Although we may still be limited in terms of opportunities to physically visit campus, there are still many ways UMBC alumni can engage with the community. In a recent chat with UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski, Alumni Association President Brian Frazee ’11, political science, and M.P.P. ’12, the vice president of government affairs for the Maryland Hospital Association, shares why it’s so important to stay connected. And no, you don’t have to live next door to do it.

Frazee: You know, from the very beginning, I was so fortunate to have a great experience at UMBC. When people talk about UMBC they say that you get individualized attention, that people care about you, it’s a community. I felt that way right away. I was a Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar, and I did the B.A./M.P.P. program and I went straight through, stayed for five years to finish my master’s in public policy. And then I actually bought a house right next to UMBC. I did, I lived right next to the campus. I thought, now there’s really no excuse for me not to give back to this university. So I participated in every opportunity I could—alumni events, Homecoming, mentoring students, and staying connected with my professors.  

A few years went by doing that, and then Dr. Art Johnson, the former provost and director of the Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars Program said, “You should think about joining the alumni association board of directors.” Long story short, I applied, he nominated me, and I got on the board and the rest is history, and now I feel that my role is really twofold. Number one is to keep my fellow alumni engaged with UMBC. And two, is encouraging my fellow alumni to give back to the university, whether that’s financially and or through their time of volunteering. 

Hrabowski:  That’s wonderful. UMBC is all about stories, and I love hearing about those experiences and the memories of connecting to UMBC and the Sondheim program. And Brian, you reflect the significance of that program as we think about producing leaders in our state…and thinking about the whole picture, who are we as a campus, as a university, and how do alumni connect to the rest of campus and to the larger society? Your story is a great example of alumni engagement and the reasons why giving back is so important. It’s inspiring to me.

Frazee:  The past year has been incredibly challenging for obvious reasons, but it has also presented us incredible opportunities to learn from what we have been through. I think one of the greatest ways we can do that is through the virtual opportunities that we now have learned work very well. Retrievers Connect is one example of that. It is a new platform where folks can make those virtual connections from alumni to alumni, to current students, to faculty, or to any member of the UMBC community. It’s been very active…and it’s been interesting to connect with old friends and old professors in this new way. 

Our alumni are busy like everyone else, and they are all over the world, which is a great thing. So the ability for us to really expand our network of alumni beyond just the folks that happen to live in this area has been huge. We now have alumni board members that live in Atlanta. We have another one coming from Chicago; before that just wouldn’t have been possible. It’s wonderful. Nothing replaces the in-person networking opportunities, but at same time, how can we leverage the virtual environment to connect more people? And how do we find that right balance when things go back to “normal.”  

There are other ways, too. There are so many alumni chapters that are very active, depending on your interest area. You can reach directly out to a board member as a first step to engagement. You can connect with any member of the alumni engagement staff. Many alumni may not know that there is an entire staff that is dedicated to alumni relations and they are incredible. And when we are able, be sure to come to events, or connect with your favorite professor or your old department. There are a multitude of ways to stay involved. You just have to figure out what’s right for you.

Hrabowski: And we’ll look forward to seeing you when you do. You know, we always remember how people make us feel, and how universities make us feel. We really do. And either the university tells students in so many ways that they’re special and they will be fine and to be their best selves or they don’t. We are determined to do that. Thank you, Brian, for all you do. We’re so proud of you.

Learn more about Retrievers Connect and other ways of engaging with Retriever alums at alumni.umbc.edu.

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Header image: President Hrabowski and Brian Frazee walk on campus in early spring 2021. Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11.

In music, science, and theatre classes, in research labs, in conservation efforts, and almost every corner of academia, there’s a growing awareness and dedication to community-engaged scholarship. How are different disciplines training up social justice-minded students to do no harm to the communities they work in? With one thriving relationship at a time.

A tree grows in Baltimore. Its roots push against the surface, its newly budding canopy blocks some of the dreary rain on this last day in March. The aphorism promises flowers soon, but the daffodils are already here, lush and golden against the wet grass. Rooted in this environment, the tree struggles to absorb water in a heavily-paved area. It faces possible invasive species, the whims of developers, a strike of lightning or disease.

These outside influences affect the flourishing of this tree, and the flourishing of the neighborhood it’s rooted in is just as interconnected. A tension, a balance, a system of reciprocity.  

In Franklin Square Park, on a parcel of land donated by developers to the southwest Baltimore neighborhood in 1839, this tree and 96 others were recently surveyed by UMBC students at the request of the Franklin Square Neighborhood Association. They wanted a catalog of their natural resources, but also a record of what they’ve lost—only seven of the original 149 trees on a 1916 map of the park remain.

Working with members of the neighborhood, Mariya Shcheglovitova, Ph.D. ’20, geography and environmental systems, and Bee Brown ’21, environmental science, and other UMBC student researchers began their work. Their project would rapidly expand from an arboreal park survey to a community-focused project that invited local kids to participate in a scavenger hunt and other activities to build on the students’ existing connection to the park. As Shcheglovitova and Brown discovered, “understanding park quality is dynamic and can only be partially captured in a survey of the park features. Historic accounts and a focus on what happens in a park can enrich our understanding of park quality.”

What began in Franklin Square as an effort to catalog trees—separate trunks with roots and canopies equally intermingling—broadened to encompass the community who interacts with the park the most. Acknowledging this interconnectedness in research of all types at UMBC is not new to academia but is becoming a more prominent approach to research as different disciplines wrestle with ways to train up social justice-minded students and do no harm to the communities they work in.

Bridging campus and community

Community-engaged research gives a name to this method. At UMBC, most service-learning and community engagement experiences are facilitated through The Shriver Center, which was founded nearly 30 years ago. Director Michele Wolff explains that in the early days, the Center emphasized “that higher ed institutions shouldn’t tell communities what they need. The partnership should be one of mutuality and reciprocity. So our focus should be listening to community partners, hearing where their gaps are and then being a resource to work with them to fill the gaps.”

This is still the Center’s primary mission, and in January 2020, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching honored UMBC with its distinguished Carnegie Community Engagement Classification, acknowledging UMBC faculty, staff, students, and partners for their deep commitment to strengthening the bonds between campus and community. 

As part of the application process, more than 120 campus partners and dozens of community partners underwent a rigorous self-study. Along the way, they found that in music, science, and theatre classes, in research labs, in conservation efforts, and almost every corner of academia, there’s a growing awareness and dedication to community-engaged scholarship. Wolff sees this movement come alongside “an increased appreciation of disparities, racial inequities, and other social justice issues. At the same time, people have been working on increasing appreciation and inclusion of community members as experts, or thinking about what counts as scholarly work.”

Some departments are working on ways to adopt these methods, and others have this ethos baked into their core. American studies, one of the original majors at UMBC, calls community-based research and engagement one of the “signatures” of the major. With its joint focus on “coupled natural and human systems,” geography and environmental systems (GES) is another department that recognizes the necessity and power of community-engaged scholarship.

Slow scholarship

“In the field of environmental justice, it’s absolutely assumed and expected that you’re going to do community-engaged research,” says Dawn Biehler, a GES professor who first became aware of the concept as a graduate student. “More and more people are realizing that this is important and a good way of doing research, but to do it really well takes so much time and you have to be brave, in a way.” 

As an academic, says Biehler, you have to honestly assess if your career—the timing of publications and tenure-track expectations—will suffer from this process. “It takes time to build genuine relationships with the community,” she continues. After engagement and research, then you still need to publish, and all of this takes more time than many instructors have allotted in their balance of research and teaching. “The other thing you have to recognize is that the people in the community you’re working with, they’re exposed to risks all the time, just a different set of risks,” says Biehler.

Institutionally, UMBC is changing to reflect community-engaged research as a priority. In May 2019, the Faculty Senate successfully proposed new language to include evaluation of community-engaged scholarship in the promotion and tenure policy for all departments, says Donald Snyder, chair of the committee that spearheaded the policy change and a lecturer in media and communications studies.

Still, even with the university’s acknowledgement of this methodology, why would professors or students voluntarily choose the inherently riskier, if not just slower, approach to research? 

Wolff highlights two affective or social emotional competencies she hopes students take from their time in community work—perspective taking and shared humanness. “What better place to develop and grow (those competencies) than in experiences where you have the opportunity to work with others who are different from yourself and in contexts that are different from the ones you’re used to?” asks Wolff.

Intersectional research

As a doctoral student, Shcheglovitova was known as “the person who cared about trees and social justice in the city,” so she wasn’t surprised when undergraduate student Bee Brown approached her to collaborate on a research project that interwove those topics.

Biehler’s multi-year connection with the Franklin Square community, says Shcheglovitova, gave neighborhood folks someone to approach who was willing to listen and respond about local environmental issues and allowed her and Brown to more easily gain the trust of the people involved.

Scott Kashnow, vice president of the Franklin Square Neighborhood Association, wanted an updated survey of the park’s trees that could inform future plantings in the park. Looking at historical photos and a 1916 map of the park, it’s clear a lot has changed in the past 100 years. Park features have disappeared or degraded—the once bubbling fountain is planted over, the park bathroom is boarded shut, and many of the area’s ash trees were decimated by an invasive insect species. 

After the survey was completed, Kashnow came up with the idea to invite students from a local school to celebrate the work and take part in the ongoing research. Shcheglovitova, Brown, and Biehler took the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding into community relationships with the park space.

“This is a way research can actually be helpful to the community,” says Kashnow, a Franklin Square resident for 14 years. “Through various organizations, we’ve been studied so much and oftentimes the studies don’t make any tangible difference in people’s lives. And people are still very happy to participate, you know, everybody has opinions, they love to talk about them. But does the research actually translate to some difference in people’s lives?”

