36 minute read
The Big Question
THE BIG QUESTION
How could climate change affect your field?
JING LIN
HAROLD R.W. BENJAMIN PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
More than ever, education has to look at the root causes that lead to the environmental devastation and climate change now threatening the extinction of millions of species and human survival. Education needs to focus on peacebuilding among people and with nature.
ABDIRISAK MOHAMED
LECTURER, COLLEGE OF INFORMATION STUDIES
The energy cost of information needs more public awareness. The carbon footprint of machine learning training for an AI entity can be multiple times greater than the lifetime footprint of a car. The use of information should be managed as a resource with environmental costs, similar to the use of fossil fuels.
OLIVER SCHLAKE
CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION, ROBERT H. SMITH SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
Changing the current energy and heating habits of American households is a major business opportunity for small and mid-size entrepreneurs. I can see a lot of business education, specifically entrepreneurship and innovation focus, around solar, wind, geothermal, battery storage and mini grids.
ARNAUD TROUVÉ
FIRE PROTECTION ENGINEERING PROFESSOR, A. JAMES CLARK SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
Climate change is altering weather and vegetation around the globe, thereby creating conditions that are favorable to high-intensity, uncontrollable wildland fires. These megafires are threatening human life and property in the path of the fire, affecting human health at remote locations through the transport of fire smoke, impacting the health and functions of ecosystems, and accelerating climate change itself through the release of large amounts of chemical compounds into the atmosphere.
Share your answer and see more faculty responses at terp.umd.edu/BigQ13. Suggest a future question at terpfeedback.umd.edu.
KATE TULLY
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF AGROECOLOGY, COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
Climate change is already affecting how we grow food. On the Eastern Shore of Maryland, rising seas are drowning our coastal farms. It is our job to figure out how to adapt to and mitigate climate change.
RONALD A. YAROS
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, PHILIP MERRILL COLLEGE OF JOURNALISM
As a former science journalist who in 1981 covered the EPA’s first report on the “greenhouse effect,” every aspect of life on Earth will be affected, and journalism must lead the way to educate the public about the complex but critical details of how climate change will affect humanity.
THE END OF FEARLESS IDEAS: THE CAMPAIGN FOR MARYLAND IS JUST
THE BEGINNING. The more than $1.5 billion raised—a milestone in the university’s history— isn’t just money for research, scholarships and buildings. It’s an investment to tackle the grand challenges that we all face, from climate change and racial injustice to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Achieving that might not look flashy at first: Gifts big and small support mentorship for first-generation students navigating an unfamiliar world; fresh veggies and a cooking class for an undergraduate struggling with food insecurity; a grant to help a Terp find housing after a family emergency. But these lifelines lead to lifetimes of possibility, putting students on the path today to become tomorrow’s tech disruptors, artistic entrepreneurs and doctors saving lives in the local ER.
Donations also help spark broad, ambitious success, funding competitions that equip students with the skills to eradicate homelessness or cybersecurity risks; endowed professorships that drive advances in quantum computing and violence prevention; and futuristic facilities that empower student and faculty researchers in computer science and engineering.
The transformational effects of this campaign are already evident across campus now and will reverberate around the world, touching generations to come.
The DO GOOD INSTITUTE, generously funded by anonymous benefactors, leads programs, courses and research on social impact, including the annual Do Good Challenge that awards student projects and ventures addressing pressing issues.
“ROOTS Africa strives to improve the productivity of small-hold farmers in Africa. We do this by connecting them to agricultural extension agents, experts and trained students, and passing on education, training and knowledge to communities. So far, our five chapters have trained more than 2,000 farmers in Liberia and
Uganda in areas such as recordkeeping, cultivation, soil health improvement, animal husbandry and more.
We wouldn’t have reached that number without the help of the Do Good grant. It was a huge step for us. It really is going to move our organization even further to reach remarkable levels.”
—DELINA PETER ’22 (GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS), TREASURER AND FORMER
PRESIDENT, ROOTS AFRICA
Since the pandemic began, the
STUDENT CRISIS FUND has distributed more than $2 million in grants to nearly 3,000 students to pay for housing, utilities and other basic necessities.
“Everything happened this year: In January I had surgery. In April I became homeless, then I lost my job. I also didn’t have a car. I needed transportation, so I had to use all my savings. I was in a really bad place. My counselor suggested I try the Student Crisis Fund because I had so much going on. I don’t know how I would have been able to survive without it. It was helpful in a practical sense, but it was extremely encouraging, too.”
