Terp Winter 2024

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ON THE MALL

POST-GRAD

NEWS

4 4 5

With $20M Investment, UMD Becomes HQ for Clark Scholars Program An Xceptional Challenge Commanders’ Offices to “Touchdown” in Discovery District

CAMPUS LIFE

6 8 9 10 11

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Dying An Out-of-This-World Mentor Harmony Between AI and Violin Instruction?

Back in Full Swing Sports Briefs

EXPLORATIONS

12 13 13 14 15 16 17 17

AI Offers Hope on Dangerous Ground

Ask an Expert What the Bio-Nose Knows The FEWTure of Food Forests In the Shadow of History A Soaring Success Towering Ambitions for Forecasts PROGRESS on Gun Violence

36 38 40 40 41 42 43 44

Alumni Association Capital-area Chronicler Turns the Page Ahead of the Game Alum’s Photo to Live “Forever” on Stamp Cheese the Day A Match Made in Lot 1 Underexposed Parting Shot

CONTENTS See an animation of Testudo taking flight at the bottom left corner of this issue by flipping quickly through the pages. The illustrations by Karl J. Molner appeared as a “flip flick” feature in the 1973 Terrapin yearbook.

FEATURES

ONLINE

From Magical Machines to Real-World Design Hit video game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom inspires a new engineering course on machine design.

— Salt in the Climate Change Wound Geologist leads research finding that the influx of salt in streams and rivers poses an “existential threat.”

— Code ‘Read’ Step inside the triage center for UMD’s battered books.

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Standing the Testudo of Time From turtlenappings to TikTok shenanigans, an unassuming reptile has evolved to represent Terp spirit.

BY TERP STAFF

24

Tribal Loyalties American Indians have long been denied fair access to homes, health care, schooling and jobs. For Joseph Kunkel M.Arch. ’09, the mission to change that is personal.

BY SALA LEVIN ’10

30

Out of the Shell Twenty-five years ago, the LGBTQ+ Equity Center opened to support queer Terps who felt invisible, isolated and harassed. Some of the founders recount its humble start and hard-won victories.

BY K AREN SHIH ’09

Get the latest on the UMD community by visiting TODAY.UMD.EDU.

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FROM THE EDITOR

in 15 years at UMD, I’ve seen a lot of Testudos: Bobbleheads. Plushies. Stick pins. Printed on bowties, socks and baby onesies. Sketched on commencement posters and wine bottles. Even strapped atop the Terrapin Club president’s tailgate canopy as a giant inflatable, towering over pregame parties.

Improbably, a diamondback terrapin has made a marvelous mascot for UMD. He’s part of some of the university’s best traditions, helping to unfurl the Maryland flag at basketball and football games, stoically accepting nose rubs or dancing with the annual flash mob.

As a bronze statue, he’s dignified and immune to the affronts of half-eaten food or stolen traffic cones left with him as “sacrifices” by worried students facing final exams. As a walking (but not talking) symbol of Maryland pride, he’s a cuddly clown in a furry suit. He dresses up as a granny or Spider-Man, hugs kids and poses for selfies.

For this issue, the Terp team dug up our favorite iterations of and tales about Testudo since he first appeared just over 90 years ago—some of which may be new to his most ardent fans. Flip to page 18 for our cover feature about him and be on the lookout for nuggets about life in the mascot costume and the surprising number of times the (heavy!) statue was stolen.

You’ll find another fun story in writer Maggie Haslam’s first-person account of a “survival class” in the woods, hosted by a business professor teaching undergrads how to collaborate and improvise to solve problems with little more than a garbage bag and a rope.

Our other features take on weightier topics. Writer Karen Shih compiled an oral history from nearly a dozen interviews with faculty, staff and students who helped launch the LGBTQ+ Equity Center 25 years ago and details the discrimination they fought to overcome. Writer Sala Levin and photographer John Consoli traveled to New Mexico to meet an alum, an architect and citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe who’s devoted his career to empowering historically under-resourced Indigenous communities.

And from saving the bald eagle to creating “food forests” to feed the hungry or using AI to find unexploded munitions in Ukraine, we spotlight in this issue just a few of the other societal challenges our faculty are tackling.

Where there is conflict, injustice or a seemingly intractable problem, there are Terps stepping in to find a solution. “Look for the helpers,” Mr. Rogers gently suggested to children stressed by scary things in the news. A grown-up version is to look for the Terps.

And if things still seem scary, you can always look for a furry, giant Testudo.

Lauren Brown University Editor

A TRIO OF TESTUDOS

This issue of Terp was printed with three different covers featuring memorable images of Testudos past (1935, 1945,

Publisher BRIAN ULLMANN ’92 Vice President, Marketing and Communications

Adviser MARGARET HALL Executive Director, Creative Strategies

Magazine Staff LAUREN BROWN University Editor JOHN T. CONSOLI ’86 Creative Director VALERIE MORGAN Art Director CHRIS CARROLL MAGGIE HASLAM ANNIE KRAKOWER SALA LEVIN ’10 KAREN SHIH ’09 Writers LUCY HUBBARD ’24 Editorial Intern KOLIN BEHRENS LAUREN BIAGINI CHARLENE PROSSER CASTILLO Designers STEPHANIE S. CORDLE Photographer GAIL RUPERT M.L.S. ’10 Photography Archivist HONG H. HUYNH Photography Assistant RILEY N. SIMS PH.D. ’23 Photography Intern JAGU CORNISH Production Manager

EMAIL terpfeedback@umd.edu ONLINE terp.umd.edu NEWS today.umd.edu FACEBOOK.COM/ UnivofMaryland TWITTER.COM /UofMaryland INSTAGRAM.COM / univofmaryland YOUTUBE.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 nondiscrimination regarding race, color, religion, age, national origin, political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

late 1980s). To print out your own versions for a fun display, visit terp.umd.edu/3testudos.

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

COVER Illustrations courtesy of University Archives

1 9 3 5 T E R R A P I N I L L U S T R AT I O N C O U R T E SY O F U N I V E R S I T Y A R C H I V E S

INTERPLAY

“Get Listening, Kids”

Your article struck a chord (pun intended) and a trip down memory lane! In my graduating year of civil engineering, I decided to round out my education and volunteer at what was then WMUC AM 65 for the graveyard shift once per week. There was a call-in line, and my friends would ask for 1960s retro tunes— none of which was on the contemporary playlist (“Gloria” by Laura Branigan, “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band and “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor).

Being a DJ was better than attending Toastmasters in learning to minimize dead airtime, training oneself to minimize or eliminate “uh”s and “ah”s as you gather your thoughts, talking in cohesive sentences and organizing. I used those skills in my career with the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security in presentations and at international forums. In retrospect, I’m not sure if I fit your article’s “loners, punks and weirdos.” Hmm, maybe I do!

Simon. Around the time of my last shift, they revealed who they were and gave me a houseplant that they had named Julio!

—DOMINIQUE (YAMBRICK) GALLO ’85, OCEAN PINES, MD.

Your article brought back many memories of my undergraduate years and continuing education during the 1980s. I worked various student jobs, many in the Stamp Student Union. I will always remember WMUC playing in the background, no matter what the hour of the day or night. Thank you for the history lesson. (I’m now an educator.)

Go Terps!

—DALE R. STEINFORT ’78, SHIPPENSBURG, PA.

UMD has become a second home to me.

I may be able to finally study abroad and experience a new culture.

I am committed to making the most of this opportunity to create a better future for myself and my family.

This program has taught me a lot about myself, personally and academically.

—BOB BAER ’82, COLLEGE PARK, MD.

—M A RY L A N D P RO M I S E

We were the first station in the country to have the Hall and Oates single “Maneater” and drop it! I think I was chosen to do the honors because my shift was 10-2, and most students eat during that time and would hear it either in the cafeteria or in the student union.

I also had a fan club who chose to keep their identities secret. They would always call in and ask me to play “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” by Paul

WRITE TO US We love to hear from readers. Send your feedback, insights, compliments—and, yes, complaints—to terpfeedback@umd.edu or to: Terp magazine Office of Marketing and Communications 7736 Baltimore Ave. College Park, MD 20742

P RO G R A M S C H O L A R S H I P R E C I P I E N T S

Blast From the Past—and Into the Future

The Wind Tunnel! My favorite campus building. In 1985, I had a writing internship at the Engineering Research Center on the second floor. One day, Director Jewel Barlow gave a few of us a full tour.

I was able to visit the tunnel again during Maryland Day 2023 and let the mere 30-mph air flow through my meager hair.

And Professor Barlow was still there! (See photo above.) I was able to thank him for the tour four decades ago.

—STUART GOLDMAN ’85, TOWSON, MD.

Corrections: The caption to a photo accompanying the article “The Sweetest Connection” in the Fall 2023 issue incorrectly identified Elkton Hall in the background.

The photo was taken in the Cambridge Community.

Also, Marty Rosenstock ‘81 was misidentified as “Weinstock” on page 22 of “Get Listening, Kids.”

We regret the errors.

The Clark Challenge for the Maryland Promise will establish a $100 million endowment to provide need-based scholarships to talented undergraduates in Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Gifts of any size to the Maryland Promise Program will be matched dollar for dollar. You can support deserving scholars now at promise.umd.edu.

ON THE MALL

NEWS

With $20.6M Investment, UMD Becomes HQ for Clark Scholars Program UMD WILL BECOME the permanent home

of a multi-university program that recruits and supports outstanding undergrads with financial need, thanks to a new $20.6 million investment from the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation.

Active at 11 of the nation’s top engineering institutions, including the University of Maryland, the A. James Clark

An Xceptional Challenge Initiative to Award Up to $2M for Student Solutions to Grand Challenges

Scholars Program provides scholarships to students who share the foundation’s commitments to leadership, innovation and community service in engineering and other disciplines.

Reintroduced as the Clark Scholars Program Network, it will encourage collaboration and innovation across participating institutions and with alums.

“Jim Clark believed that if you gave a person a chance, they would create greatness,” says UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “The Clark Scholars Program has given hundreds of students a chance, and the greatness they are creating will shape the world for decades to come.

We are excited and honored to carry forward Mr. Clark’s legacy of impact.”

Launched in 2016, the Clark Scholars Program combines engineering, business, leadership and community service. It has supported 591 students across its partner institutions, consistently exceeding national averages for female representation, underrepresented minorities in STEM and Pell Grant-eligible students enrolled in undergraduate engineering degree programs.

During the 2022–23 academic year, 71% of Clark Scholars didn’t need to take out private student loans, thanks to the program’s financial support.

The new scholars network will facilitate forums for sharing best practices and novel ideas, establish a robust alumni network and host an annual Clark Scholars Summit at partner institutions: Duke University, the George Washington University, Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins University, Penn State, Stevens Institute of Technology, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University and Virginia Tech.

“The sense of community between program staff across all 11 university partners is part of what makes this program so unique,” says Joel Del Guercio, president and CEO of the foundation.

Including this new investment, the Clark Foundation and Clark family have invested more than $300 million to build infrastructure and support students, faculty and research at UMD.

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

niversity of maryland students with bold answers to some of the world’s biggest problems could soon graduate with not just a degree, but also a startup company with up to $2 million in investments.

The university is launching an XPRIZE-inspired initiative incentivizing students’ technology innovations—led by one of the original funders of the competition series that generously rewards radical approaches to global challenges, ranging from rising atmospheric carbon to the growing threat of wildfires.

The xFoundry@UMD will recruit students committed to doing good on a large scale, then train them over 15 months to work across disciplines while gaining valuable knowledge and experience as they build their projects. Student teams will then face off at an annual competition to have their solution win funding and support from a group of seasoned executives to form a new venture.

“Terps harness their creativity, energy and talent to create tangible, meaningful change in the world,” says university President Darryll J. Pines. “This experimental program will offer students a one-of-a-kind competition that will take on the grand challenges of our time.”

Amir Ansari, an engineer, serial entrepreneur and inventor with 60-plus patents, will oversee the xFoundry in his new role as co-founder and inaugural executive director of the university’s E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory, a high-tech workshop designed to foster collaboration across engineering, the arts and humanities, science and business.

Ansari and his family were title sponsors of the 2004 Ansari XPRIZE that awarded $10 million to the creators of the first reusable manned commercial spacecraft (which went on to become the basis for Virgin Galactic). He remains on the board of the XPRIZE Foundation as it sponsors other contests

U

I L L U S T R AT I O N V I A I S T O C K

Commanders’ Offices to “Touchdown” in Discovery District THE WASHINGTON COMMANDERS

will move business operations from FedExField to Greater College Park early this year, freeing up space for suites at the stadium while expanding the franchise’s footprint in Maryland.

