title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: By September 14, 2008 (ten days after the game's initial Australian release), 2,016 of 2,216 ratings on Amazon gave the game one out of five stars, most citing EA's implementation of DRM for the low ratings. Electronic Arts cited "SecuROM" as a "standard for the industry" and Apple's iPod song DRM policy as justification for the control method. Former Maxis developer Chris Harris labeled the DRM a "screw up" and a "totally avoidable disaster".


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The "SecuROM" software was not mentioned on the box, in the manual, or in the software license agreement. An EA spokesperson stated that "we don't disclose specifically which copy protection or digital rights management system we use [...] because EA typically uses one license agreement for all of its downloadable games, and different EA downloadable games may use different copy protection and digital rights management.” A cracked version without the DRM was released two days before the initial Australian release, making "Spore" the most torrented game on BitTorrent in 2008.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: On September 22, 2008, a class action lawsuit was filed against EA, regarding the DRM in Spore, complaining about EA not disclosing the existence of SecuROM, and addressing how SecuROM runs with the nature of a rootkit, including how it remains on the hard drive even after "Spore" is uninstalled. On October 14, 2008, a similar class action lawsuit was filed against EA for the inclusion of DRM software in the free demo version of the Creature Creator.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The DRM was also one of the major reasons why Spore is still one of the most pirated games to date, where within the first week of the game, over 500,000 people started downloading or downloaded it illegally from sites like The Pirate Bay.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: EA began selling "Spore" without SecuROM on December 22, 2008, through Steam. Furthermore, EA Games president Frank Gibeau announced that maximum install limit would be increased from 3 to 5 and that it would be possible to de-authorize and move installations to new machines, citing the need to adapt their policy to accommodate their legitimate customers. EA has stated, "By running the de-authorization tool, a machine 'slot' will be freed up on the online Product Authorization server and can then be re-used by another machine. You can de-authorize at any time, even without uninstalling Spore, and free up that machine authorization. If you re-launch "Spore" on the same machine, the game will attempt to re-authorize. If you have not reached the machine limitation, the game will authorize and the machine will be re-authorized using up one of the five available machines." However, the de-authorization tool to do this is not available on the Mac platform. In 2016, a DRM-free version of "Spore" was released on GOG.com.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The educational community has shown some interest in using "Spore" to teach students about evolution and biology. However, the game's player-driven evolution mechanism differs from the theory of evolution in some key ways:


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: In October 2008, John Bohannon of "Science" magazine assembled a team to review the game's portrayal of evolution and other scientific concepts. Evolutionary biologists T. Ryan Gregory of the University of Guelph and Niles Elredge of the American Museum of Natural History reviewed the Cell and Creature stages. William Sims Bainbridge, a sociologist from the U.S. National Science Foundation, reviewed the Tribe and Civilization stages. NASA's Miles Smith reviewed the Space Stage. The "Science" team evaluated "Spore" on twenty-two subjects. The game's grades ranged from a single A in galactic structure and a B+ in sociology to Fs in mutation, sexual selection, natural selection, genetics, and genetic drift. In addition, Yale evolutionary biologists Thomas Near and Thomas Prum found "Spore" fun to play and admired its ability to get people to think about evolutionary questions, but consider the game's evolutionary mechanism to be "severely messed up.". With this noted, study of how players make meaning with the game suggest that the game prompts more sophisticated thinking about evolution than the model the game presents.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: According to "Seed" magazine, the original concept for "Spore" was more scientifically accurate than the version that was eventually released. It included more realistic artwork for the single-celled organisms and a rejection of faster-than-light travel as impossible. However, these were removed to make the game more friendly to casual users. While "Seed" does not entirely reject "Spore" as a teaching tool, admiring its ability to show the user experimentation, observation, and scale, biological concepts did not fare so well:


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Will Wright argues that developers "put the player in the role of an intelligent designer" because of the lack of emotional engagement of early prototypes focusing on mutation. Intelligent design advocate Michael Behe of Lehigh University reviewed the game and said that "Spore" "has nothing to do with real science or real evolution—neither Darwinian nor intelligent design."


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore Creepy & Cute Parts Pack" is an expansion pack that was released in late 2008, it includes new parts and color schemes for creature creation. Among the new parts were additional mouths and eyes, as well as "insect legs." The pack also included new test-drive animations and backgrounds.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore Galactic Adventures" was released on June 23, 2009. It allows the player's creature to beam onto planets, rather than using a hologram. It also adds an "Adventure Creator" which allows for the creation of missions and goals to share with the "Spore" community. Creatures can add new abilities, including weaponry, tanks, and crew members, as well as a section of the adventure creator that involves editing a planet and using 60 new flora parts.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore Bot Parts Pack" is an expansion part of an EA promotion with Dr Pepper in early 2010, 14 new robotic parts for "Spore" creatures were released in a new patch (1.06.0000) available only from the Dr. Pepper website. Codes found on certain bottles of Dr Pepper allow the player to redeem these parts, albeit only for the US, excluding Maine. It was only available for Windows PC, and was eventually extended to Canadian residents. The promotion ended in late 2011. The "Spore Bot Parts Pack" has caused controversy within the "Spore" community, because of many problems with the download and its exclusive nature.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore Creature Creator" is the creature creator element of "Spore" released prior to the full game, and was a demo for Spore.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Two spinoffs were released for the Nintendo DS, titled "Spore Creatures" and "Spore Hero Arena", both somewhat focusing on the Creature phase. The former is a 2.5D story-based role-playing game as the player controls a creature kidnapped by a UFO and forced to survive in a strange world, with elements of "Nintendogs", while the latter is a 3D role playing game heavily focusing on a fighting mechanic. A Wii spinoff of the game now known as "Spore Hero" has been mentioned by Will Wright several times, such as in his October 26, 2007 interview with "The Guardian". Buechner confirmed it, revealing that plans for a Wii version were underway, and that the game would be built from the ground up and would take advantage of the Wii Remote, stating, "We're not porting it over. You know, we're still so early in design and prototyping that I don't know where we're going to end up, so I don't want to lead you down one path. But suffice to say that it's being developed with the Wii controls and technology in mind." Eventually, a spin-off under the title "Spore Hero" was announced, an adventure game built ground up for the Wii with a heavier focus on evolution.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore Origins" is the mobile phone/iPhone/iPod spinoff of "Spore", and as with the Nintendo DS version, focuses on a single phase of gameplay; in this case, the cell phase. The simplified game allows players to try to survive as a multicellular organism in a tide pool, similar to "Flow". The iPhone version takes advantage of the device's touch capabilities and 3-axis accelerometer. A sequel to "Spore Origins" was released, known as "Spore Creatures" (unrelated to Nintendo DS "Spore Creatures"). The game was a recreation of the Creature Stage, and was released for mobile phones.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: For a time, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of "Spore" were under consideration. Frank Gibeau, president of Electronic Arts' Games Label announced that the publisher might use the underlying technology of "Spore" to develop electric software titles, such as action, real-time strategy, and role-playing games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Darkspore" was an action role-playing game that utilized the same creature-editing mechanics. It was released in April 2011 for Microsoft Windows. The game was shut down in March 2016.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore Creature Keeper" was a spin-off game developed by Maxis for Windows and OS X. Made for younger users, the gameplay was heavily based on "The Sims". Originally planned for a summer 2009 release, the game development was eventually cancelled.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: A spinoff for Facebook was released, titled "Spore Islands". The gameplay was similar to games such as "Dragon City", and reviews of the game were not high, with Gamezebo rating it 2/5 stars.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: There is an iTunes-style ""Spore" Store" built into the game, allowing players to purchase external "Spore" licensed merchandise, such as t-shirts, posters, and future "Spore" expansion packs. There are also plans for the creation of a type of "Spore" collectible card game based on the "Sporepedia" cards of the creatures, buildings, vehicles, and planets that have been created by the players. There are also indications of plans for the creation of customized creature figurines; some of those who designed their own creatures at E3 2006 later received 3D printed models of the creatures they created. On December 18, 2008, it was announced that players could now turn their creations into 3D sculptures using Z Corporations 3D printing technology.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: The "Spore" Store also allows people to put their creatures on items such as T-shirts, mugs, and stickers. The "Spore" team worked with a comic creation software company to offer comic book versions of players' "Spore stories". Comic books with stylized pictures of various creatures, some whose creation has been shown in various presentations, can be seen on the walls of the "Spore" team's office. The utility was revealed at the on July 24, 2008, as the "Spore Comic Creator", which would utilize MashOn.com and its e-card software.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: "Spore: Galactic Edition", a special edition of the game; includes a "Making of Spore" DVD video, "How to Build a Better Being" DVD video by National Geographic Channel, "The Art of Spore" hardback mini-book, a fold-out "Spore" poster and a 100-page Galactic Handbook published by Prima Games.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: EA, 20th Century Fox, and AIG announced the development of a "Spore" film on October 1, 2009. The adaptation would be a CGI-animated film created by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Chris Wedge. However, the film remained in development hell for years. Following Disney's purchase of Fox, Blue Sky Studios announced that they would be closing down, leaving the film ostensibly canceled.


title: Spore (2008 video game)

text: Cliff Martinez composed the main menu galaxy theme track, along with the related interstellar and solar music. Brian Eno together with Peter Chilvers created the generative music heard while editing planets in the Space Stage. Kent Jolly, with sample source from Eno, created the generative music for the Cell Stage game, cell editor, Creature Stage game, creature editor, Tribal Stage game, and Civilization Stage building editor. Aaron Mcleran, also with some sample source from Eno, created the generative music for the tribe editor, and all of the vehicle editors. Other composers included Jerry Martin, Saul Stokes (Sporepedia music), and Marc Russo. The Civilization Stage user theme generation was designed by Kent Jolly, Aaron McLeran and Cyril Saint Girons, with sample source provided by Eno. All of the audio in Spore was implemented using a modified version of Pure Data created by Miller Puckette.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best-known work, the play "A Raisin in the Sun", highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award — making her the first African-American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 US Supreme Court case "Hansberry v. Lee".


