University of Maryland News

Fear The Turtle at BWI

There's a new reason to "Fear the Turtle" at Thurgood Marshall-BWI Airport this holiday season. New wall-wraps on Concourse A are helping to tell the University of Maryland story—as one of the top 20 research universities in the nation—to millions of regional and national visitors.

"We invite all Terps to enjoy them. BWI is Maryland's airport and we're the Flagship University," says UM Marketing Director Deborah Wiltrout, "so this really makes sense." The new wall-wraps help set the stage for the university's "Great Expectations" fundraising campaign that seeks to raise one billion dollars by 2011. One third of those funds will be used for student scholarships.

Marshall/BWI Airport is the largest airport in Maryland, and serves more than 20 million passengers annually. It offers hundreds of non-stop daily flights to 61 domestic and nine intercontinental destinations. The wall-wraps were placed in Concourse A because it is the busiest gate at the airport.

As visitors enter Concourse A near the food court, they'll see turtles gathering, then making their way up the escalator. They take visitors to another wall-wrap where the "Fear the Turtle" message all comes together. "The Maryland Family is proud of our momentum, all that we have accomplished, and all that we have yet to achieve, knowing that together, there is nothing that can stop us," says Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Communications Terry Flannery.

"The 'Fear the Turtle' campaign is something unique to the University of Maryland," says Wiltrout. "It's unexpected that an educational institution would do something like this, so it really hits home with people."