“Moving our headquarters will provide exciting new spaces to take in home games and will provide for greater collaboration for our business staff and partnership with the University of Maryland,” Commanders President Jason Wright said in announcing the move in December.

The new offices will be in the

aimed at sparking solutions in domains such as energy, climate, equity, health and education.

The shared mission of the foundation and the university to tackle grand challenges grabbed his attention, and the robust entrepreneurial ecosystem on campus and the intellect and enthusiasm of the students won him over.

“I love this strategic mission of the community coming together to solve problems,” Ansari says. “I’m hoping what will happen now is a new way of introducing a value proposition for spending time at a university: to graduate students armed with the ability to do something significant that can also become very successful for them.”

Students in the xFoundry@UMD program, called Xperience, can earn credits toward their degrees as they participate in its four components: Xplore, Xperiment, Xcelerate and Xecute.

They take students on a journey from picking a topic, to learning about the mindset of entrepreneurship, to forming teams and developing their idea into a prototype.

The winner of the competition receives a venture with at least $250,000 and up to $2 million in investors’ funds to launch the company, with experienced corporate executives to guide them through their first year. Upon graduation, winning team members become co-founders working on the venture’s product team, complete with a salary and equity stake.

“These are smart students,” Ansari says. “With a little exposure to the right elements and some light guidance, they can be solving real problems facing our society, and creating a better world for everyone.”—lb

TO P P H OTO BY ST E P H A N I E S. CO R D L E ; CO M M A N D E R S P H OTO BY TO D D ROS E N B E RG V I A A P

5

UMD climbed to No.

for undergraduate entrepreneurship among all U.S. universities in

Discovery District, UMD’s 150-acre hub of research and innovation that houses tenants including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Capital One, Adobe and Raytheon, as well as amenities like The Hotel at the University of Maryland and the Hall CP. “The proximity to this new home for the Commanders is an incredible opportunity for our students pursuing invaluable internships and our emerging sports management program,” says Ken Ulman, chief strategy officer for economic development at UMD.

2024 rankings from The Princeton Review and

Find out more about new arrivals to Greater College Park at go.umd.edu/GCPadditions.

Entrepreneur magazine

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ON THE MALL

CAMPUS LIFE

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Dying In Wilderness Survival Class, Students Rely on Wits, Not a Whiteboard y car is on fire. I stand stunned on the shoulder of a lonesome wooded road west of Baltimore. What started as a ping of the check engine light had quickly escalated to a Volkswagen inferno that now illuminates the darkening sky. With no sign of civilization, the temperature plummeting and my cell phone—left on the passenger seat—burned to an iCrisp, I realize I could be stranded for the night.

In the glow of my car’s torched carcass, I spot a garbage bag tossed to the side of the road. Inside, I find a hodgepodge of items: a wire hanger, an unused tampon,

M

an empty water bottle and a long-expired can of sardines. None seems useful, but I’ll soon learn that surviving—in life and in business—requires a little improvisation. this didn’t actually happen. It’s the scenario Clinical Professor Oliver Schlake lays out on a balmy October morning to me and nearly 100 freshmen in Patapsco Valley State Park near Ellicott City, Md. The objective: Survive a hypothetical night in the frigid woods making do with only the items found in a discarded trash bag.

It’s all part of Schlake’s “Creative Problem Solving” class in the Business, Society and the Economy (BSE) program of College Park Scholars, where students are charged to think creatively and quickly, and adapt through unconventional exercises. (The week before our jaunt in the woods, Schlake assigned students to recreate a famous piece of art using only objects found in their dorm rooms.)

“We never really know what’s going to happen in class,” says business major Jack Campbell ’27.

Aside from a handful of Eagle Scouts and die-hard fans of “Naked and Afraid,” the majority of students enter the woods unsure what to expect.

“I want to engage them to get their hands dirty, get involved,” says Schlake. “This is about moving them from being an observer to being in charge. It’s a critical skill for the world we live in.” stop the bleeding on the left leg. Build a shelter. Make a fire. Boil water.

Furnish a weapon. Peering into the garbage bag, my team assessed our random supplies, which ranged from a birthday candle to a surgical mask. Anything we could find in the woods is fair game; for us, that includes rocks, branches and a dented Blue Moon beer can.

P H OTOS BY ST E P H A N I E S. CO R D L E

“This is about moving from being an observer to being in charge.”

—OLIVER SCHLAKE, CLINICAL PROFESSOR

The author’s team pitches its makeshift shelter prior to a class vote. The winning team was awarded bragging rights and specially made survival necklaces.

With just one hour to accomplish all of the tasks, we split up. Four of us spend 20 precious minutes manipulating a tarp into a snappy-looking shelter, using vines pulled from the ground to secure it taut between three trees. Schlake praises us for employing the vines—not that it would matter when the sun went down. He notes that the tarp’s lack of coverage along the sides means we would freeze to death within hours.

“You want the tarp to be low to the ground and completely surrounding you,” he coaches us. “It should be almost like a cocoon.”

Schlake, an entrepreneur and consultant who’s been at the Robert H. Smith School of Business since 2006, is a faculty favorite among students for his hands-on, out-of-

the-box courses, including a product prototyping class that partners with big names like Bass Pro Shops, Under Armour and Children’s National Hospital. A seasoned outdoorsman, he began incorporating survival skills into his teaching—as well as in exercises with business leaders around the world. Schlake debuted “Creative Problem Solving” in 2014 for Smith’s MBA orientation, and when he was named BSE director in 2022, it became the inaugural class.

Surviving in the woods is a lot like surviving in the business world: One must quickly adapt, improvise and prioritize. The same basic principles can be applied in other professions when facing uncertain or volatile scenarios, where employees have just a day or two to pivot operations. Schlake

says people tend to suffer from functional fixedness bias: limiting yourself to an object’s intended use. In resource-strapped business settings, this can lead to paralysis. The cure is improvisation.

“The better you are, the more you’ve done this, you’ll revert to it as a solid skill set,” he says. “And Mother Nature offers a beautiful feedback system.” “why is she going to be dead in 30 minutes?” schlake asks. We gathered around the Green Team’s site, 85 stupefied people trying to answer his riddle.

The students had built a decent shelter, fashioned a medieval-style flail with a rope and rock, and created a signal by banging two cans together, a tactic our team couldn’t believe eluded us. “She’s got the tourniquet on her right leg, not her left,” he says.

In the end, my team squeaks out sixth place among 10 teams, soothing our egos with a civilized barbecue of burgers and s’mores. We survived—and will never look at a Sharpie the same again. (Spoiler: You can blow across the cap to create an ear-piercing whistle.)

“This helped me understand that while I might have limitations, I can take the things around me and use them in entirely new ways,” says Brianna Prempeh ’27, a neuroscience and business double major.

“It’s taught me look at look at things from a different perspective.”—mh

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ON THE MALL

CAMPUS LIFE

“Dave jumps into these things with both feet, and that’s a sign of his commitment to students.”

—CHRISTOPHER CADOU, PROFESSOR OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

An Out-of-ThisWorld Mentor

Adviser for Decades of Space, Robot Competitions Isn’t Powering Down

more, helping Maryland build to compete—and win big.

“Dave jumps into these things with

WHEN ENGINEERING STUDENTS sought an

competed (and often won) since 2003, X-Hab, which challenges students to design

both feet, and that’s a sign of his

and build lunar habitats, and the

commitment to students,” says

Robo-Ops challenge, where students

aerospace engineering Professor

must navigate a rover through

Christopher Cadou. “He gets

rock-strewn obstacle courses in

their attention and engages

Houston remotely from College

them early; what Dave does in one year is a microcosm of what

adviser to help them enter an international

in contests like RASC-AL, where Maryland has

we’re trying to do as a college.”

An expert in space systems who has collab-

Park. Akin is also a Maryland mentor for the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International’s RoboSub Competition. In it, students design, build and

robotic sub showdown, aerospace engineering

orated with NASA, other government agencies

test an autonomous underwater vehicle in the

Professor David Akin had what it took to blow

and academic institutions to develop robotic

university’s neutral buoyancy tank, which Akin

the competition out of the water: enthusiasm,

systems for efficient and safe space exploration,

had built with a NASA grant in 1990; it remains

expertise and a 367,000-gallon tank.

he oversees a laboratory that substitutes as a

one of only two in the country.

For 40 years (including 35 at Maryland), Akin

hands-on, intergalactic playground for students.

“Professor Akin provides the resources to

has guided student teams to design, test and

Because of Akin, Maryland has been a

do the work and the freedom to just run with

showcase spacesuits, space stations, rovers and

fixture at NASA’s national competition scene

it,” says Natalie Condzal ’22, now an operation

P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F D AV I D A K I N

Harmony Between AI and Violin Instruction?

Researchers Develop Online Platform to Improve, Expand Instrumental Education WHEN MUCH OF the world moved online during the pandemic, so did

the lessons taught by concert violinist Irina Muresanu—and it didn’t play out beautifully.

The violin and strings associate professor could easily assess bow technique and pose in person, but her ability to guide a student declined across a glitchy video chat connection.

Now, with a team of UMD experts, Muresanu seeks to bridge instructional gaps by creating a platform that combines violin teaching with advanced computing and artificial intelligence, all based on 350 years of violin tradition. While a student plays, their phone or other device “watches” them Left: Shane Jacobs Ph.D. ’09 tests a MX-2 “pressure suit” in Akin’s lab in 2005. Above: Justin Brannan ’12, M.S. ’14 rolls the RAVEN astronaut support rover, built by a student team that Akin led, across the Arizona desert in 2010.

and provides feedback on form and sound while suggesting appropriate practice materials.

“As a teacher you really learn to become an expert at figuring out what teaching materials a particular student might need,” Muresanu says. “The

systems engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion

idea of developing a platform that would actually offer this personalized

Laboratory. “He’s there to talk things through,

feedback really resonates with me.”

but he’s not going to help you solve the problem,

Muresanu teamed up in 2021 with Cornelia Fermüller, a research

and that’s helped me find success in my career.”

scientist at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer

Beyond the dozens of victories—plaques

Studies with expertise in computer vision and signal processing. Later,

displaying the wins adorn the walls of Akin’s

electrical and computer engineering Professor Shihab Shamma, a

Space Systems Laboratory—he relishes in

computational neuroscientist who specializes in sound perception,

students’ success post-graduation; they’ve

joined the team as well.

gone on to work for NASA, SpaceX, Northrup

To help the app “see,” researchers analyzed violinists’

Grumman and more. But it’s the learning value of

movements, recording video of participants ages 5 through 23; all

the small moments, when students are building

played the same song on the same violin to ensure consistency.

and tinkering, trying and failing, that motivates

The project received $900,000 from the National Science

him to volunteer his time year after year.

Foundation in August, along with funding from UMD’s

“One of the great things about getting

$30 million Grand Challenges Grants program last year.

students involved is you can take someone who

After developing the app’s user interface, the group

may be limping by and get their hands into a

hopes to release it in the next two years to expand

project—and all of the sudden it makes sense,”

opportunities for people who can’t afford

he says.

private lessons or connect with an expert

At 70, his career might seem ready for a

instructor—at least a human one.

splashdown—but not with NASA’s Big Ideas

“This project aims to make instru-

competition, which offers a $150,000 purse,

mental music education available

on the horizon. Selected to compete last year,

for all,” Fermüller says. —LH

Maryland sent a four-legged robot into the California desert. A student team will be going for the win this year, with Akin giving them plenty of space to succeed.—MH

I L L U S T R AT I O N V I A I S T O C K

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ON THE MALL

SPORTS

“For me, it was about the energy, the processes, helping these players be the best they can be.”

MATT SWOPE, UMD BASEBALL HEAD COACH

afternoon. “For me, it was about the energy, the processes, helping these players be the best they can be. And if you feel that same spirit, you’re in good shape.”

Swope is the first Maryland baseball alum to coach at his alma mater since Tom Bradley ’72, who recruited Swope from nearby DeMatha High School. He has more than 15 years of experience with the Terps, where he played outfield and set seven all-time offensive records including career home runs and RBIs.

Back in Full Swing

Former UMD All-Star Steps Up to the Plate as Head Coach

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or former terps star Matt Swope ’02, watching catcher Luke Shliger break his record for runs scored from the dugout of Penn State’s Medlar Field felt almost as sweet as when he set it 20 years earlier.

As assistant head coach for Maryland

Baseball, he helped Shliger deliver an all-star season that led to his selection in the MLB draft—one of seven Terps to earn that honor in 2023.

The full-circle moment was just one highlight of the team’s second consecutive Big Ten championship.

Now Swope is swinging for a threepeat, but from another position: head coach.

Swope in June replaced Rob Vaughn, who headed to Alabama. He spent the offseason bolstering Maryland’s staff and refilling his roster with promising recruits, but what won’t change is how the team works.

