You are invited to join us in the culmination of new student orientation at the 2011 UMBC Convocation Ceremony. This annual event includes remarks from President Hrabowski, Interim Provost Rous, faculty awardees and student leaders.

The ceremony will be held in the RAC Arena, 3:30-4:30 p.m., Tuesday, August 30. Immediately following the ceremony, there will be a campus-wide community picnic on the Quad.

If you have any questions, contact Lin Guba at ext. 5-5656 or lguba@umbc.edu.

You can find more information on Welcome Week activities here.

We look forward to seeing you at Convocation!

From the Baltimore Sun:

It takes a little time to unroll “Scroll,” a composition by Baltimore composer Will Redman, since it’s on paper that measures 8 feet long, 8 inches wide. It takes even longer to digest.

Although there are four distinct lines of music on the elongated page, indicating at least four players, there’s no specification of instruments.

So how do you perform such a piece? Ask Redman and he’ll just say: “That’s up to you.”

Read the full story.

Via the Post and Courier in Charleston, South Carolina:

“Julia Rugg has joined WINGS for Kids Inc. as chief program officer. She is a former attorney. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County and a law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law.”

See the original announcement.

For some students it’s third grade, for others it’s sixth, and for others it is completely different, but it’s a problem each child encounters at some point in his or her education: a grade that they find uncommonly challenging. Maryland Family Magazine recently reported on the problems children face when a class challenges them an August 15 story entitled “The Grueling Grades.”

What makes a grade tough ranges from lengthy writing assignments to hours of homework. Nancy Rankie Shelton, an associate professor of education, argues that a focus on testing may be part of the problem.

“With the focus on testing the way that it is… it makes it really difficult for teachers and students,” she said. “There’s more and more focus on one right answer and less focus on critical thinking and exploratory education.”

From the Baltimore Sun:

“The Associated Black Charities annual gala, “African-Americans in Corporate Leadership,” recognized Catonsville resident Anita Jackson, economic development director for Baltimore Gas & Electric, during the June 11 event at Martin’s West.”

Read the full story.

In a new column on the popular U.S. politics blog Sabato’s Crystal Ball, UMBC professor Thomas Schaller considers the electoral chances of 2012 presidential hopefuls from the U.S. House of Representatives, given that the last incumbent House member to win the presidency was James Garfield in 1880. In “From the House to the White House? Not So Fast,” Schaller examines past election data and finds, “Despite some significant and even historic House presidential candidates, there is no modern precedent for the Bachmann-Gingrich-McCotter-Paul quartet running in the same cycle for the same party’s presidential nomination.” In the end, he argues, “none of the House Republican candidates is likely to be the 2012 nominee,” but their impact on the Republic presidential contest might still be quite significant. Schaller’s latest Baltimore Sun column also appeared this week, titled “In Majesty of National Parks, an Argument for Collective Action.”

The Social Sciences Forum fall 2011 lecture series presents Jane Junn, professor of political science at the University of Southern California, Monday, September 12, 4 p.m. on the seventh floor of the Albin O. Kuhn Library.

The Constitution Day lecture, “The Constitution and Civil Rights: The Search for Equality in a Multi-Racial America,” is co-sponsored by the Departments of Political Science, Public Policy, Sociology and Anthropology and the Honors College.

The Social Sciences Forum presents topics and perspectives of vital interest to the social sciences community and beyond. Lectures are free and open to the public and will last approximately one hour, followed by a question and answer period and a reception. For more information, call ext. 5-2916.

If you would like to receive announcements about the Social Sciences Forum, email mailto:socsciforum@umbc.edu.

From the Daily Record:

“St. Joseph Medical Center Foundation has appointed two new directors: Ronni Monaghan is the director of development. She has more than a decade of service in Maryland nonprofits, including as director of the Maryland Association of Community Colleges and as a director of institutional research at Johns Hopkins University. Monaghan has a law degree from the University of Baltimore and a master’s degree in policy sciences from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.”

See the original story.

