The University of Maryland, College Park, wants to "right-size" its faculty to be more representative of the 40% of the student population who are people of color by spending $40 million over the next decade, says President Darryll Pines. The money will help recruit more than 100 diverse faculty members and improve staff opportunities, leadership development, retention and campus culture, Pines says.

Quantum computing startup IonQ's recently announced plans to go public have increased interest in the Discovery District development near the University of Maryland's College Park campus. Brandywine Realty Trust was selected to develop a 5-acre parcel of the Discovery District, with the first phase including 300,000 square feet of office space. "We feel that there's a pent up demand for businesses that want to improve their synergies with top-tier universities, so we fell like that demand is there," says Brandywine's John Norjen.

Nivedita Hegdekar serves WIB's Capital Region Chapter as communications co-chair while pursuing her PhD in biomedical sciences and patent law at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and writing and editing for scientific magazines. Hegdekar learned to play the harmonium and flute when she was a child, recently began learning to play the piano, and is training for a marathon.

As educators approach the one-year mark in pandemic-related school changes, many are experiencing high levels of traumatic stress, assert Christy Tirrell-Corbin, executive director of the Center for Early Childhood Education and Intervention at the University of Maryland, and Carlomagno Panlilio, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at Penn State University. In this commentary, they suggest short-term solutions, such as focusing on social and emotional support and leveraging technology.