By Jennifer Baxter
This week’s newsletter provides a look at how buildings around campus suffered a loss of air conditioning, students celebrated Earth Day and the Do Good Challenge Finals!
UMD community members discuss sustainability efforts, climate technology at Earth Day event
By Alicia Colegrove
The Department of Environmental Science and Technology hosted an Earth Day event Wednesday from 4 to 6 p.m. that included exhibits and panels to present the idea of “technology for environmental good.”
Earth day was established in 1970 to celebrate sustainability and conservation of the environment. This year marks ENST’s fourth annual commemoration.
In the past, the event has focused on topics such as reforestation and carbon accounting. At this commemoration, panelists that varied from University of Maryland staff to National Geographic representatives, discussed how new technology, such as Artificial intelligence, can assist environmental efforts.
The event, held in the Animal Sciences Courtyard, offered attendees dinner and Maryland Dairy ice cream, and started off with David Tilley, an associate professor at ENST, speaking 10 Earth Day-themed dad jokes. .
Tilley said the celebration helps to develop the department’s brand.
“It’s basically our opportunity to bring people together, to let them share their questions and insight about what’s going on in the environment in a nice, friendly environment,” Tilley said.
One panel discussed sensing, monitoring and ecological restoration, while the other discussed sustainable innovation, food systems and environmental practice. The panels connected the topics at hand to how AI can help aid them.
“Part of our name is Environmental Science and Technology, so we thought technology was kind of a key aspect that we could celebrate,” Tilley said.
Kira Moss, a senior environmental science and policy major, said after the first part of the panel however, that there was room for improvement when discussing environmental topics.
“Instead of saying things like, ‘we shouldn’t be doing this’, we could be saying, ‘we could be doing this,’ as a way of doing something rather than just sitting in where we are at the present moment,” Moss said.
Moss said this year was her second time attending the Earth Day celebration.
“Earth Day is always just an exciting thing, and getting together to hear about what other people have to say,” Moss said.
Read more here.
Some UMD buildings recover air conditioning after warm temperatures
By Sophia Herndon
The University of Maryland Facilities Management team is working to restore air conditioning to McKeldin Library after multiple buildings on campus lost air conditioning last week.
The warm temperatures in College Park last week impacted South Campus Dining Hall, Ritchie Coliseum, McKeldin Library and the Eppley Recreation Center, according to a UMD Division of Student Affairs statement.
The air conditioning in all of the buildings besides McKeldin Library, was restored towards the end of the week.
There is an ongoing project to replace two chiller units that died last year in McKeldin Library, which provides cooling to the building. The new equipment was ordered in the fall of 2025, according to an email from a UMD Facilities Management spokesperson for Stories Beneath the Shell. .
Early closings of the library have occurred due to the warm temperatures, a change from the usual 24 hours a day that it is typically open. The heating, ventilation and air conditioning team has coordinated with library facilities staff to provide cooling to parts of the building during this adjustment period.
The released statement said the new equipment’s cooling in McKeldin Library is scheduled to be operational on Friday, April 24.
Haley Levin, a senior biochemistry and neuroscience major, usually goes to McKeldin Library on Monday and Wednesday afternoons for her studies. Though, when she found out about the abnormally high temperatures there she decided to choose a different spot.
Levin said she thought the university could have sent the announcement sooner about the outage, however she thought the messages UMD sent were thorough in explaining the outage issue and recovery process.
“They’re doing what they can,” Levin said.
Students surrounding McKeldin Library expressed similar opinions, saying that they found discomfort with the library’s cooling outage and looked for new locations to study, but that they thought the university’s response to restoring air conditioning was relatively timely.
Read more here.
UMD celebrates social impact initiatives through the Do Good Institute, Challenge
By Stella Henretta
Hack4Impact, a student organization Lydia Hu, Simin Li and Abbie Tran founded in 2020, won the University of Maryland’s Do Good Challenge Finals on Thursday.
This event has taken place annually since it first began when actor Kevin Bacon and his nonprofit organization collaborated with UMD to encourage student philanthropy.
Six finalists, each competing for a portion of $40,000 in funding, had their presentations featured at the event the Do Good Institute hosted.
“Now, almost 15 years later, the Do Good Institute continues this tradition of celebrating social impact and championing a campus full of students who don’t wait for others to make the world a better place but jump in and lead the charge themselves,” said Jenny Cox, communications specialist at the Do Good Institute. .
The Do Good Institute, which is in the School of Public Policy, encourages students to act on social issues through mentorship and funding. The institute supports student-led nonprofits and community-engaged learning, helping to foster a “Do Good Campus.”
Robert T. Grimm Jr., director of the Do Good Institute, said that Do Good now provides experience and support for more than 10,000 students a year on campus.
Jessica Moore, communication coordinator at the Do Good Institute, believes the event represents the effort that students are putting in to help those in need, showing what young entrepreneurs can achieve and the support they can receive in doing so.
“For faculty and staff, it serves as a glimpse of hope of whose hands the future is in, and it also serves as a spark to light up different dreams they may have — and motivation to continue their own efforts of doing good,” Moore said.
Freshman international relations major Sophia Tsukervanik said that she believes many students on campus want to push for change but do not take the initiative to do so. The Do Good student presenters exemplified that if you have a good idea, you should “go for it,” Tsukervanik said.
“Students at UMD are capable and they want to make a change,” she said. “[The event] is sponsored by the Do Good Institute, and the students here, they want to do good. This is showing that.”
Latanya Farrish Robinson, a UMD alumna, witnessed the impact of the institute, when a former classmate of hers had wanted to raise money to send journals and pens to women in underserved countries.
“She wanted to give [women] the opportunity to at least express their feelings about the things that they were experiencing,” Robinson said. “She won enough to buy all the supplies that she needed. That was a great cause.”
Read more here.
Featured Image: Thurgood Marshall Hall, home to the university’s School of Public Policy and Do Good Institute. Photo by Paige Trendell.