“When we had our first practice a couple of weeks ago, all I wanted to see was: Did it look the same? Did it feel the same? And it did,” Swope says from the dugout on a fall

He played for the Montreal Expos’ farm system and then for an independent Frontier League team before returning to UMD in 2013. As part of the coaching staff, he revolutionized how Maryland recruited athletes, looking beyond skill to passion and commitment; Swope’s strategy brought in players like Nick Lorusso and Matt Shaw—

P H O T O S B Y C H R I S LY O N S / M A R Y L A N D A T H L E T I C S

SPORTS BRIEFS

the No. 13 overall pick in last summer’s MLB draft, the highest ever for a Maryland player— and cultivating some of the best hitters in the program’s history.

“My job isn’t to be the same coach to everyone,” he says. “It’s to get the best out of each of them.”

In his new role, Swope will focus on what has helped Maryland garner the reputation of a “hitter’s school,” including the use of a unique physical analysis to evaluate and coach players individually, a tactic no other team in the world is using. Based in neuroscience, the process developed in Switzerland looks at an athlete’s balance, coordination and other natural tendencies (like how they cross their arms or what part of their foot hits the ground first) to pinpoint one of 13,000 possible profiles. In addition to his own players, Swope and his coaches have evaluated dozens of major league clients. (He also has a book in the works on this approach.)

“When I tell you it is a complete and utter game changer, you just look at what we’ve done,” he says.

The team’s offense has exploded over the last three years, setting records for runs scored, home runs, hits, RBI, slugging percentage and walks.

Swope expects the construction of a new practice facility to enhance his efforts, a place where he’ll be working his players daily in preparation for opening day.

In the meantime, the DJ will still crank up the “Star Wars” theme when the Terps are introduced, the lights still will flicker dramatically when they score a home run, and fans will still spill their popcorn when they cheer. But Swope says it’s a new era for Maryland baseball.

“It’s a dream come true,” he says. “I tell people, this is it.”—mh

S P O R T S B R I E F S P H O T O S C O U R T E SY O F M A R Y L A N D AT H L E T I C S

Tagovailoa Named Big Ten’s All-Time Passing Leader Quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa became the Big Ten’s all-time leader in passing yardage as Maryland defeated Rutgers 42-24 to end the regular season.

Tagovailoa threw for a season-high 361 yards on Nov. 25 for a total of 11,256, surpassing Purdue’s Curtis Painter (11,163), Purdue’s Drew Brees (10,909) and Minnesota’s Adam Weber (10,917).

With a 7-5 record, the Terps qualified for their third consecutive bowl game for the first time since 2006-08. The team went on to play in the TransPerfect Music City Bowl at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., which took place after press time.

“For our seniors to be able to leave with the type of resume they have, they can leave here knowing they played a major part in the vision of what we wanted our program to look like coming to fruition,” says head coach Michael Locksley. “Really proud of the leaders in that locker room. Third straight seven-win season. You can’t take winning lightly. Winning is hard, especially in the Big Ten.”

Expanded Field Hockey and Lacrosse Complex Opens UMD’s national championship-winning women’s lacrosse and field hockey teams now have an upgraded and much larger home.

The 18,000-square-foot complex that opened in December tripled in size, featuring larger, separated locker rooms for each team’s student-athletes; a sports medicine room with rehabilitative and recovery equipment, as well as a hydrotherapy space; the Tricia & Caitlin Green Hall of Champions celebrating the success of both programs (including a combined 23 national titles); a relocated fan entrance to ease access to seating areas; and a second-floor addition with coaching offices and meeting spaces.

“We’re here to celebrate the past, live in the present and build and prepare for the future,” said women’s lacrosse Head Coach Cathy Reese.

“This facility does that.”

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ON THE MALL

E X P L O R AT I O N S

AI Offers Hope on Dangerous Ground Researchers Pinpoint Unexploded Shells, Rockets in Ukraine’s Agricultural Regions

ndiscriminate shelling along the front lines of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has seeded farm fields and towns with untold numbers of unexploded munitions. Now University of Maryland geographical sciences researchers are combining satellite imagery with deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), to prevent a deadly harvest.

Their system has mapped about 2.5 million artillery strike craters in a 500-mile arc across the country’s agricultural south and east—data that Ukrainian and international demining organizations can use to prioritize the most dangerous areas for cleanup.

An estimated 10 to 30% of Soviet-era artillery shells that both sides have used fail to explode, says Associate Professor Sergii Skakun, who co-authored a paper on the system in the journal Science of Remote Sensing—meaning nearly 1 million unexploded shells might be lying across the region they surveyed.

A Ukrainian scientist with expertise in satellite operations to

I

monitor agriculture and environmental conditions, Skakun says that farmers in the region face a particularly frightening choice between bankruptcy and injury or death.

“You can’t wait until it’s safe (to plant),” he says. “But you are in danger of being blown up in your tractor.”

Anecdotal evidence suggests incidents involving unexploded ordnance (UXO) occur on an almost daily basis, says co-author Erik Duncan, a faculty specialist who studied unexploded artillery on the ground in Ukraine.

From the Balkans to the Middle East to Southeast Asia, global estimates of yearly civilian deaths from UXO range from 10,000 to 20,000, including many children, according to UNICEF, the United Nations’ child welfare division. It had already classified Eastern Ukraine as one of the most mine-plagued spots on Earth as early as 2017, years before the full-scale invasion that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in early 2022.

Duncan trained the deep learning AI system (which mimics certain human cognitive functions) to find artillery craters in high-resolution commercial satellite imagery. “You can certainly see the craters and label them manually if you want, but it’s a pretty big ask if you wanted to zoom out and cover 40,000 square kilometers and determine what’s been hit and what hasn’t been hit,” he says.

The researchers are now planning a finished platform that agencies can use, Skakun says. “We can provide this valuable information to the (demining) operators and the government they couldn’t get by themselves, and help save lives.”—cc

I L L U S T R AT I O N BY C H A R L E N E P R O S S E R C A S T I L L O

ASK THE EXPERT A DV I C E FO R R E A L L I F E

What the Bio-Nose Knows

Futuristic Smeller Uses Talents of Living Cells THE TODDLER GAME “got your nose!” brings gales

of laughter as we pretend to snatch the facial feature. But a real-life ability to relocate the sense of smell—and even enhance it beyond normal human limits—could assist activities as disparate as cooking and sniffing out chemical hazards.

A UMD research team’s ambitious “bio-nose” project aims to create a portable, biologically based device able to identify complex odors, backed by a four-year, $2 million National Science Foundation grant.

Talking Politics—Without Getting the Silent Treatment

“There are applications in food, wine, perfumes, medical diagnostics, homeland security, agriculture, mold detection and more,” says project leader Elizabeth Smela, a professor of mechanical engineering. The interdisciplinary team includes faculty from biology, electrical and computer engineering,

REGARDLESS OF YOUR political leanings or the company you keep, the road to the

College Park Scholars, computer science and the

2024 presidential polls will likely be studded with conversational potholes. So how do

Institute for Advanced Computer Studies.

you keep insults (or rolls) from flying at the Sunday dinner table?

According to Tiara Fennell, a licensed family therapist and director of UMD’s Center

To take advantage of nature’s amazing olfactory talents, it’s in the early stages of

for Healthy Families, conversations with friends and family don’t have to be fraught

developing a sensor based on living cells. While

when opinions don’t align. She offers four tips for keeping a cool head during a

mammalian cells need to be fed and held at

heated debate:

body temperature to be kept alive, collaborators at the National Agriculture and Food Research KNOW WHEN TO PUMP THE BRAKES.

Organization in Japan created a hardier insect-

gathering, set realistic expectations

When a debate with a loved one turns

based cell line. The cells can be desiccated, or

about what you might encounter and

ugly, says Fennell, it’s time to walk it back

dried like yeast, and then re-animated with the

limits on what you’re willing to engage in.

and regain good footing: Acknowledge

addition of fluid at room temperature, rendering

“We all know our families,” says Fennell.

your role in the disagreement and more

them ready to smell.—JOANNA AVERY

“These are relationships we really want to

importantly, be willing to apologize.

BE PREPARED.

Before the next social

maintain, so figure out your boundaries up front.”

LISTEN.

People don’t always agree, but

it’s important to shift conversations away TAKE A BEAT.

Knee-jerk reactions—

from “me against them,” says Fennell.

whether at the office water cooler or

Apply good communication, with an

on social media—often do more harm

emphasis on listening. “Empathy and a

than good. “Maybe don’t use your first

willingness to listen will make these conver-

thought,” she says. “Go with your third or

sations more approachable,” she says.

fourth.”

“Because frankly, they’re needed.”—MH

P H O T O I L L U S T R AT I O N BY L A U R E N B I A G I N I ; I L L U S T R AT I O N V I A I S T O C K

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ON THE MALL

E X P L O R AT I O N S

The FEWture of Food Forests

3

Persimmons, Pawpaws and Beach Plums Thrive in Edible Ecosystems

5 7

4

4

ON A FORMER GRAVEL parking lot in

Hyattsville, Md., next to the old freight rail

8

line and across from an auto repair shop, the hazelnuts have gone nuts.

2

Pawpaws, figs, persimmons, kale and lemony sorrel are among two dozen varieties of fruits, nuts, greens and legumes thriving in

6

the Emerson Street Food Forest, one of the city’s two edible landscapes, which double as outdoor gathering spaces. Now University of Maryland researchers and students from the Global FEWture Alliance are teaming up with the community’s leaders to improve their water and energy efficiency.

Their goal: to increase food security, make the environment more resilient to drought, and

1

1

improve the community’s sense of cohesion and even the mental health of its residents— and then to seed this model elsewhere.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with the city of Hyattsville, bringing innovative water

You’ll find the following produce at the Emerson Street Food Forest—but probably not at your grocer:

and waste reuse solutions that can enhance

1 BEACH PLUM

the sustainability of these flourishing food

by coastal development, this

Decimated

berries should be cooked to

6 SERVICEBERRY

reduce their mild toxicity.

tree produces blueberry-like

The native

The “hipster

fruits rich in antioxidants in

forests,” says Amy Sapkota, MPower Professor

mid-Atlantic native offers showy

4 PAWPAW

of environmental health and director of the

white flowers and tart, deep

banana” offers a mango-sized

CONSERVE Center of Excellence.

purple fruits.

fruit that tastes like a fruity

7 WEEPING MULBERRY

custard.

tree offers a sweet-tart fruit

She’s also head of the Global FEWture

2 CURRANT

Two varieties, the

midsummer.

The

Alliance, which was launched through a $3

sweet purple clove and the tart

​​ 5 PERSIMMON

These pastel

that can be eaten fresh, but is

million UMD Grand Challenges Institutional

cherry red, are delicious in pies

orange fruits have a honey-

especially rich in jams and pies.

Grant last year to develop solutions at the

or wine.

sweet flesh and a firm texture,

8 YAUPON HOLLY

food-energy-water (FEW) nexus—whether in

3 ELDERBERRY

amenable to fresh or cooked

leaves of the caffeine-producing

Israel, Nepal, Tanzania, or just down the street

shrub’s flowers can be steeped

recipes.

shrub for tea, but avoid the

from UMD in Hyattsville.—HEIDI SCOTT ’09

as tea, and its tart purple

This hardy

Dry the

poisonous berries.

I L L U S T R AT I O N BY L I N C O L N S M I T H

In the Shadow of History

At Robert E. Lee’s Former Residence, Researcher Opens Door to Overlooked Legacies he view from Arlington House, Robert E. Lee’s former home perched atop Arlington National Cemetery, is both majestic and mournful: D.C.’s monumental skyline stands in the distance, while a sea of Union and Confederate Army gravestones just steps from the Southern general’s front door serves as a reckoning and reminder of the Civil War’s human cost.

But it’s what’s hidden from view that occupies Associate Research Professor Cheryl LaRoche Ph.D. ’04. The archaeologist and historic preservationist is piecing together the stories of the enslaved men, women and children who lived and worked at the mansion, people whose contributions to the wealth of a nation are often overlooked.

“You can’t talk about this house without talking about enslavement,” she says. “There is not a space among this mansion that an enslaved person did not touch.”

Arlington House was built on Virginia’s side of the Potomac River in 1802 to memorialize George Washington and house a collection of his artifacts. The first example of Greek Revival architecture in America, it was passed down to Lee’s wife, Mary, four years before Virginia seceded from the United States. After the war, the U.S. government took ownership of

T

P O RT RA I T CO U RT ESY O F C H E RY L L A RO C H E ; P H OTO BY AC ROT E R I O N / W I K I M E D I A CO M M O N S

Arlington House; the National Park Service (NPS) received jurisdiction in 1933. NPS and Arlington House descendants hired LaRoche and her team in 2022 to lead an ethnographic history of the mansion.

