Maryland in News

On Campus

Maryland moving to Big Ten (Washington Post)
The University of Maryland will move to the Big Ten Conference, effectively ending 59 years within the Atlantic Coast Conference. The school's Board of Regents approved a bid to join the Big Ten this morning, and the conference has formally and unanimously accepted. Marylands move to the Big Ten will begin in the 2014-15 school year. "We just got the faxed approval letter," a Maryland official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The school will announce the move in a 3 p.m. press conference in the Stamp Student Union, followed by a national teleconference at 4 p.m. University President Wallace Loh, Chancellor Brit Kirwan, athletics director Kevin Anderson and Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney are expected to address the media.
Source: Washington Post
Maryland accepts Big Ten invite (ESPN)
The University of Maryland's Board of Regents voted Monday to accept an invitation to join the Big Ten and begin competition in the conference in the 2014-15 academic year. Meanwhile, Big East Conference sources told ESPN that Rutgers will be announced as the 14th member of the Big Ten on Tuesday. Rutgers' Board of Governors passed a vote Monday authorizing athletic director Tim Pernetti to accept the Big Ten's invitation, the New York Daily New reports. "Today is a watershed moment for the University of Maryland," said university president Wallace D. Loh in a release. "Membership in the Big Ten Conference is in the strategic interest of the University of Maryland."
Source: ESPN
Despite backlash, Maryland's move to Big Ten is a sound fiscal choice (Sports Illustrated)
...So why does everyone hate Maryland's move to the Big Ten? The answer is simple. College sports are built on nostalgia. Everyone wants everything to be exactly as it was when they attended Old State U. That way, every Saturday is a trip back to the best time of their lives. When they flip on the television and see Utah playing USC in a conference game, it wrecks that nostalgia. Most people either can't or won't accept what big-time college athletics actually is. It is a big business that happens to be attached to mostly publicly funded universities. That attachment brings with it a number of complications. Taxpayers are schools' shareholders, and administrators have a fiduciary duty to them. In other words, if you're in charge at the University of Maryland and the Big Ten invites you and you say no, you should be fired immediately for breaching that fiduciary duty.
Source: Sports Illustrated

Research

The Dirt on Dining Out (20/20 ABC News)
ABC's Elisabeth Leamy went undercover to find the germiest places in restaurants - then tested common and recommended hand washing techniques at UMD's Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition lab.
Source: 20/20 ABC News
University of Maryland, UMB venture to focus on patient data research (Baltimore Business Journal)
The latest joint venture between the University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland, Baltimore will combine computer know-how from College Park and Baltimores wealth of medical researchers. The Center for Health-related Informatics and Bioimaging will focus on projects that use technological advancements to improve medicine and patient care. The overarching goal will be to advance the idea of personalized medicine, through which doctors use advance technology and biomedical information to tailor treatment decisions to individual patients.
Source: Baltimore Business Journal

President Loh

Move to Big Ten a defining one for University of Maryland president Wallace Loh (Baltimore Sun)
In his first 2 1/2 years as president at the University of Maryland, Wallace Loh oversaw sweeping changes to the leadership of his athletic department and confronted the pain of cutting teams to patch gaping budget holes. But he had never steered headlong into the kind of controversy that erupted Monday when the university broke a near-60-year relationship with the Atlantic Coast Conference in favor of the long-term television riches offered by the Big Ten.
Source: Baltimore Sun
Big Ten brings Maryland new chances for study, research (Baltimore Sun)
Few would argue that the University of Maryland's decision earlier this week to join the Big Ten isn't about the money $24 million a year in television revenue. But university officials are helping to sell the deal with what they argue is a significant academic benefit to joining the athletic conference. The 12 universities that make up the Big Ten Conference, plus the University of Chicago, constitute an academic consortium called the Committee on Institutional Collaboration. Joining the conference will allow Maryland students to study abroad through 1,700 programs, perform research on other campuses and access millions of books online.
Source: Baltimore Sun
Maryland University Presidents Speak Out in Support of the Dream Acts Passage (In the Capital)
With Marylands passing of Question 4 on Tuesday, the state officially became labeled as a testbed for the nation. The name is not completely uncalled for especially due to the battle that ensued over the past couple of months over in-state tuition assistance for undocumented college students, but according to two illustrious Maryland university presidents, this Dream Act victory is a much needed investment in our children, one that will secure our economic talent, keeping it close to home. Passing with flying colors with a 58 percent majority in favor of upholding the Dream Act, Maryland officially became the first state to approve of this type of a state law through both legislation and a popular vote. Its success was due to the support of many noteworthy members of the higher education realm in Maryland, including University of Maryland President Wallace D. Loh and Montgomery College President DeRionne P. Pollard.
Source: In the Capital

