SOUNDING THE “FACTORY” WHISTLE 6 THE GODMOTHER OF TITLE IX 34 CAT CAFES’ PAWSITIVE IMPACT 44 COLLEGE PARK IS HOPPING AND HUMMING WITH NEW BUSINESSES, HOUSING AND OTHER PERKS. SEE IT THEN AND NOW. PG. 22 HOW GREATNESSPICTUREWE SPRING 2022 / CONNECTING THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COMMUNITY FEARLESSLY FORWARD
PEACE IN MINDS
More than 100 people gathered on the McKeldin Library steps in the early days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to call for peace. Students and staff from Ukraine, Russia, the U.S. and other countries around the world, as well as UMD President Darryll J. Pines (left), listened as Ukrainian Terps described in quiet, anguished voices the sufferings of their loved ones as refugees or hiding in bomb shelters. Since then, the campus has united to support the embattled nation, including collecting medical supplies, donating UMD police body armor and forming a Ukrainian student organization.
PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
2 TERP.UMD.EDU ONCONTENTSTHEMALL POST-GRAD POST GRAD 42 Alumni Association 44 A Tail of Success 45 Class Notes 46 Brothers’ Truebill Pays Off, Truly 47 Creating Style to Augment Substance 48 From the Archives NEWS 6 Campus Plaza Honors 1st Lt. Richard W. Collins III 6 Sounding the “Factory” Whistle CAMPUS LIFE 8 En Garde for Accessibility 9 TerrapinSTRONG From the Start 9 La Plata Beach’s Cool Transformation 10 A Decade of Do Good Times 12 A Puppet by Any Other Name 13 A Foothold for Refugees 13 Ph.D. Research: Why Goths Age Happily 14 Dual Threat 15 Sports Briefs EXPLORATIONS 16 Telescope Terps 17 Lockdown Breakdown 18 No Appetite for Racist Stereotypes 19 From MRIs to the QTC 20 Safer Flights 21 The Big Question
36 The Godmother of Title IX
Led by a top researcher, students make air filters from cardboard, duct tape, a box fan and HVAC filter—and they’re surprisingly effective.
Get the latest on the UMD community by visiting TODAY.UMD.EDU.
A young alum styles in state colors at Terps games.
22 How We Picture Greatness
Racing Brain, Meet Wearable Wellness
BY KAREN SHIH ’09
3SPRING 2022
Trash and toxic substances are often dumped where poor people and communities of color live. One UMD researcher is empowering them to fight for cleaner, safer conditions.
BY LIAM FARRELL
BY ANNIE KRAKOWER
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College Park is hopping and humming with new businesses, housing and other perks. Compare our historic and current photos to see for yourself.
FEATURES ONLINE
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Flag Suit Guy’s Colorful Story
The Counseling Center offers new biofeedback headbands to students.
Fifty years after the law’s passage, the legacy of Bernice Sandler Ed.D. ’69 endures through the millions of girls and women whose lives she’s changed.
30 Growing Justice From Grassroots Science
A DIY Solution for Cleaner Air
BRIAN ULLMANN ’92
We’ll also introduce you to a little-known hero in our nation’s civil rights history: Bernice “Bunny” Sandler Ed.D. ’69, the force behind the landmark federal legislation known as Title IX, which became law 50 years ago this summer. If your or your daughter’s education included playing organized sports, seeking justice against sexual misconduct, or earning an advanced degree in a STEM field, you can probably credit the late Bunny Sandler. Writer Karen Shih ’09 tells the story of the flagrant gender discrimination Sandler faced—including here at UMD—and how it drove her to create and advocate for Title IX. Be on the lookout this year for more celebrations on campus and beyond about Sandler’s legacy.
CHRIS CARROLL LIAM KARENSALAANNIEFARRELLKRAKOWERLEVIN’10SHIH’09
VALERIE MORGAN Art Director
BRODIE REMINGTON Vice UniversityPresident,Relations
We hope you also gape and gawk at these before-and-after pairings as we share the latest updates on Greater College Park.
Lauren Brown University Editor
The University of Maryland, College Park is an equal opportunity institu tion with respect to both education and employment. University policies, programs and activities are in conformance with pertinent federal and state laws and regulations on non-discrimination regarding race, color, religion, age, national origin, political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation or disability.
They’re all part of a dramatic, ongoing makeover of the community now called Greater College Park. The transformation might shock those of you who haven’t been to campus in a few years.
Vice President, Marketing and Communications Advisers
Writers
STEPHANIE S. CORDLE Photographer
LAUREN BROWN University Editor
JOHN T. CONSOLI ’86 Creative Director
MARGARET HALL Executive Director, Creative Strategies
Here’s to you all finding your own ways to do good in the world, cat-centric or not.
COVER
EMMA J. HOWELLS Photography Assistant
LAUREN BIAGINI KOLIN BEHRENS Designers
Publisher
FROM THE EDITOR
4 TERP.UMD.EDU
For lighter, feline fare, meet the Terp behind perhaps the most popular “cat cafés” in America. Crumbs & Whiskers, which Kanchan Singh ’12 opened in Hollywood and D.C., has drawn the likes of celebrities Kate Walsh and Jennifer Garner seeking kitty cuddles; it was even featured in a funny skit with Neil Patrick Harris on “The Late Late Show with James Corden.” More importantly, it’s placed nearly 2,000 cats for adoption.
The current crop of Terps, though, sees a high-rise apartment building anchored by a Target Express; a sleek new City Hall; and the Terrapin Row neighborhood with its swanky pool and fitness center.
Magazine Staff
That was the thinking behind our cover story in this issue of Terp: to show just how much the Baltimore Avenue corridor has changed. Our office’s photo archivist, Gail Rupert M.L.S. ’10, led the effort to scour digital collections of the Library of Congress, National Archives, Maryland State Archives and University Libraries and to sort through old photos shared by the city of College Park. She found amazing images: a 1930s cornfield where the luxury Hotel now stands, a 1940s Howard Johnson’s (later Plato’s Diner) on what’s turning into a high-end apartment community, and a 1980s strip club where new student housing opens this fall.
Contemporary photos by John T. Consoli; archival photos courtesy of University Archives; background architectural plans courtesy of city of College Park
GAIL RUPERT M.L.S. ’10 Photography Archivist
JAGU CORNISH Production Manager
EMAIL terpfeedback@umd.edu ONLINE terp.umd.edu NEWS umdrightnow.umd.edu FACEBOOK.COM / UnivofMaryland TWITTER.COM /UofMaryland VIMEO.COM /umd YOUTUBE.COM /UMD2101
i’ve been here long enough to remember the old Maryland Book Exchange, the long-shuttered Little Tavern and the blocky, beat-up Knox Boxes.
Indigenous People of Maryland
WRITE TO US We love to hear from readers. Send your feedback, insights, compliments—and, yes, complaints—to terpfeedback@ umd.edu or to: Terp OfficemagazineofMarketing and 7736CommunicationsBaltimoreAve.CollegePark,MD20742
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.
A Rooted Return
Wow. Exceptional. Thank you so much for sharing Ms. Drakeford’s story. There’s so much here to learn, to praise, to sit and ponder, and to compel further activism. Would like to visit these gardens.
Embracing Our Bias
I just completed reading my Winter 2022 issue and was wowed. I was just going to read one or two articles but wound up (of course) reading the whole issue. I enjoyed learning more about NIL issues and UMD’s jump-start on it. Really liked the hopeful work Brittney Drakeford is doing—so needed in so many communities. But what really struck me was the building of a new (dining hall) named after the people who were there first: the Piscat away. Too often we forget that this land was taken by force. Our church each Sunday honors and remembers the people on whose land we are built. I worked for the Indian Health Service for 16 years and know how important this recognition can be. Makes me proud to be a Terp.
Bias’ drug use and subsequent death. It was a sad time for the campus community as well as the Bias family. However, to glorify it 35 years later is absolutely ludicrous. I cannot believe he was permitted to be inducted into the National Col legiate Basketball Hall of Fame. As a student affairs administra tor and faculty member, I can’t even begin to justify why the University of Maryland feels compelled to honor his legacy, when today we struggle with so much substance abuse on campuses. While this magazine as well as UMD as a whole appear to feel that athletic programs are its No. 1 priority, its true purpose is to provide an education to students.
IN TERP LAY
New Dining Hall to Honor
—PAT MAIL ’96, TACOMA, WASH.
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 .
—CAROLA ROJAS ’24 (BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES)
I was absolutely appalled with the (caption). In 1986, I had just completed my graduate program in higher education administration. I was very aware of the incident involving Len
—JEANNE MARTIN LAY ’90, COLUMBIA, MD. VIA FACEBOOK
Getting into college is a big barrier, but once you’re accepted, being able to afford it is yet another one. I had proposed (to my family) that I would take a gap year to raise money for the second half of my college education. The scholarship made it so that I didn’t have to do that. It was a weight lifted.”
—ROBIN SEIDEL-GIBSON M.ED. ’85, GEORGETOWN, DEL.
TDF Foundation Quantum Technology Laboratories A joint venture between the Clark School, the Department of Physics and the Army Research Lab, this home to the Quantum Technology Center is where students and researchers focus on translating quantum physics into realworld technologies. It’s below grade level with a 3.5-foot-thick concrete floor to isolate delicate experiments from environmental interference.
GASH
3D printers and other stateof-the-art equipment make this the latest addition to the campus’s array of makerspaces.
New Engineering Building Expands Students’ and Researchers’ Opportunities to Innovate
The plaza features an engraved granite plaque honoring Collins with a fountain at the base, as well as the Unity Mural created by UMD and Bowie State students, faculty and staff and debuted at The Clarice’s 2017 NextNOW Fest.
Campus Plaza Honors
PHOTO BY STEPHANIE S. CORDLE; BY CHRIS
Sounding the “Factory” Whistle
“His young life exemplified all that is good and hopeful in a world that too often dismisses the sanctity of human life itself,” Collins’ father, Richard Collins, said at the ceremony. “It is my desire that we all take with us the spirit of adding daily to the stock of our moral courage.” Dawn Collins spoke directly to her son, adding, “I promised you that I would ensure that the world will know your name. This is only the beginning.”—LF
ALEx Garage On the first floor, the ALEx Garage is an area for student competition teams like Terrapin Rockets and Robotics@Maryland. It also houses a rapid prototyping lab with 3D printers and scanners.
1st Lt. Richard W. Collins III Plaque, Unity Mural Represent “Only the Beginning”
In fact, the E.A. Fernandez IDEA Factory is the only building on the College Park campus that is funded solely through philanthropic support, with the cornerstone gift being part of the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation’s Building Together: An Investment for Maryland in 2017.
NEWSON THE MALL 6 TERP.UMD.EDU
Angel P. Bezos ’69 Rapid Prototyping Laboratory
Fernandez hopes that here, science, journalism, the arts and other areas can jointly “come up with solutions to the problems that we have these days, which are complex problems that require interdisciplinary solutions.”
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND has constructed a plaza to honor the life and legacy of a former Bowie State University student killed on the College Park campus in 2017.
Located near Montgomery and Annapolis halls, Lt. Richard W. Collins III Plaza overlooks the bus stop where Collins, a Black man, was murdered by a white UMD student. The tragedy sparked years of dialogue over racial strife and a renewed commitment to justice at UMD.
Take a tour through some of the highlights of the IDEA Factory.—SL
FROM AN UNDERGROUND quantum lab to spaces to test business ideas—not to mention advanced robots—the striking new E.A. Fernandez IDEA (Innovate, Design and Engineer for America) Factory is a place where students and researchers can push the limits of 21st-century innovation andTheentrepreneurship.60,000-square-foot building, located next to the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building, houses high-tech teaching and research labs, collaborative workspaces and meeting rooms. Officially open since May, it’s named for A. James Clark School of Engineering alum Emilio Fernandez ’69, an entrepreneur and inventor who developed e-reader technology and pioneered innovations in the rail industry, and who is philanthropically supporting the building’s construction.
ILLUSTRATION
“It stands now as a permanent reminder of the mission we must all pursue in creating a more just and equitable world,” President Darryll J. Pines said at the May dedication ceremony that drew hundreds of social justice activists, community leaders, government officials, and family and friends of Collins. “Each of us has an obligation to redouble our efforts to build an antiracist, inclusive culture at our university and in our entire society.”
IDEA Central Even making lunch has gone high-tech in this glass-enclosed café. Terps can fill up with a grain bowl, salad or yogurt parfait freshly prepared by a robot named Sally.
