A film shot last spring about the research of Robert Provine, psychology, and his undergraduate researchers aired in France and Germany on Dec 30.  The English version is forthcoming, but the German version can be seen below.

The program is mainly focused on Provine’s research into laughter and his book.  The crew spent about a week in Baltimore and UMBC, shooting material in Provine’s lab, one of my lectures, the Commons, and the American Visionary Arts Museum that had an exhibit featuring his work. Matt Groening of The Simpsons, Patch Adams and others were collaborators in the AVAM show. 

See the German language film here.

Robert Provine, psychology, has an essay in a newly published collection entitled This Will Make You Smarter. The book is the latest in a series by the website Edge.org, which focuses on an annual question posed to today’s leading thinkers.  This year’s question was “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? “

This is Provine’s seventh contribution to the series, and his essay is entitled “TANSTAAFL” (“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”). It focuses on the fact that everything has its price, a concept relevant to everyday life as well as all sciences. The idea of TANSTAAFL borrows from Robert Heinlein’s science fiction classic, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.”

Contributors to the book include Daniel Kahneman, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Martin Seligman, Martin Rees, Robert Sapolsky, Steve Pinker, Jaron Lanier, V. S. Ramachandran, Lisa Randall, Brian Eno, J.Crain Venter, David Brooks, and others.  All of the essays can be read here.

Maryland State Delegate John Olszewski, a Ph.D. student in public policy at UMBC, spoke out about his vote on Maryland’s same-sex marriage bill in the Baltimore Sun this weekend.

Olszewski, 29, a second-term Baltimore County Democrat, says he wanted to be sure the bill enables religious institutions who do not want to participate in same-sex marriage ceremonies to refrain from doing so, and that he is confident the measure “goes above and beyond” to “protect religious institutions.” He concluded, “To go another day denying full rights to all Marylanders would be a disgrace.”

Prior to enrolling in UMBC’s Ph.D. program in public policy, Olszewski was a social studies and special education teacher for seven years. See Olszewski’s website for his full statement on the marriage legislation.

From Marjoleine Kars, Chair of the History Department

I regret to inform the campus that Robert K. Webb died on February 14. Born in 1922, Bob Webb was long the preeminent American scholar of British history, with a glittering array of Guggenheim, NEH, and other fellowships and distinctions. He came to UMBC in 1975, from being editor of the American Historical Review, the nation’s most important journal of history, and before that he had been Professor of History at Columbia University.

Giving his energy, leadership, and commitment, not just his name and stature, to UMBC, he helped shape not only the History Department but also the University. He was chair of the History Department for much of the period from the mid-1970s until his retirement in 1992, served a year as UMBC’s Acting Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (now Provost), and was named UMBC’s first Presidential Research Professor. He remained connected to the Department after his retirement, partly through the R.K. Webb Lecture. His obituary in the Washington Post can be found here.

Visit the UMBC History Department website.

This notice was originally posted in UMBC Insights.

From Marjoleine Kars, Chair of the History Department

I regret to inform the campus that Robert K. Webb died on February 14. Born in 1922, Bob Webb was long the preeminent American scholar of British history, with a glittering array of Guggenheim, NEH, and other fellowships and distinctions. He came to UMBC in 1975, from being editor of the American Historical Review, the nation’s most important journal of history, and before that he had been Professor of History at Columbia University.

Giving his energy, leadership, and commitment, not just his name and stature, to UMBC, he helped shape not only the History Department but also the University. He was chair of the History Department for much of the period from the mid-1970s until his retirement in 1992, served a year as UMBC’s Acting Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (now Provost), and was named UMBC’s first Presidential Research Professor. He remained connected to the Department after his retirement, partly through the R.K. Webb Lecture. His obituary in the Washington Post can be found here.

Our New Heroes

With a cape draped over his rugby uniform, Jeremy Brickey clutches the complete works of Shakespeare and smiles for a camera. No, this isn’t an embarrassing initiation to the team.  Brickey ’12, English, is posing for the latest round of admissions advertisements based on “UMBC Superheroes” – students who come to UMBC, find their passions, and soar.

What Brickey loves about UMBC is that he is able to simultaneously pursue his interests in rugby, theater and community service, and he wants to spread the word to high school students that they, too, can follow their myriad passions at UMBC. “The ads show the diversity of UMBC in a way that’s not just related to race or culture,” he said. “They break down those stereotypes that students in high school believe, like that you can’t both play sports and be involved in theater.”

That’s exactly the idea. The campaign, which debuted last year, is also designed to show students that “making a difference in the world” isn’t a cliché; there are actual students doing just that. To get that point across, the ads move beyond the typical cameos of students interacting on campus. They feature the students with a prop, such as Brickey’s cape or boxing gloves, against a comic-book background and have a brief explanation of what makes each student “super.” Within the field of university advertising, the ads stand out.

That was part of the point, explains Erin Ouslander ’03, visual arts, the print design specialist who designed the advertisements. “From a distance, you would probably never guess that these ads related to higher education in any way. I really like that element of surprise when you read the copy and realize the ad’s true purpose,” she said.

Nearly all of the work for the campaign—from the research to design to copy writing—was done within UMBC’s Marketing and Creative Services department. Erika Ferrin, director of marketing, said that the department’s research led to the inspiration to portray the students as heroes. “We looked around at what was going on with teenagers, and we found that this superhero thing was really catching on,” she said. “Our campus is so hard to represent in one picture, so we decided to focus on student stories because those stories really tell what kind of students come to UMBC.”

The ads resonated not just with high school students, but with the advertising community as well: the campaign recently earned national and regional gold Circle of Excellence awards for advertising from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

“When you look at advertising, it’s the stuff that pushes the envelope that wins awards,” said Miriam Tillman, assistant vice president for marketing and creative services. “What I am most proud of is that we took a risk—an informed risk, but still a risk—and the institution was willing to back us up.”

