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Friday, November 6
Highlighted News Items
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UM--Higher Ed, Community
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Honoring His Mother, and Alma Mater
(Washington Post)
"At 9, Madieu Williams immigrated to Prince George's County from Sierra Leone, one of the poorest nations on Earth. The move gave his family a sense of perspective. His mother told him over and over that if he ever found himself in a position to make a difference, he should do it. At 28, Williams finds himself in a relatively prosperous position: He plays free safety for the Minnesota Vikings. And Wednesday, he made a difference. In a morning news conference, the University of Maryland announced the creation of the Madieu Williams Center for Global Health Initiatives. The former UM star is providing a $2 million endowment. It is the largest gift to the flagship school from an African American alumnus and the largest sum donated by someone so young."
Source:
Washington Post
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Celebrity Cash: Someone Who's Getting it Right
(Washington Post)
"But this week, I'm not chastising a celebrity but celebrating one who is more than making do with what he has. Madieu Williams, a player for the Minnesota Vikings, has donated $2 million to my alma mater, University of Maryland. It is the largest gift to the school from an African American alumnus and the largest sum donated by someone so young, reports The Post's Daniel de Vise. The donation will help create a center that focuses on public health initiatives in both Prince George's County, Md. and his native country, Sierra Leone. Williams graduated from Maryland in 2003. I'm not telling what year I graduated, but I'm certainly proud that another Terp is being so charitable. At only 28 years old, this incredible young man is making a big difference. Ask yourself how can you do the same with whatever money or talent you have."
Source:
Washington Post (Please scroll down in story for this note)
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Ambassador Stevens Urges Fortunate Sierra Leoneans: 'Emulate Football Genius Madieu Williams to Help Rebrand Your Motherland'
(Cocorioko, Sierra Leone)
Cocorioko is Sierra Leone's largest newspaper: "Sierra Leone' s Ambassador to the United States , H.E. Bockari Stevens, partnered a prominent Sierra Leonean football star Madieu Williams on Wednesday at the launching of the ';Madieu Williams Center for Global Health Initiatives project' at the University of Maryland. The announcement ceremony was witnessed by the President of the University, Sierra Leonean community organizations and officials including the Chief of Staff of the Montgomery Country Council. The Madieu Williams Center for Global Health Initiative will extend the school of Health's overall commitment to local, state, regional and global health initiatives with particular attention to the public health initiatives impacting Prince Georges County, and Sierra Leone. The center will partner with the University of Maryland, Prince George's County and the Embassy of Sierra Leone in the USA. The President of the University observed that the gift was the largest from an African American alumnus. Under the project University officials including Madieu himself will be visiting Sierra Leone in Early next year to identify possible collaboration in health sector."
Source:
Cocorioko (Sierra Leone)
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Trevor Young: Cab-Driving Senior Wins Competition to Light Up Homeland
(Washington Post)
Journeys of Discovery
The Post looks at "some of the people driving fascinating research at area universities ... At George Washington University, law professor James E. Starrs is using forensics to uncover whether famous explorer Meriwether Lewis actually committed suicide -- or was murdered. At the University of Maryland in College Park, senior Trevor Young is attempting to develop micropower plants to bring electricity to rural villages in Africa. At George Mason University, psychologist Todd Kashdan is investigating the benefits of human curiosity. ...
Cab-driving senior wins competition to light up homeland
"As a child growing up in Sierra Leone, Trevor Young had a life was circumscribed by an occasional three or four hours of electricity. That was on the good days, when his family could spring for fuel to run the generator outside their home. These days, the situation in Sierra Leone is even more dire; what infrastructure there was has crumbled under 11 years of brutal war. 'Imagine a city full of cars with no electricity for traffic lights,' Young says. 'And no streetlights.' In many rural areas, there is no electricity to run an overhead light or plug in a radio, let alone charge a computer or power a plant. But Young intends to change all that. The 33-year-old senior at the University of Maryland in College Park has a plan to light up the developing world -- one rural village at a time. A pipe dream? Not according to the university, which gave him $5,000 in seed money and two of its top prizes, totaling $25,000, in its annual business plan competition."
