The Baltimore Sun today recognized the 30th anniversary of the Charlestown Retirement Community with a front-page article on founder John C. Erickson and transitions in the retirement housing industry.

UMBC’s Erickson School was founded, in large part, through a generous donation from Erickson. Today, the Erickson School offers a range of programs, from a B.A. and M.A. in the Management of Aging Services (MAgS) to professional and executive education.

In the Sun article, Kevin Heffner, director of external relations for the Erickson School, describes the challenges the senior housing industry faced following the broader housing market crash and credit crisis of the last decade.

Heffner notes that retirees seeking housing today “have higher expectations but a lower ability to pay for them.” He reflects that although Charlestown might need to change its payment model to reflect the shifting market, it should be able to adapt because it offers a broad range of options in housing, meal plans, activities and other amenities

A Humanities Forum panel discussion recorded at UMBC during the Spring semester was featured on the “Marc Steiner Show” on Tuesday, June 5. The topic was “Race and the Civil Rights Movement in Music and Media,” and the discussion featured Derek Musgrove, assistant professor of history; Michelle Scott, associate professor of history; Marc Steiner, host of the “Marc Steiner Show” and Daphne Harrison, emerita professor in Africana Studies and founder of the Dresher Center for the Humanities. The discussion was moderated by Kimberly Moffitt, assistant professor of American Studies.

The full discussion can be heard here. For more information about the Humanities Forum, visit the Dresher Center’s website; the fall 2013 Humanities Forum schedule will be announced soon.

The UMBC athletic program matched its best-ever finish by placing third in the race for the America East Conference’s Stuart P. Haskell, Jr. Commissioner’s Cup. The Retrievers’ 19-sport program also finished third in 2007-08 and 2010-11 and bested last year’s fourth-place finish. UMBC has finished in the top four of the league in six of the last eight seasons.

UMBC won a pair of titles, capturing league crowns in men’s soccer and men’s swimming and diving. It was the second league championship in three seasons for Pete Caringi Jr.’s squad, while Chad Cradock’s team won the coveted title for the ninth time in ten AEC campaigns.

The Retrievers also pulled down a league-high five runners-up finishes in women’s swimming & diving, women’s indoor track & field, men’s lacrosse, men’s tennis and men’s outdoor track & field.

Read the full release »

Jason Loviglio, Director of the Media and Communication Studies Program, is co-editor with Michele Hilmes of the new book “Radio’s New Wave: Global Sound in the Digital Era” (Routledge, 2013).

The book website notes, “Radio’s New Wave explores the evolution of audio media and sound scholarship in the digital age. Extending and updating the focus of their widely acclaimed 2001 book The Radio Reader, Hilmes and Loviglio gather together innovative work by both established and rising scholars to explore the ways that radio has transformed in the digital environment. Contributors explore what sound looks like on screens, how digital listening moves us, new forms of sonic expression, radio’s convergence with mobile media, and the creative activities of old and new audiences. Even radio’s history has been altered by research made possible by digital and global convergence. Together, these twelve concise chapters chart the dissolution of radio’s boundaries and its expansion to include a wide-ranging universe of sound, visuals, tactile interfaces, and cultural roles, as radio rides the digital wave into its second century.”

Congratulations Dr. Loviglio!

An article co-authored by Christopher Rakes, assistant professor of education, has been selected as an honorable mention for the Journal of School Psychology ‘s (JSP) 2012 Article of the Year.

The article was entitled “A Longitudinal Study of School Connectedness and Academic Outcomes across Sixth Grade,” and co-authored by Kate Niehaus, assistant professor of Educational Psychology and Research at the University of South Carolina, and Kathleen Rudasill, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.  The study examines the extent to which school connectedness (i.e., students’ perceptions of school support and the number of adults with whom they have a positive relationship) is associated with academic outcomes across sixth grade for students from high poverty neighborhoods.

This selection was based on nominations from JSP editorial board members and members of the Society for the Study of School Psychology and voting by an independent selection committee composed of Society for the Study of School Psychology members.

