Tickets go on sale May 17, 2013 for $6 each. Visit with a senator to get your tickets. We look forward to seeing you there!

Date: Monday, June 10, 2013
Time: 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Location: Commons, room 331

To register, please contact Jennifer Treger, jtreger@umbc.edu or 410-455-3797. This program is sponsored by Student Affairs.

Camp will be consisting of two weekly sessions and a weekend session filled with fun and excitement. Team Thomas camp will consist of camp contests, individual skill instructions, team skill instructions, swimming and more. We are looking forward to having a great, fun summer and would love for you to be a part of our team.

Sign up your son today! You can find our camp registration on our team website. If you have any questions about signing up, please contact 410-455-2864 or bjohn@umbc.edu.

Thank you for you time and Welcome to our team!

These programs are typically informal gatherings coordinated by the academic department itself and hosted Wednesday, August 28 – Friday, Sept. 6. Departments serve light refreshments and create an opportunity for students to meet with their faculty and staff. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Orientation and the Office of Student Life will support your event by providing each department up to $100.

To participate, please contact Courtney Haddaway, Program Specialist in Undergraduate Admissions and Orientation, by Friday, June 28. Please include the following information: department name, date, location, and time of reception, as well as contact person and email. Once this information is submitted, it will be printed in the Welcome Week Program Booklet.

If you have any other questions, please contact Courtney Haddaway at chadda@umbc.edu or 410-455-6703. Thank you for your assistance in welcoming new students!

The synopsis of the forum says,

“This year, we will offer a session to discuss Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The 2013 LACCEI session on “Women in STEM” will feature a report on STEM women faculty in Puerto Rico from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Hispanic Women in STEM project as an exemplar of a professional network. We are interested in hearing about other initiatives for women that exist throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and will examine opportunities to build more connections within the LACCEI community.

Suggestions from this workshop will be compiled into a report for LACCEI that will be available in the online proceedings to inform the community about programs that support current and future women STEM professionals

All are invited to this session, which is designed to engage women at all levels (students, postdocs, professors, and professionals), and from all backgrounds and countries, in a conversation on career choices, life/work balance, and the impact of family and traditions on advancement decisions.

This Forum is a continuation of the Women in Engineering Initiative started in 2010 by LACCEI and the Organization of American States (OAS) Engineering for the Americas (EftA), and supports the OAS Ministers of Science and Technology’s Vision 20/25 in Science, Technology, and Innovation for the Americas: Hemispheric Cooperation for Competitiveness and Prosperity in a Knowledge Economy and Plan of Action of Panama (Group 2).  This Plan of Action proposes to increase the number of female and male graduates in science, technology, engineering and technical education.

The Vision 20/25 and Action Plan target the goal for 2025 to increase by at least 50% the number of female and male graduates in STEM.”

This ad buy begs the question: Could Maryland’s anti-gun control community gather enough support to change course in the state? The NRA’s threats “scared the pants off Congress,” says Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC. But, he clarifies, the national stage and state are different matters.

Asked about potential efforts to remove legislators who supported the gun control bill, Norris noted, “Whether that will work in Maryland, I’m not so sure. My gut tells me no. They might be able to knock off a few people, but I think it’s very much a long shot.”

In researching the purchase, Schaller found:

It turns out the order is closer to 750 million rounds and covers a five-year period and the 70,000 federal officers who require firearm certification or retraining. That’s roughly 2,200 rounds per officer per year; recreational gun users often dispense several hundred rounds during a single firing range visit.

Schaller concludes that this “scandal” is more conspiracy than legitimate critique of government overreach. He suggests that gun advocates would benefit from ignoring such distractions and instead focusing on what he identifies as real examples of government abuse of power, or addressing the risks that can come with gun ownership.

This exhibition reflects the interdisciplinary orientation and the technological focus of the Department of Visual Arts, and provides the opportunity for undergraduate seniors to exhibit within a professional setting prior to exiting the university.

The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and is located in the Fine Arts Building. Admission is free and open to the public.

The Senior Exit Exhibition continues through Friday, June 7.

Image by Lauren DeMarsh.

Benefit–cost analysis informs which policies or programs most benefit society when implemented by governments and institutions around the world. This volume brings together leading researchers and practitioners to recommend strategies and standards to improve the consistency and credibility of such analyses, assisting analysts of all types in achieving a greater uniformity of practice.

Reviewer John D. Graham of Indiana University writes, “This book is a superb textbook treatment of benefit-cost analysis. It is well designed for students in public policy, public administration, public health, social work, environmental affairs, law and business.”

The book offers a comprehensive history of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), from its origins in 1972 as part of President Nixon’s social reform efforts to its pivotal role in the politics of the Clinton administration.

Reviewer Christopher D. Howard (College of William & Mary) writes, “Calling The Other Welfare one of the best histories of a U.S. social program would be true, but that would not be strong enough praise…Edward D. Berkowitz and Larry DeWitt take a relatively unknown social program and make its history seem absolutely central to the history of U.S. social policy.”

In Stress Testing the USA (Palgrave MacMillan), Short identifies specific structural flaws with the potential to fracture our nation: a large, active military that promotes a state of permanent war; an aging physical infrastructure with bridges and roads that receive failing grades; financial and corporate deregulation; and a blind acceptance of institutions’ increasingly risky behavior.

Identifying these systemic problems clarifies a broader concern for Short: our tendency to sideline unpopular perspectives or more subtle voices that might alert us to possible threats. “For every event there was a small group of people who new exactly what was happening,” says Short, “we just didn’t listen to them. So the point of the book is we should be more careful and more attentive to alternative, dissident voices.”

His book website notes, “Illuminating and relevant, Stress Testing the USA is a guide to what ails the United States and what needs to be done to fix it that proves essential to any scholar of public policy, current affairs, or disaster management.”

Gonzalves’ project, “Singing Truth to Power: The Story of Paredon Records,” traces the cultural history of a record label whose output of recorded music and speeches documented revolutionary movements throughout the globe. According to the collection’s finding aid, the label’s 50 record albums constitute a unique historical documentation of the political protest and revolutionary currents in the world over the course of three decades. Thirty-one of the fifty albums come from national liberation movements represented in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

The Smithsonian has been supporting study and research in a variety of ways, including fellowships from predoctoral to postdoctoral scholars, since its founding in 1846. The number of senior postdoctoral fellows selected each year ranges from four to 10, making this one of the institution’s most competitive awards. The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is a research and educational unit of the Smithsonian Institution promoting the understanding and continuity of diverse, contemporary grassroots cultures in the United States and around the world.

Gonzalves’ research and creative work has received previous support with a Fulbright Senior Scholar award, a Moeson fellowship at the Library of Congress, a Meet the Composer grant, and other awards from humanities councils in Maryland and Hawai‘i.

The Fellowship fund honors John’s commitment to building a strong and distinctive undergraduate curriculum and to educating students to become informed and engaged global citizens.  The Fellowship will provide faculty with resources to create, or redesign, and teach a course in their fields in order to add or enhance an explicit international or transnational focus. Our expectation is that the resulting courses will be taught regularly and will broaden the intellectual scope of the curriculum in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

In a matter of weeks, current and former Department Chairs, Program Directors, and Associate Deans in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences have contributed more than $25,000 to endow the John Jeffries Fellowship.  Since then, others have contributed towards the goal of $200,000, which will enable the campus to support two Jeffries Fellows each year.

If you are interested in making a gift to the John Jeffries International Fellowship Program or have any questions, please contact Marjoleine Kars, Jason Loviglio, or Carole McCann.