All posts by: UMBC News Staff

Tim Hall, Athletic Director, Serves As Featured Panelist at the 2014 NACWAA Convention

Director of Athletics Tim Hall was a featured panelist of NCAA Division I athletic directors at the 2014 NACWAA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. Alabama A&M Associate Athletic Director and Senior Woman Administrator Dr. Renae Myles led an all-star panel of Division I athletic National Association of Collegiate Women Athletics Administrators, which was founded in 1979 as the premier leadership organization dedicated to empowering, developing and advancing the success of women throughout the profession.

Dr. Myles moderated an engaging session titled: “Why Women Leaders are Critical to Department Success.” She led the Sunday conversation with Tim Hall, Whit Babcock, athletic director at Virginia Tech; Indiana University Vice President and Athletic Director at Indiana University Fred Glass.

“Whit, Fred, and Tim are known for being proponents of positioning women in non-traditional roles within athletics. So, they were the perfect industry experts and leaders to headline this panel,” said Dr. Myles.

Jack Suess, CIO, Discusses Data Management and Efficiency in EvoLLLution

Colleges and universities are increasingly searching for better, more cost effective ways to manage large amounts of data. Jack Suess, Chief Information Officer, spoke to EvoLLLution about UMBC’s experiences in becoming a more data-driven campus and shared tips on how to encourage institution-wide improvements.

Suess emphasized that becoming a data-driven university requires changing the institution’s culture, calling on IT leaders to highlight how data can support institutional goals. “Whether that’s in building faculty research, in student success, in rethinking teaching and learning through learning analytics, data is going to be essential if you’re going to do things differently,” he said.

Click here to read “How To Get Institution-Wide Buy-In for Major Changes” or listen to the audio interview.

Pres. Hrabowski Highlights Effective Strategies to Support Students in The Chronicle

In this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, a powerful column by President Hrabowski challenges colleges and universities to more effectively support student success by focusing on institutional culture change.

Dr. Hrabowski recalls the beginnings of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program and Choice Program, and the lessons UMBC has learned about helping students from all backgrounds succeed. The Meyerhoff program has served as a model for new programs across the nation, including the Hopps Scholars Program at Morehouse College and recent efforts at Pennsylvania State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“The central question for any university is how to be clear about the vision of what it is trying to achieve and what it wants for its students,” Dr. Hrabowski writes. “It is important to create a climate in which students, faculty, and staff can be honest about the problems they are facing, work together to develop strategies that can be effective, and share feedback about what is working.”

Click here to read “How to Get More Black Men Into Science.”

The Fast Lane

Thirty-eight weekends a year, John Klausmeier ’04, mechanical engineering, gets a trackside view to NASCAR’s fiercest races, carefully watching a high performance Chevrolet SS that he has tuned sweep into the curves at nearly 200 miles per hour.

Growing up, Klausmeier loved diving underneath the hoods of automobiles to find ways to make them go faster. That interest (and his time at UMBC) helped him find a career in which he travels the country’s NASCAR circuit as a lead race engineer for one of the sport’s most successful drivers – Danica Patrick – and her #10 car.

Klausmeier found his passion for automobiles and how they work at his parents’ repair shop in Perry Hall. The shop was where he tinkered with carburetors and other components to figure how they worked, and how they could work better.

When it came time for college, “I felt that studying engineering would be a catalyst for merging something I had as a hobby into a career,” he says.

Continue reading “The Fast Lane” →

Meet the Staff: Amy Dalrymple

Here in the Office of Alumni Relations, we spend a lot of time telling stories about and talking with our wonderfully supportive alums. However, we’ve decided to turn the tables and take time to get to know the people behind the scenes – the  advancement and alumni relations staff members who are hard at work on behalf of our alumni. Today we’ll be hearing from Amy Dalrymple, the Assistant Director of Alumni Relations.


Name: Amy Dalrympleamyy
Job Title: Assistant Director of Alumni Relations
Focus Area: Provide general oversight of alumni and career programs, with focus on building alumni chapters & communities and alumni career programming.
Years at UMBC: 0 (3 weeks)

Q: Where are you from originally?

A: Just over the Maryland line in Hanover, PA.

Q: What do you love most about UMBC?  

