INSPIRATION A N E W S L E T T E R F OR S U PP ORT E R S OF T H E U N I V E R S I T Y OF M A RY L A N D / F E B RUA RY 2 0 18
TO TRANSFORM THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE / BOLDNESS TO TURN IMAGINATION INTO INNOVATION CURIOSITY TO DISCOVER NEW KNOWLEDGE / PASSION TO INSPIRE MARYLAND PRIDE
Full Circle Planned Gift From Retired General and Wife to Support Future Communication and Air Force Leaders | pg.4–5
Generous funding from the state and private gifts also
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, WE ARE COMMITTED TO PROVIDING OUR STUDENTS WITH LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCES INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM. WE BELIEVE THAT EVERY COURSE, INTERNSHIP AND STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM IS A NEW CHANCE TO HELP TERPS FIND THEIR PASSION AND PURPOSE. A recent addition to the vibrant learning environment on campus is the newly dedicated A. James Clark Hall, which not only will transform the region’s biotech corridor, but also take our students’ research and education in engineering and biomechanics to new heights. With flexible classrooms, an innovation lab and nearly 40,000 square feet in state-of-the-art research laboratories, A. James Clark Hall opens the door to countless learning and experiential opportunities. Additionally, students across campus are harnessing the power of technology to develop remarkable advancements in fields ranging from museum science to transportation. Mukul Agarwal M.S. ’17 used virtual reality technology in the Augmentarium at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies to create the beginnings of a fascinating interactive exhibit on the Berlin Wall at D.C.’s Newseum. Meanwhile, students placed among the top six teams in SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s Hyperloop competition exploring how to move people and products at supersonic speeds. Beyond the studios in the Architecture Building, students last semester investigated the social, cultural and architectural history of 14th and U streets in Washington, D.C. Their work will be part of an exhibition at the American Institute of Architects’ D.C. headquarters this spring. Transforming the student experience also includes giving our veterans the best possible opportunity to transition to civilian college life. An adventure-themed orientation program for new Terps who are U.S. military veterans sends them kayaking and climbing to connect with one another and with their new roles as students. I hope you are as inspired as I am by the extraordinary work featured in this issue. Your generosity touches the lives of thousands of students each year. Sincerely,
Jackie Lewis Vice President for University Relations President, University of Maryland College Park Foundation
helped bring A. James Clark Hall to life. Here’s what some of the biggest donors had to say: “The Leidos mission to make the world safer, healthier and more efficient requires an innovative workforce. Leidos proudly supports the University of Maryland’s Fearless Ideas campaign, further equipping the nation’s future engineering labor pool by using our cutting-edge Leidos Innovation Lab on the first floor of the new A. James Clark Hall.” roger krone, leidos chairman and ceo
“The Pepco Holdings, Inc. Social Table is an integral part of Clark Hall's outdoor ‘Tributary’ ecosystem, which resembles a river flowing through the landscape. It builds upon past collaborations and integrates our shared commitment to both engineering education and environmental sustainability.” darryll j. pines, a. james clark hall school of engineering dean and farvardin professor of engineering
INSPIRATION / 3
BIOENGINEERING LIVES IN NEW A. JAMES CLARK HALL
there was nothing like
Naming Gifts Support New Hub for Human Health Innovation
Clark Hall. We feel very
By Lauren Brown
able to fund an InTerp
fortunate that we are Suite to help aspiring “I was pleased to be able
entrepreneurs build
to provide a substantial
their companies.”
gift to the School of
rajan ’90, m.s. ’95 and sandhya mittu ’92, m.s. ’96
Engineering to start the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices to encourage future engineering students to create wonderful new medical devices for the benefit of all mankind.” robert e. fischell m.s. ’53, hon. sc.d. ’96
“As strong proponents of innovation to enhance human health, we were excited to invest in A. James Clark Hall. We are thrilled to be part of this spectacular building project and look forward to hearing about the many ways
A. JAMES CLARK HALL FEATURES OPTICAL LASER AND IMAGING LABS FOCUSED ON DIGITAL FABRICATION, RAPID PROTOTYPING, 3-D PRINTING, OPTICS AND BIOINFORMATICS.