—RACHEL WALLACE ‘24 (DIETETICS AND PSYCHOLOGY)
6
BUILDINGS CONSTRUCTED
EDWARD ST. JOHN LEARNING AND TEACHING CENTER
NEW COLE FIELD HOUSE The BARRY AND MARY GOSSETT CENTER FOR ACADEMIC AND PERSONAL EXCELLENCE, named for longtime university supporters, prepares studentathletes for post-college life through paid internships, stipends, workshops and mentoring.
“I struggled initially with time management.
In the fall, we practice almost every day, and then from January to June, we have a track meet almost every weekend, from
Penn State to the University of Nebraska.
I’m thankful to the coaches and academic advisers who guided me every step of the way. In my junior year, I was chosen to be in the first phase of the Gossett Fellows program. I not only got a scholarship, but learned about networking and branding. With those skills, I co-created the Pre-Health Terps Club with two peers to mentor younger student-athletes interested in health careers, and presented the club as my fellowship capstone.
My Gossett Center advisers told me my student-athlete skills were transferrable and to apply for everything—and they were right. After my summer internship at the University of Arizona, my mentor offered me my full-time research position today.
I’m super appreciative for the opportunity to better develop myself as I apply to medical school and work to become a doctor. My parents, who are nurses, taught me to leave the community better than you found it. That’s what I always aim to do.”
—NADIA HACKETT ’21 (PUBLIC HEALTH SCIENCE), RESEARCH TECHNICIAN, DEPARTMENT OF IMMUNOBIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY BUILDING
A. JAMES CLARK HALL E.A. FERNANDEZ IDEA (INNOVATE, DESIGN AND ENGINEER FOR AMERICA) FACTORY
BRENDAN IRIBE CENTER FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
The BRENDAN IRIBE CENTER FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING, spurred by a leadership gift from a Terp co-founder of Oculus VR, is a hub for innovation in virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, robotics and computer vision.
“We are working toward the next generation of true 3D displays. They produce images that seem to float in space in front of you without the limitations of popular AR/VR headsets, which isolate you from your surroundings and create nausea, or ‘cybersickness,’ in some people. These interactive holographic displays could revolutionize electronic entertainment, but they’ll do much more as well, like help researchers better interact with data, or doctors quickly grasp medical imaging.
The technology can be very power-hungry, and as part of a team of computer scientists and engineers, I’m concentrating on computational technology to reduce electricity consumption for the displays.
The Iribe Center’s ample collaboration and lab spaces help advance the team’s work, bringing together researchers from a wealth of backgrounds to focus on new frontiers in computing and creating world-changing progress.”
—SUSMIJA REDDY JABBIREDDY PH.D. ’23 (COMPUTER SCIENCE); GRADUATE ASSISTANT, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED COMPUTER STUDIES
The $219.5 million Building Together investment from the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation, the largest in UMD history, is having a transformational impact on campus and beyond. Strengthening the legacy of late philanthropic builder A. James Clark ’50, the investment has created scholarships, endowed professorships and funded new facilities and research opportunities.
The MARYLAND PROMISE PROGRAM, funded by the Clark Foundation, other generous donors and UMD, opens access to a life-changing education for students with financial need from Maryland and D.C.
“I never had the luxury of choosing school automatically. My family never had the funds. I always had to see if I could get enough financial support to continue my education, or if I should keep working.
The Maryland Promise Program (MPP) made it possible for me to enroll at the Smith School of Business—the only school I wanted to attend.
I’m a first-generation college student, so I’m just trying my best to get through. My parents try their best, but they aren’t able to fully support me academically or financially. That’s why the meetings and mentoring in MPP are so helpful. I feel like I have an on-campus family.
I used to be terrible at talking to people. But the business program focuses heavily on group work, and now, I’m able to speak out, share my ideas and better learn the material. The leadership skills I’m learning through MPP and Smith will really help me in the future, because I hope to be a business leader or entrepreneur.”
—JACKSON MARTINEZ ’22 (BUSINESS MANAGEMENT), THE UNIVERSITIES AT SHADY GROVE
Endowed professorships, like the CLARK LEADERSHIP CHAIR IN NEUROSCIENCE, help recruit and retain exceptional faculty members.
“Everyone talks about how the Clark gift has transformed campus. For me, this means the literal transformation of research in my lab. We study how age constrains the brain’s ability to learn, in order to develop methods to rejuvenate the brain, and the Clark gift has allowed me to introduce cutting-edge tools into this research.
