Kathy Scales Bryan, American studies lecturer, recently commented on a California politician’s daughter who has publicly split with her father on a controversial issue.

Briana Bilbray, the daughter of Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray, recently came out in support of medical marijuana dispensaries and extoled the drug’s therapeutic benefits for chemotherapy patients. Briana is currently in remission from melanoma.

Children of politicians often are brought up to put the public persona ahead of their private lives, Bryan said .

“The understanding within a family is that that’s where you could take care of your needs that can’t be taken care of out in public,” she said. “What being in politics does is take that private place and turn that into a kind of commodity that has to be produced on a public stage.”

The story, “Bilbray’s daughter at center of med pot debate,” appeared on the Sign On San Diego website on November 12.

Steve Bradley (associate professor, Visual Arts) is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Arts in Community (MSAC AIC) matching grant for his “Portrait Stories” initiative in the Baybrook community.

In addition to this grant, “Portrait Stories” has been chosen by the Baltimore Rotterdam Sister City for its Artist Exchange program. The intended exchange will occur between the Baybrook neighborhood and Rotterdam’s Heijplaat neighborhood in the future.

The Baybrook initiatives are rooted in Professor Bradley’s 2009 residency in the Heijplaat neighborhood. His inspiration came from an educational curriculum developed by the Willem de Kooning Academie, also in Rotterdam.

Cut off from downtown Baltimore by the Patapsco River, the richly diverse communities of Brooklyn and Curtis Bay have few safe public recreational places for the youth to gather before or after school. The intergenerational “Portrait Stories” project strives to engage the youth and the elders of Brooklyn and Curtis Bay in a mutual exchange of stories. The objective is for the participants to create portraiture, in response to these stories, to share with the community.

This project is facilitated by students from UMBC and Maryland Institute College of Art for students from the Benjamin Franklin High School and elders from the Brooklyn and Curtis Bay community.

Exhibitions from “Portrait Stories” will be in several locations around Baybrook and Curtis Bay beginning May 2012.

Tim Nohe (associate professor, Visual Arts) has been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town Project – Creative Placemaking program, managed by the Station North Arts & Entertainment District.

The grant supports his sound project, “My Station North.” This winter and spring he will work collaboratively with children at Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School, their teacher, Ms. Meg Fink, and IMDA MFA graduate student Charlotte Keniston to document the Station North neighborhood through sound. Students working with an easy to use audio recorder will sample the sounds and stories of their neighborhood and school, which is located at 1600 Guilford Avenue in Station North. Once the sounds have been gathered, Professor Nohe will edit, mix and master a surround sound work for installation at the North Avenue Market in June 2012. The project will be a partnership with the Baltimore SoundscapeProject and Locus Sonus, a streaming audio project based in France.

The project will bring positive attention to the neighborhood, its vibrant arts community, the historic North Avenue Market, and Baltimore Montessori Public Charter School. Professor Nohe remarks, “Connections in our community will be heard through focused listening: to what we hear all around, to the music of the street, to the people working to revitalize homes and businesses, to our creative workers, and to the stories of elders and children. The installation will bring us together to listen, carefully, to this vibrant city neighborhood.”

UMBC honored members of The 1966 Society on September 19 — the 45th anniversary of the university’s opening day in 1966 — at a dinner hosted by president Freeman A. Hrabowski III celebrating the commitment they’ve made to UMBC’s future through planned giving. The group met in the Albin O. Kuhn Library and enjoyed a “7th Floor Tour of UMBC,” along with dinner with Dr. Hrabowski and the chance to share memories of their time at UMBC.

“I love that they continue to engage with students,” said Kimberly Robinson, director of campaigns and donor relations. “The stories they told are so wonderful, and so similar to what people are celebrating about UMBC today, such as excellence in faculty teaching and innovation in the classroom. It really was great to hear.”

This 1966 Society dinner will be an annual event, so if you have named UMBC in your estate plans, please contact Robinson at Kim.Robinson@umbc.edu or 410-455-3700 so she can make sure you are invited to next year’s event!

Below: A slideshow of The 1966 Society dinner.
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According to NASA, for 40 years, what created the Moon’s ionosphere was a puzzle until Tim Stubbs an Assistant Research Scientist at UMBC working at the Goddard Space Flight Center published a possible solution — moondust.

“An ionosphere made of dust,” says NASA, “instead of gas is new to planetary science. No one knows how it will behave at different times of night and day or at different phases of the solar cycle, or how it might affect future radio communications and navigation on the Moon. ”

Read more about Tim Stubbs’ discovery.

Credit: Science@NASA

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSrP4MacFE&w=560&h=315]

After many months of filming on campus, “60 Minutes” featured UMBC on its program this past Sunday. What’s the bad news? It’s all too familiar: the United States continues to graduate too few students, particularly minorities, in science, technology, engineering, and math. The good news: “60 Minutes” focuses on UMBC as a place that gets it right.

