray told them. “You all aren’t normal citizens anymore. You all are officers and supposed to approach all people the same way. That’s what makes you special.”
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In a county where African Americans make up almost 65 percent of the population, Craig Daugherty knows he will sometimes face hostility while on the job. The 31-year-old former Marine, who is white, applied to the pgpd while Ferguson was being roiled by protests. Although he admits it “weighed on my
mind,” he says his concerns were lessened by the attraction to a camaraderie and dedication to service similar to what he found in the military. Like every other police officer in his training class, which was instructed in part by Ray and Marsh and graduated in February 2016, Daugherty has no familiarity with the “before” part of “before and after” Ferguson. “We are in the limelight,” he says. “It’s just like in the military; we are all under the same canopy.” So when Daugherty pulls someone over or responds to a call and senses immediate suspicion of him as a white police officer (“Does it happen on occasion? Yes. Is it a majority? No.”), his first move is to establish a calm presence and de-escalate the tension. “Yes, I’m a police officer,” he says, “but I am a person just like you.” Prince George’s County is an intriguing laboratory for implicit bias training, as it is unusually diverse racially and economically. Its median household income (nearly $74,000) is 38 percent higher than the United States as a whole, and it is home to some of the wealthiest African-American communities in the country. Yet along with Baltimore City and Worcester County, Prince George’s has many of the highest crime rates in Maryland since 1975.
The U.S. Department of Justice has investigated pgpd twice, mandating reforms to the department’s canine unit and use-of-force policies in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Prior to the second investigation, the Washington Post reported that the pgpd had shot and killed more people per officer than any other comparable force in the U.S. between 1990 and 2000. Stawinski believes the relationship between the pgpd and the county’s residents has dramatically improved since then and stands in contrast to troubled areas around the United States. “Increasingly, what I’m hearing at Costco is, ‘I’m glad things aren’t like that here,’” he says. Stawinski wants to create a standardized approach to producing police officers—in his words, “accelerate the maturation” of a recruit. Unlike fields such as medicine, accounting or law, training practices for police vary wildly from department to department. pgpd, he believes, has an opportunity to make a new national mold. “If I can collaborate and learn things and be on the front edge of developing best practices, then not only can we make policing in Prince George’s County better,” he says, “we can make policing in America better.”
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When she enrolled at umd, Unique Feliciana ’14 thought she would one day open her own pet store. But while working in the university’s Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, she discovered an interest in law and the history of policing, and a distaste for sitting behind a desk. The native of Fort Washington graduated from the same pgpd academy class as Daugherty. In her first several months on the job, she noticed that people tend to stare warily at police officers arriving on a scene, and that some bystanders record the interactions on their cell phones. Yet she hasn’t second-guessed her career decision. “I’d rather get out there and do the job so we have officers that are doing the job for the right reasons,” Feliciana says. “I’d rather get out there and be the good seed.” As a black woman in a police uniform, she has received a different sort of animus than Daugherty. Feliciana recalls one young girl telling her that she should be ashamed to be on the force. Another time, a friend of her father’s posted on social media that working for the police
department is like working for the Ku Klux Klan. “You guys complain about corrupt police, but when a genuine person wants to be police, you shame them,” she remembers thinking. “Do you really want change?” The starting point for change, Stawinski says, is in the tens of millions of routine interactions each year between citizens and cops—not the ones that cost lives and launch protests. “There is a small group of officers involved in these kinds of confrontations,” he says. “Some of them are malicious and wrong, and those officers are being prosecuted. Some of those are honest mistakes and they’ve got bad results. That’s where I think we lose the fight—if we are too much on the side of ‘we are all going to get ambushed,’ if we are too much on the side of ‘everybody’s out to do harm.’ Those are the fringes.” It’s a tough proposition when a police officer in Oakland or Seattle can have just as much of an effect on local perception as one in the pgpd. From the moment a cadet enters training to when he or she retires, the pressure is on to make sure each interaction starts from a neutral position. “We, in a uniform, have to treat people uniformly,” Acosta says. “Just as importantly, society needs to see that.” TERP
