“I remember Hampden before it was hip,” writes Christopher Corbett, professor and acting chair of English, in his latest column in Baltimore Style magazine.  Forbes and the New York Times have both recently written about the Baltimore neighborhood.

“I’m too old for skinny jeans. And I don’t look good in a pork pie hat,” he writes. “But I like hipsters. I like them so much that I hope some of them will buy rowhouses and fix them up and pay taxes and have a litter of little hipsters and send those little hipsters to public school and raise the test scores and all will be well.”

The column, “Hip, Hip Hooray,” appeared in the December issue of the magazine.

An interview featuring UMBC Artist-in-Residence, Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher, was released yesterday by Asia Society. In the interview Kal speaks about a range of topics, including his recent return to working with the Baltimore Sun, and shares his thoughts on the creation of politically charged, satirical work. A cartoonist for 35 years, he closes the interview expressing his opinion on the fate of traditional mediums in the decline of print cartoons, and the possibilities for cartooning in a “promising new era of visual satire.”

KAL will share personal stories and discuss his practice through teaching and live sketching in an event in Hong Kong for Asia Society in collaboration with The Economist.

Read the entire interview, “For Editorial Cartoonist ‘KAL’, Pen is Definitely Mightier than the Sword,” at the Asia Society’s Blog.

The latest Baltimore Sun column by Thomas Schaller, professor of political science, explores critiques of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s potential nomination for secretary of state given her role in providing inaccurate information to the American public following the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Schaller writes that although he questions the motives of those critiquing the nomination, they “are asking important questions about what the State Department and the White House did before, during and especially after the attacks,” such as, “Why weren’t requests by U.S. officials in Benghazi for upgraded security in advance of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks honored?” and  “Even if that anniversary were not approaching, why weren’t the movie protests sufficient to prompt heightened security?” Read the full commentary at the Baltimore Sun.

“As the growing season winds down, one Baltimore City school garden has harvested next to nothing. A project intended to enliven lessons or inspire healthier eating came down to four neglected beds yielding two cinder-block-sized zucchini.” This is the start of a commentary written by UMBC graduate student Bess Keller, public policy, in the Baltimore Sun, about an unsuccessful school-community collaboration and why she believes it failed to reach its potential.

Keller suggests that the problem was one of misplaced incentives. She writes, “Recognition accrues to organizations and the people in them for getting money, starting a project, building something, chalking up partnerships, looking environmentally conscious. The hard work of making a project meaningful in the life of a school — meaningful enough that people on the scene will own the innovation — can easily go unrewarded.” Read the full commentary to learn more.

Katrin Patterson ’11, a double major in anthropology and gender and women’s studies, was featured this month on the Volunteer Maryland website for her role with Ardmore Enterprises, through which she will launch a volunteer program that will bring more awareness to the capabilities of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities

Read the Volunteer Maryland story here.

Patterson, who graduated cum laude, was a France and Merrick Scholarship and the Walter Sondheim Maryland Non-Profit Leadership Scholarship, as well as a member of the President’s Commission for Women. After graduation, she traveled to the University of Botswana on a Fulbright research grant to study the gendered and psychosocial dynamics of HIV transmission. In addition to her work with Ardmore, she’s also in the process of applying to graduate schools of public health.

We asked Katrin to answer a few questions about her experiences.

Q:  How did you wind up working with Ardmore Enterprises?
A:  I didn’t choose Ardmore so much as they chose me. I applied very late in the application cycle, and Ardmore was one of the last (Volunteer Maryland) partner sites that had not yet chosen a Volunteer Maryland Coordinator. After interviewing with and being accepted by Ardmore, I took the contract because I felt like it would be an interesting and challenging experience. I have no formal experience working for or with individuals with developmental or intellectual disabilities so I was curious to see how I would grow through the experience. Even within the first couple of months, I have been confronted with all manner of personal and professional learning experiences; at times frustrating, at others enlightening, there’s rarely a dull moment at Ardmore as we work to develop and implement a volunteer program and gear up for our 50th anniversary next year!

