The UMBC Wind Ensemble, directed by Richard Spece (adjunct instructor, Music), has been invited to perform at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Tuesday, November 29. The UMBC Wind Ensemble is comprised of exceptional woodwind, brass and percussion performers who enjoy the challenge of performing excellent concert literature.

“The UMBC Wind Ensemble is honored and excited to be performing at the Kennedy Center,” remarked Dr. Spece. “This is an incredible opportunity for the students who, through hard work and dedication, have become a regionally recognized and accomplished ensemble.”

The program will feature Trittico by Vaclav Nelhybel, Equus by Eric Whitacre, Sanctuary by Frank Ticheli and Adrenaline City by Adam Gorb.

The performance will take place at the Millennium Stage, located in the Grand Foyer, at 6:00 p.m. The program is free and open to the public. The concert may also be viewed online in real time by clicking here.

The Wind Ensemble’s next performance at UMBC will take place on Wednesday, December 8, at 8 p.m. in the Fine Arts Recital Hall. More information is available on the Arts & Culture Calendar.

Sandra Abbott, curator of collections and outreach at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, was featured in Maryland Life Magazine on November 8 in an article, “Unbound,” by Mary Medland. The article investigates the art of “altered books,” which are ordinary books that have been transformed into art objects. Abbott was a judge for the Enoch Pratt Free Library’s altered books exhibition last year.

The exhibition A Legacy of Love: Italian Memorial Sculpture, featuring photographs by Robert W. Fichter and Robert Freidus, on display at the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery through December 21, was featured in The Baltimore Sun by critic Mike Giuliano on Wednesday, November 16. The review also appeared in local papers published by Patuxent Publishing.

Kimberly Moffitt’s book, Blackberries and Redbones: Critical Articulations of Black Hair and Body Politics in Africana Communities, has received the outstanding book award from the National Communication Association’s African American Communication and Culture Division.

Moffitt, an assistant professor of American studies, co-edited the volume with Regina Spellers. The book examines the way that hair and bodies shape perception of African Americans through a variety of interdisciplinary lenses, including poems, creative writing and scholarly essays.

More information about the book can be found here.

In the November issue of his monthly podcast, “The EMS Squadcast,” Emergency Health Services alumnus Tim Perkins ’97 interviewed UMBC paramedic program director Dwight Polk about Polk’s recent EMS World Expo presentation “HIV/AIDS: Why Don’t We Talk About It Anymore.”

Perkins, who works for the Virginia Office of Emergency Management Services, began his 20-year career in EMS as a volunteer fire fighter in rural New York.

To read more about The EMS Squadcast and to hear the podcast, click here. Polk appears 8 min 51 sec into the recording.

To learn more about UMBC’s EHS program, click here.

Seniors in need often receive excessive donations near the holidays. Julie Rosenthal, program management specialist for Asian studies, makes sure that they are fed the rest of the year, too.

Rosenthal runs a nonprofit program called “Food on the 15th.”The project has delivered 9,500 bags of groceries to hundreds of low-income seniors over the past six years, and is designed to introduce children of affluence to people who are struggling.

“I thought my kids were way too focused on themselves. There was dance and drama and all that, but it was all about them,” said Rosenthal. She needed something that would make her kids understand how privileged they were compared with others around them, so she organized parents, teachers and children to bag and deliver groceries to low income seniors. The key to the approach is for the kids to do more than fill a bin with canned peas and boxes of cereal. By handing the food to people in need, they get a more intimate look at what people who struggle might look like.

The story, “Food program puts kids face-to-face with the needy, not just at the holidays” was published in the Washington Post on November 21.

This week EMS World features an EMS Squadcast interview with Dwight Polk, UMBC’s paramedic program director. Polk was interviewed by Tim Perkins, a UMBC alumnus who now works for the Virginia Office of EMS. The conversation focuses on Polk’s EMS World Expo presentation “HIV/AIDS: Why Don’t We Talk About It Anymore.” Key topics include how trimming educational budgets has harmed preventative measures targeting the disease and how instructors can better prepare EMS practitioners to provide quality care for patients with HIV/AIDS. To access the podcast click here. Polk appears 8 min 51 sec into the recording.

Our everyday lives are increasingly affected by events and issues beyond our nation’s borders, and many colleges are responding by creating specific programs that address the need to understand different cultures, reports the Baltimore Sun in an education supplement story entitled “Learning through Language.”

One program that the Sun highlights is UMBC’s new Asian studies program, the first such program at a public institution in Maryland. “Asia cannot be ignored, and our students need to be prepared for a world in which Asia plays a major role,” said Constantine Vaporis, director of the program.

The story appeared in the Sun’s education supplement on November 20. A pdf of the full story can be seen here.

On Tuesday, November 15, UMBC professor Bruce Walz, chair of Emergency Health Services and past president of the National Association of EMS Educators, represented NAEMSE at a White House meeting with national security staff. Walz was part of a delegation of 13 physicians, EMS and trauma service experts assembled by Advocates for EMS to discuss the issue of an EMS federal lead agency.

During the meeting, Walz stressed that EMS educators prepare health care professionals regardless of the means by which the providers deliver EMS response and care. Walz is also immediate past-president of  AEMS, a coalition of EMS providers, physicians, regulators and educators who advocate for EMS-related issues at the federal level.

MarylandReporter today noted that unless the U.S. Congress acts by January 1, physicians will face a Medicare reimbursement rate cut of 30%. Expense concerns have motivated some doctors to close their practices and go to work for hospitals, says UMBC Erickson School Professor Joe Gribbin, a former associate commissioner for the Social Security Administration. He explains, “The implications [of changes to reimbursement rates] are huge not just for physicians but for the beneficiary community, and they’re not well understood.” The article was also picked up by Citybizlist Baltimore.