The path to preserving Maryland’s traditional arts and culture sometimes begins when a jazz musician walks through an unlocked door in UMBC’s Fine Arts building.

One of Baltimore’s master jazz musicians, Lafayette Gilchrist ’92, Africana studies, was taking a summer class before his freshman year when he discovered that the building’s piano rooms were left open in the evening. One night, he finally gave in to temptation.

“The very first piano I played was this nine foot Steinway grand piano,” recalls Gilchrist, who had taken no formal lessons before coming to UMBC. “People think I’m lying when I tell them this, but the piano was in a concert hall, all the lights were off and there was a spotlight on it,” he said. “I fell in love. The music moved directly from my body to the instrument and into the air.”

Gilchrist audited composition classes during his time at UMBC and he was even hired to play at campus events. His musical passion and skill also eventually led him to Maryland Traditions – a statewide program that supports efforts to find, share, preserve and sustain traditional arts and culture.

Over the past academic year, Maryland Traditions has forged an exploratory partnership with UMBC that has not only brought Gilchrist back to campus for a March 30 event centered on introducing the program’s artists to the UMBC community, but created classes and events throughout the year.

The university installed Elaine Eff, the program’s co-director, as a folklorist-in-residence in the American studies department. In that role, Eff has connected UMBC students with internship opportunities, created a film series for campus and co-taught a humanities scholars class on Maryland’s traditions with Nicole King, an assistant professor of American studies.

“Elaine is such a force,” observes King. “She’s bringing the energy of the public programming realm here to the university.”

One of Maryland Traditions’ cornerstones is a Master-Apprentice program in which Gilchrist has been working. He first served as an apprentice to jazz saxophonist Carl Grubbs, and now Gilchrist is a mentor himself – advising pianist Ethan Simon (son of The Wire’s creator David Simon.)

Making strong connections is a key to the collaboration’s success. King says that Eff’s connections are invaluable to an American studies department, which has aspirations (especially with the recent establishment of its Orser Center for the Study of Place, Community & Culture at UMBC) to become a center for Baltimore area community studies.

“If we have these relationships with outside organizations and people,” King adds, “we don’t have to re-invent the wheel every time we go to work with the community.”

Eff says that the benefits of UMBC’s own pre-existing networks can’t be overstated. The university’s reach has allowed her to recruit interns for Maryland Traditions, inspire students to turn an analytic eye honed in campus classrooms to their own communities, and tap into the cultural knowledge of UMBC’s ethnic student organizations.

Who knows? Eff may find the next Lafayette Gilchrist practicing in the Fine Arts building after hours. “Every accomplishment we have here has tremendous value in building towards the future,” she concludes.

— Chelsea Haddaway

Aspiring actors and videographers often yearn to be discovered. But three recent UMBC students and alumni aren’t waiting around for a big break. They’ve made their own success by collaborating on a comedy web series called Monday Wednesday Friday (www.facebookwastaken.com).

The skits are performed by former UMBC student Darrell Britt-Gibson (who also appeared as “O-Dogg” in HBO’s The Wire) and Joe King ’09, mechanical engineering, and produced by Tal Levitas ’08, political science and media and communications studies. Each episode is a freestanding story, but there are running themes to the sketches, with Britt-Gibson and King appearing as pilots, sportscasters, CIA agents and even wild animals.

“For the animal shoots, we had to be in make-up for twelve hours,” quips King.

The team for Monday Wednesday Friday is based largely in Los Angeles, the better to be close to the entertainment industry. The series started in January and recently wrapped up its third season of videos, but they are already drawing in other UMBC alumni to the process – including Adam Kurtz ’09, visual arts, who designed the show’s Tumblr website.

The Monday Wednesday Friday trio is also garnering kudos from even better-known UMBC alumni such as Ace of Cakes star Duff Goldman ’97, history, who gave the show a shout out in a recent appearance at Auburn University.

Levitas says that the Monday Wednesday Friday team wants “to create sharp, funny comedy that is written, acted and produced well. We don’t want to present slow, long performances and we’re really serious about tackling this in a new modern medium.”

— Monica Berron ’12