A WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMS PEOPLE'S LIVES: INCREASING OPPORTUNITY AND PROSPERITY

FINANCIAL AID

Providing financial aid to students who qualify continues to be a priority for the University. This year’s need-based aid was $11.3 million, a jump of $3.1 million over last year.

Making a university education accessible to all qualified students is a cornerstone of the University of Maryland’s mission. Several years ago the University undertook an ambitious new approach to need-based financial aid, targeting the most financially disadvantaged students. The three-part Pathways program provides aid to students facing several types of need.

Pathways I provides a debt-free, four-year graduation opportunity for students from poverty-level circumstances. It covers tuition and fees plus room and board for four years. Pathways II enables students to contribute to their own educational expenses by working, but provides scholarships to replace Pell grant support that might be lost due to their earnings. Just instituted last year, Pathways III caps a student’s accumulated debt to the cost of one year for rising seniors who started as freshmen and are from moderate-income families.

In the current fiscal year, the Pathways program is distributing $2.5 million in financial aid. Of that, $1.6 million was provided in work grants, $380,000 in Pell grant equivalents and the debt cap savings to graduating seniors totaled $546,000. The debt-reduction portion of Pathways has an important social effect. It allows graduating students to take important service jobs like teaching and social work, which may not be high paying, but are vital to our communities.

Our successes with financial aid are being noticed nationally. Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine ranked the University of Maryland 25th in the nation among public universities for lightest debt load. But to make a University education accessible to everyone who is qualified, we must do even more. Great Expectations, The Campaign for Maryland will raise more than $350 million for financial aid.

This Fall the Maryland Incentive Awards Program announced its expansion to three additional high schools in Prince George’s County for a total of 17 schools in Maryland. The program is currently providing full four-year scholarships to students from 14 public high schools in Maryland, and by Fall of 2009 students from all 17 high schools will be enrolled at the University. Thanks to generous contributions from the Prince George’s County Council and private donors, this year more students in Prince George’s County are able to enjoy these life-transforming opportunities. All of the scholarship students return to local high schools at least once each semester to share their University of Maryland experiences.

CLOSING THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP

Several factors have been shown to impact student graduation rates: low family income, first-generation college attendance and below average proficiency in mathematics. We will identify students at risk due to such circumstances and aid them to achieve satisfactory progress toward the degree. Among the assistance strategies are: instruction in time management, development of study skills, workshops in mathematics, opportunities for career exploration and strengthened mentoring. Students on academic probation will also have specific courses in comprehensive reading, study skills and time management. This new plan will be implemented for students entering in the Fall 2008.

TRAINING TEACHERS FOR THE STATE

The College of Education prepares teachers in several areas of existing shortages, and assists Maryland schools in preparing students for college. To support adolescent literacy across the curriculum 36 secondary school teachers from Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties were enrolled in the Adolescent Literacy Coaching Certificates program, now in its second year. To increase teacher training enrollment, the College has added a minor in education and a five-year bachelor of science/master of education degree program. Eighty new secondary teachers completed master’s certification from 2003–2005 and 119 completed degrees from 2005–2007.

Decreasing the time for certification in Special Education has boosted the number of special education teachers in 2007: from 29 teachers in 2003, to 41 teachers in 2007. In another critical area, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), 25 teachers are taking master’s degrees in TESOL through a University of Maryland partnership with Montgomery County schools. The College has expanded a paid internship initiative in Prince George’s and Montgomery County schools for the Master’s certification program, which grew the program from 16 in 2004 to 75 in 2007.

TRANSFORMING THE ENVIRONMENT

Talented students are drawn to the University of Maryland for its leadership on sustainability. Faculty, administrators and students are implementing creative, insightful solutions to environmental challenges:

• A University of Maryland undergraduate team took first place nationally and second place worldwide in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2007 Solar Decathlon. Their creative design and construction of the LEAF (Leading Us to an Abundant Future) House, showcased the University commitment to sustainability and alternative energy.
• A new living-learning community, the Ecohouse, which opened in Fall 2007, gives students opportunities to study environmental challenges and live out their solutions.
• Seven thousand, five hundred copies of The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities were distributed as the First Year Book. Extensive programming around the book included films, a year-long speaker series, an address by the author and an interactive Web site on climate change.
• Three University of Maryland architecture students won first through third places in an international competition to design storm-resistant houses called Storm Housing 2007.
• The University president was a charter signatory of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, which commits the University to neutralizing greenhouse gas emissions and to accelerating research and educational efforts to reduce human impact on the Earth’s climate. ¹¹
• The University of Maryland was ranked among the Top 15 Green Colleges and Universities in the nation by Grist magazine. Social leadership of this standard draws talented students to College Park.

CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY MEASURES

As an institution, the University is making major commitments to sustainability. The campus itself is reducing its energy consumption to reduce cost as well as its carbon footprint.