Uncovering the lives of the enslaved is a fraught process, says LaRoche, who has consulted on dozens of projects around the 19th century Black experience. In the chaos of the Civil War, records were often burned or scattered across multiple repositories, if they existed at all. Some enslaved bore no last names, and families were frequently broken up as owners died, acquired more land or sold the individuals as chattel.

“It’s the perfect crime scene because they’ve wiped the murder weapon clean,” she says. “There’s no pathway for what we’re doing here.”

LaRoche and her team are tenacious, though, using oral histories, tombstones, photographs, written documentation and landscape mapping—a protocol for ethnography she developed during her dissertation at UMD—to tell a broader, more inclusive story.

That story might help spur major changes at the house. In recent years, descendants of Robert E. Lee, as well as the Parks, Grays and Syphaxes—enslaved people who worked there—have come together to petition a name change from “Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial” to simply Arlington House.

“I think when you call it the Arlington House, you’re just opening it up to more of the families who lived there,” Rob Lee, Robert E. Lee’s great-great-grandson, told NPR last year.—mh

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ON THE MALL

E X P L O R AT I O N S

FA C U LT Y Q & A BILL BOWERMAN

A Soaring Success

Bald Eagle Expert Joins Legendary Explorers Club Honorees APOLLO 11 ASTRONAUT Buzz Aldrin.

Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary. Titanic discoverer Bob Ballard.

Now, environmental science and technology Professor Bill Bowerman joins their ranks as a 2023 recipient of the Lowell Thomas Award from the Explorers Club, founded more than a century ago to honor groundbreaking scientific field work.

saw a bald eagle perched on a tree. That

Since 1986, Bowerman has

was it. I wanted to understand: Why was

kayaked down rivers, flown in

this the first time I had seen one? Where I

helicopters and climbed trees—some nests and collect data on population health and to his work, the bird has soared back from the brink of extinction and now inhabits 49 states.

He’s also lent his expertise to raptor researchers worldwide.

He spoke to Terp about the first time he encountered America’s national bird, why

What was the state of the population in 1986?

We didn’t know if there were going to be bald eagles in 2000. Since the 1950s, chemicals like DDT and PCBs had caused thin shells and deformed chicks. DDT was banned in 1974 but lingered in the ecosystem. Even after a decade, the population hadn’t rebounded.

they’re a “canary in a coal mine” for environmental health and the new threat of avian influenza.—KS

Why bald eagles?

I grew up in a very small town on Lake Superior, surrounded by forests. I’d hunt with my uncles for ruffed grouse each fall. When I was 16, we were out in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and I

indicators of the health of the environment—then put it back and repeat.

grew up, there should have been lots of them.

more than 10 stories tall—to find bald eagle environmental contaminants. Thanks in part

contaminants—eagles, as top predators, are good

What’s a day in the field like for you?

Bald eagles primarily eat fish, so I’ll trudge through gnarly swamps to get to the nesting sites, which we find by aerial surveys. A team member will climb the tree, then carefully hook the nestling by its legs to put it into an eagle bag.

We bring it down to band it and take samples of blood and feathers to test for mercury and other

How is climate change affecting bald eagles?

They’re nesting earlier. In the 1960s, researchers banded chicks in mid-June. Now, we go out on May 1. Warming temperatures may also be causing them to shrink, because traditionally, they’re bigger where it’s colder, like in Alaska.

Eagles have adjusted so far, but continuing climate change could burn their forest habitats, change the available prey or cause heat stress.

What’s happening with avian influenza?

In 2022, 37% of the bald eagle mortalities in Michigan were from avian influenza. It’s a grave impact. I’m working with a population modeler to understand how much. Did we lose a year?

Five years? A decade? That’s the only thing in 39 years in the field that’s scared me.

E A G L E P H O T O BY K AT H Y K O E N I G ; H E A D S H O T C O U R T E SY O F B I L L B O W E R M A N

Towering Ambitions for Forecasts Maryland Mesonet to Provide Early Weather Warning in a Changing Climate WITH LITTLE WARNING, the derecho of

coming from West Virginia and given us

June 2012 roared out of the Midwest to

extra lead time to warn people to get inside

topple trees, damage buildings, claim lives

and get ready,” says Matt Miziorko of the

and knock out power to millions across the

Montgomery County Office of Emergency

mid-Atlantic.

Management and Homeland Security.

University of Maryland faculty and

He helped construct the 30-foot tower

students gathered with emergency

studded with instruments to measure

management and meteorology profes-

wind, precipitation, soil moisture and

sionals on a blustery October day west of

more. Each minute, it will provide data to

Ellicott City, Md., to make sure the state of

state and federal forecasters, emergency

Maryland never suffers a surprise like that

planners and farmers deciding when to

again. They built the first of 75 towers in

plant, says Professor Sumant Nigam, chair

the Maryland Mesonet, which will dot the

of the Department of Atmospheric and

state at approximately 10-mile intervals

Oceanic Sciences and leader of the $4

as one of the nation’s most sophisticated

million collaboration between the state and

weather monitoring systems.

UMD. “The capabilities of this system are

“Having one of these towers in western Maryland could have caught the derecho

truly unique compared to anywhere in the country.”—CC

PROGRESS on Gun Violence

Violence Archive.

Initiative to Offer Research, Solutions to National Crisis

Strategies and Solutions) will study

domestic violence, safe gun

gun violence, offer educational

storage, gun trafficking and other

Those chilling statistics under-

“Gun violence is a disease for

score the urgency of a new UMD

which we know, ultimately, we will

initiative: PROGRESS (Prevent Gun

have a cure,” says Richardson.

Violence: Research, Empowerment,

The project will address suicide,

programs on gun safety and issue

issues related to firearms. The

policy recommendations.

team will collect and analyze data,

The enterprise is led by Joseph

P H OTO BY E R I C K RU SZ E WS K I

Baltimore will contribute.

offer a speaker series and engage

IN BALTIMORE, the number of

Richardson, the MPower professor

community members to create

young people who were shot last

of African American studies, medical

solutions for gun violence.

year was up fourfold in a decade.

anthropology and epidemiology, and

Homicides in Washington, D.C.,

Woodie Kessel, a pediatrician and

more people than just those killed

spiked 33% last year. In 2023, the

professor of the practice of family

or injured: “You can feel the pain in

nation endured nearly 650 mass

science. Partners across campus

a community when violence is there

shootings, according to the Gun

and at the University of Maryland,

and shouldn’t be.”—SL

Kessel noted that violence affects

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OK O TIKT T TILE S G N PI G REP P N I A M N U E ASS TURTL AN UN W FROM O H , SPIRIT NS P A R G E I T N ENT SHENA EPRES R O T ED E V O LV

G N I D N STA TESTUDO THE E M I T OF

BY T E

18

T E R P. U M D . E D U

T EST U D O M AS COT P H OTO BY M A RY L A N D AT H L E T I C S ; H I S T O R I C I M A G E S O F T E S T U D O CO U RT ESY O F U N I V E R S I T Y A RC H I V ES

RP ST

AFF

Let’s be honest. A turtle’s an odd choice for a college mascot, up there with Syracuse’s Otto the Orange, UC Santa Cruz’s Sammy the Slug and Stanford’s Tree.

Turtles are slow. Most aren’t big, strong or intimidating.

They can’t leap, mountain lion-like, out of a tree to maul you, or crack you one across the noggin with a shillelagh— and really, is that a bad thing?

Instead, these can-do reptiles impress with their positive attributes: They’re persistent and tough. of noise) “Maryland pride” in a state where residents don

A Symbol Emerges

scarves, overalls and even suits in the flag’s colors.

Millennia before “Terp” became a Maryland moniker,

Diamondback terrapins scream (as if turtles make a lot

The University of Maryland loves its Testudo, in every form the mascot takes. He’s the gravitas-heavy, inspirational bronze sculpture that students make offerings to during finals. He’s the furry goofball that dances in the student section at football games, that wears a yellow rain hat and poncho with adorable panache.

He’s the logo on our hoodies, the pin on our lapels.

He’s at the center of UMD’s most treasured

it was on the region’s menu. Bountiful and easy to catch, the terrapin provided sustenance to Native Americans; once it made the Colonial culinary cut, you could find it roasted, poached and stewed with cream and sherry. By the early 20th century, the hero of these dishes was so popular that the species faced extinction.

In 1932, 11 years after he christened the student newspaper The Diamondback, then-Vice President Harry Clifton “Curley” Byrd lobbied for the reptile (scientific name: Testudines) to serve as the university’s mascot—and replace student-athletes’ identity as the

traditions. And he might have originally been a she.

Old Liners. When the Class of 1933 proposed a terrapin statue for its

Testudo has evolved in more ways than one.

class gift, Byrd arranged for a diamondback to be plucked from the

With the help of University Archivist Emerita

waters of Crisfield, Md., to serve as a model. Named the “Archbishop”

Anne Turkos, we delve into our mascot’s

by students (and assumed to be male—although a 2018 analysis

muddy origin story, his role in an outrageous,

suggests it may indeed have been female), the 13-inch terrapin trav-

yearslong prank war and his wackiest iterations.

eled by train to Gorham Manufacturing Co. in Rhode Island with the

“There are few things I enjoy talking about more than Testudo,” she says. “There’s no mascot quite like him, and he’s had quite a history.”

student government association president. There, sculptor Aristide Cianfarani designed a giant replica in bronze, which Gorham cast.

Archie returned to campus, but her—or his?—fame was short-lived.

The terrapin died days after two holes were drilled into its shell to fashion a ribbon pull for the elaborate (and slow) unveiling of the 5-foot-long likeness at a ceremony in front of Ritchie Coliseum. The likely cause: stress and the hot weather. (Drilling the holes, it was determined, did not hurt the terrapin.)

TA X I D E R M I E D T E S T U D O P H O T O BY J O H N T. C O N S O L I ; C O O K B O O K I M A G E C O U R T E S Y O F B A LT I M O R E S U N M E D I A

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7

bronze Testudos on campus The newest, which debuted in 2018 outside of Van Munching Hall, is the only one not made from a mold of the original.

Final Offer(ings)

Terrapin Travails Who would have guessed a 300-pound bronze statue was so portable?

And yet, the shiny new mascot was pulled from his pedestal just before the first anniversary of its installation. The turtlenappers brazenly painted “J.H.U.” in green on the now-empty perch, the first in a trail of “clues” that led UMD to the sculpture outside a Johns Hopkins University dorm the very day it went missing.

It was just the first of Testudo’s 12 disappearances in 15 years, The Diamondback reported in 1958. Some pranks were linked to the UMDHopkins lacrosse rivalry, but Georgetown, George Washington and even Loyola University of Maryland students pitched in as well; at their most

Besides rubbing Testudo’s nose for good luck, students have left offerings to the statue outside McKeldin during finals week in hope of earning good grades since the 1990s. Like turtles themselves, the tradition has evolved, as gifts of pocket change, notes and flowers turned to beer cans and coffee cups.

In more recent years, Terps’ offerings looked more like pranks, including a lifesize cutout of Pope Francis, a toilet and stolen traffic cones; a fire even broke out in the pile in 2013.

Last semester, a coalition of student associations appealed to Terps’ goodwill, encouraging students to instead drop off donations of nonperishable foods for the Campus Pantry at his pedestal.

ambitious, the thieves took the turtle on unsanctioned trips to the University of Virginia and, according to rumor, as far away as Florida. A 1947 caper, in which Hopkins students buried Testudo in Baltimore, ended with a riot and arrests (and reportedly, an eventual party) after UMD partisans stormed a residence hall at the Homewood campus.

Fed-up UMD administrators packed the statue away in storage for a few years after that. He was then installed outside the new football stadium in 1951—far from getaway-friendly Route 1 and now filled with hundreds of pounds of concrete to prevent further attempts. Then, in 1965, Testudo moved to its permanent (and most visible, theft-deterring) home outside McKeldin Library.

I L L U S T R AT I O N / P H O T O C R E D I T

Drawn to a Turtle:

1930

1936

THE ERAS TOUR Like a comic book superhero, how artists imagine Testudo has radically changed over the decades. (Also superherolike: Testudo’s definitely muscled up.) Illustrations in UMD yearbooks depict him as a delinquent, a ladies’ man, a daydreamer, a sleep-inducing teacher, an astronaut, athlete and proud grad. Here are some standouts:

1936

1959

1945

1962

1986

1973

1984

1992

Testudo has taken lots of unique forms on campus, whether in a walking path or as a topiary. Take our quiz to find them all at today.umd.edu/ wheres-testudo.