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: After she moved to New York City, Hansberry worked at the Pan-Africanist newspaper "Freedom", where she worked with other intellectuals such as Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggles for liberation and their impact on the world. Hansberry's writings also discussed her lesbianism and the oppression of homosexuality. She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. Hansberry inspired the Nina Simone song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", whose title-line came from Hansberry's autobiographical play.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Lorraine Hansberry was the youngest of four children born to Carl Augustus Hansberry, a successful real-estate broker and Nannie Louise (born Perry), a driving school teacher and ward committeewoman.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1938, her father bought a house in the Washington Park Subdivision of the South Side of Chicago, incurring the wrath of some of their white neighbors. The latter's legal efforts to force the Hansberry family out culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in "Hansberry v. Lee", . The restrictive covenant was ruled contestable, though not inherently invalid; these covenants were eventually ruled unconstitutional in "Shelley v. Kraemer", .


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Carl Hansberry was also a supporter of the Urban League and NAACP in Chicago. Both Hansberrys were active in the Chicago Republican Party. Carl died in 1946 when Lorraine was fifteen years old; "American racism helped kill him," she later said.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: The Hansberrys were routinely visited by prominent black people, including sociology professor W. E. B. Du Bois, poet Langston Hughes, singer, actor, and political activist Paul Robeson, musician Duke Ellington, and Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Carl Hansberry's brother, William Leo Hansberry, founded the African Civilization section of the History Department at Howard University. Lorraine was taught: "Above all, there were two things which were never to be betrayed: the family and the race."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Lorraine Hansberry has many notable relatives including director and playwright Shauneille Perry, whose eldest child is named after her. Her grandniece is the actress Taye Hansberry. Her cousin is the flutist, percussionist, and composer Aldridge Hansberry.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry graduated from Betsy Ross Elementary in 1944 and from Englewood High School in 1948. She attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she immediately became politically active with the Communist Party USA and integrated a dormitory. Hansberry's classmate Bob Teague remembered her as "the only girl I knew who could whip together a fresh picket sign with her own hands, at a moment's notice, for any cause or occasion".


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: She worked on Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party presidential campaign in 1948, despite her mother's disapproval. She spent the summer of 1949 in Mexico, studying painting at the University of Guadalajara.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1950, Hansberry decided to leave Madison and pursue her career as a writer in New York City, where she attended The New School. She moved to Harlem in 1951 and became involved in activist struggles such as the fight against evictions.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1951, Hansberry joined the staff of the black newspaper "Freedom", edited by Louis E. Burnham and published by Paul Robeson. At "Freedom", she worked with W. E. B. Du Bois, whose office was in the same building, and other Black Pan-Africanists. At the newspaper, she worked as a "subscription clerk, receptionist, typist, and editorial assistant" besides writing news articles and editorials.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Additionally, she wrote scripts at "Freedom". To celebrate the newspaper's first birthday, Hansberry wrote the script for a rally at Rockland Palace, a then-famous Harlem hall, on "the history of the Negro newspaper in America and its fighting role in the struggle for a people's freedom, from 1827 to the birth of FREEDOM." Performers in this pageant included Paul Robeson, his longtime accompanist Lawrence Brown, the multi-discipline artist Asadata Dafora, and numerous others. The following year, she collaborated with the already produced playwright Alice Childress, who also wrote for "Freedom", on a pageant for its Negro History Festival, with Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Douglas Turner Ward, and John O. Killens. This is her earliest remaining theatrical work.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Like Robeson and many black civil rights activists, Hansberry understood the struggle against white supremacy to be interlinked with the program of the Communist Party. One of her first reports covered the Sojourners for Truth and Justice convened in Washington, D.C., by Mary Church Terrell. Hansberry traveled to Georgia to cover the case of Willie McGee, and was inspired to write the poem "Lynchsong" about his case.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry worked on not only the US civil rights movement, but also global struggles against colonialism and imperialism. She wrote in support of the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya, criticizing the mainstream press for its biased coverage.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry often explained these global struggles in terms of female participants. She was particularly interested in the situation of Egypt, "the traditional Islamic 'cradle of civilization,' where women had led one of the most important fights anywhere for the equality of their sex."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1952, Hansberry attended a peace conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, in place of Robeson, who had been denied travel rights by the State Department.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: On June 20, 1953, Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish publisher, songwriter, and political activist. Hansberry and Nemiroff moved to Greenwich Village, the setting of her second Broadway play, "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window". On the night before their wedding in 1953, Nemiroff and Hansberry protested against the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in New York City.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: The success of the hit pop song "Cindy, Oh Cindy", co-authored by Nemiroff, enabled Hansberry to start writing full-time. Although the couple separated in 1957 and divorced in 1962, their professional relationship lasted until Hansberry's death.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry was a closeted lesbian. Before her marriage, she had written in her personal notebooks about her attraction to women. In 1957, around the time she separated from Nemiroff, Hansberry contacted the Daughters of Bilitis, the San Francisco-based lesbian rights organization, contributing two letters to their magazine, "The Ladder", both of which were published under her initials, first "L.H.N." and then "L.N." Pointing to these letters as evidence, some gay and lesbian writers credited Hansberry as having been involved in the homophile movement or as having been an activist for gay rights. According to Kevin J. Mumford, however, beyond reading homophile magazines and corresponding with their creators, "no evidence has surfaced" to support claims that Hansberry was directly involved in the movement for gay and lesbian civil equality.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Mumford stated that Hansberry's lesbianism caused her to feel isolated while "A Raisin in the Sun" catapulted her to fame; still, while "her impulse to cover evidence of her lesbian desires sprang from other anxieties of respectability and conventions of marriage, Hansberry was well on her way to coming out." Near the end of her life, she declared herself "committed [to] this homosexuality thing" and vowing to "create my life—not just accept it". Before her death, she built a circle of gay and lesbian friends, took several lovers, vacationed in Provincetown (where she enjoyed, in her words, "a gathering of the clan"), and subscribed to several homophile magazines.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1964, Hansberry and Nemiroff divorced but continued to work together. Upon his ex-wife's death, Robert Nemiroff donated all of Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library. In doing so, he blocked access to all materials related to Hansberry's lesbianism, meaning that no scholars or biographers had access for more than 50 years. In 2013, Nemiroff's daughter released the restricted materials to Kevin J. Mumford, who explored Hansberry's self-identification in subsequent work.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Written and completed in 1957, "A Raisin in the Sun" opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959, becoming the first play by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. The 29-year-old author became the youngest American playwright and only the fifth woman to receive the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. She was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, among the four Tony Awards that the play was nominated for in 1960. Over the next two years, "Raisin" was translated into 35 languages and was being performed all over the world.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In April 1959, as a sign of her sudden fame just one month after "A Raisin in the Sun" premiered on Broadway, photographer David Attie did an extensive photo-shoot of Hansberry for "Vogue" magazine, in the apartment at 337 Bleecker Street where she had written "Raisin", which produced many of the best-known images of her today. In her award-winning Hansberry biography "Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry", Imani Perry writes that in his "gorgeous" images, "Attie captured her intellectual confidence, armour, and remarkable beauty."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry wrote two screenplays of "Raisin", both of which were rejected as controversial by Columbia Pictures. Commissioned by NBC in 1960 to create a television program about slavery, Hansberry wrote "The Drinking Gourd". This script was called "superb" but also rejected.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1960, during Delta Sigma Theta's 26th national convention in Chicago, Hansberry was made an honorary member.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1961, Hansberry was set to replace Vinnette Carroll as the director of the musical "Kicks and Co", after its try-out at Chicago's McCormick Place. Written by Oscar Brown, Jr., the show featured an interracial cast including Lonnie Sattin, Nichelle Nichols, Vi Velasco, Al Freeman, Jr., Zabeth Wilde, and Burgess Meredith in the title role of Mr. Kicks. A satire involving miscegenation, the $400,000 production was co-produced by her husband Robert Nemiroff. Despite a warm reception in Chicago, the show never made it to Broadway.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1963, Hansberry participated in a meeting with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, set up by James Baldwin. Also in 1963, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She underwent two operations, on June 24 and August 2. Neither of the surgeries was successful in removing the cancer.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry agreed to speak to the winners of a creative writing conference on May 1, 1964: "Though it is a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic — to be young, gifted and black."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: While many of her other writings were published in her lifetime — essays, articles, and the text for the SNCC book "The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality" — the only other play given a contemporary production was "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window". It ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: According to historian Fanon Che Wilkins, "Hansberry believed that gaining civil rights in the United States and obtaining independence in colonial Africa were two sides of the same coin that presented similar challenges for Africans on both sides of the Atlantic." In response to the independence of Ghana, led by Kwame Nkrumah, Hansberry wrote: "The promise of the future of Ghana is that of all the colored peoples of the world; it is the promise of freedom."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Regarding tactics, Hansberry said blacks "must concern themselves with every single means of struggle: legal, illegal, passive, active, violent and non-violent... They must harass, debate, petition, give money to court struggles, sit-in, lie-down, strike, boycott, sing hymns, pray on steps—and shoot from their windows when the racists come cruising through their communities."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: James Baldwin described Hansberry's 1963 meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, in which Hansberry asked for a "moral commitment" on civil rights from Kennedy. According to Baldwin, Hansberry stated: "I am not worried about black men--who have done splendidly, it seems to me, all things considered...But I am very worried...about the state of the civilization which produced that photograph of the white cop standing on that Negro woman's neck in Birmingham."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In a Town Hall debate on June 15, 1964, Hansberry criticized white liberals who could not accept civil disobedience, expressing a need to "encourage the white liberal to stop being a liberal and become an American radical." At the same time, she said, "some of the first people who have died so far in this struggle have been white men."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry was a critic of existentialism, which she considered too distant from the world's economic and geopolitical realities. Along these lines, she wrote a critical review of Richard Wright's "The Outsider" and went on to style her final play "Les Blancs" as a foil to Jean Genet's absurdist "Les Nègres". However, Hansberry admired Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex".