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UMD SCHOLAR TRACKS HOW WORD PROCESSORS CHANGED WRITING BY CHRIS CARROLL
THE CROWN JEWEL OF MATTHEW KIRSCHENBAUM’S COLLECTION, OR MAYBE JUST THE MOST HULKING PIECE OF IT, OCCUPIES A CORNER IN THE BASEMENT OF HORNBAKE LIBRARY. IT’S A FEW HUNDRED POUNDS OF BEIGE COLD WAR-ERA MACHINERY, WITH CRYPTIC BUTTONS AND KNOBS AND A VAGUELY MENACING AIR, LIKE SOMETHING FOR DIALING IN BALLISTIC MISSILE TARGET COORDINATES. the first dedicated device ever marketed for a thenrevolutionary activity called “word processing,” ibm’s Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter, or mt/st, wasn’t designed for mass destruction. Instead, its arrival in 1964—meeting with the kind of fanfare reserved today for new iPhones—would transform the landscape for writers around the world. In Kirschenbaum’s recent book, “Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing,” the associate professor of English and director of umd’s graduate certificate in digital studies uncovers how the mt/st and its successors captured—and even changed— the imagination of authors, upended modern offices, tweaked stereotypical gender roles and digitally altered the fundamentals of writing.
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“Writing by hand or sitting at a typewriter, we’re always in the present moment, going character by character, line by line,” he says. “Word processing allowed writers to grasp a manuscript as a whole, a gestalt. Everything was instantly available via search functions. Whole passages could be moved at will, and chapters or sections reordered. The textual field became fluid and malleable.” These new powers depended on the machines— from Osbornes to Brothers to Apples—many of which Kirschenbaum has up and running in the Hornbake Library office of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. “It’s not about nostalgia,” he says, but so he and colleagues can access and preserve manuscripts or old interactive fiction written on forgotten operating systems and dead technologies. What not so long ago seemed futuristic was in danger of being lost to history, so Kirschenbaum set out to document it.
MATTHEW KIRSCHENBAUM
1970
PIONEERS BEYOND PENS who wrote the first book on a word processor? The question helped fuel Kirschenbaum’s research, and the answer depends on what you consider a word processor and how you define “wrote.” At a price of $10,000 in 1960s
money, early machines were designed for offices, not individual users. One of the few who could afford his own was popular British novelist Len Deighton, who used the mt/st for his 1970 book, “Bomber.” But Deighton still wrote on a typewriter, handing off pages to his assistant to retype into the unwieldy machine’s magnetic tape storage. She then added Deighton’s revisions without retyping whole sections, accelerating the process. The first novel written on a word processor in the modern sense—with the author herself composing and revising entirely on a computer screen— might have been Gay Courter’s 1981 historical bestseller, “The Midwife.” She used a 1977 ibm System 6 that she and her husband had bought for their documentary film company,
finding snippets of time amid work and family responsibilities to write fiction. Her writing method wouldn’t have been possible without the efficiency of the machine, she told Kirschenbaum. When she turned in her manuscript, “the agent was fascinated with the cleanliness of the copy, the justified type… Part of the in-house buzz was because of the wordprocessed ms.”
1964
KIRSCHENBAUM PORTRAIT BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
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who
fluid,
DELETING DRUDGERY
pa ges
BUBBLE MACHINE
now that it’s old hat, it’s easy to forget how much tedium word processors freed us from in the late 20th century. Office workers rejoiced, as did popular fiction writers who discovered that the new technology facilitated the high level of productivity they needed to earn a living. While many “serious” authors of literary fiction initially turned up their noses (Gore Vidal declared the machines were “erasing literature”), those who embraced word processors left behind smeared correction fluid, dead typewriter ribbons, jumbles of pages and endless retyping of revisions. “Boy, has this thing made it easier to write science fiction,” author Jerry Pournelle wrote in a computing magazine in 1979. “It was hugely freeing,” cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson told Kirschenbaum. “Typographical errors were now of no import, and text became literally plastic with cut-and-paste.”
