Great Terps of '08 Graduate to New Stage

College Park, Md. -- During their years at the University of Maryland, the class of 2008 has seen the passage of some huge personal and university milestones.

Most undergraduates turned 21 to become full legal adults, while their university turned 150 and celebrated becoming one of the world's top public research universities. Graduates met people who will be life-long friends and gained knowledge, experience, skills and degrees needed to succeed in life and make an impact on the world outside the university. Their alma mater officially launched its research park, M Square, and first-ever billion dollar capital campaign; made a Deep Impact on research in areas ranging from climate change to space exploration, and approved a new 10-year strategic plan designed to provide an aggressive push to new levels of distinction.

This class -- which includes the first graduates of a program to create environmentally and socially aware real estate developers -- also leaves the University of Maryland much "greener" than they found it. The past four years have seen the achievement of record levels of recycling; the creation of an Office of Sustainability and a Climate Action Plan; and the signing of a national commitment for the campus to become "carbon neutral."

With all that they and their university have achieved, Terps of 2008 have much to celebrate and much to look forward to, as they graduate to a grand new stage.

Main Ceremony
The University of Maryland main commencement ceremony will be held on Thursday, May 22, 7:00 p.m. at the Comcast Center. Maryland will celebrate the more than 6,300 graduates from all colleges who will receive bachelor and advanced degrees. Commencement ceremonies will be broadcast on UMTV, Maryland's cable TV station on Channel 72 in Prince George's County and Channel 2 in Montgomery County. Additionally, there will be a live feed from UMTV on the Internet. Students from all colleges celebrate together at the Main Commencement Ceremony and the keynote speaker will address graduates and their guests. The next day, each graduate is recognized individually at College Ceremonies.

Individual schools and departments will hold their own ceremonies at various campus locations throughout the day on Friday, May 23. Graduates are recognized individually at these ceremonies. Friends and family of the graduates are encouraged to arrive at least a half-hour early to observe the traditional procession.

Degrees will be received by 6,342 students, including 456 doctoral candidates, 1,416 master's candidates, and 4,470 bachelor's candidates. Since last spring, there has been an increase of 5 doctoral degrees and 63 master's degrees. The most popular undergraduate majors included criminal justice, economics, finance, government & politics, and psychology. Business again reigns as the top master's program, and electrical engineering and physics hold the top two places for doctoral studies.

Speaker Carl Bernstein
The main commencement speaker will be Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and former Maryland student, Carl Bernstein. Bernstein, 64, is renowned for teaming up in the early 1970s with then fellow Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward to uncover the story about the Watergate break-in, which eventually brought about the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974.

Bernstein was born and raised in Washington, D. C., beginning his journalism career at age 16 as a copyboy for The Washington Evening Star, and becoming a reporter at 19. He got a job at the Washington Post in 1966 covering the local courts and police. In 1976 Bernstein left the Post to pursue an independent writing career. Bernstein has continued to investigate and discuss the use and abuse of power in society through his magazine articles, books, television reporting and commentary. He has written for Vanity Fair, Time, USA Today, Rolling Stone, and The New Republic. He was a Washington bureau chief and correspondent for ABC News. Currently, he is a political analyst for CNN and a contributing editor for Vanity Fair Magazine.

Bernstein is the author, with Woodward, of All the President's Men and The Final Days, and, with Marco Politi, of His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time. He is also the author of Loyalties, a memoir about his parents during McCarthy-era Washington. His most recent book is A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

See Carl Bernstein's Commencement Address. (requires Adobe Flash)

Student Commencement Speaker
Student commencement speaker Natalie Prizel -- who will graduate with a bachelor's in English and certification in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies -- is well on her way to becoming what she calls a "public intellectual -- blending scholarly study with social activism."

Prizel studied modernism, sexuality and gender expression in both literary and socio-political contexts. Her English honors thesis takes up the limited mobility of marginalized characters in William Faulkner's Light in August. She is also working to publish a paper exploring gender identities in religious Judaism. Her research includes films, novels, short stories and interviews, as well as theory. "The arts and humanities are forms of activism," Prizel says. "Art has ramifications in the real world."

University Medalist
According to Sandra Greer, a University of Maryland professor of chemistry and biochemistry, University Medalist Peter DeMuth is "the best undergraduate student" she has encountered "in nearly 30 years at the university." Published twice in major research journals as an undergraduate, DeMuth worked in his senior year as part of an interdisciplinary team developing nanoparticles that can be used to image, and deliver drugs to, certain kinds of cells, including cancer or bacterial cells.

DeMuth says he chose Maryland because it offered "limitless" opportunities for driven students seeking a challenge. In addition to his exceptional undergraduate research, DeMuth was a University Honors student, a member of the student-run Navigators Christian Fellowship and a service volunteer on campus and in the Baltimore region.

Click here to read about some other top Terps of 2008.

Senior Class Gift
This year, the senior class voted online to renovate and refurnish the SE interior brick hallway of Stamp Student Union (next to the Nyumburu Cultural Center). The senior class gift will provide furniture, flat-screen televisions, and a professional mural or picture collage for what currently is more or less an empty hallway. This year's class was the first senior class to fully enjoy the refurnished student union so it will be great to contribute to further improvement of the union, said members of the 08 class.

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