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1959, Hansberry commented that women who are "twice oppressed" may become "twice militant". She held out some hope for male allies of women, writing in an unpublished essay: "If by some miracle women should not ever utter a single protest against their condition there would still exist among men those who could not endure in peace until her liberation had been achieved."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry was appalled by the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place while she was in high school. She expressed a desire for a future in which "Nobody fights. We get rid of all the little bombs—and the big bombs," though she also believed in the right of people to defend themselves with force against their oppressors.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: The FBI began surveillance of Hansberry when she prepared to go to the Montevideo peace conference. The Washington, D.C., office searched her passport files "in an effort to obtain all available background material on the subject, any derogatory information contained therein, and a photograph and complete description," while officers in Milwaukee and Chicago examined her life history. Later, an FBI reviewer of "Raisin in the Sun" highlighted its Pan-Africanist themes as "dangerous".


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer on January 12, 1965, aged 34. James Baldwin believed "it is not at all farfetched to suspect that what she saw contributed to the strain which killed her, for the effort to which Lorraine was dedicated is more than enough to kill a man."


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry's funeral was held in Harlem on January 15, 1965. Paul Robeson and SNCC organizer James Forman gave eulogies. The presiding minister, Eugene Callender, recited a message from Baldwin, and also a message from the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. that read: "Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn." The 15th was also Dr. King's birthday. She is buried at Asbury United Methodist Church Cemetery in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Hansberry's ex-husband, Robert Nemiroff, became the executor for several unfinished manuscripts. He added minor changes to complete the play "Les Blancs", which Julius Lester termed her best work, and he adapted many of her writings into the play "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", which was the longest-running Off Broadway play of the 1968–69 season. It appeared in book form the following year under the title "To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words". She left behind an unfinished novel and several other plays, including "The Drinking Gourd" and "What Use Are Flowers?", with a range of content, from slavery to a post-apocalyptic future.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: When Nemiroff donated Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library, he "separated out the lesbian-themed correspondence, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, and full runs of the homophile magazines and restricted them from access to researchers." In 2013, more than twenty years after Nemiroff's death, the new executor released the restricted material to scholar Kevin J. Mumford.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1973, a musical based on "A Raisin in the Sun", entitled "Raisin," opened on Broadway, with music by Judd Woldin, lyrics by Robert Brittan, and a book by Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg. The show ran for more than two years and won two Tony Awards, including Best Musical.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 2004, "A Raisin in the Sun" was revived on Broadway in a production starring Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Audra McDonald, and directed by Kenny Leon. The production won Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play for Rashad and Best Featured Actress in a Play for McDonald, and received a nomination for Best Revival of a Play. In 2008, the production was adapted for television with the same cast, winning two NAACP Image Awards.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 2014, the play was revived on Broadway again in a production starring Denzel Washington, directed again by Kenny Leon; it won three Tony Awards, for Best Revival of a Play, Best Featured Actress in a Play for Sophie Okonedo, and Best Direction of a Play.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 1969, Nina Simone first released a song about Hansberry called "To Be Young, Gifted and Black." The title of the song refers to the title of Hansberry's autobiography, which Hansberry first coined when speaking to the winners of a creative writing conference on May 1, 1964: "Though it is a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic — to be young, gifted and black." Simone wrote the song with the poet Weldon Irvine and told him that she wanted lyrics that would "make black children all over the world feel good about themselves forever." When Irvine read the lyrics after it was finished, he thought, "I didn't write this. God wrote it through me." A studio recording by Simone was released as a single and the first live recording on October 26, 1969, was captured on "Black Gold" (1970). The single reached the top 10 of the R&B charts. In the introduction of the live version, Simone explains the difficulty of losing a close friend and talented artist.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Patricia and Fredrick McKissack wrote a children's biography of Hansberry, "Young, Black, and Determined", in 1998.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Hansberry in the biographical dictionary "100 Greatest African Americans".


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: "The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre" of San Francisco, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in her honor.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Lincoln University's first-year female dormitory is named Lorraine Hansberry Hall. There is a school in the Bronx called Lorraine Hansberry Academy, and an elementary school in St. Albans, Queens, New York, named after Hansberry as well.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: On the eightieth anniversary of Hansberry's birth, Adjoa Andoh presented a BBC Radio 4 program entitled "Young, Gifted and Black" in tribute to her life.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Founded in 2004 and officially launched in 2006, The Hansberry Project of Seattle, Washington was created as an African-American theatre lab, led by African-American artists and was designed to provide the community with consistent access to the African-American artistic voice. A Contemporary Theatre (ACT) was their first incubator and in 2012 they became an independent organization. The Hansberry Project is rooted in the convictions that black artists should be at the center of the artistic process, that the community deserves excellence in its art, and that theatre's fundamental function is to put people in a relationship with one another. Their goal is to create a space where the entire community can be enriched by the voices of professional black artists, reflecting autonomous concerns, investigations, dreams, and artistic expression.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In 2013, Hansberry was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people. This made her the first Chicago native to be honored along the North Halsted corridor.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: Lorraine Hansberry Elementary School was located in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it has since closed.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: In January 2018, the PBS series "American Masters" released a new documentary, "Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart", directed by Tracy Heather Strain.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: On September 18, 2018, the biography "Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry", written by scholar Imani Perry, was published by Beacon Press.


title: Lorraine Hansberry

text: On June 9, 2022, the Lilly Awards Foundation unveiled a statue of Hansberry in Times Square. The statue will be sent on a tour of major US cities.


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: Giacomo Keaton Gianniotti (born 19 June 1989) is an Italian-Canadian film and television actor. He studied theater at Humber College and made his acting debut in the Italian television series "Medicina Generale" in 2010. He went on to play recurring roles in the television series "Reign" (2013) and "Murdoch Mysteries" (2013–2014). From 2015 to 2021, Gianniotti played Dr. Andrew DeLuca in the medical drama series "Grey's Anatomy".


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: Giacomo Gianniotti was born 19 June 1989, in Rome, Italy. He emigrated with his family at a young age and grew up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He divides his time between Toronto and Rome, working in Canadian and Italian stage, films and television.


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: He attended high school at Cardinal Carter Academy for the Arts in Toronto, then graduated from Humber College's Theatre Program. He has also completed an actor's residency at Norman Jewison's Canadian Film Centre in Toronto.


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: His first experience in film was a small role in a Giulio Base's feature film featuring Shelley Winters and Vittorio Gassman, shot in the "Cinecittá" film studio in Rome. He guest starred in an episode of the Italian television series "Medicina Generale" in 2010. He appeared in several television shows in 2013, including "Beauty & the Beast" and "Copper" in which he starred in three episodes.


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: Gianniotti played a recurring role as Lord Julien in the first season of "Reign". He played Leslie Garland for several episodes in "Murdoch Mysteries" (2013–2014). He starred as Freddy in the now cancelled television series "Selfie" (2014), and later acted in the made-for-TV drama film "The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe". In 2015, Gianniotti appeared in "Backpackers" as Andrew.