Neuroscience has long focused on how one neuron communicates with another neuron or on the dialogue between neurons in small groups. But new technology, such as high-field magnetic resonance, allows examination of the entire brain in operation from ear to ear and front to back.
The funding from the Clark Leadership Chair is making it possible to incorporate whole-brain MR imaging into this research. The opportunity to move in an entirely new direction is rare, especially for a senior scientist, and I wouldn’t have imagined trying this a year and a half ago.”
—ELIZABETH QUINLAN, CLARK LEADERSHIP CHAIR IN NEUROSCIENCE, BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR INSTITUTE DIRECTOR, PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY
A major gift from mathematics Professor Emeritus Michael and Eugenia Brin and the Brin Family Foundation founded the MAYA
BRIN INSTITUTE FOR NEW PERFORMANCE, where students and faculty explore how technology can reimagine the performing arts.
“The gift from the Brin family helps us expand upon the experience of innovating theater and dance during the pandemic. With remote performances and virtual performances, we have different ways of seeing art that don’t have to be in person. We can venture outside of traditional spaces.
All of my colleagues and I can jump into a new wave of theater and dance. The Brin family’s gift supports that research.”
—ANDRÉS POCH MFA ’22
The CAMPUS PANTRY, which provides free and nutritious emergency food, saw its usage nearly triple during the pandemic and moved in June to a larger home with a commercial refrigerator and teaching kitchen funded in part by donors.
“I live off campus, so it can be hard to get to the market. After a friend told me about the pantry, I’ve picked up protein like beans, fresh fruits and veggies from Terp Farm, and occasionally a treat like marshmallows. I grew up helping my mom with the garden at home, and I love cooking, so it’s important to me to have a variety of options. I’d be eating less nutritious food if it weren’t for the pantry. The environment is so welcoming. They offer workshops on cultivating vegetables indoors or teaching you to make dishes like yellow squash stew.
Now, I’m a volunteer. I wanted to give back because a lot of my friends and classmates didn’t know about it, and people won’t try something unless there’s someone familiar there. I didn’t want them to be worried about the stigma.
The Campus Pantry is an investment in current students that will help us reach new heights. Once I graduate, I hope to build up communities back in Baltimore to make them safer, both socially and environmentally, creating a more sustainable future.”
—NOAH LEE ’24 (ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY)
ANew rules allowing college athletes to profit from endorsement deals are changing the game for universities nationwide. UMD aims to be the first with a playbook. BY LIAM FARRELL
BRAND NEW WORLD
SLIPPERY, SPEEDY WIDE RECEIVER Rakim Jarrett was ranked among the nation’s top 100 high school players in late 2019 when the fivestar Washington, D.C., prospect surprised the college football recruiting world by flipping his commitment from Louisiana State to the hometown Terps.
Now a sophomore, Jarrett has shown flashes of his potential, racking up 144 yards and two touchdowns against Penn State in 2020 and a crucial 60-yard score against West Virginia last season. But his off-the-field activities—signing an agent from marketing powerhouse Creative Arts Agency, selling personalized T-shirts and endorsing Jimmy’s Famous Seafood—might be even more game-changing.
Until last July, any of those deals would have been major NCAA violations for both the player and program. Now, Jarrett and other
Terp athletes are members of the first generation that can capitalize on their fame while still in college following the NCAA’s suspension of rules preventing athletes from profiting off their own “name, image and likeness,” a landmark shift in the governing body’s history.
The “NIL” decision followed more than a century of debates and lawsuits over educational and financial benefits for college athletes, as well as a more recent burst of state-by-state legislation ending restrictions on earning money from their popularity. The University of
Maryland has sought to be a national leader in this new marketplace, but navigating it has required constant vigilance: Should athletes be allowed to use their schools’ official marks and logos? What are the pitfalls if a player endorses beer or liquor? What happens when sponsors and agents are added to the chorus of voices in a student’s ear?
So far, the only certain answer is that it will take years to fully grasp how NIL will shift foundational practices.
“It’s like a perfect storm right now for those who have been pushing change,” says Damon Evans, the Barry P. Gossett Director of Athletics for the University of Maryland. “We need to embrace all this stuff and figure out how best we adjust and adapt.”
For Jarrett, UMD’s biggest earner so far, it most immediately means he could see up to $60,000 from endorsement deals during his sophomore year. The NFL hopeful, who is currently squirrelling away his earnings, sees his increasingly lucrative personal brand as validation for making his name seven miles from home rather than banking on traditional football bluebloods.
“It shows that it can be done,” he says.
