The University of Maryland’s Independent Student Newspaper
M O N DAY, A P R I L 13 , 2 015
U Senate weighs sex misconduct revision Following review of language change, committee advises return to ‘Assault I,’ ‘Assault II’ terms By Andrew Dunn @AndrewE_Dunn Staff writer
versity Senate committee unanimously passed a proposal Thursday to revise the policy. This comes after the senate’s T h e c a t e g o r y o f “ s e x u a l Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Comcontact” might be renamed in mittee examined the interim policy catherine carroll, Title IX officer, at an April 2 town hall the university’s interim sexual for five months, listened to student meeting in Stamp Student Union. james levin/the diamondback misconduct policy after a Uni- concerns at forums and acknowl-
edged the hundreds of signatures on a proposal urging the university to reject the sexual contact classification. The interim policy had renamed “Sexual Assault I” and “Sexual Assau lt II” as “sex ual assault” and “sexual contact,” respectively, while expanding both definitions. Under the interim policy, forcible sexual penetration constituted “sexual assault,” while
groping a person’s intimate parts or at tempte d se x u a l p enet ration without consent constituted “sexual contact.” While the EDI Committee’s proposal maintains the same expanded definitions as the October interim policy, it reverses the category name changes, returning the names to “Sexual Assault I” and “Sexual Assault II.” See miscondUct, Page 3
MADE IN bits and pieces
Researchers build largest food safety database
Second annual Bitcamp hackathon draws 1,100 from locations across country
Univ professor, students help build searchable system with 6.8 million inspection records By Rokia Hassanein @rokiahass Staff writer
By Joe Zimmermann @JoeMacZim Senior staff writer It was 3 a.m. on Sunday morning and one student walked through the middle of Cole Field House, tailing a Roomba. Carefully holding the Ethernet cable that connected the small robotic vacuum to a friend’s computer as if it were a leash, Mark Murnane, a junior computer engineering major at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, followed the Roomba around chairs and bundles of wires. Through the rest of the weekend — or at least the 36 hours from 10 p.m. Friday to 10 a.m. Sunday — Murnane and about 1,100 other participants at this year’s Bitcamp worked on team projects, created apps or built makeshift devices while finding ways to have fun. “At this point, there are toys all around so we’re just playing,” Murnane said, referring to all the hardware available. “We’re just here to have fun and learn.”
students (left to right) Iris Ucanay, Ram Ambalavanar, Bhumi Kerdsuwan and Wasson An celebrate as their programmable drum pad starts to work at Bitcamp, a three-day hackathon in Cole Field House where students from across the country work to create software and hardware projects. stephanie natoli/the diamondback
“WE WANTED TO THROW A HACKATHON AND WE KNEW WE WANTED TO BE DIFFERENT THAN THE OTHERS, FOCUSING ON EXPLORATION AND INCLUSIVITY AND MAKING AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE PEOPLE COULD EXPLORE AND HAVE FUN.” JEFF HILNBRAND
See bitcamp, Page 2
Suicide walk raises $21,000 for prevention, awareness Univ Out of the Darkness event draws 460 walkers By Lexie Schapitl @lexieschapitl Staff writer Students raised more than $21,000 for suicide prevention at the nation’s largest Out of the Darkness walk on a college campus yesterday. Leah Sukri, a counselor with the University Help Center, began leading this campus walk last year after an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention representative contacted her about the program. “We thought that this was a really great opportunity for us to show that suicide isn’t the answer and that we can always do more to help,” the
See walk, Page 3
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See safety, Page 3
Senior mechanical engineering major, Bitcamp co-founder
junior biology major said. The foundation holds Out of the Darkness walks on college campuses and in communities across the country. The walk — the university’s third — grew significantly on the campus this year, becoming the largest campus walk out of 100 in the nation, area director Ryan Newcomb said. At least 464 students registered and collected donations to raise money for suicide prevention research, education and programming, Sukri said. “To see it going from raising three or four thousand dollars last year to over $20,000 this year is amazing,” Newcomb said. Newcomb, who has suffered from chronic depression throughout his life, said campus walks provide a great opportunity to break the stigma surrounding suicide and begin a dialogue about mental health issues among college students. “Suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15- to 24-yearolds, so this is a crucial demographic that we have to reach out to and let
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With the help of a professor from University of California, Los Angeles, members of the university community have created the largest food safety inspection database in the nation. Ben Bederson, a computer science professor at this university and one of the database’s creators, said the university-led online database gathers information about food safety inspections from local government websites using data robots and then aggregates it in one spot. “The information is public, so it is pretty interesting to see how people’s favorite restaurants are doing on their inspections,” Bederson said. Funded by a $100,000 grant from the Sloan Foundation, the database has information compiled from 87 jurisdictions across 34 states, including 895,201 establishments,
Board elects student paper editors EICs for Mitzpeh, Diamondback push for digital-first focus By Lexie Schapitl @lexieschapitl Staff writer T he Diamondback’s parent company, Maryland Media Inc., named Matt Schnabel the newspaper’s editor in chief for the 2015-16 academic year Thursday. Schnabel, a junior journalism major, got involved with The Diamondback his first week at this university after receiving an email about open copy-editing positions at this publication. He was promoted to deputy managing editor at the end of his freshman year, and this year, he served as managing editor. “I didn’t really know I was going to end up being editor in chief when I started, but shortly after, it was something I had hoped I could work
toward,” Schnabel said. As editor in chief, Schnabel said he plans to continue The Diamondback’s “push to be a digital-first newsroom.” He said he wants to see more innovation in the publication’s digital content, including increased use of interactive elements and more multimedia projects. “The big legacy publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, even The Baltimore Sun, are doing really exciting things with new technology, and I want to emulate that here at T he Dia mondback because I think we can,” Schnabel said. “I want to be at the forefront of student publications pushing the envelope digitally.” Next year, The Diamondback will publish online only four days a week and release a print edition once a week. While this will be a major change for the publication, current editor in chief Laura Blasey said she is confident in Schnabel’s ability to handle the transition. “He’s the most well-organized
matt schnabel, a junior journalism major, has been named The Diamondback’s new editor in chief by Maryland Media Inc. tom hausman/the diamondback p erson I h ave ever met,” sa id Blasey, a senior journalism major. “He’s also very hardworking, very persistent. He really is dedicated to this newspaper.” Blasey said Schnabel once drove See editor, Page 2
SPORTS
OPINION
BASEBALL DROPS 2 OF 3 TO IOWA
GUEST COLUMN: An open letter on budget cuts
After a hot start, the Terrapins baseball team’s offense fell cold Saturday and Sunday, allowing the Hawkeyes to take the final two games P. 8
President Loh must acknowledge grad students’ concerns P. 4
DIVERSIONS
A RUSH OF ANGER AND EXCITEMENT The beauty in 10-year-old album ‘Alligator’ by The National P. 6