Earlier this week, UMBC SGA President Kaylesh Ramu ’13, political science, shared the stage with the U.S. Under Secretary of Education and other leaders at the National Press Club as they launched Shaping Our Future, a new national civic engagement initiative (watch video).

Education Week covered the event, quoting Ramu on the role of college students as active agents of change in their communities, on campus and beyond. “We are starting to have a culture change and understand that we all bring about what is UMBC,” said Ramu, describing the ethos that grounds UMBC’s new BreakingGround initiative, which launched last week.

Shaping Our Future is a year-long national dialogue on the future of higher education. Ramu has been involved through her membership on the board of the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP), a national alliance supporting innovative approaches to civic education and strong connections between universities and communities. President Hrabowski serves on ACP’s Presidents’ Advisory Council and UMBC staff David Hoffman, Michele Wolff and Craig Berger serve with Ramu on the national board.

UMBC senior back Liam Paddock (Worcestershire, England/Chase Technology College) has been named the male 2012 Eastern College Athletic Conference Division I Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Paddock will be feted at the 2012 ECAC Honors dinner held in conjunction with the 24th Annual ECAC Convention and Trade Show that will be held September 29-October 2 at the Mystic Marriott Hotel & Spa in Groton, Conn. The Honors Dinner is slated for Sunday evening, September 30.

Rider University soccer standout Abi Cottam was the female recipient of the award.

Paddock is the first Retriever to receive this ECAC honor. He has been a starter on the soccer field since his freshman year, and is a team co-captain for UMBC in this, his final collegiate season. A center back, Paddock anchors the Retriever defense, and was named to the America East All-Rookie Team in 2009. The Retrievers won the America East title and earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament during Paddock’s sophomore season.A double major in Psychology and Sociology, Paddock will graduate a semester early in December. In February of 2012, Paddock became the first Retriever to be named an America East Scholar-Athlete in the sport of men’s soccer. Paddock earned first-team all-conference honors and was the only first-team league honoree to be named to the All-Academic team in 2011. Additionally that year he was among three Retrievers selected to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America University Division Men’s Scholar All-East Region team, where he landed on the second team. Paddock has earned a place on the Fall 2010 and Fall 2011 America East Commissioner’s Honor Roll, and is a five-time member of the UMBC President’s List for earning a perfect 4.0 semester grade point average.

In his spare time, Paddock has spent over 30 hours tutoring at-risk youth in the College Gardens Youth Program. He has devoted time to Arbutus Middle School for Earth Day and the College for Every Student Program. He has also made time to volunteer with the Casey Cares Foundation Soccer Clinic for critically ill children.

One male and one female student-athlete from each NCAA Division are selected annually for the scholar-athlete awards based on extraordinary achievements in academics, athletics, and community service.

The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is the nation’s largest athletic conference and only multi-divisional conference, with approximately 300 member institutions ranging across 16 states from Maine to North Carolina and westerly to Illinois. Established in 1938 with 58 charter members, the ECAC has since emerged as the nationwide leader in service.

Two Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) professors Alan Sherman and Rick Forno received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) this month. The grant is $2.5 million in total, and is a part of part of the Federal Cyber Scholarship for Service (SFS) program, whose aim “to increase and strengthen the cadre of federal information assurance professionals that protect the government’s critical information infrastructure,” according to the SFS website.

The grant will give students at UMBC from the undergraduate to the professional studies programs a full scholarship plus an annual stipend of $8,000 for undergraduate and $12,000 for graduate students. In an article on the grant published on CSEE’s departmental page, Forno spoke of the benefits the honor will pay for the university, saying, “UMBC’s strength in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, and related STEM fields, combined with our reputation for producing qualified technologitsts makes our participation in SFS very attractive both to the school and our current and future students.”

The Baltimore Sun reported on August 28th the awarding of grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) totalling $9.2-million with the aim of “planting trees, restoring wetlands, installing rain gardens” and undertaking other projects to improve the condition of the Chesapeake Bay area.

Among the organizations awarded was UMBC’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE). The center received $324,000 and according to reporter Tim Wheeler will collaborate with the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and Maryland State Highway Administration (MSHA) on runoff controls like pervious concrete and a practice called subsoiling, where ground soil is loosened in order to hopefully allow it to soak up more rainfall.

CUERE’s project is among 41 in located Maryland, DC, and five other bay-watershed states, with all focused on dealing with polluted runoff, which Wheeler described as “one of the most challenging and costly aspects of the bay restoration” in the article.

