It had been a fairly smooth drive so far.

Junior civil engineering major Maria Martello glanced down at her lap as another text message flashed across her cell phone screen. At first, Martello was careful to keep one eye on the car in front of her as she typed out her response, but before she knew it her eyes had fixed themselves onto her keyboard for just a few seconds too long.

By the time she glanced back up, it was too late — the car ahead had stopped two seconds earlier and she did not brake in time.

Flustered, Martello tried to regain her composure and continue on with her drive as her phone buzzed once more. Still somewhat confident in her ability to multitask, Martello scrambled to type out another message only to look up and see she had missed seeing the brake lights ahead yet again.

And again. And again. And again.

“I’m sorry, I’m probably killing everyone!” a flustered Martello cried from her seat in front of the computer screen in the Maryland Day tent.

Martello was one of many students and other visitors who stopped by the “Reaction Time Delay from Texting While Driving” exhibit outside the engineering building on Saturday. Presented by the students of ENEE 133: Engineering in Medicine, the experiment simulated the experience of texting while driving as students recorded people’s reaction time to brake lights appearing in front of them.

“We’re really here to share knowledge and collect data on a current issue,” engineering professor Mel Gomez said. “We try to make it as close to the actual experience as possible.”

Here is how the experiment works: participants would sit in front of a model car with working brake lights on a small tripod, and every time the brake lights came on the participants had to press a handheld switch in their lap. At the same time, they would be texted questions, starting with easy “yes or no” questions and progressing to messages that required them to use an app on their phone.

Gomez said the average reaction time for most participants that day was five seconds — which at 65 mph, roughly equates to the distance between the engineering building and the “M” traffic circle. Some even had their eyes on their phone for 15 consecutive seconds.

And for Martello and many of the other visitors that day, it was a definite wake-up call.

“A lot of the time as students we feel like we’re invincible, like ‘Oh no, nothing will happen, it’s okay,’” she said, but added jokingly, “I’m sorry for killing everyone. … I’m a valid test subject because I text and drive a lot, but if it’s really this
dangerous, I might kill someone.”

—Leah Villanueva

With several thousand visitors on the campus Saturday for Maryland Day, DOTS used the opportunity to pilot its first-ever bike valet program.

Commuters were able to check their bike at any one of three locations — the Lee Building, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and the Agriculture Avenue area — for free. Officials said they hoped it would promote bike-friendliness on the campus and provide a safe storage facility for cyclists.

“It’s safer than regular bike racks,” DOTS Assistant Director Beverly Malone said.

An SGA Sustainability Council grant allowed DOTS to fund the project. The grant covered the $1,000 rental charge for each rack, as well as the man power needed to run the valet stands.

Malone said DOTS chose the three locations because of their high volume of foot traffic, and noted the program could expand in the future. But since the program was piloted so late in the year, she said her expectations are limited.

“We launched it late in the game,” Wang said. “But hopefully in the future it will pick up as a regular thing.”

Students said they thought the idea was good for Maryland Day but questioned whether it would last every day.

“It’s certainly a good idea,” freshman mechanical engineering major John Guerci said. “But I’ve left my bike at racks for several days at a time without it being touched, so I’m not sure how big of an issue [bike security] really is.”

— Spencer Israel

Teddy Atkins said opening for Nelly in this year’s Art Attack performance is a far cry from his band, Urban Cartel’s, first practice space: an Elkton Hall dorm room.

“It’s just unreal, a complete 180,” said Atkins, a 2009 alumnus.

After two rounds of voting, three bands — Mercury in Summer, Aperis and Urban Cartel — were chosen to bring their best music to Student Entertainment Events’ final round of Battle of the Bands in the Baltimore Room of the Stamp Student Union to win the coveted opening act slot.

But for the bands, it wasn’t about performing before Nelly — it was about showing the university their zest for music.

“No matter who we open for, we always want to display our passion for music and simply have a good time while engaging with the audience,” said Carolina Peraez, the lead singer for Aperis — a four-person band with a hard rock feel.

The bands were judged by the SEE board of directors and 90 minutes after the battle started, the winner was announced: Urban Cartel, a band made up of both current students and alumni. Urban Cartel’s website describes the band as “punk rock stylistics matched with hip-hop and R&B spirit.”

To Peraez, performing at Art Attack would have been a great opportunity, but she said it was the music that was most important.

