Apply for the CWIT Sponsorship to the

Grace Hopper Celebration 2017

Orlando, Florida

Total Value of the Sponsorship:$1,300

Description:

The Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) at UMBC is sponsoring a small group of students to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), which will be held from October 4th-October 6th in Orlando, Florida. GHC is a great opportunity to connect with other women in computing and innovative organizations, hear stories from peers and experts, and get quality career advice specific to your needs. Please visit the conference website at www.gracehopper.org to learn more. Contact us at deramo@umbc.edu if you have questions.

Date of Conference:October 4-6, 2017 (Travel October 3-7)

Application Deadline: Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Application Link: https://goo.gl/forms/jl7WOoituxZ7fPGA3

Sponsorship Details:

-- Paid and organized BY CWIT:

•          $450: Conference registration fee

•          $150: Hotel: 4 nights of lodging with 4 students per room at the conference hotel

    --  Paid and organized BY STUDENT and reimbursed after the conference with proper receipts. You will be reimbursed for the amount shown on the receipts as long as it is not above the maximum amounts shown below:

•          $230-$400: Roundtrip flight: Baltimore Washington International, DC (BWI) to Orlando International, FL (MCO). Depart BWI on 10/3/17 and Return 10/7/17. (Coach class only will be reimbursed).

•          $180: Meals (Reimbursement at UMBC per diem rate for meals, $45 per day)

•          $120: Airport parking fees and other transportation from airport to hotel and back

Timeline of Expectations if Selected:

1.    ON 5/12/17: Attend a meeting on Friday, May 12^th, noon - 1 PM in ITE 237 to meet other conference attendees and learn more about what to expect at the conference. There will be another meeting in September to go over the reimbursement procedures for your expenses.

2.    BY July 1: Book your flight to Florida by July 1st. You should plan to depart on Tuesday, October 3, and return on Saturday morning, October 7.

3.    BY 9/5/17: Communicate with your faculty about attending the conference and making arrangements for any missed coursework.  We will provide a letter saying that you are being sponsored to help you have these conversations.

4.    IN SEPTEMBER 2017: Attend a meeting in September to discuss reimbursement procedures, sign up to volunteer at the CWIT table at the conference, and review final trip details.

5.    POST CONFERENCE: Attend a debriefing meeting after the conference to talk about what you learned.

6.    FALL or SPRING SEMESTER: Attendees will also be asked to share their experiences with other students at a CWIT event later in the school year.

7.    ALWAYS: Respond promptly to e-mails from us about the conference and complete the necessary paperwork required for travel and reimbursement according to UMBC policies and deadlines.

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Note: Students who have applied for a scholarship to attend the GHC already through the Anita Borg Institute (an opportunity that was promoted by CWIT) and students who have never attended the GHC before will receive priority.  Students who do not meet these criteria are still eligible, though, so do still apply!

Questions? Contact Erica D’Eramo at deramo@umbc.edu

TIC Gums is consistently ranked as America’s #1 preferred supplier of hydrocolloids to the food industry. We are seeking students who are currently pursuing a Food Science/Nutrition degree for an upcoming intern opportunity for this summer. These opportunities are for Lab Technicians in the R&D Department of our Texture and Innovation Center in our White Marsh, MD location.

In this role, you will be preparing lab samples, assisting in lab experiments, and performing research. You will be performing tests including viscosity, pH, mesh, moisture, and gel strength. You will also gain skills required to safely and properly operate specified lab instrumentation such as Brookfield viscometer, Texture Analyzer, pH meter, and ash oven according to listed work instructions. You will be responsible for maintaining a laboratory notebook to record the results of your work, and for tabulating and submitting results in a timely manner. You will also prepare and deliver a presentation of your overall findings and results.

Students should possess the following skills and experience: Taken a food chemistry and/or food processing class, fundamental courses & labs in food science; have worked in a lab and familiar with good laboratory practices; performed research projects; ability to perform experiments with limited supervision; strong communication skills; familiar with the process of product development/experiment design; experience with emulsion and particle size testing/analysis.

Each internship position will have specific goals and project objectives that the student will be responsible for accomplishing during the internship. Students will be assigned a department supervisor who will provide guidance on day-to-day tasks, as well as expose the student to the working environment of TIC Gums.

Throughout the summer, HR will sponsor several seminars on resume writing, interviewing techniques and transitioning to the job world after school.

Our internship program runs during the summer months – approximately the end of May through August. Students must have a minimum of 3.0 GPA in order to apply and be pursuing a degree in a related field of study to the position.

Each internship is a paid position that offers a challenging opportunity. Positions are limited. Interested candidates should submit their resume to Michelle Magliocchetti @ internships@ticgums.com.

You can also visit our website at: http://www.ticgums.com/careers/internships.html

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is pleased to announce our 2017 Summer Intern Program.  This is a 12-week internship program for current students with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale.  The purpose of the Summer Intern Program is to enhance students' knowledge about CMS programs, mission, vision and goals.  Additionally, the program seeks to familiarize participants about Federal, State, and local health care programs serving under-served and uninsured populations.   

Recruitment for the 2017 Summer Internship Program will take place through vacancy announcements posted on https://cms.usajobs.gov/ .  The announcements may be found by using a keyword search of “CMS Intern” in the “Keyword” section of the USAJobs.gov website.  

A full description of the program, qualification, and application requirements will be found in the vacancy announcements, so please read carefully.  Students must submit a complete application online through the appropriate vacancy announcement(s) for consideration by the closing date.  The open period for applications is March 13, 2017 – March 17, 2017 (5 DAYS ONLY!!!). 