Orchestrating social change

Regardless of the discipline, successful community-engaged scholarship depends on sustained relationships over time. Brian Kaufman, associate professor of music, sees grade school music teachers as great examples of this practice. Unlike other academic subjects in grade school where students have new instructors each year, music teachers interact with the same student musicians year after year. So it naturally follows for Kaufman that his music education students at UMBC should commit to a school for longer than a semester. 

Through the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra initiative OrchKids (and with the support of The Shriver Center), UMBC students work with Kaufman at Booker T. Washington Middle School in West Baltimore for two years at a time. “It’s unusual for student teachers to spend four semesters at the same school, but to really build relationships with students, to see them develop, this is necessary,” Kaufman says, not just for the middle school students, but his UMBC students as well. 

Pre-COVID, (although they have continued the program virtually) this would mean seven to 10 site visits to the school per semester. UMBC students spend the first half of the visit observing the teacher or engaging with the class, and the last hour spent in guided reflection. 

“To me,” shares Kaufman, “that’s where the juicy part comes in.” Before heading back to campus in a Shriver Center van, Kaufman says, “we sit down and talk about what we learned. And we really try to unpack our experience and make connections to some bigger issues—issues of equity, and these larger discussions about teaching in the field and service-learning in the city and how these things tie together. That’s where the real richness comes in for the students.”

Science on the stage

If music education lends itself naturally to following a community-engaged process, what about cross-disciplinary initiatives like Erin Lavik and Lynn Watson’s project Theatre Arts and Communicating Science? Lavik, professor in the department of chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering, and Watson, a theatre professor, collaborated with Arbutus Middle School science teachers to use theatre skills—playwriting, improvisation, and voice/speech—to help their young students tell stories about their capstone science projects.

Lavik had personally experienced the powerful interplay between STEM and theatre in her own studies, she says, “So I wanted to create a program that helped college students tell the story of their science and let them engage with students in middle school who were vulnerable to losing their passion in science.” When she approached Watson about the idea, the theatre professor was  thrilled. “We shared an understanding of the power of theatrical storytelling that can bring communities of people together,” says Watson.

Prior to the program, the UMBC undergraduate and graduate engineering and theatre students spent a preparatory weekend workshopping with science teachers at Arbutus Middle School. Lavik and Watson saw the Retrievers’ confidence and community-building efforts gain steam over the weekend which led to a more successful outcome when they worked with the middle schoolers.

The students ultimately used a playwriting exercise to understand the plight of endangered species and improv scenarios to demonstrate the real world effects of Newton’s Laws of Motion—all of this performed with joy, says Watson. She noticed that the experience also “had a tremendous impact on the UMBC students in terms of confidence in their abilities as leaders and their ability to take action in contributing to the wider community, including outside the university.”

Before their joint project in January 2020, Lavik and Watson were both interested in the concept of community-engaged programming, but they attribute the successful launch of their vision to The Shriver Center. After the fact, Lavik observed that community-engaged scholarship can increase student retention—the stipends attached to the program, made possible by a Charlesmead Initiative for Arts Education grant, afforded students the time to participate. “I hope that over time, we will be able to show that programs that integrate arts and science can help students thrive at UMBC, and bringing these programs to our communities can increase the number of students, particularly from underrepresented populations, who can begin to see themselves as scientists and engineers with joy.”

Changing university culture

UMBC’s Center for Democracy and Civic Life has been instrumental in creating a campus culture of an engaged community—promoting equitable off-campus partnerships while emphasizing the importance of starting that process within the communities at UMBC. The Center’s Director David Hoffman, Ph.D. ’13, language, literacy, and culture, and Assistant Director Romy Hübler ’09, MLL, M.A. ’11, intercultural communications, Ph.D. ’15, LLC, say that an initiative that precedes the formalization of the Center is the BreakingGround grant program.

The origins of BreakingGround came from an effort to organize a UMBC Civic Year in 2012, says Hoffman, when “we discovered all of these people who were doing amazing things.” Greg Simmons, M.P.P. ’04, vice president of institutional advancement, challenged the group to think bigger, remembers Hoffman. “He said, ‘you know, you’re talking about this as a year, but this really is about UMBC’s identity. This is a place where we come together because we want to change the world and we want to change it in particular ways that align with values like inclusive excellence.’”

Hoffman, along with Wolff and others, recognized that community-engaged work was happening in classrooms, at service-learning sites, and in other campus settings, but there wasn’t a unifying structure for like-minded people to find each other easily. Through a sustaining grant from the provost’s office, BreakingGround has offered grants to 80 applicants to infuse courses and programs with opportunities for students to develop civic agency, and to shape their experiences so they’re not “just a one-off community service project, but an opportunity for lasting community engagement,” says Hoffman.

Hübler joined the BreakingGround working group in 2012 as the community liaison for the Graduate Student Association, and as a result of her involvement changed the topic of her dissertation. “I noticed among graduate students from all these different disciplines that many of us were drawn to our topics of study because we either had personal experience with them or we lived in communities where we would observe the effects of bad policy on people and centuries of oppression and marginalization.”

In 2013, UMBC began sending delegations to the Imagining America conference, which, according to the group’s mission, brings together people in higher education, non profit organizations, and activists to “imagine, study, and enact a more just and liberatory ‘America’ and world.” Imagining America’s leaders were struck by the holistic vision described by UMBC participants. “They saw how we were changing the university’s culture,” says Hübler. “Like this was not just one faculty member doing this in this discipline and another one over here, and they’re not communicating, but they could see that this was an organized effort.” 

As a result, UMBC was asked to bring the 2015 conference to Baltimore. Hübler and others began to reach out to partners to co-organize workshops around the city. “What is the story that we want to tell of Baltimore?” Hübler would ask. “We didn’t want it to be UMBC saying, ‘this is the story,’ right? But we came up with the story together.” In between planning the conference and the actualization of the work, Freddie Gray died in police custody in April 2015. Uprisings shook the city and caused UMBC to conduct a campus-wide inventory of Baltimore-based engagement, and that accounting ultimately strengthened the intentionality to focus community-based activities on racial equity. One of the most significant outcomes of that reckoning would come in 2017, with the establishment of the Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation Campus Center at UMBC, which works to break down racial hierarchies with a focus on the university’s service-learning and community-engagement partnerships in Baltimore City.

Importantly, Hübler notes that UMBC is, in fact, its own community and should apply the same community-engaged best practices internally. “There are challenges we have,” she says, “and UMBC can be better. We are constantly making and co-creating UMBC. Students are not just customers floating through to get a degree, but we all have responsibility for our own community. And if we want to co-create our space, there are skills, knowledge, and dispositions that we need that are pretty much the same as what we need when we work with communities elsewhere.”

Good stewardship

Alumna Briana Yancy always envisioned herself following a typical research path, as she thought of it, a scientist in a lab. So she was surprised when she found herself on her third trip to the Bahamas as a part of biological sciences Professor Kevin Omland’s lab studying the Bahama Oriole. Yancy and the other students working with Omland partnered with The Bahamas National Trust, and she says the local community was always excited to talk about their orioles, showing them nests and asking insightful questions.

“I started to see how important this community connection is,” says Yancy, now the diversity work group staffer at the Chesapeake Bay Program, a collective of organizations whose shared mission is to protect the Chesapeake Bay. “It’s important that scientists and researchers learn how to work with local communities and how to talk about the things that they’re working on, especially for the environmental field, because it impacts everybody. If you can’t articulate that, people aren’t going to care and they’re not going to try to make a difference or get involved.”

Yancy ’19, M27, environmental science, says Omland set an example in the Bahamas that she’s tried to emulate since in her own work. “He always made sure to invite people along, to take the time to explain things to people, and also stop to get their insight,” says Yancy. As an intern at the National Aquarium checking water quality in the harbor, Yancy remembers, “people would always come up to me and be like, ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ And I would take the time to explain to them, ‘I’m doing this. This is what this machine is called. And this is how I do it, the numbers I’m looking for, and why it’s important.’” 

In her current position, Yancy sees an increased attention toward community-engaged research as organizations like the Chesapeake Bay Program ask themselves how they can reach a more diverse audience. “If we keep getting engagement from the same people from the same walks of life, we’re going to miss things,” says Yancy. “And we really can’t afford to miss anything. Climate change is now and the environment is struggling. And I think that, especially with COVID, we’re seeing more clearly the intricate connection between environmental health and public health.”

Moving toward the ideal

What does it mean to engage in relationships that encourage mutual flourishing? How can the roots and the canopy both benefit and nourish the good of the one tree? This is a question The Shriver Center and their partners at UMBC have been asking themselves and the thousands of students who use the Center’s service-learning structure to engage with the surrounding Baltimore County and City communities for the past 30 years.

Wolff sees community-engaged scholarship as a step away from transactional partnerships to transformational ones. The ideal, she says, should be to include the community from start to finish so everyone benefits.

“We’re recognizing community members as experts and moving forward with a goal of reciprocity and mutuality in our work,” says Wolff. “Part of the ideal is having community members be a part of every aspect of the activity. That’s where we want to get to. I think we’re moving toward that ideal.”

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Illustrations by Rebecca Bradley.

Dimmed lights, Twizzlers, and a big bowl of popcorn. Most of us may not have had the traditional movie theatre experience this year, but in living rooms across the country this year, many have found much-needed solace and escape through television and movies. Behind the scenes, Retrievers working in Hollywood as writers, producers, and directors have embraced the challenges of the moment—and remained ever-thankful for their audiences and creative roots. UMBC Magazine editor Jenny O’Grady sat down with five alumni working in entertainment to hear more about how they got their start, and what has kept them going creatively during this unusual time. 

UMBC Magazine: What has it been like to continue working during the pandemic in order to keep up with demand for entertainment? What does that look like? 

Name: Kara Corthron ’99, theatre
Job:  Author, playwright, and TV writer
About: Author of The Truth of Right Now and Daughters of Jubilation. Plays include What Are You Worth?, Welcome to Fear City, AliceGraceAnon, and Holly Down in Heaven. Writes for the TV drama-thrillers You (Netflix), The Flight Attendant (HBO-Max), and M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant (Apple TV+). A multiyear MacDowell Fellow and resident playwright at New Dramatists.
Where do you turn for inspiration? Toni Morrison, Shirley Jackson, and Octavia Butler. Korean horror films.
Your favorite creative spot at UMBC? AOK Library’s “colorful Alice in Wonderland chairs” 
Fave pandemic entertainment? Search Party, Schitt’s Creek, Gilmore Girls

Kara Corthron: Well, I’ll just say, I feel really fortunate that I’ve been able to work, because 40 percent of our country is experiencing food insecurity. But, the biggest shift for me in TV writing was that everything became Zoom meetings…and I still am not in love with it. We’ve found a way to make it work and be productive, but I still would much rather be with humans, and I miss that a lot.

Brandon Spells: On the network side, making that transition from our office on Sunset Boulevard, to taking pitches on Zoom, it’s just a different energy when you’re in the room with talent, and taking pitches and getting excited about things…it’s just different. Initially we stopped all productions, so that was tough. Once we got the green light, we first started productions in countries overseas, and then slowly, during the summer, we started picking up back in America. Last fall we were going nonstop, trying to catch up, because there was a gap from when we stopped. This year, you’re probably going to see that things kind of slow down, as far as the launch cadence. But maybe that’s not a bad thing, because we come out with something every week, and maybe we don’t need to launch a million things in one weekend. 

Brian Dannelly: For me, when the virus came on, we were writing all the scripts, prepping everything, trying to figure out the COVID situation and trying to be ahead of it, so that when we were able to get back on set we’d be ready to go. We had no idea when we were going back, and so during that time period I had a physical, and my doctor didn’t want me flying, so I had to give up the show (In the Dark), which was terrible and sad…and really scary, too. I went into the pandemic with the hopes of coming out a better person, a better creator. We’re so lucky because there are so many people who are really struggling, so you’re trying to balance that with how you can use this time for good. And so I helped In the Dark transition to the third season, and then I just started writing like a crazy person. I became a whole food plant-based vegan, I learned how to cook. I’m adopted, so I found all my brothers and sisters—there’s nine of them. And I just really tried to kind of reconnect with who I was when I started the business, who I was when I was at UMBC, and what got me into the business, and I feel like so far I’ve come out in a place that’s really good.

Cat Mihos: For me, it’s been fascinating watching the budgets balloon for COVID compliance. We have two shows in pre-production for Amazon right now that are going to be filmed in Scotland, so we were trying to share things, like catering, so we have one bubble, also trying to make new workarounds so we use the same COVID compliance officers—we’re trying to work smarter. It’s been a year. Brandon, I get it, Netflix has definitely been our biggest supporter, and we love working with them. It comes down to Zoom meetings, our writer rooms are all remote, so if there’s any technical glitch…where you’re just frozen on a screen, ugh. It’s learning to cope, that’s the best skill on any set that you can have. I did work on Brian’s first couple films when he was in AFI (American Film Institute), so we have quite an old friendship. We’re old. But it’s lovely to have that support just right down the street. 

UMBC Magazine: Is there anyone who particularly influenced you, or some other takeaway from your time at UMBC, that you still look to now in your careers?

Name: Brian Dannelly ’97, visual arts
Job: Writer, director, and producer
About:  Executive producer and the producing director on The CW’s sleeper hit, In the Dark. Directed shows for Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, MTV, ABC, and CBS, including Scream, Sweet Vicious, Haters Back Off, Pushing Daisies, United States of Tara, and Weeds. Co-wrote and directed the cult teen film, Saved, and directed Struck by Lightning. Currently co-creating an animated series called Humperdinck.
Where do you turn for inspiration? Whatever personal crisis I’m going through at the moment. 
Your favorite creative spot at UMBC? Kathy O’Dell’s office. 
Fave pandemic entertainment? GENERA+ION on HBO Max

Dannelly: You know, I was a little broken when I got there, which is interesting because UMBC really put me back together again. My first college was Morgan State University, so it was there I made my first film at a satellite program that they had in Towson. I went from being vice president of my class to failing out because I was so freaked out about making this film. And so I struggled for like two years. It didn’t make sense that I could do this, because at the time we didn’t have internet, and we weren’t connected all over the world. It was like, I’m in this small town, how do I go from here to Hollywood? 

I knew that John Waters edited his early films at UMBC, and I knew they had a lot of film equipment. I went to a meeting there, I was so scared. And so UMBC said come on in, come do this. And I had teachers like Kathy O’Dell, Holly Rubenstein, Jill Johnson—these women carried me. In fact, I was so broken when I went there, when it came to applying for a master’s degree, I applied to all of the film schools that I thought I could get into, and Kathy O’Dell sat me down and said, “You apply to the best schools.” And I applied to AFI (the American Film Institute) literally running to the train station in Washington, D.C., to put my application in the mail, because I was late and it had to be in by that night. And I never thought in a million years that I would get into that school. So, not only did they help me tap into my creativity and be who I am, but they helped put me back together again.

McKenzie Chinn: For me, part of my identity as a creative person is working in multiple spaces, in multiple disciplines. I’m still an actor, but I’ve forged more space for my own projects, my own writing. I have a poetry collective. And all of these things I do in equal measure. When I was at UMBC, I was an actor, in a very conservatory-like program. And I think the thing that I learned the most, was a level of discipline that allowed me to succeed as much as I have thus far, and that work ethic was reinforced by all my instructors in the Theatre Department. But I think it has been applying that discipline to carving out space for my own ideas and my own stories, and taking my own agency as an artist, especially as a Black person and a woman in this world, that have really benefited me as an artist and advanced my career beyond what I imagined it could be. And it has been that rebellion, frankly, that I think has allowed me to be able to pivot in the ways that I have during the pandemic. Theater is on pause right now, and so we’re all finding ways to do what we do in a different space.

Corthron: In my senior year, I was part of a group that just started writing, and were kind of performing our own works and listening. And we’re like it would be really cool to have a playwriting class, but we don’t have one. So we went to the department head who was Wendy Salkind at that time, who is lovely. We told her we were really interested in writing, and she created a class for us. She found a teacher, and they added it to the curriculum. It was really cool. I feel like she saw that what we were getting wasn’t quite enough, so she thought let’s try and figure out a way to make it enough.

I’ve never thought of myself as one thing, either, which is hard, because people really want you to do your one thing, stay in your lane. And eventually I realized I’m a writer, so I write. But whether that’s playwriting, whether that’s novels—I write young adult fiction—or it’s TV or film, I finally got to a place that’s taken a long time, to realize I can do all of it, it’s my choice if I want to be exhausted. It’s really up to me. So I think that some of that was instilled in me at UMBC.

Name: Brandon Spells ’14, media and communication studies
Job: Creative assistant at Netflix, unscripted content
About: Worked on BET’s “106 & Park” in New York City and on productions with Nat Geo, Sirens Media, and E! In L.A., produced shows like The Doctors, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and The Bachelor. Today, develops and produces impactful global content for Netflix.
Where do you turn for inspiration? My mom! She is the reason I never gave up on my goals.
Your favorite creative spot at UMBC? Professor Kimberly Moffitt’s “Baltimore in Film” classroom
Fave pandemic entertainment? My favorite reality show The Real World

Spells:So my freshman year, I was a graphic design major, and I was supposed to do this portfolio, but of course being a freshman, I procrastinated and I threw something together and submitted it to the program. And I didn’t get in. I wanted to be a cartoonist, graphic design—that was always what I was going to do. And so when I didn’t get into the program, it was a crossroads moment.What other things do I like to do? What are my other passions?

And I remembered me and my friends would shoot and edit YouTube videos and stuff, and so I was like I kind of like entertainment, but I don’t know anyone who is in the entertainment industry. I don’t even know how you get into making films, or any of that stuff. Nobody in my family ever did that. And so I started going into media communications. And the first class that I took was Baltimore Film with Kimberly Moffitt. I enjoyed it, but I just wasn’t looking at film or television in a very analytical way. Professor Moffitt, she broke things down in such a creative way, it really helped me see things I hadn’t thought of before. And I literally use those techniques today. Giving notes on a cut, and kind of using the analytical eye to look at things creatively, I use that everyday. And I honestly think it started with that class, because watching The Wire, watching Crybaby, she was breaking each scene down and why this led to this, and I’m like how? I would never have thought of something like that. And so it was really a full circle moment for me.

Mihos: I was a photography major. I worked in the darkroom at UMBC, and Alan Rutberg was one of my teachers, and I was very sad to hear we lost him two years ago. When I was 12; I built a darkroom with my dad. So it was always about analog film, and poor Alan, really I put him through the paces. I was adamant, why do I have to learn digital, there’s still going to be film. He said nope, and he pulled me into the digital age. He was great, he was challenging. Chris Peregoy, as well, was excellent. Very different teachers, but they both contributed important parts of my photographic life, which I do still use. I’ve done photo shows, I need to return to that. Digital is still not my true love. I had sort of two dads telling me digital is the future, get with it, forget complaining about it, just go. And Peregoy was like no, keep your analog film love, because it is still there, it’s just almost gone.

UMBC Magazine: Why do you think entertainment has been such a unifying force during the pandemic, and what are you hearing from people that keeps you going creatively?

Spells:I feel like some of our stuff has definitely provided people with escapism, because everyone’s cooped up in their house, they’re not traveling, not experiencing things. And so being able to just get out of your little box and put yourself somewhere else for a little bit is always helpful. Love is Blind, for instance, people loved that show. And I feel like people were unified in people’s misery, craziness, misfortune. They’re like this is so crazy, this is so wild. But having that connectivity with people, especially when you feel so far away from them, is always nice.