We appreciate the recognition – but, more importantly, the opportunity to raise the visibility of this critical issue. View the full segment online here. A transcript is available here.

As you watch, you will see a well-executed production, not the months of taping, research, and editing. You certainly won’t see the messy outtakes. Transformation in higher education happens in much the same way. It’s a process, not a product. What started in 1988 with an idea for a select program for African-American males in science, math, and engineering – the Meyerhoff Scholars Program – has blossomed into a broad culture of student achievement at UMBC.

Lessons from the Meyerhoff program, for example, inspired scholars programs for undergraduates in the arts, humanities, public affairs, and teacher education. More recently, the Meyerhoff experience with group study informed course redesigns for first-year courses in science, engineering, and psychology. And, in turn, lessons from that initiative now have UMBC working to infuse active learning throughout its curriculum.

But these few examples aren’t the story. What we have worked toward over the past 25 years at UMBC is a culture that goes beyond “project mode” when it comes to improving undergraduate education.  More than a particular program, department, or initiative – we are an entire community that works relentlessly to improve the educational experience we provide.

Our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and partners have worked tirelessly, and often behind the scenes, to breathe life into that work. UMBC’s successes are your successes. Thank you for your continued support, and enjoy the spotlight!

If you were among the millions who bought the new iPhone 4S, then you can thank Dr. Harry Chen, the UMBC alumnus who helped develop the phone’s most notable new feature: Siri.

For those not among the millions, here’s a bit of background:  Siri is a virtual assistant that responds to voice commands. “She” can do things like make phone calls, send text messages, set alarms, and find directions. But, the remarkable thing about Siri is that she understands intent. Tell Siri “I’m drunk,” and she’ll bring up a list of cab services in the area. Tell Siri “I want a burger” and she’ll direct you to burger joints nearby, according to ratings.

Chen is a triple-play computer science UMBC alumnus, earning his bachelor’s degree in the subject in 1998, his master’s degree in 2000, and his doctorate in 2004.

Read the full story on UMBC’s Computer Science and Electrical Engineering site.

Read more alumni stories on Retriever Net.

In an editorial in Chevy Chase Patch, Mary Rivkin, associate professor of education, argues the importance of environmental justice, community health and childhood development to the decision-making process that is determining the future of the Capital Crescent Trail.

“Planners take many variables into account, but the variable of economic development should not dominate the decision-making as it has in the case of the Purple Line. I suggest that other variables—environmental justice, community health and childhood development—now take precedence,” Rivkin writes.

She urges developers to follow the model of “Highline Park in New York City, where a repurposed railway right-of-way has become a linear urban park so notable it has attracted both development and philanthropic funds.”

Her piece, “Re-envision the Trail—Plan Bigger” appeared on the website on November 9.

Carrie Evans, adjunct faculty member in Gender and Women’s Studies, was named the Executive Director of Equality Maryland.  Equality Maryland is Maryland’s largest LGBT civil rights group.

“We wanted the next Executive Director to have intelligence, compassion, a record of leadership on LGBT issues, and most importantly, an understanding of the unique needs of Maryland. We are confident that we have found that leader in Carrie Evans,” the organization’s board of directors wrote in an e-mail to supporters.

Evans appointment was covered in the Washington Blade in a November 9 story entitled “Equality Md. names new exec director.”

““This is an organization that is like a dear friend to me … and the stakes are high, marriage is on the table, as well as the gender identity bill. We have a whole new board of tremendously accomplished people and I can hit the ground running — it’s full speed ahead,” Evans told the publication.

Her appointment was also mentioned in November 10 Washington Post blog post, “Md. bishops: Same-sex marriage erodes religious freedom.”

The exhibition Where Do We Migrate To?, organized by the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, will tour in spring 2012 to the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design. Opening on February 2, the exhibition will remain on view through April 15.

Artists Space in New York will host a launch for a book that accompanies the exhibition, also entitled Where Do We Migrate To?, on December 15 from 6 to 8 p.m. Svetlana Boym, an artist whose work is featured in the exhibition and who contributed an essay to the book, will speak.

Curated by Niels Van Tomme, Director of Arts and Media at Provisions Learning Project in Washington, D.C., Where Do We Migrate To? explores contemporary issues of migration as well as experiences of displacement and exile. Situating the contemporary individual in a world of advanced globalization, the artworks address how a multiplicity of migratory encounters demand an increasingly complex understanding of the human condition. As such, the exhibition allows multiple perspectives about its subject matter to unfold simultaneously, opening up a range of political, psychological, poetic, and pragmatic manifestations of the contemporary migrant experience. The exhibition was originally on view at UMBC from March 17 to May 7, 2011.

Image: Xaviera Simmons, (detail) Superunknown (Alive In The), 2010, C-prints mounted on Sintra, dimensions variable/size of installation variable, first produced for Greater New York 2010 MoMA/PS.1.