As previously announced to the campus, Professor Rebecca Boehling, the Director of the Dresher Center, will become Director of the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany, in January.  A distinguished scholar of the Holocaust, World War II, and early postwar Germany, Dr. Boehling has served as the founding Director of the James T. and Virginia M. Dresher Center for the Humanities, making it a highly visible and important presence on campus in supporting and advancing scholarship in the humanities.  We are all indebted to her for outstanding work with the Dresher Center and her role as a champion of the humanities and the liberal arts.

I am delighted to announce that Jessica Berman, Professor of English (and Affiliate Professor of Gender + Women's Studies, and of Language, Literacy, and Culture), will become Director of the Dresher Center in January, 2014, when she returns from a year's leave.  Dr. Berman is the author of two heralded books on modernism, co-editor of the book series Modernist Latitudes at the Columbia University Press, and a Board Member of the American Comparative Literature Association.  She has also served as Chair of the UMBC Research Council and for the past six years has chaired the Department of English.  We are fortunate indeed to have a scholar of Professor Berman's stature and skills bring her experience and vision to the Dresher Center.

I am delighted as well to announce that Professor Beverly Bickel of the Ph.D. Program in Language, Literacy, and Culture (and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Gender + Women's Studies) will direct the Dresher Center from January 2013 through December 2013.  Dr. Bickel is a talented administrator, who has most recently served as Acting Director of LLC, and an innovative scholar in such areas as new media and globalized communication and culture.  Under her leadership, the Dresher Center will continue to move forward in supporting and enhancing the humanities and humanities scholarship at UMBC.

The Dresher Center has become a major institution on campus thanks to the leadership of Dr. Boehling.  I know that Professors Berman and Bickel will sustain and build upon the achievements and momentum established by Professor Boehling.  They will be supported in this by Professor John Stolle-McAllister of the Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication, who this semester has taken on the positions of Director of the Humanities Scholars Program and Associate Director of the Dresher Center.

U.S. Department of Education Seeking Winter/Spring 2013 Interns:

Do you have an interest in education policy analysis or research? In intergovernmental relations or public affairs? Does working with social media while learning about the role of the Federal government in education sound like your cup of tea?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, or if you think you might have a future in government or education, then an internship this winter and spring at the Department of Education could be for you.

Not only will an internship at ED provide an opportunity to learn first-hand about federal education policy while developing a variety of other skills, including writing, researching, communication, and time-management skills, but interns are also encouraged to participate in group intern events, such as brownbag lunches with ED officials, movie nights, and local tours. For many, one of the many advantages of an ED internship is the proximity to such historical and celebrated sites it provides via its location at our nation’s capital.

Due to the competitive nature of securing an internship at ED, applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. If you are interested in interning this upcoming winter/spring term (from approximately January to early May), there are materials you must send in to be considered for an interview:

A.   A cover letter summarizing why you wish to work at ED and stating your previous experiences in the line of education, if any. Include here what particular offices interest you, keeping in mind that due to the volume of applications received, you may not be awarded with your first-choice office upon acceptance.

B.   An updated resume.

C.   A completed copy of the Intern Application.

Once these three documents are finalized, prospective interns should send them in one email to StudentInterns@ed.gov with the subject line formatted as follows: Last Name, First Name: Fall Intern Application.

An internship at ED is one of the best ways a student can learn about education policy and working in the civil service, but it is not limited to this definition. Your internship at ED is where you will develop crucial workplace skills that will help you down whatever career path you choose, and it is also where you will meet fellow students like yourself who share your passions for education, learning, and engagement.

Visit Trellis Services Inc to Learn about Internships & Jobs

Transportation Provided, Enhance Lives of Children w/Autism

CWIT Student Council Update...

T-shirt finalists have been chosen! But before we can share the poll with everyone, we wanted to get ideas for quotes, sayings, or whatever for the back of the t-shirt. We'll pick the best ones at an upcoming SC meeting and include them in the poll for designs. Submit your creative, clever, and pun-ny ideas via Google form by Monday, October 22nd here: http://tinyurl.com/cwitshirt12

What event would you like CWIT Student council to host this semester? Vote here now: http://mypollcreator.com/vote/15678 Please vote only once.

Check out our recap video put together by our Historian, Katrina. Congrats to the winners of the $20 Subway and $15 Starbucks gift cards!

http://youtu.be/fw-l-QFFTpA

CSEE Colloquium

Energy Conservation in Biometric Algorithms

LCDR Robert Schultz
United States Naval Academy

1:00pm Friday, 19 October 2012, ITE 227

Whether using iris recognition to gain access to a secure facility or face recognition to unlock a cell phone, biometric signal processing is rapidly becoming a part of everyday life. Many algorithms are being implemented on portable devices that have a limited battery life. This talk will present some work, conducted at the USNA Center for Biometric Signal Processing, which indicates that significant energy savings can be obtained by using C versus Java and Integers versus software Floats in applications written for the Android operating system. A comparison of the effect of using Integers versus Floats on a modern iris recognition algorithm will also be presented.

LCDR Robert Schultz is a submarine officer that has been assigned as a Junior Permanent Military Professor of Electrical Engineering at the United States Naval Academy. His research interests include hyperspectral and biometric image processing. As a member of the USNA Center for Biometric Signal Processing, he has recently been working to identify more energy efficient methods for biometric algorithm implementation.

You are invited to our Diversity Recruitment Dinner—FREE!!!

TUESDAY 10/23

Meet with employers in your major! Free Dinner! Prizes!

Advance registration is required! Registration available at:

http://careers.umbc.edu/news_events/diversity.php

Registration deadline is Wednesday, October 17.

Limited seating will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Employers who are interested in diversifying their workforce will be on hand to discuss career opportunities with in their organizations.

Munch and mingle with employers who are interested in hiring students in your major.

 You will speak directly to employers matched to your industry.

Get career advice from key panelists and successful UMBC alumni working at GE, Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Morgan Stanley, NSA and T. Rowe Price.

This is an event for all students . Dress professionally and bring several copies of your resume.

 Co-hosted by the Career Services Center and the National Society of Black Engineers.

Feel free to contact the Career Services Center (careers@umbc.edu, 410.455.2216 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 410.455.2216 end_of_the_skype_highlighting) with questions.

UMBC Information Systems Department
Fall 2012 Distinguished Lecture Series

The 'Learning Health System'
as the Consummate Informatics Challenge

Dr. Charles P. Friedman
Professor of Information and Public Health
Director of the Michigan Health Informatics Program
University of Michigan

11:00am 19 October 2012, ITE456, UMBC

It is widely recognized that the nation requires a Learning Health System (LHS) to provide higher quality, safer, and more affordable health care. An LHS is one that can routinely and securely aggregate data from disparate sources, convert the data to knowledge, and disseminate that knowledge, in actionable forms, to everyone who can benefit from it. Achieving a Learning Health System at national scale requires solution of a wide array of technology and policy problems and, as such, is the consummate challenge in health informatics. This presentation will describe the LHS, why it is vital to our future, the specific problems that must be addressed, and a pathway through which the nation might achieve an LHS.

Charles Friedman directs the Health Informatics program at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the university in 2011, he was chief scientific officer of the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. From 2007-2009 he served as the nation’s deputy national coordinator for health IT. He has also held federal positions as associate director for research informatics and information technology at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health and senior scholar at the National Library of Medicine. He led the creation of informatics programs during his professorships in medicine, information science, and biomedical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is the author of a well-known health informatics textbook and serves as associate editor of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

see http://bit.ly/SVgTEE for more information