Letters to the editor

It’s wonderful to see women journalists highlighted and recognized for their achievements. Kudos to Connie Chung for her tenacity and resilience building her illustrious career. It would have been nice to mention another UMD trailblazer, Catherine “Cassie” Mackin ’60. She was the first woman to solely anchor “NBC Sunday Nightly News” in 1976, the first woman floor reporter at the Democratic and national presidential conventions in 1972, and a co-anchor of the Emmy award-winning NBC team covering the presidential conventions in 1976. She also won an Emmy for an ABC “20/20” special report on drunk driving. The Philip Merrill College of Journalism Catherine P. Mackin Endowed Fund was established following her death in 1982 along with a collection of her papers in the UMD Archives.

I was so pleased to see the article by Karen Shih on Connie Chung. It is women like Connie that blazed the trail for other women, like me, to pursue professions that were dominated by men. I was one of very few women to graduate from the University of Maryland dental school in 1982. I started dental school at Temple, and one of my earliest memories there was on the first day of lab when we were mixing alginate (used for making impressions). The instructor came over to me and said, “It is just like mixing a cake.” I was startled, but not surprised. I answered (although not true), “I have never made a cake.” He left me alone then. The environment was much more welcoming at Maryland.

Connie is one of the reasons Maryland got on my radar early on in my college search. I wanted to be like Connie as a broadcast journalism major.

Your article struck a chord (pun intended) and a trip down memory lane! In my graduating year of civil engineering, I decided to round out my education and volunteer at what was then WMUC AM 65 for the graveyard shift once per week. There was a call-in line, and my friends would ask for 1960s retro tunes—none of which was on the contemporary playlist (“Gloria” by Laura Branigan, “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band and “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor).

Being a DJ was better than attending Toastmasters in learning to minimize dead airtime, training oneself to minimize or eliminate “uh”s and “ah”s as you gather your thoughts, talking in cohesive sentences and organizing. I used those skills in my career with the U.S. Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security in presentations and at international forums. In retrospect, I’m not sure if I fit your article’s “loners, punks and weirdos.” Hmm, maybe I do!

Your article brought back many memories of my undergraduate years and continuing education during the 1980s. I worked various student jobs, many in the Stamp Student Union. I will always remember WMUC playing in the background, no matter what the hour of the day or night. Thank you for the history lesson. (I’m now an educator.) Go Terps!

We were the first station in the country to have the Hall and Oates single “Maneater” and drop it! I think I was chosen to do the honors because my shift was 10-2, and most students eat during that time and would hear it either in the cafeteria or in the student union.

I also had a fan club who chose to keep their identities secret. They would always call in and ask me to play “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard” by Paul Simon. Around the time of my last shift, they revealed who they were and gave me a houseplant that they had named Julio!

Your article about the M Book brought back many memories. I donated my personal copy, received in 1965, to the Archives some years ago, but I remember quite vividly the page that included the important songs that dedicated students typically committed to memory: the Alma Mater, the Victory Song, the Fight Song and the Drinking Song.

My personal mission to bring back the Drinking Song has encountered strong opposition from respected members of the university community on the grounds that it would encourage student drinking. I disagree. Rather than encourage drinking, it simply provides a wholesome activity in which the students can engage WHILE they are drinking—singing.

Wow. Exceptional. Thank you so much for sharing Ms. Drakeford’s story. There’s so much here to learn, to praise, to sit and ponder, and to compel further activism. Would like to visit these gardens.

Great to hear about this Terp-owned brewery. I drank the Alaska Amber while on a cruise in 2006. As a homebrewer and proud Terp alumnus, I always love to hear about great alumni beer success stories. Would love to see the beer distributed out here in New Jersey. Cheers!

This is cool! Love that they’re embracing sustainability and conservation along with brewing. I’ll definitely look for their beers locally. Go Terps!

The Wind Tunnel! My favorite campus building. In 1985, I had a writing internship at the Engineering Research Center on the second floor. One day, Director Jewel Barlow gave a few of us a full tour.

