UMBC’s first Earth Day, on April 20, 1970, was not a success. UMBC students occupied the Hillcrest Building and classrooms to protest the university’s refusal to renew the contracts of two professors, leading John Adams, the editor of The Retriever, to question what he saw as the protestors’ narrow priorities. Adams would likely be happy that today’s UMBC students have made Earth Day a campus-wide celebration of the planet.
