All posts by: UMBC News Staff

We’re Hiring: Assistant Vice President, Communications and Public Affairs

As UMBC approaches its 50th anniversary in 2016, the school is looking to expand the leadership and capacity in the Office of Institutional Advancement.

At a college where “the party is in the library,” UMBC has become a model for other campuses, especially in the science and technology areas of study. Along with the University of Maryland, College Park, UMBC is one of three research universities in Maryland and houses the first university-related research park in the state, bwtech@UMBC, creating a stimulating environment for students who are looking to expand their knowledge and gain experience in their fields.

To help UMBC grow and reach its full potential, the administration is looking for a candidate capable of working in a high-profile position and dealing with strategy development, relationship cultivation, and effective execution of communications and government and community relations to elevate, expand, and protect campus image and reputation. The Assistant Vice President will build strong relationships with academic, athletic, and administration leaders across campus while managing a team including the Director of Communications, the Director of Arts and Culture, three Communications Managers, and two junior staff members.

Qualifications include seven to 10 years experience in communications with at least two years in work related to the higher education sector, a bachelor’s degree, experience supervising others, dealing with crisis communications and developing and evaluating digital communications. Candidates should also be proactive, be able to present themselves appropriately according to different situations, make excellent judgement calls, and be respectful and trustworthy.

Applications are being accepted through July 30.

To see a full description, please click here.

Dale Bittinger, Admissions, in The Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore Sun recently published an in-depth article on spring admissions policies at local universities, exploring them as a mechanism to expand access to higher education.

Dale Bittinger, assistant vice provost of Admissions and Orientation, discussed UMBC’s spring admissions policies, which enable some students to enroll in the spring if they take classes at a community college or another four-year university in the fall, without submitting another application to UMBC. Spring admissions can give students who are not initially offered admission to their first-choice school another opportunity to enroll.

Click here to read the article titled, “For more college freshmen, an offer to start a semester late.”

 

Donald Norris, Public Policy, in The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun

Larry Hogan, the Republican nominee for Maryland governor, decided last week to participate in the state’s public financing system in the fall election. Hogan is the first candidate in 20 years to do so for a statewide general election. Hogan will receive a grant of about $2.6 million from the state, and his campaign will not be allowed to spend more than that on the race.

Donald Norris UMBC

Donald Norris, professor and chair of the public policy department, was interviewed about Hogan’s decision by The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun. “It surprises me a great deal that Hogan is going this way,” Norris told the Washington Post. “It tells me that the smart money is going elsewhere or people with money don’t think Hogan is going to win.”

In The Baltimore Sun, Norris said: “Nobody does this because they want to. They do this because they have to — and they have to because they can’t raise substantial amounts of money in any other way.” To read the full articles about Hogan’s decision, click below:

Republican Larry Hogan to use public funds in campaign for governor of Maryland (Washington Post)
Hogan opts for public financing in governor’s race (Baltimore Sun)

Lee Boot, visual arts, in What Weekly

Shifting control of the Internet from the consumer to those with the most wealth means the flow of content will go to the highest bidder, writes Lee Boot, a media researcher and IRC Associate Director, in Why Surrendering Control of the Internet to Market Forces is Crazy Talk, a commentary piece on net neutrality published in What Weekly.

“The Internet Service Providers we pay to connect our homes and business to the Internet and broker content, now want also to charge the content companies like Netflix according to the bandwidth their media require to deliver,” says Boot.

Boot compares the current threat of ISPs controlling the flow of content to when cable service providers promised ad-free digital access to television programming, only to slowly reintroduce advertising into subscriptions after the fact. The fear, Boot argues, is that ISPs—many of which used to be (and still are) cable providers—will honor companies that pay the most with choice quality and delivery.

“It would open a Pandora’s Box of ways to turn new media into the kind of restrictive tool of money and power TV was because it shifts power away from consumers (citizens) toward those with the power to manipulate the media landscape,” says Boot.

Read the full article »

Round-Up: UMBC in the News 7/11

One of the things that makes UMBC great is how wonderful our alumni, students, faculty, and staff are. Because of these amazing people, UMBC often finds itself “in the news,” so each week, we’ll be sharing with you a round-up of the most newsworthy achievements from our community.

Find more news here!

Celebration of Life, Dr. Rita Sloan Berndt ‘71, psychology

via The Baltimore Sun

The UMBC community was deeply saddened to learn that Dr. Rita Sloan Berndt ‘71, psychology, passed away on June 17 of lymphoma. Born in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville, Berndt first attended the Institute of Notre Dame, ‘62, and continued her education at UMBC after her first son was born. Her final degrees, ‘75, M.A. psychology, and ‘77, Ph.D. cognitive psychology, were earned at the Johns Hopkins University.