Startup Shell Founded in a storage closet in 2012, the popular student business incubator now has a spacious new home in the Tom & Susan Scholl Center for Student Innovation.
7SPRING 2022
Lockheed Martin Rotorcraft Laboratories Spread across two floors, the labs will be a new home for the Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center. There, faculty and students will conduct research on rotorcraft aerodynamics, structures and flight mechanics. It’s also home to a monorail hoist, a giant, yellow crane-like device that can haul heavy equipment up from the ground.
Robotics and Autonomy Laboratory In this thirdfloor hub for advancing robotics systems, students can work with Spot, a mobile robot from Boston Dynamics, and an unmanned ground vehicle called Husky from Clearpath Robotics.
ON THE MALL CAMPUS LIFE 8 TERP.UMD.EDU PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE S. CORDLE
pée in hand, Fencing Club Vice President Noah Hanssen ’23 lunges toward his opponent, twisting his body to avoid the rival swordsman’s swerves. He sneaks his weapon to his competitor’s side to record the touch, then immediately readies for the next round.The bout is a blur of speedy skill—all performed while both fencers are seated.
This semester, the club debuted its new accessible frame, which holds two wheel chairs steady at the proper distance and angles so parafencers can safely compete.
In high school, after connecting with a parafencing coach at the Tri-Weapon Fencing Club in Catonsville, Md., Hanssen shot up the ranks, training in Colorado Springs with the USA team and winning the national championship in saber.
When he transferred to UMD from Howard Community College in Fall 2021, he hoped to find a fencing community here— even without an accessible frame.
“It’s a great sport, and we do have the accessibility now,” says Social Chair Catt Gagnon M.A.A. ’23. “Why not bring it to other folks as well?”
En Garde for Accessibility
—ak
É
make sure there was stuff in place for me.”
New Equipment Allows Students Who Use Wheelchairs to Participate in Fencing Club
For now, Hanssen uses his fencing competition chair on one end while another of the club’s 50 members sits in his everyday chair on the other. The setup has been beneficial for injured fencers too, and remaining seated makes all club members focus more on their blade work.
“‘Please just let me fence’ was kind of the spirit of my email (to the UMD Fencing Club),” Hanssen says. “But (they) wanted to
“Hopefully, we can make our school more known for parafencing within the fencing community,” Hanssen says.
they imitated “Star Wars” and “The Lord of the Rings” characters. He wanted to try fencing, but he could find accommodations only through historical fencing, which focuses more on the activity’s medieval and Renaissance origins rather than the sport-style fencing seen in the Olympics.
The frame, purchased with support from University Recreation and Wellness, adds to its accessible activities, like adaptive equipment at the Climbing Wall, wheelchair lifts and ramps in pools, and intramural goal ball, a seated version of soccer for visually impaired participants.
It’s a significant improvement over what they’d been doing before: having members pull up a four-legged chair to fence Hanssen while seated, or even just fencing him while standing. The group hopes to eventually get another competition wheelchair and is exploring hosting “walk ‘n’ roll” tournaments, which allow both fencers and parafencers to compete.
Hanssen, who has used a wheelchair since he was in a car accident at age 7, grew up wielding toy swords with his cousins as
UNIVERSITY of Maryland usually calls for setting up your laptop, scurrying to get your ID card and having an awkward ice-breaking meal with colleagues or floormates. Now a new program for arriving employees and students expands the idea of what “onboarding” should look like.
In 1959, exactly 100 years after the first group of students enrolled in Maryland Agricultural College, Elaine Johnson Coates became the first ____________.
C Hispanic woman to graduate from UMD
JOINING—AKTHE
greatest strength as an institution is how we value and support each other. A diverse community of students, faculty and staff who take on grand challenges together—this is what I have come to describe as TerrapinSTRONG.”
A Unfurling the Maryland flag at football games
C Student flash mob
La Plata Beach’s Cool Transformation
D The Midnight Mile
DESPITE THE MID-50S hint of spring, Anthony Hotton ’24 and Alexandra Herrera ’22 joined hundreds of Terps at La Plata Beach on March 1 to indulge in frosty fun. The Student Government Association and University Recreation and Wellness brought in a synthetic ice rink for a one-day Winter Wonderland event, featuring artificial snow, free skate rentals, and cozy cocoa, coffee and cookies.
Onboarding Initiative Introduces Terps to UMD’s History, Values
Which campus building is named after the first dean of women?
A Woman to earn a graduate degree from UMD
TerrapinSTRONG From the Start
D African American woman to graduate from UMD
B Reading The Diamondback when opponents are introduced at basketball games
C McKeldin Library
9SPRING 2022
“TerrapinSTRONG” is a 45-minute online training that covers UMD’s past (including historical discrimination against women and people of color), celebrates its traditions and trailblazers, and outlines what Terps are doing today to advance equity and social justice. It aims to make every member of the UMD community feel that they belong and can succeed Universityhere.President Darryll J. Pines, who announced this initiative on his first day on the job, says in the introduction: “I have come to understand that our
The training rolled out to new students, faculty and staff in Fall 2021, and to current faculty and staff this semester. It encourages everyone to create a plan to get involved on campus—whether through student engagement, research, professional development or academic courses—to becomeParticipantsTerrapinSTRONG.aredirected to check the online University of Maryland timeline, African American history walking tour, and the latest M Book before taking quizzes in the modules. Can you answer a few of the questions correctly?—LB Find the answers at left.
B Tawes Fine Arts Building
D Stamp Student Union
B Woman to earn an undergraduate degree from UMD
Which of these are UMD sports traditions? (Choose all that apply)
A Hornbake Library
DANDCB,A,3.D2.D1.ANSWERS:
He, students and other faculty members, inspired by Bacon’s SixDegrees nonprofit connecting people and good causes, developed a competition encouraging Terp teams to create, volunteer for, advocate or raise money over eight weeks for a social need.
Instead, 100 teams participated in this social impact-focused mashup of “American Idol” and “Shark Tank.” Nearly 700 cheering students turned out to watch the finals, $5,000 was awarded to expand the fledgling Food Recovery Network’s efforts, and 10 years later, the event is the center of a suite of efforts encouraging students to make a difference.
Mini grants, courses, “accelerator” fel lowships, a graduate certificate program in nonprofit management, paid internships and
Bacon (above) soon donned a Fear the Turtle
Student
ON THE MALL CAMPUS LIFE 10 TERP.UMD.EDU
A Decade of Do Good Times Competition Changed the Lives of Its Veterans—and Transformed Their Ventures
THE FEARLESS GENERATION
T-shirt to make a one-minute promotional video and agreed to help judge the six finalists for the inaugural Do Good Challenge in April 2012.
It goes back to when Karen ’76 and husband Bruce Levenson called Robert Grimm, then director of the School of Public Policy‘s philanthropic and nonprofit program, to say their nephew was working with the actor—and he’d be happy to host a campus event. Grimm just needed to create one.
“We were worried no one would show up,” Grimm recalls. “We thought it would be the only one we put on.”
THE RUNAWAY SUCCESS of the university’s Do Good Challenge for the past 10 years has zero degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.
coaching have built a pipeline—now based in UMD’s Do Good Institute—to support students’ projects and ventures. “These aren’t future leaders,” Grimm says. “They are leaders now, changing the world today.”
Students have taken on causes including cancer awareness, poverty, veterans with disabilities and sexual assault. Like the university’s Do Good initiatives, the nonprofits they launched have also evolved. Terp spoke to seven past participants about where they—and their Challenge efforts—are now. —LB, KS
See three more “where are they now” stories from Do Good competitors and find out who won the April 2022 event at terp.umd.edu
“That waste didn’t sit very well with me,” says Hollister. That’s when he created the James Hollister Wellness Foundation, named for his father, to collect unused medicine from hospitals, pharmacies and hospices to send to countries experiencing drug shortages.Thefoundation received its first donation thanks to a mentor’s connection during the 2015 Do Good Challenge—and the following year, Hollister won the grand prize and audience choice award, walking away with $6,500.
Noble Uprising Audrey Awasom knew it was time to journey into entrepreneurship when she found herself doing more work on her passion project than her homework. “I wanted to know how I could create an actual organization and to scale the impact of the project.”
Enter the Do Good Institute. Using its grants, mentors and classes, she founded Noble Uprising, which provides food and sanitary items, basic literacy and soft skills education, and technical training to help women experienc ing poverty get jobs and transform their lives. Her organization has delivered more than 9,000 care package items and served 87 women, and a partnership with the Prince George’s County Family Justice Center will expand its reach to hundreds of asprogramImpactfamilies.Theinstitute’sInternshasbeenaparticularboontoAwasomNobleUprisinghasgrown.Itsresearchinformedher10-yeargrowthplanandhelpedherexpandprogramming,suchascreating a network of food pantries women can access conveniently, without barriers like applications or appointments.“We’reableto create programs that meet the needs of individuals where they are,” she says.
“The college experience is really amazing for these dogs, because they get to have all these experiences around campus that a working adult would have to try really hard to create,” says Barker. “But some of our peers were going hungry so they could buy dog food,” since puppy raisers assume all financial responsibility for the dogs for up to two years.
While her efforts with friend Cate Law didn’t win the 2019 Challenge, additional Do Good grants and Barker’s time as a Do Good Accelerator fellow put Pawsible on the path to become an official nonprofit in 2020—just in time to meet the growing financial need that emerged during the pandemic. Now, Pawsible’s reach extends across the country, paying for vet bills, toys and other puppy-raising essentials to ensure people with disabilities continue to get the tail-wagging support they need.
It’s a silver lining after his father died from brain cancer when Hollister was a UMD freshman. His family was left with thousands of dollars of medica tion that due to liability issues had to be thrown away.
“Winning the challenge enabled us to get international recognition,” he says. That helped profession alize the organization and secure more donations, including a $180,000 grant from the United Nations’ Democracy Fund a few yearsMicrojusticialater. has since expanded to four provinces, and Bellocq has stepped away. He’s now legal adviser for the federal Social Security Agency and managing director and founder of Fundación IBAPP, a conservation nonprofit in Patagonia.
To Buenos Aires lawyer Juan Bellocq, working for a new nonprofit he’d heard was building houses for people living in slums sounded like more rewarding work than his job supporting the wealthy. Too bad that he didn’t have house-building skills.
It was a $500 mini-grant from the Do Good Institute that made “pawsible” Vanessa Barker’s initial goal of providing pet food and supplies to UMD students raising service dog puppies.
Over the last six years, Matthew Hollister has saved lives in Ghana, Bolivia and Honduras, thanks to more than $90,000 worth of medicine his foundation has donated to clinics overseas.
11SPRING 2022PHOTOS BY FREED PHOTOGRAPHY; PAWSIBLE PHOTOS COURTESY OF PAWSIBLE
There, he and new pal (and soon, fellow co-founder) Fernando Sartiel entered the 2013 Do Good Challenge with a grassroots fundraising effort for Microjusticia.
“With the money and the con nections we were able to expand at a breakneck pace,” he says. Today, the foundation has served more than 50,000 people, and Hollister is developing a for-profit drugecommerceplatformforpharmaciestofurtherreducewaste.
Matthew Hollister ’18 The James Hollister Wellness Foundation
Audrey Awasom ’18
What he did have was legal expertise, which inspired his 2010 creation of Fundación Microjusticia Argentina, which provides free legal support to vulnerable communities, especially women. He soon earned a Fulbright award to study nonprofit management at UMD to bolster his fledgling volunteer network.
Vanessa Barker ’20 and Cate Law ’19 Pawsible Inc.
Juan Bellocq M.P.P. ’13 and Fernando Sartiel M.P.P. ’12 Fundación Microjusticia Argentina
S.
Exhibit Highlights the Art Form’s Variety
FRAGGLE: © 2022 THE JIM HENSON COMPANY
TRIXIE LA BRIQUE ,” created in 1978 by Canadian siblings David and Ann Powell, founders of Puppetmongers Theatre, is an example of a “found puppet,” an everyday object that’s infused with lifelike qualities. Using just a scrap of fabric and the skill of a performer, the Powells turned an ordinary brick into a tightrope walker in their puppet circus. Barker notes that his 5-year-old son “did laugh and smile as soon as he saw it,” because he understood immediately that in this case, a brick is not just a brick. (On loan from the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta)
“
A
A BRICK WEARING a tiny tutu might seem to the average person like a head-scratching oddity, or maybe someone’s idea of a decorative flourish for their garden.