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THE WRITER'S BRAIN
1979
word processing did more than change the physical processes of writing—it gave writers new ways to think about their works in progress, even taking on some of the mental load they’d had to carry themselves in the day of typewriters. Novelist Stanley Elkin said the Lexitron VT 1303 that he dubbed the “bubble machine” relieved him of having to remember exactly what he’d devised
200 pages earlier. As a result, “the word processor has facilitated not just the mechanics of writing but has actually facilitated plot… (I)t occurs to you, gee, wasn’t there some kind of reference to that earlier on? So you put the machine in search mode, and you find what the reference was earlier, and you can begin to use these things as tools, or nails, in putting the plot together.” After resisting for years, Salman Rushdie finally began using word processing software in the 1990s and immediately understood why others had found it so useful: “Just at the level of writing, this is the best piece of writing I’ve ever done… I’ve been able to revise much more.”
The word processor has facilitated not just the mechanics of writing but has actually facilitated plot. ² 28
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T YPEWRITER PHOTO BY JON-PIERRE KELANI/EYEEM; T YPING POD PHOTO BY BERT-HARDY ADVERTISING/GETT Y IMAGES
The system has encountered an error. Because gender has always loomed large in modern workplaces, it’s a key element in the history of word processing.
1959
Technical information: ***STOP: 0x000007A
REDEFINING ROLES the term “word processor,” like “typewriter” before it, originally referred not to a machine or a computer program, but to a person—typically a female office worker trained to operate the machinery, Kirschenbaum says. Because gender has always loomed large in modern workplaces, it’s a key element in the history of word processing as well. The New York Times observed at the advent of the mt/st, “The International Business Machines Corporation introduced yesterday a typewriter that it believes will eliminate a lot of the drudgery of a secretary’s job. It will also eliminate a lot of secretaries.” But a feminist-toned ad for an ibm competitor in the debut issue of Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine was grimly celebratory about “The Death of the Dead-end Secretary: It’s been long overdue.” Word
processing, the ad promised, would allow women to move out of typing pools into positions of greater authority. Whether word processing actually helped as more women moved into management is an open question, but it did end the association of typing with “women’s work.” As Kirschenbaum says, “It was soon so easy, even guys could do it.”
2017
PROCESS COMPLETE word processing was so effective at easing many of the demands of the writing process that it firmly embedded itself in homes and businesses throughout the world over the course of a few decades. But paradoxically—unlike the early days of the ibm mt/st—the term is hardly used anymore. Instead we type, touch, swipe and even talk to our devices, while “text” has become a verb, Kirschenbaum says. “Word processing is something we once did, in the same way we once used dial-up modems and studiously hyphenated the triple alliterative of the World-Wide Web,” he writes. “Nowadays we mostly just write, here, there and everywhere, across ever increasing multitudes of platforms, services and surfaces.” Word processing’s triumph was that it allowed writers, more than ever before, to focus not on the process or on tools, but on the text. terp
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ALUMS BREW UP QUALITY CLOSE TO HOME BY CHRIS CARROLL
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ILLUSTRATION BY GABRIELA HERNANDEZ
THE WORLD OF BEER IS REGRESSING. For a f lood of Terps around the state of Maryland who recently entered the brewing business, the news couldn’t be better. Allegiance to “megabeer”—an industry term for global conglomerates producing standard-issue fizzy, lightly f lavored lagers—is waning. Meanwhile, output by small and independent craft brewers is growing by double digit percentages year by year. They now make 12 percent of the beer sold in the United States, according to the Brewers Association. It’s partly a result of decades of labor by craft brewers to turn American palettes toward more adventurous, complex f lavors—fruity, sour, bitter,
malty, estery, piney, grainy, grapefruity, you name it. But there’s another trend that augurs back to a hazy past, before Prohibition shattered the industry and giant companies took over. Consumers are increasingly bypassing beers brewed six states away in favor of those from just down the road, made by a local brewmaster with whom they can swap homebrewing tips. “As the general food and restaurant industry has moved toward local products, there seems to be a growing, insatiable demand for locally sourced beer,” says Kevin Atticks of the Brewers Association of Maryland. “When you go out and talk to the communities these Maryland breweries are in…there’s an awful lot of love for local beer.”
