Freeman Hrabowski, President, Jack Suess, Vice President for Information Technology and CIO, and John Fritz, Assistant Vice President for Instructional Technology & New Media, write for the EDUCAUSE Review about transformational initiatives in higher education, the value of assessment and the role of information technology. You can read the full article, “Assessment and Analytics in Institutional Transformation,” online.

Read Science this week and see what Erle Ellis, professor of geography and environmental systems at UMBC, had to say about the Anthropocene.  Ellis also participated in a chat on Science Live hosted by Gaia Vince.

Dan Shechtman, a former visiting professor at UMBC, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last week. Shlomo Carmi, then dean of the College of Engineering, recruited Shechtman in 1997, and the materials scientist remained a visiting professor at UMBC until 2005. During that time Shechtman conducted some of the key research that led to the Nobel Prize at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, in nearby Gaithersburg, Md.

John Nelson, co-coordinator of the MA Program in ESL/Bilingual Education, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Maryland TESOL at their annual conference on Saturday, October 1. The award recognizes his “substantial and exemplary contributions to the field of ESL in the state of Maryland.”

Nelson began his career in TESOL in the mid-1960s as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia. Since then he has taught ESL to elementary and secondary school, university and adult English language learners. He has been a teacher trainer, program administrator and consultant in more than 10 countries on four continents.

On Tuesday, October 11, at 1 p.m., Kimberly Moffitt, assistant professor of American studies, will be a featured guest on WYPR’s “Midday with Dan Rodricks.” She will discuss Baltimore in film. The segment can be heard on 88.1 FM or streamed live here.

Lafayette Gilchrist ’92, Africana studies, may be best known in Baltimore as the pianist and composer at the helm of the New Volcanoes, ever-evolving, avant-garde big band. But before he became a big name in the jazz scene, he could be found practicing his skills in UMBC’s practice rooms.

“Gilchrist… describes himself as a ‘ghost’ in the music department. ‘My Grand-mommy said, ‘You’re going away to a fancy college; make sure you meet the people who scrub the toilets.’ I did. And they had keys to everything,’ Gilchrist recalls. He began to spend nights in the practice rooms, waving goodbye to the janitors as he left early each morning,” writes Baynard Woods in the Urbanite.

Today, Gilchrist finds that Baltimore’s eclectic music scene provides the perfect home genre-bending sound.

The story, “Explosive,” appeared on the Urbanite’s website on September 28.

Gilchrist was also the subject of a segment on WAMU’s “The Signal.” Before becoming a jazz pianist, he used to lace up the boxing gloves. “The Signal” talks with Gilchrist about his years as a fighter and the musical inspiration he took from the sweet science.

The piece aired on Saturday, October 8, and was repeated on Sunday, October 9. It can be heard here.

Occupy Wall Street arrived in Baltimore this week, with Occupy Baltimore participants gathering at McKeldin Square (at Light and Pratt Streets). Protestors have mentioned causes such as fighting income inequality, corporate greed and corruption, but the broader movement has not yet released specific goals. Laura Hussey, assistant professor of political science, told the Baltimore Business Journal, “We can look at some of the contemporary social movements today, social rights movements, anti-war, labor unions… Their policy demands are fairly specific. This seems to be a broader coalition and their demands are very vague.” Hussey said both left-wing and libertarian protesters are involved.

Maryland Democrats currently control both of the state’s two U.S. Senate seats and six of eight House seats, “and now they’re looking to make it seven,” writes Thomas Schaller, professor of political science, in his latest Baltimore Sun column. Although the GOP controls the process of drawing Congressional maps across much of the nation, the reverse is true in Maryland.

In the last ten years, the state population has grown 9% to nearly 5.8 million residents. Schaller writes, “That growth was anything but uniform statewide, of course. Continued population shifts away from Baltimore City toward the Baltimore suburbs, Washington suburbs and especially toward the outlying portions of the state are changing the geographic power calculus.” He argues that Democrats undertook a redistricting strategy “in the hope of flipping the 6th District.”

In early July, the Greater Baltimore Tech Council launched a search for companies with the most unique, innovative and creative technologies. A panel of judges reviewed the applications and compiled a list of the top 10. Two Catonsville-based companies made the list, including one located at bwtech@UMBC.

Now you can vote for those two Catonsville companies, Via Place and Rogue Networks, to be named the Greater Baltimore Tech Council’s “Hottest Tech in Town.”

Via Place develops mobile GPS apps and is an affiliate company of chamber member Mindgrub.

Rogue Networks develops cybersecurity solutions in the Cync incubator at bwtech@UMBC.

Voting is open until October 13 here.

NPR’s Morning Edition reports the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote today on a temporary measure — or “continuing resolution” — to keep the government funded through mid-November, after having missed its appropriations deadline for the 14th year in a row. Congress uses continuing resolutions when they can’t complete work on appropriations bills before the start of a new fiscal year. UMBC political science professor Roy Meyers told NPR, “What that means is that there’s a great deal of uncertainty when you’re running a program about how much money you have to hire people or to sign contracts and the like, and that creates lots of inefficiencies.”

A USA Today article on the same topic focused on proposals to improve the budget process. However, not everyone is optimistic about the suggestions. Meyers is wary, telling USA Today, “When members of Congress don’t want to confront the difficult policy decisions, they start talking about process, and we may be in that phase now.”