PUNCH, JUDY AND BABY ” are classic puppet characters, rooted in the 16th-century Italian theatrical tradition of commedia dell’arte, which featured stock characters including the comically pugnacious Mr. Punch. He and his wife, Judy, became wildly popular in England in the 18th and 19th centuries, known for slapstick antics and dark humor. “To see adults and children both cackle with glee that Punch is getting away with it is a kind of strange inversion” of the inherent innocence of puppets, says Barker. (On loan from the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta)
ON THE MALL CAMPUS LIFE 12 TERP.UMD.EDU
OtherbyPuppetAnyName
“
UMD students and faculty have long been proponents of this particular artistry, starting with Muppet-creating alum Jim Henson ’60 and continuing through classes, performances, workshops and even an alum theater group focusing on puppetry.Totapinto your own youthful sense of wonder, take a look at some of the puppets on display.—SL
“
PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE CORDLE;
But that brick is a puppet, simply because its creators declared it one. That’s the idea behind “The Art and Craft of Puppetry,” an exhibit that runs through July at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library—that puppetry can extend far beyond the marionettes and finger toys we may be familiar with.
“It’s just the childlike imagination, our willing suspension of disbelief” that transforms an object into a character with a life force, says Drew Barker, UMD’s performing arts librarian and curator of the exhibit.
RED FRAGGLE ” nods to Henson, UMD’s most famous connection to puppetry. An animatronic character from his 1980s television show, “Fraggle Rock,” the Fraggle is shown along with its radio transmitter, which a puppeteer would use to control its movements. “I want to show people as much as possible how these puppets work,” says Barker. “Sometimes it’s very sophisticated, sometimes it’s very simple.” (On loan from The Jim Henson Company)
PHOTO BY STEPHANIE S. CORDLE
A guitarist for the Baltimore postpunk band Skydivers, Bush sees in Goths a sense of life satisfaction that is often missing in others as they reach middle age. “They seem just content with their life,” says Bush, who is approaching 40 herself. “When I asked, ‘What do you want for the future?’ they were all kind of thinking, ‘I want more of the same thing.’”–SL
IRC helps them find permanent housing, employ ment, counseling, education and social services to support their transition to the United States.
Ph.D. Research: Why Goths Age Happily
“Public education is really about public good,” says Patty Perillo, UMD’s vice president for student affairs. “We are creating the model here at Maryland.”—LF
Bush had stumbled upon the world of “elder Goths,” the focus of her master’s thesis and now the subject of her doctoral dissertation in American studies. She’s investigating whether elder Goths hold a secret—lightheart edly morbid though it may be—to aging happily.
13SPRING 2022ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN BIAGINI;
Dining Services supplied food staples; the Office of the President, the Office of Community Engagement and the Alumni Association provided welcome bags containing UMD-themed items; and University Libraries delivered bilingual books in Dari and Pashto, along with snacks, toys and kitchen items.
It might stem, Bush says, from the “societal subversion” inherent in
They’ll live at UMD for up to 12 months while the
A forFootholdRefugees
WHEN LEAH BUSH M.A. ’16 and her bandmates arrived at an Alexandria, Va., gig on Dec. 31, 2010, they expected to be playing a standard New Year’s Eve party. Instead, they walked into a funeral—for the newly 40-year-old host’s youth, complete with a handmade coffin and eulogies.
the subculture; Goths tend to have a fervor for black garb and eyeliner, and some have more than a passing interest in the occult. Those interested in the darker side of life might have more familiarity with “the frightful ness of the aging body, and subverting that,” she says.
UMD AfghanWelcomesArrivals to Campus Residences
While higher education institutions have pre viously housed refugees in nearby school-owned homes and partnered with the IRC and other agencies, this is the first time a public university has used on-campus facilities for families.
In another bid to help refugees—Afghans as well as victims of the 2021 Haiti earthquake and unrest in Central America—dozens of UMD students have been trained as part of the MLAW Assistance Program to help refugees learn English, gain financial literacy and access services.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND this spring welcomed several refugee and evacuee families from Afghanistan in a first-of-its-kind approach for a public university.
In collaboration with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), UMD is providing temporary housing for vulnerable Afghans, including those who face the risk of persecution and violence in Afghanistan due to their work alongside U.S. personnel.“TheUniversity of Maryland is part of a global community, and when we have the opportunity to support humanity, we embrace it,” says President Darryll J. Pines.
Former Lacrosse Star Adds Football Title to Superb Collegiate Career
14 TERP.UMD.EDU LACROSSE PHOTO COURTESY OF MARYLAND ATHLETICS; FOOTBALL PHOTO COURTESY OF FERRIS STATE ATHLETICS. OPPOSITE PAGE: PHOTOS BY ZACH BLAND/MARYLAND ATHLETICS
Despite getting selected in the Spring 2021 Premier Lacrosse League draft, Bernhardt wanted to give football another shot. Until he succumbed to cancer, Jim had been helping Jared figure out how to do it, and his passing only solidified the commitment. He sent out emails and highlight tapes to schools around
But he wasn’t finished. In one of the rarest achievements in recent college competition, Bernhardt added a second national title in a different team sport by using skills honed alongside his football coach father to help the Ferris State Bulldogs capture the 2021 NCAA Division II football crown.
“You can’t just be a good athlete. You can’t just be smart. You don’t get better unless you are driven,” Tillman says. “There are so many things that you look (at Bernhardt) and go, there’s another reason.”
the country and agreed, sight unseen, to go to Ferris State in Big Rapids, Mich., as a graduateWhatevertransfer.rustthere was came off quickly—on the way to a 14-0 record and 58-17 title win over Valdosta State, Bernhardt split time at quarterback and accounted for 2,776 yards and 37 touchdowns, winning Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Player of theNoneYear.of that was a surprise to UMD men’s lacrosse Coach John Tillman. From natural skill to positive daily habits and unwavering commitment, he says Bernhardt has a “long list” of traits that make him a superb performer.
Bernhardt spent the spring in Florida training for the NFL and had multiple conversations with Chris Hogan, a former Penn State lacrosse player who went on to become an NFL wide receiver and two-time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots, about how best to turn his college achievements into a professional roster spot.
Following the NFL draft, Bernhardt signed a free agent contract with the Atlanta Falcons, not as a quarterback but as a wide receiver/kick returner.“I’mreally open to anything. Any team I’ve been on I want to go and win,” he says.—lf
“It was a way to honor Dad,” he says of Jim Bernhardt, who died in 2019 after a career with teams such as Penn State and the Houston Texans. “(He) would talk to us about having a football mentality when we played lacrosse—a sense of toughness, just playing hard, just all the things you can control and using that as an advantage.”
SPORTSON THE MALL
hen jared bernhardt ’21 graduated from Maryland, he had already finished a storied college lacrosse career as a 2017 national champion, the Terps’ record holder in career points and goals, and winner of the Tewaaraton Award, given to the most outstanding men’s and women’s NCAA players in the sport.
Bernhardt was one of the most sought-after lacrosse recruits in the country while starring at Lake Brantley High School outside of Orlando, Fla., but he also tallied more than 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns as a quarterback in his junior and senior years. He attracted some interest from Navy, which plays a similar triple-option offensive system, but ultimately he followed his brothers, Jake ’13 and Jesse ’13 (now a Terps assistant coach), to College Park.
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Dual Threat
Women Finish in Sweet 16
SPRING 2022 15 SPORTS BRIEFS
That took them to their second Sweet 16 in a row and their 10th under Head Coach Brenda Frese. Despite a late rally, the Terps lost to the Cardinal, 72-66, in Spokane, Wash.
Gymnast Vaults to Top of Maryland Leaderboard
She leapt past the 17-year record of 2039.1 career points racked up by Rachel Martinez ’06 during a home meet vs. North Carolina State, Yale and William & Mary. Barber scored a 9.9 on vault and took the all-around crown at the event with a 39.45.
In its 29th NCAA Tournament appearance, the fourth-seeded Maryland women’s basketball team advanced to the Sweet 16, where it fell to top-seeded Stanford University.TheTerps (23-9) hosted the University of Delaware and Florida Gulf Coast University at the Xfinity Center in the tournament’s first two rounds, dominating with 102-71 and 89-65 victories, respectively.
Gymnast Audrey Barber ’22 took her routines to new heights last season, becoming the sport’s all-time leading scorer at UMD.
Barber earned First Team All-Big Ten honors for the third time, as well as Second Team All-America recognition, making her the program’s eighth All-American and first since 2013.
“We got beat by the defending national champions, so you know they’re really talented,” Frese said after the game. “But (I’m) really proud of the fact … that we didn’t quit fighting. We laid it all out there.”
15SPRING 2022
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Hubble’s Giant Successor Has Plenty of Connections to UMD
PHOTO BY DESIREE STOVER, COURTESY OF NASA
giant, 21.5-foot-wide gold-plated mirror will capture unprecedented information about sub-Neptune atmospheres, she says, and help kickstart the study of potentially habitable environments and the search for the ingre dients that make life possible on Earth.
“We’ve been waiting so long it feels almost surreal,” she says. “It’s like a dream the astronomy community is waking up from, and suddenly it’s here.”
“The universe looks very different when you have infrared eyes,” Mather says. “We’re going after the first obvious objects that grew from the big bang material, the first stars, the first galaxy, the first black holes, the first exploding stars—all the way up to the present time and what’s happening now in our own small neighborhood in the solar system.”—cc
oon after its Christmas launch, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) began to gently unfurl like a 70-foot robot butterfly as it glided toward a point in orbit around the sun about a million miles from the Earth. For the last few months, it’s been cooling down to space temperatures and tooling up as mission controllers prepare to open the farthest-seeing eye ever trained on theThecosmos.telescope was built just around the corner from the University of Maryland at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and many UMD faculty and alums have orbited the project in its three-decade history. They designed, built and tested the long-awaited successor to the Hubble Space Telescope (still going strong with plenty of Terp support) and are closely involved in operations, mission planning and eventual translation of Webb Space Telescope discoveries to the public.
UMD alums have a history of helping NASA’s biggest projects. See our Winter 2021 feature on Terps and the Hubble Space Telescope at keeping-an-eye-on-the-universeterp.umd.edu/
ON THE MALL EXPLORATIONSEXPLORATIONS 16 TERP.UMD.EDU
TerpsTelescope
One of the first astronomers who’ll use it, Assistant Professor Eliza Kempton, is part of an “early release science program” to begin producing results the moment JWST comes online sometime this summer. Soon after that, the telescope will provide observations for two projects she’s leading or co-leading focused on “sub-Neptunes”—mysterious exoplanets surrounded by currently impene trableJWSThaze.’sadvanced instruments and
The telescope was built to peer far through space—and thus back in time—nearly to the beginning of everything, says College Park Professor John Mather. He is the senior JWST project scientist and winner of a Nobel Prize in physics for his work with an earlier
Goddard-built spacecraft to map cosmic background radiation left painted across the sky by our universe’s explosive debut.
UMD alums have played key roles in building and operating the Webb Space Telescope, including:
theSpinning“Webb”
Several astronomy faculty members in addition to Kempton have secured “observing time” through a competitive process:
The pair analyzed data collected by Google from mobile device users in 93 countries who opted to share their location history, including where they went and for how long. They compared data from users during the first five weeks of 2020—before the pandemic ramped up and lockdowns were imposed—with data from when they were put into effect, taking into consideration how restrictive they were and their length.
Study Finds Fatigue With Mobility Restrictions Sets in Quickly
Alberto Bollato, professor Drake Deming, professor emeritus Mike Kelly, associate research scientist
Sylvain Veilleux, professor Mark Wolfire, principal research scientist
NASA technicians use a crane to hoist the James Webb Space Telescope, with its 21-foot mirror deployed, inside a clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The telescope should begin full operations in orbit this summer.
“A bigger implication of this finding is that policymakers prob ably then need to start thinking about other things that can be done—things like incentives that would keep people at home, wage incentives, activities to combat lockdown fatigue—if they want people to stay home.”—GREG MURASKI
Lockdown Breakdown
Nasif Ahmed ’14, flight operations simulations engineer at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) Wen-Hsien Chuang Ph.D. ’05 and Dan Kelly ’02, M.S. ’05, developers of the microshutter array for JWST’s near-infrared spectrograph
Sonya Hopson ’03, project safety engineer at Goddard Alexandra Lockwood ’07, project scientist, science communications lead at STScI
Keith Parrish ’89, commissioning manager at Goddard Joe Pollizzi M.S. ’77, Science and Operations Center ground systems development manager at STScI
Lockdowns lost 30% of their effectiveness in reducing mobility in one month, UMD’s Yogesh Joshi and Andres Musalem of the University of Chile reported in research published in Scientific Reports by Nature
The research doesn’t delve into the reasons for “lockdown fatigue,” but Joshi speculates that some people just needed to get back to work, or they just became restless.
