terrapinsanity.com

In response to the campus decision to build a new president’s mansion (err, “event center” – yeah, that’s it, event center), yesterday’s Post LTE had what seems to be a representative view: “The president’s fancy new house may be meant to win over donors, but what it says about priorities is further reducing my interest in donating.”

Unfortunately, leadership continues to demonstrate how they still don’t get it. John Lauer, head of the Foundation through which funds are being laundered, defends the actions (and at the same time demonstrates how they don’t get media relations either – hammering home the same wrong message and stretching out the bad press into more news cycles.)

Lauer is pretty explicit: he and his fellow one percenters think it is just gauche to have their exclusive wine-and-cheese events in an old building, or one of the many other “event centers” where they might have to share. Rossborough Inn, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center, the Grand Ballroom in Stamp, the Atrium in Stamp or reception areas specifically crafted for this purpose in new buildings like Knight, Kim or Van Munching. Good Lord … hold activities where rich donors might actually see students? The humanity of it all! We all know that the only time it is appropriate to see students is when they are busing your table for minimum wage or cheering a sports team (so long as you are safely ensconced in your expensively-build skybox in Byrd Stadium.)

Heaven forbid that Mr. Lauer and his crew be forced to erect tents in order to gain the exclusivity they deserve. Students in substandard classrooms must clearly wait in line behind such priorities. These millionaires need their own place, and UM’s campus leaders are just being sensitive to their needs.

Congrats and a tip of the hat once again to Freeman Hrabowski’s UMBC chess team for placing well (second) in a prestigious national competition. In the last decade they have been regulars in win, place or show at the national level, and garner some great visibility for campus scholarship along the way.

Today’s news cycle handily illustrates some contrasts between UMBC and College Park campus leadership, contrasts which are increasingly noticed around the state even if not in the rarefied reaches of Main Admin. At the same time readers learn that UMBC canvasses donors to support chess scholarships which enable nationally-recognized cerebral achievements, they learn that UMCP canvasses donors to support construction of a new President’s Residence. With a reported price tag of $7.2 million, the move is described by campus as necessary because the old residence was a “lousy place to throw a party.”

Scholars who lack updated facilities for research, students who study in classrooms with leaky roofs or live in housing with untenable plumbing, and staff who have endured years of furloughs while working under the whip of tone-deaf, self-absorbed leadership will all sleep easier tonight knowing that their president will soon have a better place to throw a party.

Taxpayers will surely see other kinds of news from these campuses over time. After all, this is just one news cycle. Or as chess-master Hrabowski knows it, just the next move in a long game.

We’re sure the student athletes in under-performance programs (you know, ones that graduated students instead of make money for the all-controlling athletics association) feel okay for eliminating their sport so the athletics association can get new artificial turf on practice fields, to the tune of $1 million (thanks for that, Diamondback.)

College Park is well known for its willingness to serve Democratic Party needs, for which our campus leaders get accommodation now and then. We provide gainful employment for officials who are in a holding pattern between administrations, we generate studies to give political cover to policy moves sought by the Party, and we set up a nice backdrop when the party needs a scenic photo-op with images of youthful support.

Sometimes what we do is spill the beans.

That happened in a recent advertisement from the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute, an operation inside our Engineering School. Mtech is promoting a new “clean energy challenge” and as part of that sent out advertisements linking to its web page, which announced “As part of the Obama Administration’s effort to support and empower the next generation of American clean energy entrepreneurs, the Department of Energy awarded $360,000 for the $100K ACC Clean Energy Challenge …” (We saved the full advertisement, which you can see by clicking on the image below.)

Spending $360,000 for a $100,000 challenge. Yeah, that’s about right for this administration.

It took a day but the web page was subsequently changed to remove this language. Clearly, someone had a “what were you thinking?” conversation with Mtech. At time of this writing, however, their web site retains the rest of the party pandering, which is the energy event’s kick off with a screening of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.

Serious scientists on this campus study climate change, and we’re shocked that they would be willing to have the value of their work overwhelmed with the public image of someone who right, wrong or indifferent now serves as America’s top junk science huckster. Will researchers in the science college even be allowed to add an asterisk to this Mtech kick off? Doubtful. To most observers, UM climate research will be hitched to the Al Gore junk wagon.

