(Above, Bill Shewbridge and Lynn Casabon receive a proclamation from Sam Moxley, representing the county executive. Photo by Vin Grabill.)

In celebration of the new Arbutus Branch of the Baltimore County Public Library, UMBC faculty and students worked with members of the surrounding community to display historic railroad photographs and create a series of digital stories about the area through residents’ eyes.

Lynn Cazabon, associate chair and associate professor of art, worked with students to create a series of mural-sized prints from historical photographs of the railroad in the Arbutus area, which are on permanent display in the new Arbutus Branch.

Intercultural Video Communication students, led by Bill Shewbridge, director of the New Media Studio, collaborated with community residents to combine photos, images and oral history for a series of short films. In “Arbutus Stories,” residents reflect on the community, share experiences and describe their hometown.

The digital stories are available on the Baltimore County Public Library and UMBC New Media Studio websites.

Below is an overview of the project:

Below is the digital story, “38 and a Half Years”:

Professor of the Practice of English Christopher Corbett will speak at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum on Saturday, October 8, at 1 p.m.

Corbett’s talk will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the end of the Pony Express. Corbett is the author of “Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth & Lasting Legend of the Pony Express.” A book signing and opportunity to tour the “Pony Express: Romance vs. Reality” exhibit will follow.

This program is free. For more information, contact the National Postal Museum at 202-633-5533 or NPMprograms@si.edu.

Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, was mentioned in a September 18 New York Times Sunday Book Review essay entitled “The Children’s Authors Who Broke the Rules.”

Among the authors mentioned in the essay is Shel Silverstein, who wrote “The Giving Tree.” “[‘The Giving Tree’] was embraced by Christians as a parable of selflessness and has been denounced by feminists as a patriarchal fantasy in morality-tale clothing,” writes essayist Pamela Paul. “Ellen Handler Spitz, the author of the classic study ‘Inside Picture Books,’ wrote that the story ‘perpetuates the myth of the selfless, all-giving mother who exists only to be used and the image of a male child who can offer no reciprocity, express no gratitude, feel no empathy—an insatiable creature who encounters no limits for his demands.'”

Sports fans were urged to think carefully about the language they use to describe their teams’ victory in a story that appeared on the Savage-Guilford Patch.com site.

Christine Mallinson, assistant professor of language, literacy, and culture, commented on a number of tweets following the Ravens-Steelers matchup that used the term “rape” to describe the Ravens’ victory. The Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault brought attention to these tweets through their own Twitter page.

“The use of the word ‘rape’ in a sports metaphor may be seen as particularly disturbing because it draws a parallel between a rape, a horrifying event, and a positive athletic outcome—the successful domination of one team or athlete over another,” Mallison said.

“Tweets About Rape a Cause for Concern” appeared on the site on September 16.

If you missed the Humanities Forum lecture with history professor Rebecca Boehling, you can read about it on Catonsville’s Patch.com site.

“UMBC Professor Brings Holocaust Story to Life,” which appeared on the site on September 15, recaps the event and the coincidence that brought Boehling and Suzanne Ostrand-Rosenberg, professor of biology, together.

Ostrand-Rosenberg had recently discovered boxes of holocaust-era letters in her aging mother’s closet. “One day I went into the department office, and I was in the Xerox room chatting with a colleague, and she said, ‘You should talk with Rebecca Boehling,” Ostrand-Rosenberg said.

Boehling and her co-author, Uta Larkey of Goucher College, eventually began sorting out a unique and complex correspondence that crossed continents and generations. The result is Boehling and Larkey’s new book, “Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust.”

“Revolution is coming; in what form no one knows, but it is coming.”