After her graduation from Johns Hopkins, Berndt became a faculty member in the neurology department at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She worked as a full-time professor and studied those who suffered from aphasia – the loss of the power to use or understand words – and retired in 2008. Dr. Sheila Blumstein calls Berndt a “force in the fields of aphasia and neuroscience” and credits Berndt as one of the reasons aphasia is better understood today.

While her work and education were deeply important to Berndt, her obituary in The Baltimore Sun explains that she had a great enthusiasm for all aspects of life:

She loved to travel and spent many summers at Great Gott Island in Maine. She also traveled each year to Italy with friends and loved going to Yellowstone National Park to watch the wolves.

The couple shared a love of athletics, and her husband remembers Dr. Berndt keeping a pair of Converse hightops and socks in the trunk of their car until they were in their 30s, in case they spotted a game of basketball they could join.

A celebration of Berndt’s life will be held at UMBC on July 16 at 11 a.m. in the Performing Arts and Humanities Building. A private burial will follow in the fall at Great Gott Island.

Learn more about Dr. Berndt’s life and legacy.

IMET Receives $600,000 Grant from Ratcliffe Foundation

The Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET) received a three year, $600,000 grant from the Philip E. and Carole R. Ratcliffe Foundation to implement the Ratcliffe Environmental Entrepreneurs Fellowship Program. IMET is a research institute supported by UMBC, University of Maryland Baltimore’s School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

The fellowship program supported by the grant will help young scientists gain leadership and business skills that will allow them to introduce their research to a commercial market. IMET Director Russell Hill commented, “This is a tremendous opportunity not only for IMET but also for investors, business people and citizens in the region who will benefit from economic development flowing from this new program.”

Click here to read more.

Maurice Berger, CADVC, Receives Warhol Foundation Fellowship

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has awarded Maurice Berger, CADVC, a $100,000 grant in support of his forthcoming curatorial project, Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television. Berger was awarded $50,000 by the Warhol Foundation to support the research of Revolution of the Eye in 2012.

This exhibition and publication project represents the first collaborative institutional effort between the CADVC and the Jewish Museum in New York, where Maurice holds the title of Consulting Curator. The grant will be administered by The Jewish Museum.

Revolution of the Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television is currently scheduled to be open at the Jewish Museum in New York in May 2015. The exhibition will have a major national tour, traveling to additional venues through 2017 including The Addison Gallery of America Art, Andover, MA; The Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago; Orange County Museum of Art, Newport Beach, CA; and Nova Southeastern University of Art, Ft. Lauderdale. The exhibition will be on display at the CADVC in the fall of 2016.

About Revolution of The Eye:

“From the early-1940s through the mid-1960s, a dynamic new visual medium emerged in the United States that, in its risk-taking and aesthetic experimentation, paralleled the cutting-edge nature of modern art: television. The revolutionary and uncharted medium attracted younger television executives, writers, producers, and directors. Scores of socially and culturally progressive and predominantly Jewish network executives, producers, directors, art directors, and writers—figures such as Paddy Chayefsky, William Golden, Leonard Goldenson, Robert Kintner, Ernie Kovacs, Dan Melnick, William S. Paley, David Sarnoff, Frank Stanton, David Susskind, and Rod Serling—mined the aesthetic, stylistic, and conceptual possibilities of a new and powerful technology. These innovators worked in a cultural milieu far less constricted by the competition for box office revenue and the censorious production codes then preoccupying the motion picture industry.

As the geographic focus of the networks shifted from the Hollywood movie studios to a television industry initially centered in New York, the proximity of these innovators to the city’s dynamic artistic and cultural community—particularly the avant-garde art and philosophies of the New York School, an artistic milieu also with a significant Jewish presence—would result in a powerful conceptual and stylistic synergy between modern art and early television.”

More information about the exhibition and the grant is available at the Warhol Foundation’s website.

Alums in the News: Quipeles, Richardson, McMullen, Steininger

Congratulations to these UMBC alums whose accomplishments have been recognized both inside and outside of UMBC. Take a moment to read what they have been up to!

via Inquirer.net

The Kennedy Center recently hosted a benefit performance called “After the Storm” in support of the survivors of typhoon Haiyan, the strongest recorded typhoon to ever hit the Philippines. Gretchen Quipeles ‘14, health administration and public policy, attended the event and praised its success. “It’s exciting to see the Filipino community come together in that one room seeing a great act, raising money for typhoon Haiyan,” she told Inquirer.net. Read the full story here.