Political science professor Thomas Schaller appeared on yesterday’s Marc Steiner Show to discuss the kickoff of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Schaller spoke about the DNC and what it means for the election with fellow panelists Rae Abileah (Code Pink), Neil Sroka (Progressive Change Campaign Committee), Cory McCray (BEST Democratic Club) and legislative consultant Tyrone Keys. The program also received calls from Gov. Martin O’Malley and Maryland State Delegate Mary L. Washington, directly from the DNC.

Want to learn more about Schaller’s perspective on the election? Check out his regular columns in Salon and the Baltimore Sun.

According to today’s Baltimore Sun, a spokesperson the mayor’s office has stated that Baltimore will not commission an economic impact study of this year’s Grand Prix. The official, Ryan O’Doherty, noted that a 2011 study of the race “confirmed what we know is an undisputed fact and that is the event has a significant positive economic impact,” but not everyone is convinced, including UMBC economics professor Dennis Coates.

Coates conducted an economic impact study on the 2011 Grand Prix, based on surveys of race-goers, that showed less positive figures than reported by the mayor’s office. Responding to O’Doherty’s statement Coates remarked, “They can rewrite history and they can claim pretty much anything because no one else will see the hard numbers.” He continued that from their perspective, “It’s better to not do an economic impact study than have unflattering numbers.”

It is not yet clear if or when the city will disclose how many people attended the 2012 Baltimore Grand Prix. O’Doherty said the city would release the amount of tax proceeds, but that information might not be available until the end of October.

UMBC’s Caitlyn Leiter-Mason ’14, GWST and political science, and Mitch Case ’11, MCS, are in Charlotte this week serving as delegates to the Democratic National Convention, reports Patch. Leiter-Mason, a Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar and contributor to USDemocrazy, represents Maryland’s 6th District. Case, social media coordinator at the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, represents Maryland’s 7th District.

Curious about how they got to Charlotte and what they hope to achieve? See their Tumblr A Tale of Two Delegates, read “Ellicott City delegate works to energize young voters” in the Baltimore Sun and listen to their interview on the Marc Steiner Show.

Donald F. Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, also appeared in the Baltimore Sun, commenting on the rise of Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, who is in Charlotte this week as chair of the National Democratic County Officials. When asked if this role would boost Ulman’s chances in a gubernatorial race, Norris noted it “shows that he has some image within the Democratic Party outside of the state,” but, he concluded, “I don’t think that translates into votes or necessarily money.”

“On campus, the good side of politics” is new Baltimore Sun op-ed written by David Hoffman, UMBC Assistant Director of Student Life for Civic Agency, and SGA President Kaylesh Ramu ’13, political science.

Hoffman and Ramu offer hope to readers who are “understandably skeptical about politics and public life” in this time of government gridlock and discord. They write that at UMBC, “students are helping lead the way to a new kind of politics that bridges difference and strengthens communities.”

The piece goes on to explore the civic engagement work underway at UMBC—carried forward by the BreakingGround initiative—as well as its roots in our campus culture and its implications for our broader democracy. Comments? Offer your thoughts, post your questions and share your experiences on the BreakingGround blog.

Donald F. Norris, professor and chairman of UMBC’s Department of Public Policy, appeared twice in this weekend’s Baltimore Sun, quoted on the Baltimore Grand Prix’s potential to impact Mayor Rawlings-Blake’s political career and on expectations for Governor O’Malley’s upcoming speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

Norris told the Sun that he does not expect the the Grand Prix, as a success or failure, to have a lasting effect on the mayor’s career. “Mayors are not made or unmade based upon sporting events,” he said. “If it’s a success, she claims the success and it’s a good thing. If it’s a failure, she can blame someone else.”

He was also optimistic about O’Malley’s DNC speech, which the Sun called “the most important speech of his political career.” Norris remarked, “This is a huge opportunity for O’Malley, and clearly it has come in recognition of his rising star within the party.”

“Obama’s speech Thursday night will not be the most important of his career, nor even his most important electoral speech…But Charlotte ain’t Denver, and this moment calls for neither hope nor change,” writes Thomas F. Schaller, professor of political science at UMBC, in his latest Salon column.

Schaller suggests, ‘What it calls for instead is an unapologetic defense of four years worthy of this president’s historical measure.” He expects Obama to tout the successes of his first term, but “to do so in humble, even sober tones,” given the country’s ongoing economic challenges and a less optimistic outlook than dominated the 2008 election.

For more on the Obama campaign’s 2012 approach and expectations for both President Obama and Vice President Biden’s DNC speeches, see Schaller’s column in the Baltimore Sun.