UMBC’s Center for Global Engagement wishes to remind all international employees and visiting scholars planning international travel during Spring Break to review their travel documents ahead of their departure.
Individuals holding J-1 Exchange Visitor status (including J-1 Professors, Research Scholars, and Short-Term Scholars) must check the validity of the travel validation (signature) on the front of their Form DS-2019. Travel validations remain valid for one year for most J-1 categories, but are only valid for six months for Short-Term Scholars. Additionally, travelers must ensure that their J-1 visa remains valid through the date that they plan to return to the U.S. and passports should be valid for at least six months after the date of reentry.
Employees holding H-1B status must confirm that their H-1B visa will be valid on the date of their planned reentry into the U.S. If employees obtained H-1B status by changing from another nonimmigrant status from within the U.S., then it is important to remember that an H-1B visa is required for reentry to the U.S. after international travel. Additionally, travelers must ensure that their passports are valid for at least six months after the date of reentry.
As we have shared on our Immigration Policy Updates page, the U.S. Department of State recently made changes to its in-person interview policy. The Department’s new policy makes the requirement for an in-person interview a discretionary decision by consular officers; travelers should not assume that their in-person interview will be waived.The in-person interview may add to the time to process a visa renewal. Additionally, visa appointment wait times can fluctuate drastically without warning.
For these reasons, anyone whose visa has expired should carefully consider these factors in planning any potential international travel. Before departing the U.S., travelers without valid visas should work with the U.S. embassy or consulate in their travel destination to determine if they are required to appear for an in-person interview. If an in-person interview is required, travelers should secure an appointment before departing the U.S. We strongly recommend that travelers seek an appointment during the early part of their trip, since there can be unexpected delays in the visa renewal process. Anyone who departs the U.S. with an expired visa will not be able to return until they are issued a new visa.
International employees and scholars should monitor their UMBC email account closely for important messages from the Center for Global Engagement as this is how we will send alerts of any changes in U.S. immigration policy.
Anyone who has questions about their individual travel plans should contact me prior to travel. We wish a safe journey to those choosing to travel during Spring Break, and we hope that all members of our community enjoy the break and come back refreshed and ready to finish out the semester.
Diane Zeenny Ghorayeb
International Scholar Coordinator
Center for Global Engagement
On February 18, 2025, the U.S. Department of State issued updated guidance regarding which applicants for U.S. visas may qualify for a waiver of the in-person interview requirement. This update supersedes previous guidance issued in December 2023. The update lists particular visa types that are eligible for waiver of the in-person interview, including A, G, NATO and TECRO visas.
Relevant to international students and scholars, “applicants who previously held a visa in the same category that expired less than 12 months prior to the new application” are also eligible for an interview waiver. Additionally, such applicants must: be applying for the visa renewal in their country of nationality or residence (home country), never have been refused a visa in the past, and have no apparent or potential ineligibility issues.
Crucially, this policy update establishes that consular officers have the authority and discretion to waive the in-person interview requirement, but they “may still require in-person interviews on a case-by-case basis or because of local conditions.” The update recommends that visa applicants “check embassy and consulate websites for more detailed information about visa application requirements and procedures, and to learn more about the embassy or consulate’s operating status and services.”
Our advice continues to be that students and scholars should plan ahead as much as possible for any necessary visa renewals. Because the U.S. Department of State now makes the requirement for an in-person interview a discretionary decision by consular officers, applicants should not assume that their in-person interview will be waived. Moreover, visa appointment wait times can fluctuate drastically without warning.
The Department of Mathematics and Statistics along with Dr. William LaCourse, Dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, join the entire UMBC community in mourning the passing of Professor Emeritus Thomas Seidman on August 14, 2024.
A native of New York, Dr. Seidman earned a B.A. from the University of Chicago, an M.A. from Columbia University Teachers College, and an M.S. and Ph.D. from New York University. He worked at Boeing Scientific Research Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore Lab in the 1960s, and held positions at UCLA, the University of Wisconsin, Wayne State University, and Carnegie Mellon University. He joined the UMBC faculty as an associate professor in 1972. In January 2017, he retired after 45 years of distinguished scholarship and service to UMBC, with wide-ranging contributions to the mathematics community.
During his time at UMBC, Tom was an esteemed and omnipresent entity in the department. In addition to his extensive contributions to the intellectual life of the department, Tom also played a strong role in the department. He wrote the departmental bylaws on the chair election procedure and was the promotion and tenure (P&T) committee chair for a long time. In 1992, he served as the acting Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.
He was a prolific mathematician with well over a hundred publications (169 with 69 co-authors from MathSciNet) and a Google Scholar citation count of over 4000. His area of research was “all things applied analysis,” which included partial differential equations, control theory and semigroup theory, and was often applied to various mathematical modeling problems. He also contributed to the field of operations research. It was almost customary for him to kick off the math colloquium series, as well as the differential equations seminar series every semester, by being the first person to volunteer to speak. There was a special seat reserved for him in the front row of MP401 from where he would dim and brighten the room lights during seminars and colloquia. His colleagues remarked that they could always count on Tom to pose insightful questions to the speaker after the talk.
Despite his mathematical stature, Tom was a very friendly and unassuming colleague. Conversations with him always wound up centering around an interesting mathematical problem, whether from first year calculus or advanced functional analysis. Tom was also an enthusiastic mentor to many junior faculty. He collaborated with multiple colleagues in the department and also with many others from North America, Europe, Australia, and South America. He spent the 1980-81 school year as a visiting professor at the University of Nice, and during one sabbatical, he visited seven countries on five continents. Tom had an Erdős number of three.
