The Shriver Center coordinates this undergraduate scholarship program, funded by the France-Merrick Foundation. After 20 years, this scholarship remains available for students who demonstrate an exemplary commitment to service, leadership, and civic engagement on the UMBC campus and in Baltimore City.   The France-Merrick Scholarship Program seeks to combine service and reflection, build relationships, and strengthen networks to affect meaningful change.

Fellows are awarded a scholarship that goes towards tuition, mandatory fees, and room and board expenses.  This will not exceed $15,000 for Maryland students, $22,000 for out-of-state students.  In 2015-16, Fellows will engage in service connected with Baltimore City;  serve in leadership roles (which includes convening meetings for the France-Merrick Scholarship Program), support meaningful professional development, and serve as ambassadors of service at UMBC.  For 2016-17, two Fellows will be selected.

Scholars are awarded a scholarship of up to $1,500.  In 2015-16, Scholars will engage in service connected with Baltimore City, support meaningful professional development, participate in meetings, and serve as ambassadors of service at UMBC.  For 2016-17, five Scholars will be selected.

Applications for the 2016-17 cohort is in the FINAL week.  As a reminder, the timeline is:

Monday, March 7, 2016 – On-line applications open 

Monday, April 4, 2016 – Applications will close at 5 pm

Monday, April 18 – Friday, April 22, 2016 – Selected students invited for interviews

Monday, April 25, 2016 – Recipients notified

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

All participants must be aged over 18, have several years of IT security experience, and use a mobile device (e.g. smartphone). All collected data is anonymized.

If you are interested and meet the requirements, please contact the researcher (flynn.wolf@umbc.edu). Your participation is very important for our research and will be highly appreciated.

The Baltimore Sun and Washington post ran stories on efforts by the University System of Maryland to help faculty and students turn their research into growing businesses. The stories cite work being from at UMBC by CSEE faculty Nilanjan Banerjee, Ryan Robucci and Chintan Patel and their research students.

“UMBC professors Nilanjan Banerjee and Ryan Robucci relied heavily on the university to help them commercialize two types of wearable sensors they invented. One of the sensors, called RestEaze, measures leg movements during sleep, which may help identify if people have restless leg syndrome, ADHD or even cardiac problems. The other, called Inviz, is for people with limited mobility, who can use the sensor to call 911 or turn on a TV.

University and state officials helped walk the professors through the process of obtaining grants, patenting the technology and creating a business. Banerjee said the university is increasingly stressing that its researchers focus on commercializing their discoveries.

‘UMBC also definitely wants to place itself as a university that is helping the community around it as well as the state,’ Banerjee said. ‘It’s one of our responsibilities to make sure we have societal impact, and commercializing is one way of doing it.’

Resteaze is a wearable system that can non-intrusively monitor sleep quality in a home setting. It is being developed in conjunction with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with funding from the TEDCO Innovation Commercialization Program, which provides funding to support the commercialization of qualified university technologies. Inviz is a low-cost gesture recognition system that uses flexible textile-based capacitive sensors that can be embedded in fabric.  It is being developed with funding from the National Science Foundation and a gift from Microsoft.  Both projects are collaborative efforts between of faculty and students from UMBC’s computer science and computer engineering programs.

Holi is a spring festival in India and Nepal, also known as the festival of colors or the festival of sharing love. It is also celebrated in Pakistan, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mauritius, and Fiji. It is celebrated in the month of Phalgun on full moon day according to Hindu calendar. 

 This colorful festival also celebrates the eternal love of Radha and Krishna.It teaches humankind to transcend above the caste and creed. It is a festival to forget old grievances and meeting others with great warmth & high spirit. This festival begins with lightening of bonfire on Holi eve. Next day, people play Holi with different types of colors, abirs and gulals. They greet each other with "Shubh Holi" i.e. Happy Holi and send warm wishes of the festival. 

Click the following link for a brief video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaysqwFoVOE

Make sure you look out for The Hindu Students Council’s Holi event, to celebrate the festival of colors! It is on April 15th at 4pm on the Quad and is free for everyone!

Urban Resources Initiative Internships in Baltimore

Summer 2016

For descriptions of the internship projects listed below visit their website.

Opportunities with the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks:

·         Conservation and Archiving of the Records of the Recreation Division

·         Park and Recreation Program Promotion

·         Park or Recreation Center User Survey

·         Outdoor Recreation Activities/Healthy Baltimore Initiative

·         Weed Warriors Program Tracking & Outreach

·         Recreation Center or Aquatics Program Assistant

·         Documenting Property Values and Community Perceptions Near  Major Parks

·         Assist Development of a Plan for a Major Park

Opportunities with the Parks & People Foundation:

·         Buried Hydrologic Resource Overlay Mapping

·         Vacant Lot Re-Use: Assessing Vacant Lot Maintenance and Stewardship

·         Growing Green Initiative: Resource Guide

·         Community Greening Resource Network (CGRN) Assistant

·         Urban Ecology Education (Baltimore Ecosystem Study)

Skill Set Required: 

See the web site listing for specific skills, background, and interests for each of the internships.

Preferred Areas of Study/Major(s):

Environmental Science/Studies and other liberal arts majors

Some Details:

In Baltimore, MD

Summer 2016 (June-August)

15-20 hours per week

Flexible Workdays

Application Requirements: 

Priority Application Deadline: April 15, 2016

Required Documentation:

Resume, Cover Letter, Other - Faculty contact for reference

To apply, go to www.parksandpeople.org/learn/urban-resources-initiative

URI has provided internships for Baltimore-area students with the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks and with the Parks & People Foundation for over 25 years.