A: While I’m still very new to the UMBC community, its clear that everyone — faculty, staff, and students alike — shares the same enthusiasm for the institution.  Apparently Retriever Fever really is contagious…

Q: What’s your favorite thing about your job?

A: I love getting to know alumni and learning more about their ties to UMBC.  Every alumni story is different, and I’m privileged to have the opportunity to help foster that relationship every day.

Q: Have you ever done anything crazy or out of the ordinary?  

A: It occurred to me recently that I’ve publicly performed no fewer than 6 self-choreographed dance routines at different points in my past.  I’d have to say that’s a tad brazen for someone who has no formal (or informal) dance training as I’m confident that it shows.

Q: What’s the most recent book you’ve read?

A: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. 

Q: Who do you admire and why?

A: As a former college athlete, I’ve had many coaches over the years.  One will always stand out to me for teaching me the value of accountability, compromise, resiliency and integrity.

Ellen Handler Spitz, Honors College, Publishes New E-book

Magritte's Labyrinth Ellen Handler Spitz

A new e-book published by Honors College Professor Ellen Handler Spitz analyzes the artwork of Belgian Surrealist artist René Magritte and takes on questions that are rarely asked when studying Magritte’s work. The book, entitled “Magritte’s Labyrinth,” introduces a psychological perspective and examines the emotional impact of Magritte’s paintings. Below is an excerpt from a book review posted on Amazon.com:

Trained in art history, philosophy, and nonclinical psychoanalysis, Ellen Handler Spitz, the author of “Magritte’s Labyrinth,” was introduced to Magritte’s art by a New York psychologist who studied bereavement in childhood. Spitz found the images impossible to expunge. She reflects on them psychologically. She analyzes their subtle engagement with conflict, anxiety, and fear. She reads their humor and pathos as veils that both mask and disclose uncomfortable themes. “Magritte’s Labyrinth” offers its readers intriguing ways to understand their own idiosyncratic responses to this mysterious and fascinating art.

Spitz is the author of six books on the arts and psychology: “Art and Psyche” (Yale); “Image and Insight” (Columbia); “Museums of the Mind” (Yale); “Inside Picture Books” (Yale); “The Brightening Glance” (Pantheon); and “Illuminating Childhood” (Michigan). Her most recent research focuses on children’s aesthetic lives. She will be presenting two lectures next week in Germany. She will be discussing childhood and space at the University of Siegen and will also be giving a talk in Bielefeld.

Highlights from the 2014 Alumni Awards

The long Homecoming Weekend was kicked off in a big way on Thursday, October 9, with the annual Alumni Awards Ceremony.

This year, the ceremony was held in the stunning Performing Arts and Humanities Building Concert Hall, with receptions preceding and following the event in the Dance Tech Studio.

Those in attendance were treated to speeches by the honorees, as well as lots of smiles and laughter.

And of all of the quotes about the night, Director of Alumni Relations Stanyell Odom said it best: “This year’s winners are an outstanding representation of UMBC. All of the members of our community should be proud of their accomplishments and contributions to the campus and their respective professions.”

Congratulations, Alumni Awards winners of 2014!

Please enjoy a slideshow of pictures taken at the event by photographer Marlayna Demond ’11.

A Legacy Continued: Planned gift helps ensure future of teaching award

Catherine Weber ( center)) with Dean William LaCourse and Carl Weber Excellence in Teaching Award recipients

Each year at UMBC, a faculty member is chosen to receive the Carl Weber Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching Award. It honors a faculty member from the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics for exceptional dedication to teaching as demonstrated by his or her enthusiasm, up-to-date teaching materials, effective mentoring, community service in the teaching area, approachability, rigorous learning requirements, coherent teaching philosophy and inspirational teaching style.

The award was established in 2006 by his family in memory of Dr. Weber, Assistant Professor Emeritus and founding faculty member in the UMBC Department of Biological Sciences, as a tribute to his passion for teaching.

“Carl’s enthusiasm for his teaching was infectious,” says Mrs. Weber. She adds that it’s plain to see why each award winner has been chosen throughout the years. “They’re very inspiring enthusiastic teachers. Each one has been doing something innovative as teachers.”

The award has now been given for eight years. In addition to the endowment, a number of people, including Mrs. Weber, have continued to provide annual support for the award. It has successfully created a lasting legacy for Dr. Weber, and it has also given Mrs. Weber an ongoing connection to the UMBC community.