An abstract of the article can be read here.

UMBC Rugby players past and present joined together for the first UMBC Rugby Day of Service, partnering with Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake and Habitat for Humanity Sandtown to demolish and clean up one site, and to build a new home on another. Close to 30 players from the men’s and women’s club participated.

“As an organization, we were looking for an event that would allow us to bring all of the teams together, past and present, to do something positive in the greater Baltimore community,” said Tracy Williams, Jr. ’06, who helped organize the event and who hopes to make this an annual event. “We were able to leverage our extensive alumni and current player network to make a long lasting difference in the lives of families in need.”

UMBC Rugby players past and present joined together for the first UMBC Rugby Day of Service, partnering with Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake and Habitat for Humanity Sandtown to demolish and clean up one site, and to build a new home on another.  Close to 30 players from the men’s and women’s club participated.

“As an organization, we were looking for an event that would allow us to bring all of the teams together, past and present, to do something positive in the greater Baltimore community,” said Tracy Williams, Jr. ’06, who helped organize the event and who hopes to make this an annual event.  “We were able to leverage our extensive alumni and current player network to make a long lasting difference in the lives of families in need.”

Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC, offered insight for today’s front-page Baltimore Sun story, “Democrats watch for Gansler’s next move,” on the state attorney general’s possible plans to run for governor. Gansler is planning to wait until the fall to announce any campaign, but Norris questions that strategy. By delaying an announcement, says Norris, “he gives a three-month advantage to Brown-Ulman. They’ll be able to out-fundraise him and go around the state as the only announced candidates.”

Norris appeared in three other news stories yesterday about the 2014 gubernatorial election. In another Baltimore Sun article he commented on Harford County Executive David Craig’s bid for the Maryland GOP nomination, suggesting that he could lose the primary if he has only one opponent and that person appeals more to the tea party wing of the GOP.

Norris notes that if Craig is successful in the June 2014 primary, he still would face long odds in the general election. As he said in a WBAL-tv interview, Brown and Ulman “really excite the Democratic base.” Further, he argued in the Washington Examiner, “A good Democratic candidate running a good campaign beats a good Republican candidate running a good campaign every time. That’s because the numbers in Maryland so favor Democrats. But anything can happen.”

Jason Loviglio, director of media and communication studies, is the co-editor with Michele Hilmes of the recently-released book “Radio’s New Wave: Global Sound in the Digital Era” (Routledge, 2013).

“Radio’s New Wave” features essays from 12 top scholars from three continents.  It explores the evolution of audio media and sound scholarship in the digital age, exploring the ways that radio has transformed in the digital environment. Contributors explore what sound looks like on screens, how digital listening moves us, new forms of sonic expression, radio’s convergence with mobile media, and the creative activities of old and new audiences. “Radio’s New Wave” charts the dissolution of radio’s boundaries and its expansion to include a wide-ranging universe of sound, visuals, tactile interfaces, and cultural roles, as radio rides the digital wave into its second century.

Maryland – and Baltimore in particular – remains a place with a troubled relationship to the Civil War, Kate Drabinski, lecturer in Gender and Women’s Studies, points out in a recent piece for the “Indypendent Reader.”

“Maryland never seceded from the Union, but its citizens leaned strongly toward the Confederacy,” she writes. “All the contradictions of this past that is still very much present are engraved in the infrastructure of the place, from street and park names to its more obvious public memorials and monuments that remind us of this war.”

Drabinski focuses her piece on Baltimore’s monuments to the Civil War (three in honor of the Confederacy and one in honor of the Union), and especially on the memorial to Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee that sits at the corner of Wyman Park near the Baltimore Art Museum.

“The struggle over the meaning of these memorials continues, and the sense of a glorious Confederate past continues to radiate from this memorial, the memory of slavery and bondage past and present, about which this war was fought, surely ghosting the place,” she writes.

The full piece, “They Were Great Generals and Christian Soldiers: Remembering Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson,” appeared online on June 3.