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Testimony to the Maryland General Assembly
Capital Projects
Presented by Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., President
University of
Maryland, College Park
March 2003
The University of Maryland has moved rapidly to a new level of
distinction and excellence. Its physical facilities have not kept pace
with this fast ascent. According to Space Planning Guidelines, the total
space deficit is approximately 1.2 million net assignable square
feet. All of the major room use categories (classroom, class
laboratories, research, office, and study) show deficits. The University
faces an urgent need for facilities that are appropriate for teaching and
research in a modern university and ample enough to accommodate the surge
in research generated by our outstanding faculty.
Two priorities for capital funding are FY04 planning funds and
restoration of FY05 construction funds for the biosciences research
building and funds for equipment for the new Kim Engineering and Applied
Sciences Building.
1. Biosciences
Research Building
A recent report from the Brookings Institute states clearly the case
for strength in biosciences: "Biotechnology, an industry built on
fundamental breakthroughs in the understanding of genetic processes... is
the next great frontier of scientific advancement that will bring with it
whole new industries ... and potential economic impacts... seem to be
huge." Many states are putting money into basic research and cultivation
of university-industry partnerships to facilitate technology transfer and
win them a place in this new market. In this competition, strength in
biosciences is the key to the future of the State's economy, key to the
future of the University, and key to the faculty's ability to capture a
share of the huge amount of federal funding pouring into
biosciences. UMCP has strength and depth in basic biosciences research
and in supporting sciences such as advanced computer science that give it
great potential to lead in this field.
Over the past five years, the University has put considerable
money into strengthening the biosciences. Our investment has paid
off: research activities have surged; partnerships and collaborations are
on the increase; students are more talented than ever before; and programs
have been established to address special needs of the State. As the
results show, we have laid a solid foundation for future growth.
The biosciences research building is essential to our carefully
developed strategy to build a biosciences program that will fuel State
leadership in this area. The report of our progress in the paragraphs
below points to an explosion of activity in the biosciences. The current
facilities provide barely acceptable space for research and the
possibilities of extending research projects or accepting funding for new
ones is severely circumscribed by the limited space. Graduate students
who are participating in research have make-shift quarters such as space
formerly used for refrigeration purposes. Laboratories are crowded and
not appropriate for the latest technology for either teaching or research
purposes. To keep the productivity of our faculty at its current level it
is imperative that the new bioscience research building be kept on track.
Building Momentum in the Life
Sciences - 1998 to present
With substantial University funds
committed to hiring new faculty, the
College of Life Sciences hired 32 new tenured/tenure-track faculty members
since FY98 with research interests that cover some of the most important
areas of study in the biosciences today. Because of a significant number
of retirements during the same period, there has been a net increase of
just one faculty member. Given the time requirements for completing an
appropriate new facility to house our research, we must keep construction
of the bioscience research building on schedule so that when funds are
available we will be able to enter the job market for top scientists and
up and coming stars and realize our long-range plans of hiring additional
faculty in targeted areas to propel us into national leadership.
Hires at the senior level include Dr. George Lorimer,
world-renowned specialist in protein folding and a member of the National
Academy of Sciences; Dr. William Jeffery, an internationally recognized
expert on the evolution of development; and as Dean of the College of Life
Sciences, Dr. Norma Allewell, a distinguished biochemist and seasoned
administrator from Harvard University. Recent hires at the assistant
professor level include Drs. Sarah Tishkoff and Victor Muņoz, both of whom
were awarded $625K David and Lucile Packard Foundation fellowships in Fall
2001. Dr. Muņoz was also named a Searle Scholar.
The level of excellence in recent hires has helped to transform
and invigorate the overall research productivity of the College of Life
Sciences, as is evident from the huge increases in research activity.
- Research expenditures have increased 82% since FY98,
reaching $20M in FY2002.
- The average sponsored research per faculty member nearly
doubled.
- The total multi-year grant funding held by the 32 hires made
since FY98 exceeds $24 million from federal sources as well as private
foundations.
Collaborative partnerships have also increased. Life Sciences
faculty have established several centers for research and training that
leverage our strength by building on partnerships with federal
laboratories and other state and regional universities.
- Dr. Sarah Tishkoff (new hire in 2000) is the lead principal
investigator in establishing a doctoral training program in Human
Evolutionary Biology that encompasses the University of Maryland, Howard
University and the George Washington University. The training grant was
funded by the NSF program for $2.6M/3 years.
- A training program in Virology spearheaded by Dr. Anne Simon
(new hire in 2000) was recently funded by NIH ($800K/5 years). The
program is a partnership with virologists in the College and other campus
labs, as well as scientists from UMBI, USDA-Beltsville Agricultural
Research Center, and the National Institutes of Health.
- The College of Life Sciences recently established both the
Center for Biodiversity, and the Center for Bioinformatics and
Computational Biology (joint with the College of Computer, Mathematical
and Physical Sciences. These centers will provide a nucleus for
interdepartmental scientific exchange, enhance student training, and
leverage new partnerships and funding opportunities in areas that promise
to provide major advances in the understanding of basic biological
processes.
