Dear UMBC Community,

Tomorrow, Tuesday, October 24 is our last on-campus vaccination clinic. The clinic runs from 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. in the University Center, Room 312.

Don't have an appointment yet? There will be a limited number of vaccines available for walk ins. Come get this season's flu shot and the new COVID-19 vaccine.

Contact Retriever Integrated Health at 410-455-2542 or rih@umbc.edu with any questions. 

Protect yourself, your family, and your community from current and upcoming infectious diseases! This event is open to students, faculty, staff, and their families.

Dear UMBC Community,

 

As our campus continues to welcome increasing numbers of religiously and spiritually diverse students, faculty, and staff and fully embrace the diversity that is already present, we are constantly seeking ways to adapt and better support individuals with these identities to ensure that every member of our campus community feels a sense of belonging and connection.

As part of the university's ongoing commitment to inclusive excellence, the Inclusion Council created a Religious and Spiritual Belonging working group in spring 2023. This group, made up of a diverse set of students, staff, faculty, and community members, is tasked with creating recommendations regarding the needs of students with closely-held religious and spiritual identities. These recommendations will include clear steps that can be taken to address those needs. This work will focus on issues related to dining, housing, campus support and resources, and space allocations for religious and spiritual practice.

 

The next phase of this important work is seeking feedback from students, staff, faculty, and community members about their experiences and needs for religious and spiritual belonging at UMBC. To that end, several listening sessions will be held within the coming weeks. All sessions are open to all community members. The schedule for the sessions is as follows:

Two virtual sessions will held as follows: 

In addition to attending a listening session, community members are also welcome to submit feedback online by filling out this Google Form or by emailing the working group chair directly at matt.hoffman@umbc.edu.

 

We hope that you consider this opportunity to attend and provide feedback as we seek to improve belonging for community members with closely-held religious and spiritual identities.

Thank you,

 

Dear UMBC Community,

 

We cannot know how long the war between Israel and Hamas will last, but we know that with each passing day, our own community feels deeply the pain and anguish of what is happening and sympathy and compassion for the people of that region and all that they have lost and will yet lose. And we know that many within our community are increasingly concerned about antisemitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred everywhere, including here at home. That concern, most especially the need to ensure the safety of our community, is why I write to you now.

 

So, with a heavy heart but deep faith in this community's caring, I want to extend my support to you all, share information about resources and spaces for reflection, and urge us all to show kindness, grace, and flexibility to one another, knowing that students, faculty, and staff may be struggling.

 

UMBC community members are already doing this in so many ways, providing support and space for caring for one another. The Gathering Space for Spiritual Well-Being has offered hours for prayer, silence, and reflection. I attended and was so grateful for yesterday's gathering, and I encourage students, faculty, and staff to attend to help support one another. Another such opportunity will be offered tomorrow from noon to 5 p.m. in The Commons Fireside Lounge.

 

If you are struggling or know someone who is, please also avail yourselves of the support resources at UMBC, including Retriever Integrated Health's mental health services and resources for helping others, as well as our Employee Assistance Program. 

 

As we see increasing activism around the world and locally, I urge care and caution here, too. We value freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. We do not tolerate hate or harassment. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that every member of our community feels safe, welcome, and valued. To that end, please report any incidents of hate or bias. You may do so through the Office of Equity and Civil Rights' online reporting form, or by emailing ecr@umbc.edu or calling 410-455-1717. If you have an immediate concern about safety on campus, please contact the UMBC Police Department at 410-455-5555; the department's safety escort service is another available resource. 

 

Our UMBC community is a treasure, and our educational mission matters for the world. Even amid such troubling times, my belief in you and our shared mission is stronger than ever. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Dear UMBC Community,

 

For the second time in less than a week, a local university community has seen its celebrations marred by gun violence. This time the incident occurred at Bowie State University, one of our fellow University System of Maryland institutions. While the two people injured in the shooting Saturday are not Bowie State students, the campus community is nevertheless feeling the impact of this incident. I have extended a message of care to Bowie State President Aminta H. Breaux, and I know that the entire Bowie State family is in our thoughts. 

 

As we advised last week after the incident at Morgan State, please avail yourselves of the support resources at UMBC as needed, including Retriever Integrated Health's mental health services and resources for helping others, as well as our Employee Assistance Program. Please also review our information and resources related to emergency management and make sure you are signed up to receive emergency alerts. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Dear UMBC Community, 

 

I write to share updates on two searches for key university leadership roles: vice president for communications and marketing and provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. 