Corthron: Yeah, I totally agree, I think we’d all love a little bit of a vacation from what’s going on. These shows have helped a lot. I also think not only is it giving us something to connect about, because of the past year, it was giving people a reason to connect over something that wasn’t politics. I feel like there was so much going on that was painful, that it was a way not to have to, at least for like a moment, to have a conversation that wasn’t about how stressed we should be. It was a stressful year.

Name:  McKenzie Chinn ’06, theatre
Job:  Filmmaker, actor, and poet
About: Writer, producer, and lead actor of Olympia. Acted in the FOX pilot The Big Leap, Empire, CBS’s The Red Line, and onstage with Goodman and Steppenwolf Theatres, The Second City, and others. Part of Growing Concerns Poetry Collective whose releases include two albums—Big Dark Bright Futures and We Here: Thank You For Noticing.
Where do you turn for inspiration? Currently, ideas around Afrofuturism. 
Your favorite creative spot while at UMBC?  Room 318 of the theatre building, which acting students shared with the Registrar.
Fave pandemic entertainment?  I’ve been very drawn to cult documentaries.

Chinn: I agree with both of you, Brandon and Kara, the world is a lot right now. Even now, if I just think too hard about it, I get really overwhelmed. And I think as creative people we have sensitivity, where we are deeply impacted by things going on around us, and the suffering of others. But in order to be able to show up for ourselves and our families, we need to be able to dispel some of that anxiety, some of that sorrow, some of that tension, because it is so strong.

And so having these various forms of entertainment from prestige television to the trashiest of the trash, has been, I think, for me, been a lifesaver…. I’ve had this really amazing experience over the last year, where my movie, Olympia, got distributed and hit streaming platforms in 2019. And then everything stopped, and so people were watching more media than they ever had. And so I think smaller indie films that maybe would not have gotten as much attention were suddenly being watched by a lot of people, mine included. And my movie is mostly Black people and people of color, and it’s a comedy. It’s got some heavier moments, some heartfelt moments, but it is a lighter movie….I remember thinking, does anybody need this movie right now? Little did I know, that was exactly what people would need during this time. And I got an experience I’m so grateful for, where I’ve had just so many Black people, specifically Black women sliding in my DMs just to thank me for the movie, from all over. And every time it happens, I’m just beside myself with gratitude.

Dannelly: One thing I don’t think people realize is that people making film and TV, they work 16 hours a day. Everyone works so hard, they’re away from their families….The other thing I always say to people, is that Hollywood is just a bunch of people from small towns and cities. It’s not like a bunch of people from L.A. Cat and I came from a little small town, and we didn’t go there as Hollywood people, and I’m sure you guys have the same experience—you go there because that’s where you go to make films and TV. 

Mihos:Well, I wanted to add on that note, my dad came from Greece, he came over when he was 16. I went home to see him recently with great concern, because I thought I don’t want to get him sick, he’s 90, and he’s like, please come home. I asked him, “Dad, should I be doing this? Should I be doing this with my life?” He said, “You know what, we need to laugh, we need entertainment!” His 90-year-old wisdom just kind of turned my brain around, because I was thinking, what really is this? Is this going to matter in the big picture? Shouldn’t I be out there fighting for people, healing people, doing something more important? I really appreciated that from my dad, because you never know what you’re giving back to the world. 

Dannelly: This is what I love about our business. Yes, we entertain people, that’s part of our job. I think hopefully we’re doing it for good, even if it’s a laugh. But also, we have the ability to affect every single person we work with. We have the ability to change culture by inclusiveness, by who we choose to hire. So it’s like this sort of weird external thing, where we entertain people on many different levels, and it’s also this very active, internal mechanism for change, which I love. I’m always going into a project with an agenda, always, always.

UMBC Magazine: So, what advice would you give a student or recent grad who’s trying to get into this business?

Name: Cat Mihos ’00, visual and performing arts (photography)
Job: Producer/writer, photographer, former roadie
About: Met author Neil Gaiman while on tour with Tori Amos in 2002. Toured full time with bands like Tool, Mötley Crüe, Soundgarden, and Gaga until 2016 when she set up Gaiman’s production company, which she currently manages on the Jim Henson Studio lot. Worked on American Gods, Good Omens, and managed several book tours. Authored Comic Book Tattoo Tales Inspired by Tori Amos. Writing a graphic novel for Z2 Comics about Vikings titled Lore of the Havamal.
Where do you turn for inspiration? I flip through old comics.
Your favorite creative spot while at UMBC? Fells Point, where I opened my little shop 9th Life.
Fave pandemic entertainment?  The Wire, X Files, 30 Rock

Mihos: I think what’s really important in life is you come up with your people. The other assistants, the people working with you on the ground. It’s important to keep checking in with people, even if you have nothing to say, no news, just be like, “how are you doing?” I do so many little mentorships, because I didn’t have much of that, and I didn’t know how to find it. There’s no rule book, and I think the younger kids, they do seem to be fine with asking. I just never thought you were supposed to ask. So please, be generous with your time.

Dannelly: While you’re there at school, understand who you are and what kind of stories you want to tell. Really connect with why you’re at UMBC. Take a lot of different classes outside of the arts department, because no one wants to make projects with people who only have a theater degree. Whatever other interests you have, spend time doing that. Create as much content as you can. Short films, Tik Toks, YouTube. I can’t tell you how many people I discover on Tik Tok and I’m like, that person is interesting, I wonder what they would be like in a film or show.

And then the other thing that’s hugely important, and I think McKenzie and Kara, you touched on this so well, is write. The fastest way to have a career is to have something that you’ve written that somebody wants. You don’t have to do anything but have this thing that you’ve written that you want to direct. And I guess the final thing I would say is don’t sell yourself short, like I did. 

Chinn: This year, what I come back to is what a wonderful opportunity this was to enrich yourself as an artist, as a creative person. Before things got surprisingly busy again, I was just like, oh my gosh, I’m going to read so many books. I’m going to watch so many movies that have been on my list. I’m going to grow things in my apartment. I was actually quite excited for the opportunity to connect with the other parts of myself that feed my artistry, that give me something to even talk about, that give me a perspective to have in the world that I bring with me when I sit down at my laptop, or when I walk onto a set. I feel like I need space. I need literal time and space in the world, and also in my head and my heart, to realize what it is that I have to say. And I think if there’s an opportunity like one the pandemic has presented for some people to have that time and space. Or, rest, right? We don’t always have to be productive. We don’t always have to be in making mode. We can also just take a nap, that’s also important work.

Corthron: I’m just going to go with what everybody said, particularly Brian. Write, and write scripts that cannot be ignored. 

Mihos: And a P.S. on that, hold onto your intellectual property. Don’t give it away, be careful with that. Starting out, especially. I see it happen so often.

Spells:And like Cat said, relationships are just so important, not only in this industry, but obviously in every industry. A lot of it is about what you can do, but it’s also about who you are and how you connect with the people around you and work with the people around you. And then networking, it’s also not bad to ask for help. When I was just graduating, I quickly found out that no one has made it on their own. And the moment I started connecting with other people, and asking for help, is the moment that they saw how genuine I was, and I saw how genuine they were, and we made those connections. And I was able to help them along the way, and they helped me. And so it’s all a collaborative effort. 

Corbett in the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building on campus in April 2021. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Everyone who’s ever met Kizzmekia Corbett ’08, M16, biological sciences and sociology, gets it.

Sue Florence, one of the few Black teachers in the Hillsborough, North Carolina, school district where Corbett went to elementary and middle school, got it. Rhonda Brooks, Corbett’s mother, remembers Florence saying, when Corbett was in third grade, “She’s got a gift. You’d better seek into it.”

Florence’s comments pushed Brooks to make sure expectations were high for Corbett in school, and to encourage—no, require—15-year-old “Kizzy” to find a scholarly internship rather than a position in retail when she wanted a summer job in high school.

So, at her mother’s behest, Corbett got involved in Project SEED, a program that offers research experiences to talented high school students from underrepresented groups in STEM. Her first program mentor was James Morken, who was on the chemistry faculty at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the time.

He got it, too.

“When Kizzy started in my laboratory, she didn’t have much hands-on research experience, but she had loads of curiosity, a drive to learn what she didn’t know, and a very strong work ethic,” Morken says. “It was abundantly clear she would be successful in whatever she chose to do.”

Today, Corbett is an assistant professor of immunology and infectious diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, after leading the team behind the successful effort to create a vaccine for COVID-19 at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Working with the pharmaceutical company Moderna, Corbett’s achievements on the global stage benefit all of us. Now, we get it, too.

“She can do anything”

As a Meyerhoff Scholar and NIH Scholar at UMBC, Corbett worked in Barney Graham’s lab at the Vaccine Research Center at the NIH. He’s also her boss today. 

“Kizzmekia’s spirit was noticeable even from a young age,” Graham says. “New people who come into the lab have always quickly realized that she was a person who had bigger things in her future.”

Corbett met Jessica Kelley, a UMBC assistant professor of sociology at the time, when Corbett took her Introduction to Sociology course. “She was a standout in that large lecture class from the beginning,” Kelley recalls. Later, Corbett took Kelley’s course on applied community research, and conducted research with Kelley as part of a National Institute on Aging study on healthy aging in diverse neighborhoods.

Photos kindly provided by Kizzmekia Corbett, unless otherwise noted.

The work with Kelley inspired Corbett’s double major and her approach to all of her future work. Corbett even became the only undergraduate enrolled in one of Kelley’s graduate-level courses. “She kept the graduate students on their toes,” Kelley says.

“When she’s got her mind set on something, it’s set,” Brooks says. “She can do anything.”

A leading role 

Today, Corbett has proven them all right. As the scientific lead of the Vaccine Research Center’s coronavirus team at the NIH, she developed a new technology for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and others, and as a result, she has played a leading role in one of the most important measures to end the pandemic. She has also become the first Black woman in the world to create a vaccine.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and one of the most trusted voices about the pandemic around the world, described Corbett as “widely recognized in the immunology community as a rising star,” when he nominated her for TIME magazine’s TIME100 Next list. Based on her leadership of COVID-19 vaccine development at NIAID, he added, “Her work will have a substantial impact on ending the worst respiratory-disease pandemic in more than 100 years.”

People drive the research 

Perhaps just as important as her scientific accomplishments, Corbett has burst onto the public stage as the face of a diverse and rising generation of talented scientists who will transform the world. She is a stellar science communicator, explaining the vaccine and the virus in highly accessible ways to media outlets, her family, two U.S. presidents, and more. She is an inspiration to children who may now imagine becoming scientists.

Corbett visits a lab on campus in April 2021. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

“Dr. Corbett’s voice has been particularly important this year,” Graham says, “and going forward, her ability to inspire and to educate and motivate young people to see science as something feasible and even to see science as something fun will be part of her legacy.”

And yet, amid her newfound celebrity status and her vast scientific acumen, somehow she has managed to remain unabashedly human.

“I am still Kizzy. I’m still the little girl you met when I was 17 and being recruited into the Meyerhoff program,” she told UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski during a conversation in February 2021, when they were both being recognized at the Kaiser Permanente and Reginald F. Lewis Museum 2nd Annual African American Health Care Awards.

“Actually, before a scientist, I’m a Christian, and I’m sassy, and I’m bright, and I’m fashionable…” she says, “and I’m Southern, and I’m empathetic, and I’m all of these things that make me into this person, that make me a better scientist. I think that is the most important part of the story—that people drive the research.”

The genuine thing 

First there was Sue Florence. Then there was James Morken and others with the SEED Project. All through her childhood, there was her mother, Rhonda Brooks, cheering her on. Combine that support structure with Corbett’s own deep-seated determination to succeed, and by the time she was looking at colleges, Corbett had lots of options. But when she, her parents, and her grandmother visited UMBC, it felt like home. The first reason? The grain silo along UMBC Boulevard.

“It reminded me of being back at home in the country,” Brooks remembers. When they began touring campus, Brooks thought, “Oh man, this is really her,” but, “I needed her to see it was her. So I didn’t even say anything.” There was no need. By the end of Meyerhoff Selection Weekend in 2004, Kizzy was glowing.

Beyond the welcoming silo were all the welcoming faces. “Everybody was so friendly,” Brooks says. “You think when you go visit campuses that people have to be this way because they’re trying to get students to come, but as a person who’s been in the education field for so long, I can weed out who’s genuine and who isn’t.” And, Brooks says, despite the emphasis on Meyerhoff cohort numbers, of which Kizzy belonged to M16, “it just felt like she would be not just a number.”

Equaling the playing field 

In the February conversation with Hrabowski, Corbett recalls her father telling her that she should “go where she would be loved.” UMBC became that place.

Asked to describe the value of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, she said, “It is simply one word: resources. It is equaling the playing field for people who have generally been under-resourced, and those are communities of color and people from underrepresented minority groups. And the Meyerhoff Program does that.”

Corbett with fellow Meyerhoff alumni at a 2017 on-campus event. Photo courtesy of Keith Harmon, director, Meyerhoff Scholars Program.

The Meyerhoff Scholars Program, founded in 1989, is considered the gold standard of programs designed to support students from underrepresented groups in STEM. Hundreds of alumni have gone on to standout careers, including U.S. Surgeon General, Baltimore City health commissioner, and professorships at the nation’s top-tier universities. 

The Meyerhoff Scholars Program “is a place where every single person was special and would be loved. The goal is not to fail you out, but to lift you up,” Corbett says. And for underrepresented students in STEM, living in a world that too often still doesn’t expect people who look like them to excel as researchers, the Meyerhoff Program “provided a niche for us to just be, to be comfortable, and to just thrive.”

A mother’s touch 

It wasn’t always easy, though. Brooks remembers when Kizzy received her first C. “Being on the phone with her just didn’t help,” Brooks remembers. “So I got in my car, and I drove all the way to Maryland. I was trying to tell her it was going to be alright, but it was just heartbreaking, because she never had that C. I told her, it’s gonna be tough—you might get more than one C.”

Even world-class, world-saving scientists sometimes get Cs and need their moms.

And even now, Brooks is ready to support Corbett as she navigates this new chapter in her life. “If she needs me now, if she’s feeling stressed,” Brooks says, “if she picks up the phone, I don’t care what time of night it is, I pick it up.”

On Corbett’s college bedside also sat a Bible—another lasting connection to her family and her faith, which Corbett brings up often in her interviews. Brooks gave each of her children a Bible as they left for college. “I say take this Bible with you. Even if you don’t look at it, keep it next to your bed. I don’t care if you don’t open it. But if you touch it, it will make you feel a whole lot better.”

Corbett and her mother, though apart during the pandemic, have stayed connected by attending online services from the same church in Texas. Their first travel plans post-pandemic? A trip to attend the service in person.

Lifting others up

Whether it’s her faith, an innate empathy, 35 years of experience as a Black woman in the U.S., or other factors, Corbett’s dedication to lifting people up goes far beyond her work in the laboratory. Her commitment to equity has demanded that she speak out to address vaccine hesitancy, especially in communities hit hardest by the virus, and champion the participation of minorities in science and research, both as scientists and as participants in clinical trials.

“She has always, even as a young student, brought an energy and curiosity and love of science that made our lab a better place,” Graham says. “She has also always been very devoted to making things better for people around her, particularly younger people coming behind her.”

Brooks says that Corbett has always had a selfless nature. One day she brought home a classmate who had no place to go after school and asked if she could stay with the family. Brooks was uncertain at first, “but we did it,” she says. “And we’ve been taking kids in ever since.”

Fighting for the public good 

Corbett’s study of sociology at UMBC enhanced and sharpened her innate desires to help people and promote fairness into a commitment to consider social factors throughout her scientific career. For example, when the Moderna vaccine was in clinical trials, Corbett pushed hard to make sure that there were more people of color among the study population.

Corbett at a Rally for Medical Research event in Washington, D.C.

“You have to start things equitably to finish them that way,” she told Hrabowski at the February event. “We slowed down the phase three clinical trial until we got to a point where we felt the numbers were respectable. We wanted 13 percent, to represent the proportion of Black people in the country,” she said, but they didn’t quite make it. Still, she says, “I have other vaccines heading into trials, so we will take care of it then.”

Kelley, her sociology instructor and research mentor at UMBC, reflects on how Corbett has developed over time. “Kizzmekia’s training in both biology and sociology has helped her become both a scientist working at the cutting-edge of vaccine development to provide a universal public good and a humanist who understands that historically and structurally not all groups have had access to these public goods,” she says. 

Corbett has faced her own challenges throughout her career, some of which have predictably intensified since she became more of a public figure.  

Kizzmekia, whose name is a combination of “Kizzy” from the character in Alex Haley’s Roots and “-mekia” from Brooks’s own imagination, has been teased since childhood and continues to be harassed about her name. When Kizzy showed her mother a particularly hurtful social media post, “I told her, tell them to call your mama,” Brooks recalls, “because your mama chose your name for a reason, because you’re a gift from God to me.”

As a child, even Kizzy’s strong interest in academic success was sometimes looked down upon by her peers, but “she just went beyond,” Brooks says. 

Corbett (center, front) with her NIAID research team, including Olubukola Abiona ’17, M25, biochemistry and molecular biology (center, back).

Corbett has also experienced sexism and racism as a scientist. Brooks says sometimes men have skipped over Corbett and instead approached her boss, but “that’s why I like her boss, [Barney Graham] so much, because he’s always been behind her back,” she says—pointing people right back to Corbett. 

Finding your champions

Corbett has taken her mother’s message to heart. “You just have to believe in yourself and believe in your work,” she says. Important, too, is having your own champions. “I always had someone in the space who was looking out for me,” she said—people like Sue Florence, Freeman Hrabowski, and Barney Graham. “Find those people and seek them out. You want someone to be as invested in you, as you are in you.”

High expectations and support from all those people who “got it,” cheering for her and setting the bar high from elementary school onward, combined with Corbett’s inner determination—and a dash of spunk—have fueled her success. If you had met a childhood Kizzy, she would have said, “Hi, I’m Kizzmekia Corbett, and I’m going to be the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine.”

Verbalizing one’s goals is a risk, because people will know if you fail. But it’s also a critical step toward turning them into reality. Little Kizzy knew it as a kid. “It speaks to putting yourself where you want to be, and really speaking the words to the universe,” she told Hrabowski. Even if she hasn’t reached her childhood goal yet, she’s happy with what she’s been able to accomplish so far.

“I haven’t won a Nobel prize, and I don’t know if I will,” she says, “but I think helping to ‘save the world,’ so to speak, is good enough.”

For now.

Read more about other ways Retrievers are giving their time and efforts to help others access the vaccine.

*****

Header image of Corbett on campus in April 2021 by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Lewis on campus in 1992. Photo courtesy of Lewis.

“To me, UMBC opened up the world,” says Tamara L. Lewis ’92, psychology. As a student, that meant joining Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., for instance, holding multiple jobs all around campus, and ultimately re-envisioning her career path. 

Lewis began her studies focusing on industrial and organizational psychology. However, it was her many on-campus jobs—conference assistant, desk staffer, and student worker in the admissions office—that allowed her to realize that she was actually drawn to counseling. Working across campus let Lewis see how a university can support student success, so she began to explore how she could work with students.

Thirty years later, Lewis still feels a sense of real connection to the campus and actively works to help other alumni engage with students and the institution. And her career pathway has allowed her to continue to support students in the manner she first observed at UMBC.

The need to belong

Academic support has defined many aspects of  Lewis’s career and philanthropic life. After UMBC, Lewis received her master’s degree in counseling from Hampton University—UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski’s alma mater. She then began her career in the counseling center at Baltimore City Community College. 

“Being in the academic realm got me thinking more about college student experiences,” she shares, and she started thinking about what structures exist to help young people succeed. She drew on lessons learned at UMBC that helped her understand the value of community and support in educating the whole student. 

Lewis speaking at a CBLA event. Photo courtesy of the Alumni Association.

Lewis continued exploring the topic of academic success in her dissertation for her doctorate from Morgan University. After earning both her graduate degrees from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Lewis understood the advantages of students feeling a sense of belonging while at school. Her own experience, along with research and alumni work, has shown her the importance of making students feel important and valuable within their community.  

Carving out space

Creating a space for Black and Latinx alumni to come together came organically through events and outreach supported by UMBC’s Office of Alumni Engagement, says Lewis. What started as a UMBC-hosted evening for Black and Latinx alumni at Baltimore’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History, would result in the creation of the Chapter of Black and Latino Alumni (CBLA) at UMBC in 2006.

“Tamara was instrumental in creating the CBLA and leading events and initiatives that would speak to and acknowledge the unique experiences of our Black and Latine/x graduates,” says Stanyell Odom, director of Alumni Engagement. “Her love for UMBC is evident in the way she gives back her time, talent, and resources through the CBLA, the Alumni Board and her beloved sorority.”

In 1991, Lewis became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (AKA), one of the first historically Black sororities on campus. She remembers how important it felt to build community within the “small community” of Black students on campus. Through her student work in AKA, as well as her residential life involvement, she saw the value of supporting Black students to do their very best at UMBC, a vision that was shared through the administration, she says. 

Now, nearly 30 years after joining her sorority, she continues to connect with members to support UMBC. In 2011, Lewis helped plan the first AKA Homecoming reunion. Anita Jackson ’80, health science and policy, then a member of the Alumni Association Board of Directors, and the Office of Alumni Engagement leveraged connections to the alumni community to make the event a success. AKA members have gathered at Homecoming every year since. The event also fundraises for the UMBC Second Generation Scholarship, which is dedicated to students who show a commitment to the advancement of minorities. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the sorority sisters came together virtually in honor of the charter anniversary of their chapter.

“It’s important that people give what they can; even if it’s not money but time,”  Lewis says, emphasizing the value of expanding the ways alumni can support the UMBC community.

Integral part of the community

Now, as the state test security officer and the National Assessment of Educational Progress state coordinator for the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), Lewis continues to ensure students have everything they need to succeed on standardized testing. The Assessment Branch of MSDE works to create uniform and accessible testing standards so students, educators, and community members can best support students and address any gaps in education. Working in Baltimore City, Lewis understands the value of equitable testing practices so students can use every support available. Her continued curiosity about addressing gaps and building community has made her an integral part of the UMBC alumni community.

As a student, Lewis realized that being an active member of the UMBC community was the best way to get the most of her education. Now, she wants to help current students—who she sees as future alumni—realize how important it is to give back to UMBC when they do graduate. “When I tell people I went to UMBC, they’re impressed,” she says, which just inspires her to give back even more.

— Imani Spence ’16

*****

Header image: Lewis, right, at an AKA Homecoming reunion in 2014. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

When conductor Robert Gerle raised his arms and gave the downbeat to the Overture to Die Meistersinger by Richard Wagner on December 11, 1972, he might not have predicted that the orchestra in front of him—now known as the UMBC Symphony—would become such an important part of UMBC’s culture. The program, which was presented in what then was known as Gymnasium One, continued with Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

Gerle, a noted violinist who had taught at Ohio State and Peabody, had been enticed to UMBC—in an era when the nascent department of music didn’t even offer a degree—by the opportunity of starting a string program and building an orchestra. To get enough players on the stage, Gerle’s solution was to engage community members and UMBC students, and so the UMBC Community Orchestra, as it was then known, came into existence. 

Gerle conducting in a photo of a 1972 issue of The Retriever.

“In addition to all of these wonderful musical journeys in the orchestra, it was a place to make lasting friendships,” recalls Ronald Mutchnik ’80, music. “Years later, I came back to visit and there was Gerle rehearsing Dvořák’s ‘New World’ Symphony with many of the same people—such was the loyalty he and the symphony engendered.”

When trumpeter Wayne Cameron, who was then conducting UMBC’s wind ensemble as well as the Frederick Symphony, heard of Gerle’s retirement, he approached the department to ask about taking on the orchestra. Time passed, and Cameron, hearing nothing, assumed he had been passed over. Shortly before the start of the fall semester he asked the department chair who had been selected. The chair replied incredulously and said, “Didn’t you hear? We picked you!”

Cameron renamed the UMBC Symphony and increased the number of players from about 55 to about 70. He also broadened the scope of repertoire, introducing more American, contemporary, and lesser-known works. “Conducting the UMBC Symphony was a distinct privilege,” he recalls. “To work with so many talented students and community members was a special delight.”

When Cameron stepped down in 2001, UMBC’s overall enrollment had more than doubled from Gerle’s era, and the symphony’s new conductor, clarinetist, and faculty member E. Michael Richards, opened up more opportunities for student participation. As a result, the number of community players decreased.

Richard Sigwald ’03, music—who played trumpet with the symphony during Richards’ entire tenure of two decades—says, “He challenged students and community members to work together to create an extremely rewarding performance experience. He was extremely passionate when conducting as it was the only time I ever heard him raise his voice. If the brass weren’t at the volume he desired, he would storm off the podium and tell us that he could ‘play louder than all of us on his clarinet.’ Once we performed more to his liking, he would return to the podium and quip my favorite line of his, ‘I’m not angry, I’m excited!'”

Richards conducting a rehearsal in the Linehan Concert Hall in 2017. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Violinist Michelle Ko ’10, music, echoes many of Sigwald’s thoughts. “Maestro Richards is so knowledgeable and passionate about the compositions, and it was magical to watch him lead the orchestra.” Ko continues, “Richards had an invaluable impact on my artistic growth and career success.”

A highlight of Richards’ years came in 2016, when the symphony performed Stravinsky’s Firebird suite during UMBC’s 50th Anniversary celebrations, with fireworks going off overhead. Richards jokes that he thought his back was getting singed from the fireballs going off near the stage.

Although retired, Richards looks forward to continuing being part of the university community. In the meantime, the Department of Music has opened a search for a visiting lecturer in orchestral studies to ensure the leadership of the Symphony transitions to experienced and capable hands.

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Header image: E. Michael Richards conducting the UMBC Symphony at the Linehan Concert Hall in 2018. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Helena Mentis

Now more than ever, STEM careers are demanding their workforce keep the social impact of their work at the forefront. Interdisciplinary teams at UMBC are researching methods to support these efforts.

In the past five years, more than 14,000 students in the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) took courses in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS), home to many courses that cultivate socially responsible thinking (SRT). At the same time, faculty in COEIT were also incorporating SRT concepts in their classes. This overlap was identified as an opportunity to collaborate, leveraging strengths of both colleges to imbue the STEM curriculum with an SRT approach.

“We want computing and engineering students to have a deeper understanding of the social impact of their work and how they are integrating SRT into their learning,” explains Helena Mentis, professor of information systems. Mentis is the lead investigator in the joint research project between COEIT and the Center for Social Science Scholarship (CS3) titled Identifying an Interdisciplinary Path to Social Responsibility Education Across the COEIT Curriculum.

Felipe Filomeno

Felipe Filomeno, associate professor of political science and global studies and CS3 associate director and co-PI, says that the first step of the project is listening to faculty. “We are not imposing a preconceived approach to how social responsibility should be integrated into a STEM education.” 

Mentis also emphasizes the importance of alumni in this process—their practical experience can provide students with insights into how industry leaders are implementing SRT. Kara Seidel ’18, psychology, now a language, literacy, and culture doctoral student, is a research assistant on the project. “This project is a great way to get my feet wet in all the fields at once,” shares Seidel. “I’m here to learn and help bring all the pieces together so the team can craft and integrate the research in a way that will be most beneficial in the long run.”

UMBC faculty are also working on addressing the negative social impact of existing technologies, such as the ethics in machine learning and data science.

Jordan Troutman ’21, M29, computer science and mathematics—and a valedictorian for the class of 2021—researches how to eliminate bias in algorithms. Troutman won the 2018 Rutgers RISE 5MP for his research, Fairness in Machine Learning, about how the COMPAS algorithm, which is used in the U.S. court system for recidivism prediction, is twice as likely to falsely classify Black men as more likely to reoffend compared to white men.

James Foulds

Troutman notes that people inherently give power to computers when they start to depend on them to make very complex human decisions. He wants computer scientists “to understand the impact of how our program—discriminatory or not—can affect the world we live in.”

Vandana Janeja

Troutman works with James Foulds, assistant professor of information systems, on identifying biases in machine learning technologies. Foulds received the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award in 2021 to develop technical solutions to resolve practical limitations of fair AI techniques. 

Foulds also approaches ethical thinking from the data science perspective with his colleague Vandana Janeja, information systems professor and chair. “Ethics cannot be tacked onto one part of the data life cycle,” says Janeja. “It has to be integrated across the data life cycle and infused into each step of the process of discovering patterns in the data and in context of the data being considered.” 

The goal of all this work, Mentis explains, is “to develop the next generation of technologists who have the framework and vocabulary to address the relationships between STEM and society.”

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Header image: Jordan Troutman ’21 on campus in spring 2021. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Under normal circumstances, print news like UMBC’s student newspaper The Retriever binds the campus community together. College students reach for the paper because they know their friend wrote a feature on the front page, or they spot one of their favorite professor’s research on the second page. In a world that has morphed into a socially distanced, spaced-out reality, it turns out that we’re all still yearning for community.