ILLUSTRATION BY VALERIE MORGAN
EXCEPT FOR THE few recluses among us, the COVID lockdowns of 2020 were hard—and hard to heed. New marketing research quantifies just how much the world balked under them.
Kan Yang M.S. ’10, OTIS test thermal lead analyst and thermal engineer at Goddard
17SPRING 2022
Mobility immediately plummeted 36% after lockdowns went into effect, then fell another 18% in the next two weeks. But then it started to creep back up; within a month of the relapse’s start, a third of the gain in lockdown compliance vanished. And it kept slipping.
Eric Smith M.S. ’85, Ph.D. ’88, JWST program scientist and Astrophysics Division chief scientist at NASA HQ Christopher Stark Ph.D. ’10, deputy integration, test and commissioning project scientist at Goddard Patrick Taylor ’87, flight operations systems engineering architect at STScI
Why did you want to write this book?
We hear a lot about Black people and their diets, and how they’re unhealthy and obese because of soul food—but you can’t blame ill health squarely on food. Look at “the stroke belt,” which stretches across the South. These are states with repressive policies and laws. There’s a lot of wage inequality, people who are unhoused, people who are unemployed. Society wants food to do the heavy lifting because it takes our focus away from systemic inequalities that keep people mired in oppression, which contributes to psychological and physical disease.
In New Book, Professor Chews Over the Consequences of Food Shaming
How can the conversation about Black food culture be harmful?
What’s an example of how Black Americans are food shamed?
Shaming Black people for what and where they eat is not new. It began during enslavement; the ways farms and plantations were set up were about surveilling Black bodies. And it’s moved straight into the contempo rary moment, such as the (2018) arrest of the young Black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. People feel they’ve been given permission to overcorrect Black people’s lives, from music to clothing to language to food, because these things go against the grain of whiteness and “correctness.”
My book opens with the D.C. Metro worker who was eating on the train in uniform, when a woman took her picture and blasted it on social media. The employee was literally going from one part of her job to the next, trying to fit in a meal. She knew Metro was no longer issuing fines for eating so she did so. Then she has her life exposed.
EXPLORATIONSON THE MALL 18 TERP.UMD.EDU
We all need to eat, so it’s easy to dismiss the unseen power dynamics around food. But if we are going to have conversations about people’s freedoms, we need to talk about food.
People like to criticize fast-food restaurants, but they are major gathering hubs for the elderly and other people who are alone. Farmers markets aren’t utopias. If you don’t set up in Black neighborhoods, offer food that’s culturally relevant and accept Black vendors, people won’t feel welcome. Also, dollar stores can be important sources of food. If you’re on a fixed income, and you can go in and buy 20 items with $20, that can make a difference in people’s lives.
FACULTY PSYCHE WILLIAMS-FORSON
No Appetite for Racist Stereotypes
FOR BLACK AMERICANS , the simple act of eating can be fraught. Gathering for a barbecue in a public park can lead to run-ins with the police. Dining on traditional dishes, developed through ingenuity and necessity out of generations of slavery and poverty, can lead to racist ridicule. In her latest book, “Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America,” available this summer, American studies Professor Psyche Williams-Forson breaks down how unfair scrutiny of what Black Americans eat keeps society from addressing systemic inequities —KS
Q&A
What are some food misconceptions that you address?
Physicist Translates Quantum Theory Into Medical Devices and Tomorrow’s Tech
involved in the company, still gets emotional talking about how the machine helped the youngster.
ipping a toe into quantum science often creates a “this is your brain in a blender” effect on the uninitiated, but University of Maryland scientist Ron Walsworth is quick to point out that Hyperfine, a company he co-founded and that joined the NASDAQ exchange last fall, arises from a kinder, gentler variety—he calls it “20th-century quantum.”Thisearlier understanding of the nature of space and time and the building blocks of matter informed Walsworth’s long-ago research at Harvard involving hyperpolarized gas imaging. He conducted the work alongside his former postdoc and later colleague and fellow Hyperfine co-founder Matt Rosen, now a Harvard School of Medicine professor. It eventually led to the company that builds small, low-cost magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines that operate at a low magnetic field—and thus can be wheeled into action in emergency rooms, intensive care units and other settings where expense, size or magnetic interactions with other medical equipment rule out full-size MRI machines.
“Ron and I are so proud of the trajectory of our combined academic effort,” Rosen says. “First it was him, and then me, just grinding away to get funding and improve the technology—NASA, NSF—it felt like pushing a rock uphill endlessly. And then finally, people understood what we were doing.”
“The quality of its images isn’t quite as good as a giant, multimil lion-dollar MRI in a hospital, but that’s an acceptable tradeoff in many circumstances,” says Walsworth, director of UMD’s Quantum Technology Center (QTC) and a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of physics.
Hyperfine’s low-field machines are already expanding health care access in the developing world; for instance, in a remote area of Malawi, after unpacking the machine and getting online instruction, doctors were able to quickly diagnose a child’s serious illness and refer her to proper medical care. Walsworth, no longer directly
In Walsworth’s current work on quantum sensors, communication networks and more in the QTC, he focuses on the full-bore, mind-bending “21st-century quantum” that directly exploits confounding concepts like “entanglement.” But regardless of the century it arises from, he says, the idea is to create a better world.—cc
“We slept in the pediatric intensive-care unit for a couple of weeks,” he says. “I realized maybe I could help make things better for these children and parents and the incredibly dedicated doctors and nurses.”
From MRIs to the QTC
His determination to make medical imaging more accessible stems from his young son’s 2006 diagnosis with a brain tumor, which plunged the family into the world of childhood disease.
His son recovered, and with Rosen leading the devel opment of the technology for brain imaging, Hyperfine launched in 2014, with scientist and entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg as the third co-founder.
19SPRING 2022PHOTOS BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
D
ON THE MALL EXPLORATIONSEXPLORATIONS 20 TERP.UMD.EDU ILLUSTRATIONS BY VALERIE MORGAN
Safer Flights
Buildings pose an enormous threat to birds; according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, window strikes kill up to 976 million a year. At UMD, faculty members and students are studying how to make buildings friendlier to birds and are surveying carcasses to count these deadly collisions on campus.
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Reflective windows are also a hazard. If a building is near trees, that vegetation could be mirrored in the window, giving birds the illusion that it’s safe to keep on flying.
—sl
“Fortunately, glass can be manufactured in a range of ways that make it visible” to birds, says Michael Ezban, a clinical assistant professor of architecture who’s taught students to design bird-friendly edifices. One option, he says, is fritted glass, made with lines or dots that act as a stop sign for birds.
not humans. The effect could be glass that appears hot pink to our feathered friends, indicating to them that it’s perilous to fly there. Ezban and his students have also explored ways in which designs can serve as habitat: In the United Kingdom, many architects utilize what are known as “swift boxes,” named after the endangered common swift. These are bricks that have been hollowed out, making them an ideal habitat for birds.
Structures and windows pose several dangers to fliers. Many birds migrating in the fall and spring—the deadliest times for the
Ultraviolet pigmentation, another option, can make glass visible to avians but
animals—use stars to navigate, flying at night or near dawn. “They’re disoriented by light pollution and end up being diverted toward cities, so when they land to rest at the end of the night, they’ve ended up in a poten tially dangerous location,” says Stephanie Dalke, program manager at the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation’s Environmental Finance Center. Birds are attracted to buildings that are lit up internally—like office buildings with lights left on overnight—and steer themselves directly into windows, often in the hour before sunrise.
“It hurts your heart a little bit, but we know that bird-gathering data and analysis is going to help,” she says. “So even though it’s sad at the moment, we know (this long-term project) is for a greater good.”
At UMD, Shannon Browne, a lecturer in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, leads student volunteers—often members of the university’s student chapter of the Wildlife Society—around campus in autumn and spring, tracking how many and what kind of birds have died. The data can be used to determine which buildings are most threatening to birds and may contain clues on how to prevent deaths.
e’ve all heard that awful moment: We might be in our kitchen, brewing an early morning coffee, or working late on the 10th floor of an office building when suddenly a bird flies head-on into a window with a sickening thwack.
Faculty, Students Study How to Make Buildings More Bird-Friendly
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CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION, ROBERT H. SMITH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
GREGG VANDERHEIDEN
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Create a Plan B for your life—one you build while your Plan A is in place and working fine. Next time things don’t work out as expected (pandemic, downturn, etc.) you have something to go for without shifting things around in panic mode.
People can take one minute to determine whether the source of news they’re reading is trustworthy before sharing it. That investment of a moment will strengthen our democracy.
OLIVER SCHLAKE
When we listen to others, it is natural to judge what they are saying from our own perspective. Imagine if we could set aside our assumptions for a bit to seek clarification about why and how each of us has arrived at our respective opinions.
LECTURER, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
KATHY BEST DIRECTOR OF THE HOWARD CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM, PHILIP MERRILL COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM
BETHANY HENDERSON
Vote. In every election in which you’re eligible. Bring your kids (from infancy on) into the voting booth with you. And encourage your friends, family, neighbors, etc., to do the same.
21SPRING 2022 THE QUESTIONBIG
Share
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Life in our region is hyperproductive and the pace is nonstop, even during an ongoing health pandemic. The nonprofit sector and education institutions have seen high turnover and extreme rates of staff burnout. The human cost and impact to student learning/community development of this is enormous. The toll on the sector’s employees of color is even greater due to lack of equity. So, balance is the change we must make.
PROFESSOR OF SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY, COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
at
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Suggest a future
ARJAV R. SHAH
PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF THE TRACE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT CENTER, COLLEGE OF INFORMATION STUDIES
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What’s the smallest change people can make to have the biggest positive impact on society? question terpfeedback.umd.edu your answer and see more faculty responses at terp.umd.edu/BigQ14
Understanding that nothing is the end of the world, patience is key, and controlling your emotions will help your success.
SELVON WALDRON
HEDWIG TEGLASI
A comment to a young person, or a simple act, that inspires them to a career of service—that inspires others.
ADJUNCT LECTURER, COLLEGE OF INFORMATION STUDIES
LECTURER, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY
While some recent establishments, like The Hotel at the University of Maryland and Vigilante Coffee, quickly became community
Sincestores?itslaunch in 2015, the $2 billion public-private partnership known as Greater College Park has revitalized the community surrounding UMD as new businesses have taken root, housing options have dramatically expanded, and retailers have set up shop.
COLLEGE PARK IS HOPPING AND HUMMING WITH NEW BUSINESSES, HOUSING AND OTHER PERKS. SEE FOR YOURSELF.
FOR TERPS WHO HAVEN’T been back to campus in a while, driving on Baltimore Avenue might be more of a journey of discovery than a trip down memory lane.
HOW WE PICTURE GREATNESS
fixtures, others, like the College Park City Hall and the landscape-altering Aster College Park complex, are just popping up as the transfor mation continues.
We’ve assembled idyllic historical images and vibrant modern-day scenes for a simul taneous look back and peek forward at the blossoming Baltimore Avenue corridor. Read on to see just how much “greater” College Park is becoming.
“All of it is part of a plan to be the great college town—the place that students, staff, fac ulty, parents and alumni want to be a part of,” says Ken Ulman, UMD’s chief strategy officer for economic development and president of the Terrapin Development Company, a partner ship between the university and the University of Maryland College Park Foundation that is leading several Greater College Park projects.
BY ANNIE KRAKOWER CONTEMPORARY PHOTOS BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
It’s impossible not to notice the towering hotel across from the University of Maryland’s main entrance, a gleaming apartment complex is rising where Plato’s Diner used to be, and—wait a minute, is that one, two, three new grocery
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23SPRING 2022ARCHITECTURAL PLANS (ALL PAGES) COURTESY OF COLLEGE PARK CITY HALL; ARCHIVAL PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
houses the Visitor Center. On the left, at the corner of Campus Drive, stands the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering, a hub for virtual reality, robotics and artificial intelligence since 2019. Still in the picture? Turner Hall, now home of Conferences and Visitor Services’ welcome desk and, yes, Terp’s offices.