Source:
Washington Post
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UM Study Calls Md. Smart Growth Flop
(Washington Post)
"That's the conclusion of the study by University of Maryland scholars who lead the institute the former governor founded to promote the policy. The idea behind Maryland's celebrated smart-growth program seemed sound: To ease traffic jams and air and water pollution and preserve farmland, development would be focused into dense, urban settlements near train and bus stations. The state would stop subsidizing sprawl and instead direct money for roads, sewer lines and other investments to urban areas. Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government called the idea one of the country's 10 'most innovative' public policies after Glendening muscled it through the General Assembly in 1997. Other states followed suit with similar programs. But scholars at the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education found that over a decade, smart growth has not made a dent in Maryland's war on sprawl."
Source:
Washington Post
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UM Students Protest Firing Of Diversity Officer
(Associated Press)
"Hundreds of University of Maryland students protested at the school's flagship College Park campus against the removal of a popular diversity officer. Cordell Black, the associate provost for equity and diversity, is being replaced by a part-time administrator to help cut costs. However, Black won't be losing his job because he is a tenured professor and will remain on the faculty. University spokesman Milree Williams said the university is not retreating from diversity efforts. University Provost Nariman Farvardin met Thursday with student leaders and told them he would not reverse the decision, but would work with them on other demands, including allowing student input on future cost-cutting."
Source:
Associated Press
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Colleges Fight to Get and Keep Black Males
(NNPA)
" In higher education Black males have lagged behind Black women and their counterparts for decades. Since 1990 Black women have increased their four-year college graduation rate by 14 percentage points, now standing at 48 percent. For Black men, there was a nine-percentage point gain during a 17-year period, and their graduation rate is now 37 percent. ... According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, African-Americans at colleges and universities across the nation have a 'very low' graduation rate of 44 percent. Despite the disparities in the graduation rates of Black males, there are strides being made across the country to help them get into and stay in college. ... There are many other African-American Male Initiatives across the country: Clemson University, in South Carolina, has its Call Me Mister program, used to recruit African-American male teachers. The University of Nebraska houses the Melvin W. Jones Scholars' community, which is designed to help minorities of different races, and ethnicities adjust to college life. The City University of New York has a Black male initiative that focuses on increasing the acceptance and retention of Black males through programs and activities. At the University of Maryland, which houses the Nyumburu Black Male Initiative, the 2005 retention rate of African-American males was 28 percent. Today it is nearly 50 percent. Solomon Comissioning, assistant director for Student Involvement and Public Relations for the Nyumburu center, said that part of the reason there has been an increase is because of Nyumburu, which began in 2005."
Source:
NNPA (BlackPressUSA)
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Univ. of Md.'s Menzies Honored
(Maryland Daily Record)
"The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business, and its student-run Supply Chain Management Society, named John T. 'Jock' Menzies, chairman of the Terminal Corp., a Baltimore-based warehouse, trucking and distribution company, as the 2009 'Person of the Year.' Menzies was applauded not only for his role at the head of a major mid-Atlantic logistics company but also for his leadership in philanthropic efforts. Menzies is a director and the first president of the American Logistics Aid Network, an organization formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to provide efficient distribution of humanitarian aid for disaster relief."
Source:
Maryland Daily Record
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MATI: Greenbelt Elementary Teachers Bring Drama to Class
(Gazette Newspapers)
"Students' reading comprehension soars with arts integration ... Greenbelt Elementary School first-graders took on parts as beavers, ducks, and turtles Oct. 29 to interpret and act out parts of a book they read in class. Through the students' interpretation, Greenbelt Elementary teachers are seeing the effects firsthand of how using the arts with reading increases students' comprehension. 'When the students can retell a story in their own words by paraphrasing, they're demonstrating reader comprehension,' said Lenore Blank Kelner, an arts education consultant from the Maryland Artist/Teaching Institute, or MATI, who is working with teachers at the school. In July, five teachers and Principal Kimberly Seidel took a weeklong class at MATI at the University of Maryland, College Park, to learn about incorporating music, dance, drama, poetry, visual arts and puppets into their teaching practices. MATI was established in 1994 for all grade levels of teachers and school administrators. 'The focus of MATI is arts configuration -- the merging of the objective that the state wants each grade level to achieve in reading with what the state has said a student should be able to do in drama,' Blank Kelner said."
