The fourth annual event to kick off the academic year features three faculty speakers and recognition of the 2025 Distinguished University Professors.
Photo: Jacqueline Mitchell of the School of Nursing delivers her speech, which was titled “Becoming the Story.” (Photo by Matthew D’Agostino)
When Jacqueline C. Mitchell, PhD, MS, CRNA, FAANA, immigrated to the United States from Grenada at age 7, she watched television for the first time. Then she discovered her favorite show, “M*A*S*H,” set in an Army hospital during the Korean War, and found her calling.
“I fell in love with the show, particularly nurse Margaret Houlihan. Major Houlihan … aka, ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan,” Mitchell said during her speech at the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) Faculty Convocation on Sept. 11. “Me, as a 10-year-old, looking at her character, she was a boss! She was doing great things. And I remember whispering to myself, ‘I’m going to grow up into that.’ ”
Mitchell attended Julia Richman High School’s licensed practical nursing program in New York, learning about famed nurses such as Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, and Mary Mahoney, then signed up for the Army after high school.
(Watch a video of the Convocation on YouTube and see a photo gallery below.)
Mitchell, who is now an assistant professor and director of clinical education for the Nurse Anesthesia Program at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1991 during the Gulf War and, she said, learned all about “Army values — loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage, and how to pack our bags and stand ready when duty calls.”
Duty did call about 10 years later, after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when she volunteered to serve in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom, taking the place of a colleague in her unit who had a baby.
“Imagine, I am dressed in my camouflage uniform: the helmet, combat boots, body armor, my M-16 rifle on my shoulder, my duffle bag on my other shoulder, sitting on a C-130 heading to Afghanistan,” she said. “We are sitting in the plane and the wheels hit the tarmac. My heart is pounding. We exit the plane, and the heat hits us like a 360-degree oven.
“Then it hits me. ‘Jacqueline, those whispered dreams at age 10 and 14, you are living it.’ I was standing side by side with my colleagues, providing care to soldiers and civilians. And this is what I’ve learned: Values matter. … Values are like a compass — they guide you in your decisions, your actions, and your reactions.
“At this University, we are all connected by the UMB core values and living up to them,” she added. “I’m standing here today, but this isn’t just about me. It’s about where we stand together to lift each other up. It’s about how faculty, staff, and students bring those values to life every single day, whether in the classroom, hospital, clinic, or in our communities.”
The Courage to Speak Up
Mitchell’s speech was one of three by UMB faculty members at the fourth annual Convocation, which serves to kick off the academic year at UMB and attracted a crowd of 400 to Koester’s Lot in front of the Saratoga Building.
Danya Mazen Qato, PhD, PharmD, MPH, associate professor, Department of Practice, Sciences, and Health Outcomes Research, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, discussed a different kind of bravery — the courage to speak up — during her speech.
She recounted attending a scientific conference where academics, researchers, students, and health professionals were gathered. A speaker was discussing babies who were exposed to harmful substances during pregnancy and asserted that their study found that Black babies experienced less pain than white babies, as evidenced by the lower exposure of Black babies to pain medication for withdrawal.
“I pondered these remarks and thought about whether their conclusion reflected the evidence they shared or not,” Qato said. “I am an epidemiologist, after all, and our work is concerned with determining the truth of the relationship between a hypothesized cause and effect.”
During a Q&A with the speaker, Qato said she got up the nerve to say, “I’d like to ask why it is that the conclusion was that Black babies experienced less pain and not, rather, that Black babies are undertreated for pain — something we know to be true.”
Qato said that after the talk, a crowd of attendees thanked her for asking the question. “And one person said, ‘I knew that sounded wrong and I’d thought the same thing as you, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak up,’ ” she said.
“I realized at that moment that I spoke for so many in that room even if it meant that I spoke up alone,” Qato said. “I wondered, too, what it would have meant for a room full of scientists, researchers, and health care professionals, ostensibly deploying the scientific method in their own work, to have let that false assertion go on unchecked.
“I share this story then not to criticize the work of others, but rather to point out that the scientific method alone is insufficient,” she added. “The imperative now, as it was in many times past, including in that packed auditorium, is to couple that revered method with the courage to speak up even, and perhaps especially so, when it makes us uncomfortable, unpopular, or in some cases vulnerable.”
Saving a Democracy
In his speech, Maxwell Stearns, JD, professor, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, discussed the state of U.S. democracy, arguing it has been fractured by a two-party system, hyper-partisan gerrymandered Congressional districts, and the corrosive influence of social media.
He said that through gerrymandering, red states get redder and blue states get bluer, noting that the Pew Research Center claimed that in 2024 only 40 of 435 House of Representative races were competitive. “In gerrymandered elections, we don’t choose our representatives,” Stearns said. “They choose us.”
Social media, he added, has helped to amplify once-marginalized voices on each side of the political spectrum.
“Conveying content on the internet is free, avoiding costly newspaper and TV network infrastructures, but our democracy has paid dearly,” Stearns said. “Social media algorithms upset the traditional media ecosystem. Meta and X don’t convey balanced, reliable content. Advertisers demand active user engagement. So, social media feed content affirming that we’re on the righteous team, or denigrating the opposition.
“On social media, we don’t choose our news sources. Our news sources choose us.”
He suggested ways to cure what ails the U.S. political system, including encouraging multiparty coalitions and devising a better way to remove a problematic president. His research on this topic is spelled out in his 2024 book, “Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy,” where he advocates for a “parliamentary democracy.”
“Choosing between two problematic presidential candidates every four years isn’t empowering,” he said. “Voters around the world are happier — and their governments more responsive — when choosing among multiple options, letting representatives negotiate who runs the government.
“Creating a thriving democracy demands radical change,” he added. “As with voting and media, if we don’t choose to save the future of our democracy, a system we don’t want will choose us.”
A Distinguished Cohort
UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, and Provost and Executive Vice President Roger J. Ward, EdD, JD, MSL, MPA, presided over the Convocation, which began by recognizing six faculty members in the 2025 cohort of Distinguished University Professors, the highest appointment that can be bestowed upon a faculty member at UMB.
A member of the 2024 cohort, former University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, who is the CARTI Endowed Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at UMSOM, also was recognized because he was unable to attend last year’s event.
The 2025 cohort:
- Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW, Professor, School of Social Work
- Mark A. Graber, JD, PhD, MA, University System of Maryland Regents Professor, Maryland Carey Law
- Myron M. Levine, MD, DTPH, Simon and Bessie Grollman Distinguished Professor and Founder and Former Director, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, UMSOM
- Jay Magaziner, PhD, MSHyg, Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, and Director, Center for Research on Aging, UMSOM
- Amal Mattu, MD, FAAEM, FACEP, Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, and Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, UMSOM
- Paula A. Monopoli, JD, Sol & Carlyn Hubert Professor of Law, Maryland Carey Law
(Read more about the 2025 Distinguished University Professors and Reece.)