Q:  What are your plans for the future?
A:  I would love to go into health education. Both my time as a Fulbright Student and as a VMC have shown me that there are a lot of misperceptions and misinformation about health and illness, and I am eager to rectify the situation. I am particularly interested in community-based health programs and health education for women, and so am looking to build upon and connect the two BAs I have from UMBC in either a Master’s or doctorate program. Health is not a uni-dimensional aspect of a person or their community, and public health is a field that recognizes this.

Q: Did any experiences at UMBC especially prepare you for what you’re doing now?
A:  I would definitely say that UMBC helped to impart a strong sense of service and civic responsibility to me. I lived in the Shriver Living-Learning Community for my first two years at UMBC (the first year as a resident, the second as the Community’s resident assistant), and all of the service I completed shaped the way I approach service now. I had a lot of opportunities to develop leadership skills by participating in an ASB to West Virginia, participating in a STRiVE retreat, and being an undergraduate teaching assistant for the GES department. I remember feeling very supported and empowered by both individuals and organizations on campus (the Women’s Center comes to mind!), and all of those influences have come together to allow me to approach my current position as a VMC with confidence, creativity, and empathy.

Katrin was also profiled in a feature on UMBC’s Class of 2011. Read it here.

Maryland State Delegate Jon Cardin ’96, MPP, has formed an exploratory committee for a potential run for Maryland attorney general in 2014, according to an AP article published in the Daily Record. Cardin, who is the nephew of the recently re-elected U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, is currently serving his third term as delegate for Baltimore County.

The AP story notes, “According to a report in the Gazette newspapers of Montgomery County, Jon Cardin will be holding a fundraiser for the exploratory committee on Dec. 4 at a private home in Baltimore.”

Cardin, who has represented residents of northwest Baltimore County since 2003, serves on the Ways and Means Committee. He was honored as UMBC Outstanding Alumnus of the Year for the Social and Behavioral Sciences in 2009.

Maryland State Delegate Jon Cardin ’96 has formed an exploratory committee for a potential run for Maryland attorney general in 2014, according to an AP article published in the Daily Record. Cardin, who is the nephew of the recently re-elected U.S. Senator Ben Cardin, received his M.A. in public policy from UMBC. He is currently serving his third term as delegate for Baltimore County.

The AP story notes, “According to a report in the Gazette newspapers of Montgomery County, Jon Cardin will be holding a fundraiser for the exploratory committee on Dec. 4 at a private home in Baltimore.”

Psychology professor Robert Provine was featured in a November 26th web article published on the Canadian news network CTV’s website, which discussed the mystery of why people get the hiccups.

Provine, whose book Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond was published in August, spoke with reporter Helen Branswell about his research into the involuntary action, which can often occur after drinking too much.

He also discussed possible cures, which can include being observed by another person. Provine noticed this particular approach when he attempted to record hiccupping children during his research. “In fact, my first nine attempts to do this in every case the hiccupping stopped as soon as I turned the tape recorder on,” he said. “That’s my tape recorder cure.”

Erle Ellis, geography and environmental systems, was interviewed for an upcoming edition of the Ecological Society of America (ESA) podcast Field Talk. The interview was regarding an article Ellis co-wrote with fellow scholars Laura J. Martin and Bernd Blossey entitled “Mapping where ecologists are: biases in the global distribution of terrestrial ecological observations.” 

The article was a result of five years of research and deals with what the authors feel are biases towards the protected and temperate regions of wealthy countries where most ecologists reside. Ellis spoke with ESA communications officer Liza Lester of the importance of the subject to the future of academic research, saying, “It matters because we’re facing global change – these are global phenomena, so we need global information.”

Panos Charalambides, mechanical engineering, was a guest on Midday with Dan Rodricks for the WYPR  program’s weekly news review hour, broadcast on November 16.

Charalambides spoke in regards to the recent troubles of the Baltimore region’s infrastructure, with a number of major water main breakages in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The issue isn’t  a problem just for Charm City, but has been a concern in recent years across the country.