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: Also in 2015, he was cast as surgical intern Dr. Andrew DeLuca for the last two episodes of the eleventh season of "Grey's Anatomy". On 8 January 2016, he was promoted to series regular.


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: In 2019, Gianniotti was one of the recipients of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards presented by Canadian Immigrant Magazine.


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: In 2021, Gianniotti won the Tell-Tale TV Award for Favorite Actor in a Network Drama Series for his role on "Grey's Anatomy".


title: Giacomo Gianniotti

text: On 25 November 2017, Giannotti became engaged to makeup artist Nichole Gustafson. They married on 28 April 2019 in Italy.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia University (French: "Université Concordia") is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the three universities in Quebec where English is the primary language of instruction (the others being McGill and Bishop's). As of the 2020–21 academic year, there were 51,253 students enrolled in credit courses at Concordia, making the university among the largest in Canada by enrollment. The university has two campuses, set approximately apart: Sir George Williams Campus is the main campus, located in the Quartier Concordia neighbourhood of Downtown Montreal in the borough of Ville Marie; and Loyola Campus in the residential district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. With four faculties, a school of graduate studies and numerous colleges, centres and institutes, Concordia offers over 400 undergraduate and 200 graduate programs and courses.


title: Concordia University

text: The university is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, International Association of Universities, Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate, Canadian Bureau for International Education and Canadian University Press. The university's varsity teams, known as the Stingers, compete in the Quebec Student Sport Federation of U Sports.


title: Concordia University

text: Although the roots of its founding institutions go back more than 160 years, Concordia University was formed on August 24, 1974, through the merger of Loyola College (1896) and Sir George Williams University (1926). On February 16, 2017, Concordia University recognized that it is located on unceded Indigenous lands.


title: Concordia University

text: Loyola College traces its roots to an English-language program at the Jesuit Collège Sainte-Marie de Montréal (today part of the Université du Québec à Montréal) at the Sacred Heart Convent. In 1896, Loyola College was established at the corner of Bleury Street and Saint Catherine Street. Loyola College was named in honour of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. On March 10, 1898, the institution was incorporated by the Government of Quebec and became a full-fledged college. The same year, following a fire, the college was relocated further west on Drummond Street, south of Saint Catherine Street. Although founded as a "collège classique" (the forerunners of Quebec's college system), Loyola began granting university degrees through Université Laval in 1903.


title: Concordia University

text: The college moved into the present west-end campus on Sherbrooke Street West in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in 1916. The School of Sociology opened in 1918. Since Loyola College never became a chartered university, it did not have the ability to grant its own university degrees. In 1920, the institution became affiliated with Université de Montréal, which began granting its degrees instead of Université Laval.


title: Concordia University

text: Memorial bronze honour roll plaques in the entrance hall near the administrative offices are dedicated to those from Loyola College who fought in the First World War, Second World War and Korean War.


title: Concordia University

text: The inter-war period was marked by the shift of education in the institution, the "collège classique" education was replaced by humanistic education (Liberal Arts College) in 1940, and Loyola became a four-year institution. Theology and philosophy were taught to all students until 1972.


title: Concordia University

text: In 1940, the Faculty of Science and the Department of Engineering, which became a faculty in 1964, were created. In addition to providing the same undergraduate programs as other colleges, the institution also offered innovative fields of study at the time, such as exercise science and communication studies. Students could enrol in academic majors starting in 1953 and honours programs in 1958. Students graduating from Loyola could afterwards pursue graduate-level education in other universities, with a few earning Rhodes Scholarships.


title: Concordia University

text: Starting in 1958, Loyola also began offering its first evening courses for students not being able to go to school full-time. New courses were given in library science and faith community nursing. Since its creation, Loyola College had welcomed almost exclusively young English-speaking Catholic men as students. It became co-ed in 1959 and became less homogeneous with the ever-increasing number of foreign students.


title: Concordia University

text: Obtaining a university charter was an important issue in the 1960s. Although many wanted Loyola College to become Loyola University, the Government of Quebec preferred to annex it to Sir George Williams University. Negotiations began in 1968 and ended with the creation of Concordia University on August 24, 1974.


title: Concordia University

text: In 1851, the first YMCA in North America was established on Ste. Helene Street in Old Montreal. Beginning in 1873, the YMCA offered evening classes to allow working people in the English-speaking community to pursue their education while working during the day. Sixty years later, the Montreal YMCA relocated to its current location on Stanley Street in Downtown Montreal. In 1926, the education program at the YMCA was reorganized as Sir George Williams College, named after George Williams, founder of the original YMCA in London, England, upon which the Montreal YMCA was based. In 1934, Sir George Williams College offered the first undergraduate credit course in adult education in Canada.


title: Concordia University

text: Sir George Williams College received its university charter from the provincial government in 1948, though it remained the education arm of the Montreal YMCA. Sir George Williams expanded into its first standalone building, the Norris Building, in 1956. In 1959, the college requested that the Quebec legislature amend its university charter, changing its name to Sir George Williams University. It established a Centre for Human Relations and Community Studies in 1963. Sir George Williams continued to hold classes in the YMCA building until the construction of the Henry F. Hall Building in 1966.


title: Concordia University

text: The university gained international attention in 1969 for what is known as the "Computer Centre Incident." Notably in spring 1968, six black West Indian students at Sir George Williams University accused a biology lecturer (later assistant professor) of racism. The complaint was lodged to the dean of students, Magnus Flynn. Dissatisfied with how the administration was handling their complaint, the students decided to make it a public issue in fall 1968. The students occupied and destroyed the Hall Building's ninth floor computer lab after threatening to do so should the riot squad be called. The events forced the university to re-evaluate its policies, leading to the creation of the Ombuds Office and establishment of the University Regulations on Rights and Responsibilities in April 1971. (See Sir George Williams Affair).


title: Concordia University

text: Following several years of discussions and planning, Sir George Williams University merged with Loyola College to create Concordia University in 1974. Concordia provided students with representative student organizations and greater power over administrative decisions at the university.


title: Concordia University

text: In 1968, in the wake of the Parent Commission Report, which recommended the secularization of Quebec's educational system, the Government of Quebec asked Loyola College and Sir George Williams University to consider some form of union. The proposed merger was discussed by the Loyola-Sir George Williams Joint Steering Committee, a committee created to analyze all forms of possible mergers of the two institutions. It was proposed, in 1969, to create a university federation that allowed students to take courses at both campuses without paying additional fees. There was also mention of a shuttle bus service linking the remote facilities apart.


title: Concordia University

text: Criticized for the difficulties encountered by the cohesion of the various departments and faculties, this option was set aside, but not totally rejected by the Joint Steering Committee. The Joint Committee of Representatives of the Board of Trustees of Loyola College and the Board of Governors of Sir George Williams University was formed in December 1971 and in fall 1972 produced a document outlining the basis of a university with two campuses. While the committee considered a number of possible models, including that of a loose federation, the solution finally adopted was that of an integrated institution, Concordia University, operating under the existing charter of Sir George Williams University. Following several revisions in November 1972, the document became the main plan of the proposed merger. It was accepted by both institutions, which began the process of consolidating their operations.


title: Concordia University

text: In early 1973, the two institutions announced the merger would take place that fall. However, legal and administrative procedures delayed the merger for another year. On August 24, 1974, the Government of Quebec recognized the merger, thus creating Concordia University. The name was taken from the motto of the city of Montreal, "Concordia salus" (meaning "well-being through harmony").


title: Concordia University

text: The legal existence of Concordia dates from August 24, 1974. The integration of the various faculties of the two institutions into a coherent whole took several years. The five faculties of the new university were a combination of existing faculties and departments prior to the merger. There was a Faculty of Commerce, Faculty of Science and Faculty of Arts at Sir George Williams University. Additionally, there was a Faculty of Arts and Science at Loyola College. The Faculty of Engineering of both institutions had previously been combined.


title: Concordia University

text: In the late 1980s, the Georges P. Vanier Library on the Loyola Campus was enlarged, while in 1992, the library on Sir George Williams Campus moved to the new J.W. McConnell Building. The Norris Building was closed the same year.


title: Concordia University

text: On August 24, 1992, Valery Fabrikant, a mechanical engineering professor, shot five colleagues, killing four, on the ninth floor of the Hall Building. Fabrikant was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. The university erected a memorial to the slain professors (four granite tables) in the Hall Building lobby.


title: Concordia University

text: Starting in 1998, the university entered a major phase of expansion to meet its growing student enrolment. In August 2003, Concordia inaugurated the Richard J. Renaud Science Complex on Loyola Campus.


title: Concordia University

text: In 2005, the university launched a major urban redevelopment project in the neighbourhood surrounding Sir George Williams Campus known as the Quartier Concordia. That same year, the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex opened its doors on Saint Catherine Street West between Guy Street and Mackay Street.


title: Concordia University

text: In September 2009, the university marked the opening of the new building for the John Molson School of Business.


title: Concordia University

text: In September 2015, the university held a ribbon cutting for the District 3 Innovation Center's new space on the sixth floor of Concordia's Faubourg Building.