What a record setting year for Terrapin football, and with a fitting climax. In 21 minutes of play the Terps blow a 27 point lead, losing to NC State.

Seriously. Has anyone looked into whether they’re balancing the athletics program budget by fixing point spreads in on-line betting?

In the Diamondback reporting of Saturday evening’s alert to residents of an armed robbery, a campus spokesman stated:

“This was not a true victim walking down the street who was targeted by a criminal. It was a criminal who had things taken by other criminals,” Velez said.

Oh, okay. Learning we have twice the number of criminals than we originally thought were out on the streets makes us feel so much better. (Good grief!)

Robert Spector, a relatively new arrival with the title Vice President for Administrative Affairs, today circulated a memo defining “Principles of Ethical and Responsible Conduct” for all faculty and staff in College Park. Without the supporting references to campus rules, the text of this document is just over 1000 words. You can find it at a web site
http://www.responsibleconduct.umd.edu/.

Please forgive us our cynicism, but scrutinizing documents and divining the meaning of words is something that faculty are supposed to do. We thus sent this campus document through several of the on-line plagiarism checkers (among other checks in vetting), only to have them consistently ding the submission for unoriginal content. (Free services such as http://plagiarisma.net/ are available in case you want to check for yourself, though better for-pay ones are available to us.) And at top of the list of earlier sources? The University of Delaware site
http://www.udel.edu/responsibleconduct/.

And no wonder it got a hit. It is basically the same list of points, with the same nuanced phrases, the same supporting text and for that matter even the same graphic motif on the web site, which by the way does not match standard HTML conventions on other UM sites.

In short, it looks like the University of Maryland statement of Ethical and Responsible Conduct was simply plagiarized from a University of Delaware site. Call up the text side by side and tell us how a reasonable person can reach any other conclusion.

Looking into Spector’s history on this campus, it gets a little more problematic. The campus press releases announcing his arrival here confirm he came from University of Delaware – the same office from which our new statement was lifted. Oops.

How can we possibly talk with our students about intellectual integrity with our leadership setting an example like this?

Specter is listed as Chief Financial Officer for the campus too. One has to wonder if he has a different view of what rules govern ethical behavior in that role as well. Anyone else keeping track of the cash?

Yup – for three weeks in a row the men’s football team looked simply fabulous.

Too bad they didn’t play the same way. Those new uniforms are just to die for. And they do.

Today we learn another example of how college has become the new high school. Prince George’s students will have an option to take courses at Prince George’s Community College so when they graduate from high school they will also get an AA degree at the same time. In this era of credential inflation, where a high school diploma is rarely worth the paper it is printed on, well-intentioned people have obviously tried to help students get a credential that might mean something – at least until credential inflation renders those degrees worthless too.

But College Park, ever one step ahead, declares we can demean higher education even more. Focusing the flagship’s attention on the local community college market, our campus will partner with Prince George’s county to open a new charter school, wherein students will satisfy high school degree requirements by taking Gen Ed courses on our campus.

That’s right. PGCC only advertised that their community college classes are worth what used to be a high school level of education. College Park does that one better. We’re advertising that our brand new CORE – once touted as a national model of excellence – is really just a high school level preparation.

Let’s flash back to the hype, err, preparation for our latest incarnation of CORE. To pave the way forward and serve as a foundation for our role as a leader in the international community, the Director of Admissions cooked up a marketing program we adopted this “visionary” curriculum which will be the “signature” experience on our campus.

But today, College Park’s advertisement is: “Come sit side-by-side with walk-in’s from the local public school system and get another high school education.” Yeah. That’ll really attract top young scholars.

In the Gazette article linked above, President Loh says the charter school is a way to help faculty become more acquainted with Prince George’s county so we all feel more comfortable moving into the county and nearer to campus. Lack of a safe community of high quality really is a barrier to our recruiting (we strongly agree with that point) so his theory is that putting PG kids in our classrooms will somehow make us feel good about relocating into PG county.

Like that’s gonna work.

Message to Dr. Loh: HEY NEW GUY! Speaking as one of the many people who have lived here a lot longer than you have, familiarity with the county is why we moved the hell out in the first place.

We don’t fault PG kids from similarly wanting to get out, but bringing Prince George’s standards and temperament into our classrooms is not the way to attract top scholars to a would-be internationally recognized institution, nor is it going to keep top faculty who instead of just moving residence to Montgomery or Howard will flee to another university system altogether.