T E S T U D O O F F E R I N G S P H O T O B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I ; H I S T O R I C I M AG ES O F T EST U D O CO U RT ESY O F U N I V E R S I T Y A RC H I V ES

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If you hit the Aberdeen,

Suited for the Role

Md., rest stop off I-95 in the

The furry, funny Testudo mascot is the Terps’ top

summer of 2006, chances

cheerleader. He cartwheels on the sidelines, shakes his

are that a 4-foot-tall painted

turtle tush on viral TikTok dances and poses for selfies with

Testudo greeted you. Same

fans. But he didn’t always look this way (and definitely didn’t

at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor,

have these moves).

Reptile Roundup

Arundel Mills mall and other

Since then, dozens of men and women have donned the

popular destinations across

costume, including Grant Handley ’22, M.P.P. ’23. He shells out

the state. For UMD’s 150th

what it takes to be Maryland’s mascot:

anniversary, 50 formidable fiberglass Testudos were

BE EVERYWHERE (BUT NO OVERLAPS!)

transformed into a variety

Testudo’s a busy turtle, greeting families during move-in, high-

of personas—from a tribute

fiving kids during Maryland Day, hobnobbing with the governor

to the Chesapeake Bay and

during announcements and, of course, attending sports games.

a Mighty Sound of Maryland

But he’ll never be in two places at the same time.

drum major to a Mutant Ninja Turtle and a spangly

THINK ON YOUR FEET

disco ball. The Fear the Turtle

“A mascot should never be standing around—they should always

statues returned to College

be miming or reacting to something,” says Handley, who uses

Park that fall to be auctioned

props and improv to perform at all times. That includes dealing

off, raising nearly $300,000

with difficult opposing fans: “You have to figure out how to

for scholarships. Several

defuse that situation.”

ended up in private homes, but 10 remain on campus.

KEEP IT MOVING

Visit terp.umd.edu/

“We joke that you have to be in ‘mascot shape,’” says Handley.

testudooftime to find out

The suit weighs at least 30 pounds—the head is the heaviest

where.

part—so the four or five students on the team each year always have to hit the gym.

DON’T SPILL THE BEANS

Team members have to keep their identity a secret from everyone, and they can’t speak or show any skin. (The Oregon Duck’s head falling off at a game last fall was “nightmare fuel,” says Handley).

BE CONFIDENT—NOT COCKY

Testudo’s known for his one-handed chest pound, but he’s not an in-your-face mascot. “He might grab someone’s hat and dangle it in their face. And when children come, he’ll get low so he’s not intimidating,” says Handley. “He’s a friendly, lovable turtle.”

1 5 0 T H T E S T U D O S TAT U E S , 3 D T E S T U D O A N D P I N P H O T O S B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I ; H I S T O R I C I M A G E S O F T EST U D O CO U RT ESY O F U N I V E R S I T Y A RC H I V ES ; T E S T U D O M A S C O T P H O T O BY M A R Y L A N D AT H L E T I C S

Above: The first known photograph of a Testudo mascot was in 1951, when Zeta Beta Tau members perched on goalposts in masks, shells and street clothes.

By the end of the decade, ZBT mascots were banned for being “costumed poorly” and acting “in a disorderly fashion,” The Diamondback wrote.

Below and top right: Versions from the next two decades still looked MacGyvered: papiermâché heads, wool gloves, Converse sneakers—while others were alarmingly shiny and green.

Testudo …

Now in 3D! Beyond the bronze Testudos, thousands more in their likeness have been produced in materials ranging from everyday plastics to exotic metals by 3D printers at Terrapin Works, a unit of the A. James Clark School of Engineering.

“Whenever we’re trying out new technology, Testudo gives us a uniform basis for comparison— and it’s uniquely Maryland on top of that,” says Jim Zahniser, Clark School assistant dean for strategic operations and IT.

Below: The turtle we know and love today took shape in the early 1980s, with a brown plush suit and shell and a red M across the chest.

$613.40

50 MICRONS

Material cost for

Size of the

the most expensive

teensiest Testudo

3D-printed Testudo,

ever created, about

made of Inconel, a nick-

the thickness of a

el-chromium superalloy

human hair

used in rocket engines

100+

$6.48 Cost to print your very

Kinds of Testudos

own plastic Testudo at

made with different

Terrapin Works (or to

printing technologies

pick up a premade one)

Neat as Pins Former UMD President C.D. “Dan” Mote, Jr. (19982010) began handing out golden lapel pins to VIPs and other outstanding Terps to show off Maryland spirit. The design was tweaked for successor Wallace D. Loh (2010-20), who began distributing them more widely. President Darryll J. Pines is sticking with the practice, sharing his version with everyone he meets.

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T R I B A L L OYA LT I E S American Indians have long been denied fair access to homes, health care, schooling and jobs. For Joseph Kunkel M.Arch. ’09, the mission to change that is personal.

BY SA L A L EV I N ’ 1 0

24

T E R P. U M D . E D U

P H O T O S B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I

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IN A VAST OCHRE and beige vista, the Wa-Di Housing Development almost disappears into its surroundings. This eight-acre cluster of adobe-style homes between Albuquerque and Santa Fe sits in the center of a triangle formed by the Sandia, Jemez and Sangre de Cristo Mountain ranges, a circular hamlet braced against the tumbleweed-dotted desert.

Inside Chaslyn Crespin’s small studio, a more colorful scene unfolds. Trained by her parents in the art of jewelry making, Crespin grinds blue-green turquoise, reddish pipestone and purple sugilite to fashion them into necklaces, earrings, bracelets. Her mother and father, she says with pride, were once invited to Harvard to give a presentation on their traditional jewelry and the thunderbird motif that represents the Kewa Pueblo, the federally recognized tribe also known as the Santo

Domingo to which the family belongs.

Crafts are vital to the Kewa; pottery, silverwork and jewelry are major contributors to the tribe’s income. But the work is messy. Grinding stones sends fine particulate matter flying. Firing clay pots requires dangerous heat. In the central village of the pueblo—a historic, Indigenous town that predates European settlement— multiple generations of families typically live in small houses; with no dedicated workspaces, artisans can’t help but expose elderly grandparents and toddlers alike to the hazards of their labor. For years, everyone in the village shared the same cough.

When Joseph Kunkel M.Arch. ’09 started work on Wa-Di, a few miles from the village, in 2013, he understood the importance of providing a well-ventilated space for each of its 41 single-family homes. That’s why every house has an

“I ALWAYS KNEW I WANTED TO BE WORKING FOR MY OWN TRIBE.” —JOSEPH KUNKEL, PRINCIPAL, MASS DESIGN GROUP

individual accessory unit, a space where artists can safely pursue their craft.

Roomy homes for rent have one, two, three or four bedrooms and a large communal living room for hosting feasts and other events. The space allows for the multi-generational living arrangements common to the Kewa Pueblo; the housing imposed by the government, typically mobile homes,

wasn’t conducive to the practice, causing loss of language and disruption of other traditions often passed from grandparent to grandchild, or absorbed by living with aunts, uncles and cousins.

For Kunkel, who’s now a principal at international architecture firm MASS Design Group, the affordable housing at Wa-Di is one example of his work around the country to provide Native people with the resources they have long been denied: high-quality homes, health clinics, child care centers, marketplaces. Kunkel knows about these needs intimately. A citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, he spent childhood summers on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Montana, where he saw the effects of shoddy housing and poor infrastructure.

“Whenever I got there, my aunties and uncles would say, ‘Welcome home. This is your home. This is where your people are from,’” Kunkel recalls. “But the architecture and the community didn’t reflect that strong sense of identity.”

He works alongside tribal housing authorities, members of tribes, community development financial institutions, architects and other partners to create places that take into account the aesthetic and cultural values of specific Native groups.

“I always wanted to try and figure out how I could be working in Indian country,” says Kunkel. “I always knew I wanted to be working for my own tribe.”

AS A KID, the damp, salty air off the Atlantic Ocean smelled like home to Kunkel, who grew up in Point Pleasant, N.J., just one Bruce Springsteen song away from the shore. He and his two younger siblings decorated a Christmas tree every winter, and his mom learned how to make spaghetti sauce and sausage and peppers from her Italian in-laws.

But home was also the dry mountain

air of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, where he’d been given the name Spotted Hawk. Every summer, he’d spend time at St. Labre Indian School in Ashland, Mont., put up teepees with his family and hang out at the tribal museum.

He ate traditional Native foods like sweettart chokecherry jam and the commodity items that his relatives were used to— blocks of cheese or hot dogs his cousins called “tube steaks.”

Kunkel’s mother, Carol, was a full-blooded member of the Northern Cheyenne Nation. Born on the reservation, she was adopted at a young age after her mother died by Father Emmett Hoffmann, a Capuchin priest assigned by the Catholic Church in 1954 to serve at the local school.

There, he became a beloved part of the community and one of only two white men ever to earn the title of honorary chief.

He also fell in love with his secretary, Mary McGarvey, who’d joined the mission from New Jersey. Forbidden from

marrying Mary and having a biological child, Hoffmann adopted Carol and the pair raised her together, splitting time between Montana and New Jersey, where Mary eventually returned. Hoffman died in 2013; Carol, who died in 2016, met Joe, Joseph’s father, in Jersey City while she was in nursing school and he was in college.

Like his mother, Kunkel was of two worlds—and noticed the differences. “In New Jersey, you had a warm house to go to at the end of the day, had food in the refrigerator and cupboards, and air conditioning worked on the hottest days of summer,” he says. On the reservation, houses had leaky roofs and broken windows; the toilets often backed up or the faucets didn’t work. In New Jersey, Kunkel’s parents dropped him off at school in the morning and he made the easy walk home alone in the afternoon. In Montana, his cousins had to board a bus two hours before classes started.

Chaslyn Crespin, a citizen of the Kewa Pueblo, makes jewelry in the workspace of her home. Crafts are an essential part of the Kewa economy.

W I N T E R 2 0 24

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Still, Kunkel didn’t think much of his dual identity until 2002, when he arrived at the University of Hartford. “College students are inquisitive,” he says. “They were like, ‘You don’t look white. What are you?

You must be Hispanic. No, maybe you’re Asian. No, neither of those.’’”

Kunkel earned a degree in architectural engineering, then came to the University of Maryland for a master’s in architecture and urban design. In College Park, he developed a seminar called “Community, Culture and Place,” in which he took 12 fellow graduate students to the Northern Cheyenne reservation to learn about the roles that architects, designers, artists and community members play in shaping a physical space.

“He was doing so much more than the typical student,” says Madlen Simon, a professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. “Starting a summer program is an enormous undertaking, and the way he was able to build relationships and make it happen, both

“HE KNOWS WHAT CHANGE HE WANTS TO SEE HAPPEN, AND IF THERE’S NO MECHANISM FOR ENACTING THAT CHANGE, HE’LL BUILD THE MECHANISM.” —MADLEN SIMON, PROFESSOR, UMD SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING AND PRESERVATION

community development to design and build sustainable, high-quality, affordable homes. Kunkel went to southwest New Mexico to work with the Santo Domingo Tribal Housing Authority.

Along the way, he and two other Rose Fellows, Jamie Blosser and Nathaniel Corum, developed the nonprofit Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative (SNCC), which focuses on building culturally and environmentally responsive housing for Native people.

“He’s got this marvelously entrepreneurial attitude,” says Simon. “He knows what he wants to see in the world, he knows what change he wants to see happen, and if there’s no mechanism for enacting that change, he’ll build the mechanism.”

on the tribal side and on the bureaucratic UMD side, was super impressive.”

After graduating, Kunkel worked in corporate architecture firms before eventually receiving an Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship, which matches young architects with leaders in

Kunkel and Shawn Evans of MASS Design Group review plans in the firm’s Santa Fe office.

KEWA PUEBLO LOOKS like a town that America forgot. Residents drive rough dirt roads to leave the pueblo, and they can’t count on internet access. Other than crafts, a gas station just off I-25 is the pueblo’s main source of income; inclined toward a traditional lifestyle, the Santo Domingo have resisted building lucrative casinos on their land.

The Santo Domingo are just one example of the disenfranchisement and disillusionment that haunt many Native peoples. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health reports that, as of 2019, 20% of Native people lived at poverty level, compared to 9% of non-Hispanic white Americans. Studies have indicated that poverty is even higher for those living on tribal lands than those in cities. Native populations consistently have higher unemployment levels and less schooling than any other racial or ethnic group in the U.S. Moreover, Native people still lack access to the financial institutions that allow other Americans to build wealth.

“I always say, English common law was

used as a weapon to dispossess Native people, and Western-style finance was withheld as a tool that could help to rebuild tribal economies,” says Dave Castillo, who is of Nahua Indian descent and is CEO of Native Community Capital, a community development financial institution that offers home and small business loans to American Indians.