I was able to visit the tunnel again during Maryland Day 2023 and let the mere 30-mph air flow through my meager hair. And Professor Barlow was still there! I was able to thank him for the tour four decades ago.

Liam Farrell’s story about his family’s roots in the coal mining industry, what has transpired since and Professor Paul Shackel’s work was just wonderful. What a remarkable confluence of personal and the big picture. Thank you.

Please give my appreciation and compliments to writer Liam Farrell and anthropology Professor Paul Shackel for the article and research described in it. As a native of northeastern Pennsylvania (Scranton), I can attest to the lives of those who worked in the mines and on the railroads. The article brought back memories from stories conveyed to me by both grand- fathers, who worked for the Erie Lackawanna Railroad.

I really enjoyed reading your editor’s note on the fun Maryland Day events that you have had! My father was Clifford Sayre Jr. Ph.D. ’61, a longtime mechanical engineering professor at UMD. After Dad retired, I would often come down and take him to Maryland Day. We would walk around campus and to many of the student activity booths, and run into faculty members who were old friends of Dad. It was great fun to see Dad and his faculty friends smile!

Our Spring 2024 cover story prompted many alums to share notes and photos of their Terp plates, which we’ve turned into this collage.

Correction: The Spring 2024 “Driving Home Pride” cover story failed to attribute a quote from Gretchen Ricks ‘98, who said she enjoys getting honks for her GOTERPS plate. We regret the error.

I am the original turtle doctor in Wilmington, N.C.

I may hold the record of being the farthest and oldest from College Park to have a Terp license plate: I live in a suburb of San Diego. It amazes me how many people have interacted with me in California upon seeing my plate, and many offer, "Maryland is such a great university.” There are over 3,400 Maryland graduates in San Diego County, and I find that to be astonishing. Go Terps!

I have Maryland plates: MRTERPS, as in M.R. Ducks, a nod to the Eastern Shore-themed apparel store, and 4x4TERP. Prior plates include 4 TERPS (Texas and Oregon) and CMTERPPS (as in C.M. Ducks), LIL TERP and 5 TERPS (all Maryland).

I enjoyed reading the Driving Home Pride article. After retiring and moving to Delaware one of our first actions was to get our Terp license plates. It took a little effort, but we snagged two. I attached a couple of pictures to add to your collection. Go Terps!

As much as I love a good custom license plate, I was sad to see all these Maryland-themed cars highlighted and think how my Miata had missed out on being in this article (if ever there was a car that screamed Maryland pride).

Though not originally from Maryland, I am a three-time alum, and one of my COVID art projects was painting a Miata. I brought it on campus last year for a faculty art show, but otherwise haven't shown it off much.

My dream would be to bring this to the attention of the right department at the university so that the car could roll out to the side of the field on Homecoming, drop the top down, and have Testudo hop out to run out into the stadium.

Loved your article on the vanity plates. I’m a big Terp fan so when it came time to name my company I couldn’t resist. This wrap is on a 2017 VW beetle: s perfect turtle. There are three of these driving around the Baltimore Washington area. Go Terps!

A couple years ago I added a Terp plate to my electric vehicle (EV TERP). The article following this one was about EVs. Felt like both were written for me!

I have attached a photo of my tag (BIOTERP). We moved from Maryland to North Carolina in 2004 but have a significant family history associated with the university, including my wife, Nancy ’93 and daughters Noelle ’03 and Chelsea ’08. My wife and I have traveled back to College Park almost every year to attend the Homecoming football game. We have accumulated quite a treasure of memorabilia over the years, displayed in our “Terp Room,” including a basketball signed by Gary Williams in 2002, the year of the national championship, two 1984 football tickets with a picture of Boomer Esiason and a montage of campus photos taken by my wife, including a photo of Memorial Chapel, where we were married. Go Terps!

I lived in Maryland for 29 years and in several other states where I purchased Terp vanity plates. I gave one of each pair of plates to RJ Bentley’s in College Park: 1986 (Maryland): M TERPS; 1988 (Connecticut): TERPS; 1991 (Texas): TERPS; and 1992 (New York): TERPS.

I still have their mates. I would be glad to give them away to appropriate Terp supporters.