Success in world markets and influence in world affairs depends critically on technology and a nation’s ability to shape its workforce into the next generation of leaders. This is where America has shined – innovation, daring, investment in education and freedom to try new things all made us the dominant force of the last century.

This freedom also enabled competitors to watch what we did, learn from our experience and ante into the game without the overhead of upgrading legacy infrastructure. Industrial wannabe countries could launch their rise with new technology (pioneered here) without the headache of figuring out what to do with the previous generation technology (and its workforce) that might have led to the new tech in the first place.

Today nobody learns better from us than China, via lessons we give for free … and those it takes from us.

Having given up our leading role in most other industries, America’s last edge is in research and education around technology. We’ve been good at it and China both knows it and wants it. In effect we are at war, one that China wages well and America isn’t even fighting, where research prowess is one of the decisive factors in the question of whether East or West will dominate the world in the new millennium. The list of skirmishes is long but you see more in the news nearly every day. A few illustrating our point:

• China cyber warfare efforts repeatedly targeted Google for its technology.
• Chinese products ship with malware designed to give China control over industrial systems. (Did you like the software hack that took out Iranian centrifuges, crippling their nuclear program? Then you’ll love what China ships in its SCADA – supervisory control and data acquisition – systems to industry across the US.)
• China continues to run intense cyber attacks on US officials.

Is this espionage the work of China? Of course. In other reports, Chinese networking surveillance is credited with almost completely eliminating rogue cyber crime in that country. What that leaves are the sanctioned and authorized efforts – you know, only efforts approved by the government.

The University of Maryland already kowtows to China.

• That country’s students have first dibs on slots for our freshman admissions – admit decisions aren’t sent to Maryland taxpayers’ families until two months after Chinese scholars’ letters go out and we learn how many fall seats will be left over for us.
• Our faculty play the game by accepting all-expense-paid trips to travel in China in return for agreeing to deliver their research along the way, if not also pause between visits to the usual tourist spots in order to teach how to use new technology.
• Maryland resources support Chinese visitors, embedded in our laboratories and responsible for channeling it back to the mother country.
• Our previous university president, Dan Mote, is on record as saying one of our purposes of active study abroad programs is to prepare Maryland students to go get jobs in China.

And let’s not forget, that days after IARPA – the Intelligence Advanced Projects Agency – announced it would locate in College Park at our M-Square, China announced it would set up a laboratory in M-Square, with UM’s help of course. What a coincidence!

Is our commentary on this just some sort of gloom mongering? If it is, then we are not alone. On April 26 of this year, Supervisory Special Agent David Musgrove, of the FBI’s Cyber Crime Squad in Baltimore (one of the largest such units because of the density of government facilities in this region), told UM’s Cyber Security Center (in its seminar series) that “China is stealing this country blind”, and moreover UM is one of the key conduits of research and intellectual property that go out the door. The feds recognize that full time agents of China are responsible for collecting technical information, which in some cases may be applied more quickly back in China than here, and for leveraging our laboratory facilities as a cheaper and superior resource for designing new products to sell around the world. A good laboratory can cost millions. Why would China capitalize in labs when the US is willing to pay Chinese technicians to work for them in our facilities?

A consequence of all this is, again according to Musgrove, that “our service men and women face their own country’s technology on the battlefield.”

What are the odds that network protocol and router technologies which are critical to monitoring China’s own people (e.g. to crush the Jasmine Revolution) came from College Park’s computer science program, itself a center of research in protocols and network tech? What are the odds that our cutting edge coursework in mobile devices will get more attention in Beijing than in DC?

NCIX Poster

And who can name the first technology that came to College Park in any ‘technology exchange’? Thus we come to the sad point of this note, that in spite of the backdrop painted above, Maryland’s role in the global conflict on-going today will be to expand our efforts … on behalf of China. President Wallace Loh, in his June 13 letter to the community, reported on his participation in an official state visit to China, his “ancestral land”. Read for yourself how our campus has rosier relations than ever with China, and in particular how we schmooze with the Confucius Institutes – a front group monitored by DHS as haven for agents of China’s extensive central propaganda department (news and information media) and overseas intelligence collection (espionage.)