SEVENTH STRAIGHT: Maryland women’s basketball tops Rutgers, 72-54, to stay atop the Big Ten, p. 11
STELLAR START: Defending champion Maryland men’s lacrosse beats rival Navy, 10-4, in opener, p. 12
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university system
black history at umd
New bldg has $50M price tag Regents OK engineering facility, ‘The IDEA Factory,’ to replace Potomac Building The University System of Maryland Board of Regents Christine Condon voted on Friday to approve @CChristine19 the construction of a new Senior staff writer engineering facility on the University of Maryland’s campus. The Innovate, Design, and Engineer for America Factory building — also known as the IDEA Factory — is projected to cost $50 million, and will include open workspaces for students, prototyping facilities, engineering design and instructional studios, a mobile applications lab, an “Internet of Things” lab and a student-run incubator, according to a summary document presented to the system’s finance committee. The 60,000-square-foot space will also house four laboratories focused on studying robotics, manufacturing, quantum technology and transportation, the document read. About $25 million of the cost will be paid by October’s $219 million donation from the A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation, while private donors will fund the second half. This university has already by
See building, p. 2
KIM NICKERSON, assistant dean for diversity of the behavioral and social sciences college, developed the diversity and inclusion office’s campus black history tour. elliot scarangello/the diamondback
Following in noble footsteps
Savannah Williams @SavannahUMD Staff writer
A univ online black history tour will launch this month, but the SGA has plans for more THE POTOMAC BUILDING, near the Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building, will be replaced by a $50M engineering facility. christine condon/for the dbk
See tour, p. 3
student government
Priority class registration eyed for vets
The University of Maryland SGA passed a bill Wednesday night allocating $5,000 to a campus black history tour app, but campus researchers are already nearly finished their own online tour. The bill, which passed 22-3, said, “Dr. Kim Nickerson from the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences has completed a project documenting the contributions of African Americans to the University of Maryland.” Nickerson has collected research about the contributions of black people to the campus, and he has since turned his work over to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion to develop a guided walking tour on the office’s website. He said he has not been working with the Student Government Administration or the Office of Student Affairs. The mobile-friendly tour website is “90 percent complete,” Nickerson said. “We’ve agreed on the content, we’ve agreed on by
state politics
New bill offers bargaining to GAs, but not undergrads Lobbying in capital, grad assistants say they need bargaining ‘desperately’
Undergraduate workers left out of proposed legislation, but hopeful for precedent
By Angela Roberts | @24_angier | Staff writer
By Jillian Atelsek | @jillian_atelsek | Staff writer
The University of Maryland’s SGA voted 25-0, with Angela Roberts one abstention, to endorse @24_angier priority class registration Staff writer for veteran students and create a platform for students to air concerns with representatives on Wednesday night. More than 1,200 students on the campus are veterans, and because many of them are seeking their education through the GI bill, they have pressing scheduling needs, Student Government Association President AJ Pruitt said. “They are older, a lot of them have families, and they can’t have a job while they’re trying to complete their degree,” Pruitt said. “Because [the GI Bill] only provides benefits for up to 36 months, they have to finish their degree in three years … and because a lot of them are in specialized and highly sequential programs, they don’t have the luxury of not being able to register for ‘that’ class when they need it.” The association aims to take this bill before administration in time for veteran students to have priority registration this summer. The push for helping veteran students register early for the classes they need was nearly tabled
By spending more than two hours in the Annapolis State House Office Building on Tuesday, waiting for the chance to deliver his two-minute testimony to the state legislature’s House Appropriations Committee, University of Maryland doctoral annapolis student Casey Cavanagh said he was using “two of the most valuable resources for a graduate student” — time and money. Ten of this university’s graduate students made the trip to the State House — two of them with babies in tow — to testify in support of a bill that would grant collective bargaining rights to graduate student workers at public four-year colleges and universities in Maryland. This would affect the University System of Maryland’s 12 institutions, as well as Morgan State University and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Some 40 other graduate students and faculty members from this university and others in the system provided favorable written testimony to the committee, said Graduate Assistant Advisory Committee President Will Howell. More than 800 graduate assistants at this university also signed a petition in support of collective bargaining rights, he said.
A new bill proposed in the Maryland House of Delegates would grant collective bargaining rights to graduate assistants within the University System of Maryland, but some undergraduate students who were left out of the bill feel unprotected and unsupported. The proposed legislation, developed by University of Maryland students in conjunction with Del. Marc Korman (D-Montgomery) beginning in 2017, would grant collective bargaining rights to graduate students employed by universities within the system’s 12 institutions, but omits similar protections for undergraduate student workers. These rights allow for employees to negotiate their pay and aspects of their work such as hours, conditions and benefits. Previously, the bill included stipulations securing collective bargaining rights for undergraduate students, Korman said to the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. But in an effort to make the legislation narrower and easier to pass, they were removed, he added.
See veterans, p. 3
See GRADUATEs, p. 7
SGA endorses policy that would give veterans leg up by
calendar 2 OPINION 4 FEATURES 5 city 6 diversions 8 SPORTS 12
See workers, p. 7
FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD: This collective bargaining bill would give graduate assistants necessary input in their lives and future, p. 4
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