Maryland House Speaker Pro Tem Delegate Adrienne Jones ’76, psychology, toured the new Performing Arts & Humanities building this morning along with UMBC president Dr. Freeman Hrabowski and others.

“It is clear that our governor and other state officials understand how important this project is for our campus.  And the leadership of our alumna, Del. Jones, was pivotal in ensuring the building’s completion,” said Dr. Hrabowski.

The first phase of the building will open in Fall 2012; the second phase will open in 2015. Read more about the PAHB here.

(L-R): UMBC architect Joe Rexing, Patty Carper (Whiting Turner), Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, Del. Adrienne Jones ’76, Michael “Mickey” Miller (University of Maryland, Baltimore), and Ron Brown (University of Maryland, Baltimore). Photo by Michelle Jordan ’93.

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UMBC congratulates sociology professor Leslie Morgan on being named the Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for academic year 2011-12. In endowing this professorship, Roger C. Lipitz and the Lipitz Family Foundation sought “to recognize and support innovative and distinguished teaching and research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences” at UMBC.

Dean John Jeffries writes, “Professor Morgan has achieved an extraordinary record as a scholar, teacher and citizen of the university since joining the UMBC faculty in 1979.” One of the nation’s foremost scholars of aging, Morgan is author, co-author or editor of six books, 33 peer-reviewed articles and 16 book chapters. She has won substantial research support from the National Institute on Aging as well as numerous national teaching awards. Among her many roles at UMBC, Morgan is co-director of the UMB/UMBC Ph.D. program in gerontology, which she helped create.

For additional details on this honor and Professor Morgan, see the full press release.

A screening and discussion of the film “A Community of Gardeners” at the Creative Alliance, Wednesday, September 14, will feature alumnus Katie Dix ’10, American studies and political science, now with the Parks and People Foundation. The film explores the history of community gardening across the US. In addition to Dix, the discussion panel will include community gardeners and advocates from the Duncan Street Miracle Garden, Sandtown Gardens, Baltimore Green Space and Baltimore City Farms. As an AmeriCorps VISTA at Parks and People, Dix is supporting the development of the Community Greening Resource Network (CGRN).

The Homecoming Decorating Contests are back this year, and offices are encouraged to deck their spaces out in black and gold to share in the spirit of Homecoming! Departments registered by Friday, September 16, will have spirit packs delivered to their offices by students from our Spirit Street Team on Monday, September 19. All offices and halls must register by Monday, October 3.

If you are a department or residence hall, wanting to participate in the contest, visit http://alumni.umbc.edu/homecoming_spirit for more information and to register.

What does it cost when you are tense or have trouble concentrating at work, are unsure about your ability to perform a task, feel overwhelmed about having too much to do or avoid having an honest conversation about a challenging situation?

This year’s Professional Development Day is dedicated to helping you develop calm, confident power at work. New findings about the brain show that staying calm in challenging times can help our minds think more clearly, prioritize our workload and accomplish tasks more easily.

When we can talk honestly, our stress decreases and productivity improves. In this program participants will learn and practice specific tools to use on the job including how to calm the naturally negative mind, push the “reset button” to refocus your mind in a few minutes, notice and neutralize stressful stories that make a challenging situation even more difficult and use a four-step formula for giving and receiving feedback and making requests of co-workers or your boss.

This workshop for faculty and staff will be held Thursday, September 22, 8:15 a.m.-12:30 p.m., in the University Center Ballroom.

Continental breakfast will be provided. Supervisors are asked to encourage employees to attend.

Register by Tuesday, September 13, at www.umbc.edu/training.

Get a flyer with details at www.umbc.edu/hr/T&OD/schedule.htm.

From ClickZ:

“Sean has been recently appointed to develop the Center for Digital Communication, Commerce, and Culture at the University of Baltimore and is chief creative officer at idfive in Baltimore. He has colorfully chronicled digital advertising trends for ClickZ in a fortnightly column first published Nov. 11, 1998. Ever since, Sean has served ClickZ’s readers well thanks to his prescient observations and candor. He’s examined hassles of doing business on the early web, such as “Bandwidth Blues,” back in the day. Other columns are still relevant today, such as “Applications Not Ads,” that he wrote in 2003.”

See the original announcement.

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Kay Kostopoulos ’72 was featured in O, the Oprah Magazine for a class on body languages that she co-teaches at Stanford University. From the article:

“Kostopoulos starts by leading us through a series of warm-up exercises. At first, the scene is yoga-esque. We step out of our shoes and stand tall, close our eyes, and take deep, slow breaths. But before long, the tempo changes, and Kostopoulos has us jumping up and down, shaking our arms, swinging our hips, blowing raspberries, and making kooky faces, alternately sticking our tongues out and then scrunching up our noses. All the while, we’re huffing out husky ha-ha-ha sounds from deep in our bellies. Kostopoulos encourages us to experiment with a deep voice. ‘You don’t want Mary Tyler Moore,’ she squeaks, then drops her tone an octave: ‘You want Diane Sawyer.'”

Read the full story.

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The Geography and Environmental Systems Seminar presents Michael Studinger, project scientist for Operation IceBridge, Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), UMBC and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The seminar, “NASA’s Operation IceBridge: Using Instrumented Aircraft to Bridge the Observational Gap Between ICESat and ICESate-2 Laser Altimeter Measurements,” will be held Wednesday, September 7, at noon in Sondheim Hall Room 001.

For more information, contact Dawn Biehler at dbiehler@umbc.edu or ext. 5-2095.

Katie Dix was featured in Cintia Cabib’s A Community of Gardeners (2011, 60 min), which  digs into the fascinating history of community gardening across the US, and on the growing scene flourishing down the road in DC. The Creative Alliance will host a screening followed by a discussion with a rich panel of Baltimore’s community gardeners, including Dix.

Learn about the event.

Visit Retriever Net for all the latest alumni news, events, perks and services.

The University of Pennsylvania Law School reports that Christopher DiPompeo ’04, economics, attained a highly-coveted clerkship in the U.S. Supreme Court for Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. He started his clerkship in July.

DiPompeo earned his law degree from UPenn in 2009, having served nearly half of his law school career as editor-in-chief of the Law Review.

Read the full article here:  http://www.law.upenn.edu/blogs/news/archives/2011/05/christopher_dipompeo_supreme_court_clerk.html