All posts by: UMBC News Staff

Department of American Studies Receives Grant

The department of American studies has received a civic engagement grant from the Maryland Humanities Council for the project, “Looking Forward from the 45th Anniversary of the Catonsville Nine Actions.”Civic Engagement Grants support public programs that promote informed dialogue and civic engagement about critical issues identified by the grant applicant.

The Catonsville Nine were nine activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968 they went to the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot, poured home-made napalm over them, and set them on fire.

The project consists of classroom visits, a public tour of sites in the story of the Catonsville Nine, film screenings, a public dialogue, and the creation of mobile mapping software highlighting key sites. The department hopes to engage students, community-based activists, the general public and the community of Catonsville about not only the historical significance of the actions of the Catonsville Nine, but also how we think about social protest, civic duty, and citizenship for our time.

UMBC Chess Team Ties for First Place Following the “World Series of Chess”

ChessTeam-4742

“The University of Maryland, Baltimore County chess team tied four other college teams for first place at the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship on Sunday — maintaining its record as one of two colleges with the most top finishes in the history of the international event,” wrote Kevin Rector in the Baltimore Sun.

The UMBC chess team tied for first place December 30, 2012 in the Pan-Am Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, advancing to the 2013 President’s Cup, known as the “Final Four” of chess.

The team headed into the 2012 Pan-Am Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship with a record nine titles to its name. The competition known informally as the Pan-Am, was held December 27 to 30 in Princeton, New Jersey. Since the tournament began in 1946, dozens of universities throughout the Americas have participated. The Retrievers won their first Pan-Am title in 1996, and then embarked on a five-year title streak from 1998 to 2002.

This year, the Retrievers tied for first place with 3 other Universities: University of Texas, Dallas; Webster University, which had 2 teams; and the University of Illinois.
“It was an exciting finish. This was the strongest Pan Am in the history of the event. Twenty – three grandmasters as well as 5 teams rated over 2500 competed,” says Alan Sherman, Director of the UMBC Chess Program.

The UMBC team, all on chess scholarships, is composed of students not only with exceptional chess skills but also with strong academic records, Sherman says. UMBC requires students to maintain a 3.0 GPA to maintain chess scholarships.
The Retrievers last won the Pan-Am title in 2009, and took second last year. This year’s team will compete in the 2012 President’s Cup, the “Final Four of College Chess,” to be held in April 6-7, 2013 in Herndon, Va.

“Curious Behavior” Named a “Best Book of 2012”

curious behaviorLibrary Journal has named Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond by Robert Provine, professor of psychology, as one of the best books of 2012.

In the publication’s original review of the book, the reviewer said that the book ” is a delectable presentation for all who love the territory between pop and hardcore science writing.”

Hillol Kargupta, Professor of Computer Science, Wins 2012 10-Year ICDM Highest-Impact Paper Award

Hillol Kargupta, professor of computer science, is the winner of the 2012 10-Year ICDM Highest-Impact Paper Award for the ICDM 2003 paper on “On the Privacy Preserving Properties of Random Data Perturbation Techniques.” Researchers, Souptik Datta (UMBC), Qi Wang (Washington State University), and Krishnamoorthy Sivakumar (Washington State University), were also authors on the paper.

ICDM is the premier international conference on data mining (with an acceptance ratio of approx. 8-12% in the last ten years). The 10-Year ICDM Highest-Impact Paper Award is awarded every year since 2010. The first ICDM was held in 2001.

Ellen Handler Spitz, Honors College, in “Artcritical”

Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, recently reviewed the art show The Event of a Thread by Ann Hamilton, which runs through January 6 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, for the online magazine Artcritical.

Spitz says that “The Gothic Revival Park Avenue Armory… provides a perfect venue for Hamilton’s swings, her 42 pigeons in miniature, stacked dovecotes, and the immense white silken fabric that billows from on high, responsively rising and falling according to the visitors’ velocities as they sway on their swings, pushed often by perfect strangers.”

Relating the exhibition to its title, Spitz says, “by the most gossamer of threads— of silk and of sound—connections proliferate.”

The review, “Gentling The Savage Enormity Of Gargantuan Space: Ann Hamilton at the Armory,” appeared online on December 20.