THE FIGHT OVER what students should earn for athletic achievements was already well underway by 1852, when a railroad company tried to spur tourism by paying for Harvard and Yale to row against each other on a New Hampshire lake—the first intercollegiate contest in the United States.
American collegiate athletics were born out of the British “amateur ideal,” a philosophy that, even if never completely honored, prized schoolboy recreation over results. But disapproval of salaries, coaching and even practice also doubled as a way to keep lower socioeconomic classes off the pitch, an uneasy fit in a New World that prided itself on self-made success and moral development through fierce competition.
So the lofty stated principles of the NCAA, founded in 1906, were always in tension with how colleges chased success in high-stakes sports. From cushy dorms and exotic vacations to outright salaries and commissions from local cigarette sales, early 20th-century benefits constantly raised worries that amateur competition had been breached by professionalism. In 1929, a landmark report from the Carnegie Foundation denounced perks of the era from “costly sweaters and extensive journeys in special Pullman cars” to broader practices including high school recruiting and admissions offices prioritizing athletic skill over scholastic aptitude.
Yet inch by inch, allowances that would have once horrified proponents of amateurism were integrated into college sports. The so-called Sanity Code of 1948 let schools pay athletes’ tuition, but an effort to expel a targeted “Sinful Seven” schools, including the University of Maryland, for going beyond that failed two years later—a tacit acknowledgment that everyone else was just as guilty.
In 1957, the NCAA allowed members to add room, board and fees, essentially covering athletes’ living and educational expenses. But another clause was approved as well, stating “a student-athlete’s picture may not be associated with a commercial product in such a way as to imply endorsement, nor may he receive remuneration.”
Not surprisingly, tensions increased between the NCAA, universities, athletes and advocates when licensing revenue exploded in the 1980s and 1990s. While the sanctioned money available to students remained largely limited to scholarships, the television deals, stadium gate receipts and coaches’ salaries continued on a far steeper climb.
Video games proved the modern flashpoint. Former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon filed an antitrust lawsuit over his digital likeness being used without permission in the 2009 edition of Electronic Arts’ NCAA Basketball franchise. The qualified successes of his and additional legal challenges amplified the NIL conversation in media, government and player circles. Then in 2019, California became the first state to allow college athletes to earn endorsement money. With no competing federal or NCAA policy, the opening whistle had blown for states to run their own NIL race.
BY EARLY 2021, when legislators in Annapolis began to consider the issue in earnest, UMD athletics officials were already drafting their NIL playbook. The university had been working since 2019 with the sports branding company Opendorse, which also links professional athletes with endorsement opportunities, to help provide photos, videos and graphics that Terps can use to promote themselves and connect with fans on social media. With NIL on the way, an additional four-year partnership was signed to collaborate on this new process.
While neither the athletic department nor Opendorse can arrange deals for individual athletes, the company’s online platform estimates someone’s fair market value; helps companies and brands identify potential clients based on factors such as location, sport and size of social media following; and informs the institution about student deals.
T.J. Ciro ’02, senior vice president and head of partnerships for Opendorse, says UMD showed a “progressive mindset.” “A lot of schools were waiting for the NCAA to provide more direction,” he says. “Maryland was definitely one of the early adopters.”
In April, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Jordan McNair Safe and Fair Play Act. Named after the UMD football player who collapsed from heatstroke and died following a 2018 team workout, the legislation bundled together NIL regulations and safety requirements for state intercollegiate athletics programs.
The Maryland NIL rules won’t take effect until July 1, 2023, unless the General Assembly votes to implement them sooner during the annual 90-day legislative session that began in January. But the NCAA suspended its compensation ban last July 1, allowing athletes to earn endorsements pursuant to individual state, conference and school oversight.
So without many guidelines, UMD has been feeling its way through: New NIL deals have to be disclosed to the university within 14 days of an agreement; students can sign with competitors of a university sponsor (i.e., Nike vs. Under Armour, Coke vs. Pepsi), but tobacco companies, adult entertainment and anything involving NCAA-banned
substances—including medical marijuana and other cannabis products—are off-limits; and students with products or ads using official trademarks and logos are subject to paying UMD its standard 12% royalty rate.
“I saw this as a win-win,” says Evans, a former Georgia wide receiver. “Why shouldn’t (athletes) have the right?”
THE BEGINNING OF the endorsement era has had no shortage of heady deals: an Oregon defensive lineman started his own cryptocurrency; Arby’s handed out $500 to the first 200 Division I running backs (“#ArbysRBs”) who posted a video saying, “Tonight, I’m getting Arby’s;” a Kentucky freshman basketball player rolled up to campus in a Porsche after inking an agreement with a luxury car dealership; a protein bar company struck an agreement with the entire BYU football team, even paying walkons enough to cover tuition.
