In his latest Baltimore Sun opinion column, UMBC political science professor Thomas F. Schaller focuses on the US tax policy debate. “We talk a lot about spending cuts but rarely, if ever, about revenue increases. Why the asymmetry?” Schaller asks. Read “The Gospel of Tax Cuts” to find out.

The Maryland Humanities Council (MHC) has elected seven new members to its Board of Directors, including Stephen J. Sfekas, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge who previously taught health care law and administrative law at UMBC. According to Baltimore Citybizlist, Sfekas has served on the boards of The ARC Baltimore, the Maryland Disabilities Law Center, the Society for Values in Higher Education, and the President’s Advisory Council for UMBC. MHC board members are involved in strategic planning, fundraising and fiscal management for the group.

UPDATE (11/14/11): The segment is now available to view online here. A transcript is available here.

UPDATE (11/05/11): The airing of the “60 Minutes” piece on UMBC has been postponed. It is now tentatively scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 13, at 7 p.m.

After many months of filming on campus, “60 Minutes” plans to feature UMBC on its program this 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. We hope that you will tune in Sunday, Nov. 6, at 7 p.m. and encourage others to do so as well. (Of course, we have to give you the disclaimer that “news happens,” and the lineup could change.)

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!

On Thursday, November 10, Michael Fallon, senior lecturer of English, will read from his two new books of poetry:

“Since You have No Body,” winner of the 2011 Plan B Press Poetry Chapbook Competition

“Overall, Since You Have No Body is about making peace with the organic, as well as the ontological world, with death, with the shadow, and hence with the void…” -Contest Judge, poet Corey Mesler

and

“The Great Before and After”

In The Great Before and After, George C. Tumulty, a comic everyman, contemplates the origins and fate of himself, humanity, and the universe, raising the big questions.

Books will be available for purchase, and light refreshments will be served. The even twill take place at 4:00 p.m. in UC 310.  For more information, visit here.

Timothy Nohe, associate professor of Visual Arts, will exhibit his work Candles for Faust at the in/flux gallery, 307 West Baltimore Street, from November 5 through 19.

Nohe remarks, “Candles for Faust portrays candles, burning at both ends, that eventually extinguish themselves and fall from sight. Stereo recordings were produced of the drumming sound of dripping wax falling on printmaking paper. I imagined the candles as ‘musical instruments’ producing unique and chaotic drum patterns. As the candles attempted to reach equilibrium, teetering back and forth, they tattooed a pattern of wax scatter on the paper below. The resulting wax splashed detritus exists on the surface of the prints as a record of time and residue of the beating wax drummer, long extinguished.” A condensed video is available for viewing on Professor Nohe’s tumblr site.

A video piece created in 2010 by Vin Grabill (associate professor and chair, Visual Arts) and his son, Elliott, was accepted as one of nineteen finalists for the Rosebud Film & Video Festival. The 8-minute video “Kings Highway/Stillwell Ave., Brooklyn” will be screened along with the other eighteen works on Saturday, November 12, and an awards ceremony will take place Sunday, November 13, in Arlington, Virginia.

“Kings Highway/Stillwell Ave., Brooklyn” started as a piece of music for piano written by Elliott Grabill. Vin Grabill made a video recording of his son playing “Kings Highway” at a performance in Washington, D.C. in October 2010. Subsequently Elliott provided several hundred digital photos he had taken during his time in New York, and together Elliott and Vin decided how to edit these images in and around the performance video footage. The video can seen on the small screen at: http://vimeo.com/17421636

2011 Rosebud Nominee Showcase
Saturday, November 12, 2011, beginning at 12:30 PM
Dome Theater at Artisphere
1101 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22209
(2 blocks from Rosslyn Metro Station)

2011 Rosebud Awards Ceremony
Sunday, November 13, 2011, beginning at 7:00 PM
Clarendon Ballroom
3185 Wilson Blvd.
Arlington, VA 22201
(1 block from Clarendon Metro Station)

Kelley Bell, assistant professor of Visual Arts (and Visual Arts MFA ’05) has created one of the most visible artworks in Baltimore: she is illuminating the clock faces on the downtown Bromo Seltzer Tower. The Baltimore Sun‘s Mary Carole McCauley wrote a major feature that appeared on the paper’s front page on November 4, and the City Paper‘s Baynard Woods contributed a feature in the paper’s November 2 issue. Both features include videos. Professor Bell’s projections on the clock faces begin at sunset on Saturday, November 5 and will continue for approximately five weeks.

“It would have been easy in recent days to mistake Courtroom 5D as the site of a Maryland political convention rather than the forum for a public corruption trial,” wrote the Washington Post‘s John Wagner, on the defense of Sen. Ulysses Currie. Prominent character witnesses were brought to the stand over several days to vouch for Currie’s integrity in light of corruption allegations — a potentially risky move for some, considering their own career ambitions.

“I don’t know whether a jury will look at politicians saying nice things about other politicians in a cynical way or a laudatory way,” said Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC. “I don’t think we have a way to know that.” For additional reflections on the case, see the Baltimore Sun, where Norris offered insight into how elected officials in different states react to ethics concerns.

On Tuesday, November 1, Rebecca Boehling spoke at the Leo Baeck Institute about her new book, “Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust: A Jewish Family’s untold Story.”  Boehling was joined by her co-author, Uta Larkey.

The institute, which is located in New York, is a research library and archive that contains the most significant collection of source material relating to the history of German-speaking Jewry, from its origins to its tragic destruction by the Nazis and continuing to the present day.

Katie Smallwood ’09, American studies, is one of the organizers of a new project entitled “Baltimore: Place to Place.”  Smallwood and her co-organizer,  Katie Shinsato, randomly distributed Baltimore sites among about 25 participants, who shot, framed, and reflected upon their assignments. The results of the project will be on display at the Windup Space through November.

“We wanted to celebrate place and how the space around you can be important to different individuals for various reasons. We wanted people to have to go to places they either knew really well or had never been to before and to have an experience there,” Smallwood said.

The project was covered in an Urbanite story entitled “The Purpose of Place,” which appeared online on November 1.

There is a free opening reception at the Windup Space (12 W. North Avenue) on Friday, November 4, at 7 p.m.