The view over the old circular drive in front of Ritchie Coliseum—framed by a two-lane road, fencing for an under-construction football stadium and rows of corn—is now dominated on the right by The Hotel. The 297room, four-star hotel and conference center opened in 2017 as an anchor of Greater College Park, and now
NEAR CAMPUS DRIVE ENTRANCE
This shopping plaza might look familiar—even if most of the storefronts have changed—but the big difference can be seen on the right, where a gleaming new city hall now stands. It houses city offices, council chambers and meeting rooms on the first two floors, with UMD occupying the third and fourth. Retail space will start filling up this spring and summer, highlighted by Shop Made in Maryland, which will sell art, jewelry and home goods crafted in the state in order to support local businesses.
24 TERP.UMD.EDU TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF COLLEGE PARK
COLLEGE PARK CITY HALL
Company and Greystar Real Estate Partners to build nearly 800 student apartments and 21,000 square feet of retail where Marathon Deli and 7-Eleven used to be. (Don’t worry—Marathon just moved around the corner to face Baltimore Avenue and is as popular as ever.)
An Esso gas station and the old Maryland Book Exchange made way for the 843-bed Landmark Apartments and Target Express building, which opened in 2015 to provide quick and convenient shopping for Terps. Also coming soon to that area is Union on Knox, a project by Terrapin Development
BALTIMORE AVENUE AT COLLEGE AVENUE
25SPRING 2022TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION; BOTTOM PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF COLLEGE PARK
The 150-acre research park formerly known as M Square left plenty of room for budding innovation, and since 2017, the area now called the Discovery District has flourished as a magnet for new knowledge and entrepreneurship. Spaces such as IonQ and the Quantum Startup Foundry reinforce UMD’s reputation as the “Capital of Quantum,” and companies like The Shed, a rehearsal studio space; Medcura, a biomedical device developer; and Cybrary, a cybersecurity startup, contribute to the region’s growing business enterprise. If all that inspiration makes you hungry, stop by The Hall CP for a bite on the patio.
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DISCOVERY DISTRICT
27SPRING 2022TOP PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF COLLEGE PARK
GREATER COLLEGE PARK BY THE NUMBERS $2B investmentpublic-private 60+ federalorganizationscompanies,andagencies 2M+ square feet of office, researchresidentialretail,andspace 150-acre research park 6,500+ Discovery District employees Housing constructionunderfor 4,000+ students 62 acres of trails and parks
The Quality Inn and Plato’s Diner were demolished in 2019 to make way for Aster College Park, a Terrapin Development Company and Bozzuto project bringing nearly 400 residential units and 62,000 square feet of retail, including a much-anticipated grocery store. Opening this summer, the complex will also feature outdoor dining and gathering spaces with plenty of greenery, as well as a pedestrian bridge linking two buildings.
BALTIMORE AVENUE AT CALVERT ROAD
Many Terps fondly remember … well, many Terps at least remember the Knox Boxes, two-story brick, budget-friendly apartment buildings on the south side of campus near Guilford Drive. The last well-worn box finally folded to make way for Terrapin Row, a student apartment building that opened in 2016. The complex features nearly 1,500 beds, along with retailers like Dunkin’, Amazon and Seoulspice.
TERRAPIN ROW
28 TERP.UMD.EDU BOTTOM PHOTO COURTESY OF DIAMONDBACK PHOTO MORGUE
UNION ON KNOX
Knox Road and Sterling Place 788 student beds Summer 2024
29SPRING 2022MIDDLE PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY OF COLLEGE PARK
Ground being prepped for construction
NEW DIGS
Lakeland Road and 48th Street 255 student beds Fall 2022
Knox Road and Guilford Drive 334 student beds
Up where the Clarion Inn used to be, discount supermarket Lidl debuted in 2019, adding to College Park’s growing list of grocers that also includes recent additions Whole Foods, MOM’s Organic Market and Target Express. Just across the street, another project is reaching new heights: Gilbane Development Co. is constructing Tempo, an eight-story, 299-unit student housing, parking and retail complex. Opening in space once occupied by Burger King, the building will include a swimming pool, fitness center and podcast/video studio.
Baltimore Avenue and Tecumseh Street
THE HUB
Baltimore Avenue and Calvert Road 393 units of multifamily housing Summer 2022
THE STANDARD Baltimore Avenue and Hartwick Road 951 student beds Fall 2023
NORTHERN BALTIMORE AVENUE
ASPEN-MARYLAND
PARKSIDE
THE NINE AT COLLEGE PARK
Knox Road and Lehigh Road 465 student beds Under construction
TEMPO Baltimore Avenue and Berwyn 978Roadstudent beds Fall 2022
669 student beds Fall 2022
ASTER COLLEGE PARK
Terps will soon have a plethora of new housing options, with plenty of pools, cozy courtyards, fancy fitness centers and countless other amenities. Here’s what’s taking shape and when:
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31SPRING 2022
PHOTO BY JOHN T. CONSOLI; PHOTO COLLAGE BY VALERIE MORGAN
ordering a major East Coast port and braided with highways, Balti more’s southern edge is a rushing two-way conduit for products constantly flowing in and the detritus of modern life continually flushing out. Much of this efflu ent is headed for the neighborhood of Curtis Bay, home to a trifecta of foul final destina tions: a landfill, a medical waste facility and an animal rendering plant.
important guide would be Sacoby Wilson, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. An expert on environmental toxins and the sociopolitical structures that make them so abundant where people of color live, Wilson helped the teenagers make contacts with legal and environmental groups and get their hands on the data they needed to mount a challenge to an international corporation.
JusticeGrowingFromGrassrootsScience
Trash and toxic substances are often dumped where poor people and communities of color live. Public health researcher Sacoby Wilson is empowering them to fight for cleaner, safer conditions.
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BY LIAM FARRELL
“We weren’t lawyers or experts in any way, shape or form,” Watford says. “Sacoby ended up being one of those folks. He was really influential in making sure we had thoseNowconnections.”anassociate professor with the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Wilson is at the forefront of investigating how the places where people live can determine their health. A proponent of community-based participatory research, he trains and assists people in getting the information they need to protect their families and homes. Wilson and his Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health (CEEJH) have worked alongside overburdened
Oneit.
When Destiny Watford was growing up there more than a decade ago, adults urged her to get out as soon as possible. Brick row homes, churches, corner stores and school playgrounds share the air with a coal silo and fleets of diesel trucks, and Watford saw neighbors die of lung cancer and her mother struggle with asthma attacks.
The community already had some of the nation’s most polluted and deadly air, according to a collection of studies, when plans were announced in 2012 for a new trash incinerator—permitted to burn 4,000 tons a day and spew up to 1,240 pounds of lead and mercury annually—less than a mile from her high school. Anger overcoming her shy nature, then-16-year-old Watford co-founded an activist group and looked for allies in what became a four-year quest to stop
from the nearby highway, landfill, and concrete and sewer treatment plants?
By teaching people how to take water samples, read air monitor data from their homes and understand complex legal and regulatory structures, Wilson tries to do more than just document what happens to someone who lives near or works in a power plant or hog farm. Ultimately, as climate change intensifies and new threats like COVID-19 show how deadly historic health disparities can be, Wilson wants to help people “liberate themselves from the toxic trauma they are experiencing every day.”
Wilson has never been able to get clear answers to those questions, but a movement then gathering momentum would have said that they were worth
32 TERP.UMD.EDU PHOTOS COURTESY OF SACOBY WILSON
But he also remembers the racism, especially when he played sports, as taunts and slurs rained down from not only spectators and opposing players but also coaches and referees. He wasn’t singled out just for his skin color, either; at age 7, he was diagnosed with alopecia, causing his hair to start falling out as his immune system attacked his follicles.
“In working with people, you got to provide services,” he says. “(It’s) about solutions, about action, about mitigation, about investments.”
Sacoby Wilson plays as a toddler (left) at a relative’s house in Vicksburg, Miss., in the late 1970s. He lost his hair to alopecia a few years later, spurring his interest in connections between public health and the environment. He received his Ph.D. in 2005 (below) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the education he gained working with local residents and activists was as valuable as his academic training, Wilson says.
wilson, who grew up in Vicks burg, Miss., in the late 1970s and early 1980s, remembers some idyllic moments from his childhood, like trekking into the woods with friends to catch crawfish and pick wild blackberries—escapes he compares to scenes out of Mark Twain’s Southern tales.
It’s about where we live, where we work, where we play, where we pray, where we learn … We’re talking about food, faith, family, health and jobs.
But his bright and precocious nature survived, says Bobbie Wilson, Sacoby’s mother. He spoke and read early in childhood, built his own lawnmower business and traveled 200 miles from home to board at an advanced science and math high school, full of determina tion and curiosity.
“Frightening, confusing, ostracizing— (it was) all those things,” Wilson says. “I went through all that stuff that kids go
“He gave the teachers holy hell, as he would put it, because he was always trying to figure out this and figure out that,” Bobbie says. “He didn’t have any problem expressing himself. He is one of those people who would not stop talking.”
And he applied a burgeoning interest in biology and ecology to himself: What had made his body turn against itself? Was it bigotry? Or did his immune system rebel against toxins seeping in
In 1979, a group of Black homeowners in Houston filed a first-of-its-
—SACOBY WILSON, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, MARYLAND INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND BIOSTATISTICS
through when they are different.”
and underserved people of color and low-wealth populations from Houston and New Orleans to Washington, D.C., aiming for the nexus of pollution, zoning and community development practices that disproportionately hurt vulnerable neighborhoods and reflect the ingrained biases of government and private industry actors.
asking.The concept of “environmental justice” has antecedents in fights over working conditions during England’s Industrial Revolution and the horrors of early 20th century tenement housing in urban America, but it wasn’t until the 1960s civil rights movement that leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. began to draw clearer lines between who had to live and work in the most dangerous places and jobs and what it was doing to them.
“He showed up. He would initiate things. He was enthusiastic. He had a great deal of knowledge,” says Victor Schoenbach, who was a professor in the UNC Department of Epidemiology and advised the Minority Student Caucus led by Wilson. “I have a hard time thinking of what he didn’t do.”
“We were treated like the worst of the worst,” he says, “like we were no better than trash and sewage.”
That’s why Wilson focuses on what he calls “INpowerment”: Rather than just documenting problems and seeking academic understanding, he provides data and teaches the tools of academic inquiry directly to people affected by pollution so they have the knowledge necessary to take on a real fight for better health.
So as Wilson headed off to Alabama A&M to earn his undergraduate degree in biology and ecotoxicology, followed by master’s and doctoral degrees in environmental health sciences from the University of North Carolina, the per sonal was melded with the scientific.
Funding ExpandedSeedsResearch
33SPRING 2022
• A $1.75 million gift from Meta (formerly Facebook) will support new and ongoing activities at CEEJH, including a paid internship program, new staff and the annual University of Maryland Symposium on Environmental Justice and Health Disparities.
The United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice provided the first national glimpse of the prob lem, releasing a 1987 report detailing how race was the most salient predic tive factor for the location of industrial pollution sites, with three out of every five Black and Hispanic Americans living near uncontrolled toxic waste.
• An $800,000 grant from the U.S. naturalofUniversityinfundingProtectionEnvironmentalAgencyisathree-yearstudypartnershipwithDuketoanalyzetherisktoxicexposuresduetodisasters.
Sacoby Wilson’s Center for Community disadvantagedandandrecentmoreHealthEnvironmentalEngagement,Justiceand(CEEJH)hasattractedthan$3.5millioninmonthsfromprivatepublicagenciestostudycombatpollutionincommunities:
“That’s a big part of my foundation,” Wilson says. “You got parts of the coun try that aren’t in the 20th century, they are in the 19th century.”
• A $100,000 contract from the factors.socioeconomicondifferentallowsscreeninformationexpandProtectionEnvironmentalAgencywillthescopeandoftheMDEJmappingtoolthatcomparisonsbetweenpartsofthestatepollutionburdensandandhealth
“These communities cannot afford the luxury of being primarily concerned about the quality of their environment when confronted by a plethora of press ing problems related to their day-to-day survival,” the report stated. “Within this context, racial and ethnic communities become particularly vulnerable to those who advocate the siting of a hazardous waste facility as an avenue for employ ment and economic development.”
kind lawsuit alleging that building a landfill in their community, and within 1,500 feet of a public school, violated their civil rights. The challenge ulti mately failed, but Robert Bullard, a sociologist and husband of the plaintiffs’ attorney and now known as the “father of environmental justice,” went about further documenting the city’s waste sites and their placement within African American neighborhoods.
