The spring semester has officially kicked off, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have the students back on campus! We wish them well as they had back into the classroom and spend their evenings studying in the library. May will be here before you know it!
Want to join in on the fun this spring? Check out these cool happenings:
A lecture by History Associate Professor Anne Rubin in her Civil War and Reconstruction class recently aired on C-SPAN3. The class was taped by C-SPAN as part of a series on Civil War Memory and “The Lost Cause.”
Rubin’s lecture analyzed how the Civil War was remembered in the decades after the conflict with a focus on the former Confederate states. In the lecture, Rubin talks about the Southern Historical Society’s contributions to The Lost Cause myth which idealized how the pre-war South was perceived. She also analyzes cemeteries and monuments that honor the Confederate dead among other topics.
The class aired on C-SPAN 3 Saturday, January 25. You can watch the lecture in its entirety here.
Anne Rubin is author of A Shattered Nation: The Rise and Fall of the Confederacy, 1861-1868.
The Princeton Review released its list of “Best Value Colleges for 2014” today, created based on surveys regarding academics, cost and financial aid awards.
Out of the 2,000 undergraduate institutions surveyed, UMBC was one of 75 public universities named a “Best Value College.” UMBC also received this distinction in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013.
An interactive database of the 75 public and 75 private schools on the “Best Value Colleges” list can be found at USA Today.
Princeton Review also released a companion book, The Best Value Colleges: The 150 Best-Buy Schools and What It Takes to Get In, featuring profiles of the colleges and universities on the list.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton became the first woman to testify before Congress on January 20, 1869. In an appearance on WYPR’s Humanities Connection, Gender and Women’s Studies Lecturer Kate Drabinski reflected on Stanton’s position in history and vision of women’s rights.
When Stanton testified before Congress, she was speaking out against the Fifteenth Amendment which guaranteed the right to vote for African American men. Drabinski commented that Stanton fought for abolition during the Civil War, but for her, “suffrage was about all people, not just men, and she refused to support an amendment to the Constitution that expanded rights for some while leaving others out in the cold,” Drabinski said.
Drabinski further commented that Stanton had a broader vision of women’s rights beyond suffrage that inspires women’s activism today: “Stanton was a lifelong activist agitating against slavery and sexism, demanding the natural rights of women not just to vote, but to hold property, file for divorce, inherit, and more,” she added.
You can listen to the full appearance by Kate Drabinski on Humanities Connection here.
Charlotte Keniston, UMBC MFA student and Shriver Peaceworker Fellow, was featured in a blog post by the National Peace Corps Association for her food justice project, Pigtown Food for Thought.
Her upcoming work at the MFA thesis exhibition opens April 3rd at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Cultural at UMBC, and will feature her work in Pigtown. For more information on Charlotte’s art, check out her website: www.charlottekeniston.com
The Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, a partnership between UMBC and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, recently sent research scientist Glenn Wolfe to Guam.
The Baltimore Sun reports that Wolfe will be joining a team of international researchers who are studying how the western Pacific Ocean shapes the Earth’s climate. Wolfe will focus on measuring formaldehyde to gather data on how gases move upward and alter the atmosphere.
Wolfe told The Baltimore Sun that, “This is a new frontier for atmospheric chemistry, and we are excited to see what’s out there.”
Maryland Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch held a press conference today to announce a package of bills relating to economic development initiatives. The proposed legislation would leverage public and private sector resources for higher education research endowments; create a seed fund to invest in cybersecurity and privacy companies; and strengthen ties between key state, federal and higher education institutions and neighboring communities by creating Reduced Tax Zones (called RISE zones).
President Hrabowski spoke at the press conference (photo at right), emphasizing the importance of investment in endowed professorships and the RISE economic development zones to increase tech transfer. He joined USM Chancellor Brit Kirwan and representatives of the University of Maryland, College Park, and Johns Hopkins University in endorsing the proposed legislation.
UMBC Vice President for Research Karl Steiner and bwtech@UMBC Executive Director Ellen Hemmerly also attended the event.
State and national voices are increasingly articulating the need for expanded training and investment in cybersecurity. This week’s U.S. News includes cybersecurity in a story about hot career fields, noting that UMBC cybersecurity programs offer students essential hands-on experience.
ABC2 News reported on the press conference and Dr. Hrabowski’s remarks. Public Policy Professor and Chair Donald Norris was also interviewed about the event in The Baltimore Sun.