title: Concordia University

text: The university has two campuses, set approximately 7 km apart: Sir George Williams Campus in the downtown core of Montreal, in an area known as Quartier Concordia (around the Guy–Concordia Metro station), and Loyola Campus in the residential west-end district of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. They are connected by free shuttle-bus service for students, faculty and staff.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia University has three main library locations. The R. Howard Webster Library is located in the J.W. McConnell Building on the Sir George Williams Campus and the Georges P. Vanier Library is located on the Loyola Campus. On September 2, 2014, the Library opened the Grey Nuns Reading Room, a silent study space for Concordia students located in the former Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross. The Concordia Library houses several special and unique collections including the Azrieli Holocaust Collection and the Irving Layton Collection. Most special collections are located in the Vanier Library. The Library also maintains the university's institutional repository, Spectrum. The Library is a member of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. The Library also has partnerships with the Canadian Research Knowledge Network and the Data Liberation Initiative.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia's Henry F. Hall Building houses the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery Samuel Schecter, an art enthusiast and businessperson, set up two funds in 1962 to be used for the purchase of Canadian art at Sir George Williams University and at Loyola College (Montreal). When Sir George Williams University and Loyola College merged to form Concordia in 1974, their respective art collections were also combined. The collection of the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery consists of 1,700 paintings, sculptures, prints, photographs and videos, many of the works by 20th-century Canadian artists.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia's Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Complex houses the FOFA Gallery, a primary venue for exhibiting works by faculty, students and alumni of the Faculty of Fine Arts.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia's Records Management and Archives stores official records of, or relating to, or people/activities connected with Concordia University and its two founding institutions. The collection consists of manuscripts, texts, photographs, audio-visual material and artifacts.


title: Concordia University

text: In 2001, Concordia embarked on a mission to develop and expand the quality of the downtown campus, and to revive the west end in Montreal.


title: Concordia University

text: The university also acquired the historic Grey Nuns Mother House near its Sir George Williams Campus, for $18 million. Built in 1871, it would alone double the size of the current downtown campus. From 2007 to 2022, the university will begin occupying the building in four separate phases. The large property will house the Faculty of Fine Arts and possibly the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, and other departments. Concordia Residence Life currently houses nearly 250 students each year in the Grey Nuns Building. The dorm rooms are among the largest in the country, as many of the rooms have been transformed from when the section of the Grey Nuns Building was occupied by the Grey Nuns. The site was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2011.


title: Concordia University

text: The Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (EV Building) at Saint Catherine Street and Guy Street was opened in September 2005. The building is directly connected to the Guy–Concordia Metro station and also houses Le Gym, a facility of Concordia's Department of Recreation and Athletics. Across the street, the 100-year-old TD Canada Trust building was donated to Concordia in 2005 by the Toronto-Dominion Bank.


title: Concordia University

text: Construction of the new John Molson Building (MB), the home of the John Molson School of Business located on the corner of Guy Street and De Maisonneuve Boulevard West, began in February 2007. At a ceremony at Concordia on October 30, 2006, the Quebec Minister of Education, Recreation and Sports, Jean-Marc Fournier, announced an investment of $60 million towards the construction of the new building. The government's $60 million represented about half of the total construction costs. Construction started on January 22, 2006, and the building was completed and opened in September 2009. The 15-story building now houses the John Molson School's 9,200 full- and part-time students under the same roof for the first time. The departments of contemporary dance, theatre and music also moved into the new MB Building. It is connected to the EV Building by a tunnel under Guy Street.


title: Concordia University

text: In April 2010, a 120-metre tunnel completed the underground connections of the Guy-Concordia Metro station with the Henry F. Hall Building and the J.W. McConnell Building.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia opened the Applied Science Hub on the Loyola Campus in December 2020. The $63.1-million state-of-the-art facility — built thanks to $36.7 million in support from the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec — was strategically designed to enable interdisciplinary collaboration and research between faculty and students in the Faculty of Arts and Science, Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science as well as the District 3 Innovation Centre.


title: Concordia University

text: Quartier Concordia is a neighbourhood redevelopment project centred around Concordia University's Sir George Williams Campus in downtown Montreal. Bordered by Sherbrooke Street to the north, Saint Mathieu Street to the west, René Lévesque Boulevard to the south and Bishop Street to the east, the district is designed to be a green urban campus that will improve the use and quality of public places and spaces, student life on campus and transportation.


title: Concordia University

text: As part of the redesign, the small Norman Bethune Square was redesigned and enlarged. Sidewalks in the area were also be widened, with additional trees.


title: Concordia University

text: As of September 2010, a tunnel links the university's Henry F. Hall and J.W. McConnell buildings with the Guy-Concordia Metro station. The hallway was completed in Spring 2010. However, a project to create a green space on Mackay Street was put on hold.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia is led by its president and vice-chancellor (referred to as the president), provost and vice-presidents. The Board of Governors and the Senate manage the university's affairs and academic integrity. The president and the senior leadership ensure transparency and accountability of the administration. The administration is supervised by the Board of Governors and Senate. Under the Charter of Concordia University, the university's highest governing body is the Board of Governors, which has final authority over the affairs of the university. The Senate derives its authority from the Board of Governors.


title: Concordia University

text: The university has four faculties — Faculty of Arts and Science, Faculty of Fine Arts, Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science and John Molson School of Business — as well as the School of Graduate Studies. The respective faculties supervise the academic departments/institutes. For example, the Faculty of Art and Science oversees the Department of Applied Human Sciences and Simone de Beauvoir Institute.


title: Concordia University

text: In 2020–21 year, Concordia received $523.1 million in revenue. Fifty-three per cent of the university's revenue comes from grants of the Government of Quebec, which are given based on the student population. The university's foundation has $282.4 million in its endowment. In November 2017, Concordia launched the Campaign for Concordia. The campaign's main target is to raise $250 million to support the university's nine strategic directions that will advance Concordia's position as "Canada’s next-generation university". In January 2018, Concordia President Alan Shepard reported that the university had already reached "more than halfway" of its goal. As of 2021, the campaign is still ongoing.


title: Concordia University

text: Students begin their university studies in September or, in some cases, in January or May. An undergraduate degree normally requires three or four years of full-time study, a master's one to three years, and a PhD at least four years. Diplomas and certificates usually take no longer than a year and a half to complete.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia has more than 400 undergraduate programs under the Faculty of Arts and Science, the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, the Faculty of Fine Arts and the John Molson School of Business. Students are normally enrolled in one of these faculties but may take courses from any of the others as part of their studies. Class sizes vary from 30 to 400 students.


title: Concordia University

text: The School of Graduate Studies offers about 70 programs leading to master's and doctoral degrees, as well as graduate diplomas and certificates for professionals seeking to upgrade their knowledge and skills.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia Continuing Education offers university-level studies and training to those from diverse backgrounds and stages of life.


title: Concordia University

text: The Institute for Co-operative Education administers more than 45 bachelor's and master's programs in an alternating co-op work-study format. Concordia's co-op programs enable students to enrich their learning by participating in career-relevant 12–17-week full-time, paid work terms. Depending on their faculty and major, co-op students will usually graduate with a minimum of 12 months of academically relevant work experience. There are also Industrial Experience and Professional Experience options in certain disciplines that enable students to participate in a summer-only work term. Concordia is a member of the Canadian Association for Co-operative Education (CAFCE).


title: Concordia University

text: During the 2020–2021 academic year, there were 37,272 undergraduate students, 9,539 graduate students and 4,442 continuing education students enrolled at Concordia.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia's Faculty of Arts and Science consists of 21 departments and seven colleges, schools and institutes in the humanities, sciences and social sciences at the undergraduate and graduate levels. There are 279 programs, offering more than 2,400 courses. There are 851 full-time and part-time faculty members. During the 2019–2020 academic year, there were 19,724 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the faculty.


title: Concordia University

text: In addition to regular academic programs, the Faculty of Arts and Science also includes three colleges, two schools and two institutes. These are the Liberal Arts College, the Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability, the School of Community and Public Affairs, the School of Canadian Irish Studies, the Science College, the Simone de Beauvoir Institute and the Concordia Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies.


title: Concordia University

text: The Loyola College for Diversity and Sustainability (formerly Loyola International College) is an interdisciplinary college on the Loyola Campus, the original site of Loyola College. It offers minor programs in Diversity and the Contemporary World and Sustainability Studies.


title: Concordia University

text: At the undergraduate level, the Faculty of Arts and Science offers both Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Science (BSc) programs with majors ranging from economics, political science and sociology to actuarial mathematics, biology and ecology.


title: Concordia University

text: The Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, formerly known as Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, is named after Concordia alumna Gina Cody, who donated $15 million to the university in 2018. In response, the university renamed its faculty of engineering and computer science in her honour, making it the first engineering school to be named after a woman in Canada and globally. In 2018, "Maclean's" ranked its programs as one of the best in Canada. The faculty offers 19 undergraduate and 34 graduate-level programs in the following departments: Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering; Centre for Engineering in Society; Computer Science and Software Engineering; Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering; Chemical and Materials Engineering; Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mechanical, Industrial and Aerospace Engineering. The engineering programs are all accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). During the 2020–2021 academic year, there were 10,158 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the faculty.