The available locations will be noted in each of the separate vacancy announcements and could include: Baltimore, MD; Bethesda, MD; Washington, DC; Boston, MA; New York, NY; Philadelphia, PA; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Kansas City, MO; Denver, CO; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. 
  
OPENING March 13, 2017:

Student Trainee (Administrative), GS-399-3/4 - https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/465567100

Student Trainee (Administrative), GS-399-5 - https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/465573800

Student Trainee (Administrative), GS-399-7 – https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/465632700

Student Trainee (Health Insurance), GS-199-4/5 - https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/465541200

Student Trainee (Health Insurance), GS-199-7 - https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/465545000

Links directly to these vacancy announcements will be forwarded when they become available on March 13, 2017. Thank you.

 A post by staff member Daniel Willey

Wednesday, March 8th marked International Working Women’s Day and the Women’s Strike, or the Day Without Women. On that day, women were encouraged to not work or shop and wear red in solidarity as a way of protesting inequality and showing women’s economic impact.

Protest organizers Linda Sarsour, Tamika Mallory, and Carmen Perez arrested at New York protest on Wednesday

But, International Working Women’s Day has always been a day for striking. The first time this day was observed in 1908, women marched in New York City against poor working conditions and low wages. The observance of International Working Women’s Day (IWWD) spread quickly to other countries as a part of socialist movements and, eventually, as protests against WWI. In 1917, women, joined by female textile workers and eventually working men, gathered in the Russian capital to protest living and working conditions– a day which would spark the Russian revolution.

It is in honor of this history and this tradition that I write this blog.

There have been a lot of critiques of this year’s IWWD Women’s Strike. I’ve read about how only privileged women who can afford time off or have the job stability will participate. Prince George’s county schools closed on Wednesday because so many of their teachers requested the day off, leaving poor kids without school lunch and breakfast and working parents with nowhere to put their kids. Some just plain argue that the strike is a symbolic gesture and that it’s effectively useless as a strategy.

I’d like to make a different critique: when International Working Women’s Day becomes International Women’s Day, we lose the incredible power of the strike and deny the history paved by women in labor movements.

Okay, so let me take a step back and talk about labor and strikes for a second. In a capitalist economic system like the U.S, there are people who own the means of production (the tools that produce a product or perform a service such as factories, machinery, equipment, office space, etc) and there are people who sell their labor for a wage and work with this equipment or office space to produce the product or offer the service. For example, the owner of a manufacturing company (the capitalist) owns all the factories and resources necessary to make their product, but they must buy labor from workers in order to make this product. Of course, this system is a bit more complicated than that but that’s the basic gist.

So, if the capitalist wants to turn a profit, which most business owners do, they have to figure out how to make a product for cheaper than it can be sold. The ways of doing this are buying materials cheaply, paying for labor cheaply, or selling a product at a higher price. Nobody wants to buy an expensive product, so the capitalist generally relies on the first two ways. It is not in the interest of the capitalist to pay high wages or provide benefits to workers UNLESS…

Chicago Teacher’s Union Strike 2016

UNLESS the workers refuse to work without them. This is where the strike draws its power. An essential part of what makes a union effective is that it is a collective tool: a worker refusing to work because of low wages gets fired and replaced; a workforce refusing to work shuts down the business and stops production and sales. It is the collectivity and the organization of a labor union which protects the individuals within and makes a strike an effective tool.

Herein lies my argument: labor simply isn’t organized the way it used to be and the individualistic approach we take to labor in general–and to this year’s women’s strike– diminishes the power we have as workers. The people who go on strike are traditionally the most at-risk, not the most privileged. When we say the women’s strike is only for privileged women, we actually mean that there is no collectivity or organization of women workers which will protect the most vulnerable of women. We mean that there is no general Women’s Union which will negotiate with employers on their behalf. We mean that we no longer view labor as a tool we can leverage but as something we owe to our employer for allowing us to live. Many women chose to go to work on Wednesday because they viewed their work as too important. Teachers, childcare providers, nurses, and others went to work regardless of whether they could strike. But that’s kind of the point of the strike– to say “You can’t survive without my labor so you had better treat me that way.”

I mean, I get it. The Women’s Center remained open because we wanted to be there for women and others on such an important day and we wanted to provide programming which would uplift and educate the community. We view the work we do as not only essential but also coming from our own sense of duty and morals, not necessarily a way to earn a living. But sometimes I feel like the incredible amount of personal and emotional resources my coworkers pour into the work they do get taken for granted and I wish they, and the Center, got more recognition for that.

I love the idea of a general Women’s Strike, but I think it must be organized on the principles of labor organizing and push against individualist approaches in order to be most effective. We must make demands for the benefit of black women, indigenous women, disabled women, undocumented women, mothers, and caregivers and all women must strike until these demands are met.   

Women workers in New York strike to demand safer working conditions after a fire kills 146 Triangle Shirtwaist factory workers

Women have always been prominent in labor movements. Garment and textile workers, laundresses, and many other industrial manufacturing jobs were populated almost entirely by women. Following the famous Triangle Shirtwaist fire which killed nearly 150 women in 1911, 20,000 women went on strike to demand safer conditions. We can’t afford to lose the “working” in International Working Women’s Day because it ignores the impact of labor organizing by women on anything from maternity leave to the Russian revolution.

So what comes next? Learn about labor history. Join your student union. Support workers rights and current labor movements. Use your privilege to support and advocate for marginalized people in your workplace. Talk to people about your salary and encourage others to share theirs. And remember: never cross a picket line.