Josiah Dykstra, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science, Wins Award for Best Case Study

Josiah Dykstra, a Ph.D. student in Computer Science, won the Outstanding Case Study Award for 2012 of the The American Academy of Forensic Sciences, based on his presentation of a paper by Dykstra and his advisor Alan Sherman,
published in the Journal of Network Forensics. Dykstra will accept the award in February at the Academy’s annual meeting.

Ellen Handler Spitz, Honors College, on the “Marc Steiner Show”

Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, was a guest on the “Marc Steiner Show” on Tuesday, December 18, to discuss children’s literature, the best children’s literature of the year, and books that make good gifts.  Spitz was joined by Deborah Taylor, School and Student Services Coordinator for the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and JoAnn Fruchtman, owner of The Children’s Bookstore in Roland Park.

Spitz spoke to the bond that books can create between a parents and a child.  Because children cannot read when they are very young, the experience of books must be shared with an adult, which creates a bond.

“Even though we have all kind of wonderful technology, the books are there for a relational cultural experience,” she said.

Spitz also encouraged parents to take care with the books they share with their children.

“I feel passionately that just as we think about the food that we give to our children, and we want to give them something nourishing, I think what goes into their minds, into their heads, is equally important.  I think parents, and teachers, and editors, and the writers themselves, need to think very seriously about the cultural lives of children. When you are a child, you are a sponge.  Everything goes in; every subtle hint becomes a part of your psychic equipment,” she said.

The full segment can be heard here.

Craig Saper, LLC, Named Bearman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship

SaperCraig Saper, professor and chair of Language, Literacy, and Culture (LLC), has been named the Bearman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship.

“Dr. Saper is a scholar of large achievement and great energy, whose talents and interests make him a superb choice for the Bearman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship,” said John Jeffries, dean of the college of arts, humanities, and social sciences (CAHSS).

The Bearman Foundation Chair in Entrepreneurship was established by The Herbert Bearman Foundation to acknowledge and honor the contributions of Dr. Arlene Bearman to the UMBC community. This chair recognizes and supports outstanding teaching skills, an interest in entrepreneurship, and a strong record of scholarship in entrepreneurial studies or a field related to entrepreneurship.

“Since arriving on campus, Dr. Saper has been a whirlwind of research and teaching activity deeply anchored in commitments to social entrepreneurship,” said Bev Bickel, associate professor and former chair of LLC.

This three-year endowed position will provide Saper with funding to integrate entrepreneurship concepts into classroom instruction, advising, and scholarship. Saper will also work with the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship and Kauffman grant activities, and with the Administrative and Managerial Sciences program.

“My research is deeply anchored in commitments to social entrepreneurship that I have been studying throughout my career,” said Saper.  His recently-released book, Intimate Bureaucracies, examines social entrepreneurship during the creation of the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan in the 1960s-1980s.

Saper is planning two projects during the course of his Bearman chairmanship.  The first will examine the social entrepreneurship involved in the building of shared memorials and monuments. His research will focus on the entrepreneurs who organized and made the memorials possible.

Saper’s second project will explore the possibility of establishing a digital e-press at UMBC, which is he doing in collaboration with colleagues in the Library, the English department, the media and communication studies program and LLC as part of the campus’s larger Digital Humanities efforts.

“I’m interested in being a participant-observer of this group-entrepreneurial effort that works within, and for, UMBC’s institutional structure and the larger demands of academia and legitimate scholarship,” he said.

But Saper’s objective as the Bearman Foundation Chair isn’t just to achieve his research goals – it’s to offer a new vision of what entrepreneurship can mean.

“Hopefully, at the end of my term I will have promoted a progressive model of entrepreneurship that offers an alternative to Ayn Rand’s outlaw heroes. In the new model, entrepreneurs are part of communities working cooperatively for public space, public schools and the public good not renegades and raiders,” he said.

Reprogramming Education

Reprogramming Education

In high school, Blossom Metevier stuck to meat-and-potato science courses – physics, biology, chemistry and mathematics. She didn’t even consider computer science.

“It seemed to be just for the smelly gamers and geeks,” she says. “I took pottery instead.”

Now a sophomore at UMBC – majoring in computer science – Metevier captivated the crowd at a recent briefing on Capitol Hill as she talked about how she ultimately fell into the field. The Congressional Briefing, “Fueling the Future: Celebrating Computer Science Education Week and Computer Science in K-12 Classrooms and Policy,” was sponsored by Computing in the Core, a coalition of corporations, scientific societies, and associations. Metevier joined leaders from industry, education and non-profits in calling on Congress to ensure that more young Americans do more than just stumble upon computer science.