Enclosed is a photo of our vanity tag, which we put on our first motorhome in 1992. Through three motorhomes, it has been to every state except Nebraska, Louisiana, Alaska and Hawaii and racked up 165,000 miles in travels. We sold our last motorhome four years ago, and now the tag is on our car. Keep up the good work.

They missed my new plate (SCITRP): #1 Science Terp representing the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences in Northern Virginia. Shark-infested waters among all those Cavalier, Hokie and Duke Dog alums.

Great job by Maggie Haslam on the license plate article! I had TERP22 on my VA plates in 1987 in college and now have that for my motorcycle plates.

Enjoyed your piece entitled "Driving Home Pride.” I've attached an old picture of my tag.

As a descendant of Italians on both sides of my family and a Terrapin, it fills me with pride to see these students preserving a historical site in Italy. Bravo ... and Go Terps!

I read about the smell that “occasionally invades” Cheverly, Md. The article said that the smell is “similar to burning coffee—even though it’s definitely not from a Starbucks.”

I’m rather surprised no one thought it might actually be coffee: The Eight O’Clock coffee roasting facility is one of the industrial operations the article talks about. I can smell it when the wind is right. It has been my experience that the aroma from a commercial roastery (that one and others) can smell like the coffee is burnt.

Several sharp-eyed readers contacted us about this. Thank you! We passed on this information to our partners on this article at the city of College Park, who kindly shared these photos.

It’s been a whole year, yet I resist placing the Spring 2022 issue of Terp respectfully in the recycle bin. I appreciate that three of the images you published in your cover story depict College Park circa 1991–95, the years I was an undergraduate. In each image even the daylight matches my experiences. While all of the steady new construction may render the town and the campus unrecognizable from some of our collective experiences, the usefulness and novelty are already setting the place for today’s students’ own memories, and I hope they enjoy it.

I enjoyed the historic photos and can recall these landmarks from when I started at UMD and from growing up in Beltsville. I did note some inaccuracies, however:

The top photo on page 24 is labeled 1949-50. However, the car on the left side is a 1956 Chevy Belair four-door sedan. The top photo on page 27 is labeled 1949. However, the nearest car moving away from the viewer is a 1955 Chevy, and the white car in front of it appears to be an early 1960s auto.

I recall large glass panes in the front of the Book Exchange No. 2 (page 25). They were broken out during the Vietnam War protests and never replaced.

I just completed reading my Winter 2022 issue and was wowed. I was just going to read one or two articles but wound up (of course) reading the whole issue. I enjoyed learning more about NIL issues and UMD’s jump-start on it. Really liked the hopeful work Brittney Drakeford is doing—so needed in so many communities. But what really struck me was the building of a new (dining hall) named after the people who were there first: the Piscataway. Too often we forget that this land was taken by force. Our church each Sunday honors and remembers the people on whose land we are built. I worked for the Indian Health Service for 16 years and know how important this recognition can be. Makes me proud to be a Terp.

I was very pleased to learn of Professor Psyche A. Williams-Forson’s book “Eating While Black,” which reminded me of my experiences after moving from Santiago, Cuba to Baltimore in 1951 when my widowed mother remarried.

I spoke not one word of English but somehow made friends with kids in my new school. I invited a couple of them to a feast to which I was going to be introduced: Thanksgiving.

My stepfather, a pretty good cook for a dentist, broiled a turkey. The stuffing included chorizos, giblets and de-seeded prunes. The side dishes consisted of red kidney beans and rice, fried sweet plantains and yuca. Everything well condimented with garlic.

After some sniffing and quizzical looks, my new friends dug in and seemed to enjoy the unusual meal. We should embrace all of the different cultural elements that make up the American Quilt, whether it is food, literature or plain perspective. This is not “practiced tolerance,” but acceptance that we each bring something new to the table.

Reading “Standing the Testudo of Time,” I was reminded of a recent family camping trip to the Delaware Seashore State Park, where diamondback terrapins digging their nests in the warm sand lay their eggs.

Signs posted along the roadside warn drivers to “Look out for turtles.” Occasionally, a driver stops and gets out of their car to assist a diamondback in avoiding traffic.