A 2022 report by the U.S. Senate Joint Economic Committee confirms this, adding that Native entrepreneurs are more reliant on informal financing, like credit cards, for business expenses.

Kunkel intends to rectify some other historic wrongs. He helped design the Caddo Nation Child Care Center in Hinton, Okla., and the All Nations Health Center in Missoula, Mont. He’s also worked on projects like the Big Valley Rancheria in Lakeport, Calif., a housing complex for elders of the Pomo Indian tribe, and has led the team working with the Willamette Falls Trust in Oregon to ensure access to the falls for the five tribal communities with ancient connections to the site.

In 2019, Kunkel expanded his influence by merging SNCC with MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society), a global firm that focuses on socially conscious projects: hospitals in Rwanda, a Japanese American internment camp memorial in North Dakota, the Gun Violence Memorial Project in Chicago.

“I’m so inspired by him and what he’s been able to do with MASS in the last four years and with the Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative before that in terms of reframing what architects do and how we can be in service to community,” says Shawn Evans, a principal at MASS. “I was Joseph’s mentor for the architectural exam process, but I’ve learned so much more from him than he learned from me.”

IN ALBUQUERQUE’S BARELAS

neighborhood, Kunkel walks through

Kunkel looks out at the Sandia Mountains from the Barelas Community Kitchen, part of a revitalization of the Albuquerque neighborhood.

the cavernous wood frame of the future Barelas Community Kitchen, designed by MASS. Just over 11,000 square feet, the unfinished building is hidden behind a series of worn-out strip malls, easy to overlook until you see it, after which you can’t believe you didn’t see it before.

Early on this September morning, Barelas is quiet. Located between the Rio Grande and freight railroad tracks, the district’s main artery, 4th Street SW, is home to auto repair shops, churches and local restaurants. Once Tewa land, Barelas became a stopping point on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, the historic highway connecting Mexico City to Santa Fe. Its position at a natural ford across the Rio Grande also made it a landing place for many people who crossed the river. A village sprung up, aided by the presence of a railyard, which primarily repaired steam locomotives. By the late 19th century, Barelas grew to have a strong commercial district and bilingual business owners.

Advances in transportation technology weren’t kind to Barelas. By the middle of the 20th century, diesel had largely supplanted steam power, and the railyard floundered, mostly turning into storage

until it closed in the 1990s. Businesses buoyed by the railyard’s workers shuttered, and poverty rates soared. Nearly a third of Barelas’ residents moved out.

The Barelas Community Kitchen is an effort to kick-start the neighborhood’s revival. A 2020 survey found that job training and educational opportunities were top priorities for residents, so the main tenant, the nonprofit Street Food Institute, will offer classes on how to start food trucks and pop-up eateries, as well as on healthy cooking. Outside, a garden will sustain native corn, squash, beans and other produce to use in demonstrations. Upstairs, individual studio space will be available for artisans and creators to rent.

“The idea is to impart this notion of density,” says Kunkel. “We’re in the West—there’s a lot of space, seemingly. But historically, the dense, kind of urban form is really important to lift up (neighborhoods).”

On the second floor, Kunkel looks out one of the massive windows that frame the Sandia Mountains, visible from nearly anywhere in Albuquerque. The sky is a piercing blue as the sun crests the mountains. He’s facing east, ready for a new day. terp

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29

OF THE

Twenty-five years ago, the LGBTQ+ Equity Center opened to support queer Terps who felt invisible, isolated and harassed. Some of the founders recount its humble start and hard-won victories.

BY K A R E N S H I H ’ 0 9

30

T E R P. U M D . E D U

community on campus, culminating in the establish-

NADRA WASS ’99, ’00 REMEMBERS THE HECKLERS.

On a cool spring evening, she marched with more

ment of a small LGBT resource office in the Computer

than a hundred female students across the University

and Space Sciences Building off Regents Drive.

of Maryland during the annual “Take Back the Night”

Twenty-five years later, the LGBTQ+ Equity Center,

rally to end sexual and domestic violence. As they

now in a cozy, welcoming space just off McKeldin Mall,

wound their way around McKeldin Mall and up toward

is at the heart of queer organizing and support at

North Hill, male students stuck their heads out of their

UMD. The center hosts events throughout the year

dorm windows and hurled the worst insults they could

like trivia night and Lavender Graduation; offers

think of: lesbians, f---ing d----s.

training and education for Terps seeking to become

“It wasn’t a huge surprise,” says Wass, who is

better allies; and advocates for inclusive health care,

pansexual and had heard disparaging—if less crude—

housing, bathrooms and more.

sentiments about queer people in her engineering

Those efforts have paid off: In fall 2023, UMD was

classes. “I didn’t necessarily feel unsafe because we

named the top college in the nation for LGBTQ+

were a sizeable group, but anytime you’re out walking

students by Campus Pride and BestColleges.

at night and someone is yelling, there is the feeling of, ‘What’s going to happen now?’”

“We celebrate this accomplishment,” says new center Director

Rather than intimidate her, the experience fueled

Kristopher Oliveira, but “we are

her desire to create a safer and more welcoming

eager to continue enacting policies

campus for fellow lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgen-

and practices where all Terrapins

der students at a time when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

feel—and are—fully embraced.”

was the dominant ethos, Congress overwhelmingly

As the LGBTQ+ Equity Center

passed the Defense of Marriage Act, and the tragedy

celebrates its milestone anni-

and pain of the AIDS crisis lingered.

versary, the faculty, staff and

Wass joined forces with dozens of determined

students who made it possible

students, faculty and staff members to expose discrim-

and helped shape its

ination and fight for rights and resources for the queer

evolution tell its story.

Counterclockwise from left: a turtle sticker in transgender flag colors; protestors object to a Maryland Board of Regents decision not to recognize domestic partnerships in a 1996 Washington Blade clipping; a pronoun pin given out by the LGBTQ+ Equity Center; a first-year experience for LGBTQ and LGBTQ student allies.

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NEARLY

17% OF COLLEGE STUDENTS IDENTIFY AS GAY,

LESBIAN, BISEXUAL, ASEXUAL, QUEER OR QUESTIONING —2020 SURVEY BY THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

LUKE JENSEN FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE LGBTQ+ EQUITY CENTER

I was hired at UMD as the associate director of the Center for Studies in Nineteenth-Century Music in 1988. But my partner had contracted AIDS, so we had to continue to travel back to New York, where we previously lived, for health care. He died in January of 1990. It was very, very hard. I saw colleagues getting all kinds of benefits for their partners and children. And I couldn’t provide that kind of support for the person I loved.

In the spring of 1991, I said to myself, “Luke, if you’re going to be here, you need to make ‘here’ better than what it is.” Then, a friend from a grief support group had told me about an ad in the Washington Blade (the gay and lesbian newspaper) for a faculty and staff group forming at UMD. MARILEE LINDEMANN PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF COLLEGE PARK SCHOLARS, DIRECTOR OF THE LGBT STUDIES PROGRAM (2002-14)

When I arrived in 1992, there was no official place on campus or entity on campus that advocated for LGBT people, to make them feel welcome, like they belonged and were supported. There was an invisibility from an institutional standpoint.

In the early days, I heard about people meeting in basement rooms and keeping it on the down-low. But not long after I arrived, we established a Lesbian and Gay Staff and Faculty Association. Our first major issue was domestic partner benefits.

KEVIN FRIES ’96, M.L.S. ’05

One of the things that has stuck with me all my life was watching very respected, elderly, accomplished professors testify before the University Senate, really, in tears. They were saying, “Please

treat us equally. We give our lives to our work.

We love and live like everybody else. This is not right.”

Lindemann, Fries and Wass were also part of that group. Its 1996 “Embracing Diversity” report documented heartbreaking examples of harassment and erasure of LGBTQ+ students

LINDEMANN: It wasn’t fully resolved until

and employees, such as a female professor called

gay marriage was made legal in Maryland (in 2013). We think of Maryland as a very blue state, so I was surprised by the resistance we encountered. I was in a position of great privilege as a tenured faculty member in a supportive department that hired both me and my partner (Martha Nell Smith). But others were harassed.

“mentally unstable” for having a female partner,

NADRA WASS ’99, ’00: In the

engineering school, they would discuss domestic partnerships in front of me without knowing I was pansexual. They’d say things about how these relationships weren’t valid. That informed how safe I felt about telling them about my identity, even though I was out to other people on campus.

and the lack of institutional support, contrasting with what the report called UMD’s “vigorous response” to addressing discrimination against people of color or women.

JENSEN: We came up with three recom-

mendations: 1. a presidential commission on LGBT issues, 2. the creation of a resource center and 3. the creation of a LGBT studies program.

Luckily, Provost Greg Geoffroy arrived in 1997, and he had come from Penn State, where they had a coordinator for LGBT equity in his office, so he supported creating one here. It started with just me overseeing a couple of undergrads in Fall 1998.

JOEY DESANTO JONES ’02

FRIES: I remember there were these “safe

space” cards. Faculty and staff were supposed to put them on their desk or door so people could feel comfortable more quickly.

That was important because one of the biggest challenges at the time was visibility—you didn’t know who was who and what was what. But I know some people who were supportive still didn’t want to hang something up that they thought would send the wrong message.

JENSEN: A group of us said “OK,

we’re going to study how to gain domestic partner benefits and improve the situation for LGBT people on campus.” We worked very closely with students because they needed to have the courage to stand up for themselves.

If they were being mistreated, they didn’t have to just take it.

You couldn’t go to an LGBT event on campus and not see Luke Jensen. He’s quirky and intelligent and clearly so passionate. It was my introduction to university life. For me, the Office (of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equity) provided constant support and validation, because of that visibility.

From left, students in the new Queer Crafting club, one of many LGBTQ+ groups on campus; a “safe space” card from the 1990s that faculty and staff could display to support queer students.

JENSEN: One of the first things we did

was start holding a welcome reception at the beginning of the year, now known as Quelcome. Hardly any LGBTQ students came out the first year. But we started a listserv, put information in first-year student packets and worked hard to get the word out. Now, it’s like a resource fair and a big party. Our goal was making connections: If you were an LGBTQ student in engineering, how would you meet one in English?

Part of that was publishing the “out” list in The Diamondback every year for National Coming Out Day. Initially (in 1993) it was almost all faculty and staff, then more students joined. I knew students who would keep it taped up in their dorm. There was some pushback. One year, a staff member— who had actively campaigned to have my job eliminated and the office closed—took the list and called and emailed everyone, telling them that being gay was wrong. It really frightened some of our kids.

In the 1970s, well before formal LGBTQ+ resources were offered at Maryland, gay and lesbian students created the Speakers Bureau, which sent queer students to classes to speak about their experiences. Jensen in the 1990s pushed for speakers, now known as peer educators, to get credit for their work. It’s now offered

LINDEMANN: Universities are seen as a

as LGBT350, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans-

hotbed of leftist radical activism, chasing trends and all that. But in trying to establish the program, we encountered resistance at every step.

gender People and Communication.”

FALCO: It was a great experience. We opened

LINDEMANN: My name was on it every year.

I always felt a great responsibility to be as visible as I comfortably could be. I still mention that I’m gay in my opening speech for College Park Scholars each fall. It’s important for students to see people in positions of power who share something in common with them.

ADRIANA FALCO ’03 FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE PRIDE ALLIANCE

I would have felt really isolated in college without the Pride Alliance and the LGBT Office. My mother at first was not particularly supportive of my identity. But at Maryland, I made close friends. We went to the Millennium March, created a float for Homecoming—it all changed how I looked at the world and interacted with people.

said, “What’s next, bestiality studies? Man on dog?”

people’s eyes to the types of struggles that LGBTQ+ people had with mental health. That opened the door for a lot of people to talk to us, whether students were identifying that way or thinking about it.

JENSEN: Classes about lesbian and gay

topics had existed since the 1970s, but nothing cohesive. When we submitted the request for an LGBT Studies Program to the Faculty Senate, we had some absolutely horrific and silly things said by senior faculty in a couple committees. One of them actually

JENSEN: When it came for the full Senate

vote, this guy raised his hand again. Ruth Fassinger, a counseling psychology professor, put him in his place. Then nobody else had anything else to say. I started panicking, thinking that was a bad sign. But it passed almost unanimously. It was understood: We needed the program.

LINDEMANN: I was delighted that from

the moment the program formally started in 2002, we had lots of allies sign up. That

1.7% OF COLLEGE STUDENTS IDENTIFY AS

TRANSGENDER, NONBINARY OR QUESTIONING —2020 SURVEY BY THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

A R C H I VA L M AT E R I A L S C O U R T E S Y OF THE LGBTQ+ EQUITY CENTER; TO P P H OTO BY R I L EY N . S I M S

speaks well of Maryland’s students.