Maryland engineers “Jim Clark was a builder. He leaves his mark on
a. james clark hall opened in January as the University of Maryland’s new home for human health innovation—with the support of several major donors. The 184,000-square-foot building for the Fischell Department of Bioengineering and the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices combines under one roof an array of flexible classrooms, collaborative student project spaces and high-tech labs. “Great ideas will turn into life-changing devices and biomedical treatments in this magnificent research building,” said university President Wallace D. Loh. “Our students, faculty, researchers and partners will have what they need to produce bioengineering marvels, as well as advances in other fields.” The building is named for the late A. James Clark, the real estate developer, philanthropist and 1950 alumnus who gave a $12 million leadership gift. “My father felt the university’s decision to name the School of Engineering after him was the most meaningful honor he would ever receive,” said Courtney Clark Pastrick, board chair of the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation. “I think he would be humbled to have this cornerstone of innovation named in his honor. Our family is proud of its potential to truly transform the future of education and health in our world.”
the building he built, the company that bears his name, the region
will help improve the human condition through bioengineering solutions.” dr. t.k. patrick and marguerite sung ’70
he helped change, the personal values he passed down to those of us lucky enough to work for him and the good works and young students he endowed and mentored.” lawrence c. and melanie franco nussdorf
“For an excellent program to continue to succeed, it needs to be continually enriched with the best students, a superior faculty, innovative ideas and improved facilities. We are proud to be a small part of moving the Clark School forward to
“When we were at the Clark School in the ’80s,
future success.” ron ’67 and karen lowman
4 / INSPIRATION
Full Circle Planned Gift From Retired General and Wife to Support Future Communication and Air Force Leaders
by Amanda Townsend
W
ith 37 years in the Air Force, service in the administrations of nearly every Republican president since Richard Nixon and a later tenure culminating in leading the National Transportation Safety Board— not to mention work as a transportation consultant and CBS TV commentator— retired Maj. Gen. Mark Rosenker ’69 has been right in the middle of many of the key moments in recent U.S. history. The foundations of that broad-ranging career as a military and civilian leader and a topflight professional communicator were all laid at the University of Maryland. “Maryland gave me a great deal of what I have today,” says Rosenker. “The communication skills I learned at Maryland carried me through emergencies and crisis situations, enabling me to speak to the American people with accuracy and confidence.” He and his wife, Heather Beldon Rosenker, who has her own lengthy resume in strategic communications, are giving back to the university in support of future communication and Air Force leaders, through a bequest estimated at $4 million to $6 million. It will support undergraduate or graduate students in communication, with preference given to students enrolled in UMD’s Air Force ROTC program—which
Rosenker participated in as a student at Maryland. The gift will have a major impact on the Department of Communication, home of the fifth-largest major on campus, says Shawn Parr y- Giles, professor and chair. “This gift will sustain the department into the next century in terms of research, education and service.” Rosenker worked his way through Maryland as a studio cameraman in the old radio-TV-film department, helping record instructional videos for English, math, biology and speech courses. As a junior during the height of Vietnam drafts, he joined Maryland’s Air Force ROTC program. “My dad was a career Air Force officer,” says Mark. “I lived in the Air Force world until I was 16, so I always knew I wanted to be an Air Force officer.” Rosenker was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant, with his first assignment at Andrews Air Force Base as a public affairs officer working in radio and television. Switching from active duty to the Air Force Reserve (from which he retired in 2006), he went to work in the press office of President Nixon’s 1972 re-election campaign. “Disgusted and disappointed” by the Watergate scandal, Rosenker joined a PR firm that gave him some distance from politics while building his resume. But then the Gerald Ford campaign
“The communication skills I learned at Maryland carried me through emergencies and crisis situations, enabling me to speak to the American people with accuracy and confidence.” RETIRED MAJ. GEN. MARK ROSENKER ’69
persuaded Rosenker to become deputy press secretary. “I didn’t want the Committee for Re-Election of the President to be my only presidential experience,” he says. “The Ford campaign was a chance to change that.” In all, he worked on 10 presidential campaigns and seven transition teams as well as spent 23 years as vice president, public affairs for the Electronic Industries Alliance, then in a senior executive post with the United Network for Organ Sharing. In 2001, President George W. Bush then appointed him deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House Military Office. He oversaw a staff of about 2,300 and was ultimately
INSPIRATION / 5
RETIRED MAJ. GEN. MARK ROSENKER '69 (HOLDING HELMET) AND HEATHER ROSENKER (IN RED) STAND WITH (FROM LEFT) COL. DAVID BACOT, COMMANDER OF THE UMD AIR FORCE ROTC UNIT; BONNIE THORNTON DILL, DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES; JACKIE LEWIS, VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY RELATIONS; WALLACE D. LOH, UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT; AND SHAWN PARRY-GILES, PROFESSOR AND CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION.
