One of the things that makes UMBC great is how wonderful our alumni, students, faculty, and staff are. Because of these amazing people, UMBC often finds itself “in the news,” so each week, we’ll be sharing with you a round-up of the most newsworthy achievements from our community.

• Dennis Coates and Brad Humphries, economics, have found that sports stadiums depress local wages for workers in other entertainment-related fields.
• The play Kerrmoor, written by Susan McCully, theatre, directed by Eve Muson, theatre, and produced by Baltimore’s own Interrobang and Strand Theatre Companies, will premiere as part of the Women’s Voices Theater Festival on October 29.
• Rebecca Adelman, media & communication studies, comments on the now-iconic image of Aylan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian refugee who drowned off the coast of Turkey, and examines why this particular image from the crisis in Syria invoked such a visceral response where others did not.
• John Rennie Short, public policy, argues that our fire policies are “worsening the damage and increasing the cost” of the wildfires in the Western United States.
• Technical.ly writes on Baltimore’s burgeoning startup culture, and profiles two bwtech@UMBC companies, Fearless Solutions and PaRaBal, that plan to move downtown from the research park later this year.
• UMBC Men’s Soccer edged out a 3-2 win over George Washington.