News
On Global Handwashing Day, GPH Students, Preschoolers Discuss ‘the Best Vaccine’
Washing your hands is serious business—something that the students at the University of Maryland’s Center for Young Children are learning hands-on. “Our kids wash their hands all the time,” says Director Mona Leigh Guha, of the center’s 3- to 6-year-old students. The state requires certain handwashing protocols in licensed preschools, and frankly, it’s good practice. Handwashing with soap is widely recognized as one of the easiest and most effective ways of preventing disease. “Handwashing is the best vaccine,” observes Elisabeth Maring, director of the Global Public Health (GPH) Scholars program. GPH is sponsored by the School of Public Health.
Media Scholar, and TerpsVote Rep, Urges Students to Use Their Voice and Vote
Throughout my childhood, I remember waiting in long lines in the cold with my parents at my local middle school on Election Day. My parents are immigrants; my dad is from El Salvador, and my mom is from the Ukraine. The right to vote wasn’t really something that was represented well in either of their countries. So when they became U.S. citizens, being able to vote was really important to them. For them, it was meaningful to be able to vote every Election Day and to know that every vote counted.
Tubman Byway Excursion Prompts New Lessons in Maryland Migration History
“You’re going to Meredith Farm after this?” asked our tour guide, Matt Meredith, as I stood in the cramped interior of the Bucktown Village Store with 16 first- and second-year Scholars. “It’s on the Byway list,” I explained. “That was my family’s farm. There’s nothing there anymore,” Matt said.
Beloved Life Sciences Director Reid Compton Steps Down From Scholars
Reid Compton, a longtime fixture of the Life Sciences Scholars program, has stepped down from his role as program director after nearly 10 years.Compton was only the second person to head the Life Sciences program, which has existed since College Park Scholars’ founding about 25 years ago. Though a trained biomedical scientist, Compton made the decision to keep the program’s broad approach to the life sciences to include natural history, evolution and conservation, rather than restrict it to a premedical program. He wanted students to appreciate that there is more to the living world than humans and their diseases.