• Our bus fleet uses biodiesel fuel made from used cooking oil and our residence halls housekeeping staff uses only green seal products—no dyes or harsh chemicals.
• We have just updated our “environmentally friendly” Facilities Master Plan that extends through the year 2020.
• Our combined heat and power facility, which was awarded a 2005 Energy Star Award by the epa and the U.S. Department of Energy, uses natural gas to produce electricity, steam and chilled water while saving enough energy over the former facility to power 7,500 homes.
• Facilities Management is striving to “green up” the energy used on campus beyond the 4.6 percent renewable energy already achieved.
• A new Office of Sustainability is improving operations and better informing our faculty, students and staff about sustainability and global climate change.
• A Climate Action Plan Working Group, created by the Vice President of Administrative Affairs and the Office of Sustainability, was formed this Fall to develop a campus Climate Action Plan. The group will develop a plan within two years for meeting the conditions of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. To learn more go to www.sustainability.umd.edu.
• The new Center for Integrative Environmental Research is conducting a campus Greenhouse Gas Inventory to determine current carbon emissions.

VETERAN STUDENTS

With increasing numbers of veterans, the University formed a Veterans Services Task Force this year. The group recommended several steps for improving the experience of the more than 250 veterans on campus, including attention to the psychological, social, academic and financial components of reintegrating after service and/or deployment in the midst of studies. Additionally, the Maryland Military Veterans Scholarship Fund has been established to fill the gap between G.I. Bill benefits and the cost of a college education.

SHAPING CITIZENS

The University of Maryland’s mission includes shaping citizens who are civically engaged in their local communities and abroad. Dozens of groups on campus provide services to the surrounding communities: Habitat for Humanity, TerpCorps, Best Buddies and Clean Energy for Maryland, among them.

University of Maryland students also serve overseas through programs like Engineers Without Borders (EWB). Maryland’s chapter of ewb has sent students to Ecuador, Brazil and Thailand this past year. Currently, ewb students are undertaking two solar energy projects in Burkina Faso and installing waste-water treatment in Brazil. These projects benefit the collaborators and improve living conditions in the developing world while giving students an opportunity for international service. Undergraduates on campus participate in living-learning communities such as Global Communities, Gemstones, civicus and a new living-learning program, Women in Engineering.

The Community Partners Program completed its first grant cycle providing seed grant money to several local community based projects in conjunction with University partners. This year’s recipients are conducting three projects: outreach to Latino students considering college application, curriculum development for older residents using the Internet to access health information, and creative writing with esol students at a local high school. Also combining teaching and service, 158 graduates have served Teach for America in classrooms across the country since the program began. Undergraduates are also excavating the Wye House Farm, where abolitionist Frederick Douglass was enslaved as a boy.

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

Opportunities to practice global citizenship are available daily on the campus. Our international student body, along with 36 international student clubs, and events like the recent U. S. Helsinki Commission’s Field Hearing on Torture, allow students to gain international perspectives. Increasing numbers of our students are studying abroad in semester, summer and winter term programs that transform their lives. Last year 1,600 University of Maryland students studied in 45 countries. They also took advantage of $50,000 in scholarship money to go abroad.

The University has a partnership with the Peace Corps that provides students another path to international experience. Students working toward a Master’s of Science in sustainable development and conservation biology through the College of Chemical and Life Sciences, can now use Peace Corps service to fulfill their internship requirement. The University ranks 12th nationally for the number of its graduates who join the Peace Corps ranks.

SERVING THE STATE

Maryland Cooperative Extension (MCE), through the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, continues to shape Maryland citizens, improving the efficiency and productivity of Maryland’s businesses while protecting the environment and improving quality of life for residents. This year a Web site, created by University of Maryland students, was named the National Award Winner in Internet Education Technology by the National Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences. The site was developed by the Public Health Informatics Laboratory (School of Public Health) and the Food Stamp Nutrition Education program (MCE) to help families on limited budgets get health tips.

College Park Scholars was lauded by the Maryland House of Delegates for providing approximately 30,000 hours of service over the last 10 years to more than 100 schools, parks and non-profit agencies in Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

The University of Maryland continues to expand programs at Shady Grove, with undergraduate enrollment increasing 22 percent this past year. New programs in Communication and in Criminal Justice have attracted strong enrollment, and life sciences enrollment jumped by 46 percent over last year. We expect student enrollment in 2008 to top 1,000 and exceed 1,200 by 2010. College Park continues to oversee the operations of this site.

ATHLETICS TRANSFORMS LIVES

For the third year in a row the University of Maryland has set a record high for the number of athletes on the Atlantic Coast Conference Honor Roll: 259 (up from 254 in 2006 and 252 in 2005). The Athletics Department posted an institutional Graduation Success Rate of 78 percent, up two points from the last two years. President Bush received the field hockey team, two-time national champions, at the White House.

The Student Athlete Advisory Council introduced a new Student Athlete Honor Code that commits athletes to high standards in academics, sportsmanship, and leadership.

Athletics Director Debbie Yow announced expansion plans for Byrd Stadium. Costs of the project will be paid entirely by Athletics and private support, and will include expansion of Tyser Tower; the addition of more than 500 new seats; and new work areas for television, radio and print media.