Engaged Students

Adventure Theatre MTC gives Maryland grad students professional exposure (Washington Post)
Its been quite the exciting week over at the University of Maryland. Sure, it has accepted an invite into the Big Ten, which actually has like 14 members now, in case anyone is keeping track. And! There also are exciting goings-on among the theatrically inclined grad-student Terps, who are working on the third production of their partnership with Adventure Theatre MTC. Graduate students at Maryland have the opportunity to work as designers on ATMTC productions, earning both a small stipend and academic credit.
Source: Washington Post

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Terps TE Matt Furstenburg wins entrepreneurship competition (Washington Post)
Matt Furstenburg towered over his audience atop a stage at the University of Maryland business school Friday afternoon, gripping two pairs of red receivers gloves. He placed one pair between his khaki pants and smacked the other gloves together. They stuck. The senior tight end then grabbed the other pair, waving the gloves wide then whipping the palms at each other in front of his chest. No such stick. The gloves fluttered to the ground. Furstenburg has helped develop an intriguing solution to a widespread problem across all levels of football, netting $2,500 in seed money for his company, GripBoost, after it won the Dingman Competition for entrepreneurship, beating out four other businesses, including one offering sports league organization software and a project that compiles aerial data for non-military projects.
Source: Washington Post

National Interest

FDA probes whether deaths linked to energy shots (USA Today)
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that it is investigating 13 reports of deaths and 33 hospitalizations linked to 5-hour Energy, the highly caffeinated shots that are often sold in convenience stores. The news comes a month after Monster Energy drinks were linked to five deaths in FDA's so-called adverse-event reports. Energy shots come with a "higher risk of health problems," says Amelia Arria, a University of Maryland public health epidemiologist who has written several energy-drink studies. "The caffeine concentration is a lot higher because the volume of the liquid is lower," says Arria. "Concentration is the issue, really."
Source: USA Today
Gaza Conflict Highlights Tensions Obama Faces in Mideast (Business Week)
Israeli troops massing on the border of Gaza pose a dilemma for a U.S. administration that supports Americas closest Mideast ally while trying to defuse an escalating conflict before it deepens the instability in a changing Arab world. The Obama administration's prospects for containing the crisis rest largely on economically fragile Egypt and its president, Mohamed Mursi, who was drawn from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas, which controls Gaza and sparked the latest confrontation by lobbing hundreds of rockets into Israel. The U.S. and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist group... The U.S. and Egypt "agree there needs to be a de- escalation, and we urged the government of Egypt to take steps to support that kind of de-escalation," deputy State Department spokesman Mark Toner said yesterday. Mursi shares the Obama administration's goal of preventing any escalation in Gaza, even as he will protect his domestic political image while doing so, said Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland.
Source: Business Week
New Study: How Photos on Pinterest Predicted the Election (Huffington Post)
Susan Moeller Director, UMD's International Center for Media and the Public Agenda, blogs about PrezPix, a study just released by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA), which used Pinterest to analyze 8,780 photographs over four months of the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign.
Source: Huffington Post

Monday, November 26