“The most important thing to us is that the audience joins us in our musical experience and has a great time,” Peraez said.

Students came to cheer on friends and enjoy the music, while some stumbled on the show by chance.

For Lejae Woolcock, it was the promise of seeing her friends in Urban Cartel perform.

“We’re friends with all of the members,” said Woolcock, who added that she was planning to go to Art Attack next week. “That’s how we heard about it; we just wanted to come out and support them.”

— Kelly Farrell

Consoling victims of sexual assault is often a difficult task, but that doesn’t mean students at this university have given up trying.

When the Prince George’s Hospital Center’s Sexual Assault Center issued a plea last month for supplies to help comfort those who had been sexually assaulted, this university’s own Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Program stepped up to the task.

SARPP Coordinator Allison Bennett said she decided to host a stuffed-animal drive so each victim of sexual assault could have a small sense of comfort during a difficult time.

Bennett said the drive was a good conclusion to April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness month.

“This is a just a nice way for the community to do something really important,” Bennett said. “A couple of people who have contributed have said how sad it is that a child has to go through a sexual assault program, and I think this just really touches peoples’ hearts. This gives them an opportunity to contribute something real.”

In the last three days, two women donated 32 stuffed animals to the drive, bringing the grand total to 50 stuffed animals for sexual assault victims.

Students said they were proud so many had rallied around the cause.

“There’s absolutely no reason this could be construed as negative,” freshman journalism major Jessica Suss said. “It’s really great to see college students involved in something that is not necessarily talked about.”

— Maria Romas

Imagine a world without honeybees pollinating crops or clear streams supplying pure water. Some university students will have this task in a new environmental science class being offered next semester.

ENST 410: Valuing Ecosystem Services will teach students how to put an economic value on different ecosystems or ecological functions to better appreciate the critical roles they play in shaping everything from government policies to food production, course instructor Robert Tjaden said.

“It brings together ecology and economics,” Tjaden said. “From an ecological perspective, it goes into the value of a lot of the ecological functions that ecosystems perform for us like clean water.”

The course will be a good way to teach students how to put a real value on things in nature many people don’t fully appreciate, Tjaden said.
“It’s something I’m not sure most of the students have been exposed to in the past,” Tjaden said. “I think humans take a lot of these functions for granted, so it talks about the spatial aspect of society and what they value and what they don’t.”

Tjaden said the course will feature three distinct teaching styles. The first is a traditional lecture where students will learn the skills to put economic values on things in nature.
In addition, students will go on two different field trips, one to a wastewater treatment plant and one to a local wetland and forest, to see how technology is used to complement natural systems and see the role natural ecosystems play every day.

Finally, students will work together on group projects practicing different scenarios, taking on different roles such as farmers and land developers, to understand the interactions between nature and society on a more personal level.

“I’m hoping at least these three approaches will balance out the difficulty some of the students will have with this course,” Tjaden said. “I really like to teach that way because I know students do well in different types of teaching environments.”

And students seem to be on board with the concept — Tjaden said the 25 seats offered for the class are nearly full for next semester. Tjaden said the apparent popularity of the course indicated how university students were becoming more aware of the importance of the environment.

“It reflects our campus’ willingness to meet the new demands put on [the environment] by society,” Tjaden said. “In this class, we recognize we have to motivate the students for behavioral change.”

-By Claire Saravia

A DOTS forum that was supposed to provide constructive feedback to improve the department for the next fiscal year quickly turned into a breeding ground for complaints yesterday afternoon.

From parking fines to towing regulations, one undergraduate and four graduate students aired their grievances. But Department of Transportation Services Assistant Director Beverly Malone said that while she was happy to receive the feedback, the complaints might have been better saved for the monthly “Sound Your Horn” forums held specifically for DOTS to heed student concerns.

“We have such a hard time getting people to come. … We try to do everything we can to accommodate students to the best of our abilities,” Malone said.

At the event, students were given a worksheet to complete using DOTS’s 45-page packet of rules and regulations as part of a review of its parking regulations. Afterward, students stayed to talk about their past experiences with the department.

Graduate student Nadine Dangerfield recalled how she had frantically searched for her car outside Comcast Center one February night, only to learn it had been towed because she had not moved it for a basketball game. Because this is Dangerfield’s first semester at the university and she had registered her vehicle in person rather than online, she said she was unaware of the policy.

Dangerfield said she appealed her ticket twice and was denied both times.