First, I am pleased to announce that we are beginning the search for the vice president for communications and marketing. University Communications and Marketing, formerly part of the Office of Institutional Advancement, comprises a team of talented individuals dedicated to advancing our mission by telling the UMBC story and engaging diverse audiences and stakeholders here on campus, among our alumni, families, and friends, and externally in our local and statewide communities and the wider world. As this new division continues to evolve, we aim for it to provide comprehensive strategic leadership for the university in all areas of communications and marketing--to ensure that the world knows UMBC and the difference it makes in the lives of individuals, in the creation of knowledge, and in the advancement of an informed, equitable global community. The vice president will report to me and serve as a member of UMBC's senior leadership team. 

I am delighted that UMBC will partner in this search with Isaacson, Miller. My thanks to the following individuals who have agreed to serve on the search committee for this role: 

 

Vice President for Communications and Marketing Search Committee:

 

We will develop a position profile and begin recruiting very soon. We anticipate moving expeditiously to fill the role. Angela Paik (formerly Angela Paik Schaeffer) continues to serve in the role on an interim basis, helping to advise me and support the work of our communications and marketing team. 

 

Regarding the search for a permanent provost: As you will recall, we are extending that search in partnership with Isaacson, Miller. The search committee, whose members are listed here, continues to serve, chaired now by Linda Dusman, professor of music. Anupam Joshi stepped down as committee chair when he took on his new role as acting dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology. I would like to thank Anupam for his leadership and service on the search committee.

We expect to have a permanent provost by next summer. Interim Provost David Dauwalder will serve at UMBC through this academic year. My thanks to our interim leaders, Angela and David, and to all who will take part in these important search processes. 

Sincerely,

 

Dear UMBC Community, 

Due to the expectation of inclement weather on October 7, construction at the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery has been postponed to Saturday, October 21. The library is undergoing construction to fix leaks and install a new roof. On Saturday, October 21, construction will take place inside the library's atrium to work on the ceiling and the roof above the atrium and the Retriever Learning Center (RLC). The building will be closed for use on Saturday, October 21. The card swipe to the atrium and RLC will be deactivated at 5 a.m. on October 21, and will be reactivated at 6:30 p.m. The rest of the library and gallery building will remain closed until regular hours (noon to midnight) resume on Sunday, October 22.

We understand this may cause some inconvenience, but the closure is necessary to ensure everyone's safety and to complete the construction work in a timely manner. Signage on the RLC and library and gallery doors will serve as reminders for the upcoming work. 

UMBC is proud to announce the projects selected to receive grants in the 2022 - 2023 rounds of the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation competition. The Fund supports initiatives to enhance teaching and learning at UMBC, with specific emphasis on innovative approaches to increase student success.

Autism Peer Mentorship Program (AUTISM PEERS): A team led by Michael Canale (Student Disability Services) will create a sustainable peer mentoring program for students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by recruiting neurotypical mentors to work with ASD students on social learning. Many ASD students lack the social and interpersonal communication skills to participate in campus events and activities fully. Peer-mediated intervention strategies are most commonly based on social learning theory and focus on the direct experience of observation, modeling, and imitation to foster new learning. Students in the program will be interviewed to establish goals and will meet with their mentors weekly to address the established social learning objective. Upon completion of the semester, participants and peer mentors will evaluate the program.

Boning Up on Forensic Anthropology--Enhancing Student Learning and DEI Competencies in ANTH 322: A team led by Sarah Chard (sociology, anthropology, and public health) will draw on existing scholarship of teaching and learning literature to redesign ANTH 322: Forensic Anthropology as an active learning course involving hands-on exercises with skeleton models to support UMBC's social justice vision. By handling and drawing bones of the human body, and labeling their features, students will gain deeper insights to and greater retention of human osteology, principles of human variation, and pathology--the cornerstones of forensic anthropology. In addition, this redesign will allow students to explore questions of justice and bias that accompany work with human remains. The team will assess the impact of this project by comparing assessment scores to those of prior classes, pre- and post-tests within the course, and obtaining students' qualitative assessment of the learning process.

Assessing Sense of Belonging and Dialogue Skills in a FYS Course: A team now led by Ciara Christian (Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion, and Belonging) will utilize data collected from a first-year seminar course that employs dialogue pedagogy to learn which practices contribute to first-year and transfer students' sense of belonging in the classroom. As a Minority Serving Institution, UMBC's students bring rich experiences from all corners of the globe. While the benefits of diversity are evident, students are not always well-equipped to engage meaningfully across differences. Additionally, stakeholders across campus have anecdotally noted several casualties of COVID in relationships--the ability to practice empathy and the inclination to dialogue across differences of identity, worldview, and lived experience. These casualties contribute to a lack of connection, making it imperative for UMBC to explore the ways in which students find, create, and experience a sense of belonging on campus.

