Author and medical student Sheg Aranmolate ’05 has released his second book, a novel set in the African savannah entitled Bountiful Famine.

The story follows a young man through the memories of his childhood on a subsistence farm after awaking in the dark bound, injured and afflicted with amnesia.

Aranmolate “hopes to transport readers into a unique world and reveal not only some of the suffering of Africans, but also some of the rich culture and the joyful moments that are shared with family and friends,” he said.

A medical student at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, TN, Aranmolate earned his bachelors in biochemistry and molecular biology (with a minor in psychology) from UMBC in 2005. In 2008 he was featured on the ABC television show, Oprah’s Big Give and appeared twice on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

– Read more about Aranmolate here.
– View a Memphis television interview with Aranmolate here.

A recent collaboration between UMBC’s New Media Studio, headed by Bill Shewbridge ’80, history, and the Erickson School resulted in a digital storytelling project pairing university students with seniors at the Charlestown Retirement Community. Shewbridge, Director of the New Media Studio, noted that the participation of freshman in the course inspired the theme of life transitions, the Catonsville Times reported.

Read the full story here.

“You can’t tell your life story in three minutes,” Shewbridge said, but the results are compelling. “They’re all different. Some are funny. Some are poignant. But they all have their own value and their own message.”

The digital stories are now also online for public viewing.

Today’s Catonsville Times highlighted an exciting collaboration between UMBC’s New Media Studio and Erickson School: a digital storytelling project paring university students with seniors at the Charlestown Retirement Community. Bill Shewbridge, Director of the New Media Studio, noted that the participation of freshman in the course inspired the theme of life transitions.

The students and elders learned from one another’s life experiences through weekly meetings, culminating with the creation of 14 three-minute films, presented in the UMBC Library Gallery. “You can’t tell your life story in three minutes,” Shewbridge said, but the results are compelling. “They’re all different. Some are funny. Some are poignant. But they all have their own value and their own message.” The digital stories are now also online for public viewing.

“With the Iowa caucuses less than three weeks away, the narrowed Republican presidential contest between Romney, Newt Gingrich, and the surging Ron Paul remains a muddle,” writes UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller in Salon.com. This landscape has led Romney to focus on a new strategy to win the GOP presidential nomination: surviving a tough fight in January to win more favorable states in February.

Schaller argues that the crucial step for Romney is to attack Gingrich “using a negative television and radio blitz on the issue of Medicare to win Florida’s pivotal seniors.” He suggests, “If Romney can pair his younger support four years ago with a better performance among Florida seniors this year, he can win Florida on January 31.” Such a win might carry him through to February’s primaries in Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada, where he was successful in 2008.

The December issue of Maryland Family magazine features a unique article on seniors who volunteer in local K-12 schools — a practice that Judah Ronch argues has significant benefits for both children and adults. Dean Ronch of UMBC’s Erickson School comments, “Doing things you enjoy makes [your activities] meaningful, and that means you are more likely to remember them.” For seniors who enjoy interacting with kids and sharing their skills and knowledge, volunteering in a local community can have positive effects on their physical and mental health and well-being.

UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller offered insight on the upcoming GOP primary election in two publications today. In the Colorlines article, “Why (Very White) Iowa and New Hampshire Mean So Much in Politics,” Schaller commented, “The prominence and first-in-nation position of Iowa and New Hampshire do elevate white primary voters over non-white ones, and in both parties.” However, the electoral process is beginning to change to better account for our nation’s diversity. According to Schaller, “Both parties, and especially the Democrats—who receive the lion’s share of the black and Latino vote in general election—have tried to address this inequality by moving Nevada and South Carolina up earlier into the calendar.”

Schaller also commented in a Baltimore Sun article that suggested for Maryland to have an impact on the primary, “Gingrich and Romney would have to come to a draw in several early battles.” For Schaller, “The real question is do they make it to March or do we have a clear winner by the end of February.”

Rebecca Boehling, professor of history and director of the Dresher Center for the Humanities, will appear on WYPR’s Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast on Friday, December 16 at approximately 9:15 a.m.  The subject of the discussion will be Boehling’s recent book, Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust.

The broadcast can be heard live here, or after the show here.

“Paul Schurick’s recent conviction for voter fraud is a sad coda to the 2010 Martin O’Malley-Bob Ehrlich gubernatorial rematch,” writes UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller in his latest Baltimore Sun column. Schaller notes that was saddens him most is a broader trend that Schurick’s actions exemplify: an increase in efforts to suppress U.S. voter turnout.

Schaller writes: “In the past year, 19 new laws and two executive orders were issued in 14 states to create stricter voter identification requirements.” Citing the Brennan Center for Justice, Schaller argues such restrictions “disproportionately disfranchise poorer and nonwhite voters, as well as senior citizens and college-age students” — populations that would be more likely to vote Democratic. Read the column for Schaller’s full argument.

Baltimore entrepreneur Greg Cangialosi ’96, English, has set his sights on helping new tech companies take off and fly.

The founder of Blue Sky Factory, a tech marketing firm Cangialosi founded in 2001 and sold this year, will team up with Sean Lane, chief executive of BTS Corp., a software company in Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun reports:

Their goal: Make small investments in several startups, germinate their own ideas, and help nurture the city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

“We want to bring in bright people who are running companies, to help give them a shot in the arm,” Cangialosi said.

A former member of the UMBC Alumni Association Board of Directors, Cangialosi has stayed involved with UMBC, most recently acting as a judge in the university’s entrepreneurially-inspired “IDEA competition.”

Read the full Baltimore Sun story here.

Douglas Lamdin, professor of economics, has edited a book entitled, “Consumer Knowledge and Financial Decisions”. More information on the book can be found on the publisher’s website.