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Recent changes in Maryland law support the trend by allowing sales directly to consumers—an end run around tough competition with major brewers for liquor store shelf space or access to taps in bars and restaurants. Breweries can now sell up to 500 barrels (15,500 gallons) of beer yearly in taproom pubs, and deliver their own product to restaurants and retailers, avoiding expensive distributor contracts. A 2012 law authorizing farm-based breweries, which must grow at least one of their ingredients, encourages farmers to try a whole new kind of agriculture. It adds up to seven Maryland breweries opened by umd grads since 2011, spread geographically from the D.C. suburbs up to Baltimore, west to Frederick and east to the Delaware line. Some are well established, while others are just getting rolling. None, however, produces the anonymous suds you’d find at a typical kegger, and none aspires to become a latter-day global beer kingpin. “Maybe our distribution eventually reaches to up near Baltimore,” says Jim Beeman ’05, part-owner of 7 Locks Brewing in Rockville. “We’re not trying to be big. We want to make the best beer we can for our local clientele and basically be a valuable part of this community.”
Smith ’14, Tom Foster ’13 and Colin Marshall bonded at Loyola Blakefield High School, and later developed a passion for high-quality beer and homebrewing. Starting in 2014, they contracted with other breweries to produce their recipes. Being able to roll up their sleeves in their own facility (which includes a taproom punctuated by an old smokestack) is great satisfaction, Smith says. “This fits our personalities. It’s about creativity. You don’t have sit at a desk all day—you don’t have to be serious all the time.”
BIG CIT Y BREWS Terps own and operate two craft breweries in historic areas of Baltimore—one brand new, the other a few years old and popular enough to push the boundaries of the term “microbrewery.” Both want to keep the fun in brewing.
di a mondback br ew ing co. 1215 E. Fort Ave., Baltimore diamondbackbeer.com In an old factory just up the street from Fort McHenry on Locust Point, the newest Terp brewery produced two inaugural batches—Wreaking and Havoc, IPAs with differing hop prof iles—last Octo ber. Co-founders Francis
ADAM BENESCH AND KEVIN BLODGER, UNION CRAF T BREWING
union cr a ft br ew ing 1700 Union Ave., Baltimore unioncraftbrewing.com They were only freshmen, but when Adam Benesch ’98 and fellow Terp Kevin Blodger met in Hagerstown 2, it didn’t take them long to realize they shared a passion for beer—not pound-’em-back industrial brewskis, but serious craft brew. Along with partner Jon Zerivitz, the two made their first batch of Duckpin Pale Ale in Baltimore’s historic Woodberry neighborhood in 2012. Although the accessible Duckpin is the biggest seller, brewmaster Blodger caters to beer geeks as well with varieties like Old Pro, a tart German-style Gose beer enhanced with a dash of salt. Union produced about 10,000 barrels (310,000 gallons) in 2016, making it the biggest Terpowned brewery. When business gets hectic, Blodger says, “What I tell the guys is, ‘Chill out—we’re just making beer. It’s supposed to be fun.’”
SUBURBAN SUDS FRANCIS SMITH AND TOM FOSTER, DIAMONDBACK BREWING CO.
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It can be hard to tell where the sprawling outskirts of D.C. end and where those of Baltimore begin. But whatever teams the locals root for, this isn’t some featureless terra incognita—not for beer, anyway. BRIAN GAYLOR, BLACK FLAG BREWING CO.
PHOTOS BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
TOM FLORES ’92 oversees brewing operations for Brewer’s Alley and Monocacy Brewing Co. in Frederick, and previously was the founding brewmaster for Clipper City Brewing Co., known for the Heavy Seas line of beers. The Baltimore Sun in 2011 dubbed him the “Indiana MILKHOUSE BREWERY AT STILLPOINT FARM FLAVORS ITS BEER WITH HOPS (SHOWN IN NATURAL AND PELLET FORMS) GROWN AT THE FARM .