Entomologists believe bed bugs have started making a comeback in places like Philadelphia in recent years. A report that aired on WHYY in Philadelphia January 17 examines the city’s battle with bedbugs and how it has evolved.
Dawn Biehler, assistant professor of geography and environmental systems, was interviewed for the story and commented on the history of bedbugs in the United States and how they appeared consistently up until the 40s and 50s.
“It was almost kind of an accepted condition of urban life that every once in a while, you were going to get bedbugs,” Biehler said. “Some people had bedbugs pretty much constantly.”
Bedbugs have made a comeback in places like Philadelphia as they’ve developed resistance to chemicals aimed at pest control, and Biehler commented how bedbugs can cause many problems such as “degradation of mental health” by creating problems such as loss of sleep and family divisions.
You can listen to the full story on WHYY and read the accompanying article here. Biehler also analyzed the history and transformation of the phrase “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite,” and that can be heard here.
Dawn Biehler is author of Pests in the City: Flies, Bedbugs, Cockroaches, and Rats published in 2013.
American jazz singer and songwriter Billie Holiday has a Baltimore connection. She spent the bulk of her childhood on a block of South Durham Street in Upper Fells Point. Residents and artists in that neighborhood are honoring her by starting a project that pays tribute to Holiday while also bringing new life to the block.
Media and communication studies student Ken Corbett is an intern for WYPR’s Maryland Morning and produced and narrated a story about the project that aired on the program January 17. In December, Corbett spent a day on Holiday’s block on South Durham Street and put together a story after interviewing residents and Holiday’s biographer.
“Billie Holiday may have spent some of her darker years in Baltimore, but the people who live in her old neighborhood now are using that legacy and her image to brighten things up,” Corbett says.
You can listen to the full story here.
There has been growing speculation in recent weeks that Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) has plans on entering the Maryland race for governor. Delaney is a first-time lawmaker and a former banking executive.
Donald Norris, public policy professor and chair, was interviewed for an article published January 22 in The Baltimore Sun about the possibility of Delaney entering the race. He commented that Delaney is likely attempting to boost his recognition for a statewide race some time in the future.
“Because it’s this late, it would suggest to me that he won’t do it,” Norris said. “Were he to do it — and throw his considerable wealth into it — I think that automatically makes him a formidable candidate.”
There are already three Democrats in the governor’s race: Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Attorney General Douglas Gansler and Del. Heather Mizeur.
You can read the full article in The Baltimore Sun here.
An article published January 19 in The Baltimore Sun examines the impact of the Affordable Care Act as Marylanders gain health insurance coverage, but points to how many are switching from existing policies.
The article, titled “Consumers trading up for better, cheaper health insurance” states that while many people who already have health insurance are trading up for better policies, the number of uninsured might not decrease greatly.
UMBC’s Hilltop Institute is mentioned in the article when referencing a past study that was conducted before the Affordable Care Act was launched: “The Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County estimated before the health law launched that by 2020 about 6.3 percent of the state’s population would remain uninsured, down from just over 10 percent in 2014.”
The Hilltop Institute is also referenced in the article when looking into the issue of people bouncing in and out of health coverage when they are self-employed or lose or change jobs: “Hilltop, for example, found among Medicaid beneficiaries in Maryland in 2011 that about 20 percent were new to the program and 13 percent lost eligibility.”
You can read the full article in The Baltimore Sun here.
Psychology professor Robert Provine participated in this year’s annual question on Edge.org, which features a collection of online essays that is later published as part of a high-profile and top-selling series of books for a general audience. Contributors each year are leading scientists, philosophers and artists and the event draws global news coverage.
This year’s question was “What scientific idea is ready for retirement?” In his response titled “Common Sense,” Provine writes about behavioral and brain science: “We fancy ourselves intelligent, conscious and alert, and thinking our way through life. This is an illusion. We are deluded by our brain’s generation of a sketchy, rational narrative of subconscious, sometimes irrational or fictitious events that we accept as reality.”
Provine goes on to write: “Our lives are guided by a series of these guesstimates about the behavior and mental state of ourselves and that, although imperfect, are adaptive and sufficiently accurate to enable us to muddle along. However, as scientists, we demand more than default explanations based on common sense. Behavioral and brain science provides a path to understanding that challenges the myths of mental life and everyday behavior.”
Robert Provine has participated in Edge.org’s annual question for several years. To read “Common Sense” and all of his essays from prior years, click here.