Source:
Gazette Newspapers
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UM Student Elected: College Park Elects New Mayor, Council Members
(Gazette Newspapers)
"For the first time since 1991, the city election featured contested races in all four districts, with 15 candidates vying for eight seats. Newcomers Marcus Afzali and Denise Mitchell unseated District 4 council members Mary Cook and Karen Hampton and newcomer Christine Nagle was elected to replace Councilman Jonathan Molinatto (Dist. 1), who chose not to run. In all, 1,415 residents cast ballots, according to unofficial results released Tuesday night -- the most since 2001In District 4, challengers Afzali and Mitchell defeated Cook and Hampton thanks in part to support from Mayor Stephen Brayman, who often clashed with the incumbents during council meetings. Afzali, a 24-year-old doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park -- led the way with 210 votes. 'What I've heard over and over again ... is that the people of College Park are anti-student,' Afzali said. 'I think the fact that they elected me proves that they're not anti-student.' "
Source:
Gazette Newspapers
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At Smith School: 'Pay Czar' Sees Plans in Place for Additional Execs by Year End; Fed Starts Work on Banker Pay
(Associated Press)
"The government's 'pay czar' expects compensation plans for additional employees at the seven companies getting the biggest bailouts to be in place by year's end, while the Federal Reserve will soon start its own work on banks' pay practices. Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury Department official overseeing compensation at the seven bailed-out companies, said Monday that he hopes 'to come up with consensual plans' for highly paid employees beyond the top 25 at each firm. Feinberg already has announced plans to slash pay for the top 25 executives at the seven companies: Bank of America Corp., American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., General Motors Co., GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial. Now he is working on designing compensation structures for 75 additional employees at each one, ranking 26 through 100. For those executives, Feinberg intends to set up a general plan within six weeks to govern their 2009 pay, he said in a speech at a conference on executive pay organized by the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business."
Source:
Associated Press (Baltimore Sun)
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Science and Technology
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Kalnay: Study Shows Climate Significance Of Land Cover Change
(Red Orbit)
""Most land-use changes occurring in the continental United States reduce vegetative cover and raise regional surface temperatures, says a new study by scientists at the University of Maryland, Purdue University, and the University of Colorado in Boulder. The study, which will appear in the Royal Meteorological Society's International Journal of Climatology, found that almost any change that makes land cover less 'green' contributes to warming. However, a less intuitive finding is that conversion of any land to agricultural use results in cooling, even land that was previously forested. Derived using a University of Maryland developed analytical approach known as OMR, the findings build on previous research and add significant weight to a growing recognition among climate scientists for the need to more fully incorporate land use change into computer models that are designed to forecast future changes in climate conditions. 'We found that most land-use changes, especially urbanization, result in warming,' said University of Maryland Professor Eugenia Kalnay, one of the study's co-authors. 'A clear exception is conversion of land from other uses to agriculture, which produces relative cooling, presumably because of increased evaporation,' said Kalnay, who developed the now widely used OMR (observation minus reanalysis) method with former Maryland colleague Ming Cai, now an associate professor at Florida State University. 'The study's results also confirm the robustness of the OMR method, particularly in providing an estimate of the impact of local and regional land cover changes on temperature trends,' said Kalnay, a professor in Maryland's department of atmospheric and oceanic science."
