The Graduate Schools at UMBC and College Park will hold orientations this week, and UMBC will hold its first graduate student seminar on Friday, August 26. UMBC’s Evening Graduate School Orientation will be held on Wednesday, August 24 at 4:30 PM.

UM College Park invites all new and continuing graduate students of color and all other interested students to attend the Annual Networking Reception at the Nyumburu Cultural Center in the Multi-Purpose room. 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM on Thursday, August 25. This reception offers students and an opportunity to meet and greet graduate student groups and offices that support students of color at College Park; network with faculty, staff, and group leaders on campus; and learn about various student groups. Refreshments will be served.

At the end of the week, UMBC will host a Teaching and Learning Workshop for all new TAs on campus and all students interested in teaching. The workshop will also feature an “Success Seminar” free 1 hour luncheon workshop on Life/Work Balance  for all graduate students with Psychologist Dr. Robert Deluty.

• All UMBC Graduate Student Success Seminars for 2011 – 2012 are listed here:

http://promisesuccessseminars.wordpress.com/umbc-grad-student-success-seminars/

• Postdoctoral seminars are listed here:

http://promisesuccessseminars.wordpress.com/postdocs/

• PROF-it (Professors-in-Training) and Professors Beyond Borders (PBB) seminars are listed here:

http://promisesuccessseminars.wordpress.com/professors-in-training-prof-it/

The 9th Annual PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) was held at the Sheraton Town Center Hotel in Columbia, Maryland this past weekend. This year, we featured an outdoor component, hosted by Terra Trax from Arizona.  The team leader, Craig Imler, is an Outward Bound-trained facilitator, who has been leading retreats for PROMISE since 2004.  Many alumni mentioned that their turning points came “at Coolfont.” In past years, we’ve had PROMISE retreats at the Coolfont Conference Center in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, and at the Rocky Gap Conference Center in Cumberland, Maryland. This year, we brought the “Coolfont” and “Rocky Gap” experiences and our facilitator team to the SSI. This was the first year that we combined the SSI and the retreat.

A full list of activities can be found on the SSI’s website:

http://promisesuccessseminars.wordpress.com/promise-summer-success-institute-ssi/

We have several alumni who are current professors and others who are in postdocs or STEM positions with plans to enter the professoriate later in their careers or serve as adjunct faculty.

Here is a short list:

Dr. Oliver Meyers (UMBC), Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Mississippi State University

Dr. Alycia Marshall (UMCP), Associate Professor of Mathematics, Anne Arundel Community College

Dr. Stacey Williams (UMB), Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Notre Dame

Dr. Jesus Caban (UMBC), Adjunct Professor of Computer Science, UMBC, Researcher – NIH

Dr. Lorrie Frasure, Assistant Professor, Political Science, UCLA

Dr. Christopher Whitt (UMCP), Assistant Professor, Political Science, Augustana College

Dr. Calandra Tate (UMCP), Assistant Professor, Mathematics, College of Staten Island, CUNY

Dr. Cyntrica Eaton (UMCP), Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Norfolk State University

Dr. B. Michelle Harris (UMCP), Assistant Professor, Nutrition and Food Sciences, UDC

Dr. Kholiswa Laird (UMBC), Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry, University of Rochester

Dr. Latese Briggs (UMBC), Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry,  MIT/Harvard Broad Institute on Genomics

Dr. Robert Alexander (UMBC), Center for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Sylvester Mosley (UMBC), ORISE Postdoctoral Fellow, FDA

Dr. Dawn Ward (UMBC), Assistant Professor, Chemistry, Stevenson College

Dr. T. Sean Vasitis (UMB), Assistant Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Dr. Jocelyn Reader (UMB), Postdoctoral Fellow, Greenbaum Cancer Center, University of Maryland School and Medicine, Adjunct Professor at University of Maryland University College

Dr. Marishka Brown (UMB), Postdoctoral Fellow, Respiratory Neurobiology, University of Pennsylvania

Alumni of the Dissertation House are listed here:

http://dissertationhouse.wordpress.com/alumni/

This page contains many first placement positions and will continue to be updated.