The Baltimore Sun quoted UMBC’s Donald Norris, chair of public policy, today in its ongoing coverage of the Sen. Ulysses Currie corruption case. “The evidence does suggest that what he did, if not criminal, is unethical,” Norris said. When asked about the Senate’s possible censure of Currie, however, he noted, “Currie is very well-liked by his colleagues, and that may mitigate the penalty.” For more, read “Common Cause calls for Currie censure.”

Yesterday, Norris reflected in the Sun on the election of Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to her first full term. “Will she have signature achievements? I’m not sure,” said Norris. “The bottom line is going to be the quality of her stewardship of the city of Baltimore.”

The Maryland Business Roundtable for Education has unveiled a new program, “STEM Specialists in the Classroom,” designed to augment classroom instruction and inspire high school students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, WBAL reports.

President Freeman Hrabowski talked to WBAL about the importance of the new initiative and UMBC’s success in educating students in the STEM fields.

Jay Greene, one of the most successful and popular players in
UMBC basketball history, has returned to his alma mater as an assistant
men’s basketball coach, Head Coach Randy Monroe announced today.
Greene replaces another UMBC alum, John Zito ’06 who has entered private
business after three years on the staff.

“I’m really excited to have Jason be back and be a part of our staff,”
Monroe said. “He is going to bring a tremendous amount of basketball
knowledge to our staff, but above all, he has the ability to relate to the
student-athletes at UMBC.”The Whitehall, Pa. native has played the most basketball games, 122, and
most minutes, 4,192, in Retriever basketball history from 2005-09. The
two-time team captain dished out 683 assists, the most in school history,
the third-most ever in America East Conference history and the third-most
of any NCAA Division I player in the state of Maryland.

He scored 1,186 career points and was the Reggie Lewis Most Outstanding
Player in the 2008 America East Tournament, leading the Retrievers to
their first NCAA bid. In his junior season, Greene was the lone player in
the nation to be ranked in the top five in the nation in
assist-to-turnover ratio (2nd, 3.47) and assists per game (4th, 7.2 per
game).

Greene, who was named UMBC’s Outstanding Senior Athlete for 2008-09,
earned three league citations in four seasons of competition. He was an
All-Rookie team member in 2005-06, earned First-Team All-Conference honors
in 2007-08 and second team honors in his senior campaign.

Greene earned his bachelor’s degree from UMBC in sociology in the spring
of 2009. He spent the 2010-11 season at director of basketball operations
at Rider University.

Theodore Gonzalves, associate professor of American Studies, is the co-author, with Roderick N. Labrador, of the new book Filipinos in Hawaii. This pictorial history is the latest volume in the “Images of America” series by Arcadia Publishing.

Nearly one in four persons in Hawaii is of Filipino heritage. Representing one-fifth of the state’s workforce, Filipinos have been in Hawaii for more than a century.  This book traces that history from 1946—the last year that sakadas (plantation workers) were imported from the Philippines—to the centennial year of their settlement in Hawaii.

A portion of the profits from the sale of the book are being donated to the Filipino American Historical Society of Hawaii.

ABC2 interviewed UMBC’s Bill LaCourse, Interim Dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences yesterday about UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program.

Watch the video

Three-fourths of UMBC’s opening day backline earned 2011 America East Conference Men’s Soccer All-Academic team honors, the league announced today.

Seniors Vince Savarese and Andy Streilein and junior Liam Paddock were among the 12 student-athletes named to the team. Savarese is one of five America East players to repeat as a member of the team. The four-year letterwinner started his final 65 games of 70 in the black and gold. He served as a team captain this season and is earning his degree this semester in Business Technology Administration.Streilein started the year on defense, but shifted to midfield during the midpoint of the campaign. He started the first 17 games of the season, but missed the AEC quarterfinal vs. Hartford after suffering a concussion in the regular season finale at Vermont. The Business Technology Administration major won three letters at UMBC, after beginning his career at Delaware and amassed six goals and six assists in 70 collegiate contests.

Paddock is the lone 2011 All-Conference First-Team selection to earn All-Academic team honors. The central defender has started all 55 games he has dressed for in his tenure at UMBC. He is pursuing a double major in psychology/sociology and has recorded 4.00 grade point averages in his last three semesters at UMBC. All three Retrievers earned a place on the 2010 America East Conference Fall Commissioner’s Honor Roll.

For the fourth straight year, America East will select the All-Academic teams using CoSIDA’s Academic All-America program as a model. Student-athletes worthy of consideration are nominated by member sports information directors and voted on by a committee of SIDs, academic advisors and faculty representatives from all nine member institutions.

All-Academic squads for team sports are based on the number of athletes that participate in a contest at one time (e.g., 11 on the field for soccer) but can be more if there is a tie in voting. To be nominated for the distinction, student-athletes must be a starter or important reserve for their team and participate in at least 50 percent of their team’s games or competitions. In the classroom, student-athletes must have a 3.30 GPA and have completed at least one calendar year at their institution. Freshmen are not eligible for consideration.

A new study produced by Visit Baltimore suggests the Baltimore Grand Prix had a smaller economic impact than predicted, reports the Baltimore Sun. The tourism group estimated that event attendees spent $28 million in and near the city during the Labor Day weekend event, significantly below the $70 million projected by Baltimore Racing Development last year.