- A new interdepartmental graduate program in Behavior, Ecology,
Evolution and Systematics (BEES) was established in 2000 to provide
world-class training in fundamental and applied research in these
disciplines. The program brings together scientists from 12 departments
and offers training in laboratories at the Smithsonian Institution, NIH,
and the UMBI-Center for Biosystems Research.
The College of Life Sciences
attracts the best and brightest
students within the state and throughout the nation to our programs. The
number of full-time graduate students in our programs has increased 28%
from 1998 to 200.
The number of new freshmen entering
Life Science
programs has increased 12% in the past two years, and their academic
profile has risen considerably since 1998.
1998 2002
Undergraduates - mean high school GPA 3.72 3.94
Mean undergraduate SAT score 1228
1270
- Graduates from the College of Life Science are accepted
into the nation's best medical and graduate schools and also land
prestigious national scholarships. In its first competition, three
seniors from the College won national Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
fellowships (2002) that provide full-tuition scholarships to medical
school.
- The College ranks 6th in the nation in graduating
African-American students with undergraduate degrees in the Life Sciences
(Black Issues in Higher Education). Maryland is #1 among traditional
white public institutions in preparing African-American students to enter
medical school and #6 among all schools in this same category (AAMC
report).
- More than 70% of graduating seniors participated in a
laboratory research or internship experience during their undergraduate
program.
- The College was recently awarded its third grant from the
Howard Hughes Medical Institute to support innovation in our undergraduate
programs. The $1.8M grant will support curriculum development
initiatives, and continue our highly successful program of supporting
undergraduate research and mentorship in campus laboratories (60-70
student fellowships per year).
The College of Life
Sciences has established innovative programs
to meet special needs in the state. Joint major programs have been created
with the College of Education to provide training in both biology and
chemistry for much-needed science teachers in secondary schools, and a
newly created Master of Life Sciences program provides course work in
current research areas in the biological, biomedical and biochemical
sciences to teachers who are already certified and who wish to update and
advance their knowledge.
A new bachelor's degree program in Biological Sciences was created
at the USM-Shady Grove center as a partnership between the College of Life
Sciences and local community colleges. The program is focused on
increasing the number of students trained to enter the biosciences
workforce, particularly in the biotech sector in Montgomery County. The
program now enrolls 30 students and will graduate its first class in May
2003.
2. Equipment for the Kim
Engineering and Applied Sciences Building
Nearly ten years in the planning,
the Kim Building is the cornerstone
for the future growth of the Clark School. The building will house some of
the most sophisticated engineering research and educational laboratories
in the nation. It will have 10,000 square feet of clean room space,
supporting our cutting edge research in semiconductor device
characterization and fabrication, nanotechnology, and smart small
systems. It will have state of the art facilities in transportation
system, biotechnology, wireless and multimedia technologies, optical
communication systems, to name but a few. In addition, it will provide
highly advanced instructional laboratories and teaching classrooms that
would provide a unique learning environment for our students and offer
them a quality of education that is second to none.
The building has been designed to allow a level of research and
education not previously possible in any building on campus. Students and
faculty will work together in labs that range from bio chemical
engineering to small smart systems research to optical and wireless
communications. And students and faculty will be able to collaborate and
take the engineering process full cycle from design through
testing-without leaving the building. This is all possible through
state-of-the-art clean rooms and fabrication laboratories. Every aspect
of this new building will be used to educate tomorrow's
engineers. Students will be able to alter heating, cooling, and other
mechanical controls; and even measure the vibration of outside traffic.
A University priority in the capital budget is $4M of equipment
funds. $3.5M will be used to purchase some of the state-of-the-art
equipment that will allow teaching and research activities in the building
at the level envisioned. The remaining $0.5M will be used to provide the
necessary amount of construction contingency to keep the project on
schedule, as discussed with the Department of Budget and Management..
Additional University Priority
While beginning construction of the
Biosciences Research Building in
FY05 is the University's highest priority, funding for the renovation of
Tawes remains a critical need for the University. Tawes will house our
nationally recognized English Department, which has been housed in
temporary surge space for eleven years. They need the space to utilize
information technology in teaching skills in writing in the special
two-course sequence, known nationally as the Maryland model, to develop
media classrooms for these required writing courses, to expand
entrepreneurial offerings of technical writing courses being sought by
federal government agencies, to expand and enhance our position as a
national leader in Digital Technology in Humanities Research through
programs such as the Maryland Institute of Technology in the Humanities
and Romantic Circles Web, to attract nationally distinguished faculty,
and to retain the faculty that have helped build the nationally ranked
programs such as Creative Writing, Medieval and Renaissance British
Literature, and African-American Literature. If at all possible, I ask
that you restore the first year of planning funds for this essential
renovation.
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Click on
thumbnail for larger photo.
Model--Biosciences Research
Building
North Elevation--Biosciences Research Building
Kim Building of Engineering and
Applied Science
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