HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

• Founded a School of Public Health that will become the first accredited School of Public Health at a public university in the mid-Atlantic region


• Ranked #37 among all universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universies


• Ranked first nationally for the total number of degrees granted to African American students among the nation’s top 25 public universities


• Announced remarkable scientific discoveries: conversion of grass to ethanol, invention of an additive-free recyclable plastic and creation of the world’s fastest computer


• Won the National Medal of Science (Rita Colwell), the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics (John C. Mather) and a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award (Ruth DeFries)


• Opened a new Bioscience Research building with $20 million annual research potential


• Jointly commissioned the opera Later the Same Evening with the National Gallery of Art


• Recruited the new federal Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity headquarters to the University’s Research Park


• Exceeded $475 million raised toward $1 billion capital campaign goal by 2011


• Exceeded $6 million in gifts to the campaign by University employees in 2007 alone


• Selected developer and initiated planning for the new 38-acre East Campus development


• Created the Maryland Pathogen Research Institute with 46 faculty investigators plus students to address infectious diseases


• Eight faculty contributed to the work of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore


• Created a “cloak” that bends light around physical objects making them invisible!


• Opened the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora


• Won first place nationally and second place worldwide in the Department of Energy’s 2007 Solar Decathlon (an undergraduate team)


• Won the Pulitzer Prize in History (Gene Roberts)

“Our higher education system is the foundation of our ability to compete in the knowledge-based economy.”