While Prince George’s county may not be known for academic success, Dr. Hrabowski and Donald Richardson ‘14, mathematics, discussed how engaging students in a cooperative community provides a supportive background for black students. “[UMBC] was a big transition from public school, where everybody was trying to make it on their own,” said Richardson to The Washington Post. Find more here.

kylacroppKyla McMullen ‘05, computer science, the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in computer science, knew there was something missing from a Business Insider list of the 50 sexiest scientists when she noticed no African-American women were featured. “If the current generation is going to be engaged in scientific careers, we need to dispel the stereotypical image of a scientist as being a white, glasses wearing, socially-inept nerd,” said McMullen in one of her articles. “Business Insider went one step in this direction, but not far enough.” She decided to fill this void by creating her own list of sexy, black, female scientists. You can find it on her website.

ethan2

After an operation left a friend’s dad $40,000 in debt, Ethan Steininger ‘14, health administration and policy, started a website called Compared Care. It allows users to compare the prices of medical professionals based on what the patient is looking for before having the exam or operation. “You don’t know what you’re getting [charged] until after you get it,” said Steininger to Technical.ly Baltimore, and his website is made to help users find the best medical attention they can afford. Read more here.

Bambi Chapin, Sociology and Anthropology, on WYPR’s Maryland Morning

Bambi Chapin, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology, is the author of a compelling new book which offers a global perspective on the transmission of culture and childhood development. The book, Childhood in a Sri Lankan Village: Shaping Hierarchy and Desire, describes the results of Chapin’s anthropological research done while living for nearly two years in a central Sri Lankan village observing and studying how mothers were raising their children.

Bambi Chapin book

Chapin was interviewed on WYPR’s Maryland Morning about her new book and what she set out to discover: “How is it that people become the culturally shaped people we become? What happens in how we’re raised, in the experiences that we have that make us want to be in the relationships that we want to be in?” Chapin said. “How does culture get transmitted?”

Discussing her research further, Chapin said, “I really became interested in the subtle, every day kinds of interactions that produce such surprising results. I then tried to unpack that and use it as an example to call into question some of our assumptions of how children are and how they learn.”

“The people I knew in Sri Lanka thought that maturity was demonstrated by knowing when to hold your tongue, knowing who was wiser than you, who would make a better decision, and by choosing to go along with that,” she added.

To listen to interview in its entirety that aired July 9, click here.

Thomas Schaller, Political Science, in Politico Magazine and The Baltimore Sun

An article published July 8 in Politico Magazine discusses recent election strategies used by Democrats in Southern states. Thomas Schaller, a political science professor and author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South, was interviewed for the article and offered analysis on how Democratic candidates in recent presidential elections have built coalitions of support in the South.

Tom Schaller

“When you look at the last two Democratic presidents, both of them won non-Southern Electoral College majorities,” Schaller said. “They both had 270 votes outside the South. Their coalitions were a little different in terms of Southern support. Clinton got more ‘bubba’ support in Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia. Obama didn’t win any of those states except for Florida but he won Virginia twice and North Carolina once.”

Schaller added that even with President Obama’s wins in the South, “those states have very high, among the three or four highest, populations of non-Southern people … Democrats are winning in the South but not with native Southerners.”

Schaller also published an op-ed in The Baltimore Sun on July 8 about the dramatic shift in corporate taxation in recent decades. You can read both articles by clicking on the links below.

Do Democrats Need a Bubba Strategy? (Politico Magazine)
Not Taxing U.S. Corporations Gives a Pass to Foreigners (Baltimore Sun)

Robert Provine, Psychology, in Real Simple

Psychology Professor Robert Provine appeared in the July 2014 edition of Real Simple magazine in an article about the evolution and science of laughter. The magazine published a lengthy article in the print edition and also posted a version of the article on its website.

Robert Provine

In the print version, Provine said that more research is needed, but it’s probable that those who laugh easily and often are happier than those who don’t. Laughter is “the sound of play,” he said. “So our brain automatically associates it with carefree interactions with friends, family and lovers.”

The article also cites one of Provine’s earliest research experiments in which he found that just listening to recorded laughter can often evoke fits of giggles. According to his research, you’re 30 times more likely to laugh when someone else is around than when you’re by yourself. “It’s highly contagious,” he said.

To read the online version of the article titled, “13 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Laughing,” click here.

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