The Asian Studies Program and Longwood Apartments, located in Columbia, MD, have begun a partnership this spring. Asian Studies students will serve internships at this HUD Section 8 housing complex to facilitate communication between the largely Asian population and the non-Asian staff. They will also interact with the Chinese and Korean-speaking residents in a variety of ways, particularly through the Longwood Senior Center, which is located in Longwood Apartments and operated by Howard County

On April 26, two ASIA majors, Christine Au and Klara Kim, served as translators and facilitators at Longwood’s Spring Community meeting. Other internship duties will include: translating the monthly events calendar into Korean and Chinese; helping the Longwood staff to create bilingual work orders and other types of forms; assisting the Longwood Senior Center’s director with activities for residents (English language classes, recreational activities).

Asian Studies would also like to bring to Longwood Apartments “Food on the 15^th,” a not-for-profit program that provides free groceries to low income senior citizens in Howard County. “Food on the 15^th,” founded and directed by Julie Rosenthal, Program Management Specialist for ASIA, will begin collecting non-perishable food donations on campus in the fall.

To see more images, visit the Asian Studies Program Facebook Page.

In a City Paper story examining the 10th anniversary of The Transmodern Festival, alum Jaimes Mayhew ’10, MFA imaging and digital arts, weighs in on the annual event’s impact on Baltimore. Mayhew participated in the festival for the first time in 2006 as part of the Boston-based Institute for Infinitely Small Things.

The story also mentions UMBC alumna Kristen Anchor ’02, ’13, visual arts and MFA, IMDA, respectively.

Read the full story here in City Paper.

A film by Joe Tropea ’06, ’08, history, premiers locally at the Maryland Film Festival next week.  The Baltimore Brew covered the film in a May 1 story entitled “A fiery act of civil disobedience in Catonsville still resonates, 45 years later.”

The Baltimore Sun also wrote about the film here.

“Hit & Stay’ tells the story of nine Catholic activists who protested the Vietnam War by burning draft files in Catonsville on May 17, 1968.  Tropea and fellow filmmaker Skizz Cyzyk tell the story using old footage, recent interviews with surviving members of the group and their supporters, images of war horrors, and the reflections of eminences of the Left such as Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Bill Ayers and Amy Goodman.

Tropea undertook the six-year process of making the documentary after writing on the subject for his masters thesis.  “I had had no idea about the amount of strategy and coordination and about how all these things were connected,” he told Baltimore Brew.

“Hit & Stay” will have two screenings at The Maryland Film Festival. (Tickets available here.)

• Thursday, May 9, 7:30 p.m. at Charles Theatre, 1711 N Charles St.
• Saturday, May 11, 1:30 p.m. at MICA’s Brown Center, 1300 Mount Royal Ave.

The anniversary of the action will also be commemorated with a May 10 event at UMBC, “Looking Forward from the 45th Anniversary of the Catonsville Nine Actions.”

This post originally appeared in UMBC Insights.

A film by Joe Tropea ’06 History B.A. and ’08 Historical Studies premiers locally at the Maryland Film Festival next week.  The Baltimore Brew covered the film in a May 1 story entitled “A fiery act of civil disobedience in Catonsville still resonates, 45 years later.”

“Hit & Stay’ tells the story of nine Catholic activists who protested the Vietnam War by burning draft files in Catonsville on May 17, 1968.  Tropea and fellow filmmaker Skizz Cyzyk tell the story using old footage, recent interviews with surviving members of the group and their supporters, images of war horrors, and the reflections of eminences of the Left such as Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Bill Ayers and Amy Goodman.

Tropea undertook the six-year process of making the documentary after writing on the subject for his masters thesis.  “I had had no idea about the amount of strategy and coordination and about how all these things were connected,” he said.

“Hit & Stay” will have two screenings at The Maryland Film Festival. (Tickets available here.)

• Thursday, May 9, 7:30 p.m. at Charles Theatre, 1711 N Charles St.
• Saturday, May 11, 1:30 p.m. at MICA’s Brown Center, 1300 Mount Royal Ave.

The anniversary of the action will also be commemorated with a May 10 event at UMBC, “Looking Forward from the 45th Anniversary of the Catonsville Nine Actions.”