After the first round of ads, an essay contest helped to choose this year’s heroes.  The essay asked students to describe their hero, and the marketing staff solicited input from faculty in judging the entries. Out of over a hundred entries, they eventually chose Leslie Weber ’15, psychology and media and communication studies, as the winner.  A victim of bullying who hopes to become a counselor, she wrote “It’s up to me to use the tools given to me from UMBC to be my own hero.”

Weber, Brickey and the rest of the superheroes will be flying, dashing and boxing their way into high schools this spring.

(2/1/12)

In an article about the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, The Washington Post mentioned For All the World to See, an exhibition organized in partnership between the museum and UMBC’s Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture. The full text of the article is available here.

Michael Fallon, senior lecturer of English, will be a featured poet at the ninth annual CityLit Festival. Presented by CityLit Project and Pratt Library, the festival takes place on Saturday, April 14, 2012 from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. at the Enoch Pratt Central Library.  Fallon’s reading will take place at 12 p.m. in the library’s Poe Room. The festival features panels, readings, book signings, the Maryland Humanities Council’s annual “Letters About Literature” ceremony, and a Literary Marketplace.

Fallon’s recent works have appeared in The American Scholar, The Antietam Review, Sin Fronteras, The Attic, and The Oyez Review. His book Since You have No Body won the 2011 Plan B Press Poetry Chapbook Competition.

Joining Fallon at the festival will be Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson, Guggenheim Foundation president and bestselling poet Edward Hirsch, winner of the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award Tom Lux and others.

Marko H. Bulmer is the Director of the Geophysical Flow Observatory, JCET at UMBC.

On January 4, 2012, I traveled to Haiti to join the Brazilian Military Contingent contributing to the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) mission. The purpose of the trip was to identify lessons from the United Nations Mission relevant to humanitarian emergency response and the use of Military and Civil defense assets to support United Nations humanitarian activities in complex emergencies.

First, a little background, a series of major earthquakes struck Haiti on 12 January 2010 in the area around the capital, Port-au-Prince. The strongest of these was a magnitude 7 that occurred at around 1700 hrs local time. There were over 200,000 fatalities and more than 150,000 people had to be buried in mass graves. Some 105,000 homes were completely destroyed and more than 208,000 damaged. Over 1,300 educational establishments and over 50 hospitals and health centers collapsed or were designated as unusable. Part of the country’s main port was not operational, the President’s Palace, Parliament, the Law Courts, and most of the Ministry and public administration buildings were also all destroyed.

At the time, there was already a UN Mission in Haiti which had been there since 2004 that included 6,700 troops as well as 548 civilian staff, mandated to pacify the country, promote free elections and resume national governance. Ninety six UN peacekeepers died in the earthquake but that UN Mission formed the core around which the Earthquake response was organized. On 19 January 2010 the Security Council passed resolution 1908, which increased the military force to 8,950, with 4,391 police to support the immediate recovery, reconstruction and stability efforts in the country. By the 25 January 2010 the UN Food Cluster had reached over 500,000 of the 2 million in need, with some form of assistance. The UN Shelter Cluster estimated that 800,000 people were living in spontaneous settlements in Port-au-Prince.

I’m a NATO Expert in Civil Protection and specialize in Natural Hazards and Emergency Planning with experience in natural and human-induced disasters from around the world. I’m also trained in Stabilization, which is the process by which underlying tensions that might lead to resurgence in violence and a break-down in law and order are managed and reduced, while efforts are made to support preconditions for successful longer-term development. My work in Haiti encompassed the notion of political transformation and disaster recovery. It focused on construction or reconstruction of the social, administrative, and physical infrastructure in a country prone to hurricanes, floods, landslides and earthquakes.

Simon Peacock, an expert in logistics from the United Kingdom, and I gathered and analyzed civil / military coordination information interacting with Haitian organizations, IGO’s and NGO’s, the Civil functions within MINUSTAH, and at times with Ministers and Ambassadors. Security conditions vary across Haiti, especially in the capital, parts of which can be very volatile. Over 400,000 people still live in camps many of which struggle in meeting basic human needs. Orphanages number in the hundreds, many of which are not officially registered. Gangs continue to be active. Murder, rape and lynching are some of the challenges facing the Haitian National Police (HNP) who are being mentored by United Nations Police and the military. Regional elections are expected to be held later this year and these will require a large security and logistics operation. Medical hazards include malaria and cholera as well as HIV AIDS. In addition, there remains considerable vulnerability to the impacts of natural events.

Delivering appropriate and effective civil / military cooperation in this complex environment requires real commitment and dedication. I saw many outstanding activities and projects and learned a great deal to bring back to UMBC and introduce to the appropriate departments and across the wider academic community.

M. H. K. Bulmer PhD

Haven’t been on campus in a while? Well, now it doesn’t matter how many miles may separate you from your alma mater.

Thanks to a collaboration between UMBC’s admissions department and the IRC (Imaging Research Center), you can take a virtual 360-degree tour of campus from the comfort of your own couch.

The new virtual tour includes tree-lined, student-filled panoramas covering the entire campus. The interface allows you to “walk” down UMBC’s main street (or through the library, The Commons, or nearly anywhere else you might like to visit) with a click of a mouse. Michelle Jordan ’93, visual and performing arts, of UMBC’s Creative Services office, helped create the website.

“We know there are plenty of prospective students out there who would like to see UMBC for themselves, but who are too far away to make the trip. This makes it easy and fun,” said Erika Ferrin, director of marketing.

“The bonus here is that alumni can also use the tool to see a place that’s familiar in their memories — but that has changed and grown over the years since they graduated.”

View the Virtual Tour here.