Join us in a celebration of libraries.

Please RSVP on MyUMBC: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/31161

Students who are not from UMBC, and are coming from other schools within the University System of Maryland, may RSVP by placing your name, school, and department into the comment section below.

UMBC participates in the national effort to connect graduate students with options for careers through the Council of Graduate Schools’ effort, Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers. 

REF:  Council of Graduate Schools and Educational Testing Service. (2012). Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers. Report from the Commission on Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

WEBSITE with the report and additional resources: http://www.pathwaysreport.org/

Confirmed organizations as of 4/4/15

• National Security Agency
• The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratories
• District of Columbia Public Schools
• Aflac
• SABREE, Inc.
• National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
• Senaissance software
• The Hilltop Institute
• Creative Staffing International
• Social Security Administration
• City of Baltimore – Bureau of Budget and Management Research (BBMR)
• Basis, Inc.
• US NAVY
• US Secret Service
• Northrop Grumman
• National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)

Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are invited to meet Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Volkow is coming to UMBC as the Spring 2015 Distinguished Speaker for the ADVANCE program at UMBC. UMBC ADVANCE reached out to PROMISE and worked with Dr. Volkow to create a special session specifically geared to connect with graduate students. Dr. Volkow’s research is on addiction and the brain, but she is also interested in sharing about her role as a woman leader in STEM. Dr. Volkow grew up in Mexico and has been studying addiction since she was a teenager. She has published more than 580 articles, and 90 book chapters and other papers!

Come and meet this phenomenal leader!

• Monday, April 13, 2015
• Special Session for graduate students and postdocs: 1:00 – 2:00 PM, UMBC Campus, University Center, Room 310 (Light refreshments will be served.)
  • UMBC RSVP here: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/31746
  • Grad students who have participated in PROMISE, but are not at UMBC, RSVP with your name and school in the comment section below.
• Afternoon Research Lecture: 4:30-5:30 PM, AOK Library Gallery (All invited, reception to follow), http://my.umbc.edu/groups/advance/news/50784

NIDA’s website describes Dr. Volkow’s work as follows:

Dr. Volkow pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate the toxic effects and addictive properties of abusable drugs. Her studies have documented changes in the dopamine system affecting, among others, the functions of frontal brain regions involved with motivation, drive, and pleasure in addiction. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD, and aging. (REF: http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/directors-page)

See Dr. Volkow’s talk from TEDMED:

_______________________

The PROMISE AGEP would like to express gratitude to UMBC ADVANCE for specifically developing a session with Dr. Volkow for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. We express sincere thanks to Dr. Autumn Reed (Program Coordinator for Diversity Initiatives, Office of the Provost, UMBC)  for strengthening the ADVANCE-AGEP connection through this structured and coordinated event with Dr. Volkow. 

• ABOUT ADVANCE: National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers (ADVANCE)
• ABOUT ADVANCE at UMBC: http://advance.umbc.edu/
• ABOUT the ADVANCE Hispanic Women in STEM Project with UMBC & Puerto Rico: https://hispanicstemwomen.wordpress.com/

_______________________

Dr. Volkow’s image and biographical information are reprinted with permission from the National Institute on Drug Abuse Press Office. 

The 2015 PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) will be held on Saturday, August 15, 2015, 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM. This conference (business attire) provides professional development for new/incoming graduate students, continuing graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, early-career professors, and professionals in the region. This is an annual event that has been in existence since 2003. All PROMISE alumni are welcome to return! Professionals in the area are welcome to attend to be part of this networking, professional development, and community building event. The 2015 SSI will be held at The Hotel at Arundel Preserve, in Hanover, MD. See more about our SSI History: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/promise/the-promise-summer-success-institute-ssi/

Stay tuned to this website. It will be regularly updated with information. 

Warmer weather is arriving and we’d like for you to mark your calendars now for two PROMISE AGEP events that are open to graduate students and postdocs within the University System of Maryland, and our friends and colleagues from other universities. We build community as part of our professional development efforts, so we’ll look forward to having you join us on those dates.

Stay tuned to this website for more information. Both events will utilize the Eventbrite registration system. Here are some details that you can add to your plans.

1. The Cookout and Celebration of Graduates will be held on Saturday, May 2, 2015, 1:00 – 4:00 PM. This event acknowledges all master’s and doctoral graduates from any school within the University System of Maryland. This year, we will also acknowledge postdocs who are moving on to other positions. Please send us your good news so that we can acknowledge you: promisestaff@gmail.com, with the subject: “May 2 Cookout Celebration.” This event will be held at the High Ridge Park Pavilion in Laurel, MD.

2. The PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) will be held on Saturday, August 15, 2015, 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM. This conference (business attire) provides professional development for new/incoming graduate students, continuing graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, early-career professors, and professionals in the region. This is an annual event that has been in existence since 2003. All PROMISE alumni are welcome to return! Professionals in the area are welcome to attend to be part of this networking, professional development, and community building event. The 2015 SSI will be held at The Hotel at Arundel Preserve, in Hanover, MD.

Details for the 2015 SSI on August 15th will be posted here: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/promise-summer-success-institute-ssi-august-15-2015/

• See more about our SSI History: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/promise/the-promise-summer-success-institute-ssi/

Please save the dates!

These events are sponsored by the National Science Foundation, 
    PROMISE AGEP: Maryland Transformation (AGEP-T) project. 

