terrapinsanity.com

Noname Street? Really?

From: “Information Alert”
To: “UMD Alert Users”
Subject: Traffic Alert
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:07:30 -0500

A major traffic event is taking place between stadium dr/Noname st on Paintbranch dr avoid the area & take alt route

Sent by UMD Alerts to Traffic (E-mail, Pagers, Cell phones) through UMD Alerts
… powered by the Roam Secure Alert Network

The above issued 30 to 40 minutes after fire crews responded to a report of fire at AV Williams Building, next to the Wind Tunnel. Perhaps one of those landmarks might have been more useful to orient people.

Today’s Gazette reports that USM made social security and credit card numbers for 8,000 prospective students openly available on the internet over a three year period, as exposed in a legislative audit.

(Entertainingly, administrators’ internal view seems to evidence more concern that this conclusion was exposed in Annapolis than for the data exposure on the internet.)

What a great way to make prospective students feel welcome here!

Prospective students are often caught short by UM’s “priority consideration” deadline for application to this campus. November 1 comes awfully early, in fact seems to be the earliest of the “early decision” dates we can find.

Of course, this is not an “early decision” deadline. The fine print says: “Students should apply by this date for best consideration, for merit-based scholarships and invitations to special programs.” There is an extra comma in that sentence. You can apply later – people do and in fact gain admissions right up to nearly the first day of class. But if you want scholarships or programs, November 1 is it.

So what’s been going on in the last twelve weeks since the deadline? Admissibility decisions were made before Thanksgiving. Vetting for Honors program (and similar) opportunities commenced and concluded before Christmas. That’s the obvious activity, but doesn’t explain why we are still a week or two away away from any general decisions being released. Why does a process which started before Thanksgiving take until after Groundhog Day to become public? What else is going on?

While eager but otherwise ordinary applicants watched the clock, applicants from China were notified of offers in early December. By MOU, these students in specific STEM paths (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) have priority and get notice months before Maryland residents.

Through early January, athletes who are to be recruited for the various (remaining) programs here get their offer packages.

Only after China and the athletics program have cherry-picked their applicants from the pool does the Admissions and Honors program know how many slots are available for them to make offers.

When UM says November 1 is the deadline for best consideration, it means for these special programs – not Maryland residents who thought their bright kids might have priority at the flagship campus. Those of the latter group who applied last October will learn the outcome of their application in a couple weeks.

As previously blogged, UM’s blanket endorsement of the Purple Line puts our name on all the consequences of its implementation, good and bad. You can now see the map and specific properties to be taken by the construction. We’re about at the point when we can put specific names to properties affected by this “good neighbor”, the campus.

USM doesn’t seem to do anything involving athletics that doesn’t also involve controversy these days, and so it is that the Comcast Center’s basketball court will be named for long-time coach Gary Williams.

Why pick Williams, so recently departed that he is still on the payroll, when they could finally have given Lefty Driesell his due? Or honored the role of scholarship among athletes by naming it for basketball star Rhodes scholar Tom McMillen? Cash. At least, that’s what the rumor which was persistent enough for it to be reported in the Sun article. Though officials publicly deny it, the report was that the naming would be tied with a big donation. The surprise would be if it was not tied with cash, and with their budget in the dumpers, fans should be demanding to know why officials missed an opportunity to milk some donor. Still, there are plenty of piece of Comcast left to carve out for naming opportunities so long as they find people with more dollars than sense. Len Bias Mezzanine, anyone?

The article’s take-away point to UM faculty and staff is: even after retirement Gary is paid more by campus than anyone currently involved in scholarship and content delivery on our campus.

To quote some students living on north campus: “Who was the genius that decided the Duke game had to be on first day of classes?”

Indeed! But as we pointed out to them, College Park is not a campus with an athletics problem. It is an industrial sports operation with a campus problem.

We often write about budget ironies – administrators who raise tuition or donations in the name of excellence or student opportunities, but who then spend out on exclusive buildings, exclusive parties or expensive sports programs before going off to celebrate victory (of their shakedown, not sports.)

One of the expensive assistant coaches hired in the last year may have celebrated just a little too much. The Baltimore Sun reports assistant men’s basketball coach Dalonte Hill has been arrested for DUI.

Here’s a man paid more than almost all faculty members in the state of Maryland to work on something completely unrelated to (if not at odds with) educational programs. Now he won’t be working even at that, at least for the near term. The same article reports he won’t be with the team in the upcoming games, pending a campus review of the situation.

Everything in Maryland will soon get more expensive once Governor O’Malley gets his way in the recently-proposed budget just submitted to the General Assembly. For those keeping score, that includes tuition. Campus tuition would go up three percent under his proposal.

Chancellor Kirwan’s ‘megamail’ fundraising message rolled out this morning to all employees, asking for donations to Maryland Charities. He reminds us, as “remarkably generous and civic-minded men and women”, that:

[T]he demand for the essential health and human services MCC organizations provide continues to expand. Whether it be food and shelter for the needy, heath care for the elderly and infirmed, or assistance for our veterans, there remains tremendous
unmet need in our communities.

We agree. But judging from the newly-razed president’s house (making way for an event facility), lavish parties feting transitions of administrators, and immense buy-outs of athletic staff contracts in order to cherry pick an elite even if non-academic operation, Brit must have sent a very different fundraising letter to the one-percenters.

Lots of emergency text alerts today as the community was notified of a fire in JM Patterson building. Good information scramble this time, and we’re glad there are no reports of injuries. We all still need to learn details of what happened but … one detail is awkward. JM Patterson is home of (drum roll please) the Fire Protection Engineering program.

Oops.