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August 07, 2008 7:49 PM |
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UM Wins International Robot Competition UM's Fall Semester to Focus on All Aspects Of War Anthrax /Bio-Chem Attacks Rare, Records Show 1925 Recording Makes National Archives Registry |
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Highlighted News Items, August 7
Building a More Responsible B-School
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Maryland Moments, September, 2003
University Initiatives
(Rankings, New Programs)
The Wall Street Journal ranked UM No. 19 among the world's business schools. In rankings of public universities, Maryland was No. 7; among smaller schools (enrollment of less than 500), it was No. 9.
A statue of alumnus Jim Henson and his Muppet pal Kermit the Frog was dedicated at the front of the newly renovated Stamp Student Union. The statue, designed by sculptor Jay Hall Carpenter, depicts Henson and Kermit in conversation, Kermit's left hand resting on Henson's wrist. Weighing about 450 pounds, the art work was dedicated on Sept. 24 on what would have been Henson's 67th birthday. He died in 1990.
The Democracy Collaborative, which brings together an international consortium of more than 20 of the world's leading academic centers and citizen engagement organizations, hosted the first Interdependence Day in the U.S. and Europe on Sept. 12. On the local level, students and officials from the City of College Park removed litter from roadways and a College Freedom Tour concert was held at the Stamp Union.
Society & Culture
A poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes earned headlines with its findings: by a 2-to-1 margin, more Americans say the U.S. military presence in the Mideast increases the likelihood of terrorist attacks; and three-fourths of those polled said U.S. foreign policy creates a climate that makes it easier for terrorists to recruit new members and raise money.
The U.S. is seeking how to "mold the American message to the Muslim world," according to the New York Times. In pursuit of this end, Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, is part of a group of U.S. experts touring the Muslim world who will report to the Bush administration on how to improve relations.
Fred Feinstein, former general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board and a visiting professor and senior fellow in the Office of Executive Programs, headed-up a fact-finding committee being formed by the striking graduate students union at Yale University. The New York Times reported that among the committee's members was former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
The library opened its "Broadcast Pioneer's Library of American Broadcasting" at the University of Maryland. The 25,000 square foot facility in the Hornbake Library on campus provides rooom to hold an unparallelled collection of audio and video recordings, books, pamphlets, periodicals, personal collections, oral histories, photographs, scripts and vertical files devoted exclusively to the history of broadcasting. The celebration honored the "First Fifty Giants of Broadcasting."
Steven Martin, assistant professor of sociology, contradicted the findings of a National Telecommunications and Information Administration Report that said the digital divide between poor and rich was narrowing. Martin told the New York Times the government's report on Americans' Internet use was flawed.
Gerrit Knaap, professor and director of the National Center for Smart Growth, spoke to a seminar in China sponsored by the Ministry of Land and Resources and attended by planning officials from across the country. His message to the seminar, according to the China Daily: "While urbanization is a major factor in China's economic development, many people are afraid that urban expansion comes at a cost -- the loss of valuable cultivated land. But this does not necessarily have to be the case, with proper land use planning."
Science & Technology
Public awareness of the global warming effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) may be a relatively recent phenomena, but such warming has been pivotal to life on our planet for billions of years. Evidence of the ancient importance of CO2 can be found in a study by UM Jay Kaufman published in the journal Nature. Using samples from individual fossils of an ancient relative of algae, Kaufman and colleague Shuhai Xiao of Virginia Tech provided the first empirically-based estimates of the concentration of CO2 of in the atmosphere some 1.4 billion years ago. Their study finds that CO2 concentration was 10 to 200 times today�s levels.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Web site partnered with NASA to pick up an additional 50 to 80 Mbps through a shared connection with Internet 2 at the University of Maryland during Hurricane Isabel. NOAA experienced nine million hits per hour as Isabel made its way into the Middle Atlantic states; normally, the agency gets two million hits per day.
Global warming was at the center of science news events as Konstantin Vinnikov, senior research scientist in the department of meteorology, and Norman Gordy of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration released a study indicated warming of the troposphere, Earth's lower atomosphere. The Wall Street Journal: The degree of warming in the troposphere -- the region where clouds form -- is a key battleground in the highly politicized debate over global climate change. While past studies had found little or no warming in the troposphere, a new analysis of satellite observations... in the journal Science calculates that temperatures in the lower atmosphere have increased about 0.5 degree Fahrenheit per decade since 1978."
Chris Reynolds, assistant professor of astronomy, is among researchers who report a way to measure the spinning of a black hole. "Telltale X-rays from iron may reveal if black holes are spinning or not, according to astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton Observatory. The gas flows and bizarre gravitational effects observed near stellar black holes are similar to those seen around supermassive black holes. Stellar black holes, in effect, are convenient `scale models' of their much larger cousins."
A new method developed by a University of Maryland research team that traces the growth of anthrax spores could aid the FBI in its ongoing anthrax investigations. Rsearchers, led by chemistry's Catherine Fenselau, studied how spores such as anthrax are developed, which could help the FBI connect spores found in an investigation with their method of growth.
Two UM research centers�-the Smith School's Supply Chain Management Center and the School of Public Affairs� Center for Public Policy and Private Enterprise�-were awarded a $2.5 million contract from the U.S. Army to develop a maintenance system for a new weapon, the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System.
More Maryland Moments in September
Democratic Presidential frontrunner Howard Dean held a rally on campus Sept. 8 at the Nyumburu Center, immediately adjacent to the Stamp Student Union. The governor's campaign spokesman billed the appearance, which drew 3,700 supporters, as the first big pubic event in Maryland for Dean.
Teachers at Bowie's Yorktown Elementary School implemented strategies learned at the Maryland Artist-Teacher Institute, a weeklong workshop held at UM during the summer, that coached ways to infuse arts like poetry and dance into non-art subjects like math and science. Students were motivated by MATI ("Making Connections, Designing and Implementing Arts-Integrated Curriculum"), administered by the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, the Maryland State Department of Education and the Maryland State Arts Council, with co-funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
UM is helping students in reading, math and science at Bladensburg High School, where test scores under the new Maryland School Assessment program were not high. Through a special project with the university, teachers received ongoing instruction on how to develop vocabulary, and math teachers attended ongoing workshops with a UM professor, reviewing content and strategy to better assist students' learning. The program is administered by the Maryland Institute for Minority Achievement and Urban Education in the College of Education.
Miss Maryland Marina Harrison, a communication major, finished as the third runner-up at the Miss America Pageant over the weekend, the second straight year a UM student has finished in the top five. Last year, music major Camille Lewis finished as the fourth runner-up.
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