Each year, she has a chance to meet the award recipients. “That has been very nice for me,” she explained. “It keeps his memory fresh, and it’s very gratifying to see the wonderful people who are being honored.”

Now, Mrs. Weber has taken another step to continue support for the award through a trust she created in her estate plans. It’s a contribution that will play an important role in ensuring that Dr. Weber’s passion for teaching continues at UMBC, as the award encourages and honors new and innovative approaches in the classroom for years to come.

For Mrs. Weber, it’s not only another measure of support in memory of her husband, it’s also a very practical matter of planning ahead. “I established the trust to support the ongoing recognition enabled by the award,” says Weber.

Learn more about planned giving.

Kate Brown, History, Wins the American Historical Association’s 2014 Albert J. Beveridge Award

History Professor Kate Brown has been selected as the winner of the American Historical Association’s 2014 Albert J. Beveridge Award for her book Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2013). The recognition marks the sixth award Brown has received for Plutopia. The annual Albert J. Beveridge Award honors a distinguished book in English on the history of the United States, Latin America, or Canada, from 1492 to the present.

plutopia

In a press release from the American Historical Association announcing the award, David Hollinger, the 2014 Beveridge Award Committee chair, commented that “[Brown’s book] counters dominant understandings of the Cold War couched in terms of divergent or separate paths. Deeply and multilingually researched in difficult conditions requiring perseverance in the face of official secrecy, courage in the face of personal exposure, and empathy in the presence of suffering, Plutopia adds to recent scholarship that emphasizes the costs of the Cold War in the places where it turned hot.”

The Albert J. Beveridge Award was initially established on a biennial basis in 1939, in honor of US Senator Albert J. Beveridge (Indiana, 1899-1911), a longtime member of the Association and an active supporter of history as both a lawyer and a senator. It has been awarded annually since 1945. The prize will be presented at the American Historical Association’s 129th Annual Meeting in New York City, January 2-5, 2015.

Brown’s new book, Dispatches from Dystopia: History of Places Not Yet Forgotten, will be published by University of Chicago Press in March 2015. For more information, click here.

For information on Brown’s prior awards, click below:
1.) Heldt Prize in the category of Best Book in Slavic/Eastern European/Eurasian Studies from the Association for Women in Slavic Studies
2.) Western History Association’s Robert G. Athearn Prize
3.) Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians
4.) American Society for Environmental History George Perkins Marsh Prize
5.) Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize sponsored by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies and the Center for Russian and East European Studies of Stanford University

Hilltop Hospital Community Benefit Program Issue Brief Cited in HealthAffairs

A recent HealthAffairs blog post explored how non profit hospitals are affected by their tax-exempt status under the Affordable Care Act. In the post, author Sara Rosenbaum cited The Hilltop Institute and referenced its Hospital Community Benefit Program’s brief titled “Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA: Addressing Social and Economic Factors that Shape Health.”

Click here to read “Tax-Exempt Status For Nonprofit Hospitals Under The ACA: Where Are The Final Treasury/IRS Rules?” in HealthAffairs.

Jason Loviglio, Media and Communication Studies, on BBC Radio

BBC Radio 4 recently aired a special one hour program about interviewing members of the public in the historic format of the vox pop. Jason Loviglio, associate professor and chair of media and communication studies, was interviewed for the program and provides historical context throughout the segment.

Jason Loviglio image

“The origins of vox pop in the United States are almost as old as the origins of broadcasting in the United States. The juxtaposition of the polished, educated voice of the professional radio announcer was then juxtaposed with the voice of the man on the street, sometimes quite literally,” Loviglio said. He pointed to Houston, Texas in 1932 as the origin of vox pop where broadcasters strung a microphone out of a window to interview passers by on the street.

Later in the program, Loviglio describes the differences between American radio and the BBC in the 1940s and 1950s: “The kinds of opinions that were the prerogative of professional journalists and were not the prerogative of anyone else. So the idea that there would be a meaningful contribution from the average person on the street really did not resonate in the same way for the BBC and for very logical business model reasons.”

To listen to the program in its entirety, click here.

UMBC UMBC
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 Directions & Parking

Resources

Important Contacts

Emergency Info

Contact Us

Apply

Top Stories of the Week

© UMBC: A University System of Maryland Member Institution