Dear Colleagues,

For one year beginning in Fall 2005 we will celebrate the University's 150th anniversary. This yearlong celebration gives us the opportunity to highlight our many accomplishments and share with others our boundless enthusiasm for the University's future. It is my pleasure to announce that the planning for this milestone celebration has begun, and we invite you to participate.

Our sesquicentennial anniversary celebration will encompass activities spanning the year. A coordinating Committee chaired by Vice President Brodie Remington has developed the theme, guiding principles, timeline of events, and it has proposed campus committees to guide these very special events. I invite you to review their plan online at www.umd.edu/150years, and I also encourage you to share your ideas with us at 150years@umd.edu.

All planning suggestions will be considered by the Anniversary Planning Committee chaired by James Harris, Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities and professor of history. The Committee, composed of faculty, staff, students and alumni, will plan, promote and produce the 150th Anniversary Celebration.

The anniversary provides opportunities for us to celebrate the University's past accomplishments and to highlight its destiny as a world-class research university. The University, founded in 1856, began as an agricultural college on 420 acres, with three faculty members and 34 students who could study three subjects. Today, we are a top-twenty public research university with thirteen schools and colleges, on 1,200 acres, with 3,000 faculty members and 35,000 students who can choose among 100 subjects and participate in research with top faculty.

We are the Flagship of the State's university system and the state's irreplaceable asset in the determination of its future, key to its economic development, and essential to the cultural and social well being of its citizens. We have much to celebrate in our past and much to anticipate in our future. We welcome the support of all the University family in this momentous 150th Anniversary Celebration.

C.D. Mote, Jr.
President