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Liam Driver ’27 shouted in excitement as he picked up a shard of rock out of orange clay and ironstone on an exposed gray hillside.As his classmates gathered around him, he held out his hand, revealing a sliver of bone in the center of his palm. “That blueish part is what gave it away” as a fossil, he said.It might have been part of a now-extinct species of lungfish 115 million years ago that, per its name, could also breathe outside of the water. It’s one of many animals and plants that once thrived in a lush early Cretaceous waterway that’s now an unassuming excavation site, tucked away at the end of a long drive of warehouses and office buildings in Laurel, Md.

Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum at UMD (CEAC at UMD), a pilot professional development program, supported 12 instructors, including several College Park Scholars program directors and staff, from seven schools and colleges as they integrated community-focused strategies and experiences into more than 20 courses serving over 1,000 students, in disciplines as varied as art, kinesiology and sociology, during the fall and spring semesters. College Park Scholars in the CEAC at UMD 2024-25 Cohort:

Another of the Scholars founders has passed on. Beth Pattison, who was key to developing the College Park Scholars administrative infrastructure, died December 23, 2024. Beth served as an associate director in Scholars from 1994 until her retirement in 2003.

The tiny, two-toed fossil footprints made by an unidentified dinosaur species some 100 million years ago and preserved in a slab of rock in South Korea are thought to have been made by a raptor no bigger than a modern sparrow. What stumped paleontologists was the animal’s enormous stride; the unknown raptor’s footprints had larger gaps between them than expected for such a diminutive dinosaur.“This guy is dinky—one of the smallest dinosaurs that we have fossils of,” said University of Maryland paleontologist and Science and Global Change program director Thomas R. Holtz Jr.

Clinical Professor and Levenson Family Professor Susannah Washburn, who is also the program director of the Public Leadership Scholars program, was recently honored with the Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching by the Office of Undergraduate Studies Programs.

Nicholas Fletcher, a lecturer in the University of Maryland’s Department of Biology, has been appointed director of the College Park Scholars Life Sciences program.“We are delighted to welcome Nick Fletcher to College Park Scholars and Life Sciences. Nick is a creative and caring teacher whose commitments to hands-on learning and inclusive community align perfectly with core Scholars values,” said College Park Scholars Executive Director Marilee Lindemann. “We look forward to working with him to extend the proud legacy of Scholars Life Sciences in exciting new directions.”