Students in niche sports are finding opportunities as well. Brooke DeBerdine, a Terp midfielder, signed a deal with Longstreth Field Hockey to represent its Gryphon line of sticks, bags, protective gear and shoes. A national team member hoping to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics, DeBerdine says NIL has provided valuable business and brand building experience prior to leaving College Park.
“It’s a good time to be able to do that before having a complete lifestyle change (after graduation),” she says. “It was definitely exciting, but also overwhelming.”
DeBerdine praises Maryland Athletics’ efforts to teach her and other athletes how to navigate the new rules and UMD’s tools to support them. For example, in October, it launched a licensing program with the Brandr Group so athletes can collectively opt into an agreement and legally use the university’s trademarks and logos on their own products.
Opendorse, which has also partnered with schools such as Clemson, Florida, Texas and Ohio State, released an early snapshot of the bottom line for athletes who have secured deals through its platform. From July 1 through Nov. 30, the Big Ten Conference, which includes Maryland, was tops in the country in terms of total compensation and activity. Football earned about 48% of the available compensation, trailed by women’s and men’s basketball, at about 25% and 17%, respectively. The average compensation for Division I athletes was $1,256, compared to $75 for Division II and $37 for Division III.
While an athlete’s celebrity might attract a first deal, Ciro says, the students collecting multiple endorsements are the ones putting time and effort into their promotions. Fresno State basketball players Haley and Hanna Cavinder were able to leverage their
DAMON EVANS, BARRY P. GOSSETT DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS
millions of followers on TikTok to land a deal with Boost Mobile, but Ciro says companies also see value in the tens of thousands of less famous options whose audiences may be smaller but are more invested in their success.
“Every person who follows them, follows them for a reason,” he says. “When you start to scale that (influence) across the country, you can see why brands are excited.”
EVEN IF TERP ATHLETES won’t be bartending at Bentley’s or driving Shuttle-UM buses anytime soon, it’s clear that burgeoning stars such as basketball player siblings Julian and Angel Reese will have plenty of available gigs, with Julian endorsing NFL quarterback Tom Brady’s new apparel line and Angel doing Instagram promotions for Giant Food, Starface skin care and Prissy Athletics clothing.
At the start of NIL, women’s basketball Coach Brenda Frese wondered how her already-busy collegiate players would respond to its commercial demands. But so far, Frese says, NIL syncs with her roster’s existing social media habits and has given players positive opportunities to build their personal brands.
“It was long overdue for players to use their own rights,” she says. “They have done a really good job knowing how much they can take on. It’s just another thing they have to balance.”
Frese says NIL will also pay dividends for the visibility of women’s basketball and a successful program like UMD, which is located in a large media market, plays high-profile matches on national television and is consistently in the hunt for national championships.
“The future is really bright,” she says. “I’m super optimistic for our girls.”
And it’s undeniable that NIL has become a consideration for sought after recruits when they pick a program. While many talented football players finish their high school requirements a semester early to get a jump on college practice and conditioning in the spring, one Kentucky high school player even left his team mid-season to head to Rutgers and ink a reportedly six-figure NIL deal.
But, among many other questions, how sustainable the most lucrative agreements will be at the individual or group level is still to be determined—the volatile and inconsistent nature of college sports inevitably dims some of August’s future stars into December’s afterthoughts. One high school quarterback enrolled a full year ahead of schedule at Ohio State with endorsements and a $1.4 million autograph contract, but decided to transfer last month to Texas after recording just two snaps in his nascent Columbus career.
On the national stage, the NCAA has been lobbying Congress to pass a framework that would include mandated financial counseling on tax and scholarship implications and ensure a fair, competitive environment across jurisdictions. Much like their predecessors, the organization’s leaders also say they are trying to preserve the unique dual athletic-educational character of collegiate competition and protect amateurs who should make just as many gains in lecture halls as in weight rooms.
“We already are hearing from athletics programs giving evidence of a negatively changed recruiting landscape,” NCAA President Mark Emmert told the House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce in a September hearing. “As new states rush to keep up with the states that have enacted NIL reform, we are likely to see a ‘race to the bottom,’ with each state trying to ensure that its schools have a competitive advantage over other states until eventually the protections for student-athletes become so thin that there is little discernible difference between college athletes and professional sports figures.”