Source:
Red Orbit
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Salzberg: H1N1 Flu Vaccine Runs Dry
(Agence France-Presse)
"Mothers with young children and pregnant women are being turned away from swine flu vaccination clinics in the US, some in tears, many utterly frustrated by the shortage of vaccine. But it could have been much worse. The new strain of H1N1 flu could have been much more virulent, and it could even have been bird flu, which, because of the way the US produces flu vaccine, could wreak havoc. Months back, when a swine flu vaccine was still just a glimmer in scientists' eyes, US health officials were driving home the message that children, and especially those with underlying health conditions like asthma, and pregnant women were at great brisk of dying from H1N1 influenza and should be first in line for inoculation. But after rolling out the vaccine early last month, the authorities ran into a problem: there wasn't enough to go around. 'The National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have done a very good job of emphasising the importance of getting vaccinated. But then there's no vaccine,' said Steven Salzberg, director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland. Salzberg's wife and younger daughters were among thousands who queued last week in Rockville, a suburb of Washington, for swine flu vaccinations. 'They left when they saw the line was about half a mile long before the place was even open. There were many, many hundreds of people and more were arriving by the second,' Salzberg said."
Source:
Agence France-Presse (Gulf Times, Dubai)
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Pick: Scientists Create Diabetic Fruit Flies
(United Press International)
"University of Maryland medical researchers say they have created fruit fly models of diabetes to study the genetics involved in the disease. While sedentary lifestyles and diets high in sugar and fat contribute significantly to the rise in diabetes rates, genetic factors may make some people more vulnerable than others to developing diabetes, researchers said. Associate Professor Leslie Pick and her team said they altered genes in fruit flies to model the loss of insulin production as seen in human Type 1 diabetes. 'These mutant flies show symptoms that look very similar to human diabetes,' Pick said. 'They have the hallmark characteristic, which is elevated blood sugar levels. They are also lethargic and appear to be breaking down their fat tissue to get energy, even while they are eating -- a situation in which normal animals would be storing fat, not breaking it down. 'We can use these genetically manipulated flies as a model to understand defects underlying human diabetes and to identify genes and target points for pharmacological intervention,' said Pick, who is also using flies to study Type 2 diabetes and other syndromes of insulin resistance. The study that included researchers Hua Zhang, Jingnan Liu and Caroline Li, Associate Professor Bahram Momen and former Johns Hopkins University Associate Professor Ronald Kohanski appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.":
Source:
United Press International
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Society and Culture
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Jenkins: Scientists Hail Ecuador's Proposal to Protect Oil Rich Region of Amazonian Rainforest
(Asian News International)
"A team of environmental researchers has praised an innovative proposal by the Ecuadorian government to protect an untouched, oil rich region of Amazon rainforest is a precedent-setting and potentially economically viable approach. The researchers are from the University of Maryland, the World Resources Institute and Save America's Forests. The Ecuadorian proposal, known as the Yasuni-ITT Initiative, would protect a large area of pristine Amazon rainforest, by leaving untouched nearly one billion barrels of oil that lies beneath the Yasun? National Park in Ecuador. Under the initiative, the government would sell certificates linked to the value of the unreleased carbon to provide alternative revenue to that which would come from exploiting the oil reserves. 'This is a really novel approach that could fund a lot of rainforest protection,' said Clinton Jenkins, a research scientist in the University of Maryland's department of biology. 'It's also an innovative way of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions,' he added."
Source:
Asian News International (New Keralal, India)
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Moeller: Media Literacy 101 -- Losing Our Ability to Listen to the World (in English)
Huffington Post)
Susan Moeller, director of the International Center for Media and the Public Agenda and professor the schools of journalism and public policy, writes a commentary: "The online world as Americans know it is about to change. Big time. Today's decision to allow Web addresses to be written completely in non-Latin alphabets, taken by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, (ICANN), the international organization that oversees Internet domain names, is not just a huge deal for most of Asia, the Middle East and wide swaths of the rest of the world--it is a huge deal for Americans. Up until now native English-speakers have had a tremendous advantage online. English has been the Internet's lingua franca, typically the second language of choice not just for those who speak European languages, but especially for those who write their languages in other scripts--in Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Urdu, Thai, etc."
Source:
Huffington Post
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Longbrake: Md. Recovery Will Be Weak, Expert Predicts
(Maryland Daily Record)
"A University of Maryland economist said Thursday he expects the economic rebound to be weak and fraught with challenges for businesses and consumers. 'Recovery has started, but it's likely to be a very weak one, one that will have some pitfalls and stumbles along the way,' William Longbrake said during the Business Policy Conference held by the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. 'The good news is the Maryland economy has not been hit as hard as the rest of the nation, and that continues to be the case.' Longbrake is the executive-in-residence and senior policy advisor for the Center for Financial Policy at the university's Robert H. Smith School of Business. Stock market gains and the 3.5 percent growth in the nation's gross domestic product, or GDP, in the third quarter are the latest signs of economic healing, but they may not be the solid indicators many hope them to be, he said."