Conclusion: This experience proved what Terp magazine promotes: Terrapins are fearless, persistent and tough, and occasionally can use some help from a friend.

I’d like to share some more material about Testudo with you. First is a circa 1930 milk cap that I bought that was from the University of Maryland Dairy, as I am a collector of the forgotten glass milk bottles. It is a heavy paper like thin cardboard, printed and waxed. I also saved my tickets to basketball games. Notice Testudo throwing the university seal to a basketball hoop. Sometimes he is smiling, and sometimes he has an angry look.

Yet another “blast from the past” that I thoroughly enjoyed reading in Terp! The images and articles reminded me of the years I worked as a student for the Department of Agricultural Engineering in a building everyone walked by but virtually no one knew existed: the Shriver Laboratory. (It was built in 1938 and razed to make way for the Edward St. John Learning and Teaching Center.)

I was its draftsman, and as a side task, they had me develop a series of new logos for the “Aggies.” They may not be remembered unless you happened to buy one of the Ag-Engineering T-shirts for a whopping $4.50 or were in the student chapter of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers.

For some reason, the department never used the dapper terrapin in the boater hat sipping a martini or the overalls-wearing farmer terrapin smoking a corncob pipe. Instead, a decision was made to use the studious Testudo holding a calculator and a couple of pencils and chewing on a piece of rye. That terrapin could also be found eating a piece of watermelon and sipping a beer (yes, up to 1982, 18-year-olds could still drink beer in Maryland!) for the annual crab feast.

When I was president of the Student Alumni Board (today’s Student Alumni Leadership Council), I donned the mascot costume once to cover for a friend who wasn’t feeling well and needed a quick break. Man, that costume was hot and heavy. I wasn’t nearly in shape to be Testudo for long, but in my 15 minutes of fame, I greeted then-Chancellor Robert Gluckstern by running up behind him and tapping him on the shoulder. He almost jumped out of his skin before smiling and giving me a high five.

Every time I read about someone wanting a ferry or bus to Ocean City because of wasted fuel, I think that person has never packed a vehicle for a week at the beach with a husband, wife and three kids, the dog and grandmother. Try transporting beach towels, picnic baskets, balls, plastic buckets and shovels, beach umbrellas, a week’s worth of food, sheets, pillows, etc. on a bus, ferry and then a bus again. Ain’t gonna happen.

I was a participant of those “interest groups” (before women’s sports were recognized), having graduated in 1960 as a phys ed teacher, and was glad to see that a UMD alum was responsible. The article brought back memories, some good, some not so good—such as having to scramble for transportation to the universities we were scheduled to play.vWe survived but definitely resented not being identified as varsity teams.

A recent USA Today Network article in our Sunday paper focused on the still-existing disparity between men’s and women’s sports on campuses nationwide. Title IX helped a lot but unfortunately, we still have a long way to go!

I grew up on the Potomac River in Colonial Beach, Va. During the winter months in the ’60s, the town’s docks were filled with oyster boats from Tangier. The men would work the river and sleep on the boats or at Curley’s Oyster House, which had some living quarters, and then go home on weekends. Never thought about it, but I suppose they were working the Potomac because it still had an abundance of oysters.

My family was friends with Berkley Muse, the last man killed on a boat during the oyster wars, shot by the patrols mentioned in this article. And our friends, the Curleys, had a boat built with an aircraft engine for propulsion to outrun the fuzz. Another family friend currently plants on oyster grounds his family has held leases on since the 1930s. Those were heady times.

I’m an emeritus faculty member in the Department of Biology. My father’s family was incarcerated at Tule Lake, and I enjoyed reading about this project.

Inspired by the headline of the Fall 2024 cover story, former Terp writer Maggie Haslam sent in a letter reworking the lyrics to the Eagles’ “Hotel California.” We couldn’t resist sharing her ode to Dr. Don Milton’s research in Baltimore:

Off Pulaski Highway,
Harbor breeze in my hair.
A neon Domino Sugar sign,
Rising up through the air.
Up ahead in the distance,
I saw a shimmering light.
My nose got stuffy and my throat grew sore,
I had to stop for the night.