UMBC alumnus Zach Clark ’06, psychology, has been called up by the Baltimore Orioles to join the team for their series with the Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field in Seattle, the organization announced on yesterday afternoon.

A right-handed pitcher, Clark becomes the third Retriever to make a Major League squad, following in the footsteps of former UMBC students Jay Witasick and Wayne Franklin who combined to throw in the majors for 19 seasons.

Clark started the season with the Orioles’ Triple-A affiliate, the Norfolk Tides, after being signed to Baltimore’s 40-man roster back on October 31, 2012. He reported to the Birds’ Spring Training camp in Sarasota, Fla. in February before being assigned to Norfolk to start the regular season.

Clark has made five starts with the Tides so far this spring going 1-2 with a 4.56 ERA. In his last start, the 29-year old minor league veteran threw seven scoreless innings against Charlotte while scattering four hits. The right-hander struck out seven batters while walking just one.

Clark competed at UMBC from 2002 until 2006, when he signed as an undrafted free agent with the Orioles. While with the Retrievers, Clark made 41 starts, the third-highest total in school history, while also striking out 171 batters, the sixth-highest total for the Retrievers. In his senior year, the right-hander went 1-6 while posting a career-best 3.86 ERA. Following the season, Clark earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UMBC.

After signing with the Orioles in 2006, Clark was shuffled through the organization until he shored up a spot in the team’s plans last season. Following a year in which he went 10-9 with a 5.00 ERA at Double-A, the former Retriever turned around his fortunes in 2012 by winning ten of his 15 decisions and recording a 3.19 ERA for the Bowie Baysox while also making spot starts for Norfolk. He was rewarded with a spot at the Eastern League All-Star Game in early July and then earned a full promotion to the Tides in August. Ending the season with a three-hit, complete-game shutout of Gwinnett, Clark finished the season with a 5-2 mark and a 1.75 ERA in Norfolk.

The Orioles, who are in the midst of a season-long 11-game road trip, currently sit in third in the American League East with a 15-11 record, 3.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox. After Baltimore finishes this three-game series with the Mariners on Wednesday, the team heads to Los Angeles for a four-game set against the Angels before heading back to Camden Yards for a three-game home series against the Kansas City Royals on May 7-9.

This story originally appeared on UMBCRetrievers.com.

A Year of Questions, A Day of Answers

From the enduring popularity of Harry Potter to the intersection of open-source technology and the performing arts, the unique undergraduate research experience offered at UMBC comes to life this Spring.

The 17th annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) held on Wednesday, April 24, gave UMBC undergraduates an opportunity to share their research with fellow students, faculty and staff members and alumni. The projects featured research, scholarship and creative work shared through oral presentations, posters, artistic exhibits, performances and film.

�URCAD brings together some of the most innovative and groundbreaking research projects and has defined UMBC�s commitment to a distinctive undergraduate experience,� said Diane M. Lee, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education. �A major goal of the program is to give students the chance to share their knowledge through research and creative achievement and to gain valuable experience that will prepare them for graduate school or future careers.�

URCAD encourages undergraduates to explore inspirational topics and then creates a professional atmosphere where they can share their findings. Questions like �What drives people to create positive social change? How can we improve access to clean drinking water for communities in Africa? Is there a correlation between horror movies and mental disorders?��as well as hundreds more� were answered by more than 200 different presentations displayed throughout the day. Some highlights included:

• Mallory L. Brooks �13 examined the popularity of the Harry Potter series by researching different fan groups and Potter-based organizations. Her findings revealed cultural themes that suggest the series appeals to our natural desire to be social.
• Aneep S. Bindra �14, Thomas A. Hervey �14, and Zachary B. Hullihen �13 have married the open-source technology of Microsoft�s Kinect motion sensing camera system with the performing arts to create intelligent stage lighting. The result was customizable, dynamic lighting effects that can be applied to virtually any live dance performance.
• Social responsibility was certainly on the mind of Kathleen Algire-Fedarcyk �13, but what about other college students? Ms. Algire-Fedarcyk�s research explored how to get students more involved in their communities by instituting a semester-long placement at local service-learning organizations as part of their Social Work 200 class.
• A small community in Africa has a big problem: no access to clean drinking water. So, Dalton Hughes �14 and Chris Mullen �14, along with the UMBC chapter of Engineers Without Borders, decided to visit Isongo, Kenya and do something about it. What they found was high levels of chemical and bacterial contaminant in the water supply. Now, Hughes and Mullen are developing an inexpensive, low-tech water treatment system that will help improve the overall health of the Isongo population.
• According to Brianna Garrett �13, horror films are becoming increasingly popular and prevalent. Her study examined the emotions of disgust and fear that horror films prey on and how those emotions affect a person�s arousal, fear and revulsion. Data collected from this research will shed light on the effect of disgust and fear and how it may contribute to an etiology of mental disorders.