Jones of beer” for his professorial knowl-
bl ack fl ag br ew ing co. 9315 Snowden River Parkway, Columbia blackf lagbrewingco.com Founder Brian Gaylor ’08 was waiting out a Minneapolis blizzard in a craft beer bar when he and other patrons began chatting about what they’d do if they could quit their jobs and do anything. The homebrewing hobbyist imagined opening a brewery called “Black Flag” to signify a piratical lack of allegiance to any particular style or philosophy in brewing. He wasn’t just talking. The brewery (backed by a number of umd friends and investors) and suavely decorated taproom (designed by buddy Forrest Popkin ’08 of Bates Architects) opened last summer in a Columbia office park. True to its ethic, the ales recently ranged from fruity pales (try Rainbow Road) to tart farmhouses to a Belgian saison—not to mention Belgian Waff le, blending the saison with a hefty breakfast stout.
Keith Beutel ’05. He and partner Jim Beeman ’05 aimed for Rockville because although Montgomery County is both populous and wealthy, it hasn’t attracted many small brewers. Since 7 Locks opened in fall 2015, locals are increasingly finding their way here for live music or to sample varieties like Rum Rye, a rum barrel-aged, barley wine-style rye ale brewed to 11.5 percent alcohol by volume that avoids cloying sweetness and alcohol fumes while giving a strong whiff of Caribbean spirit.
DOWN ON THE FARM Sipping a beer on a sunny afternoon in a grassy meadow as farm fields stretch into the distance drives home a basic truth—without agriculture, there’d be no beer. Terps who’ve started farm breweries are working to ensure that’s never the case.
edge of beer arcana. With a biochemistry degree from umd in his pocket, he dived into the academic side of beer, earning a master’s degree in food science and technology with an emphasis in brewing from the University of California-Davis. Today, Flores is active in the Brewers Association to promote America’s small and independent craft brewers.
7 locks br ew ing 12227 Wilkins Ave., Rockville 7locksbrewing.com One of the charms of microbreweries is that customers can usually get a peek at the brewing process. At 7 Locks, where everything is housed in a single large factory room, they can’t avoid it. “When you’re walking to the restroom, you’re also giving yourself a self-guided tour of the brewery,” jokes co-founder
7 LOCKS BREWING
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VICTOR AELLEN , WHO RUNS THE RED SHEDMAN FARM BREWERY, STANDS AMID HIS COLD ROOM STORAGE TANKS.
fa lling br a nch br ew ery 825 Highland Road, Street fallingbranchbeer.com
ALLEN GALBREATH , FALLING BRANCH BREWERY
Alex Galbreath ’13 followed his father Allen ’78 into farming, but with a cutting-edge twist. After planting a hop garden on their Harford County farm, which has been in the family for nearly a century, they began brewing beers tilted toward the Belgian farmhouse style in 2015 and opened a beer garden outside their 200-year-old barn last spring. It’s all about finding new and profitable ways to keep farming viable in Maryland; the brewery follows earlier initiatives like farm tours for local students and family pumpkin picking in the fall. “I’m pretty sure we’re the only pumpkin patch in Maryland that brews its own beer,” Allen Galbreath says.
milk house br ew ery at stillpoint fa r m 8253 Dollyhyde Road, Mount Airy Milkhousebrewery.com
To learn about an initiative by the University of Maryland Extension to help Maryland brewers grow ingredients for beer production, visit go.umd.edu/hops.
