A Century+ of Women’s Education at USM

Faculty for 1912-1913 at the Maryland Normal and Industrial School at Bowie, Maryland, a name given to the Baltimore Normal School after its relocation. Credit Bowie State University, Archives & Special Collections

Poster for UMCP exhibit.

Page from 1954 Bowie yearbook

B. Olive Cole was the first woman to graduate from the University of Maryland School of Law, earning LL.B. in 1923. She earlier earned her Phar. D. from our School of Pharmacy in 1913. Known as “First Lady of Pharmacy in Maryland,” she joined the faculty in 1920, teaching botany, materia medica, economics, and pharmaceutical law. She progressed to become the first female full Professor, and ultimately the first woman in our school to serve as Acting Dean, from 1948-49. A life member of both the Maryland Pharmaceutical Association and the American Pharmaceutical Association, she also was the only female member of the Baltimore Veteran Druggists Association.

Sarah Elizabeth Richmond, a Baltimore native, was the second student to enroll at the Maryland State Normal School (now Towson University) in 1866 and was a member of its first graduating class later that year. Following her graduation, Richmond began her 55-year tenure with the Normal School as a mathematics professor, and later the school’s first female president in 1909. One of her major accomplishments as president was relocating the school from Baltimore City to its current campus in Towson, which at the time was predominantly farmland. Richmond remained president until 1917 when she resigned to become Dean of the school. Following her death in 1921, Richmond’s legacy with the school lived on through a monetary gift that was used to establish the school’s first scholarship.

1906 Certificate for student

Summer School Group, 1920

Although women had enrolled in courses at the Maryland Agricultural College, as the University of Maryland, College Park, was then known, as early as 1907, women did not enroll as full-time students until Elizabeth Hook (left) entered on September 14, 1916, to pursue a four-year degree in entomology. Miss Hook was followed several weeks later by Charlotte Vaux (right), who received a two-year degree in agriculture in 1918. These two pioneers led the way for the over 18,400 women studying in College Park today. Photo Credits: Archives of various campuses

Clearing Pathways to Student Success

By Amelia Arria
Behavioral and Community Health, School of Public Health
Center on Young Adult Health and Development

Amelia Arria
Credit: Amelia Arria

In the midst of heated national debates about cannabis legalization, there’s at least one point of common ground – namely, that no one wants this drug, or any drug for that matter, to interfere with the health or success of young people. What is unfortunately lacking, however, in the public debate is a dialogue about the science behind the connection between cannabis use and achievement. More often, dialogues are centered around the relative “safety” of cannabis as compared to alcohol – cannabis must be “safer” than alcohol because it is not associated with passing out to the point of unconsciousness, right?

Building Excellence in Challenging Times: Fearless Ideas at College Park

ByBrit Kirwan
Chancellor Emeritus (USM)
Professor Emeritus (UMCP)

Once upon a time, in an era far from today, public universities across the country could count on significant, if not always fully sufficient, state support to carry out their missions and build the excellence of their programs.  Starting about 30 years ago, however, state investment in higher education began to decline.  While there have been momentary increases in a few years, looking back over time the long term trend is clear. Since 1985, there has been a roughly 40% decrease in state appropriations on a per FTE student basis nationally.

Voices: Senryū

By Robert Deluty, Associate Dean Emeritus, Graduate School (UMBC)

missing the midterm,
asserting I got real drunk
and misplaced my car

bio prof Gwen Poole
resisting the urge to name
her daughter, Jean

the linguist
defining are as
modern art

the freshman holding
a map of Idaho, stunned
to find Moscow

Harvard grad’s Dad
bemoaning her becoming
an activist

MIT grad’s Mom
bemoaning his becoming
a shepherd

the elderly prof
learning his first grad student
has dementia

the chemist noting
Jane Austen and Lambeau Field
have hearts of gold

a grad student
proofreading his thesis
driving at midnight

post-exam . . .
sending his prof the e-mail,
Did I fale?

Election Day . . .
college students snapping
voting booth selfies

Danish professor
calling the Viking symbols
Norse code

the miller’s son
opting to apply to Rice,
Cornell, Wheaton

the statistician
loving that math is part
of Uma Thurman

Pat Summitt Earned Respect for Women’s Sports, But We Still Aren’t Giving It

By Kevin Blackistone
Merrill College of Journalism

This article is a reprint of a column written by Kevin Blackistone, Professor of the Practice in the Merrill School of Journalism.  He is also a columnist for the Washington Post, and a commentator on ESPN.   The column originally ran in the Washington Post on June 29, 2016, on the occasion of the death of Pat Summitt, longtime coach of the University of Tennessee’s women’s basketball team.

