DRUM - Digital Repository at the University of Maryland

DRUM collects, preserves, and provides public access to the scholarly output of the university. Faculty and researchers can upload research products for rapid dissemination, global visibility and impact, and long-term preservation.

Submit to DRUM

Submit to DRUM

To submit an item to DRUM, login using your UMD credentials. Then select the "Submit Item to DRUM" link in the navigation bar. View DRUM policies and submission guidelines.
Equitable Access Policy

Equitable Access Policy

The University of Maryland Equitable Access Policy provides equitable, open access to the University's research and scholarship. Faculty can learn more about what is covered by the policy and how to deposit on the policy website.
Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations

DRUM includes all UMD theses and dissertations from 2003 forward.

List of Communities

Collections Organized by Department

UM Community-managed Collections

Recent Submissions

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    Escaping History in the Gateway to the West
    (University of Maryland, 2026-06) Meggitt, Finn
    Escaping History in the Gateway to the West reflects upon contemporary narratives around the decline and condition of St. Louis. A region defined nationally by its decline, but the reasons cited by both locals and outsiders for the decline are a combination of vague, categorically natural historical processes. The piece uses an analysis of modern jobs, housing, and demographic data post-Great Recession, a history of the region’s racial politics, and a quantitative mapping of white flight and the spatialization of race in the St. Louis region from the Great Depression to the modern era to offer an answer to the region’s contemporary decline. The author argues the entire region, not just the urban core, post-pandemic has begun to experience a historically significant decline because of the region’s racial politics based on analysis which shows every city, suburb, and exurb in the region is experiencing white flight from the region. The region’s racial politics came to the national stage in 2014 after the murder of Michael Brown for a reason, the city has a unique politics and social structure because of its position as a city which is neither north nor south, while being the gateway to the west.
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    Freight Commuters? Evaluating the Feasibility of Integrated Passenger-Freight Transportation Through a Station-Level Screening Framework on Maryland's MARC System
    (University of Maryland, 2026-06) Aghili, Sayed Homayoon
    Integrated Passenger–Freight Transportation (IPFT) has gained renewed attention as a strategy to improve rail system efficiency, reliability, and sustainability without extensive new right-of-way construction. However, feasibility and public benefit vary substantially across shared-use corridors, particularly at station nodes where operational, spatial, and land-use factors intersect. This study proposes and applies a station-level, GIS-based screening framework to evaluate IPFT feasibility along Maryland’s MARC Camden and Brunswick Lines, which operate in proximity to CSX freight corridors. Using a multi-criteria approach, stations are assessed across five dimensions: platform separation, track complexity, right-of-way flexibility, adjacent land-use compatibility, and accessibility. Network-based walking and driving service areas and point-of-interest data are used to capture station-area context and access conditions. Results reveal highly uneven IPFT feasibility across stations, with a limited subset exhibiting strong alignment across operational and spatial dimensions. The findings support a selective, pilot-oriented approach to passenger–freight integration and demonstrate the value of early-stage screening tools for future-ready rail planning. The study contributes a transparent and replicable framework that can inform corridor development, investment prioritization, and coordinated passenger–freight strategies.
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    The Geography of School Communities: How Land Use and Neighborhood Form Shape Elementary Attendance Zones
    (University of Maryland, 2026-06) Bochynski, Michael
    School attendance zones are often treated as administrative boundaries, yet they contain distinct neighborhood histories, housing patterns, and socioeconomic conditions that shape the lived experiences of students and families. This article analyzes demographic and parcel level land use patterns across four elementary school attendance zones in Chillum, Maryland (Carole Highlands, Lewisdale, Ridgecrest, and Rosa L. Parks) to examine how built environment characteristics align with social vulnerability. Using area weighted allocation of Census indicators and parcel level land use classification, the analysis reveals substantial variation in poverty, linguistic isolation, housing typologies, and land use composition across zones. Carole Highlands exhibits the highest poverty rate and the most mixed residential–commercial environment, while Lewisdale is dominated by single family housing and has the lowest poverty rate. Ridgecrest and Rosa L. Parks fall between these extremes, each with unique built environment signatures. These findings highlight the importance of treating attendance zones as meaningful planning geographies and illustrate how spatial analysis can support community school planning under Maryland’s Blueprint for the Future. By integrating demographic and physical landscape data, the article offers a place based narrative that connects neighborhood form to educational equity and community well being.
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    Invisible by Design: How Gender Blindness Reproduces Historical Inequality in U.S. Comprehensive Planning
    (University of Maryland, 2026-05) Ateffi, Shahrzad
    Comprehensive plans are often treated as neutral technical documents, yet they function as institutional memory that defines what counts as a planning problem and whose daily routines become the baseline. This article examines how gender blindness in U.S. comprehensive planning reproduces historical inequality by reviewing 36 recently adopted plans and coding references to women, gender, and LGBTQ+ terms for both frequency and whether they are tied to concrete planning issues (mobility, safety, public space, housing, or implementation). The review identifies four recurring patterns: total silence, minimal or superficial mentions, token inclusion limited to business or healthcare framings, and limited acknowledgments that stop short of policy action. Across the sample, 22.22 percent of plans contain none of the keywords, while only 19.44 percent include meaningful mentions. To show that this absence is not inevitable, the article briefly contrasts U.S. plans with benchmarks from Vienna and Umeå, where gender considerations are operationalized through planning guidance, project design, and mobility and safety investments. The findings argue that when gender is excluded from baseline conditions and implementation logic, equity commitments remain rhetorical and the masculine default continues to shape the urban future.