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A lawyer by training but a homebrewer at heart, Tom Barse ’77 was perfectly positioned to help write the legislation that authorized farm breweries in Maryland. He then opened the first one in the state in 2013 amid the rolling hills of Frederick County. Barse, an expert in hops cultivation who previously
sold this key ingredient in beer to other breweries, is now planning an “estate” beer with agricultural ingredients grown exclusively on his 47-acre farm. “Maryland brewers are cooperative rather than competitive; we all have a niche,” he says. “Our niche is that we make unfiltered, classic styles of beer using as many local ingredients as we possibly can.”
red shedman farm brewery and hop yard 13601 Glissans Mill Road, Mount Airy redshedman.com Victor Aellen ’81 was a umd student when he and his brother planted the vines that would grow to support the family’s Linganore Winery. After graduation, Aellen went on to successive careers in the chemical industry and financial services. But the family farm called. “About every 15 years, I get bored and have to do something else,” he says. Today, after studying under accomplished brewmasters in Grand Rapids, Mich.—which styles itself “Beer City usa”—Aellen runs the brewing process and harvests the hops at the Red Shedman Farm Brewery, which opened alongside the winery in 2014. He meets up every so often with Barse, from nearby Milkhouse Brewery, to share materials, chat and have a sip of a fellow Terp brewer’s latest beer. “We’re definitely friendly competition,” he said. “But we’re not actually competing against each other. Our competition is the big guys.” terp
TOP PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI; LEF T PHOTO BY EDWIN REMSBERG
You don’t have to wear a Maryland-themed hat and body stocking to show your Terp spirit.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GREG FIUME
Come to a game. Sing the fight song. Join the Alumni Association.
JOIN the Alumni Association for life University of Maryland Alumni Association members are the proudest Terps, helping to secure the future of their alma mater, strengthening its reputation and ultimately enhancing the value of their own degrees. Join today and connect with fellow Terps across the nation and around the world, opening doors to professional and personal development and much more.
alumni.umd.edu/join
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ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
STAY CONNECTED
UMD Champions:
Terps Spread the Word
Join a new group of proud Terp ambassadors to elevate the reputation of the University of Maryland. Promote university activities and initiatives, foster connections between the university and its community, share messages that advance the university’s mission and goals, and educate the public about important issues. You decide your level of participation. 1
JOIN AT: ALUMNI.UMD.EDU/CHAMPIONS
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AWARDS GALA, SEPT. 30
The 14th annual event honored the achievements of 26 distinguished Terps.
C ALENDA R Fearless Ideas Come to You The university’s signature preview event series is heading your way this spring. Be on the lookout for more information on events featuring President Wallace Loh in your community: NEW YORK CITY MIAMI LOS ANGELES SAN FRANCISCO
APRIL MAY JUNE JUNE
25 25 20 22
2
ERIC S. & FRANN G. FRANCIS LIFETIME MEMBER WALL UNVEILING, OCT. 1
Johnny C. Walker ’92, along with 761 other alumni and friends, had his name engraved on the wall prior to the Homecoming celebration.
3 FOR LOCATIONS, PRICING AND MORE DETAILS, EMAIL FEARLESSCAMPAIGN@UMD.EDU.
Music in America
From Nashville to Memphis, celebrate classic country and blues music on a voyage aboard the American Queen, the largest and most opulent riverboat in the world. Savor beautiful vistas and visit charming, historic towns in Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri. Enjoy an array of sumptuous dining options including regional cuisine by an award-winning culinary team, accompanied by complimentary wine and beer. Book by March 18 to take advantage of additional savings! LEARN MORE AT ALUMNI.UMD.EDU/TRAVEL.
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TAILGATE, OCT. 1
Terps rallied at the Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center for an exciting pregame event before Maryland defeated Purdue, 50-7.
T R AVEL
10.29 – 11.6
ALUMNI ZONE HOMECOMING
4 GIFT OF GIVING GALA PRESENTED BY THE WHITTLE JOHNSON PROMISE, SEPT. 28
Students gathered to thank alumni scholarship donors at the second annual event designed to advance the education and professional development of African-American students.
STAY FEARLESS
STAY ACTIVE
A L U M N I . U M D . E D U
Digitally Connected Terp Innovators Share Lessons With Fellow Alums
F
u r t h e r p r o o f t h a t nothing connects people like technology: More than 200 alumni and friends of the university turned out to hear four Terps speak about how to harness its power at a first-of-its-kind event co-sponsored by the Alumni Association. “Digital Disruptors: Four Talks to Change Your World,” held Nov. 10 at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Md., represented a
Month of Service Encourages Alums to Give Back
major collaboration between the Alumni Association and the A. James Clark School of Engineering; the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (bsos); the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences; the Robert H. Smith School of Business; and the College of Information Studies, Maryland’s iSchool. “We were thrilled to partner with the colleges to present something unique: a ted Talks-style educational event,” said
and rewarding projects.
