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A campus walking tour gives one writer a new perspective on what it means to be a Terp.

On the second hottest day of summer, I bolt out of a morning meeting, stuff two bites of lunch into my mouth, take a side trip to the bathroom, and make myself late for the mid-day campus walking tour. Guides Sharon Goldberg, a senior elementary education major, and Pranav Saha, a fifth-year computer science and business major, kindly wait for me, as do a dozen mothers, fathers, prospective students and their younger siblings.

It's a big campus. How will we get to know it on a 90-minute tour?

As we head out from the Turner Hall Dairy (a reminder of the university's agricultural roots and spot where some of the 25,000 gallons of ice cream consumed on campus each year are scooped), Pranav points out the engineering building, built in the shape of a slide rule. That's why I get lost there every time I go!

Parents begin with questions about safety. "Petty theft is the main problem, but we have the three-level security systems in the dorms," says Sharon. Pranav demonstrates the system, while Goldberg explains the blue emergency phones placed around campus, the Shuttle-UM that runs until 3 a.m., and the escort service. Soon parents begin to think: maybe, just maybe, it is safe here.

A stop at McKeldin Mall, the largest college campus mall in the country. "If you tour UVA, they may say they have the biggest lawn in the country. Well," warns Pranav, "they don't. We know. We measured it. Ours is six inches bigger." We are amused by this competition of inches, but at least two students on the tour will be visiting UVA soon.

I know that Jim Henson, inventor of the Muppets, was one of Maryland's coolest alumni, but do the others on the tour? They look surprised as Pranav points out the name Kermit on a concrete slab outside Kent Residence Hall. Then we learn that Henson was responsible for an important change in university policy and fashioned his Muppets after familiar Maryland alumni and friends.

"He wanted to major in muppetry and management," says Pranav. So he took sewing classes and business classes, inaugurating the first self-created major. And Miss Piggy? "An old girlfriend that he didn't have good feelings about," confides Pranav. To which Sharon adds, "So if you break up with someone, leave on good terms." Moral to me: You will find love on the campus of the University of Maryland. And you can design your own major.

But the kids want to know: Where does one eat and sleep? And where do you get to watch the Terps play basketball? So, although we learn about what goes on in Mitchell Hall (study abroad) and McKeldin Library (a really good library), we enter only three buildings. South Dining Hall, where we learn that the food is great and confirm it with sodas and cookies; an honors dorm, where we see a fully furnished room; and Cole Field House. ... Here we pause for nostalgia.

And of course, no campus tour would be complete without tales of Testudo. In front of McKeldin Library, we hear about Testudo's unscheduled trip to Florida, where he was recovered on a beach in Miami--replete with sunglasses and tanning oil.

Our tour guides are kind and patient. They answer hard questions--'How many people take five years to graduate?' (Some). 'Do you lose your meal money if you don't use it?' (Yes.) They share their experiences. Pranav and his best friend were randomly assigned a room together; Sharon and her best friend roomed together by choice. Pranav and Sharon lived in the same honors dorm for three years, but Sharon is about to move into her sorority house and Pranav has just rented a seven-bedroom house. The moral to me: In college, you'll make new friends and keep your old ones if you want.

Pranav and Sharon also snare us with campus lore--haunted Morrill Hall, the only building left standing after a devastating fire that destroyed all the other university buildings. If you cross the center point of the old center of the campus, marked by a circle, you won't graduate... or worse! One young sibling was freaked by those stories. But I attest that Sharon will become a tremendous elementary school teacher--she comforts the girl and makes a fast friend. My prediction: This girl will come to Maryland.

And of course, no campus tour would be complete without tales of Testudo. In front of McKeldin Library, we hear about Testudo's unscheduled trip to Florida, where he was recovered on a beach in Miami--replete with sunglasses and tanning oil.   --Carol Casey

University Quartet Blends Classical, Contemporary Styles

The Left Bank Quartet performs Oct. 26 at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

For those who think they know chamber music, a trip to the Left Bank is in order. But no need to book a flight to Paris. The Left Bank resides at the University of Maryland--the Left Bank Quartet, that is.

Composed of School of Music professors David Salness, Evelyn Elsing and Katherine Murdock, along with Sally McLain, a prominent Washington, D.C.-based violinist, the group is noted for its professional musicianship and depth of programming. Salness describes the quartet's style as "a balance between music that challenges audiences and music the listener can enjoy effortlessly."

The group's Oct. 26 performance, "Personal Obsessions," at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center also includes violist James Stern. The play list features Leos Janacek's sizzling and psychologically complex Kreutzer Sonata, based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy; George Crumb's electrifying Black Angels; and Johannes Brahms' joyously sublime Quintet in G Major.

