Between the Columns at the University of Marylandfebruary 2012

in this issue NEW DIVERSITY OFFICER PG. 3 /

RESEARCH GAINS PG. 3 / TERP LOVE PG. 5 / BUILDING

ENVIRONMENTAL INTEREST PG. 6 / PRESCRIPTION

FOR HEALTH LITERACY PG. 6 / BOOKSHELF PG. 7 /

ACCOLADES PG. 7 / A SPECIAL EXHIBIT PG. 8 /

THE CAMPUS OF

NEW FACILITIES MASTER PLAN | PG. 2

btc FEBRUARY 20122

The Campus of 2030?5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE NEW FACILITIES MASTER PLAN

You’ve heard about the Purple Line and the Edward St. John Learning and Teaching Center. But what about other long-term plans for the university landscape? The 2011–2030 Facilities Master Plan envisions a campus that respects its architectural heritage and demonstrates environmental stewardship and sustainable practices.

Now under review by the Board of Regents, the plan calls for the following improvements over the next two decades:

To read the full plan, visit www.facstage.

umd.edu/MasterPlan/index.cfm.

Creating a more bicyclist- and pedestrian-friendly culture, with more trails and paths connecting campus entries, parking lots, transit hubs, residential communities and major campus destinations. The plan also recommends improved safety through signage and lighting.

Consolidating surface parking lots into planned parking garages, and allowing land to be used for sports fields or to return to its natural state for recreation.

Using landscaping to define and enhance campus gateways, districts (the plan identifies eight on campus), open spaces and more.

Replacing lower, sprawling academic and residential buildings with higher-density ones that make better use of valued, limited land.

Transforming the industrial and service area fronting Route 1 into a new face of the campus linking to the city of College Park: the retail, residential and entertainment complex now called East Campus.

Photography by John T. Consoli 3FEBRUARY 2012 btc

HTTP://ALUMNI.UMD.EDU/S/1132/ 1COL.ASPX?SID=1132&GID=1&PGID=1257&CID=2267&ECID=2267&CRID=0&CALPGID=61&CALCID=1763

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FIRST CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER PROMISES COLLABORATION / By karen shih

More than 30 years after earning her doctorate at Maryland, Kumea Shorter-Gooden appreciates the visible diversity she sees every-where, from the student body to the administration.

But the university’s first associate vice president and chief diversity offi-cer, who started Jan. 1, knows there are still improvements to be made.

“How do we reshape the university so that it better addresses and con-nects with the cultural values and

predispositions of groups that are diverse?” says Shorter-Gooden, a licensed psychologist.

Her top priorities include making sure

underrepresented students, faculty and staff have not

only access to the univer-sity, but also the tools they

need to succeed. The Latino community, a fast-growing population in the state and at

the university, requires special atten-tion and engagement, she says.

All students, regardless of back-ground or major, must be educated to function in a globalized society. To address all these issues, it’s important to understand how people experience diversity on campus, she says. After years of handling equity issues across nine campuses at California-based Alliant International University, she knows different schools and colleges have different needs.

“We’re all serving the same agenda,” she says, “but diversity doesn’t work if it’s foisted on people.”

Offices that report to Shorter-Gooden include the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Education, the Nyumburu Cultural Center and Office of LGBT Equality.

“I have an opportunity to really figure out who is doing what and to pull these different pieces together to serve the community more effec-tively,” she says.

Shorten URLs in Terp Style

A NEW TERP-CENTRIC URL SHORTENER, developed by the A. James Clark School of Engineering, allows anyone with a university ID to make a Maryland version of the popular tool.

Suggested by a student after seeing other universities create their own branded links, the site—ter.ps/submit.php—also allows users to customize the shorter links to track clicks. And a smaller bookmark can be dragged to a browser’s bookmarks toolbar.

Since its fall launch 95 people have created 452 links, with nearly 18,000 clicks registered

11%$236M VS. $262M

UMD RESEARCH AWARDS

IN FIRST HALF OF FY12

Facilities Management and the Office of Sustainability will roll out new recycling and trash bins beginning the week of Feb. 13. The blue-and-black containers are an effort to bring a consistent message to the uni-versity’s recycling initiatives and reinforce the campus’s goal of reaching a 75 percent recycling rate by 2013.

HELIM ARANDA-ESPINOZA

associate professor of

bioengineering

Riding the new wave in health research that joins the physical and life sci-ences, Aranda-Espinoza uses his biophysics exper-tise to address the No. 1 killer in America today: cardiovascular disease. Armed with tools like high-end imaging devices, he focuses on how particular cells related to hardening of the arteries travel within the human body. He says the research could lead to safer biomedical devices, such as stents that are less likely to clog.

