New lights, including uplighting, have since been installed around the second M. “When I saw the ‘M’ in the flowers here, it hit me.”Ĭlass gifts to UMD have often involved campus landmarks, like the sundial (classes of 19), the Jim Henson ’60 and Kermit the Frog statue and garden (classes of 1994, 19) and, of course, the original Testudo statue (Class of 1933). For their gifts, the classes of both 19 contributed lights to let the M Circle shine at night.
“(My aunt) told me not to worry-that I’d go visit a school and would know that it was the place for me,” women’s basketball player Kris Kirchner, whose name is now all over the Terp record books, said in The Diamondback in 1978. Also included: the Mall, the Row and the often-mispronounced Taliaferro Hall.īesides brightly greeting campus visitors and making for a great photo op, the M Circle even reportedly helped convince a highly coveted athlete to call UMD home. Two years after its formation, “M” was included in a glossary of sorts to help incoming students get up to speed on the talk of the town.
It didn’t take long for the M to enter into Terps’ collective consciousness. The physical plant department (now Facilities Management) worked to elevate the upper portion of the traffic circle 9 feet, form a 33-foot-wide, 34-foot-long Gothic M out of railroad ties and fill it with red and white petunias raised by the horticulture department-a $5,000 project, according to archives of The Diamondback. The M Circle was introduced to campus in 1976 to celebrate America’s bicentennial. With the new M complete, the flowers will soon be removed from the old one, though the original circle itself will remain for now.Īs the transformation becomes official and the university marks this milestone, we commemorate-com-M-orate?-the occasion with these facts about the famous feature: The floral M shifted to make way for the light-rail Purple Line, which will link New Carrollton to Bethesda and include five stops on or near campus.ĭespite the move, UMD has never been M-less, with the original landmark remaining while the granite and lights were installed, the sod was set and the flowers were planted on the other. The M Circle, created in 1976 in the traffic circle at the intersection of Campus and Regents drives, has settled into its new home across the street, in front of the Mitchell Building. After acting as the backdrop for countless Terp graduation photos over more than four decades, one of UMD’s most iconic landmarks is commencing a new chapter of its own.
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