"In Black Angels we play many different instruments. Oh, and we shout," says Salness. The musicians also chant, whistle, whisper, and play gongs, maracas and crystal glasses filled with water. "The glasses make a truly ethereal sound," Salness says. But getting them in tune is a process unique to the medium. "Evelyn Elsing has perfect pitch. She goes from glass to glass with a turkey baster, putting in a little water here, taking out a little water there, until they're tuned. The audience seems to like that very much."

Tickets are $16 and $20.
For more information, call 301-405-ARTS (2787).   --CC

Physics Gift Spawns Zorn Professorships

Physics faculty members Gus T. Zorn (top) and Bice Zorn (bottom) dedicated themselves to the advancement of science at Maryland.

Professor Emeritus Gus T. Zorn's association with the faculty, staff and students of the Department of Physics reached far beyond the usual collegial and mentoring relationships. To Zorn, the people of the physics department were his family.

Zorn is remembered as a quiet man with a love of fast cars and motorcycles. He and his wife, Bice, were both gifted and devoted physicists. Jordan Goodman, chair of the Department of Physics, recalls that Gus Zorn "was always coming up with new ideas and new ways to look at things."

The Department of Physics will perpetuate Zorn's creative spirit by establishing the Gus T. and Bice Sechi-Zorn Professorship in Experimental Physics, established by Zorn's $1.48 million bequest. Zorn, who died on Jan. 30, 2002, was committed to supporting the university and his department after his death. Officials hope the gift will enable them to offer multiple professorships and attract bright young scientists to the university.

Zorn joined the university's High Energy research group in 1962 and retired in 1994. His wife, Bice Sechi-Zorn, was also a member of the physics faculty from 1976 to 1984.   --JP

Sister Act: Siblings Team Up to Launch Film Company

Demetrea Triantafillides '81 and her sister, Maria Triandos, always wanted to make movies. The two had decades of combined experience in the television business, and they had done small film projects together in the past.

But when the cable network Triandos was working for as a news producer collapsed last year, the sisters decided it was a good time to pursue those dreams.

Triantafillides, started Asteros Filmworks with Triandos last October. Previously she had worked for NBC as director of graphics for the "NBC Nightly News" and associate producer of "Meet the Press."

The sisters' Annapolis-based film company produces commercials and other video spots for corporations, organizations and government agencies, as well as post-production work for other studios. But these projects are to pay the bills for Asteros's own independent film projects.

"When you do industrial or commercial stuff, it's not necessarily that interesting, but that's what you do to get to your goals," Triandos says. The studio made its film debut last May when it entered the 48 Hours Film Project in Washington, D.C. There, the sisters were given two days to conceptualize, shoot and produce a film in the genre assigned at the beginning of the contest.

Their entry, Sexual Healing, was a 12-minute mystery film. "It's about a doctor manipulating his patient through her medication," Triantafillides says. Sexual Healing didn't win the contest, but the sisters plan to recut the film and enter it in other competitions.

While Triantafillides took her degree from Maryland in radio, television, and film, Triandos's degree is from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she studied English and political science.   --Matt Boyd

J-school Graduate Takes Profession's Highest Honor

Some journalists spend entire careers dreaming of winning the profession's highest award, the Pulitzer Prize. For Sarah Cohen '92, the wait was considerably shorter.

Less than 10 years after earning her master's degree in public affairs reporting from the College of Journalism, Cohen and two of her colleagues at The Washington Post won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for a series exploring the tragic deaths of children in the District of Columbia.

Cohen, along with reporters Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz, discovered that 229 children died over a seven-year period due to neglect and abuse even after their dangerous family situations came to the attention of the District's child protection system. Their four-day series of articles prompted an overhaul of the city's child welfare system.

Cohen, a computer-assisted reporting editor at The Post, says winning the Pulitzer hasn't changed her working life much. There's always a lot of very promising stories coming through the paper, she says. Plus, she adds, "I was already doing what I wanted to do."

The team painstakingly pieced together records for 180 of those deaths and found that one in five--mostly involving infants and toddlers--lost their lives after government workers failed to take key preventative action or placed the children in unsafe homes or institutions.

"Sarah always had a powerful combination for a journalist--a nose for news and a head for numbers," recalls journalism professor Carl Sessions Stepp, who taught Cohen at Maryland. "She knows how to get information and then how to analyze it once she has it."

Cohen, of Kensington, Md., was among the first groups of students to participate in Maryland's Capital News Service public affairs reporting program in Washington. She came to the university after serving as an economist for the U.S. Department of Labor.

After completing her master's program, Cohen worked as a business reporter at two Florida newspapers, the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times before joining the organization Investigative Reporters and Editors as director of the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting. She maintains ties to the university by serving as a part-time adjunct faculty member.   --Daniel Cusick