The same couldn’t be said of the tailgaters in Lot 1. The program used to be in Tawes, and the main restroom they’d use was down the hall from our office. On Mondays, we would find posters or our bulletin board defaced. We started coming in on game days and sitting outside the office. It felt important to me to put names and faces: This is who you are attacking when you’re writing crude and nasty things. I gave out bumper stickers that said “Real Terps Support LGBT Studies.”

JENSEN: A lot of people needed education,

even allies. We developed the Rainbow Terrapin Network to train units like housing, finance and health. Because for students, if your parents cut you off and you needed financial aid, would you feel comfortable coming out to people in that office? We gave pins and a card to everyone who participated so they could visibly show their support.

That training helped open the eyes of faculty and staff across campus, including at the University Health Center.

PENNY JACOBS NURSE PRACTITIONER AT THE UNIVERSITY HEALTH CENTER

In 2009, a student coming from California contacted me because they needed genderaffirming care. I asked for and received

Shige Sakurai (left) and UMD staff who supported the Trans Terps Project.

SHIGE SAKURAI

permission to extend this person’s hormone prescriptions here at the University Health Center. I had never done that before—it wasn’t something they even covered in nurse practitioner or medical school.

As I monitored them, I started reading as much as I could get my hands on and went to conferences. We started initiating hormone care here in 2011, and now, 60-80 students are enrolled. We’ve been really on the forefront, sharing knowledge and experiences with universities across the country.

A decade later, the office had three full-time staff members and moved again, this time from the basement of Cole Field House to its current

For about a decade, starting in 1993, the Lesbian and Gay Staff and Faculty Association, then the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equity paid to print the “out” list in The Diamondback for National Coming Out Day, sharing names and titles of UMD community members who were queer.

34

T E R P. U M D . E D U

space in Marie Mount Hall, featuring a library full of LGBTQ+ books and space for student groups to meet.

ACTING DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AND DIRECTOR OF LEADERSHIP INITIATIVES FOR THE LGBTQ+ EQUITY CENTER (2010-22)

When I arrived, Luke focused on training and advocacy. I tried to bring more programming and helped change it from an “office” to “center,” so more people would see it as a place to go.

One thing I’m proud of is starting the Trans Terps Project, launched in 2017. There weren’t a lot of publications telling us what had been tried and tested, so we created an informal coalition to develop good practices.

We talked to trans people, who said, “I don’t want people to use the wrong name or wrong pronouns for me. But I don’t need them to know the difference between bisexual and pansexual.” With information like this, we asked departments to do a self-audit with questions like, “Do you provide information about the nearest gender-neutral bathroom?

Do you include pronouns?” We made it pretty actionable. That got a wave of change happening.

T O P P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F S H I G E S A K U R A I ; A R C H I VA L M AT E R I A L S C O U R T E SY O F T H E L G B T Q + E Q U I T Y C E N T E R

MADELEINE MOORE ’15

rooms in most buildings; access LGBTQ+-specific

FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE PRIDE ALLIANCE AND VICE PRESIDENT OF OUT IN SCIENCE, TECH, ENGINEERING AND MATH

Counseling Center services; live in queer-friendly

You can’t be a queer student leader on campus and not be involved with the Equity Center. I was part of the inaugural class of the Lavender Leadership Honor Society. It felt really empowering to be recognized not just as a queer student who was in college, but someone whose queerness positively impacted the college.

At the induction ceremony, students were asked to align themselves with one of the eight original colors of the Pride flag and what it meant to them and their time at UMD. It was so celebratory and queer and probably the most impactful Equity Center experience for me.

SAKURAI: When we created the honor soci-

ety, we considered including GPA as a component, but for us, it was more about alignment with a set of values: inclusion, kindness and authenticity. We looked for folks who had put those values into action on and off campus.

All kinds of people came out of the woodwork that we had no idea even existed.

That was one of the ways we built capacity, so others could lead and work on their own in different segments of the institution.

With just three full-time staff, how do you impact 50,000 people? We didn’t want people to just rely on this one center to do all the things. We wanted them to see us as a useful partner and supporter and convener, but remind people that everyone has a role being engaged as LGBTQ+ advocates and allies.

Today, UMD community members can change

campus housing; and are protected by a nondiscrimination policy. Queer affinity groups abound, including ones for Jewish, Black and disabled students, and the LGBTQ+ Equity Center hosts events such as Queer Recess, featuring Pride

KRISTOPHER OLIVEIRA

chalking, collaging and video and board games.

DIRECTOR OF THE LGBTQ+ EQUITY CENTER

JENSEN: Lavender Graduation wraps up our

Since I arrived over the summer, I’ve felt the love for this center and its history. Coming out of the pandemic, community-building is so important. We’re collaborating with MICA (Multicultural Involvement Community Advocacy), the Pride Alliance and other campus organizations host programs, and to understand what our students, faculty and staff need.

I also want to interrogate our approach to the Campus Pride Index, where we’ve been named the No. 1 college for LGBTQ+ students. That’s great. But rather than saying, yes, we have gender-inclusive housing on campus, I want to work with Student Affairs colleagues to enhance housing options for our students. There’s always work to do. TERP

year, celebrating the students who persevered. We held our first one in 1999. What’s unique is every graduate gets a chance to talk. It gets me choked up even now. A lot of these students didn’t have particularly good relationships with their parents, so they thank the parents who are there.

FRIES: Coming back as a graduate student, almost a decade later, I was so pleased I could walk at graduation (in 2005) with the rainbow tassel.

SAKURAI: Looking forward, I would like to

see more structural responses—policies, best practices, staffing and resources—to intersectionality. Throughout my time at the equity center, the majority of people who interacted with it were in the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community, and a large percentage were also trans and nonbinary.

That’s often because folks who are not in more heavily marginalized identities don’t feel the need to come to an identity-based program and can go to more mainstream spaces.

JENSEN: I’d also like to see more support

and advocacy for employees, as well as more consistent gatherings and programming for Lambda Pride, the alum group.

their primary name on university ID cards, class rosters and directories; find gender-neutral bath-

11% OF U.S. FOUR-YEAR COLLEGES HAVE LGBTQ+ EQUITY CENTERS —CAMPUS PRIDE W I N T E R 2 0 24

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A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N

Letter From the Executive Director

Rising Terp Award The following alums are an inspiration to the next generation of Terp leaders. All under the age of 30, they have already made significant professional accomplishments.

KHALIL PETTUS ’15 VICE PRESIDENT, ARDEA PARTNERS

OUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION remains

the same every year: Stay Fearless.

It’s simple yet profound, and it encapsulates the very essence of what it means to be a Terp. Our alum community is a force to be reckoned with, connected by an unyielding spirit. What can’t you do with a community like ours to back you up?

Earn that promotion. Start your own business. Build new relationships. Reconnect with old friends. Learn a new trick.

See more of the world. Get back in the gym. As you jot down goals for the year, I encourage you to engage your fellow Terps. Use Terrapins Connect for mentoring and networking opportunities, or become a mentor yourself. If you want some inspiration, join our Terps Thrive 30-day women empowerment series, or plan a much-needed getaway and join a traveling

Pettus has harnessed his expertise in finance and global investments to help students at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, serving on the Young Alumni Council and establishing a scholarship fund.

ONEYDA HERNANDEZ ’23 OPERATIONS DIRECTOR, AUDELIA COMMUNITY RESPONSE TEAM

Hernandez co-created the Latinx-centered nonprofit with the mission “El pueblo takes care of el pueblo,” delivering food and services to the most marginalized families and individuals in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.

PARINAZ FATHI ’15 INDEPENDENT RESEARCH SCHOLAR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH

Fathi builds tools to understand why immune systems sometimes attack healthy tissues, which can then help to develop therapies that treat autoimmune diseases and cancer, with a particular focus on the thyroid.

group of Terps.

My resolution for 2024 is to give my time to uplift my local community. I hope you’ll join me as a volunteer at one of our many events this year; we’d love your support.

Together, we can unleash the full potential of our high-powered community. As your Alumni Association, we’re committed

EnTERPreneur Award

These Terps are fearlessly disrupting their industries as

to providing you with the tools and resources to stay fearless in

successful entrepreneurs who have notably contributed

your pursuits, forever.

to their respective fields.

Stand tall, stay bold and stay driven. We’ve got your back.

Go Terps!

STEVE KREIN ’92 COFOUNDER AND CEO, STARTUP HEALTH

A health care entrepreneur, Krein has created a worldwide network of 200,000 innovators, industry leaders and investors who are committed to reinventing the future of health.

Amy Eichhorst Associate Vice President, Alumni and Donor Relations Executive Director, Alumni Association

PS: Share your New Year’s resolutions with us.

PALLAVI AGARWAL ’05 CEO AND FOUNDER, KANDER

As founder of an award-winning woman- and minority-founded Salesforce global consulting firm, Agarwal has brought customercentric approaches to some of the nation’s largest firms.

RICHARD “RICK” RUDMAN ’84 PRESIDENT AND CEO, CURBIO

Under Rudman, Curbio helps Realtors market and sell homes quickly by offering sellers “pay-at-closing” home improvements that result in a 28% average increase in price.

Research Award

The Alumni Excellence Awards

The University of Maryland is one of the world’s premier research institutions. This award recognizes four alums for their transformational research and its impact.

CHARLES L. FEFFERMAN ’66 HERBERT JONES PROFESSOR OF MATH, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Considered one of the world’s most versatile mathematicians, Fefferman has brought new insights into fluid dynamics and quantum mechanics while working to solve long-standing math problems.

JONATHAN W. WHITE M.A. ’03, PH.D. ’08

university of maryland graduates are among the best and brightest in their fields.

From scholars and innovators to entrepreneurs, teachers and researchers, our alums are leaving their mark in our state, nation and the world.

The Alumni Excellence Awards recognize the accomplishments of select Terps and honor these recipients with distinction. Careful consideration was made in selecting the following standout alums, our 2023 recipients of the Alumni Excellence Awards.

PROFESSOR OF AMERICAN STUDIES, CHRISTOPHER NEWPORT UNIVERSITY

White is a nationally recognized historian who has written or edited 13 books and more than 100 articles, essays and reviews about the Civil War, slavery and emancipation, African American history, Abraham Lincoln and the U.S. Constitution.

BRYAN DICKINSON ’05 PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Dickinson has made high-impact contributions to chemical biology by combining small molecule chemistry with protein and RNA design and evolution. His work helps us better understand human disease.

Learn more at alumni.umd.edu/excellence.

SIMON A. LEVIN PH.D. ’64 JAMES S. MCDONNELL DISTINGUISHED UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Levin is one of the most influential ecologists and evolutionary biologists of our time, an expert in ecosystems, the dynamics of disease, and the coupling of ecological and socioeconomic systems.

Legacy Award

This distinguished award honors alums who left a positive legacy in their community, celebrating their personal and professional lifetime achievements.

CHIP SOLLINS ’82 PRESIDENT AND CEO, GARDENS HOME MANAGEMENT SERVICES

A former president of the Alumni Association Board of Governors and trustee of the University of Maryland, College Park Foundation, Sollins provides home management services to Florida residents.

MARGARET MOOSE SWALLOW ’75 COFOUNDER, INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S COFFEE ALLIANCE

The former Folgers Coffee brand assistant for Procter & Gamble has worked with farmers around the world to improve and receive higher prices for their product.

MAURICE DORSEY ’70, PH.D. ’83 NATIONAL PROGRAM LEADER FOR PUBLIC POLICY, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FOOD AND AGRICULTURE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (RETIRED)

The author of five books, Dorsey has been a leader in promoting diversity and social justice while promoting the competitiveness of U.S. agriculture through policy analysis, education and support for state university-operated economic ventures.

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PROFILES

J O H N K E L LY ’ 8 4

Capital-area Chronicler Turns the Page Departing Washington Post Columnist Shares 20 Years of Family Tales, Reader Favorites fter nearly 20 years, John Kelly ’84 won’t be following up on tip’s from loyal readers anymore.

The Washington Post columnist will have to continue his crusade against the incorrect use of apostrophes (such as the error we inserted above in his honor) and other tonguein-cheek rants in a different medium. After publishing nearly 5,000 pieces of “John Kelly’s Washington,” he took a buyout to end an era as a local voice in the nation’s third-largest newspaper.

“I’m fortunate I can leave this job without knowing what I’ll do next—or if I’ll do anything other than watch Netflix,” he wrote in a December column announcing his departure.

He was an on-the-ground reporter covering mosquito research or public art projects or tackling readers’ queries about local history (including investigating 1970s UMD student streakers), and an amusing and introspective chronicler of his own family and nervous rescue dog.

A

Between pumping out 800 words of copy every Sunday through Thursday, he received hundreds of emails—and yes, some snail mail.