Other shifting factors also make it hard to predict NIL’s potentially seismic effects. Fights over the College Football Playoff’s format reignite just about every year; conference membership switches and an explosion in transfers and COVID-19-era eligibility tweaks have further complicated team management; coaching contracts have taken another stratospheric leap, further upping competition between universities for staff and ballooning salary and contract buyout obligations.
The Supreme Court has signaled a willingness to hear more challenges to traditionally accepted NCAA practices, and in September, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memo saying that student-athletes should be afforded the same protections, including the right to unionize, as other employees—a classification that, if officially conferred, would tear the last threads connecting America’s stadiums to the 19th-century fields of Oxford and Cambridge.
For his part, the Terps’ Rakim Jarrett is trying not to let the lure of financial success go to his head. In July, he jokingly tweeted (with a skull emoji), “Didn’t know I was going from high school to paying taxes!!” Yet in looking at his surprise financial opportunities once only available to the pros, he allows himself a moment to consider the trailblazing route he’s already running for future players in red, black and gold.
“I don’t want to think too far ahead,” Jarrett says. “(But) that’ll be pretty cool to think back on.” terp
NIL at a Glance
Here’s how name, image and likeness activity played out for Terp athletes from July through early December:
145
DISCLOSED DEALS
DISCLOSURES PER SPORT 54%
from Olympic sports
46%
from football and men’s and women’s basketball
AVERAGE VALUE PER DEAL $780
69%
cash deals
31%
in-kind
BREAKING DOWN THE DEALS 59%
social media activities
17%
rights/ endorsements
8%
appearances/events
8%
content creations
6%
merchandise 2%
autograph sessions
PERCENTAGE OF DEALS WORTH $1,000 OR MORE 12%
PERCENTAGE OF DEALS WORTH $10,000 OR MORE 2%
UMD TEAMS REPRESENTED 17 of 20
programs
HIGHEST UMD EARNER
Rakim Jarrett
football wide receiver
T.J. CIRO ’02, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND HEAD OF PARTNERSHIPS FOR OPENDORSE
A ROOTED RETURN
BY SALA LEVIN ’10 | PHOTOS BY STEPHANIE S. CORDLE
Her ancestor was enslaved in Prince George’s County. Five generations later, a doctoral student is reinvigorating the area’s agricultural—and communal—ties.
IN 1902, Robert Harrod Sr. signed the deed to own land in the very county where he had spent the beginning of his life legally owned and enslaved.
He bought 13 acres near present-day FedEx Field, which he farmed throughout his life, then divided into smaller parcels for each of his five children. Their legacy was cut off in the 1970s, however, when the state and Prince George’s County took ownership of the land as the result of unpaid property taxes.
Brittney Drakeford, a doctoral student in UMD’s School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, grew up in the county and recalls accompanying her mother and grandmother on drives where they’d pass a particular stretch of land, vacant and wild. They’d always point out that it had once belonged to Brittney’s great-great-great-grandfather.
When Harrod owned it, the land had fronted a street called Harrod Road or Harrod Avenue. Now, the overgrown road is called Deputy Lane. “To literally see this complete erasure—it made me furious,” Drakeford says.
It’s an erasure that Drakeford, at least the sixth generation of her family to live in Prince George’s County, is set on halting. Despite the county’s rich agricultural history, many of its residents now lack access to fresh food and are disconnected from the land seeded for centuries with a painful history. As a senior planner with the county and community leader, Drakeford is determined to remedy that. Through her volunteer efforts developing a neighborhood garden, opening farmers markets and helping churches become hubs for nourishment, Drakeford is building a community empowered in its relationship to the environment.
Drakeford’s ancestor was likely enslaved at the Concord plantation, seen here in 1936.
“My great-grandparents, my mother, they probably never would have thought that they’d even be able to tap into this information, and now they have a descendant who’s literally in a position to research their story, affirm their story, hopefully protect their family lineage,” she says. “I feel responsibility and a burden.”
THE CONCORD plantation, built in the 1790s in what is now Capitol Heights, was the jewel of Zachariah Berry’s extensive landholdings—and the site where records suggest Drakeford’s ancestor was enslaved.
During Berry’s lifetime, dozens of enslaved people worked at Concord, growing crops and raising milk cows, oxen, swine, sheep and other animals in the shadow of his Federal-style mansion. By 1800, Berry was Prince George’s County’s seventhlargest slaveholder and a well-known figure in a county that was a stronghold of slavery in Maryland. In 1850, the county was home to 11,510 enslaved people, nearly half of its population.
