Failing Up
Lessons From Terp Faculty’s Struggles
defeats, errors, botches, bungles and busts— call them whatever you want, but everyone has experienced failure at one point or another. The umd community is no different, as the road to each big breakthrough is paved with a pothole or two. What defines a Terp, though, is not letting a flat tire end the journey. Whether in the classroom, the lab or an off-campus venture, umd faculty have met missteps head-on and found success through failure. Read about just a few of them:
BACK FOR THE FUTURE Information studies Associate Professor Timothy Summers should have been on top of the world. At just 25, he had a high-paying job telling Department of Defense officials how to shore up their computer systems against cyberattacks. Personally, he was in the best shape of his life, running up to 21 miles on the weekends. Then he tore two discs in his back, leaving one leg partially paralyzed, and both of his parents fell ill. He became withdrawn and antisocial, yet in his darkest moment, he realized he could redefine success by pursuing his childhood love of hacking. That is, the good kind that involves taking things apart and repairing them to understand how they work. “Hackers think of failure as just opportunity for revision,” he says—and that’s what Summers did with his life. Reinvigorated, he developed a unique theory on hacker psychology, became an internationally renowned consultant and landed “an amazing job” teaching students about innovation and entrepreneurship.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN T. CONSOLI AND KELSEY MAROTTA ’ 14