This post was written by Special Collections student assistant Jen Wachtel. Thank you, Jen!

The Retriever Weekly, our university’s proud student newspaper, began publishing as UMBC News in 1966. Special Collections and the University Archives maintain the print copies of all issues of the Retriever, and a large section of the issues (1966-1981 and 2002 to the present) are available online in UMBC's Digital Collections. With monetary support from UMBC's Office of Institutional Advancement, students and staff have been preparing to send the remaining issues to Creekside Digital, a digitization vendor located a short drive away in Glen Arm, MD. This project is a part of the Lyrasis Digitization Collaborative.

I conducted an inventory of the issues of the Retriever dating from January 1983 to May 1997, totaling over four hundred newspapers. Along the way, I found insights into some of UMBC’s hot-button topics of the 1980s and 1990s, including contentious construction projects and students’ demands for increased parking spaces (ed. note - complaining about parking is a long-standing UMBC tradition!). I particularly enjoyed following the timeline of the university administration, including the appointment of one Freeman A. Hrabowski III to Vice Provost at UMBC and his later position as Interim President for a “full academic year and possibly longer.” Of course, no inventory of The Retriever would be complete without the satirical Deceiver. Published annually on the week of April 1^st, the Deceiver  featured such choice headlines as “Giant Terrapin attacks UMBC” (referring to College Park’s mascot) and “SCHPORTZ” (1993).

Jen Wachtel working in Special Collections.

I also noticed some strange anomalies in The Retriever’s numbering system. From miswritten Roman numerals (XXVIV for 29 and IXX for 24) to a startling continuity error, the Retriever always had special surprises in store. The most bizarre circumstance was that in the academic year 1995-96, the Retriever accidentally published two separate versions of Volume 31 – one for fall, and one for spring, before continuing with Volumes 32 and 33 in 1996-97. This means that since spring 1996, every volume of The Retriever has been one number short!

Special Collections is located on the first floor of the library behind the gallery. We are open Monday through Friday from 1-4pm, on Thursdays from 1-8pm, and by appointment.

Dear Graduate Students,

You are invited to apply for a summer internship at IBM. Our friends from IBM note that these opportunities can be in Africa if you have a request, or in the US. To broaden participation, IBM extends a special invitation to underrepresented groups (Black, Hispanic and Native American students in Computer Science, Math, Statistics, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Material Science and Chemistry.)

• Positions are available for Summer 2015 and Full-time, starting 2015.
• Ph.D students are preferred
• IBM is also looking for Masters students who will complete their education by Spring 2015 and are looking for full-time Research or Development opportunities.
• The internship opportunity is open to continuing students who are looking for Summer 2015 IBM Research or Development opportunities.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Send your resume/cv to Terry Davis at davistb@us.ibm.com, and cc Renetta Tull at rtull@umbc.edu
2) Please advise Mr. Davis if you are completing your education by Spring 2015, and looking for full time opportunities, or if you are a continuing student in the Fall of 2015 therefore, looking for a summer internship opportunities in Summer 2015.
3) Specify the Research or Development area of your education that is a match for your interests, http://www.research.ibm.com/. Also specify if you are interested in the special internship opportunities that are available Africa (Nairobi, Kenya).

4) Post your resume/cv to the IBM Applicant portal: http://www-03.ibm.com/employment/.

Please note that you must follow all four steps.

All students are considered for IBM opportunities, this is an outreach for an underrepresented group in the Science and Engineering field. IBM Research and Development groups sponsors Foreign Nationals.

Thank you to Jaye Clark-Nias, Computer Science doctoral candidate at Bowie State University who re-connected PROMISE to representatives at IBM following the 2015 Tapia Conference. Jaye participated in this IBM internships in the past and had a great experience. More about Jaye: http://www.cs.bowiestate.edu/~cturner/Students/Jay_Clark.html

This post was written by Special Collections Graduate Assistant Nichole Zang. Thank you, Nichole!

UMBC Special Collections is pleased to announce that the Office of Institutional Advancement records are now open to researchers! This collection contains newspaper clippings, press releases, Office of Arts and Management publications, and information on UMBC faculty and departments from the 1960s through 2009. This collection is useful tool for any researcher looking into the university’s exciting past.

The first series of the collection is composed of about forty years of newspaper clippings relating to UMBC. The many clippings in these files share parallels for what we may see around campus today. In August of 1975, for example, construction on the Library Pond began as a flood control dam, creating a scene not unlike the one students walk past on their way to class every day. Come see what other exciting news stories were written about UMBC over the past 50 years!

For anyone looking for the university’s statements on university events between 1963 and 1991, this is also the collection to choose! Series II of the collection contains press releases from those years, arranged by date. The Office of University Relations created the releases for the media in order to inform them of commencements, awards ceremonies, campus events, and other university news. One of these releases describes the festivities of the Fine Arts Building’s open house in November 1975. The newly constructed building was intended to house the visual and performing arts concentrations, as well as art exhibits and performances.

Are you interested in past UMBC art, dance, or gallery events? The Office of Arts Management series of the collection includes publications and photographs printed for advertisement of various shows throughout campus, including Shakespeare on Wheels, theatre and dance performances.

The collections also consists a select number of records regarding university faculty, departments, and other campus events from the mid-1970s to late-2000s. Topics of these files include the proposed UMBC and UMB merger, commencement ceremonies, faculty member CVs and correspondence, and the education department.

A finding aid is available on the Special Collections website.