NORMAN EPSTEIN

professor of family science

Epstein draws from his roles a researcher, instruc-tor and clinician to offer new insight into assessing and treating couples on the outs. He studies them in the United States and overseas, noting that Americans are more vocal and public in expressing affection than their Asian counterparts. Epstein also looks at current issues like how financial hardships can damage a relationship.

JUDITH P. HALLETT

professor of classics

Hallett, who’s long delved into Roman holidays, says Valentine’s Day may have originated in ancient Rome as a fertility festival. The Lupercalia, held on Feb. 15, featured young men dressed only in goatskins playfully whipping female bystanders with blood-dipped strips of male goat hide. And while some historians debate his existence, Hallett believes St. Valentine was likely to have been introduced during the late Middle Ages, pos-sibly to “Christianize” this celebration.

JUDE ANN CASSIDY

professor of psychology

A healthy heart comes not just from Cheerios and a treadmill. It also comes from having secure con-nections to people. Cassidy explores the benefits of healthy long-term relation-ships. A widely published researcher, Cassidy, along with her graduate students and colleagues, is currently examining links between how children’s relationships predict components of their adult risk of heart disease.

btc FEBRUARY 20124

Matters of the

Love research? Maryland’s faculty includes experts on all matters of the heart—from love and relationships, to cardiovascular disease, to the origins of Valentine’s Day. With the arrival of the holiday and American Heart Month, we introduce you to a few of these researchers and scholars. So put down the Russell Stover chocolates and chew on these instead:

Photography by John T. Consoli 5FEBRUARY 2012 btc

JIE ZHANG

associate professor of

marketing

Guilt and marketing. They, rather than romance, fuel the retail frenzy of Valentine’s Day spending, says Zhang. Though con-sumers often buckle under pressure to give their sweethearts something special, “It’s not ‘The more you spend, the more love you show,’” she says. But she still expects spending on this holiday to top $16 billion, despite widespread economic problems.

Interested in more? Visit www.umd.edu the week of Feb. 13 for more in-depth profiles.

Photography by John T. Consoli

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btc FEBRUARY 20126

Making a Splash / By lauren brownURBAN STUDIES PROGRAM BUILDS CHILDREN’S INTEREST IN ENVIRONMENT

AN URBAN STUDIES PROFESSOR gets children excited about their role in the environment by starting with a raindrop—and ending with a lot of cardboard.

Alex Chen this semester is teaching ninth-graders at Northwood High School in Silver Spring, Md., about field research, geography and the environment through his Follow the Drop of Water and Box City programs. He’s previ-ously led them in Baltimore, D.C. and Olney, Md., schools.

In the first, he asks students how a raindrop falling in front of their school ends up in the Chesapeake Bay. Students produce an “audit” of the likely path, documenting houses, parking lots and the like, and what might pollute rainwater. Then they re-imagine the school and its surrounding community to reduce threats to the environment.

Last year, they laid out the neighborhood on a 20- by 25-foot map, with “buildings” made of tissue, cereal and shoe boxes, and features such as a fishing pond and bike lanes.

This year, the high schoolers will take photos, test water quality and upload their data into a computer mapping program.

“The decisions we make as planners affect children,” Chen says. “We have a responsibility to engage students in their com-munity, to let them know they can have a voice in what gets done in their environment.”

SPH OFFERS RX FOR HEALTH-PLAN CONFUSION / By Kelly Blake

Having trouble making sense of complicated health plans? Wonder if you’re getting a good value for your money? No wonder that a recent sur-vey by Consumers Union found that people dread buying health insurance more than doing their taxes or going to the gym.

The university’s School of Public Health (SPH), Consumers Union and the American Institutes for Research are taking on this problem, launch-ing a partnership to help consumers make smart health plan choices with greater ease.

An estimated 180 million people with health insurance are struggling

with this, and about 30 million more people will be buying health insurance in 2014, as required by the 2010 federal health-care reform legislation.

“But if consumers can’t understand health plan options, we won’t be able to achieve the public policy goals of reducing health-care costs and increas-ing access to care,” says Bonnie Braun, faculty scholar in SPH’s Horowitz Center for Health Literacy, who is co-leading the initiative.

Braun and her colleagues are col-lecting consumer input to measure their knowledge, ability and confi-dence to make smart health insurance decisions. The resulting guides will be used to educate them and inform pub-lic health policy. The goal is for people to be able to compare health plans and make the best, most affordable choice for their needs.

Illustrations by Brian G. Payne

7FEBRUARY 2012 btc

accoladesMichele Joy Gelfand, professor of psychology, is one of seven recipients worldwide of the new Anneliese Maier Research Award. Created by Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, it recognizes the world’s top innova-tors in comparative cultural and conflict research.