There he stood in the doorway,
In a mask so blue.
“My name is Milton,” he said softly,
“It seems you might have the flu.”

Then he took my temperature,
And he showed me the way.
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say-ay,

Welcome to the Hotel Influenza.
Bring your body aches,
And your fever shakes.
We’re transmissible at the Hotel Influenza!
It isn’t monkeypox,
So here’s a Kleenex box.

 

Editor’s note: Milton responded that the project
underwent extensive ethical review from
university and federal officials—in contrast to
the Hotel California, you can check out anytime
you like, and you can always leave.

I am delighted by Terp’s colorful artwork, well-written articles and upbeat attitude. Our sleek university of today is a far cry from my own primitive days of the 1940s. Back then, we staff members of undergraduate publications sweated away in wooden, army-style barracks, one of several hastily built to accommodate masses of veterans on the G.I. Bill. Underneath the splintery wooden floor could be found a secret earthen crawlspace, perfect for romantic trysts. (Or so I’m told.) On the wall of The Diamondback office hung a handprinted variation of The New York Times slogan, “All the news that’s fit to print.” Our sign read, “All the news that fits.”

I was absolutely appalled with the (caption). In 1986, I had just completed my graduate program in higher education administration. I was very aware of the incident involving Len Bias’ drug use and subsequent death. It was a sad time for the campus community as well as the Bias family. However, to glorify it 35 years later is absolutely ludicrous. I cannot believe he was permitted to be inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. As a student affairs administrator and faculty member, I can’t even begin to justify why the University of Maryland feels compelled to honor his legacy, when today we struggle with so much substance abuse on campuses. While this magazine as well as UMD as a whole appear to feel that athletic programs are its No. 1 priority, its true purpose is to provide an education to students.

Fantastic! My son is a high school junior. We’d love for him to participate in this TerpsEXCEED program when he leaves high school. You also badly need to start a college wheelchair basketball team!

You truly drew me into the magazine with your statement that your son was moving into Denton Hall. Denton Hall was my first dorm, and I was immediately transported back to my move-in day and thinking how different it probably was from that of your son.

Your diversity (hiring) campaign caught my attention as I remembered my first encounter with Jewish students (one of whom was my roommate for my freshman and sophomore years). I learned so much from her and have fond memories of our time together.

I am so proud to see all the work that is going on at Maryland, from diversity to the inclusion of students with disabilities. I am proud to be a Terp. Keep up the good work.

I had to respond to the latest issue of Terp. So many articles brought back wonderful memories.

“Home on the Range” reminded me of the time a group of fraternity guys put a cow on the elevator in one of the dorms and sent her to the top floor, where she emerged and wandered through the hallways.

The new dining hall (“A New Recipe for Success”) sounds amazing, but I spent four years eating at the dining halls, and the only thing I had trouble with was the “mystery meat.”

I saw my first lacrosse game (“Talk About an Impressive Season”) at UMD, participated in the card section at football games and was privileged to be in the student section at every basketball game during Lefty’s first year. We even beat his alma mater, Duke, and he celebrated by lying on his back in the middle of the basketball court at Cole Field House and throwing what looked like a temper tantrum. We loved it.

The article about Ukraine (“Big Data ‘Early Alarm’ for Ukraine Abuses”) brought back memories of the Vietnam War, the protests and the National Guard stationed all over campus.

Enough nostalgia for the time. Looking forward to the next Terp.

Wow! Just completed reading the Fall issue and I can’t come up with sufficient superlatives to express how much I enjoyed the entire issue. Cover to cover by far the best work ever! Thanks so much for all the work that went into this!

On page 5 of your Winter 2023 issue, I noted a remark in a letter about an article on the M Book. As a sophomore at UMD, I illustrated the M Book along with my sorority sister, Arlene Hoffman. She provided cartoon-like drawings, but mine were more serious. I do recall particular drawings featuring the marching band and color guard and several wrestlers. (As a member of that same color guard, we were featured on the front page of The Washington Post back in the day.)