Research Exceeds $500 Million
THE UNIVERSITY BROUGHT in
more than $518 million in research
funding in fiscal year 2009, a record
amount placing Maryland in the top
10 of all American universities without a
medical school. Funding was up 30 percent,
or $118 million, from the previous year.
"We are increasingly aligning the university's
research capabilities to national needs
and goals and making sure we're an active
participant as the nation's research agenda is
laid out," says Mel Bernstein, vice president
for research at Maryland.
The Division of Research initiated a
series of programs to assist faculty and help
coordinate large, multi-institutional research
proposals. The division facilitates the teaming
of faculty to compete for grants, identifies
funding opportunities and provides technical
writers and graphic artists to help
researchers present effective proposals.
Last year's total includes major research
awards from the Department of Energy, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration and the National Security
Language Initiative, among others.
-TV
Undergraduate Enrollment Gets More Global
THE UNIVERSITY IS known worldwide for its
research, and it cultivates partnerships across
the globe. Soon its enrollment will better reflect
that international reach.
Maryland is more actively recruiting undergraduate
international students as part of its
efforts to strengthen the diversity of the campus.
Nearly 3,500 international students from
134 countries are pursuing degrees at Maryland,
but fewer than 600 are undergraduates.
The university hopes to quadruple undergraduate
international enrollment by 2018, without
altering its Maryland resident population—in–state students make up 75 percent of undergraduates.
"We've always been successful attracting
international graduate students and we want to
replicate that success with undergraduates,"
says Barbara Gill, director of undergraduate
admissions.
Her office hopes to start drawing more
students from the Middle East and sub-Saharan
and southern Africa. -LB
3 Deans in, 2 Off to White House
 THE SCHOOL OF Public Policy, University
Libraries and the College of Behavioral and
Social Sciences this summer welcomed new
deans—two of whom replaced deans who
assumed positions in the Obama administration.
Donald Kettl, a well-known expert on government
reform and a prolific author, arrived in June
to lead the School of Public Policy.
 A former scholar at the University of
Pennsylvania and a nonresident senior fellow at
the Brookings Institute, a respected think tank,
Kettl says he's glad to come to Maryland as the
U.S. struggles with economic and political crises.
The School of Public Policy is "uniquely suited
to grapple with the overwhelming policy challenges
facing government," Kettl says. "I'm enormously
impressed by all the school has accomplished and
where it can go."
 Patricia Steele, a national leader in digitizing
information to improve academic libraries'
access, took her new post on Sept. 1. Previously
head of the libraries at Indiana University, she's
known for her work on the Google Project to put
online up to 10 million volumes in important
library collections.
 The new dean for the university's largest
college, Behavioral and Social Sciences, is more
homegrown. John Townshend is former chair of
the Department of Geography, which he has
guided into a leader in global measurements
through satellite imaging. He hopes to attract to
the college more resources, more disciplinary
research on national and global concerns and a
more entrepreneurial spirit.
He takes over for Edward Montgomery, who is
now heading the Presidential Task Force on the
Auto Industry. Steve Fetter, former public policy
dean, was named assistant director in the White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
And if that's not enough Maryland influence in
D.C., public policy Professor Ivo H. Daalder is the new
U.S. ambassador to NATO.
-LB
Maryland Leads New Climate Institute
A NEW RESEARCH partnership led by
the University of Maryland may soon
provide long-range global forecasts
and warnings about the impact of climate
change on the Earth's ecosystem,
including water quality, disease
vectors, drought projections and the
health of marine life.
The Cooperative Institute for
Climate and Satellites, funded by up
to $93 million from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, or NOAA, links Maryland
researchers with federal scientists
and faculty from North Carolina State
University and 16 other institutions.
These experts will collect data
from dozens of sophisticated NOAA
and NASA satellites orbiting the
Earth, providing information on
atmospheric water vapor, ozone levels,
sea-ice concentrations, sea
level, infrared radiation from the
planet's surface, chlorophyll in the
ocean as well as rainfall and vegetation
in specific areas.
"Ultimately, we want to provide
detailed information to end users—people and officials who need to
make decisions based on our climate
modeling and predictions,"
says Phillip Arkin, a senior research
scientist at Maryland who will lead
the new institute.
The institute will be based at
the university's M Square research
park, where a cluster of climate and
weather-related research activities
are already established, including
the Earth System Science
Interdisciplinary Center and the
Joint Global Change Research
Institute. NOAA's National Center
for Weather and Climate Prediction
is set to open there next year. -TV
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