“The photo editor I work with joked, ‘You just have the readers write for you!’” he laughs. “I’m lucky I have this platform to talk about myself, but also give others a platform.”

Kelly likes to say his only formal journalism training came from his high school newspaper. After majoring in English at UMD, he briefly worked at “an association for people who ran associations” before becoming a freelance writer, often for the Post. Then, when a deputy editor position opened up in the Weekend section in 1989, he applied—trading a byline for health insurance—and has been at the paper ever since. He bounced around as a reporter and editor, started the KidsPost section, then took over the column in 2004.

He was guided by what his first editor told him: “I want readers to like you.” His relatable, chatty approach garnered a loyal readership—though he occasionally got pushback from non-Washingtonians who stumbled upon his pieces online. Amid war and recession and climate change, people questioned why his column existed. But Kelly was proud to be “a little beachhead of local coverage,” reflecting the Washington community even as the paper’s aims grew broader in an age of TikTok and globalization.

“I expect it might take me a while to get used to being just a reader of The Post and not a writer at it,” he says. But as a D.C.-area native, “that’s how I was introduced to journalism.”

As Kelly looks back on his columns, he shares

P O R T R A I T B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I ; I N S E T P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y O F J O H N K E L LY

CLASS NOTES MARIA MCGEE M.ED. ’23 was one of 37 promising high

how a tailless squirrel kicked off a long-running series, why his favorites involved his family and the connection between streetcar tokens and his blockbuster holiday charity fundraiser.

school science and math teachers nationwide chosen by the Knowles Teacher Initiative as a 2023 teaching fellow, an honor that comes with more than $50,000 for classroom materials, professional development and leadership activities. She is a former civil engineer for the Navy who is in her first year of teaching math

Squirrel Week It all started in 2010, Kelly says, when someone wrote in about a squirrel in her neighborhood without a tail and asked how long it would be before it grew back. “I was like, ‘Lady, it’s not a lizard.’

But I can’t just print, ‘No.’” He found a squirrel biologist in Illinois to interview, and that snowballed into 13 years of Squirrel Week—a tongue-in-cheek reference to Discovery’s “Shark Week.” From a woman who makes squirrel costumes to scientists who decoded the squirrel genome to a popular photo contest, he never lacked ideas.

“Everyone has an opinion on squirrels!”

at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, Md. MONICA MCNUTT M.JOUR. ’13 became the primary

New York Knicks radio analyst, calling most of the team’s games on 98.7FM ESPN New York. She continues her duties as a pre- and postgame analyst for select MSG Networks’ Knicks telecasts.

“Jeopardy!” champions SCOTT SHEWFELT M. JOUR. ’07 and JOE FELDMANN ’04 returned this fall for its

new Champions Wildcard tournament, which pitted winners from the previous two seasons against each

Family Features The column served as a record of sorts for the Kelly family, with his two daughters, wife and pets appearing frequently. When his younger daughter recently got married, he reminisced about teaching her how to snake drains as a teen and shared photos from her wedding prep in England.

“The membrane between you and a reader is thinner” with personal tales, he says. He didn’t run the copy by family before publishing, but his goal was never to embarrass them. Though he admits: “It’s hard sometimes for a father to know what embarrasses them or not.”

other for a spot in the Tournament of Champions.

Shewfelt earned $48,000 in three appearances in 2021, then placed second in his tournament game for another $5,000. Feldman, who took home $45,000 on the TV series in 2022, won $22,800 for his first outing in the Wildcard and received a $10,000 consolation prize for his second game.

JIGAR SHAH MBA ’01 was named to the Time 100

Climate list of the world’s most influential leaders driving business to real climate action. He leads the U.S. Department of Energy’s loan programs office,

From Streetcar Tokens to a Helping Hand In a tradition inherited from his predecessors, Bill Gold and Bob Levey, dating back to 1947, Kelly highlighted charities each holiday season. While he could have easily linked to a donation page for the Post’s “Helping Hand” initiative, Gold would request streetcar tokens or stamps as contributions.

“It’s an odd sort of thing for a journalist to ask for money,” Kelly acknowledges, but he did so by sharing compelling stories of locals who experienced homelessness, food insecurity or poverty. Over the last two decades, he helped raise more than $12.4 million.—KS

which is responsible for the public investment of hundreds of billions of dollars into clean infrastructure and energy projects.

President Joe Biden awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the nation’s highest award for technological achievement, to JEONG H. KIM PH.D. ’91 , namesake of an A. James Clark School of

Engineering building. The chairman and co-founder of Kiswe Mobile was recognized for his advances in broadband optical systems, data communications and wireless technologies.

Submit your class notes and read many more at terp.umd.edu.

C L A S S N O T E S I L L U S T R AT I O N S BY K O L I N B E H R E N S

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PROFILES

Ahead of the Game

Sports Journalist’s Podcast Links Women’s Success in Careers to Experiences on the Field and Court

walk-on to the UMD gymnastics team who earned a full scholarship and became an Academic All-American, Bonnie Bernstein ’92 learned more than agility and coordination during her years of competition. She partially credits her achievements as an ESPN and CBS Sports journalist and entrepreneur to life skills she’d learned in the gym: resilience, teamwork, patience and comfort with taking risks.

What she didn’t realize until recently was that her experience is far from unique. After coming across a 2018 study by Ernst and Young that found that 94% of female C-suite executives had played sports as kids, Bernstein was inspired to dive deeper into the relationship between women’s sports and professional success.

That led to “She Got Game,” her Audible Originals podcast in which she asks 10 women to share how their experience as athletes informed their careers—whether related to sports or not.

“There’s really nothing else out there saying to girls and young women, ‘Yes, of course, you probably enjoy

A

BO N N I E B E R N ST E I N ’ 92

D A N I E L C A S T R A N O VA M . S . ’ 0 3

all the physical, emotional and community benefits of playing sports, but it’s equally important to be thinking about the long game,’” says Bernstein.

“Even if you’re not an elite athlete, you’re still honing these critical life skills that are going to tee you up for success in life.”

On “She Got Game,” guests including former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, Emmy-winning actress Aisha Tyler and Washington, D.C., sports mogul Sheila Johnson, the world’s first Black female billionaire, describe how the on-your-feet thinking, accountability, passion and leadership skills they developed playing sports helped them thrive in their respective fields. (Clinton recalls how her mom brought orange slices to her soccer team’s games in Arkansas.)

Bernstein hopes that the podcast will inspire those who aren’t destined for pro sports—or even college scholarships— to stick with it.

“Girls are still exiting sports at a higher frequency and earlier age than boys,” she says. “This (podcast) is the kind of content that … provides parents, coaches and adults of influence in the lives of these girls a reason to share why it’s important to stay and play.”— sl

Alum’s Photo to Live “Forever” on Stamp The otherworldly microscope photograph by Daniel Castranova M.S. ’03 of a juvenile zebrafish illuminates its subject like an artwork and a scientific study at once. It’s now getting global exposure as one of 20 images featured in the U.S. Postal Service’s new Life Magnified Forever Stamp series, which reveals the beauty of nature in miniature. It wasn’t just for show; the photo by the aquatic research specialist at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development revealed a network of lymphatic vessels (seen in orange) that previously weren’t known to exist in the heads of fish.

S TA M P C O U R T E SY O F U N I T E D S TAT E S P O S TA L S E R V I C E ; P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F B O N N I E B E R N ST E I N

MC G R KKAARRAA M RAT ATHH ’ ’1 133

Cheese the Day

5 Tips for Making a Board Bursting With Flavor and Color

WHEN KARA MCGRATH ’13 got married in

VARIETY RULES, TO A POINT.

2018, she served her guests a flowery,

three or four types of cheese with

Use

with our eyes as much as we do with our other senses,” she says. Fill the

MAKE IT BEAUTIFUL.

“We consume

four-tiered cake—made not from red velvet

different textures and milk types.

or buttercream, but wheels of manchego,

Add a jam or spread, then some

board from edge to edge and use

blue cheese and Harbison.

crunch with honeycomb or pickles,

color blocking—think curves, not

and finish with nuts.

straight lines—with charcuterie, fresh

She soon capitalized on her fondness for fromage and left her career in international

BITE-SIZE IS BEST.

development. Today, she and her husband,

cheese get messy, so she recom-

WHAT GROWS TOGETHER GOES

Aaron Fagan ’13, own and operate Paste and Rind,

mends pre-cutting everything. “Ease

TOGETHER.

a Washington, D.C., cheese and wine bar offering mystery tastings,

and access get underrated in our

she uses when pairing drinks. “If

custom platters and a monthly subscription box.

Instagram world,” McGrath says.

McGrath shares tips for getting “gouda” at making your own cheese board:

P H OTOS BY ST E P H A N I E S. CO R D L E

Big chunks of

EVERYTHING MUST BE EDIBLE.

purely decorative garnishes!

No

fruits and veggies, or crackers.

That’s the rule of thumb

you’ve got a French-style goat cheese, a French white wine is a good option.”­‑ KS

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PROFILES

A L E X K I N ’ 0 8 , S A R A H T O S TA N O S K I ’ 0 9

A Match Made in Lot 1

so it was only fitting, if unconventional, that they’d celebrate their marriage during the most spirited week of the year.

“Our first date was at a Maryland football practice, and we met up again in our adult life at tailgates,” says Tostanoski.

The couple exchanged vows in a family-

Alums Celebrate Wedding at Homecoming Tailgate

only ceremony at their home in Washington,

BETWEEN THE SMOKY grills, soggy games

and Tostanoski arrived, the party kicked into

D.C., while the rest of the guests got the food, drinks and Maryland spirit flowing under a white tent set up in Lot 1. Once Kin

of cornhole and the red canopies protecting

high gear, with a gaming station featuring

Terps from the rain, another (and fanci-

the groom’s beloved Nintendo 64 and

er-dressed) group of revelers gathered before

a UMD-themed gift basket delivered by

October’s Homecoming football game to

President Darryll J. Pines.

toast a victory: the wedding of Alex Kin ’08 and Sarah Tostanoski ’09.

The newlyweds capped off their wedding day with an impromptu visit to their old

The pair originally met as undergrads

apartment in Knox Towers, where the current

when they helped found an informal UMD

tenants let them snap photos for a different

Athletics fan club known as the Red Army,

kind of homecoming.—SL

CELEBRATE BLACK EXCELLENCE Reconnect with fellow alums at the Terpchella music fest.

Reminisce about your Maryland experience at Sunday brunch.

Recognize accomplished Terps at the Gift of Giving Gala.

Pride. Spirit. Unity. They’re all part of BLACK ALUMNI WEEKEND, April 12-14.

Register today at go.umd.edu/baw.

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

I L L U S T R AT I O N / P H O T O C R E D I T

UNDEREXPOSED

Road-Ready Reptile Before there was “Fear the Turtle,” something scarier crawled across the UMD campus: Testudo II. The mean, green mascot machine funded by the Student Government Association had Penn State’s Nittany Lion mascot cowering in fear at a 1965 football game. It was mobile, monstrous and impossible to miss, yet it went missing eight years later. What was its fate?

And who’s the guy in the cool coat in this uncredited pic from University Archives? If you know, or have your own story about Testudo II, email us at terpfeedback@umd.edu. Come back in the next issue to find the responses and another unique

FROM THE LAST ISSUE …

A pair of Terps ponied up information on our photo from the Fall 2023 issue. Charley McCullough M.S. ’75 and Kathryn Pickard ’75 IDed the Stetson-wearing fellow as James P. McCall, a Texas A&M product who came to UMD establish a horse management program in the College of Agricultural and Natural Sciences.

The women were performing equestrian vaulting, a blend of gymnastics and dance on horseback.

photographic take on UMD history.

P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F D I A M O N D BAC K P H OTO CO L L ECT I O N , U N I V E R S I T Y A RC H I V ES

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PA R T I N G S H O T

MONUMENTAL MAINSTAY

Testudo watches from his perch of nearly 60 years as the sun rises over McKeldin Mall on a chilly fall morning. Soon the energy of campus life will fill his domain, and students will warm his nose with their rubs as they rush past.

P H OTO BY R I L E Y N . S I M S

A BLANK CANVAS FOR BOLD IDEAS THE ARTS CAN DO MORE THAN REFLECT OUR WORLD; THEY CAN CHANGE IT. That’s why we launched Arts for All, melding the arts with science, tech and social justice into courses to tackle grand challenges from fresh perspectives. It’s why we stage more than 1,100 theater, dance and performances a year that inspire and move audiences. And it’s why we nurture top talent in the creative arts—to illuminate the present and imagine the future.

It’s all happening now at the University of Maryland. Here, we lead Fearlessly Forward.

fearlesslyforward.umd.edu

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