Nearly 100 alumni, students, faculty and staff attended this year’s Political Science Alumni/Graduating Senior Reception, held on April 30 in the Albin O. Kuhn Library. The annual event celebrates not only soon-to-be alumni of the Political Science program, but also the accomplishments of its graduates. Congratulations to all!

Amy Froide, Associate Professor of History, has won a short term fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library for 2013-14 for a project on gender and accounting in early modern Britain.

Nohemi Voglozin, a doctoral candidate in Geography and Environmental Systems, is the recipient of Biodiversity International’s 2013 Vavilov-Frankel Fellowship (only two are awarded annually). The award of $20,000 is to support research related to the conservation and use of genetic resources in developing countries. This is Voglozin’s second prestigious fellowship since coming to UMBC in 2007–she won the Norman Borlaug Leadership in Agricultural Program (LEAP) Fellowship in 2008.

Members of UMBC’s Hilltop Society gathered this month in the Black Box Theatre of the new Performing Arts and Humanities Building to celebrate their commitment to UMBC.

Established in 2012, The Hilltop Society recognizes the many friends, corporations, and foundations who contribute $1,000 or more annually to UMBC. Members of The Hilltop Society have chosen to make UMBC one of their philanthropic priorities, and we are grateful for this show of support. These donors are critical to the success of the University, creating unique educational opportunities for our students and enhancing UMBC’s reputation as a research institution.

Thank you to all of our Hilltop Society Members for all you do to make UMBC amazing!  Learn more about the Hilltop Society here.

More than 100 current and alumni members of the UMBC Rugby teams reunited this month at their annual picnic. Click the photo to enlarge.

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley today signed a bill banning the sale of assault weapons, limiting magazines to 10 bullets, requiring handgun purchasers to submit fingerprints and get a license, and creating penalties for people who don’t notify police when their firearms are lost or stolen. The Baltimore Sun reports that gun control advocates are now planning Baltimore-area TV ads to bolster support among Maryland voters, in case of a future referendum or campaigns to oust lawmakers who backed the bill in the General Assembly.

This ad buy begs the question: Could Maryland’s anti-gun control community gather enough support to change course in the state? The NRA’s threats “scared the pants off Congress,” says Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC. But, he clarifies, the national stage and state are different matters.

Asked about potential efforts to remove legislators who supported the gun control bill, Norris noted, “Whether that will work in Maryland, I’m not so sure. My gut tells me no. They might be able to knock off a few people, but I think it’s very much a long shot.”

In his latest opinion column for the Baltimore Sun, UMBC political science professor Thomas F. Schaller takes on accusations surrounding the recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchase of large quantities of ammunition (up to 1.6 billion rounds in some reports)—including claims that the Obama administration is arming itself while simultaneously trying to disarm the citizenry through gun control legislation.

In researching the purchase, Schaller found:

It turns out the order is closer to 750 million rounds and covers a five-year period and the 70,000 federal officers who require firearm certification or retraining. That’s roughly 2,200 rounds per officer per year; recreational gun users often dispense several hundred rounds during a single firing range visit.

Schaller concludes that this “scandal” is more conspiracy than legitimate critique of government overreach. He suggests that gun advocates would benefit from ignoring such distractions and instead focusing on what he identifies as real examples of government abuse of power, or addressing the risks that can come with gun ownership.

Dean John Jeffries is retiring at the end of June after forty years of service to UMBC. In recognition of his profound impact on UMBC, we are delighted to announce the establishment of the John Jeffries International Fellowship.

The Fellowship fund honors John’s commitment to building a strong and distinctive undergraduate curriculum and to educating students to become informed and engaged global citizens.  The Fellowship will provide faculty with resources to create, or redesign, and teach a course in their fields in order to add or enhance an explicit international or transnational focus. Our expectation is that the resulting courses will be taught regularly and will broaden the intellectual scope of the curriculum in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

In a matter of weeks, current and former Department Chairs, Program Directors, and Associate Deans in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, and other members of the UMBC community have contributed more than $25,000 to endow the John Jeffries Fellowship.  Since then, others have contributed towards the goal of $200,000, which will enable the campus to support two Jeffries Fellows each year.

If you are interested in making a gift to the John Jeffries International Fellowship Program, click here and list “John Jeffries Fellowship” as the “other designation.”

Economics professor Scott Farrow is co-author and co-editor, with Richard Zerbe, Jr., of the new book, Principles and Standards for Benefit-Cost Analysis (Edward Elgar Publishing 2013). The book website notes:

Benefit–cost analysis informs which policies or programs most benefit society when implemented by governments and institutions around the world. This volume brings together leading researchers and practitioners to recommend strategies and standards to improve the consistency and credibility of such analyses, assisting analysts of all types in achieving a greater uniformity of practice.

Reviewer John D. Graham of Indiana University writes, “This book is a superb textbook treatment of benefit-cost analysis. It is well designed for students in public policy, public administration, public health, social work, environmental affairs, law and business.”

Larry DeWitt, public policy Ph.D. student and former public historian for the U.S. Social Security Administration, has published the new book The Other Welfare: Supplemental Security Income and U.S. Social Policy (Cornell University Press 2013) written with co-author Edward D. Berkowitz.

The book offers a comprehensive history of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), from its origins in 1972 as part of President Nixon’s social reform efforts to its pivotal role in the politics of the Clinton administration.

Reviewer Christopher D. Howard (College of William & Mary) writes, “Calling The Other Welfare one of the best histories of a U.S. social program would be true, but that would not be strong enough praise…Edward D. Berkowitz and Larry DeWitt take a relatively unknown social program and make its history seem absolutely central to the history of U.S. social policy.”