• An $800,000 gift from the Bezos Earth Fund will help increase air quality monitoring in communities exposed to traffic-related pollution across the midAtlantic region.
The two Wilsons met at an envi ronmental justice conference in 2000, bonding over shared Mississippi roots and then collaborating on a water quality study. They found not only water in the West End and other neighborhoods contaminated by feces and bacteria such as E. coli and Enterococci, but also failing pipes made of paper and tar. From conducting door-to-door surveys and training residents to take their own samples to the shocking results, Wilson says the partnership with Omega was his “real training working in a community.”
about 20 miles northwest of Chapel Hill’s campus are the neighborhoods where Wilson says he got his “other Ph.D.” While his actual doctorate was based on research into industrial hog farming, the historically Black commu nities outside of Mebane, N.C., were where he learned how to listen to and partner with people on the ground.
Omega Wilson and his wife, Brenda, were living under nearby Mebane’s zoning and land-use control yet denied services like public water and sewer through a process known as “extraterri torial jurisdiction,” when they founded the West End Revitalization Association in 1994 to oppose a highway project and advocate for basic amenities.
karen moe describes the smell that occasionally invades her house in Cheverly, Md., as similar to burning coffee—even though it’s definitely not from a SittingStarbucks.between the District of Columbia and College Park, portions of Cheverly are home to industrial operations like e-waste and scrap metal recycling, concrete manufacturing facili ties, and emissions from commuters and delivery vehicles. Moe, who has lived there for 35 years, knows plenty of people suffering from asthma and respiratory problems.“People wash cars and the next day, they can wipe the dust off of it,” she says.
So since last year, Moe has been one of about two dozen Cheverly residents helping to build a “hyperlocal” air
Wilson is an expert at preparing people for this “marathon,” says Omar Muhammad, the executive director of the North Charleston, S.C., LowCountry Alliance for Model Communities, which
of California Irvine or giving a basic definition of environmental justice on a Mississippi legislator’s radio show.
He’s applied that philosophy in a targeted manner, such as working with Millsboro, Del., residents for a July 2015 health assessment on a proposed poultry processing plant in an area already con taminated by dangerous chemicals like lead, chromium and arsenic. He’s also put it into practice more broadly through his center’s Maryland Environmental Justice Screen Tool. That allows anyone to pull up a map online and see how areas compare in pollution burdens like diesel particulates, proximity to treatment and disposal facilities, and watershed failures, while adding socio economic and contextual layers like education and income levels, supermar ket locations and public transit stops. This way, Wilson says, money for green investment and mitigation in the state can be targeted to the communities that need it Createdmost.in 2017 with colleagues from UMD and the Maryland Environmental Health Network, the map will be enhanced through a new $100,000 Environmental Protection Agency contract to add more rural issues such as pesticide exposure and proximity to large-scale animal feeding operations, in addition to children’s health markers like blood lead levels and maternal and infant mortality rates.
The key to Wilson’s work, however, is not just his proficiency at gathering and analyzing data, but also his per sonal investment. Omega and his wife compare him to a “pastor in the pulpit,” and that passion is evident whenever he speaks in public, whether addressing a group of students at the University
“This is the moment to seize on the fact that clean air is health care, and that climate justice and environmental justice also includes rural justice,” Ben Grumbles, Maryland secretary of the environment, said at a November event announcing the project.
“It’s about where we live, where we work, where we play, where we pray, where we learn,” he says. “It’s proximal, it’s every day … We’re talking about food, faith, family, health and jobs.”
“He lived with those disparities. He’s not just talking about them from an aca demic point of view,” Omega says. “It’s in his heart. You don’t see that very often.”
He lived with those disparities. He’s not just talking about them from an academic point of view. It’s in his heart.
quality monitoring network. CEEJH staff installed small, low-cost sensors on homes that draw in air with a fan and use a laser to measure particles, and provided training so residents can access and analyze real-time data posted online. Coupled with more Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) inspections and warnings to local business about idling diesel trucks and errant dust, Moe says she is already feel ing “more looked after” and hopes the information can be used to provide air quality warnings and show MDE where violations might be occurring.
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—OMEGA WILSON, CO-FOUNDER, WEST END REVITALIZATION ASSOCIATION
With the backing of Wilson and the community’s research and advocacy, new sewer lines have been installed for more than 100 homes in the Mebane area.
“We can provide information that will help people who have sensitive conditions,” Moe says. “Give them guid ance—don’t work outside today, limit your outdoor Environmentaltime.”justice, Wilson says, requires long-term vision and support, and CEEJH is capable of that. Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, recently made a $1.75 million gift to the center, supporting a new paid intern ship program, staff hires and its annual symposium.“You’retrying to make up for 40, 50 years of stuff. It’s generational to even get incremental change,” he says. “That’s how insoluble, how deep, how entrenched these issues are.”
For Destiny Watford, Wilson helped her learn that the disheartened assumptions she first heard from people in her neighborhood about the incinerator fight—“It’s too big,” “We’re poor,” “They are going to win”—did not, in fact, predictWhenfailure.theactivists discovered that the Baltimore school system and other public agencies were planning to purchase energy from the incinerator,
Wilson and his students and colleagues have tackled issues from the mid-Atlantic to the Deep South. Along the Gulf Coast, projects involved coastal rehabilitation, food insecurity and quality of life in commercialpollutionandrisksstudiedCollegechlorineafterbolsterhogthewithCarolinas,communities.minoritizedInthetheypartneredresidentstoaddresseffectsofconcentratedfarmingaswellastodisasterresilienceaNorthCarolinaspill.ClosertoPark,thegrouppotentialhealthforurbananglerstheimpactofairfrombusesandvehicles.
“It was fundamental—not only for my own development as a person, but for realizing that people have power,” she says. “Things aren’t set in stone. We can change things for the better.” terp
35SPRING 2022
Wilson helped produce the research needed to protest and lobby the gov ernment to cancel its contracts. The incinerator’s permits eventually expired without construction in 2016; today, Watford, who won a global environ mental prize for her efforts, works for Greenpeace in Colorado.
COURTESY OF SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH; ILLUSTRATION BY VALERIE MORGAN
JusticeEnvironmentalResearcher’sFootprints
Sacoby Wilson works with students conducting local air monitoring in Langley Park, Md.
has partnered with Wilson for more than a decade on air pollution monitoring efforts, health disparity mapping and environmental health education.
PHOTO
“We’re learning the process of how zoning works, we’re learning the process of how to challenge a highway that’s being built in our communities,” Muhammad says. “When another project comes, we’re not challenged with these huge learning curves.”
Above left: Sandler at a protest seeking Title IX enforcement in the 1970s; left: Sandler with U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink (D-Hawaii), a co-author of Title IX, and Sandler’s “Wonder Woman” license plate; far right: Terp women’s basketball star Vicky Bullett ’89 goes up for a rebound in 1986.
36 TERP.UMD.EDU FROMARCHIVESSEGRÈEMILIOAIPFROMPORTRAITSANDLERCENTER:FROMCLOCKWISEUNIVERSITYOFCOURTESY‘81LANAHANSANDRACOLLECTION;TODAYPHYSICSPROTESTATANDMINKPATSYREP.U.S.WITHSANDLERARCHIVES;SANDERS.EMILYANDSANDLERJODEBORAHOFCOURTESY
Sandler could have gone home and cried—and she did, at first. She could have blamed herself—and she did that too, regretting how she spoke up during staff meetings and class discussions. But it was a time when men held nearly every position of power at the university and outnumbered women eight to one among faculty at the biggest school on campus; when female students still were subjected to curfews and dress codes and steered to majors like home economics. She realized her failure to find work wasn’t about her qualifications, but her gender.
strong for a woman.”
The law, now widely known for its impact on women’s sports, not only improved opportunities in education, including admissions and hiring, but also offered recourse for victims of sexual harassment and assault, as well as
The Godmother of Title IX
FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE LAW’S PASSAGE, THE LEGACY OF BERNICE SANDLER ED.D. ’69 ENDURES THROUGH THE MILLIONS OF GIRLS AND WOMEN WHOSE LIVES SHE’S CHANGED
BY KAREN SHIH ’09 PHOTO COLLAGES BY LAUREN BIAGINI
in the same year the U.S. landed a man on the moon, Bernice “Bunny” Sandler Ed.D. ’69, a married mother of two and owner of a new doctoral degree, couldn’t even land a job.
37SPRING 2022 ARCHIVESUNIVERSITYOFCOURTESYPHOTOSPAGE:THIS
As she applied for research and teach ing jobs, one interviewer called her “just a housewife who went back to school.” Another said he couldn’t hire women because they would stay home when their children were sick—never mind that Sandler’s daughters were in high school. But it was the rejection from her own school, the University of Maryland’s College of Education, where she taught part-time throughout her graduate stud ies in counseling, that stung most.
She asked why she wasn’t considered for one of the seven open positions in the department, and a male faculty member said: “Let’s face it. You come on too
Educational Amendments of 1972, open ing doors for millions of girls and women to achieve educational, athletic and professional equality. The “Godmother of Title IX,” as she became known, spent the rest of her career, until her 2019 death, raising awareness of and advocating for enforcement of the law.
“She was phenomenal, a force of nature—so outspoken and adamant about women’s rights,” says Georgina Dodge, vice president for diversity and inclusion at UMD, who served on the board of the Association of Title IX Administrators with Sandler for six years.
She never did secure a faculty job. Instead, Sandler launched a battle that spanned classrooms, Congress and national stages to create, pass and defend the groundbreaking federal legisla tion formally known as Title IX of the
“It was really a game changer,” says National Organization for Women President Christian F. Nunes. “Dr. Sandler stood up in a time when women were so often silent and didn’t challenge the status quo. She empowered women to enter spaces where they deserve to be.”
up in Brooklyn, New York, she was out raged that boys could operate the slide projector in school or serve as crossing guards when girls couldn’t. She recalled how her college application stated frankly that girls needed higher grades and test scores to be admitted. “Nobody complained. Nobody even saw this as wrong. I remember thinking, I’m just going to have to work harder,” Sandler said in a 2013 talk.
protections for pregnant students.
“Knowing that sex discrimination was immoral, I assumed it would also be illegal,” Sandler wrote in her 1997 reflec tions on the 25th anniversary of Title IX. She examined law after law to find out if that was true, only to see that many con tained loopholes exempting educational institutions, students or faculty mem bers from antidiscrimination statutes.
Finally, she discovered Executive Order 11246, which prohibited fed eral contractors from discrimination in employment based on race, color, religion and national origin—and it had been amended in 1968 to include sex.
of women, championed tennis, rifle shooting and basketball starting in the 1920s, female students were limited to contests between classes, with few opportunities for intercollegiate matches, says Anne Turkos, uni versity archivist emerita. Teams didn’t have funding to hire coaches, so seniors often led their peers. On the national level, even when a female athlete like Donna de Varona won two gold swimming medals at the 1964 Olympics, she still couldn’t compete in college—because varsity teams and ath letic scholarships existed only for men.
But even after she earned her doctor ate, the sexist job rejections made her realize her story was just one anecdote in a much broader tale of injustice encom passing all women seeking to advance their education and careers.
Women were particularly shackled in graduate education; medical and law schools set strict quotas—usually 5% or less—on women’s admissions, and few companies were willing to hire the handful who earned degrees. For example, Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice, graduated third in her class from Stanford Law School in 1953 and was offered a job as a legal secretary.
She took this explosive information to the Department of Labor. She joined the Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL). She showed her findings to members of Congress. In 1970, WEAL filed a class-ac tion lawsuit against universities across the country—including UMD—and charged Sandler with collecting information from women in aca demia about admissions quotas, financial aid, hiring practices, pro motions and salary differences to support their case. She worked with U.S. Rep. Edith Green (D-Oregon), who chaired the House subcommit tee on higher education, to shape legislation explicitly prohibiting sex discrimination in employment and education. Sandler was told explicitly not to publicly lobby for the bill with WEAL beyond its initial testimony, to avoid
When it came to sports, the focus was on recreation, rather than competition. Though Adele Stamp, UMD’s first dean
“Even though I was alone, I shrieked aloud with my discovery,” she wrote. The connection was clear: Most colleges had federal contracts; therefore, they could not discriminate against women and preserve that funding.
For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, a woman’s college degree could often be like a fashion accessory: optional, decorative and useful only in the sense that it could help a gal get a husband. The tired joke was that ladies were in school only to get an “M.R.S.,” and their educational opportunities reflected that idea.