Development of an Inquiry-Based Bonus Module with Short Video to Enhance Conceptual Learning in Undergraduate Heat Transfer Course: A multidisciplinary team led by Liang Zhu (mechanical engineering) will develop and implement bonus modules to approximately 120 students per year in a heat transfer course in hopes of improving students' retention and graduation rates and creating a strategy that can be adopted by other engineering courses. Unfortunately, most students do not spend enough time on course content to master the conceptual information. Based on the team's experience of assigning bonus problems, they hypothesize that integrating a three-minute focused video in an inquiry-based bonus module would effectively engage students in the delivery of these engineering concepts. The team will evaluate effectiveness of the modules based on a survey of conceptual questions of heat transfer given at the beginning and end of the semester.

LOTUS Mentoring Program--Leading Others to Thriving and Universal Success: Angelina Jenkins (Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion, and Belonging) will develop, pilot, and assess an identity-based mentoring program targeted at supporting undergraduate Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi American (APIDA) students at UMBC. UMBC's current student population boasts broad diversity, but as a Minority Serving Institution, students of color make up about 52 percent of the student population. More specifically, 19 percent of UMBC's student population is made up of APIDA communities. In 2021, Michelle Obama celebrated UMBC as an Asian Serving Institution, yet UMBC has no initiatives or interventions that center these populations. With a primary goal of building cultural confidence through peer-to-peer connections, APIDA students will increase their sense of belonging, build community connections, and have a deeper understanding of their racial and ethnic identity.

Team-Taught Course Development--Experimental Archaeology of the Global Medieval and Renaissance Eras: A multidisciplinary team led by Molly Jones-Lewis (ancient studies) and Lindsay Johnson (music) will build a materials library to support a new course in experimental archaeology, the study of the past using systematic reproduction and use of objects, activities, and arts to answer questions about the past. The course will focus on basic skills of doing (e.g., fiber craft, foraging, dance, music, farming, cooking, writing) used by pre-modern societies in daily life alongside readings of scholarly works using experimental methodology. Students will learn from invited speakers, develop foundational craft skills learning from the instructors and local artisans, reproduce existing experimental projects, and design an experiment of their own to execute. A successful student will be able to articulate a research question about pre-modern history, locate it in existing scholarly discussions, create a physical project that will produce valid data, and present their results clearly and accessibly to others.

Multidisciplinary Internship Experiences at the Imaging Research Center: A multidisciplinary team led by Anita Komlodi (information systems) will extend the longstanding internship experiences for visual arts students with the UMBC Imaging Research Center (IRC) to students from other departments and programs. Initially, the team will recruit students from computer science and electrical engineering and information systems to contribute to interdisciplinary projects. Interns may receive academic credit for the internship as well as a research practicum course offered by the UMBC Career Center. The team ultimately plans to extend the internship beyond the proposed departments, disseminate findings, and seek sustained funding and external support.

Course Planning with Machine Learning: Ergun Simsek (computer science and electrical engineering) will develop machine learning and statistical models to accurately estimate the number of new students entering in the professional programs, and then determine the demand for the necessary sections of the required classes and electives. Course scheduling with an objective function of high classroom (section) fill rates is a challenging task for large and/or rapidly growing programs. Due to their unique structure, professional programs typically learn of the number of new students only a few days before the semester begins, which makes course planning more challenging. The models will be developed and tested using the MPS data science program data, which grew from seven to 550 students in five years, and validated with the MPS health IT program data, which had a similar growth pattern. The PI will share these models with the local community and provide training on how to use them for any master's program at UMBC.

Full STEAM Ahead--Breaking Down Silos to Prepare Students for a Global Society: A team led by Jonathan Singer (education) will develop a course in the master of arts in education program which incorporates experienced teachers working in primary and secondary schools in Maryland in collaboration with pre-service teachers in a STEM-Hub program at the University of Kassel in Germany to develop integrative projects in STEAM to implement in the K-12 classroom. Today, students must be prepared to enter a global workplace that is increasingly interconnected both internationally and across disciplines. Working with colleagues in another country will help in-service teachers gain valuable skills and knowledge that they can pass on to their students. The project breaks down silos that exist in education today and embraces that learning is interconnected and that students can excel in all disciplines.