A full list of the undergraduate research projects presented at the 2013 URCAD event, including abstracts, is available on the URCAD website.

(4/23/13)

Living on a used planet

The Anthropocene, �the Age of Man,� has been presented as a story of new and accelerating human impact on Earth’s ecology — a threat to both humanity and the planet — due to industrial civilization.

But is this the true story of humankind and the biosphere?

Erle Ellis, a UMBC researcher, and his colleagues say, �not really,� in a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), “Used Planet: A Global History.”

Ellis, a professor of geography and environmental systems, and his colleagues say that the Anthropocene wasn�t born yesterday. �Human engineering of ecosystems, which changed the biosphere at globally significant levels in order to sustain human populations, likely began 3,000 years ago or earlier,� says Ellis. Most scientists talk about the Anthropocene beginning about 50 years ago,or at the most, 250 years ago.

Long before the emergence of agriculture, human populations had already begun adapting to denser populations by increasing the productivity of their land use systems, burning forests to attract game, consuming broader diets, and propagating favored species. The emergence of agriculture only continued the trend toward increasingly productive and intensive use of land.

�With the advent of fire,� says Ellis, �early humans started clearing land for hunting and gathering.� After the big game had been hunted out, which happened in many continents before the last ice age, Ellis says people turned their eyes towards smaller prey. In this way, people began to develop strategies to get more food out of the same amount of land. �We have been pushing past natural limits as long as we have been a species.�

Humans have been changing the plant for thousands of years. We live on a used planet and we shouldn�t think of people altering ecosystems as a recent disturbance.

Our ancestors adapted to the ecological changes made by their ancestors — all with the challenge of feeding growing populations from the same land. With advances in agriculture, we now use far less land per person. As our populations level off and concentrate within cities, more land can be returned to other species.

The, �reality is,� says Ellis, �is that rather than causing the sudden end of nature, industrial civilization lives in landscapes transformed by humans since prehistory.�

(5/1/13)

A poem by Lia Purpura, writer-in-residence in English, recently appeared in the “New Yorker.  “Beginning” was published on April 29 and can be read here.

UMBC is a community that gives. Nearly each day in the breezeway next to The Commons, one might stroll by multiple tables occupied by students raising money for this charity or that. Our faculty and staff give annually in support of UMBC and organizations supported through the Maryland Charities Campaign. And, of course, alumni dedication to UMBC spans decades — starting with the first graduating class, in fact.

In a guest post on UMBC’s Breaking Ground blog, UMBC archivist Lindsey Loeper ’04, American studies, recently uncovered evidence of a truly momentous philanthropic action made by the Class of 1970:

The first senior project that I can locate in UMBC’s history is from 1970. The class of 1970 is often referred to as the Founding Class, because the graduates were the first group to complete all four years of their degree at UMBC. As in the origin stories of many of our campus traditions, UMBC students decided to forge their own path. During the Spring 1970 semester, a group of seniors organized to collect donations from the UMBC community as well as area businesses. Their goal was to establish a campus fund to assist students that were having trouble paying their full tuition bill.

According to the 1970 edition of Skipjack, the early UMBC student yearbook, the final total collected was $13,000, which is equivalent to more $75,000 today! For in-state students in 1970, a year of tuition at UMBC cost just $506, so a $13,000 emergency fund would have helped quite a few of them continue taking classes and working toward their degrees.

We’re so happy to see the celebration of student philanthropy on the Breaking Ground site not only because it was a truly generous moment shared by the Class of 1970, but because it signifies a spirit of giving that continues to live in our current students. And, it serves as an excellent segue to a new initiative that will be launched soon to help current students use the most modern online techniques to raise money for UMBC-based projects. Stay tuned for more on that!

Meanwhile, please enjoy Lindsey’s full post here.