Student Highlights

This past year student teams won several national championships. The University's Quiz Team won the 2008 National Academic Quiz Tournament championship over more than two dozen competitors in a fast-paced test of academic and general knowledge. The University Mock Trial team won the American Mock Trial Association's national championship for an unprecedented fifth time. Our team competed in mock criminal trials before a panel of state and federal judges. A team of University students ranked first place among U.S. universities, and captured second place worldwide, in the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon, an international competition to design, build and operate a fully solar powered house. Engineering students won first place in the Society of Automotive Engineers competition to design, build and race a formula-style racing car. The Maryland car defeated 80 other formula car teams. After winning first place for ten years and then missing the podium for the last two years, our engineering students have regained the top spot in the American Helicopter Design competition. This past August our students won the International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle competition held in San Diego. Our robotic submarine competed against teams from India, Canada, Japan, as well as the United States. In the final competition the robots had to find their way through a starting gate, follow a pipeline, dock with a buoy, and track and hover over an acoustic pinger before grabbing and carrying an object to a floating ring.

In the sports world our competitive cheer team won its third consecutive national title and wrestling won its first ACC championship since 1973. Six alumni, three former soccer team members and three former field hockey players, were named to the U.S. Olympic squad that competed in Beijing. A former basketball player competed for Lithuania.

Last fall students launched the Veteran Student Organization to enhance services available to veteran students. A recognition event sponsored by Student Affairs and the student leadership was held during a home football game that included video messages from our students serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The first VSO initiatives were to establish a Maryland Military Veterans Scholarship Fund and a Veterans Memorial Fund, and to educate the campus about the challenges facing veteran students.

A hearty happy birthday goes to The Mighty Sound of Maryland marching band that turns 100 this year. Over the past century the band has always represented the University with pride and distinction.

My perusal of the national Engineers Without Borders web site shows that our chapter leads the nation in the number of projects it has undertaken for people in rural areas around the world. Its projects design, build and install water, sanitation and energy systems. This past summer the chapter took on three projects, two sites in Burkina Faso and one in Peru. About 100 EWB student members from across the campus are led by chapter president Phil Hannam. These EWB projects are a life changing experience for many involved as a note from Phil to advisor Deborah Goodings this past summer clarifies. Let me read part of it to you.

"The communities of Dakole and Nakar outside of Dissin, Burkina Faso have a solar powered water pumping mechanism and a storage tank outfitted with four tap stands for easy access to the water. Some community gardens had already been placed prior to our arrival, and even more were being created in anticipation of us finishing our system. On the final day of the project, the communities gathered,,,to thank us and exchange gifts; Dakole gave the students a ram, two chickens, and two pigeons. Nakar was too poor to give us any gifts, but the women in the community created a song and dance in Dagara: [translation] "For a long time, we were thirsty. Then people came, and they dug a well. But we were still thirsty. And then you came and gave us the water we needed, and knowledge to keep it."