Drakeford began to piece together the story of Robert Harrod Sr. in high school, when she was assigned to research her family history. She learned that he was born in 1851 or 1852, likely at Concord but possibly at one of Berry’s other properties. She began collecting information from her relatives, obituaries, census records, family bibles, wills and elders at her church, where a stained-glass window is dedicated to Robert Harrod Jr. and his wife. Eventually, Drakeford found the property deed recording Robert Harrod Sr.’s purchase in the Huntsville area.
It was “not unusual at all” for Black people to buy land in the county in the decades after the Civil War, says Susan Pearl, historian for the Prince George’s County Historical Society, though “13 acres is a pretty good amount.” Many Black families supported themselves on two or three acres, she says.
Black farming communities began springing up around the 1880s, and Black ownership of farms increased into the early 1900s. But by the middle of the century, suburban sprawl threatened both white- and Black-owned farms.
The fate of the Harrod family farm encapsulates the main thrust of Drakeford’s academic, professional and personal interests: how zoning and land-use regulations have real-world consequences, especially for marginalized communities. What can a parcel of land be used for? Where can food be grown or sold? Can you plant a vegetable garden at your own home?
As a planner with the county, Drakeford has the power to “bring in people who have not necessarily participated in these processes before,” she says. She can inform friends and
neighbors about projects, forums, meetings, proposed regulations. “I know how to communicate to them, ‘This is what planning really means for your neighborhood.’” And yet, as she sees her loved ones struggle with the diseases and difficulties that can come from an unhealthy or unsafe personal environment, she wonders, “Can I even protect my family?”
AT THE END of a quiet residential street in Cottage City, Md., past the brick town hall on a lot near the Anacostia River, Drakeford is at home in more than one sense. She wends her way through the community garden, its plants laden with cherry tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, pointing out the new irrigation system, the Concord grapevines, the beehives in the back.
Some of the Cottage City gardeners are part of the seed-saving movement, in which native plants are preserved by passing their seeds on to future generations. The indigenous peanuts, peas and sweet potatoes growing in the garden have evolved to thrive in the acidity of the local soil, the sun exposure and the weather.
Like those plants, Drakeford knows how to bloom in the land she’s planted in. “There are these environmental factors that make it easier for me, because of that familiarity, to navigate in this environment.” When she struggled in school, she’d drop in at her aunt’s house for a home-cooked dinner. When she needs advice today, she visits her dad down the street.
Drakeford was a senior in high school in 2004 when her mother, Sharon, died of pulmonary sarcoidosis, a rare lung disease resulting from the body’s immune response. The root cause is unknown, but research suggests that the triggers could be fungi, chemicals, dust, bacteria or viruses. The Cleveland Clinic reports that African Americans are four to 17 times more likely to develop the disease than white people and are more likely to have a severe form. Drakeford believes her mom’s case “was probably because of the neighborhood where she grew up, the impacts of residential segregation and the trauma of displacement,” she says.
Her mother’s death sparked Drakeford’s interest in her family history, which she continued researching as an undergraduate studying journalism and African American history at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, and in her graduate and professional work.
It was in college that Drakeford began to realize her interest in place and people. When a fellow student complained that Greensboro was boring, Drakeford balked. She thought that was impossible in any city, with all its residents and their stories bouncing up against one another in parks, offices, coffee shops and homes—and she was determined to prove it. She began exploring Greensboro, “just sitting back, watching, learning, listening and then saying, ‘Okay, well, what can I do?’”
She began volunteering at the African American Atelier, an art gallery that she’d stumbled upon one day while walking downtown. Eventually, she became a youth director and curator, organizing exhibits focusing on women living in poverty or young, up-and-coming artists.
“I started to realize that how we designed an exhibit … forced people to have certain types of internal reflections and certain types of internal conversations, and it also forced these external conversations,” Drakeford says. It was an early revelation that the physical environment shaped relationships.
After earning a master’s degree in management at Wake
This 1902 deed documents the sale of land from Mary Sheriff to Robert Harrod Sr.
Forest University, Drakeford returned to Maryland and began working for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC), which governs land-use planning in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. She learned the nuances of zoning ordinances and started a doctoral program in urban and regional planning and design at UMD.
“I’ve learned things (from Drakeford) that I wasn’t necessarily able to see from academe and from a researcher’s perspective, in terms of … the bureaucracy of the process of planning,” says Marccus Hendricks, Drakeford’s adviser and assistant professor in the School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. “She is a sponge in terms of soaking up as much information and knowledge as she possibly can, and really driven to really support communities in a way that they see fit.”
