On October 9, 1824, the University of Maryland bestowed its first non-medical honorary degree—a doctor of laws—on Marquis de Lafayette during an elaborate ceremony in Anatomical Hall of the medical building (later known as Davidge Hall).

In 1949, a $25 million legislative appropriation to improve the state’s mental hospitals included a $3 million earmark for the creation of a psychiatry department at Maryland. The appointment of professor and chairman went to Jacob E Finesinger, MD, from Harvard Medical School and the staff at Massachusetts General Hospital. Finesinger pioneered the inclusion of psychiatric principles into the standard clinical history sought from patients in general medicine and surgery. He remained on the faculty until his death in 1959.

Jacob E. Finesinger, A.B., M.A., M.D."

Myron M. Levine, MD

In 1974 a clinical research center for vaccine development was established at Maryland by Richard B. Hornick, MD, and Myron M. Levine, MD, providing facilities where new vaccines could be evaluated in community volunteers, a novel concept in that era. Two years later, in 1976, the University of Maryland Center for Vaccine Development was founded. It would become the world’s largest and most diverse academic vaccine development enterprise.