Quantum Immersion for Information Systems Undergraduates--An Experiential Learning Approach: A team led by Lei Zhang (information systems) will incorporate introductory quantum computing modules into existing curricula to bring the knowledge of this growing field to a broader audience and prepare students with cutting-edge technologies for the job market. Quantum computing has attracted billions in investments as of 2022, and companies are eager to hire individuals with interdisciplinary expertise. The pilot project will incorporate a one-week quantum module into IS 300 and another one-week quantum module into IS 471, with future extensions to other courses. The team will employ experiential learning best practices, and will assess effectiveness using in-class games, pre- and post-tests, and end-of-class surveys. The team will disseminate their findings and anticipate this project will contribute to the exploration of quantum education across the campus and outside UMBC.

Proposals for the next round of Hrabowski Fund for Innovation grants are due by October 27, 2023. For more information and to apply, visit UMBC's Faculty Development Center website.

The Hrabowski Fund for Innovation exemplifies UMBC's commitment to investing in faculty initiatives that fuel creativity and enterprise and also create opportunities for student engagement.

Dear UMBC Community,

 

Our care and support go out to the Morgan State University community after last night's shooting on campus that left five people injured. Through colleagues, friends, family members, and neighbors, we are closely connected to Morgan State, and I know our colleagues throughout Baltimore and across Maryland are likewise extending their support to Morgan State President David Wilson and everyone in the Morgan State family.

 

For any members of our community who may need support, I encourage you to please find help through the counseling resources and other forms of support available to you, including Retriever Integrated Health's mental health services and resources for helping others. The UMBC Employee Assistance Program provides counseling services to staff and faculty. Please do not hesitate to reach out for help. 

 

This also is a moment to review our information and resources related to emergency management and make sure you are signed up to receive emergency alerts. 

 

Please take care of yourselves and hold the Morgan State community in your hearts today.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dear UMBC Community,

 

As I said at my inauguration in the spring, there is much to celebrate in reflecting on UMBC's journey and the institution it has become since its founding in 1966. Over the decades, UMBC has become a national model for inclusive excellence, a comprehensive Research 1 public university, and a welcoming learning community that engages actively in advancing our surrounding neighborhoods, the state of Maryland, and the wider world. We are inspired and propelled by our shared values and a shared vision for UMBC. 

 

We have the vision. The time is now to take up the challenge of setting a course to realize that vision. Over the coming year, it will be our collective endeavor to articulate a set of strategic aims for the university. We launch that effort officially today, and you will hear more in the coming days and weeks about the process by which we will invite your broad engagement--first in helping to determine how we will go about the work of strategic planning, and then in developing the plan and its aims. I have met this month with shared governance leaders and asked for their partnership in this effort. 

 

Our strategic planning will be informed by the UMBC Bold Campus Conversations we convened last spring--listening sessions facilitated by students, faculty, staff, and alumni and attended by more than 1,000 members of our community. I am pleased to share with you the final report from those listening sessions prepared by our Bold co-chairs, Professors Vandana Janeja and Michelle Scott, and Vice President for Institutional Advancement Greg Simmons. It is a terrific summary of the sessions, which explored our aspirations for the undergraduate and graduate student experience, the research enterprise, economic development, community engagement, and more. I am deeply grateful to our co-chairs and to all who facilitated or participated in those sessions. 

 

If you did not participate, do not worry: You will have many opportunities to engage in strategic planning. The Bold conversations were critical for our collective listening and learning, but they were just a beginning. As we move forward with strategic planning, we will look to continue to engage every part of UMBC and to hear diverse perspectives and voices from throughout our community. 

 

Why bother with strategic planning, you may ask? The process of developing strategic priorities can unite a community, and a strategic plan that is grounded in our specific purpose and values can serve as a consistent reminder of who we are and what truly matters. It can engage all our audiences--our stakeholders, our neighbors, and our prospective students, families, and employees--in understanding and joining us in service of our purpose. 

 

And articulating our purpose is both important and urgent in today's world, when the value of higher education is questioned daily; when the public mission of our institutions can easily be forgotten; when diversity, equity, and inclusion are positioned aggressively as barriers to excellence, rather than integral to it; and when a liberal arts approach to education is essential to solving the complex challenges of today and tomorrow. We have not only the opportunity, but also the responsibility to continue the pursuit of our vision to redefine excellence in higher education, and, as we do so, we will communicate to our community and to the world the extraordinary, distinctive value of our beloved UMBC.

 

Sincerely,