It was in this constrictive and demor alizing environment that Sandler tried to begin a career in academia.
CURFEWS AND QUOTAS
Sandler’snickname,lifelong“Bunny,”beliedhertenacityinthefaceofblatantunfairness.Growing
FROM TOP: COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES AND DEBORAH JO SANDLER AND EMILY SANDERS.
“ON THE BASIS OF SEX”
They were expected to enter tradi tionally female fields like K-12 teaching and nursing; they were barred from more lucrative and typically male domains like engineering or business. And it wasn’t just in the classroom that women were held to strict standards. At UMD, like many colleges, female stu dents needed special permission to leave their dormitories after 8 p.m. and had to follow a restrictive dress code that for bade shorts, slacks, jeans and sportswear.
attracting negative attention.
AND EMILY SANDERS; NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION.
Walk onto a college campus in the U.S. today, and it’s easy to see that the gender balance has shifted. Since the late 1970s, female students have outnumbered male ones, making up about 57% of the college population as of 2019, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports. Now free to pursue all majors, women at UMD make up a third of the undergraduates studying engineering and nearly half of all students in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences.
Top: Women protest for the enforcement of Title IX; center: Sandler, middle, with U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh (D-Indiana), right, who co-authored Title IX; bottom: President Richard Nixon in 1969 with members of the Citizens’ Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
THE LEGACY OF TITLE IX
FROM TOP: RACHEL S. HUNT/THE DIAMONDBACK; HISTORY.COM; COURTESY OF DEBORAH JO SANDLER
For many, Title IX remains synon ymous with women’s sports, where opportunities have grown exponentially. Girls’ participation in high school sports is 10 times greater than in 1972, accord ing to the NCES. In college, the NCAA reports that women now make up nearly half of all Division I athletes. And while it’s still more common for men to coach women’s teams, women are starting to make inroads into men’s sports, like WNBA star Kristi Toliver ’09, an assistant coach with the Dallas Mavericks.
The stealth strategy worked. Two years later, on June 23, 1972, President Richard Nixon signed Title IX into law. It states, in part: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
“Life chances depend on education. If we discriminate against women in K-12 or higher education, we are setting the foundation for lifelong disparities,” says UMD Provost and Senior Vice President Jennifer King Rice, who served as dean of the College of Education decades after Sandler couldn’t get hired there.
BONNIE BERNSTEIN GYMNASTICS
“We’ve moved the needle in signifi cant ways, but there’s so much work to be done,” says Dodge. “Bunny’s left a lasting legacy for us to build on.” terp
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PHOTOS
Today, UMD is a national powerhouse in women’s sports. The basketball team won the NCAA tournament in 2006 and is consistently ranked in the top 20, and the lacrosse and field hockey teams have a combined 21 national titles, with women’s lacrosse most recently winning the NCAA championship in 2019.
“Now we’re embarking on a new team house and stadium for [lacrosse] Coach [Cathy] Reese and I,” says Meharg. “Maryland doesn’t just meet the numbers for women’s sports—we’re thriving and leading every Nationally,day.”numerous lawsuits over the years have also expanded Title IX to include sexual harassment or assault within sex discrimination, requiring schools to address complaints and to
“Title IX is a powerful tool,” says Neena Chaudhry ’93, general counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, who worked on several of these Supreme Court cases. “We need to continue raising awareness, so if people realize something’s not fair, we can use the law to help them.”
She countered the rudeness and hostility she faced throughout her career with humor and dignity. Sandler was rarely seen without her “Uppity Women Unite” pin, and handed them out at the grocery store as well as black-tie dinners at the White House.
In higher education, female students and faculty alike are stymied by the “chilly climate,” a phrase Sandler coined to describe the subtle but persistent ways that women are treated unequally. These include professors calling on men in class more often, trivializing women’s contributions and downplaying reports of sexual harassment. The consequences are stark: Though women make up 60% of all higher education professionals, just 24% of the highest-paid faculty members and administrators are women, accord ing to the Eos Foundation.
OF
PHOTO BY NICK WASS/THE DIAMONDBACK; ALL OTHER COURTESY UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES AND DEBORAH JO SANDLER AND EMILY SANDERS.
Field hockey’s Missy Meharg M.A. ’90, the university’s winningest coach, recalls not being allowed to play ice hockey when she was growing up in the 1970s. But today, her student-athletes have gone on to play professionally and represent their countries in the Olympics; become doc tors and entrepreneurs; and create clubs and camps for new generations of girls.
“She knew that many of the women in the suffrage movement never got to see the fruits of their labor,” says Sanders. “The women who came before her had an even tougher road, and that gave her calmness and perspective.”
Female athletes have excelled at UMD for decades, including the 1974-75 DottieunderChampionshipMarylandwhichatteambasketballwomen’s(picturedbottom),wontheStateCoachMcKnight.
add protections for whistleblowers who expose gender-based discrimination. The law now also includes safeguards for pregnant and parenting students so they can make up assignments while attend ing doctor’s appointments, for example.
Toliver is the latest in a long line of female Terps breaking gender barriers. The university established a women’s varsity basketball team in 1971, before the passage of Title IX, and the team competed in the first nationally televised women’s game, in 1975.
A LIFELONG FIGHT CONTINUES
‘92
In 1972, “I was extraordinarily naïve,” Sandler wrote. “I believed that if we passed Title IX, it would only take a year or two for all the inequities based on sex to be eliminated. After two years, I upped my estimate to five years, then to 10, then to 25, until I finally realized that we were trying to change very strong patterns of behavior and belief, and that changes would take more than my lifetime to accomplish.”
“You don’t deserve this award. You have ruined men’s sports, especially college football. Women like you are ruining everything.” Sandler simply responded, “Thank you for the compliments.”
She served for 20 years as director of the Project on the Status and Education of Women at the Association of American Colleges and became a senior scholar at the Women’s Research and Education Institute. She also gave thou sands of speeches, imparting her wisdom to new generations.
That perspective is critical as advo cates tackle new and ongoing challenges. In athletics, though 3.5 million high school girls participated in sports in 2018, that’s still fewer than the number of boys who played in 1971, before the passage of Title IX, reports the Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF). The gap is even wider for girls of color, which keeps them from reaping the health, educational and employment benefits of playing sports. In college athletics, WSF reports that men in NCAA Division I and II still receive $240 million more in scholarship funding annually, and just last year, a viral Instagram post revealed dramat ically unequal weight room set-ups for women and men playing in the NCAA basketball tournament.
One of her two daughters, Emily Sanders, recalls accompanying her to receive the Rockefeller Public Service Award in Washington, D.C., in 1976. Backstage, a male honoree said to her,
From noon to 3 p.m., guests at this celebratory farmers market can explore food, drink and apparel from Terpowned vendors in the DMV. Other highlights will include a deejay, photo booth and caricature artist.
Go Terps!
“Engagement during Career Week can look different to each Terp,” says Ellie Geraghty, director of alumni career programs for the association. “Some may be interested in making new Terp connections to help land a job, while others may be wanting to share their expertise and hire a fellow Terp to their Morecompany.”than4,000 Terps have registered for Career Week sessions since it launched last year. Bita Riazi ’19 said the sessions, along with the Alumni Association’s other career resources, have been instrumental to her success.
WHAT DO TERPS WANT from the Alumni Association? Job assistance, industry networking and professional development, according to a recent survey. The second annual Career Week offered all that and more.
Amy Eichhorst Associate Vice President, Alumni and Donor Relations Executive Director, Alumni Association
42 TERP.UMD.EDU ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
LIKE TO SAMPLE excellent food? And to support fellow Terps? (Who doesn’t?!)
I wish all of you a summer filled with fun and adventures.
Each registration also includes a festival tote and complimentary access to the museum the day of the event. Alumni Association members will receive an exclusive experience as well as a discounted rate. For more information and to reserve an event passport, visit alumni.umd.edu/terrapintaste-22
Our alumni are a crucial component of this new vision for our university. The Alumni Association’s survey of its members and multiple alumni listening sessions revealed that you want to see our university take on important issues like climate change and racial injustice, and that diversity and academic excellence are among your top priorities for UMD.
WITH SUMMER JUST around the corner, many of us are making plans for ourselves and our families. The University of Maryland is also mapping out its future with a new 10-year stra tegic plan, which was influenced by feedback from stakeholders, including alumni.
The Alumni Association is uniquely positioned to help UMD achieve its ambitious goals. Our 400,000-plus graduates mentor students, hire Terps for internships and jobs, and elevate the reputation of our university through remarkable accomplishments across a wide swath of professional fields.
Held in January, Career Week featured 26 online programs to help Terps advance in their professions. Topics included writing a winning resume, working with mentors and defining personal values.
Career Week in Review
In conjunction with the university’s new strategic plan, the Alumni Association will launch our own version this summer. In it, we will lay out the ways the association and alumni as a whole can play a role in advancing UMD. We will build on the work we are doing to serve others; to support alumni personally and profes sionally; and to address the world’s grand challenges.
Letter From the DirectorExecutive
An Event With Good Tastes
The strategic plan highlights four pillars: to reimagine learning, to advance the public good, to tackle the grand challenges of our time, and to invest in people and communities. With these goals leading us fearlessly forward, the entire Terp community aims to be a force for positive change locally and globally.
The Alumni Association will bring both together at its third annual Terrapin Taste Fest on Sept. 18 at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore
“If it weren’t for the Alumni Association, I wouldn’t have reached my 500-plus goal for connections on LinkedIn and created my Terrapins Connect profile,” she says.—ALLISON EATOUGH ’97
She was among more than 350 guests attending the launch of the online directory in March during the Alumni Association’s Cele bration of EnTERPreneurship event at The Hall CP, in the university’s Discovery District. It featured Scott Plank ’88 (above, right), developer of the restaurant and event venue, talking with President Darryll J. Pines about innovation, entrepreneurship and Plank’s journey to success.
Terps Supporting Terps
Association members, minority-owned businesses or members of the Alumni Associ ation’s Coaches Corner program.
Asked to share advice with Terps looking to launch a startup, Plank says: “Look to the person to the right of you and the left of you, particularly with your Terp community, your graduate community, the Dingman Center community. The person to the right and left of you are probably the right people to start your venture with because you know them well, you trust each other.”
“The University of Maryland has been named one of the top 10 entrepreneurship programs in the country seven years in a row,” she says. “This new business directory will serve as a catalyst for connections and create a culture of Terps patronizing other Terps’ businesses.”Here’show the directory works: Business leaders apply to be in the directory. Once approved, they are listed under one of six categories: coaches and consultants, creatives, finance and development, food and beverage, products and services and Terps in technology.
of the association. It’s yet another way the Alumni Association encourages Terps around the world to do business with each other, says Amy Eichhorst, associate vice president of alumni and donor relations and executive director of alumni relations.
“I see this platform as an opportunity to reconnect to the school, reconnect to a community I loved being a part of, help other Terp alumni grow their businesses, and of course, to grow my own business,” says Lauren Lefkowitz ’98, a leadership coach. “I love the idea that this network can make us all feel local and connected in a world that’s gone virtual.”—allison eatough ’97
The online directory currently lists over 150 business founders, owners and decision makers who are alumni or lifetime members
aving launched a business less than a month after graduating, Kiara Anthony ’21 is the picture of the University of Maryland entrepreneurial spirit.
H
New Business Directory Generates Leads, Connections
Ready to connect with fellow Terps? Visit umd.alumniq.com/biz
The former government and politics major, member of the UMD Equestrian Team and co-chair of the University Student Judiciary owns Perfectly Possible, a virtual tutoring and college admissions consulting firm that helps students get the most out of higher education.
She’s also an inaugural member of the University of Maryland Alumni Associa tion’s new Terp Referral Exchange Business Directory.“It’slike a LinkedIn for Terps who are also entrepreneurs,” Anthony says. “A community of alumni and people who are like-minded, driven, pushing boundaries and helping others to do the same.”
43SPRING 2022PHOTO BY LISA HELFERT
Users can then search by category or name. They can also apply filters to find Alumni
The directory is free for all students and alumni, although participants can upgrade their profiles for a yearly fee. Lifetime Alumni Association members receive a compli mentary profile upgrade.
PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE S. CORDLE; PORTRAIT COURTESY OF CRUMBS & WHISKERS
ith pink and white fluffy pillows for servegreenery-coveredlounging,wallsthatasaperfect
where many people don’t own pets because of long work hours and apart ment restrictions but want to interact with animals. The concept has since spread all over the world. Singh opened her Washington, D.C., café in 2014 and her Los Angeles location the following year.Customers can book online or walk in for half-hour to 70-minute time slots. While petting kitties and chatting with friends, they order drinks and pastries, which are delivered from local bakeries (to overcome regulatory hurdles on preparing food around animals). All the cats come from local animal rescue organizations, and customers interested
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A Tail Successof
Instagram backdrop and more than two dozen kitties eager to chase a feathered toy or have a cuddle, Kanchan Singh’s Crumbs & Whiskers “cat cafés” offer a serotonin boost to human customers— and a chance for its feline inhabitants to find a fur-ever home.
The cafés’ success has been buoyed by a steady stream of celebrities who visit, mostly in L.A. (though rocker Dave Grohl recently stopped by the D.C. location), increasing their visibility on social media and television.
Top photo: Customers enjoy lounging and playing with adoptable cats at Crumbs & Whiskers’ D.C. location.
What’s a cat café, you might ask? These cozy spots first started in Japan,
“I’ve always wanted to work with animals and connect other people with animals, but I never knew how,” says Singh ’12 (right), who grew up in India with a pet peacock and dozens of bunnies. “Sometimes this feels too good to be true.”
Recognizable faces include James Corden—a regular who has shot segments there for his late-night show— Nicole Kidman and Drew Barrymore, who adopted two cats. Countless reality
44 TERP.UMD.EDU POST-GRAD PROFILES
It was a trip to an elephant sanctuary and a cat café in Thailand that spurred her to leave an unfulfilling corporate job and pursue her own venture. “On the flight back home, I didn’t even have a notebook, so I kept asking the air hostess for more napkins to map out my entire business plan,” she says.
Alum’s Popular “Cat Cafés” in D.C., Hollywood Draw Celebrities While Saving Kitties
in adopting one can fill out an application to get the process started. More than 1,800 cats have been adopted through Crumbs & Whiskers so far.
The university ID card of comedian LARRY DAVID ’70 was featured in HBO’s promotion of a new two-part documentary series, “The Larry David Story.” The creator of “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthu siasm” has since put its release on hold, saying he wants to perform its highlights, on his life and career, live on stage.
LIKES: Snuggling in laps for comfy naps
JULIUS
45SPRING 2022ILLUSTRATIONS BY KOLIN BEHRENS
Meet three of the cats recently available for adoption at Crumbs & Whiskers. Follow @crumbsandwhiskers on social media to get acquainted with the latest ones.
stars have also used the cafés for a change of scenery for their gossipy plotlines, from Netflix’s “Bling Empire” to Peacock’s “Paris in Love.” (Luckily, no catfights have broken out on theSomepremises.)catswant to be the star of the show, though, batting at micro phones or jumping on top of cameras and distracting production crews from their work.
SOCKO
LULU
AGE: 9 months
Crumbs & Whiskers reopened last summer after vaccines became widely available, and Singh is excited to debut a Boston location next year.
“We Own This City,” a miniseries based on a book by reporter JUSTIN FENTON ’05 , debuted on HBO on April 25. Created by “The Wire’s” DAVID SIMON ’83 and GEORGE PELE CANOS ’90 , the six-part series chronicles the rise and fall of the Baltimore Police Depart ment’s corruption-ridden Gun Trace Task Force.
Submit your class notes and read many more at terp.umd.edu.
Purr-fect Companions
“We’re looking forward to getting more cats adopted, and maybe expand to New York and Chicago too,” she says.—ks
AGE: 7 months
Seven alums were named to the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 lists, a compilation of what the magazine calls 600 of the brightest young entrepreneurs, leaders and stars: JERON DAVIS ’15 , a senior associate at RLJ Equity Partners (Finance); SAM DROZDOV ’18 , co-founder of Bloxbiz (Marketing and Advertising); SRIJAN KUMAR M.S. ’16, PH.D. ’17 , assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology (Science); AMBER MAYFIELD ’14 , founder of To Be Hosted (Media); OLIVIA OWENS ’14 , creator of IFundWomen of Color (Social Impact); JORGE RICHARDSON ’21 , founder of HOPE Hydration (Marketing and Advertising); and ALI SALHI M.S. ’18 , chief technology officer of Loop (Social Impact).
LIKES: Using his big eyes and bat-like ears to track down string toys
During her time off, she wrote a book of poetry and reflection called “Dear Me, I Love You” to help process the anxiety, depression and imposter syndrome that came hand-in-hand with the success of her business. Proceeds from the book, which came out in April, go back into the cafés.
KANCHAN SINGH ’12
With a business model that depends on in-person clientele, Crumbs & Whiskers was hit hard during COVID-19 lockdowns and had to shut down for more than a year.
LIKES: Keeping warm—since Sphynx cats are hairless—in cozy cat-shaped beds
CLASS NOTES
“The good thing is, during the pandemic, so many people were adopting cats that our partners were like, ‘Don’t worry! We don’t have cats to give you right now!’ That made things a little easier,” Singh says.
AGE: 8 Months
KATHERINE CALVIN ’03 was named chief scientist and senior climate adviser at NASA. Previously, she was an Earth scientist at UMD and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park. Calvin holds master’s and doctoral degrees in management, science and engineering from Stanford University.
“Our parents really made sure that ethos was cemented in us. We were very fortunate to be leaving (Afghanistan),” Haroon says. “When you have that opportunity, it comes with a lot of respon sibility.”—lf
Six years later, their Truebill financial management system, which offers subscription management, tracks spending and even helps with bill negotiations, had reached more than 2 million people and resulted in 1 million subscrip tion cancellations and $100 million in savings. In December, the Silver Spring, Md., firm was acquired by Rocket Companies for $1.275 billion.
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The family connection to UMD began with their parents, Mohammad Younos Mokhtarzada ’70, M.A. ’74 and Ilhan Cagri Ph.D. ’05, who met in College Park and returned to Maryland after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The couple always wanted their children to attend UMD, where they got Webs.com off the ground from
Hatching the Future
Entrepreneurial Terps
In Haroon’s case, it turned out that he was still shelling out $40 a month for a security system at a house he no longer lived in.
TruebillBrothers’PaysOff,Truly
MOKHTARZADA BROTHERS
Truebill was initially based in San Francisco. But in 2019, the family’s longtime and renewed East Coast ties—Idris’ wife, Sara Rahnama ’06, joined the faculty at Morgan State—along with having some remote employees already in the D.C. area and obtaining economic development grants from Montgomery County prompted a shift of its center of operations. From a strategic standpoint, Idris (at center below, with Haroon, left, and Yahya, right) says the move to Maryland was also an attempt to stave off the “brain drain” of local talented techies by providing a nearby, competitive experience for anyone who might otherwise go to Silicon Valley.
The Mokhtarzada Hatchery, located in the Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Engineering, annually provides up to four teams of student entrepreneurs with grants of up to $10,000, workspace, and mentoring and networking opportunities.
From spare time to in-de mand skills, Idris says, college students are perfectly situated for startups, and often require just a “little nudge that they need to get over that hump.”
Zeki and Haroon’s dorm room.
The Mokhtarzada brothers are trying to make sure the next billion-dollar tech company also comes from UMD through their support of a new startup incubator on campus.
“It definitely exceeded all of our expecta tions in a major way, not just in how big it got, but how fast it got there,” says Haroon.
“There’s this untapped market in this area,” he says. “We get to be a shining star.”
For now, they plan to stay on and work with Truebill and Rocket. And from being angel inves tors in more than 100 startups, giving to charities and funding their own entrepreneurship program at UMD (see right), the Mokhtarzada brothers also want to make sure their success is defined by more than just high-profile acquisitions.
46 TERP.UMD.EDU POST-GRAD PROFILES
Sell Financial Planning
fter selling their web site-building company, Webs.com, to Vistaprint in 2015, brothers Haroon ’01, Zeki ’01, Yahya ’06 and Idris ’10 Mokhtarzada turned their attention to solving what seemed to be a universal problem in the digital subscription age: How many things are people paying for that they don’t even use or remember?
App for $1.275B
Sheto?”can’t always believe how quickly her career has taken off—“I look around and pinch myself”—but takes it as a sign that she should keep dreaming big.
“I love the audacity and creativity of Kanye West,” a fellow Chicago native, she says. “I want to collaborate with great artists who push the envelope.”—ks
Costume Designer Makes Stars Shine on Small and Big Screens
“In my last semester at UMD, she gave me a project to render costumes in a grayscale. I wondered, ‘Why is she making me do this?’ But five years later, I used what I learned in this project,” RodgersGrowingsays.up with bold 1980s styles, Rodgers wanted to go to school
Her early work overlapped with her time as a UMD student, and she still draws on TDPS lessons, such as how costumes interact with sets (“What color is the carpet? Or the inside of the car?”) and with lighting (“Will this texture show up?”). She always follows the advice of Professor Daniel Conway: “When you read a script, create a playlist. Ask the director: What music would this person listen
LEFT PHOTO: MERRISSA HUMBLE/TRUEBILL;
THIS PAGE: PHOTOS AND SKETCHES COURTESY OF MARCI RODGERS MARCI RODGERS M.F.A. ’16
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for fashion. But her father said he’d only pay for college if she studied business, so that’s what she did at Howard University. After she graduated, however, she found a new path to her passion: Howard Professor Reggie Ray let her assist him with costumes for several Broadway plays. One of those was “Holler If Ya Hear Me,” where she met famed director Spike Lee. He hired her as a production assistant on “Chi-Raq” in 2015 and eventually as a costume designer for the acclaimed film “BlacKkKlansman” and TV series “She’s Gotta Have It.”
Creating Style to Augment Substance
gent paths of two Black women, one of whom “passes” as white, in 1920s New York.
“What’s magical to me is when you go from research to a rendering to a costume on screen,” says Rodgers. “When an actor puts on a costume and feels like their character, that’sHerpriceless.”latestprojects include this fall’s “Till,” which focuses on Emmett Till’s mother’s pursuit of justice after her son’s lynching; a Super Bowl spot for Michelob Ultra featuring sports legends Serena Williams and Peyton Manning; and the Netflix film “Passing,” which follows the diver
Shot in monochrome, the movie posed an unusual challenge for Rodgers. But by focusing on texture, contrast and accessories, she developed stylish looks appropriate for upper-class women of the era while avoiding clichés like flapper dresses. Rodgers felt lucky that one of her mentors, School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) Professor Helen Huang, had prepared her for that moment.
47SPRING 2022
hether she’s finding fur-lined leather jackets for the cast of an Oscar-winning movie or designing outfits for dancers celebrating decades of Black music, Marci Rodgers M.F.A. ’16 isn’t just dressing her characters. She’s telling a story.
The painstaking process will help keep the melody alive for many years to come.—ak
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PHOTO BY STEPHANIE S. CORDLE;
Clean Sheet
INSET PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
See How University Archives Restored a Rare Piece of Maryland’s Musical History
Thomas Livingston had a hunch that the sheet music he’d found, entitled the “MAC Cadet Two-Step,” might have a UMD connection. Turns out he was right: The peppy tune, composed by 1899 Maryland Agricultural College grad and musical ensemble member Ira E. Whitehill (seated second from left), is Maryland’s oldest original published school song. The only other known copy resides in the Library of Congress.
48 TERP.UMD.EDU FROM THE ARCHIVES
Upon donation, the fragile find needed immediate atten tion. Enter conservator Bryan Draper, part of UMD Libraries’ preservation department, who set to work removing dirt with latex sponges and vinyl eraser crumbs, humidifying and flattening folded edges, and mending loose fragments with special Japanese tissue paper and starch paste.
Listen to the “MAC Cadet Two-Step” at terp.umd.edu
man’s phone call to University Archives in 2017 about a mysterious discovery in his late mother’s piano bench turned out to be music to the staff’s ears.
To learn more, visit ALUMNI.UMD.EDU/TRAVEL or call 301.405.0896 . with fellow terps!
travel
As members of the Alumni Association, Terp alums and their families and friends can enjoy unforgettable experiences around the globe. With land, river and cruise programs available, the opportunities to explore the world are endless.
WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO SOLVE THE GRAND CHALLENGES OF OUR TIME, LIKE RACISM, CLIMATE CHANGE AND PANDEMICS? Bold, groundbreaking research. Arts exploration that fires our imagination and reveals our shared humanity. A welcoming of diverse perspectives and an open exchange of ideas. Matchless learning experiences that go far beyond a classroom. To all of this, the University of Maryland brings a shoulderssquared, chin-up grit and a fierce commitment to doing good.
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