Amy Eichhorst, executive director of the Alumni Association. Andrew Baer ’80, senior vice president of global communications and media industry at Salesforce, discussed the importance of the customer’s experience; Danielle Harlan ’03, founder and ceo of the Center for Advancing Leadership and Human Potential, spoke about what it means to be a visionary; D.J. Patil M.A. ’99, Ph.D. ’01, who was recruited by President Obama to be the first U.S. chief data scientist, touted how data can be used for the public good; and Alex Mehr Ph.D. ’03 addressed the concept of “product-market fit,” in which consumers buy a product without much convincing. Jen Golbeck Ph.D. ’05, an associate professor in umd’s iSchool, moderated the discussion. Deborah Rhebergen, assistant dean in bsos, said the event highlighted both the diversity and interconnectedness of umd graduates’ skillsets and interests. “We have a lot of alumni who come out of different schools and departments of the university but they work together with common themes. We wanted to showcase some of them to alumni.”–sl
You can participate in this growing
The Alumni Leadership Conference every
tradition—nearly 500 Terps and their family
year recognizes a Terp Service Month winner
members and friends volunteered last year
with a project award. The 2016 winner, the
in 23 events through partnerships with local
Latino Alumni Network, was honored for
nonprofits—by signing up at http://alumni.
The university’s new Do Good Initiative
taking part in an Oral Cancer Foundation
umd.edu/give-back/volunteer.
isn’t confined to just the campus: Alumni
run/walk and a happy hour fundraiser for
everywhere are encouraged to “do good”
the Stepping Stones Shelter in Rockville, Md.,
to support their communities, through
and offering a one-day information session
programs such as Terp Service Month.
on UMD for 65 parents and high schoolers
Every April, Terps unite at events around the country, organized by University of Maryland Alumni Association networks and
through Hispanic Youth with Power and Education (HYPE). Latino Alumni Network President Gerson
affinity groups. Alums have volunteered at
Elias ’12 says the group was excited to
the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank with
encourage the next generation of Latino
the LA Terps, at the SPCA with the Blue
teens to go to college. “For me, volunteering
Ridge Terps or in a city park cleanup with
and giving back to the community is very
the Baltimore Terps, among dozens of fun
fulfilling,” he says.
PHOTO CREDITS AT LEF T, FROM TOP: 1 . MIKE MORGAN; 2, 3. LISA HELFERT; 4. OLASUBOMI ADESOYE STUDIOS; AT RIGHT, FROM TOP: LISA BLUME; NORTHERN VIRGINIA TERPS ALUMNI NETWORK
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INTRODUCING THE NATION’S
Adhere these removable stickers to your car, computer or other gadget to show your Terp pride and commitment to Do Good.
FIRST DO GOOD CAMPUS
DoGood.umd.edu
HOW DO YOU DO GOOD? • Teach a child to read • Clean a park • Give to a food pantry/women’s shelter/homeless shelter • Organize a clothes drive • Coach a kids’ team • Reduce/reuse/recycle • Perform at a retirement community • Plant a tree • Adopt a shelter animal • Be kind to fellow drivers • Check in on your neighbor • Shovel an extra driveway • Donate blood • Give up your seat • Advocate for equality
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The University of Maryland commits to become a global leader in advancing social change, philanthropy and nonprofit leadership with the launch of its Do Good Initiative.
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Our Do Good campus will lead to a Do Good world.