Gelfand will use her nearly $335,000 prize to continue working on her widely recognized studies linking cultural and national conflict with societal norms and the degree of tolerance for those who deviate from those norms with researchers at Jacobs University Bremen.

In Lessons from the

Podium: Public Speaking

as a Leadership Art, Steven D. Cohen, graduate assistant in the Department of Communication, lifts the curtain on the techniques used by powerful public speakers and challenges readers to improve their own skills.

Kevin Roy, associate professor of family science, maintains in his new book, Nurturing Dads:

Fatherhood Initiatives

Beyond the Wallet, that care is not a mothers-only experience. Fathers providing more than financial provision, he says, give children a better start in life.

BOOKSHELF

In the School of Public Health, Dean Robert S. Gold has been named

president of the Society for Public

Health Education, and Family Science

Chair Elaine Anderson became

president of the National Council on

Family Relations.

Jenny Roche Hodgson,

undergraduate program

director and advisor

in the Department

of Behavioral and

Community Health, was

selected by the Maryland

Parents Association as the 2011

Outstanding Academic Advisor.

In the College of Education, Sharon Fries-Britt, associate

professor of education

leadership, higher

education and

international

education, received the

Association for the Study of Higher

Education’s annual Mentoring Award.

Noah Drezner, assistant

professor of education leadership,

higher education and international

education, has been named an

American College Personnel

Association Emerging Scholar.

Gov. Martin O’Malley has

appointed Kenneth Apfel, professor of the practice in the

School of Public Policy, as a member

of the Maryland Health Benefit

Exchange Board. It gives provides

individuals and small-business

owners a resource for comparing

insurance products, buying coverage

and obtaining federal subsidies.

David Barbe, director of the

Maryland Technology Enterprise

Institute, was named a Champion

of Change by the White House for

his “work in helping to create high-

quality jobs in the United States.”

Richard Eaton Professor of Broadcast

Journalism Mark Feldstein won the

2011 American Journalism Historians

Association prize for his book,

Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon,

Jack Anderson, and the Rise of

Washington’s Scandal Culture.

Between the Columns is published twice per semester by University Marketing and Communications. Story ideas are welcome and should be sent to Monette Bailey, managing editor, at btwthecolumns@umd.edu or call 301.405.4629. ¶ The mailing list is generated through University Human Resources. Any changes to names and addresses should be made through ares.umd.edu.

$908,714,381GREAT EXPECTATIONS CAMPAIGN TOTAL AS OF JAN. 29, 2012

President Wallace D. Loh is followed in the December main commencement procession by alumnus and astronaut Richard R. “Ricky” Arnold II M.S. ’92, who addressed the graduates. They are led by Mahlon Straszheim, associate provost.

Photo by Mike Morgan

Between the ColumnsUniversity Marketing and Communications2101 Turner Hall, College Park, MD 20742

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AFTER THREE DECADES of teaching psychology at Maryland, Robert Steele (inset) retired, thinking he and his wife, Jean, would spend time expanding their nationally known art collection. His retire-ment lasted one month.

Since 2004, he’s served as executive director of the university’s David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora. It’s allowed him to professionally champion the contributions of oft-overlooked artists and nurture new talent—something the Steeles had done privately for more than 30 years.

The couple met at an Episcopal divinity school—Robert is an ordained minister—and have amassed more than 1,000 artworks by African Americans.

Most are drawings, paintings and silk-screened prints or serigraphs. Jazz is a dominant theme, as is religion.

The Steeles gave 227 pieces to the center in 2009. A spring exhibit, in collab-oration with the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, will feature the Steeles’ col-lection to illustrate the influence of jazz on visual arts. There will be complemen-tary performances and discussions.

The Driskell center, named for the professor emeritus, scholar and collector, is a rarity on university campuses. “To have a major university that has devoted space and resources [specifically] to the African-American contributions to the American canon … We

are unprecedented,” says Robert Steele.Its gallery hosts three to four exhibits

a year and serves as an educational gath-ering place for artists, scholars, museum professionals and art administrators. The center is broadening its reach through collaborations and the digitizing of the collection and Driskell’s papers.

Pamela Franks, deputy director for collections and education at the Yale University Art Gallery, calls the center a “really dynamic presence on campus and in the field of American art.” She credits Steele

and the staff for making the center a nationally recognized institution

in just a decade. “The service he’s given is truly extraordi-nary,” she says. “He gave [the center] a public face.”

Driskell Exhibit Showcases Director’s Collection / By monette Austin Bailey

After a 10-year, 15-venue tour around the country, “Successions: Prints by African American Artists from the Jean and Robert Steele Collection” returned to the David C. Driskell Center for an exhibit that opened Feb. 2. For details, visit www.driskellcenter.umd.edu.