title: Concordia University

text: The Troitsky Bridge Building Competition brings together engineering students from across Canada and parts of the United States. Teams of students representing their universities must build a 1-metre-long bridge using only regular popsicle sticks, toothpicks, dental floss, and white glue. A panel of judges grades the bridges based on originality and presentation while a hydraulic loading device is used to determine the maximum load and performance.


title: Concordia University

text: The Faculty of Fine Arts offers 60 programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It includes nine departments and four research institutes. During the 2019–2020 academic year, there were 3,964 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the faculty. Among the departments is The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. It is informally identified as MHSoC, and accepts 250 students a year for study in the fields of film animation, film production and film studies. It is the largest, university-based centre for the study of film animation, film production and film studies in Canada.


title: Concordia University

text: The John Molson School of Business (formerly the Faculty of Commerce and Administration) offers 18 different programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels from five different departments. The departments are Accountancy, Finance, Marketing, Management and Supply Chain and Business Technology Management. During the 2020–2021 academic year there were 9,915 undergraduate students and graduate students enrolled, and John Molson School has 56,000 alumni. The John Molson School is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). The business school is located in a LEED silver-certified building.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia University has placed well in postsecondary school rankings. In the 2022 "Academic Ranking of World Universities" rankings, the university ranked 501–600 in the world. The 2023 "QS World University Rankings" ranked the university 551–560 in the world. The 2023 "Times Higher Education World University Rankings" placed Concordia 601–800 in the world. In "U.S. News & World Report" 2022–23 global university rankings, the university placed 653rd in the world. The university was also ranked by "Maclean's" Canadian university rankings. In October 2022, "Maclean's" ranked Concordia 10th in Canada under its comprehensive universities category, tied with Wilfrid Laurier University.


title: Concordia University

text: The university's John Molson School of Business was ranked among the top 10 Canadian business schools and the top 100 worldwide by "The Economist" in 2022. Moreover, Concordia was ranked seventh in Canada and 229th among world universities in the International Professional Classification of Higher Education Institutions, a worldwide ranking compiled by the École des Mines de Paris that uses as its sole criterion the number of graduates occupying the rank of chief executive officer at Fortune 500 companies.


title: Concordia University

text: Four residence buildings are available for students who wish to live on campus: Grey Nuns Residence, Jesuit Residence, Hingston Hall (HA) and Hingston Hall (HB).


title: Concordia University

text: For students who choose to live off campus, the Concordia Student Union's Off-Campus Housing and Job Bank (HoJo) offers classified ads, legal advice and safety resources.


title: Concordia University

text: In February 2019, Concordia became the first university in Canada to issue a sustainable bond. According to the university webpage the bond will "generate environmental and social benefits as defined by the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals". According to Denis Cossette, the university's chief financial officer, "the $25-million senior unsecured bond offers investors a 3.626 per cent yield and has a duration of 20 years." Because of this bond, Concordia would be able to issue sustainable bonds instead of green bonds.


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia University's athletic teams are called the Concordia Stingers. They compete with other schools in Canadian Interuniversity Sport, and more specifically, in the Quebec Student Sports Federation and the Quebec University Football League. The university has 10 varsity teams. In the fall, teams compete in Canadian football, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's rugby union and sport wrestling. There are female and male wrestlers on the team from year to year, and they compete as one team. In the winter, teams compete in men's and women's ice hockey and men's and women's basketball.


title: Concordia University

text: The Concordia Stingers women's ice hockey team won the Canadian national championships in 1998 and 1999. The Stingers baseball club beat Cape Breton University Capers 12–2 to win the 2009 National Baseball Crown.


title: Concordia University

text: The Concordia Student Union (CSU) represents undergraduate students. Its membership totals more than 35,000 students. Concordia students voted in favour of accreditation of their student union in a referendum in December 2000. As a result, the CSU is now legally accountable only to its student constituents.


title: Concordia University

text: The Graduate Students' Association (GSA) represents the collective interests and promotes the general welfare of the graduate students of Concordia University. Its membership stands at around 9,675 students for the 2018–19 academic year.


title: Concordia University

text: Another noteworthy aspect of Concordia University is the number of longstanding fee-levy groups which provide numerous services, funded by the student population in the form of per-credit fees. These include the People's Potato, which offers a four-course vegan meal, the anti-capitalist grocery store, The Frigo Vert, and the Coop Bookstore .


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia University has a campus radio station, CJLO, and television station, CUTV. Concordia also has three student-run newspapers, "The Link", "The Concordian" and French-language "L'Organe". "The Concordian" and "L'Organe" are members of Canadian University Press (CUP); "The Link" left the CUP network in 2012. The university also assists in the publishing of the only student-run, bilingual literary/arts magazine, "The Void", founded in 2002, as well as arts magazine "Interfold".


title: Concordia University

text: As the 1990s progressed, student activism began growing, coming to a head in 1999 with the election of the first in a series of radical slates to the Concordia Student Union. Under the presidency of Rob Green, a referendum regarding a strike garnered 2,284 votes of support. This was an unusually strong show of support, as student governments at Concordia are often elected on the basis of less than 1,000 votes in their favour. The strike lasted from November 3 to 5 and targeted a range of issues, including student representation in the university senate, corporate presence and advertising on campus, and government. There were several demonstrations, where both protesters and police were reported to be injured.


title: Concordia University

text: On September 9, 2002, a scheduled speech from the former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was cancelled following violent pro-Palestinian riots inside the Henry F. Hall Building. Protestors noted that he is a war criminal and there should be no free speech for hate speech. Netanyahu accused protestors of being supporters of terrorism. The event is depicted in a documentary named "Confrontation at Concordia".


title: Concordia University

text: Concordia's alumni and faculty have achieved fame for their accomplishments in many fields. Distinguished alumni include:


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 census, making it the fifth-most populous place in Maryland after Baltimore, Columbia, Germantown, and Waldorf.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Downtown, next to the northern tip of Washington, D.C., is the oldest and most urbanized part of the community, surrounded by several inner suburban residential neighborhoods inside the Capital Beltway. Many mixed-use developments combining retail, residential, and office space have been built since 2004.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Silver Spring takes its name from a mica-flecked spring discovered there in 1840 by Francis Preston Blair, who subsequently bought much of the surrounding land. Acorn Park, south of downtown, is believed to be the site of the original spring.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: As an unincorporated CDP, Silver Spring's boundaries are not consistently defined. As of the 2010 Census, the U.S. Census Bureau gives Silver Spring a total area of , which is all land; however, the CDP contains some creeks and small ponds. This definition is a 15% reduction from the used in previous years.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The official Silver Spring CDP contains the following neighborhoods: Downtown Silver Spring, East Silver Spring, Woodside, Woodside Park, Lyttonsville, North Hills Sligo Park, Long Branch, Indian Spring, Goodacre Knolls, Franklin Knolls, Montgomery Knolls, Clifton Park Village, New Hampshire Estates, and Oakview.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Other organizations, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Postal Service, Silver Spring Urban Planning District, and Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce, each use their own slightly different definitions. The Postal Service in particular assigns Silver Spring mailing addresses to a large swath of eastern Montgomery County sometimes called "Greater Silver Spring," including Four Corners, Woodmoor, Wheaton, Glenmont, Forest Glen, Forest Glen Park, Aspen Hill, Hillandale, White Oak, Colesville, Colesville Park, Cloverly, Calverton, Briggs Chaney, Greencastle, Northwood Park, Ashton, Sandy Spring, Sunset Terrace, Fairland, Lyttonsville, Kemp Mill, a portion of Langley Park, and a portion of Adelphi. The area that has a Silver Spring mailing address is larger in area than any city in Maryland except Baltimore. The population of this area, comprising ZIP codes 20901 through 20910, was 278,170 as of the 2020 census, making it the largest suburb of Washington, DC.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Landmarks in the downtown area include the AFI Silver Theatre, the National Museum of Health and Medicine, a branch of The Fillmore, and the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Greater Silver Spring includes the headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in the U.S.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Four major creeks run through Silver Spring: from west to east, they are Rock Creek, Sligo Creek, Long Branch, and Northwest Branch. Each is surrounded by parks offering hiking trails, playgrounds, picnic areas, and tennis courts. On weekends, roads are closed in the parks for bicycling and walking.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Northwest Branch Park also includes the Rachel Carson Greenway Trail, named after Rachel Carson, the author of "Silent Spring" and a former resident of the area. It continues north to Wheaton Regional Park, in Greater Silver Spring, which is home to the Brookside Gardens.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The Jessup Blair Park, south of downtown, has a soccer field, tennis courts, basketball courts, and a picnic area. There are similar local parks throughout the residential parts of the community.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: As of the 2020 census, an estimated 81,015 people lived in Silver Spring. There were 32,114 households; their average annual income was $83,782.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: 33.3% of the population was White (Non-Hispanic), 28% was Black or African American alone (Non-Hispanic), 19.4% of the population was Other (Hispanic), 7.12% of the population was Asian (Non-Hispanic), 6.68% of the population was White (Hispanic), 3.16% was Multiracial (Non-Hispanic), 1.08% was Multiracial (Hispanic), 0.47% was Black or African American (Hispanic), 0.29% was Asian (Hispanic), and 0.19% was American Indian & Alaska Native (Hispanic).


