University of Maryland

UMD has placed highly in two international rankings! 🌎

The 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities has put UMD in the top 2% of more than 2,500 universities worldwide and the 2026 Center for World University Rankings Global 2000 list puts UMD in the top 0.5% of universities globally.

More on these rankings: go.umd.edu/2dh1

Who knew a fig could taste like Sprite?

UMD horticulturist Sam Bahr did—he's on a mission to share those fruits and others with Terps and the wider community, opening people's minds about the world's oldest cultivated fruit.

He's added nearly two dozen fig trees to campus in recent years, and hopes to inspire others to plant their own.

More on Bahr's project: go.umd.edu/2deo

Our campus wildlife enjoying some quiet before Terps return 💛

(Dylan Singleton\University of Maryland)

Our school, Our stack 💛

More than 20K fans came to UMD to watch the Ravens' first-ever practice at SECU Stadium this weekend!

Current Terps, Maryland legends and Ravens stars came together for an afternoon of running plays, swapping jerseys and excitement for the upcoming football season.

More on the event: go.umd.edu/2d3a

A UMD grad student made a jaw-dropping discovery during an internship: a rare early draft of Martin Luther King Jr.'s landmark civil rights text, "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

Nick Gentry MLIS ’26 stumbled upon the text while archiving a trove of documents. Gentry initially thought he had landed on an unremarkable copy of King’s letter. But when he showed it to his supervisor Riley Temple, the pair realized that this was an original.

“I never expected in my lifetime to be able to hold in my hand an initial draft of the iconic letter from a Birmingham jail,” said Temple, who as a young boy met King when he visited the theological school at Virginia Union University. “I lived through Jim Crow, through racial segregation. When I held the letter, not only did I scream, I wept.”

Read more on this incredible discovery: go.umd.edu/2czy

(Photos courtesy of Virginia Theological Seminary)

When a Revolutionary War-era printing shop burned down in the 1780s, it left behind more than 200,000 artifacts, including lead type, charred newspapers and ceramics.

Now, one UMD anthropology master's student is helping to preserve that history and tell the story of the pro-patriot Annapolis publishers of the Maryland Gazette in a new exhibition at the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum Visitor Center.

🖨️ These three pieces of lead printer's type are among the 1,100 excavated from Jonas and Anne Catharine Green’s news shop.

📰 A piece of the Maryland Gazette charred in the 1780 fire that destroyed the Green's original news shop.

☠️ Jonas Green stamped a skull-and-crossbones insignia on each issue of the Gazette to protest the British Stamp Act. (Courtesy of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab)

Read more: terp.umd.edu/the-revolutionary-type

Admin on summer break; please respect our new interns 🐶🐱

When a black bear and her cubs who had made a den in a homeowner's backyard in Garrett County, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources researchers headed out to help.

Working with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Maryland Zoo, they checked out the health of the bears and collected valuable data to better track populations across the state—protecting both wildlife and humans.

Read more: go.umd.edu/2crh

"The Odyssey" is a global commercial and critical hit—but how true is it to Homer's nearly 3,000-year-old poem?

UMD Arts and Humanities classics professors weigh in on Odysseus's personality shift, the roles of the Greek gods and the enduring theme of PTSD.

Hear from them: go.umd.edu/2cp0

(Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal)