The long Homecoming Weekend was kicked off in a big way on Thursday, October 9, with the annual Alumni Awards Ceremony.

This year, the ceremony was held in the stunning Performing Arts and Humanities Building Concert Hall, with receptions preceding and following the event in the Dance Tech Studio.

Those in attendance were treated to speeches by the honorees, as well as lots of smiles and laughter.

And of all of the quotes about the night, Director of Alumni Relations Stanyell Odom said it best: “This year’s winners are an outstanding representation of UMBC. All of the members of our community should be proud of their accomplishments and contributions to the campus and their respective professions.”

Congratulations, Alumni Awards winners of 2014!

Please enjoy a slideshow of pictures taken at the event by photographer Marlayna Demond ’11.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be introducing you to this year’s Alumni Award winners. The UMBC Alumni Association proudly honors distinguished alumni and faculty for their accomplishments and dedication to UMBC. Today we’re talking with Kaliope Parthemos ‘93, psychology, about her career as Chief of Staff to Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. 

Name: Kaliope Parthemos ’93, psychology
Job Title: Chief of Staff, Office of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
Award Category: Social and Behavioral Sciences

Q: Why did you choose to attend UMBC?

In addition to UMBC’s proximity to home and its affordability, UMBC had a great academic reputation.

Q: Is there a particular class or professor at UMBC who really inspired you?

My externship program with the Choice Program inspired me to pursue a career in public service. It motivated me to pursue a career where real change can happen through my work. A career where I can use my skills, training and advocacy to help others.

Q: What has been the greatest success in your career? The greatest challenge?

I am very proud of being able to serve the citizens of Baltimore City throughout my career, often serving the most vulnerable citizens. Having served as Deputy Mayor for 4 years and now as Chief of Staff of a large U.S. city, I know the decisions made will impact future generations: from school construction plans to new recreation and aquatics centers, to pension reform, to implementing the city’s 10-year financial plan. My greatest challenge has been facing historic budget deficits and dwindling federal resources. I am proud of the fact that when we come into the mayor’s office in 2010, we faced a historic budget deficit of over $121 million without drastically cutting public safety and essential services or raising property taxes.

Q: What are your proudest personal achievements?

Two things: 1. As a first generation Greek American, I was the first person in my family to graduate from college, much less graduate from law school. I am proud of my professional and educational achievements and strive to always give back in my career. 2. A few months after I became Deputy Mayor at the age of 40, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I am proud to say that I am a breast cancer survivor.

Check out the other Alumni Award winners.

Each year, the UMBC Alumni Association presents awards to honor alumni for their professional and personal achievements and service to the University. Throughout the coming weeks, we’ll be introducing you to each award winner individually, but for now, we would like to congratulate them all on their wonderful achievements. 

The UMBC Alumni Association proudly honors these distinguished alumni and faculty for their accomplishments and dedication to the University:

Engineering and Information Technology
Dr. Claudia Pearce ’89 M.S., ’94 Ph.D., Computer Science
Senior Computer Science Authority, NSA

Each year since 1996, The Daily Record takes the time to find and recognize the accomplishments of Maryland’s Top 100 Women. These women are selected based upon their roles as leaders, their involvement in the community and their personal achievements. Receiving this award is an immense honor, one that brings its recipients great satisfaction.

Our alums never cease to amaze us with their successes. UMBC celebrates the fact that three of our alumnae, Kaliope Parthemos ‘93, psychology and Debora Fajer-Smith ’81, political science, were given the Maryland’s Top 100 Women award. Their influential roles as women leaders in their environment has led them to receive this honorable award, and for their contributions to society, we are truly grateful and extremely proud.

Learn more about Maryland’s Top 100 Women.

Back in 2001, Kaliope Parthemos ’93, psychology, got some career advice that has resonated with her over a decade of public service.

Parthemos was clerking for Baltimore Judge John C. Themelis at the time, and she recalls that he turned to her one day and said: “You belong in the courtroom and you belong as an advocate. Don’t be one of those people who talks about how things should be done, but has never actually worked it and lived it. You know the people. You understand the people. Go fight for the people.”

As Baltimore City Deputy Mayor of Economic and Neighborhood Development, Parthemos is now engaged in that advocacy every day. She oversees 17 city agencies, addressing issues from transportation to tourism to the arts – a great fit given her keen appreciation of Baltimore’s cultural institutions and its underground art and music scene. Some of her current projects – including a “Vacants to Value” housing initiative and a push for “healthy food zones” to transform some of Baltimore’s food deserts – have tackled deep-rooted challenges to Baltimore’s public health and safety.

Parthemos sees her own career trajectory as very individual – based on opportunity as much as her longstanding interest in social issues and her passion to serve the needs of Baltimore’s children. After graduating from UMBC and working as a social service caseworker in Baltimore, she took a law degree at the University of Maryland School of Law.

Having grown up in the Baltimore City public school system, she saw her subsequent job as a public defender focusing on juvenile law as a way to effectively serve Baltimore’s youth. When Parthemos left the public defender’s office in 2006, she intended to start her own practice, but public service beckoned again when Stephanie Rawlings-Blake – a friend and colleague who served on Baltimore’s City Council and eventually became mayor in 2010 – recruited her to work in the city’s administration. Reflecting on her time at UMBC, Parthemos says that her experiences with Choice – a UMBC/Shriver Center program that offers youth in Maryland’s juvenile justice system a wide array of resources, counseling, employment skills development, educational support, and after-school and weekend activities – gave her an opportunity to witness first-hand the struggles that many of Baltimore’s children face when unfairly dealt a tough deck in life.

Parthemos’ work with Choice and the Department of Social Services has informed her approach to serving the needs of Baltimore’s children and other residents while also managing the city’s unprecedented budget problems.

“When we came into office we had a $120 million budget deficit,” notes Parthemos. One of her first tasks was negotiating with area non-profit organizations, hospitals, colleges and universities on a controversial “bed tax” to help plug the budget gap. She attributes the success of that effort, which the Daily Record reported will net the city $20.4 million over six years, to balancing the needs of these groups and their value to the city with the need for new revenue.

Parthemos is now enmeshed in another difficult budgetary challenge: assessing how to spend the city’s limited recreation funds to best serve city children. “They don’t deserve a building that’s basically glued together and only has one person at the door that’s basically just allowing kids to come in, with no actual structured activities in place for them,” she says. “What we’re hoping to do is have a smaller number of recreation centers… but ensuring that the kids have a safe environment with structured activities.”

Parthemos says that her training as a lawyer and the educational experiences that enabled her to make friends from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds has been a key to meeting the challenges she faces in city government. She laments that some Baltimore residents do not have such opportunities to meet people outside of their own circles: “It strikes me really profoundly… how limiting that is to one’s ability to grow and one’s ability to see something through someone else’s eyes.” Being an effective public servant, she says, means “understanding the city of Baltimore, understanding the people, understanding the struggles that people have on a daily basis.” It also means combining awareness of those challenges with knowledge about how government agencies “interact with one another in order to create the services and systems that Baltimore City residents require and should have.”

— Dinah Winnick