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: As of 2019, 36.5% of Silver Spring residents (29,800 people) were born outside of the United States, which is higher than the national average of 13.9%. Of these, the most predominant foreign-born people are from El Salvador, Ethiopia, India, and China.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: "Note: For the 2010 Census the boundaries of the Silver Spring CDP were changed reducing the land area by approx. 15%. As a result, the population count for 2010 shows a 6.6% decrease, while the population density increases 11%."


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: As enumerated in the 2010 census, there were 71,452 residents, 28,603 total households, and 15,684 families residing in the Silver Spring CDP. The population density was 9,021.7 people per square mile (3,485.5/km). There were 30,522 housing units at an average density of 3,853.8 per square mile (1,488.9/km). The racial makeup of the community, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, for residents who self-identified as being members of "one race" was 45.7% White (7.8% German, 7.0% Irish, 5.7% English), 27.8% Black or African American (5.2% Ethiopian, 1.1% Haitian), 0.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 7.9% Asian (2.35% Indian, 1.74% Vietnamese, 1.32% Chinese, 0.63% Korean), 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and 13.2% "Some Other Race" (SOR). 4.8% of the CDP's residents self-identified as being members of two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents "of any race" comprised 26.3% of the population (12.3% Salvadoran, 3.71% Guatemalan, 2.83% Mexican). Like much of the Washington metropolitan area, Silver Spring is home to many people of Ethiopian ancestry.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: There were 28,603 households, out of which 27.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 37.6% were married couples living together, 11.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 45.2% were non-families. 33.6% of all households were made up of individuals living alone, and 16.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49 and the average family size was 3.21.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: In the census area, the population was spread out, with 21.4% under the age of 18, 9.4% from 18 to 24, 37.1% from 25 to 44, 23.8% from 45 to 64, and 8.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.9 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.2 males.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The median income for a household in the census area was , and the median income for a family was . Males had a median income of versus for females. The per capita income for the area was . 15.0% (±4.9%) of the population and 13.3% (±4.3%) of families were below the poverty line. Twenty-one percent (±9.1%) of those under the age of 18 and 23.6% (±10.6%) of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: For the 2000 census, there were 76,540 people, 30,374 households, and 17,616 families residing in the census area (if all areas with the "Silver Spring" address are included, the population swells to around 250,000). The population density was 8,123.6 people per square mile (3,137.2/km). There were 31,208 housing units at an average density of 3,312.3 per square mile (1,279.1/km). The racial makeup of the community was 46.61% White, 28.07% Black American, 0.44% Native American, 8.22% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 11.55% from other races, and 5.04% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race consist of 22.22% of the population.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: There were 30,374 households, out of which 29.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.8% were married couples living together, 12.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.0% were non-families. Thirty-two-point six percent (32.6%) of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.50 and the average family size was 3.21.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The ages of the population were varied, with 23.0% under the age of 18, 9.3% from 18 to 24, 37.0% from 25 to 44, 21.2% from 45 to 64, and 9.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females, there were 93.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89.5 males.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The median income for a household in the census area was $51,653, and the median income for a family was $60,631. Males had a median income of $38,124 versus $36,096 for females. The per capita income for the area was $26,357. 9.3% of the population and 6.4% of families were below the poverty line. 11.7% of those under the age of 18 and 9.7% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The area that is now Silver Spring has been inhabited by various indigenous peoples for 10,000 years. Prior to European colonization, the area was inhabited by the Piscataway, an Algonquian-speaking people. The Piscataway may have established a few small villages along the banks of Sligo Creek and Rock Creek.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The Blair, Lee, and Jalloh and Barrie families, three politically active families of the time, are tied to Silver Spring's history. In 1840, Francis Preston Blair, who later helped organize the modern American Republican Party, along with his daughter, Elizabeth, discovered a spring flowing with chips of mica – believed to be the now-dry spring visible at Acorn Park. Blair was looking for a site for his summer home to escape the heat of Washington, D.C., summers. Two years later, Blair completed a 20-room mansion he dubbed "Silver Spring" on a country homestead. In 1854, Blair moved to the mansion permanently. The house stood until 1954.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: By 1854, Blair's son, Montgomery Blair, who became Postmaster General under Abraham Lincoln and represented Dred Scott before the United States Supreme Court, built the Falkland house in the area.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: By the end of the decade, Elizabeth Blair married Samuel Phillips Lee, third cousin of future Confederate leader Robert E. Lee, and gave birth to a boy, Francis Preston Blair Lee. The child would eventually become the first popularly elected Senator in United States history.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln visited the Silver Spring mansion multiple times. During some of the visits, he relaxed by playing town ball with Francis P. Blair's grandchildren.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: In 1864, Confederate Army General Jubal Early occupied Silver Spring before the Battle of Fort Stevens. After the engagement, fleeing Confederate soldiers razed Montgomery Blair's Falkland residence.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: At the time, there was a community called Sligo located at the intersection of the Washington-Brookeville Turnpike and the Washington-Colesville-Ashton Turnpike (now named Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road). Sligo included a tollhouse, a store, a post office, and a few homes. The communities of Woodside, Forest Glen, and Linden were founded after the Civil War. These small towns largely lost their separate identities when a post office was established in Silver Spring in 1899.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: By the end of the 19th century, the region began to develop into a town of size and importance. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's Metropolitan Branch opened on April 30, 1873, and ran from Washington, D.C., to Point of Rocks, Maryland, through Silver Spring.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The first suburban development appeared in 1887 when Selina Wilson divided part of her farm on current-day Colesville Road (U.S. Route 29) and Brookeville Road into five- and ten-acre (20,000- and 40,000 m) plots. In 1892, Francis Preston Blair Lee and his wife, Anne Brooke Lee, gave birth to E. Brooke Lee, who is known as the father of modern Silver Spring for his visionary attitude toward developing the region.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The early 20th century set the pace for downtown Silver Spring's growth. E. Brooke Lee and his brother, Blair Lee I, founded the Lee Development Company, whose Colesville Road office building remains a downtown fixture. Dale Drive, a winding roadway, was built to provide vehicular access to much of the family's substantial real estate holdings. Suburban development continued in 1922 when Woodside Development Corporation created Woodside Park, a neighborhood of plot home sites built on the former Noyes estate in 1923. In 1924, Washington trolley service on Georgia Avenue (present-day Maryland Route 97) across B&O's Metropolitan Branch was temporarily suspended so that an underpass could be built. The underpass was completed two years later, but trolley service never resumed. It would be rebuilt again in 1948 with additional lanes for automobile traffic, opening the areas to the north for readily accessible suburban development.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Takoma-Silver Spring High School, built in 1924, was the first high school for Silver Spring. The community's rapid growth led to the need for a larger school. In 1935, when a new high school was built at Wayne Avenue and Sligo Creek Parkway, it was renamed Montgomery Blair High School. (The school remained at that location for over six decades, until 1998, when it was moved to a new, larger facility at the corner of Colesville Road (U.S. Route 29) and University Boulevard (Maryland Route 193). The former high school building became a combined middle school and elementary school, housing Silver Spring International Middle School and Sligo Creek Elementary School.) The Silver Spring Shopping Center (built by developer Albert Small) and the Silver Theatre (designed by noted theater architect John Eberson) were completed in 1938, at the request of developer William Alexander Julian. The Silver Spring Shopping Center was unique because it was one of the nation's first retail spaces that featured a street-front parking lot. Conventional wisdom held that merchandise should be in windows closest to the street so that people could see it; the shopping center broke those rules (the shopping center was purchased by real estate developer Sam Eig in 1944 who was instrumental in attracting large retailers to the city).


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Before the 1950s, Silver Spring was known as a sundown town due to influential land owners. The North Washington Real Estate Company designed 63 acres to be white-only, written in its deeds to prevent the sale of land to anyone else. No legislative action was taken to prevent this until 1967 (where such an ordinance was illegal until Shelley v. Kramer, 1948).


