Over 1100 full-time employees contributed to the 2011 Maryland Charity Campaign, a participation rate of 70 percent, earning UMBC the Maryland Charity Campaign Governor’s Cup Award for Outstanding Performance for the fifth consecutive year.

John Jeffries, Shelly Graham and Terry Aylsworth presented the Cup to President Freeman Hrabowski.

“The national recognition our students and faculty receive is a testament not only to their achievements, but also to how well this campus cultivates the life of the mind.”
-President Freeman A. Hrabowski III

The end of the academic year at UMBC brought a host of prestigious awards, recognizing the excellence of our students and faculty in fields as diverse as visual arts, political science and engineering. Just a few of their achievements:

Eric Dyer, associate professor of visual arts, was awarded a 2012 fellowship for creative arts by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation – one of the most prestigious awards for faculty in the arts and humanities. Professor Dyer is an artist, filmmaker, experimental animator and educator whose award-winning films have screened internationally at numerous festivals.

Two faculty members received 2012-13 Fulbright awards for scholars. Marc Zupan, associate professor of mechanical engineering, will teach and conduct research at the Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto in Portugal. John Sturgeon, professor of Visual Arts, will serve as Distinguished Chair at the London College of Art. The appointment marks his second Fulbright Scholar award.

A record five UMBC students and recent alumni earned 2012-13 Fulbright awards for students. Vivian Ekey ’11, political science and modern languages and linguistics, will conduct research in Brazil; Ryan Max ’11, biochemistry, will teach English in Laos; David Anguish ’12, political science, will do research in Mexico; Achsah Joseph ’12, media and communication studies and interdisciplinary studies, will teach English in Malaysia; and Elena Mawyer ’12, modern languages and linguistics, will teach English in Spain.

Two recent graduates were invited to the 62nd Nobel Laureate Meeting, held this month in Lindau, Germany. Patrice Starck ’12 and Class of 2012 Salutatorian Robert Wardlow, both biochemistry and molecular biology, were among a few hundred young researchers invited to the conference to exchange ideas with Laureates. This is the third year in a row that UMBC students have been invited to the meeting.

Graduate student-athlete Joseph Bieberich ’12, environmental science, will receive the first annual Haud Collumi Scholarship, which is funded largely by alumni of the UMBC Rugby Football Club. Bieberich is captain of the men’s rugby team.

During Bieberich’s senior year at UMBC, he was voted captain & president of the UMBC men’s rugby team, and is currently entering his eighth semester with the team this fall. In the fall of 2011, the team made the playoffs for the fourth consecutive year, and in the spring of 2012, the team brought home first place trophies from both the Frostbite and Rocky Gorge Cup tournaments, with victories against many formidable east coast rugby teams.

In addition to his involvement with the men’s rugby team, he was also a member of the UMBC Honors College and the Sports Club Council. Beiberich also received the community service award and the officer of the month award at the Sports Club Council end of the year banquet in May.

This coming academic year, he plans to remain a captain on the men’s rugby team and an executive on the Sports Club Council. He is currently enrolled in an accelerated master’s program at UMBC.

This article was originally reported by UMBC Athletics and Recreation.

On July 20th, the Virginia radio program BackStory With the American History Guys tackled the history of postal delivery in America in an episode entitled “You’ve Got Mail: A History of the Post Office.” Among the guests who appeared was Christopher Corbett, professor and interim chair of English.  Corbett is the author of Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legacy of the Pony Express, a history of the mid-19th Century mail carrier.

Associate producer Eric Mennel began the segment by quizzing his own mother on the history of the Pony Express. When he asked how long the Pony Express was in operation, Corbett responded, “Well, with no disrespect to your mother, no one ever gets that right. People guess ten years, twenty years, [or] twenty-five years. It more ore less operated for seventy-eight weeks.”

Corbett then discussed the truth of the Pony Express as opposed to the legend. “They were carrying government documents. They were carrying bank transfers. They were carrying important business matters. They were not carrying love letters, Chistmas cards, [or] junk mail, and they were not carrying packages… but other than that, Mom was right.”