That was my focus as the editor-in-chief of The Retriever during the 2020 – 2021 school year. Every staff member had to make the UMBC community the priority while reporting on all sorts of serious topics. It was learning on the go. Jokes have roamed Twitter about “BC,” or before coronavirus. “BC” for The Retriever was filled with staff meetings twice a week, production meetings to roll out the paper every other week, and continuous in-person interfacing. When we were forced to scatter up and down the East Coast, our editors continued publishing online and in print. We all worked diligently to produce relevant and informative articles. The staff is filled with resilient and strong people, and I am very proud to have had the opportunity to lead them through this tumultuous time.

Newspaper life is frenetic in general, though, so I was excited to be able to connect with two editors from The Retriever’s past—Juan Carlos Ordóñez ’91, philosophy, and Alex Pyles ’09, English—to get their perspectives. Ordóñez shared his experience leading The Retriever while the paper was daily and production days were filled with all-nighters and lively conversation. Pyles described the impact of the internet and the recession on the paper. Our conversation was filled with friendly anecdotes and plenty of shared experiences even given the 32-year gap between our times of leadership. And though our challenges varied, as did our staffs, we all shared one thing in common: our love for The Retriever and our love for the UMBC community.

DasSarma in front of the A.O.K. Library. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Where are they now?

Anjali DasSarma: Hi, everyone, I’m Anjali and I’m about to hand off the editorship at The Retriever, but I’ve been the editor in chief since last April so I had the pandemic year….I’m going to Brown University in the fall and I’m going to be studying journalism and inequity and community distrust. I majored in media communication studies. Can you tell me about your careers and how you got there?

Juan Carlos Ordóñez: I was editor of the paper in ’89 and ’90, so quite a while ago. It’s before the paper was in any sort of digital form, which is kind of interesting. After leaving UMBC, I attended law school. I went to Harvard and practiced law for about seven years in New York City, where I did commercial litigation. I got tired of the rat race. I left New York City, left the practice of law and moved back to Guatemala, where I was born. I did some freelance journalism; I volunteered in a number of community organizations; and I met my wife who was from Oregon. So, around 12 years ago, I moved to Oregon and I ended up getting a job at a think tank. We do tax and budget economic policy at the state level. And I’m the communications director, a position I’ve held ever since I got to Oregon, so it’s been over 10 years now. And I have to say that each of those steps—since I left UMBC, my experience from the paper, especially writing—has been invaluable. 

Alex Pyles: I’m Alex, and I was the editor of the paper in ’08 and ’09, which was the recession year, which is not a pandemic year, so I’m not comparing the two. But I went from there, and started working in journalism immediately. I was a freelancer for the Wilmington Delaware News Journal and then I went to the University of Maryland to start my master’s degree in journalism. While I was there, I started working for patch.com as a sports editor [and later on] local editor and city editor roles with the same company. I spent a couple of years with Patch and went from there to the Maryland Daily Record where I covered the Maryland State House for two years. I then spent four years at the Baltimore Sun—two years in the sports department, two years in Metro covering as the political editor for Maryland state government in Baltimore City Hall. I left the paper in 2017 to go back to where I got my master’s degree, the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at UMD, where I was the communications director for about two years. And then I joined the faculty and now lecture in the college teaching audience engagement and digital design and editing investigative projects for the Howard Center for investigative journalism. 

Deadlines and all nighters

DasSarma:  It’s really helpful to see the framework of where you guys went after the paper. Now, I’d like you both to think back on some of your achievements, or things that really stuck out to you, during your time as an editor. 

Ordóñez, tutoring a school child in a 1987 issue of The Retriever.

Ordóñez:  This may sound sort of mundane, but I don’t think we ever missed a deadline in terms of publishing the paper or getting the paper out on time. I don’t know how often the paper comes out these days, back then we were weekly.

DasSarma:  Well it was bi-weekly before the pandemic and in print, and then I had to make some adjustments given that no one was on campus.

Ordóñez: I can only imagine the obstacles. I just remember we would pull all nighters. Back then we would have to lay it out by hand. We would have to cut it and lay out the whole thing on these big boards because it was a broadsheet. And I remember all nighters on weekends and we would get the paper to the printer early Monday morning and, yeah, I don’t think we ever missed a deadline. So that was kind of an achievement, I would say.

Pyles:  I had been the sports editor for two years before I became the editor in 2008. And my memory is a little bit foggy, and I don’t want to take credit for something that I didn’t do, but I remember us more or less redesigning and relaunching the website sometime during my years. When I was editor of the paper we were thinking a lot more about putting more things online but we were still thinking about the website as this place where we just sort of dumped the stories that were in the paper, and we more or less just did it whenever the paper went to production. 

DasSarma: I definitely built off of what you guys built, especially with digital. Obviously during the pandemic I had grand plans for cultural changes and inviting people to gather more as a group, but obviously that all disappeared when the pandemic hit. But during the summer, I worked at the Baltimore Sun as the editorial intern and then in the evenings I worked on a contingency plan for Retriever to sort of move to digital and how we would [meet as a staff]. In January the pandemic started getting wild, so we created these regularly branded social media channels to share the things that you really need now. And we publish digitally every day now. And I also created the advisory board, which has some local journalists and local media experts and then we also hired a media lawyer. I think if you’re doing good journalism you’re going to make some people angry. So I wanted to have a lawyer on our side especially as we covered some more sensitive topics.

Challenges faced

DasSarma:  So that sort of segues into my next leading question, which is, what are some of the biggest challenges that you all faced? And then how did you overcome them?

Ordóñez: I was managing editor my junior year and I had sort of a fallout with the then-editor. And so I ended up leaving and then at the end of my junior year I applied to be the editor against the incumbent and I prevailed. So I came in and some people left, but I actually managed to retain most of the existing staff. But one of the challenges was that they had ordered this new machine… this massive computer. I mean, it was like three big desks put together where you would sort of type in your stories and it would sort of print out these sheets that you would actually cut out and then lay it out…I was sort of handed the keys and given the password for this brand new machine and it was like, here you go, go figure it out. And fortunately I had a brother who was very tech savvy and helped me through it.

DasSarma:  Where was The Retriever located at that point? Has it always been in the University Center for you all?

Ordóñez: I mean, I don’t know if the University Center has changed since then, but we were where there was a cafeteria down below and upstairs were some administrative offices, and we were just right on the very end. And there was kind of a big open space. We had a dark room back then, I mean, that’s not something that you would need these days. So I don’t know what happened to that space.

Pyles in front of M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Pyles:  I can tell you what happened to the dark room because I was there when we took it out. It became the business office. Is it still the business office?

DasSarma:  Yes it is.

Pyles: And technology is still right next door?

DasSarma: Yes.

Pyles: All right. And then production sort of down the hall to the right, if you’re walking out of one of those offices?

DasSarma: Yes. So I didn’t even get to have the editor in chief office; our ceiling fell down actually. There was water damage and some of it went into the editor in chief office. I imagine it would have been nice to have an office.

Pyles: It was pretty cool at 21 to have an office, like oh, ‘I’m an adult now with the rickety torn chair.’ So I mentioned I was editor as the recession started. In the years when I was the sports editor, the editor in chief at the time said, “My goal is that the Retriever can be independent from the university, accept no SGA funding.” We weren’t close at the time, but working toward it. And the fall of my senior year when I was the editor, there was still national advertising coming in from Verizon and large companies. And we were getting large print advertising in the newspaper and then it just dried up, just like that, it was just gone. And I remember really arguing over a $100 here and there in the budget when we went to submit the next budget to the SGA. I know the paper struggled financially for years after that. So I didn’t solve that problem, and I just got to walk away. But it was stressful and it was sad because it felt like we were moving toward independence and it was taken away.

DasSarma: Yeah. I mean, if it makes you feel any better, we’re definitely on better financial standing, I mean, guess it’s bittersweet, right? Because we’re nowhere near being independent. I don’t know Juan Carlos, if you guys ever discussed anything on those lines.

Ordóñez:  Our finances were in pretty good shape. I mean, it’s kind of funny that on paper we were doing great, with a lot of advertising. As editor in chief you’re both responsible for the content and managing staff and then you’re ultimately responsible for the business end of it. So you’re handling all these responsibilities for which you were never really trained and you’re sort of learning as you go. And my strength was definitely as the news editor and then managing editor for a time, and so it was really on the content side where my strengths were. And then on the business side on paper, wow, it looks great. And then only towards the end of the year did it really dawn on me, well, we just haven’t been collecting a lot of that revenue, I mean on paper, it’s supposed to be coming in. So it was more of a shortcoming, I guess, on my end of not staying on top of it.

DasSarma: We haven’t been able to have advertising similar to Alex. People haven’t been spending money right now and especially local businesses; it would have been nice. And I think our advertising has not been our priority. The previous editor in chief trained me as much as she could but also I was inheriting a completely different world. I could go on and on about the challenges, but I also feel really lucky that my staff has been super self-sufficient. I gave them a lot of autonomy in terms of meetings. We do weekly editorial meetings on Zoom but I don’t ever really see the writers anymore. I did one general body meeting at the beginning of the year, last semester, and then one during this semester. But it doesn’t make sense to have everyone in the same room anymore because it’s kind of a waste of time for them. 

Ordóñez:  Yeah. It must be tough because I mean, one of the things that I remember most about the paper was sort of that social aspect of being in the same room and that sort of comradery, it’s hard to replicate it online.

DasSarma: A lot of our staff is very new and so all they know is the Zoom newsroom. But there is camaraderie. I remember we were even sitting in the newsroom when the WHO declared it a global pandemic. And we were all like, oh no, because I sort of sniffed it out early on and I had been working with administration and requesting our pandemic plan and everything and then we got sent home and the previous editor in chief had to sort of clean up. And then I took over in April and then I was like, oh no, we’re not ready for the next year. But all negatives aside, I want to hear your favorite part of the job or favorite parts.