“Is this really what we mean by success?” asked Dennis Coates, UMBC economics professor. Coates co-authored another study, released in October, estimating race weekend spending at $25 million, about $10 million of which “would likely have occurred in Baltimore or Maryland even without the event.”

On November 8, 2011, absentee voters in Takoma Park, Maryland, will have the option to verify their votes for mayor and city council using a new Internet voting system called Remotegrity. Internet voting has been used to elect government officials before (for example, in Switzerland, Estonia and Norway), but what is new here is that voters mail in paper ballots and use the Internet to independently verify that their votes have been received by the city and recorded correctly. Anyone can check online that the recorded votes were tallied correctly.

Dr. Filip Zagorski, computer scientist at The George Washington University, explains “Through the hybrid use of paper ballots and Internet verification, Remotegrity combines the best of both worlds to provide a very high degree of security even against malware and insider attack.” Portions of the underlying research in cryptography and secure server design were supported by the National Science Foundation and the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education.

Voters who have requested to vote by mail receive a ballot which they mark and mail in, but they can also verify their vote on-line in the Remotegrity system, without revealing how they voted. In future elections, the same online procedure may cast votes and physical mailing of paper ballots may be optional or omitted.

The city will also use the Scantegrity voting system for voters who cast their ballot in person, as it did in 2009. The integrated Scantegrity and Remotegrity systems offer full end-to-end voter-verifiability, in which voters casting ballots from home or in person can verify that their votes were correctly cast, collected, and counted.

Additionally, this year, the city will provide an audio interface for marking ballots. The interface, named Audiotegrity, developed by researchers at The George Washington University, will enable voters with difficulty marking paper ballots to mark ballots independently using an electronic interface. Mr. Noel Runyan, a usability and accessibility expert, provided pro bono design advice to the Audiotegrity team.

With a grant from the federal Election Assistance Commission, and support from the non-profit Voting Systems Institute, researchers from UMBC will survey voters and election officials as well as conduct focus groups around their experiences using these new voting systems.

For more information, contact Alan T. Sherman, Department of CSEE, at sherman@umbc.edu or 410-963-4779, or visit www.scantegrity.org.

From Nancy Young, Vice President, Student Affairs

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Daniel Barnhart will be joining our division as the new Director of Off-Campus Student Services (OCSS). Dan comes to UMBC from Stevenson University with many years of prior experience in off-campus student services, student activities, veteran affairs and the military. He received his doctoral degree in Education from George Washington University and earned a Counseling degree from Wake Forest University. His demonstrated leadership skill, best practice research and strategic visioning will be valuable assets to the department of OCSS and the Division of Student Affairs. We do not yet have a firm start date, but I hope you will join me in welcoming Dan at danbarnhart@yahoo.com.

I would like to thank the search committee for the time and energy they shared on behalf of our students to identify outstanding candidates, organize the interview process and make recommendations based on evaluations. Under the leadership of Anne Scholl-Fiedler (Career Services), Chair, and Fritzie Charne-Merriwether (VPSA), VP liaison, the committee completed their work efficiently, effectively and professionally. Please join me in recognizing the work of Anne, Fritzie, Dale Bittinger (Admissions), Hans Cooper (Registrar),
Donna Huynh (OCSS), Abdias Irizarry (Commons) and Andrea Wynter (Transit). Our students and our campus will benefit from their efforts for years to come. Thanks also to colleagues across the division and camps who interviewed and submitted feedback to the committee.

I would also like to recognize Ben Goldberg and the staff of OCSS, Eraline Sabino, Donnell James and the Commuter Assistants, for keeping their department operating smoothly during the past year. Ben’s leadership as Acting Director has been instrumental in keeping program and service delivery coming off without a hiccup during this interim period. Ben will continue his leadership in OCSS, the division and the campus as he resumes his role as Assistant Director of OCSS in a full-time capacity and focuses on doctoral work as well.

Great people are key to our students’ success! Thank you in advance for helping make Dan’s transition to our division a smooth and pleasant experience.

On Thursday, November 10, the Department of Music presents presents a program entitled The Expressive Jewish Tradition Through Music and Words, featuring performers Maria Lambros, viola; Airi Yoshioka, violin; Audrey Andrist, piano; E. Michael Richards, clarinet; Lisa Cella, flute; and guests Alison Wells, cello; Michael Kannen, cello; and Diane Walsh, piano. The program will feature:

* Osvaldo Golijov – Doina (2001)
* Felix Mendelssohn – Sonata for Cello and Piano in D major, Op. 58 (1843)
* Michael Alec Rose – Burlesques for Piano Quartet (2010, world premiere)
* Gerald Cohen – Yedid Nefesh (Beloved of my Soul) (2007)
* Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein III – selections from South Pacific (1949)

8 pm, Fine Arts Recital Hall. $7 general admission, $3 seniors, free for students, free with a UMBC ID. To order tickets in advance using a credit card, order online through MissionTix or call 410-752-8950. Tickets will also be available at the door, cash or check only.

More information:
http://www.umbc.edu/arts

The Arts & Humanities at UMBC: think create engage
http://www.umbc.edu/engage