responsible for everything military-related for the president, from Air Force One to the so-called “nuclear football” launch codes to managing undisclosed locations and coordinating ceremonies with visiting heads of states. In this job, Rosenker was traveling with Bush at the time of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Bush next appointed him to chair the National Transportation Safety Board, which conducts investigations of civil transportation accidents. Meanwhile, Heather, a graduate of the University of Denver and an honorary Terp, worked for major PR firms and served as director of public policy and government relations communications for General Motors, then launched her
own strategic communications firm, HBR and Associates, which specializes in automotive issues, including cybersecurity. She also held senior communications roles in the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Transportation Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service. This past fall, Maryland’s Department of Communication renamed its Center for Political Communication & Civil Leadership in honor of the Rosenkers. “The Rosenkers have dedicated their lives to public service. In this renamed center, and through their planned gift, we will honor their guiding principle that communication can and should
be used for the public good,” says Parry-Giles. Mark and Heather are involved with the department through many events and speaking opportunities; he’s regularly invited to speak about his experiences in politics. “It’s a much more complex era for communicators in the 21st century, and it may very well become even more complex in the next 50 years,” says Rosenker. “I could never have imagined today’s 24-hour news cycle and social media, and I’m certain that communications will continue to evolve in the decades to come.”
CHARLES KIBEL M. ARCH. ’90
A NEW REFRAIN Architect-Musician Helps Students Compose Creative Futures By Liam Farrell
being an architect by day for his family real estate company and a guitar player in a cult post-punk band at night sounds like a difficult balance, but Charles Kibel M. Arch. ’90 finds a symmetry with his creative sides. After all, he recalls, Goethe once said, “architecture is frozen music.” Kibel is committed to helping others follow their muses and has recently given $100,000 to create an endowed fellowship for a first-year graduate student in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. “It’s school pride,” he says. “I received a good education, and I’d like to help others get the same education.”
The son of an architect, Kibel went to Haverford College outside of Philadelphia, and also wanted to be near a metropolitan area for graduate school. Besides picking up some guitar skills from fellow students at UMD, he also got a foundation in design that has served him well working for the Kibel Companies, the New York-based business that has designed and built more than 3,600 residential apartments in the last 50 years. Outside of real estate, the family also has a long history of giving to UMD, including two endowments and a gift to launch the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation’s Kibel Gallery. Charles also created a leadership fund for architecture student and faculty programs in 2012 and a TerpStart scholarship in 2015. “The School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation has benefited from the generosity of the Kibel family for nearly two decades,” says Professor Brian Kelly, director of the architecture program. “Charles continues that legacy by endowing a fellowship that will enable graduate students to pursue their passions in architecture.” At UMD, Kibel learned that “if you do the work and stick to it, you can accomplish things.” “Sleep was hard to come by sometimes,” he says. Not that sleeping is always high on Kibel’s list. In 1998, he founded the band Crazy Mary, which combines a glam lead singer named Emma Z with funky ’70s beats from the backing band. The group has recorded 11 albums and played from Las Vegas to London, taking the stage at Hollywood’s legendary Whisky A Go Go and getting raves from publications like The Village Voice. Music and architecture have similar principles, he says, and whether designing a building or writing a psychedelic rock song, it all starts with finding a rhythm and a structure: “You try to get the groove first.” And thanks to his gift, more students will be able to find their own refrain. “The scholarship levels the playing field,” he says. “We get students who otherwise can’t afford to go.”
Giving Day returns on March 7 — you can help make this the best year yet. The 24-hour giving
3 . 7 . 18
Find info on challenges and give at
GIVINGDAY.UMD.EDU
marathon funds scholarships, research, the arts, athletics and more. What will you support? 1 DOWNLOAD your
Flat Testudo at givingday.umd.edu. 2 SNAP a selfie with him
3 POST on social media
with #GivingDayUMD and why you support UMD 4 GIVE on March 7
INSPIRATION / 7
THEORY AND PRACTICE
GET OUT OF TOWN!
