Towards Being Best: Rankings, Numbers, New Programs, Events
University Leads in Retention Rates for Black & White Students
The university leads state schools in one-year retention rates for all students (90+ percent) and for black students (88.4 percent). The statistics were among those released by the Maryland Higher Education Commission that showed the gap is narrowing for graduation rates of African-American and white students.
Black Issues Ranks University No. 5 for Baccalaureate Degrees Black Issues In Higher Education's 2001 undergraduate rankings listed the university No. 5 among all traditionally white institutions in conferring African American baccalaureate degrees. Maryland was in the top 25 of all schools awarding African American undergraduate degrees (No. 16) and Asian American degrees (No. 22).
Earth System Science a Discipline At Too Few Schools
According to Science magazine, Maryland is one of the few schools in the world offering graduate programs in earth system science, a fact the publication decries. Also listed are Pennsylvania State University; the University of California, Irvine; The Danish Centre for Earth System Science; the Potsdam Institute of Germany and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich.
President Mote Travels to Central Asia
University President C. D. Mote Jr. traveled to Central Asia and Uzbekistan where he and the country's education minister agreed to set up a joint center for information technologies and distance learning.
Host with the Most in June
Maryland hosted 5,000 students competing on 17 teams from around the U.S. and the World at the Odyssey of the Mind competition.
On the heels of the Odyssey folk came thousands of contestants from 47 states and the District of Columbia for National
History Day, an annual event at College Park. The History Channel covered the event with streaming video via the Internet.
A contingent from the U.S. Olympic Committee visited campus as a potential site for the Olympic Village in 2012. The Chesapeake Region 2012 Coalition is bidding for the Games, and USOC officials assessed athletic facilities from Baltimore to Northern Virginia.
Maryland's Webshop brought together sociologists, psychologists, computer scientists and other academics for a ground-breaking study of the effects of the Internet. During the conference, Maryland and Princeton University released a widely published research results claiming the Internet user more tolerant, trusting, optimistic and literate than nonusers, but not always more liberal in personal beliefs.
The National Orchestra Institute earned high praise from Washington Post critics for its three June concerts at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. The Institute is an intensive orchestral training program sponsored by the School of Music that seeks to help the best and brightest of the nation's young musicians make the transition from academia to professional orchestras.
Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, who had just brokered the foundation of a hoped-for Mid East peace agreement, gave a timely overview of the war torn hot spot at the behest of the campus Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development. Other featured speakers were faculty member Jehan Sadat, widow of former Egyptian leader, Anwar Sadat, and Shibley Telhami, one of the leading U.S. Mideast experts who holds the Sadat Chair.
Faculty, Staff, Student Achievement
Engineers Busy, Twice Finishing Among Nation's Best
In a busy month of intercollegiate engineering competitions, the university finished No. 3 among the 15 competing schools in the FutureTruck competition, and for the first time the "Terpedo" was launched at the International Human-Powered Submarine Races sponsored by the U.S. Navy. Maryland's SUV entrant in the General Motors-Department of -Energy sponsored FutureTruck recorded the lowest tailpipe emissions. In the 3,000 foot indoor pool where the 17 schools from the U.S. and Canada raced submarines, the Terpedo was third in speed among the two-person propeller-driven category in its maiden voyages. The vessel took two years to design and build.
Journalism's Sheehan Receives Prestigious Scholarship Journalism student Matthew Sheehan received a $10,000 Top Ten Scholarship from the Scripps Howard Foundation. He is one of ten students nationwide selected because of their academic achievement and stated interest in journalism as a career.
Tishkoff Research Publicized Around the World
The genetic research of Sara Ann Tishkoff, assistant professor of biology, received world-wide notice. She and her colleagues found that genes began mutating thousands of years ago to protect the body against malaria. The findings could lead to an understanding of how natural selection works to develop genetic protection against disease. Another result of her study indicates that when man entered an agrarian society the spread of malaria followed.
Method for Identifying Chaos 'Hot Spots' = Better Weather Forecasts
The key to improving weather forecasts may lie in the discovery by university researchers of atmospheric "hot spots"--regions in which small changes in conditions are believed to magnify most quickly into large changes in the weather. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, the researchers show that not all chaos on a weather map is equal.
Maryland Leads in Army Research Awards Clark School of Engineering faculty are involved in five teams who received contracts through the Army Research Laboratory Collaborative
Technology Alliances Program. No other university in the country was involved with all five winning projects. MIT and Georgia Tech are each in three projects. Each project consists of an eight-year contract with the ARL with project values ranging from $49 million to $76 million over the contract period. The full results can be found at www.arl.army.mil/alliances/awardann.htm.
One of the Office of Technology Commercialzation's Succesful Grads: Antex Antex Biologics of Gaithersburg says it has been issued a U.S. Patent for a new class of biological substance that suppresses the harmful hyper secretion of mucus caused by many lung diseases. Antex previously signed a licensing agreement with the university's Office of Technology Commercialization to develop the substance.
Outreach: Campus People Aiding The Community
Gardner, Agriculture Faculy, Divine Future of Farming
Agricultural economists Bruce Gardner and Robert Chase plus five other faculty members are working full time over the summer to produce a report looking at the future of farming in Maryland as directed by the General Assembly. By September a final draft must be submitted.
Criminology Department Reviews Expanded Racial Profiling Data
The role of the Maryland Justice Analysis Center in the department of criminology and criminal justice received notice this month that its role in making sure the state's new racial profiling laws are enforced has broadened. Many police departments are expanding the amount of data collected to go beyond what the state legislature mandated. The Center and the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commissions will compile the data for an annual report to the General Assembly.
Student Researches Breast Cancer Drug Resistance Biochemistry major Kelly Riordan of MiddletownM is working on cutting edge genetic research that could lead to better drug therapy for breast cancer patients. Kelly works with top researchers and state-of-the-art research equipment, including the university's mass spectrometer.
Students Team Up for AIDS Ride Eighteen students rode 330 miles from Raleigh, N.C., to Washington D.C. hoping to save lives. They trained all year to participate in the D.C. AIDS Ride 6, an annual event that raises money for services to AIDS patients. Each participant must raise $2,400 in pledges to benefit two major service providers in the area - Food and Friends and the Whitman Walker Clinic.
Newsmakers: University People Earning Media Attention
President Mote Declared Top Business Leader
President C.D. Mote Jr. was selected one of the Top 40 business leaders in the region by Washington Business Forward magazine.
Tishkoff Research Publicized Around the World
The genetic research of Sara Ann Tishkoff, assistant professor of biology, received world-wide notice. She and her colleagues found that genes began mutating thousands of years ago to protect the body against malaria. The findings could lead to an understanding of how natural selection works to develop genetic protection against disease. Another result of her study indicates that when man entered an agrarian society the spread of malaria followed.
College Park in Summer
Watch Our Construction Dust
Birthing buildings has become routine on campus, even big buildings, like the just-finished Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts ($120 million) or the rising basketball arena, the Comcast Center ($125 million), and its adjoining 6,000 car garage ($16.5 million). But there's more:
Getting ready to rise in the not too distant future are the Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center ($21 million), a parking garage at the south end of campus ($18 million), an engineering/applied science building ($51 million), a research greenhouse ($18 million), an addition to the campus health center ($14 million), and a football team building ($5 million).
More than 32 projects with a collective price tag of about $430 million have been or will be launched between the years 2000 and 2005.
Information provided by the Office of University Communications