Eugene Schaffer, professor and chair of education, spoke with the Catonsville Times for a story on the performance of the county’s middle school students on the Maryland School Assessment (MSA) tests.

With test scores on math showing a slight improvement and reading scores a slight decline, the results show an overall mixed record regarding students’ progress.

Schaffer said that subjects that used to be taught in high school are now taught in middle school, which might account for some of the decline. He also spoke of the difficulties facing many students during the middle school years. “It’s tough being in middle school because it’s a time of enormous growth, intellectually, physically,” he said. “Just growing up is an enormous challenge. You’re going through a lot of changes.”

The story, “Arbutus middle school students’ progress mixed on MSA test,” appeared on July 17.

Robert Deluty, associate dean of the graduate school, has published a new book of poetry, titled “Through Others’ Eyes.” In his review of the book, Dr. Ronald Pies states:

“If, as Marcel Proust wrote, the only true voyage of discovery is ‘to possess other eyes,’ then Robert Deluty envisions the world through the eyes of a multitude. This is best exemplified in his uncanny ability to enter into the world-view of the very young and the very old, as with ‘a fourth grader/ dreaming of statues sculpted/ in his honor’ and the ‘elderly chemist/ struggling to spell the word/ laboratory.’ As always, Deluty’s poetry does not judge–it appraises; his perceptions do not moralize–they empathize.”

Copies of “Through Others’ Eyes,” as well as of Deluty’s other books, are on sale at the UMBC Bookstore.

UMBC’s alumni showed themselves to be true “Retriever Believers” this fiscal year, helping UMBC to exceed its goals for alumni giving for Fiscal Year 2012, the Office of Development reports.

Final numbers for the fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2011 through June 30, 2012, showed that:

• 2,515 alumni donors contributed during FY12, a 17% increase over FY11
• Alumni donors contributed $316,780, a 5.6% increase over our FY12 goal
• 517 alumni gave for the first time this year; of that group, 63% are graduates of the last ten years
• UMBC had an 84% pledge fulfillment rate (industry standard is 70%)

Annual Fund gifts have an immediate and direct impact on academic and other resources for UMBC students. Because State funds provide less than 25% of the University’s operating budget and tuition and fees alone do not cover the full cost of a UMBC education, these yearly gifts to the University help to keep a UMBC education within reach for our students and families and support the core elements of UMBC’s academic programs.

This year has been very successful for UMBC’s annual giving program,” said Dayna Carpenter, coordinator of Annual Giving. “For the first time in five years, we’ve had an across the board increase in all of our donor numbers including alumni, parents, and faculty and staff.”

UMBC’s Office of Development beefed up Annual Giving operations this year, most notably unveiling a new student Phonathon calling program. Students in the program enjoyed talking with alumni, sharing stories, comparing notes about classes – and even taking away valuable career advice.

“We are truly grateful to all of the donors who made gift to UMBC this year,” said Carpenter.  “They’ve helped to create and sustain scholarships and other important programming that enhances the lives of students at UMBC.”

• Read more stories about how Annual Giving helps students at UMBC.
• Make a gift to UMBC.

In a Baltimore Sun op-ed, Kimberly Moffitt, assistant professor of American studies, criticizes the number of “promotion ceremonies” held for schoolchildren and questions whether “milestones” are being overemphasized.

While acknowledging the appeal for parents of celebrating their children’s accomplishments, Moffitt noted that such ceremonies can involve valuable time and considerable financial resources from our already-strapped school systems, and proposes an alternative awards program more modest in scope for the whole of a school, with divisions in terms of elementary and middle school.

Moffitt wrote that the recently-released Maryland School Assessment (MSA) scores for Baltimore “[confirm] that more instruction time, not less, is needed for all of our children. And limiting the weeks of planning, rehearsing, celebrating and then ‘promoting’ our children might prove to be one area where we can help shift our educational culture to the business of educating, and not prematurely celebrating.”

The piece, “Too many celebrations, not enough education,” appeared in the Baltimore Sun on July 16.