The bright side

Ordóñez’s headshot courtesy of the Oregon Center for Public Policy.

Ordóñez:  I mentioned it already, but those all nighters that we would pull together, I still remember them really fondly because I was with some of my closest friends in college working together on a deadline so it was work but it was fun at the same time. And that’s really one of the things that I most remember from college actually and I look back fondly. I mean, the Retriever office was where we got our work done but it was also the place we would hang out between classes.

Pyles: When I was a senior the men’s basketball team went to the NCAA tournament for the first time and we covered that. I drove two sports writers and a photographer to Raleigh, North Carolina, to cover the game and the tournament and it’s a memory that I’ll never forget. There was just something about knowing that you have that place to go and to learn and to be around people who talk seriously about how to tell stories. That was really fun and I think that experience helped me realize what I wanted to do for a career.

DasSarma: I’ve always loved talking to people and journalism makes a lot of sense, for people who want to listen to other people and hear their stories. And I think one of my favorite parts is just talking to my editors. I think that they’re the most brilliant people in the world. And when I say I’m editor in chief of this paper, I think so much of this role is so managerial and delegating and talking to everyone.

Lessons learned

DasSarma: What are some lessons that you learned as editor in chief and how have you taken those with you where you’ve gone?

Pyles: I think this is where I really learned how to be a good manager, to be able to work with people and get them to work with me. I remember very early on losing my temper with a writer who had missed deadline after deadline. They happened to be a friend and I lost my temper with them and the story got filed but then we had a conversation later on and he said something that is probably pretty obvious, but I couldn’t see it in my anger. I felt betrayed—how could a friend be missing a deadline? And he said, you’re going to be able to work with people much more effectively if you don’t lose your cool. If you’re able to lead with understanding and kindness and ask more questions than make statements. 

Ordóñez:  I would share something similar. I think it’s sort of learning from the mistakes I made back then. As a news editor I dealt with just a few reporters; I would give them assignments and then we would talk about the edits and whatnot. But really managing a staff was a whole other ball game for which I was not trained and sort of had to figure out on my own and I made a lot of mistakes in that process. I remember not doing it well, not communicating it well at all, and that was a real learning experience for me. And then another positive experience was just learning how to stick with it. Sometimes it really seemed impossible that we were actually going to get the paper out and as a team we really pushed forward and we always got the paper out on time. 

DasSarma: I feel like resiliency is something that I’ve learned in addition to understanding. I think I hold myself to extremely high standards and I learned that people have things going on in their personal lives that are outside of the newsroom, and you have to learn to be more understanding, which is just echoing what you guys are saying. And then of course resiliency and understanding people’s limitations….And responsibility, too, like learning how to stay organized for 40-something people and making sure that things get done on time. And when things go wrong, I take responsibility for everything.

Ordóñez:  Well, when I look back at my time in college…without a doubt, my experience at the Retriever was by far the most enriching part of my college experience. I mean I loved my classes, I had a great time and did well. But what I learned for the paper, that practical experience and learning how to write, has carried through my whole life.

Pyles:  We talked about some of it certainly, but going through the adversity, not only of the business issues, and you’re trying to think about what a budget looks like, and how to adapt to changing circumstances that are beyond your control, and how to deal with different kinds of people while still putting out a good product. And I think one of my favorite parts of the job was getting to talk to Christopher Corbett—he was faculty advisor—every week. I just loved doing that.

DasSarma:  The paper really connects you to the campus, too, in a way that I think it’s totally unique. Having to keep track of everything that’s happening. I think this will probably be my favorite part about being at UMBC. 

UMBC students and staff have shown their resilience in myriad ways during the pandemic, but maybe nothing showcases the Retriever spirit more than the volunteer hours put in to assist in the region-wide vaccination challenge. 

Vaccine hunters Jen Dress, associate director of Campus Life, and Candace Martinez-Doane, assistant director of Leadership and Government, started their journeys by finding appointments for people within their immediate circles. As more people became eligible for vaccines, those circles widened to include more than 600 people they’ve helped register.

Part of their efforts focused on frontline UMBC community members, including over 30 ABM staff, who help maintain and clean UMBC facilities and residential buildings. Dress and Martinez-Doane partnered with UMBC Transit to organize UMBC coach buses to transport the ABM workers to and from their vaccine appointments. Next up on their list is helping 60 Chartwells dining staff members be successfully vaccinated to prepare for fall 2021 operations on campus.

UMBC students are also going above and beyond to volunteer their time. Of students in the University System of Maryland, Retrievers led the way attending 30 volunteer shifts at the M&T Bank Stadium mass vaccination site, giving approximately 175 hours of their time. According to Chris Bankert of the State of Maryland’s COVID-19 response team, “UMBC has been doing fantastic work at M&T Bank Stadium, and I have been hearing great feedback from the management staff on site.”

In mid-April, UMBC leveraged its long term partnership with the Lakeland community in south Baltimore to co-sponsor a pop-up vaccine event to serve 100 members of the community. “With deep community connections and strong partners like Casa de Maryland, we were ready to bring health resources to the community,” says Joshua Michael ’10, political science, director of the Baltimore School Partnerships and the Sherman Scholars Program,.

In other ways, Michael notes, Retrievers have adapted to meet the opportunity of the moment.  In summer 2020, 15 Sherman Scholars taught math online to 150 Lakeland students. And this fall, 30 UMBC students will provide additional support in mathematics through evening tutoring. “At UMBC,” says Michael, “our humanity has guided us to meet this moment.”

— Morgan Casey ’22 and Randianne Leyshon ’09

A version of this story was originally published by The Retriever.

Each week of the 2020 athletic season, Retriever athletes, coaches, and fans held their breath to see what games would be cleared to play. After making it through 2020 with men’s and women’s basketball holding down the proverbial fort, 2021 marked a new year and new development for UMBC sports—all unplayed fall and spring sports would return to action in spring 2021. 

Though there was no shortage of challenges when it came to playing in a pandemic (diligent symptom monitoring, regular testing, periods of isolation), student-athletes rose to the occasion and added several new chapters to UMBC record books this year. 

Serving success

For the first time in program history, UMBC women’s volleyball earned a share of the America East regular season title, splitting the honor with UAlbany. Then, on April 2, the team traveled to Albany to take on the Great Danes for the America East Championship, and they delivered, winning their first America East Championship in program history.

“The first day we met UMBC’s then-new athletics director, Brian Barrio, in 2020, he showed us an empty photo frame on his wall,” says Anouk Van Noord ’21, psychology, a right side hitter. “He told us that he was saving it for when we win the America East championship. I am so proud to graduate from UMBC in May with that spot filled on his wall.”

The Retrievers competed in the first round of NCAA tournament play and ultimately fell to Pepperdine, but they’re just getting started. 

“My goal when I took over this program was to establish this program as a perennial America East championship contender and that is what we are building here,” says head coach Cristina Robertson.

Shooting for a win

For the first time since 2007 – 2008, UMBC men’s basketball nabbed the America East Regular Season Title, sharing it with the University of Vermont. UMBC finished the regular season with a 10-4 conference record. The Retrievers ultimately fell during America East playoffs, but the team collected numerous honors on and off the court. Several players were named to All-Conference teams, and Keondre Kennedy ’23, media and communication studies, was named Sixth Man of the Year, the first awardee in program history. Kennedy’s contributions coming off the bench, playing in all 19 games, but starting just two, landed him this honor.

Ryan Odom ended his coaching career at UMBC on a high note, earning the America East’s Coach of the Year honor. Odom announced in early April that he’s continuing his career at Utah State, and Retriever Nation welcomed Jim Ferry from Penn State as UMBC men’s basketball new head coach. 

“The sincerity and the love for this place, it just came through,” says Ferry. “This is one of the fastest-growing universities in the country and I’m excited to be a part of this family and such an outstanding basketball program.”

Netting a legacy

Coach Pete Caringi, Jr. has been a force at the helm of UMBC men’s soccer for 30 seasons and to mark such an impressive tenure, his players decided to give him a very appropriate gift— his 300th win. In a double-overtime win against George Washington in February, Caringi improved his overall mark to 300-186-75, a winning percentage of better than 60 percent.

“He is one of the most respected coaches in Maryland, and there’s a reason for that,” says goalkeeper Quantrell Jones ’22, sociology, who was named to the America East Conference Men’s Soccer Second Team in 2021. “He wants to make the players better and wants to win championships, and that all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

Lapping the competition

Though they fell just short of defending their America East Title, UMBC men’s swimming and diving performed impressively at this year’s competition. Niklas Weigelt ’23, economics, was named Most Outstanding Swimmer of the Meet, and Kai Wisner ’21, mechanical engineering, earned the David Alexander Coaches Award. 

Women’s swimming and diving also captured second at this year’s America East tournament. Natalija Marin ’21, mechanical engineering, closed out her senior year on a high note, earning the David Alexander Coaches’ Award for accruing the most points over the course of the four America East Championship meets.

Senior captains Vanessa Esposito ’21, psychology, and Abbey Farmer ’21, health administration and policy, share, “This year has thrown so many challenges our team’s way.  Just a few weeks ago we did not think we would be competing at our conference championships. To climb all the way up to finish second overall is truly a testament to our women’s team.”

The Retriever swimmers and divers also welcomed new head coach Matt Donovan, former head coach at Long Island University, this spring. 

“Matt brings the experience, work ethic, and integrity that this program will need to continue its growth into national prominence,” saysBarrio, director of athletics. “He is a great fit for our UMBC community and I’m excited to connect a leader like Matt with the superb student-athletes we have at UMBC.”

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Volleyball photos courtesy of America East.