Source:
Maryland Daily Record
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Reinhart: Maryland Businesses Secure Recovery Money
(Capital News Service)
"Maryland organizations of all sizes have secured more than $4.5 billion and directly created 4,464 jobs as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, even as economic indicators across the state continue to lag. Maryland's unemployment rate has hovered around 7.2 percent since May, double the October 2007 rate of 3.6 percent and nearly double that of a year ago, 4.8 percent. Foreclosure statistics across the state also are still climbing. Maryland holds the 10th-highest rate in the nation according to RealtyTrac, a company that tracks nationwide foreclosures. One in every 16,867 properties in Maryland is facing foreclosure, a frequency higher than all surrounding states. Even though the numbers look grim, Carmen Reinhart, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland, thinks the stimulus helped slow the economy's dive. 'I think the recession would have been worse absent the stimulus,' Reinhart said. 'The fact that we observe in nearly every sector some worrisome signs, shouldn't be taken as a sign our fiscal policy doesn't work.' Hundreds of Maryland organizations who rushed to secure loans, grants and contracts funded by the recovery act have derived some benefit from the legislation. ... Clark Construction Group of Bethesda is the 13th-largest general contractor in the country, according to Engineering News Record. In August, it was awarded $182 million for recovery projects ranging from the design and construction of a Coast Guard Headquarters building to repairing the Jefferson Memorial seawall. Earlier this year, Clark completed a $41.7 million addition to University of Maryland's Byrd Stadium in College Park. But smaller Maryland businesses were also able to secure recovery money, including an aerial photographer, a veteran-owned contractor and a cosmetology school, for example."
Source:
Capital News Service (Southern Maryland Online)
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Bartol: Productivity Rises
(Baltimore Sun)
"But firms kept laying off workers in 3rd quarter, latest figures show ... The manufacturing sector, in particular, got a huge productivity boost of 13.6 percent during the quarter. The figures were good news for companies as they got more out of their workers amid an economic recovery. But unit labor costs fell at a 5.2 percent rate. The drop in unit labor costs in the third quarter marked the third straight decline as companies continued to lay off workers. In short, workers are doing more with less. 'What's happening is that people who have jobs are working very hard to keep them,' said Kathryn Bartol, professor of management and organization at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. 'There are two issues: trying to help their organizations survive and, in the process, preserve their jobs. This means that employees are willing to work harder and look for ways to streamline operations and increase productivity.' "
Source:
Baltimore Sun
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Shawn and Trevor Parry-Giles: Battle of the Health Care Ads
(Politico)
A Q&A: "Politico's Fred Barbash interviewed Shawn and Trevor Parry-Giles of the University of Maryland's Political Advertising Resource Center on the health care ad wars."
Source:
Politico
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Gimpel: 'Change Has Come' ... Or Has It?
(Politico)
"When it comes to politics, Obama and his team have proved more comfortable navigating within the Washington system that greeted them than with changing the culture of the capital. A West Wing that features skilled operatives like Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs is no less politically obsessed than when Karl Rove roamed the same halls. 'I suppose what has surprised me most is how quickly the promises of comity, outreach and post-partisanship were abandoned,' James G. Gimpel, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, said on the Arena forum. 'But maybe that's because I was starting to believe the hype, and I should have maintained an appropriately skeptical stance all along. In this last year, we have again been reminded that governing is not campaigning.' As it happens, the Obama team is never happier -- as in its frequent public disputes with Fox News, Rush Limbaugh or the insurance industry -- than when it can adopt campaign-style tactics to frame an adversary for public advantage. The logic of this approach is clear but also plainly at odds with Obama's stated desire to unify Americans and drain politics of its anger and addiction to unproductive conflict."
Source:
Politico
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