Tom married his late wife, Dr. Marjorie Shriro, in 1969. He is survived by his son, Gregory, daughter-in-law, Carrie, and grandchildren, Ren and Avery. He will be greatly missed. Services for Dr. Seidman will be held at the Owen Brown Interfaith Center in Columbia, MD on Saturday, January 11, 2025.
“How do you ground the American experience in something you can get your hands around?” asks Orser. “I always thought it was helpful to bring things down to a certain scale. Maybe because that’s as much as I could try to get my mind around, but also it is because in some ways, that’s where we live our lives.”
– W. Ed Orser, quoted in Locale Hero, UMBC Review, by Richard Byrne
It is with great sadness that we share the news that W. Edward (Ed) Orser passed away on Monday, January 8, 2024. Ed was a beloved professor and researcher in the Department of American Studies at UMBC for over forty years. Upon his retirement in 2010, and in his honor, the Orser Center for the Study of Community, Place, and Culture was established at UMBC to foster innovative collaborations among scholars, students, and local community organizations across the disciplines whose research and teaching explore place-based study, especially focused on the Baltimore region.
Ed Orser earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of New Mexico and came to UMBC in 1969, just four years after the university was formed, as one of the founding faculty members of the Department of American Studies. He served numerous terms as chair of the department and developed foundational courses still taught today.
Ed’s teaching and research interests were always closely connected. His courses on “Community in American Culture” and “American Environments: Landscape and Culture” not only became central parts of the American Studies curriculum, but led to a variety of research projects with students and to themes that became the focus of his own scholarship. Ed’s work as a publicly-engaged scholar in the local community was an inspiration for the Minor in Public Humanities for the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), which is fittingly located in the Orser Center in American Studies.
Ed’s publications explore the social and cultural dynamics of the Baltimore region. His examination of the phenomenon of massive racial change in West Baltimore during the 1950s and 1960s led to the first book-length study of blockbusting and its consequences in post-World War II cities: Blockbusting in Baltimore: The Edmondson Village Story (University Press of Kentucky, 1994, 1997). Blockbusting in Baltimore was an influential, and widely imitated, text that is still cited in emerging scholarship on Baltimore and cities like it.
A collaborative research and teaching project with Professor Joseph Arnold of the History Department, resulted in an on-campus exhibition and the co-authored publication of From Village to Suburb: Catonsville, 1880-1940 (Donning Publishing Company, 1989). His first book, Searching for a Viable Alternative: The Macedonia Cooperative Community, 1937-1958 (Burt Franklin, 1981) explored the effort by a group of pacifists to establish an alternative community in North Georgia during and following World War II.
Articles on related topics have appeared in such journals as American Studies, Church History, the Maryland Historical Magazine, the International Journal of Oral History, the Public Historian, and the Journal of Urban History. Ed’s interest in environmental history in the Baltimore area resulted in publication of The Gwynns Falls: Baltimore Greenway to the Chesapeake Bay (The History Press, 2008) and the article, “A Tale of Two Park Plans: The Olmsted’s Vision for Baltimore and Seattle, 1903” (Maryland Historical Magazine, Winter 2003). His public history activity included co-authorship of The Gwynns Falls Trail Master Plan (with Diana Balmori, et al., 1995).
Ed received the UMBC Presidential Teaching Award in 1999 and the University System of Maryland Regents Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2003. The Baltimore Historical Society conferred Historian Honors recognition upon him in 2007.
Though deeply committed to Baltimore and UMBC, Ed also taught American Studies in a variety of international settings. In 1990-1991 he served as Senior Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Zagreb in Yugoslavia. In 2007, he taught in the American Studies Department at the University of Swansea in Wales. Prior to coming to UMBC, Ed served as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer teacher in Ethiopia. In his substantial service role at UMBC he was President of the Faculty Senate (1996-8) and a member of numerous university committees.
In retirement Ed served as president of the Friends of Maryland’s Olmsted Parks & Landscapes, a preservation and advocacy organization, and as Coordinator of the Urban Resources Initiative Internship program, which places interns with projects in Baltimore’s Department of Recreation and Parks and the Parks & People Foundation.
Ed and his wife Jo lived for many years in the Hunting Ridge neighborhood of Baltimore and he was known to bike to the UMBC campus. Ed and Jo recently moved to Charlestown Senior Living in Catonsville, where Ed continued to enjoy connecting with UMBC alumni and faculty.
Ed will be remembered for his contributions to how we understand cities, especially Baltimore, and issues of environmental justice. He influenced generations of students and mentored many faculty members. His kindness, humility, and generosity will be greatly missed in the Department of American Studies, the Orser Center, and across the UMBC campus.
We send our sincere condolences to Ed’s beloved family and invite the UMBC community to attend a memorial service celebrating Ed’s long and rich life at 11 a.m. on Saturday, January 20, at Salem Lutheran Church, 905 Frederick Road in Catonsville. All who knew and loved him are invited to attend. In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions be made to Salem Lutheran Church (www.Salem-Catonsville.org/) or the Charlestown Scholars’ Fund (www.ccicharlestown.org/giving/scholars-fund).
In honor of Ed’s long contributions to the fields of urban and American studies, the Department of American Studies and the Orser Center are co-sponsoring a Humanities Forum lecture by noted urban historian Davarian Baldwin on May 1, 2024. American Studies & the Orser Center will continue to find ways to recognize the work of Ed Orser and his engagement with the study of place and community in the Baltimore region. A donation can be made to support that work in Ed’s name on the Department’s Giving Page.
You can read Ed’s obituary here.