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GROWTH spurt
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magine being able to water plants from your PDA. How about a building whose window glass will actually teach students about heat transfer. Or an alumni center that will sit at the hub of university activities. The projects below are ways the Maryland campus is growing to stand tall among its peers.
Mote Marks Five Years
IN 1998, C.D. (DAN) MOTE JR. assumed leader-
Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center
Status: Breaking ground. Where: Across from Byrd Stadium and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. Size: 69,000 sq. ft. Focus: Gathering place for visiting alumni; alumni association headquarters. Features: 500-seat Alumni Hall, Maryland Club, Moxley Gardens, Rever Alumni Hall of Fame. Funding: Leadership gift from the late Samuel Riggs IV ’50. Additional private support still needed. Contact: Brian Shook, Alumni Programs, 301.405.3375
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ship at the University of Maryland. He arrived with a mission in mind: to raise Maryland into the uppermost tier of public research universities. Today, the state’s flagship university is indeed in the national spotlight. Under President Mote’s leadership, the university has attracted talented students—the incoming freshman class average GPA jumped from 3.5 in 1998 to 3.9 in 2003. The Maryland community has supported the university’s achievements with the number of annual donors increasing from 21,000 to 41,000 in the past five years. Opportunities like Maryland Day showcase the university’s excellence. Dan, and his wife, Patsy, are the inspiration behind Maryland’s annual open house, which they have hosted each spring since their arrival to campus. Save the date, Saturday, April 24, for Maryland Day 2004.
Dan Mote greets some of the 60,000 visitors at Maryland Day 2002 to “explore our world.”
Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building
Status: Under construction. Where: North campus near the A.V. Williams and Potomac buildings. Size: 160,000 sq. ft. Focus: Multidisciplinary research and education Features: The building itself will be an “engineering laboratory.” Funding: Endowment from Jeong H. Kim ’91 Ph.D. Public funding from state of Maryland. Additional private support still needed. Contact: Dennis McClellan, A. James Clark School of Engineering, 301.405.0317
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Research Greenhouse Complex
HIGH FIVE
Whether in the classroom, the research laboratory, or on the playing field, success has become synonymous with being a Terrapin. The results are measurable. In the past five years:
Status: Completed in September 2003. Where: Just north of the Comcast Center. Size: 74,000 sq. ft. Focus: Research in plant science. Features: Remote control of greenhouse functions, fully equipped laboratory space, weather station supplied with computerized control of environmental conditions. Funding: Primarily from a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant. Additional funding from state of Maryland. Contact: John Korns, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, 301.405.6913
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U.S. News & World Report now places the university as the 17th best public university in the nation, up from 30th five years ago.
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Maryland boasts 50 academic programs ranked in the top 15, up from 14 in 1998.
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Some 40 percent of first-year students take advantage of living-learning programs that combine Ivy League quality with the advantages of a big research university.
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The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is the best facility of its kind on a college campus, and the Comcast Center is the premiere college basketball venue in the nation.
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The university completed its largest ever fundraising campaign, Bold Vision • Bright Future, in June 2002 with $476 million, 30 percent above the goal.
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New and expanded facilities include the Robert H. Smith School of Business’ high-tech wing in Van Munching Hall and the Computer Science Instructional Center in the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences.
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The athletics program, ranked among the top 25 in the Sears Cup, captured the 2002 NCAA national men’s basketball championship and the 2001 ACC football title. In the 2002–03 academic year, 280 student athletes earned Intercollegiate Honor Roll status.
For more on Maryland’s momentum, see the inside flap of the magazine’s cover.
M Square Moves Forward
T
he long-anticipated University of Maryland Enterprise Campus, a new research park known as M Square, is closer to reality since Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s approval this past summer of $5 million in state funding to assist n n in its development. Advantages to the research park’s future S Q UA R E tenants abound:
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◗ Enhanced Synergy— Opportunities for the university to connect faculty and students with large and small in the private and S Qcompanies UARE public sectors to facilitate a growing knowledge economy ◗ Prime Location—A 115-acre research park adjacent to the University of Maryland/College Park Metro ◗ Good Neighbors—American Center for Physics, NASA Goddard Flight Space Center, National Institutes of Health, Riggs Bank Technology Center and U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant and Animal Sciences (to name just a few) ◗ Ongoing Research—An example: Maryland researchers are leading NASA’s Deep Impact Project that will punch a crater deep into a speeding comet. ◗ Sound Investment—Nearly 5,000 new jobs, nearly 3 million square feet of development potential, more than $500 million in construction contracts For more information, contact the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at 301.405.4175, or visit www.umresearch.umd.edu.
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TERP FALL
2003
ARCHITECTURAL DRAWING PROVIDED BY HUGH NEWELL JACOBSEN, ARCHITECT; PHOTOS BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
PHOTOS BY JOHN T. CONSOLI
TERP FALL
2003
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