Building on the School of Public Policy’s Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership and its Do Good Challenge, the effort will amplify the power of Terps as agents of social innovation and support the university’sPHOTO mission ofT.service. BY JOHN CONSOLI
“Do Good” Gets Great ONE OF THE MOST AMBITIOUS PROJECTS in University of Maryland
history promises to amplify the power of Terps as agents of social innovation and to support the university’s mission of service. The initiative announced this fall creates the nation’s first “Do Good” campus and establishes the Do Good Institute to serve as a hub of activity for philanthropy, nonprofit management, public policy and leadership. It builds on the success of the School of Public Policy’s Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership and its Do Good Challenge. “This initiative will engage every student, from orientation to graduation, in experiences and programs that will tap their passion and prepare them for a lifetime of making an impact in the world while preparing a new generation of Do Good leaders,” says Robert Grimm Jr., director of the center, and now the institute. Through an investment of at least $75 million from individual and family gifts, state funding, and corporate
and foundation grants, the university will build a new home for the School of Public Policy, spark an expansion of student experiences and courses on campus and beyond, and increase research and opportunities to cement the university’s reputation as a leader in this field. The Do Good Challenge, a campus competition encouraging social innovation, has produced remarkable results since its 2012 founding. Among them, 2014 winner Terps Against Hunger packaged and delivered more than a million meals to local food banks last year, and Food Recovery Network co-founder Ben Simon ’14 was named among Forbes magazine’s Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs. “The Do Good Initiative establishes the University of Maryland as a global leader in advancing social change, philanthropy and nonprofit leadership,” says President Wallace Loh. “We believe that our Do Good campus will lead to a ‘Do Good world,’ where we will have a positive impact on all of the world’s citizens.”
Tweet a pic showing how you do good using #DoGoodUMD
PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
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PARTING SHOT
JUMPING AT THE OPPORTUNITY Team member Claudia Romeo ’17 and Little Valkyrie compete at the U.S. Intercollegiate Eventing Championships in May, helping the team to place sixth. The Olympic sport, a triathlon of sorts for equestrians, requires horses and riders to compete in dressage, cross-country jumping and show jumping. While the University of Maryland has had an equestrian team for decades, the eventing team formed only in Fall 2015 at the suggestion of two undergraduates. The team’s early success, says faculty adviser Amy O. Burk, is a testament to the talent in this state and within umd’s student body. Now the team boasts more than 25 members, and Burk, associate professor of avian and animal sciences, has further ambitions as she observes the team members develop their skills and camaraderie: “I want to recruit the best horsemen to the University of Maryland that I would have missed otherwise because they would have gone to college elsewhere or not at all.”–LB
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PHOTO PHOTO BY ©USA/K BY JOHN ATE T. CONSOLI BOGGAN
POWERED BY FEARLESS IDEAS.
SUPPORTED BY YOU. Support a student scholarship. Fund exploration in the arts. Invest in pioneering research. One gift every year makes a difference every day.
TEACHING LOCAL IMMIGRANT PARENTS TO SPEAK ENGLISH
INSPIRED TO DO GOOD BY UN SECRETARYGENERAL’S CAMPUS TALK
RECEIVED SCHOLARSHIP THAT DREW SOFTBALL STANDOUT TO UMD
CREATED APP TO HIGHLIGHT STREET HAZARDS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
EXPLORED RURAL PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUES DURING SEMESTER IN BOTSWANA
BIG OR SMALL, YOUR GIFTS HELP DISCOVER NEW KNOWLEDGE / INSPIRE MARYLAND PRIDE / TRANSFORM THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE / TURN IMAGINATION INTO INNOVATION. PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
LEARN MORE AT GIVING.UMD.EDU/TERP
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NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
TERP MAGAZINE DIVISION OF UNIVERSITY RELATIONS COLLEGE PARK, MD 20742–8724
PERMIT NO. 10 COLLEGE PARK, MD
Change service requested
2017
SATURDAY APRIL 29 | 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
CAN’T ATTEND? Make a gift to help the University of Maryland continue to do great work throughout the state and beyond.
Curiosity. Passion. Inspiration. Boldness. You’ll find it all at the University of Maryland’s one-day open house featuring family-friendly and interactive events. Come explore our world of Fearless Ideas and see how we do good for our community, the state and the world. Rain or shine | Admission and parking are free
marylandday.umd.edu
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