In her junior year of high school, Metevier realized she needed to get serious about figuring out what to study in college. “I couldn’t find anything I was passionate about in high school,” she says.

So, she did some research, learned that computer science involved a fair amount of math – which she liked – and thought it might be useful to learn about computers. So she declared computer science as a major, without having ever taken a class in the field. “When I got to college I found that I was really good at it,” she says. “It’s really about problem solving skills and algorithms, not computers.”

“Looking back,” says Metevier , “I find it very disturbing that no computer science courses are required for (high school) graduation.” And, she says, more women need to be encouraged to give the field a try.

Metevier’s experience isn’t unique. Only 27 percent of U.S. high schools have adopted the Computer Science Teachers Association’s recommended standards for computer science classes. And corporations like Oracle are pushing for computer science to be added to high-school curriculums as a core course.

Marie desJardins, a professor of computer science at UMBC, seconds that approach. “Every student should have a high-quality introduction to computer science that teaches them algorithmic problem solving, how a digital computer operates, and the capabilities and limitations of modern computers,” she says.

While government support may be limited, Oracle spends $2 billion a year on computer science education, and it’s not the only company that recognizes the need. Microsoft recently announced that, to date, it has invested $750 million in its Partners in Learning Project, an international program to train K-12 computing teachers. And Google’s CS4HS program funds universities around the world so that they can offer professional development workshops for high school computer science teachers.

Recent estimates from the U.S. Department of Labor showed that between 2010 and 2020, the country will have more than 1.4 million computing-related job openings. At current college graduation rates, only about 30 percent of those jobs could be filled by American computing graduates. While attracting students, in general, to computer science can be a challenge, attracting female and minority students has proved even more difficult. Women make up only 19 percent of all high school students taking Advanced Placement tests in computer science, according to analysis by the National Center for Women and Information Technology.

Some universities, including UMBC, have launched programs to tackle the pipeline challenge head on. UMBC’s Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) and its new Cyberscholars Program are both designed to attract female and minority students to the computer science field. The programs provide support networks, mentoring and special programming on how to study, manage time well and build a career. All of that is designed to ultimately prepare the students for the working world.

Metevier, for one, is already mapping her next steps: pursuing a master’s in computer science and, ultimately, working in industry. Metevier isn’t just talking about changing computer science. She’s doing it.

(12/18/12)

David Clurman, Assistant Director of Residential Education, Receives Distinguished Service Award

David Clurman, Assistant Director of Residential Education, was awarded the James Hurd Distinguished Service Award by the Mid-Atlantic Association of College and University Housing Officers (MACUHO).

David’s active involvement in MACUHO began in 1998 and since that time he served 10 years on the executive board, including as president in 2009 and as the host co-chair of this year’s conference that was held in downtown Baltimore.

Timothy J. Brennan, Public Policy, to Receive Distinguished Service Award

Timothy J. Brennan, professor of public policy, has been named 2013 recipient of Public Utility Research Center (PURC) Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to the understanding of regulatory economics and finance. The Award recognizes the cumulative impact of an individual’s research and policy analyses on both the academic community and regulatory policymakers. Brennan will receive the award as he speaks on utility regulation at the Annual PURC Conference on February 13, 2013 at the University of Florida.

In addition, Brennan will co-direct the spring 2013 Center for Research in Regulated Industries’ Conference on Postal and Delivery Economics in Dublin, Ireland. Topics covered will include issues facing the new generation of postal companies, such as strategy, competition, innovation, marketing, universal service, cost analysis, demand analysis and new services.

Roy Meyers, Political Science, in the Gazette

An article in today’s Gazette on what the State of Maryland can expect in Governor Martin O’ Malley’s final two years in office, prior to a possible presidential run, quotes UMBC’s Roy T. Meyers, professor of political science.

Meyers suggests that if O’Malley is interested in the presidency, he will need to commit more of his time to raising money and traveling. However, Meyers also suggests that one state issue he won’t be able to ignore in his final term as governor is overhauling Maryland’s transportation funding program, saying, “He can’t let that fester.”

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