THE COTTAGE CITY Community
Garden is one example of Drakeford’s on-the-ground approach. Though she loved playing in the dirt as a kid, she didn’t nurture her green thumb until her aunt suggested they build a memorial garden at Drakeford’s grandmother’s home to honor her mother. Crepe myrtle trees, rose of Sharon bushes and irises soon took hold.
Later, Drakeford joined the Port Towns Youth Council, a program of the nonprofit End Times Harvest Ministries. Since 1996, the nonprofit has gotten Prince George’s County youth involved in their communities through peer education, internships and career readiness programs. The Cottage City Community Garden, founded in 2010, was one of its projects, and Drakeford now serves as its co-manager.
She wanted the garden to be not just a place to grow cucumbers, but a neighborhood centerpiece and a space for locals to find fellowship. In Cottage City, gardening tools and an irrigation system provided by the garden team allow residents to focus on planting, harvesting and socializing rather than figuring out how to supply their own materials. During the COVID-19 pandemic, neighbors have gathered in the garden for outdoor happy hours, and—in non-pandemic times—the garden hosts workshops and events for students.
Cottage City has few restaurants, coffee shops or other public spaces people can talk to one another. “By the nature of us having this garden, we literally create a space where people can come and gather,” Drakeford says.
Other benefits follow, too. The physical activity of gardening is good exercise, and studies show that regular access to fresh produce may have a positive effect on conditions like diabetes and hypertension. A ban on pesticides and chemicals helps keep the garden environmentally healthy, too.
Drakeford often impresses with her ability to deliver what seems improbable. “We had this grandiose plan, which I was shaking my head about, about getting a grant to build a new irrigation system,” says Denise Hamler, a Cottage City resident who works in the garden. With Drakeford’s help, “by gosh, we got that grant, and we have a new cistern and irrigation system.”
Farmers markets are another avenue for Drakeford to help feed people, physically and emotionally. In 2018, after the local Safeway closed, she and her cousin, Kyle Reeder, launched the Capitol Heights farmers market, now in partnership with her church, Gethsemane United Methodist.
Drakeford and the team founded a second location in Suitland, and now the two farmers markets draw about 60 vendors, most of whom are Black farmers. On a late summer Sunday morning at the Suitland location, in a strip mall’s parking lot, the bounty included fruits, vegetables, baked goods, jams and sausages.
Train tracks run directly behind the Cottage City Community Garden that Drake co-manages.
—BRITTNEY DRAKEFORD
She “helps us to remain connected and remain relevant, and she continues to bring to the table what the needs of the community are and helps us to focus so that we are meeting the needs,” says Ron Triplett, Drakeford’s pastor.
Churches are a locus of another of Drakeford’s goals: to turn unused kitchens, cold storage space and, sometimes, land into a new branch of the food system, allowing farmers to use that real estate for food production. In a county where one in seven residents experiences food insecurity, according to a 2015 study conducted by the MNCPPC, churches—often central places in many Prince Georgians’ lives—could be key to expanding access to nutritious foods.
AT SOME POINT during the pandemic, as she was preparing for her comprehensive exams, Drakeford spent the better part of a month crying. Her uncle had recently died, and there was talk of selling the church where her great-great-grandparents were buried. She felt powerless. “I have perceived power” because of her position in county government, she says, but “I don’t have enough power to save my family, in a sense.”
In person, Drakeford is buoyant and talkative, willing to give generously of herself and her time. And yet, she admits, “I’m exhausted.” She feels the trauma her long-ago ancestors experienced on this land, and newer trauma, too. Her father, she says, was pulled over by county police when he was a teenager, accused of robbing a store he’d never been to and put in the back of the police car. Though he wasn’t physically harmed, Drakeford says the moment was “a very pronounced incident” in his relationship with the county he grew up in.
On her personal website, Drakeford muses about how Black people must look both forward and backward in shaping their lives. “If you’ve sat in a conversation with me for more than 30 minutes, at some point I’ve probably drifted into some ideas of Afro-futurism; Black people planning their future and preserving their history as radical acts of time travel and time reclamation.” She plans and builds, believing that doing so can take back some of what was lost.
Drakeford’s father and his sisters own a parcel of inherited property in South Carolina, where she’s leading the family in creating a land trust to preserve it permanently. At 15 acres, it’s a little more than the farmland her great-great-great-grandfather bought for himself and his descendants. She hopes one day they’ll start a family farm there—a loop connecting past and future, a harkening to what came before and a stake in what is still to come. terp