Brin Family Gift Supports Both Sides of Science of Computing
Endowed Award Supports Outside-the-Classroom Experiences for MBAs
By Chris Carroll
By Sala Levin ’10
sam brin ’09 has nothing but praise for the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science, where his father, Michael Brin, enjoyed a distinguished career and is now professor emeritus, and which famously launched his elder brother, Sergey ’93, on the path to becoming a founder of internet behemoth and computing kingpin Google … But, in retrospect, if he had just one little critique, he’d have benefited from greater integration of the hardware side of the discipline in his studies. That’s why nearly half of a new $2 million gift from the Brin family aims to make hardware a more integral part of the computer science department. The gift includes expanding an experimental honors hardware course to include all computer science majors. It will also support continuing research into machine perception and drones by Professor Yiannis Aloimonos, a computer science professor with joint appointments in the Institute for Systems Research and the UMD Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS). It will also establish the Brin Family Robotics and UAV Laboratory in the new Brendan Iribe Center for Computer Science and Innovation, among other priorities. The remaining $1 million from the Brin children and parents (including mother Eugenia) will establish the Brin Family Endowed Professorship in Theoretical Computer Science. “This could support someone working in a sexy field like machine learning, or maybe something less mainstream,” Sam Brin says. “It’s worth noting that Google itself, both as a technology and a product, is an example of pure research that Sergey and Larry [Page, Google’s other co-founder] were doing, rather than trying to start a business.”
THE BRIN FAMILY—MICHAEL, SAM '09, SERGEY '93 AND EUGENIA—IS GIVING $2 MILLION TO SUPPORT NEW PROGRAMS, FACILITIES AND PRIZES IN THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE.
after arriving at the University of Maryland, Andy Baer ’80 says his most valuable educational moments didn’t happen in front of a blackboard. “It was often those things that were not on your standard curriculum that were the most valuable,” says Baer, including his involvement in the Student Government Association. Hoping to encourage MBA students to pursue experiential learning, Baer has given $250,000 to establish the Baer Family Endowed Award, which will be given annually starting in May to an individual or group for participation in non-classroom learning opportunities. Baer, who received an MBA from Cornell and recently retired from a career in the telecommunications industry, was inspired to create the award after seeing similar awards bestowed at his niece’s college graduation. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have some kind of program that would recognize both students for accomplishments and alumni for making the contribution to allow that to happen?’” says Baer. The Baer Family Endowed Award will be announced each May. Awardees, chosen by the dean of the Robert H. Smith School of Business, will receive between $5,000 and $10,000 to support their participation in national case competitions and other extracurricular experiences that may require travel or other expenses. “Andy’s generosity is inspiring to the entire Smith School community,” says Dean Alexander J. Triantis. “The Baer Family Endowed Award will be a really meaningful enhancement to what we are trying to do for our MBA students, and consistent with our focus on providing students with exciting opportunities to learn outside of the classroom.” The Smith School hopes that the award will nurture a broad range of student interests. As for Baer, who intends in his retirement to start a nonprofit helping people make financial plans for their post-work life, he’s eager to “see who wins the awards.” MORE THAN 40 YEARS
University Relations Office of Strategic Communications 2101 Turner Hall, 7736 Baltimore Ave. College Park, MD 20742
WHY WE GIVE
BY CRAIG A. THOMPSON ’92 AND DEBORAH THOMPSON
Incentive Awards Program (IAP) to assist students from Baltimore City who are chasing their academic dreams. We have been strong supporters of the IAP since its inception, and continue to marvel at the success of the program and its exceptional students.
We have always valued education, and are fully aware of the countless benefits of a solid educational environment. We agree with Nelson Mandela that “education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” For both of us, college provided the essential training ground for developing intellectually, socially and professionally. As the son of a single mother from the city of Baltimore and as an immigrant who left home with a few dollars in her pocket to pursue greater dreams, we have worked hard to maximize the value of exposure to the great professors and lessons that we were blessed to have received. We are now in a position to demonstrate the generational impact of a great education, and excited to not only expose our three children to the best education possible, but to help others reach their personal best through education. We are committed to expanding the worldview of those young people who some might call disadvantaged, and recognize that a little help can go a long way. That is why we have made a major gift to be used by the university’s
We are also dedicated to paving a way for the next generation of principled leaders and giving them the tools and training they need to make our great state and country even greater. So we have made another major gift to the Parren J. Mitchell Initiative Fund in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. We trust that the students who grow and develop through the initiative will embody the best of the former congressman. We have such tremendous respect for and admiration of the marvelous administration, faculty and staff at UMD, and feel honored and blessed that we can contribute to the longlasting legacy of the University of Maryland.
Craig Thompson ’92 is a partner at Venable LLP and a public speaker who serves on the Board of Trustees of the University of Maryland College Park Foundation and co-chairs Fearless Ideas: The Campaign for Maryland. He and Deborah graduated from the University of Maryland Francis Key Carey School of Law. She is a partner at Miles and Stockbridge P.C. The couple are proud parents to Delaney, Dana and Carter—all Terp supporters since birth.