A year ago this month, Purdue professor Cheryl Cooky released an update to her study of television news coverage of women’s sports. She found, not surprisingly, that women’s sports still received a mouse’s share of coverage compared to a lion’s share for men.

Undocumented Students at the University

By Janelle Wong
Asian American Studies Program, UMCP

The Maryland Dream Act and deferred action

In 2012, Maryland voters approved the “Maryland Dream Act.” The law allows undocumented immigrant students who have attended a Maryland high school for at least 3-years to pay in-state public tuition rates if they meet certain requirements, including completion of 60 credits at a state community college and proof that their parent or guardian has filed a state income tax return for at least 3 of the years the student was in high school.

Has the Maryland Dream Act been a success? Attaining higher education remains a challenge for most undocumented students, and the number of students who graduate from a four-year institution is small.  College is unaffordable for many undocumented students, even with in-state tuition, because they do not qualify for state or federal financial aid. As such, Governing, a publication for state and local elected, appointed, and career officials, reports that in most states, less than 1% of all undergraduates are undocumented.  A 2012 study by scholars at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, projected that just 435 students would take advantage of the Maryland Dream Act each year.

Community Action People: It’s All About Call and Response

By Jane Hirshberg
Campus and Community Engagement Manger
The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center has always been committed to creating programming that responds to voices in its surrounding community. In the past five years, however, that commitment has been exemplified by some extraordinary projects that have reached people who either never would have considered coming to the UMD campus, let alone The Clarice, or people who have not considered themselves arts lovers—until they were invited to experience creative expression that was full of relevance to their lives. To that end, The Clarice has created a group we call Community Action People, made up of people who are community leaders, arts advocates, artists, teachers, elected officials and many others. This group meets once every two months and focuses on a specific topic of interest to the group’s members. Each meeting happens at a different space, hosted by a different community-based organization, with key contributors participating to inform subject matter. But before we get too deep into what the group is now, let’s look at its history and how it has evolved to be a dynamic and influential force for not only the leadership of The Clarice, but for the entire UMD campus.

Poet Nikky Finney reading at At War With Ourselves event; Credit: The Clarice

Effectiveness and Efficiency 2.0: A Further Response

By Howell Baum
Professor Emeritus
Urban Studies and Planning Department
University of Maryland

In previous issues, the Voice has published about the Effectiveness and Efficiency 2.0 (E&E2.0) initiative of the Board of Regents, and also reactions from various faculty members.   Below is another of the reactions.

“Efficiency” and “effectiveness” are favored terms in much of contemporary culture.  Offered a choice, we typically prefer greater efficiency or effectiveness to less.  However, much talk about “efficiency” and “effectiveness” ignores their precise meanings, and “rational” language often cloaks judgments made intuitively or on the basis of “common sense” or political interest.  Nevertheless, even with careful attention to the meanings of “efficiency” and “effectiveness,” there are three difficulties in relying on them to make decisions about programs: (1) they can be difficult to operationalize in real-life situations; that is, it can be hard to say what these concepts mean with regard to real programs; (2) even if the concepts can be operationalized, it can still be difficult or even impossible to collect data that actually measure efficiency or, particularly, effectiveness; and (3) in any case, efficiency and effectiveness can conflict in real situations, supporting different, possibly opposing decisions and providing no definitive guidance.  

Images: Artstor

Artstor is an online repository of close to two million images in the arts, architecture, archeology and other areas.  It is freely available to members of the College Park and some other campuses in the system, and access can be arranged for faculty on other campuses.  Here is a sample of images in Artstor.

Temple of Apollo, Delphi, Greece

 

12th-16th century market place, Durham, England

Frank Gehry, Auditorium interior, Walt Disney Concert Hall, 2003

Fountain, Rebecca Belmore, Video installation at the Canadian Pavilion of the Venice Biennale, 2005

Male Shinto deity

Meridian Hill Park (Wash. D. C.), Horace Peaslee, 20th century

Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon, Pablo Picasso, 1907

30 years and counting

The first issue of the Voice was published in winter, 1986, and it has published continually since then.  For this 30th anniversary edition, the Voice invited several distinguished members of the university community from across the system to reflect backwards and especially forwards.   These articles appear here and in future editions.   Also we reprint some still-pertinent articles from the inaugural issue.   It was founded with a grant from the Federation of Maryland Teachers, and with the enthusiast support of William (Brit) Kirwan, then Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost.

Since its inception, the Voice has been an independent voice.    Articles in the Voice are contributed by faculty and other members of the university community, and the editors contribute their time and effort.   The Voice is appreciative of the support, in readership and in contributed articles, it has received over the years from the university community across the System, and looks forward to continuing to publish opinion and creative efforts of our community.