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: By the 1950s, Silver Spring was the second-busiest retail market between Baltimore and Richmond; major retailers included the Hecht Company, J.C. Penney, and Sears, Roebuck and Company. In 1954, after standing for over a century, the Blair mansion "Silver Spring" was razed and replaced with the Blair Station Post office. 1960 saw the opening of Wheaton Plaza (later known as Westfield Wheaton), a shopping center several miles north of downtown Silver Spring. It captured much of the town's business, and the downtown area began a long period of decline.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: On December 19, 1961, a segment of the Capital Beltway (I-495) was opened to traffic between Georgia Avenue (MD 97) and University Boulevard East (MD 193). On August 17, 1964, the final segment of the Beltway was opened to traffic, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held near the New Hampshire Avenue interchange, with a speech by Gov. J. Millard Tawes, who called it a "road of opportunity" for Maryland and the nation.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Washington Metro rail service into Washington, D.C., helped breathe life into the region starting with the 1978 opening of the Silver Spring station. The Metro Red Line followed the right-of-way of the B&O Metropolitan Branch, with the Metro tracks centered between the B&O's eastbound and westbound mains. The Red Line heads south to downtown DC from Silver Spring, running at grade before descending into Union Station. By the mid-1990s, the Red Line continued north from the downtown Silver Spring core, entering a tunnel just past the Silver Spring station and running underground to three more stations: Forest Glen, Wheaton and Glenmont.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Nevertheless, the downtown decline continued in the 1980s. The Hecht Company closed its downtown location in 1987 and moved to Wheaton Plaza while forbidding another department store from renting its old spot. City Place, a multi-level mall, was established in the old Hecht Company building in 1992, but it had difficulty attracting quality anchor stores and gained a reputation as a budget mall, anchored by Burlington Coat Factory and Marshalls, as well as now-closed anchors AMC Theatres, Gold's Gym, Steve and Barry's, and Nordstrom Rack. JC Penney closed its downtown store—downtown's last remaining department store—in 1989, opening several years later at Wheaton Plaza. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, developers considered a shopping mall and office project called Silver Triangle, with possible anchor stores Nordstrom, Macy's, and JC Penney, but no final agreement was reached. Shortly thereafter, in the mid-1990s, developers considered building a mega-mall and entertainment complex called the American Dream (similar to the Mall of America) in downtown Silver Spring, but the revitalization plan fell through before any construction began because the developers were unable to secure funding. However, one bright spot for downtown was that the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) consolidated its headquarters in four new high-rise office buildings near the Silver Spring Metro station in the late 1980s and early 1990s.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: A 1996 train collision on the Silver Spring section of the Metropolitan line left 11 people dead. On February 16 of that year, during the Friday-evening rush hour, a MARC commuter train bound for Washington Union Station collided with the Amtrak "Capitol Limited" train and erupted in flames on a snow-swept stretch of track in Silver Spring.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The Maryland State Highway Administration started studies of improvements to the Capital Beltway in 1993, and have continued, off and on, examining a number of alternatives (including HOV lanes and high-occupancy toll lanes) since then.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: At the beginning of the 21st century, downtown Silver Spring began to see the results of redevelopment. Several city blocks near City Place Mall were completely reconstructed to accommodate a new outdoor shopping plaza called "Downtown Silver Spring." New shops included national retail chains such as Whole Foods Market, a 20-screen Regal Theatres, Men's Wearhouse, Ann Taylor Loft, DSW Shoe Warehouse, Office Depot, and the now-closed Pier 1 Imports, as well as many restaurants, including Panera Bread, Red Lobster, Cold Stone Creamery, Fuddruckers, Potbelly Sandwich Works, Nando's Peri-Peri, and Chick-fil-A. A Borders book store was a popular spot until it closed when the chain went out of business; it was replaced by H&M. In addition to these chains, Downtown Silver Spring is home to a wide variety of family-owned restaurants representing its vast ethnic diversity. As downtown Silver Spring revived, its 160-year history was celebrated in a PBS documentary entitled "Silver Spring: Story of an American Suburb", released in 2002. In 2003, Discovery Communications completed the construction of its headquarters and relocated to downtown Silver Spring from nearby Bethesda. However, Discovery, Inc. announced in 2017 that they would be relocating to New York City. The reason for this move, according to Discovery, was to operate close to their "ad partners on Madison Avenue," "investors and analysts on Wall Street," and their "creative and production community," said their CEO, David Zaslav, in an email to employees. 2003 also brought the reopening of the Silver Theatre, as AFI Silver, under the auspices of the American Film Institute. Development continues with the opening of new office buildings, condos, stores, and restaurants. In 2015–16, the long-struggling City Place Mall underwent a complete renovation, had its name changed to Ellsworth Place, and brought in new tenants, including TJ Maxx, Ross Dress for Less (a re-opening original tenant), Michaels, Forever 21, and Dave & Buster's. The restoration of the old B&O Passenger Station was undertaken between 2000 and 2002, as recorded in the documentary film "". In 2005, Downtown Silver Spring was awarded the silver medal of the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Beginning in 2004, the downtown redevelopment was marketed locally with the "silver sprung" advertising campaign, which declared on buses and in print ads that Silver Spring had "sprung" and was ready for business. In June 2007, "The New York Times" noted that downtown was "enjoying a renaissance, a result of public involvement and private investment that is turning it into an arts and entertainment center".


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: In 2007, the downtown Silver Spring area gained attention when an amateur photographer was prohibited from taking photographs in what appeared to be a public street. The land, leased to the Peterson Cos., a developer, for $1, was technically private property. The citizens argued that the Downtown Silver Spring development, partially built with public money, was still public property. After a protest on July 4, 2007, Peterson relented and allowed photography on their property under limited conditions. Peterson also claimed that it could revoke these rights at any time. The company further stated that other activities permitted in public spaces, such as organizing protests or distributing campaign literature, were still prohibited. In response, Montgomery County Attorney Leon Rodriguez said that the street in question, Ellsworth Drive, "constitutes a public forum" and that the First Amendment's protection of free speech applies there. In an eight-page letter, Rodriguez wrote, "Although the courts have not definitively resolved the issue of whether the taking, as opposed to the display, of photographs is a protected expressive act, we think it is likely that a court would consider the taking of the photograph to be part of the continuum of action that leads to the display of the photograph and thus also protected by the First Amendment." The incident was part of a trend in the United States regarding the blurring of public and private spaces in developments built with both public and private funds.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: In 2008, construction of the long-planned Intercounty Connector (ICC), which crosses the upper reaches of Silver Spring, got under way. The highway's first section opened on February 21, 2011; the entire route was completed by 2012.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: In May 2019, The Peterson Companies, owners of the Downtown Silver Spring development, announced a $10 Million renovation of the area that will include public art and a new outdoor plaza, featuring green space.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Downtown Silver Spring hosts several entertainment, musical, and ethnic festivals, the most notable of which are the Silverdocs documentary film festival held each June and hosted by Discovery Communications and the American Film Institute, as well as the annual Thanksgiving Day Parade (Saturday before Thanksgiving) for Montgomery County. The Silver Spring Jazz Festival has become the biggest event of the year drawing 20,000 people to the free festival held on the second Saturday in September. Featuring local jazz artists and a battle of high school bands, the Silver Spring Jazz Festival has featured such jazz greats as Wynton Marsalis, Arturo Sandoval, Sérgio Mendes, Aaron Neville and such bands as the Mingus Big Band and the Fred Wesley Group.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: The Fillmore is a live entertainment and music venue with a capacity of 2,000 people. It opened in 2011 in the former JC Penney building on Colesville Road. The venue joins the American Film Institute and Discovery Communications as cornerstones of the downtown Silver Spring's arts and entertainment district. It has featured performances by artists Prince Royce, Minus the Bear, Tyga, Wale (rapper), Schoolboy Q, Migos, and many other hip hop acts. In August 2012 R&B singer Reesa Renee launched her album "Reelease" at the Fillmore.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Downtown Silver Spring is also home to the Cultural Arts Center, Montgomery College. The Cultural Arts Center offers a varied set of cultural performances, lectures, films, and conferences. It is a resource for improving cultural literacy, encouraging cross-cultural understanding, and to build bridges between the arts, cultural studies, and all disciplines concerned with the expression of culture.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Dining in Silver Spring is also extremely varied, including American, African, Burmese, Ethiopian, Guatemalan, Japanese, Moroccan, Italian, Mexican, Salvadoran, Jamaican, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Thai, Persian, Chinese, Indian, Greek, and fusion restaurants, as well as many national and regional chains.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Silver Spring has many churches, synagogues, temples, and other religious institutions, including the World Headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Silver Spring serves as the primary urban area in Montgomery County and its revitalization has ushered in an eclectic mix of people and ideas, evident in the fact that the flagship high school (Montgomery Blair High School) has no majority group with each major racial and ethnic group claiming a significant percentage.


title: Silver Spring, Maryland

text: Silver Spring hosts the American Film Institute Silver Theatre and Culture Center, on Colesville Road. The theatre showcases American and foreign films. Gandhi Brigade, a youth development media project, began in Silver Spring out of the Long Branch neighborhood. Docs in Progress, a non-profit media arts center devoted to the promotion of documentary filmmaking is located at the "Documentary House" in downtown Silver Spring. Silver Spring Stage, an all-volunteer community theater, performs in Woodmoor, approximately north up Colesville Road from the downtown area. Downtown Silver Spring is also home to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency of the United States Department of Commerce that includes the National Weather Service; the American Nurses Association; and numerous real estate development, biotechnology, and media and communications companies.