“If there’s something specific, such as moving for a game, someone should tell students when they sign up,” she said, noting that she wasn’t told to read the regulations online when she registered in person.

DOTS public relations representative Valerie Goubeau, the event’s host, said problems brought up at the meeting will be looked into.

“The goal is to have more student-friendly regulations,” she said.

— Spencer Israel

With the help of a 45-foot long display, one new political student group was trying to show the campus community the national debt is growing.

Instead, it went missing.

A newly formed political advocacy group, the UMD Young Americans for Liberty, created a “debt clock” made of wooden panels to track the nation’s deficit — which now reportedly stands at more than $14.2 trillion — and placed it on the mall near McKeldin Library on Thursday.

But when a windstorm Sunday caused the panels to collapse, group members moved them to Stamp Student Union. By Monday afternoon, the debt clock had disappeared.

The culprits, group members said, were members of the university administration, who removed the display because the group is not officially recognized by the Student Government Association.

Although Jonathan Schaeffer, the group’s outreach director, said he doesn’t think the debt clock will be coming back any time soon, he said it was important to visualize how deep the deficit has become for the entire university community.

“The idea is for people to acknowledge that the debt is the size that it is,” Schaeffer said.

Members of the group said paying attention to the deficit is both a national and a personal responsibility.

“As college students we must begin to prepare for … personal financial independence,” club member Jonathan Cothran wrote in an email. “For the first time in our lives, monetary and financial policy has direct impact on our livelihood.”

Club members said they were looking to inform students who may not have previously known about the deficit.

“We’re not going to be able to revolutionize everyone’s thinking just by erecting this ridiculous looking sign on campus,” Schaeffer said. “The intention is to get a dialogue started.”

— Molly Marcot

James Franco, Natalie Portman and Danny McBride won’t be gracing the campus with their presence any time soon, now that the university has officially lost a contest to bring the premiere of Your Highness to the Hoff Theater.

But the students who voted in masses won’t be left empty handed — the university’s sixth place overall finish was enough to garner a free advanced screening of the film, which will be held Thursday at 9 p.m. at Regal Cinemas Royale 14, located at the University Town Center.

While some students were disappointed by the missed opportunity, many were still happy to have participated and to receive a free screening.

“Of course I voted; I love James Franco,” senior psychology major Keith Mallery said. “It’s still pretty cool that we get a free screening, though.”

Junior government and politics major Tyler Lucero voted because he “loves Natalie Portman,” but said that wasn’t the only reason.

“Anything that can put the university on the map, I’m glad to be a part of,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to seeing it,” sophomore electrical engineering major Nick Keenan said. “It would’ve been cool if we had won though.”

The screening is sold out.

— Spencer Israel

For the next few weeks, student groups across the campus will be putting their hearts and soles into a philanthropy project that collects old shoes for those without.

In a university-wide collaboration, The Sneaker Cartel, the Student Government Association, Residence Hall Association, Greek fraternities Sigma Nu and Delta Phi Epsilon, The Love Movement, and Major D.C. have placed boxes in dormitories all over the campus for students to discard sneakers and sandals to be given to Soles4Souls — a nonprofit, Nashville, Tenn.-based charity that recycles shoes.

“As a sneaker enthusiast myself, I started to realize that the amount I had collected had become superfluous and selfish,” said senior marketing major Justin Sanit, co-president of The Sneaker Cartel. “So many people have never had one pair of shoes, let alone the amount I have accumulated.”

The group started collecting new and used boots, sneakers and flip-flops Wednesday and will continue until May 2. The footwear will be refurbished and sent to impoverished and disaster-ridden areas where people especially need shoes, Sanit said. According to the group’s fliers, “Your extra pair could be their first.”

“We thought that doing a shoe drive would be extremely fitting to the purpose of our organization,” Sanit said. “Many of our members collect sneakers and have excess footwear that could be donated, and so that’s how the idea started.”

The group also plans to host a concert before the semester ends where students can bring a pair of shoes to donate for their cost of admittance.

Some students were excited about the concept of donating shoes for a good cause.

“This sounds like a really great idea,” sophomore biology major Valerie Dawson said. “Soles4Souls has done some really great work, and I really like everything they’re doing.”

Dawson said she plans to go home and gather all of her old shoes to donate.

“I have so many extra pairs at home,” she said. “I have to go home and get them.”

— Erin Egan