Just in time to commemorate the 2nd anniversary of the earthquake that devastated Haiti, leaving 316,000 people dead and millions displaced, an alumni-directed documentary chronicling two brothers’ return to the country has been released for online viewing.

“Lift Up,” which was co-directed by Huguens Jean ’03, ’11, Ph.D., electrical engineering, and Philip Knowlton ’03, visual arts, recently completed a year-long international film festival tour during which is was awarded the Amsterdam Film Fest Van Gogh Award, Documentary Directing and the Williamsburg Film Fest Outstanding Achievement, Feature Documentary award.

The film follows Jean as he and his brother, Clifford Muse, ’11, information systems, returned to Haiti in March 2010 to honor the memory of their grandfather, whose funeral they missed because of the earthquake. Read more about the documentary here.

WYPR’s Sheilah Kast interviewed UMBC political science professor Roy Meyers today on “Maryland Morning,” discussing the Maryland state budget. The Maryland General Assembly convenes for their 2012 session this week. As they review the first version of the 2013 state budget, they’ll need to begin reckoning with a deficit over $1 billion.

Meyers discusses the options for filling this budget gap, including one-time savings, tax increases and spending cuts. He also notes the difficulties associated with state budgeting at a time of uncertainty regarding Congressional tax policy decisions and global economic trends. Meyers explores the issue of balancing the general fund by transferring money out of the Transportation Trust Fund and other dedicated sources in a web extra.

Update: The political fact-checking site PolitiFact also consulted Meyers this week on the Obama campaign’s assertion: “Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero.” Meyers suggested that the campaign misused the term “zeroing-out” and that the statement is “misleading, to say the least.”

A new Associated Press report on Maryland state lawmakers planning to run for Congress in 2012 includes insight from UMBC professor Donald Norris, public policy chair and director of the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research. Some of the candidates are Republicans seeking to unseat Democratic incumbents, with the logic that GOP voters may be motivated to come to the polls in 2012, particularly if the DREAM Act and same-sex marriage are on the ballot.

“I think a bunch of it is wishful thinking,” said Norris. “My sense is that people like O’Donnell and Jacobs are mistaking a national mood that is anti-Washington for a mood that is anti-Ruppersberger and anti-Hoyer, and I don’t think that that mood exists in Maryland.”

UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller has published a new commentary in the Baltimore Sun exploring presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s positions on the hot-button issues of abortion rights and the individual mandate for health insurance. In “Rick Santorum’s moral flexibility,” Schaller suggests that the politician has changed his positions on these issues over time not due to personal reflection, but “in the interest of party cohesion.”

Inside Higher Ed reported that on Tuesday, January 10, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter joined other Obama administration officials and higher education luminaries at the White House to make the case that an engaged citizenry will bolster the country’s democracy and economy.  The meeting follows a report  prepared by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement that makes the case for an elevated level of civic knowledge and democratic engagement among college students.

Among the attendees at the White House event was Catie Collins ’12, the UMBC student government association president.  She said that such engagement “can be a great tool for students to get to know the world around them.” Collins serves as the nation’s only undergraduate student on the steering committee of the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP), which has partnered with the U.S. Department of Education and Association of American Colleges and Universities to develop this initiative.

The story, “Call for Civic Learning,” appeared on Inside Higher Ed on January 10. Read more about Collins’ attendance at this event here.

Empowering Students as Change Agents

UMBC is one of several universities working closely with the White House to launch a new effort to promote engaged citizenship. The initiative officially kicks off January 10 with “For Democracy’s Future: Education Reclaims Our Civic Mission,” an all-day event at the White House featuring U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and education leaders from across the country.

Catie Collins, UMBC Student Government Association president, serves as the nation’s only undergraduate student on the steering committee of the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP), which has partnered with the U.S. Department of Education and Association of American Colleges and Universities to develop this initiative. She will attend the White House event, which will also stream live at www.whitehouse.gov/live (2:00-4:00 p.m. ET and 5:30-6:00 p.m., with Secretary Duncan’s remarks).

This will launch what the White House describes as “a national conversation about the importance of educating all students, from grade school to graduate school, for informed and engaged citizenship” (see press release). It also coincides with the release of two reports from the Department of Education, “A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future” and “Civic Learning and Engagement in Democracy: A Road Map and Call to Action.”

UMBC has emerged as a leader in the movement to energize campus and community engagement. In a time of widespread skepticism about the capacity of our democracy to respond to society’s needs, UMBC programs and partnerships are demonstrating the power of individuals to foster meaningful change and renewal.  

This work is deeply embedded in a campus culture that builds community from diversity and celebrates ingenuity and resourcefulness. Over the past decade, UMBC has developed campus and civic engagement projects that have served as national models, such as Prove It!, featured in a video at the White House event.

Prove It! is an annual, campus-wide contest that funds student-led projects to improve UMBC, such as a program to convert waste oil from campus eateries into biodiesel fuel for university vehicles. Prove It! has been a powerful way to spread our student government’s core message: all UMBC students can apply their skills and energy to addressing community challenges.

In Fall 2012, UMBC will launch BreakingGround, a campaign to connect and make more visible courses, events and activities that embrace a culture of civic agency. BreakingGround will highlight the potential of UMBC students, faculty and staff to become problem solvers, resource creators, coalition builders and agents of social transformation.

To learn more about BreakingGround and UMBC’s role in the American Commonwealth Partnership, contact Communications Manager Dinah Winnick, dwinnick@umbc.edu. Press inquiries for the event “For Democracy’s Future” should be sent to Sara Gast, Sara.Gast@ed-gov. To become involved in the national initiative, visit http://civicyouth.org/democracyu.

(1/9/12)

Constantine Vaporis, professor of history and director of the Asian studies program, has published a new book. Voices of Early Modern Japan: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life during the Age of the Shoguns is part of  ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Press’s “Voices of an Era” series. 

The book spans an period of Japanese history ranging from the unification of the warring states under Tokugawa Ieyasu in the early 17th century to the overthrow of the shogunate just prior to the mid-19th century opening of Japan by the West.  Much of what we think of as quintessentially Japanese emerged during the time of the Tokugawa shoguns, including Kabuki theatre, sushi, sumo wrestling, woodblock prints and the tea ceremony. Vaporis’s book brings that time to life through the voices of those who experienced it, focusing on the day-to-day lives of both the rich and powerful and ordinary citizens.

The Winter 2012 issue of Issues in Science and Technology includes a writeup describing a project that Lee Boot, associate director of the Imaging Research Center, and IRC staff created for the National Academy of Sciences. The Seeintuit project, an exhibition and data collection center exploring the intuitive processes of the human brain, appears in the Archives section of the magazine and features an image of an artwork by professor Boot that is now in the permanent collection of the NAS. This collaboration between Mr. Boot, the IRC, and the NAS is ongoing (a third project is slated to begin at the end of January 2012) and is aimed at finding new ways to connect the general public with science content.

This issue of Issues magazine should be available online soon at http://www.issues.org/.

Lexie Macchi, a graduate student in the Department of Visual Arts and graduate assistant at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, was profiled in The Village Voice on Thursday, January 5. On page 5 of her interview she discusses her work at the CADVC and her studies at UMBC.

Gary Kachadourian, an MFA student in Imaging and Digital Arts, has received a $25,000 grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters and Sculptors Grant Program. The Painters & Sculptors Grant Program was established in 1993 to assist individual artists. The grants are given to acknowledge painters and sculptors creating work of exceptional quality.

Mr. Kachadourian will have work on display at UMBC from January 26 through February 18 at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture’s MFA Imaging and Digital Arts Thesis Exhibition.