A Carbon Neutral UMD

University of Maryland students gathered on the snow-covered McKeldin Mall on Dec. 6 to support a carbon neutrality policy that would affect 11 Maryland universities by requiring the institutions to run their campuses with entirely renewable energy and establish clean mass transportation to the schools.

The "Green Out" rally, organized by student-run group Clean Energy for UMD, took place against the backdrop of 13 wind turbine replicas constructed by the group as a representation of what the students say is one of the many clean energy resources that could be utilized to reduce the school's carbon footprint.

Clean Energy UMD along with other student groups in the Maryland Student Climate Coalition will meet with the University System of Maryland's Board of Regents in mid-February to present their carbon neutrality petition showing the student backing for the policy change.

"This isn't about reaching standards. It's about setting them," said Andrew Friedson, the university's Student Government Association president, in a speech at the rally.

An Indian Student in America

Atrayee Lahiri, 26, is from India and pursuing a Master's degree in broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland. This is her first time in the United States. All her life she experienced American schooling through missionary nuns in India, which made coming to the United States an obvious choice to study international reporting.

This year at the University of Maryland more than 10 percent of the students are international with over 150 countries represented on campus. While the university's Office of International Education Services holds events for the international students throughout the year, Lahiri insists she is happier mingling with the American students and has had a completely positive experience.

"If I wanted to meet more Indians, I would have stayed in India," Lahiri said.

Prince Tiki's Life

Maryland Football Outlook

My very first edited video :-)

Jenn who?

My name is Jenn, and I'm from Ewing, New Jersey where I've lived all my life. I'm an only child unless you want to count my family's new dog, Tiki, who moved in and stole the show shortly after I left for college. I've always been a writer. Maybe it's just self indulgent but I've filled up about 20 journals since I was 12 documenting my supposedly fascinating life. Somewhere in there, I realized that I was much more interested in other people's stories. That's pretty much what led me towards journalism back in high school - that and the fact that I used to want to be Katie Couric. Don't worry. I've changed my mind about that. So after leaving behind New Jersey (and 12 years of Catholic school), I jumped right back into it and attended Loyola College in Maryland as a communications major focusing on journalism. I started writing for the school paper and interned at the Baltimore Sun, but coming up on graduation I realized that Loyola's HUGE core and my broad major left me without a lot of the specialized journalism training I wanted. So now just months after graduating from Loyola I've started in the master's journalism program at the University of Maryland which has been extremely valuable so far - and is also the reason why I'm starting this blog. Other than that whenever I'm not busy trying to absorb the daily news, working at my assistantship or writing for local papers is spent with my photography and sewing. Hopefully I'll get the hang of this soon!