Commencement, no matter its form, is a moment of pride, accomplishment and celebration. It’s a moment, in the words of undergraduate student speaker Juliet Jack, to see opportunity.

Students returned to in-person classrooms this fall, but one Maryland Smith class broke the boundaries of geography by collaborating (virtually) with students from Elisava University School, the Design and Engineering College of Universitat de Vic, Spain.

A Maryland Smith trio is among 19 University of Maryland graduating seniors being recognized this week for their accomplishments, prestigious internships and GPAs as Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars.

The USA hockey team upsetting the Soviet Union in the Olympics. A 35-year-old pitcher making his MLB debut. A horse owner fostering a colt to Triple Crown glory. Many are familiar with these athletic feats not only from cheering as they happened or flipping through the record books, but also from watching the fan-favorite movies that they inspired. Besides the feel-good plots, the films share another common feature: They were all produced by a Maryland Smith alum.

What is the best pathway to unlock opportunities that will allow Americans to realize their dreams? And is that route lined with government programs or free enterprise? Those questions were at the center of a debate tour recently hosted by Maryland Smith’s Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets, in partnership with The Steamboat Institute.

A Maryland Smith team with a “Big Idea” for a multi-channel market campaign for Toys For Tots took home top honors at the Digital Marketing Association of Washington/Educational Foundation’s fall 2021 Collegiate MAXI Oral Case Competition.

In the 2022 edition of the annual rankings, announced today by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur magazine, UMD placed No. 10 for undergraduate entrepreneurship education across all institutions—its seventh consecutive year in the top 10 and 10th straight year in the top 25—and No. 4 among public universities. It was also listed at No. 24 for graduate entrepreneurship education. New this year, The Princeton Review ranked schools regionally, and UMD came in at No. 2 in the Northeast.

When we think about AI, we don’t normally picture it evaluating telehealth calls or monitoring patients after surgery. But those are some of the ways that artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare, says Maryland Smith’s Gordon Gao.

For undergrad Alexia Ayuk ’23, advocating for the less fortunate and serving as a changemaker have always been top priorities. The Maryland Smith junior, studying operations management and business analytics, is president of the Smith Undergraduate Student Association. She helped launch Smith’s Inclusion, Accountability and Oversight Coalition, which holds school leaders to the practices of diversity and inclusion.

When David Rosenstein ’20 was a Maryland Smith undergraduate student, he became known for his boundless energy. One marketing professor even referred to him as a “Human Energizer Bunny.  The title has stuck, and his tempo hasn’t slowed. These days, he’s in New York, working for LinkedIn as a Business Leadership Program associate. It’s an entry-level rotational sales program that has him working in customer operations and support, with content creators, and with customers in sales. “You wear a lot of different hats,” he says.