This year’s Arts and Humanities Afternoon at UMBC Homecoming on Saturday, October 15, 2011 will focus on alumni filmmakers. To whet your appetite for our afternoon discussion on the art of moving images, we’d like to introduce you to some of the filmmakers who’ll be coming to the event, which will be held in the Skylight Room of the UMBC Commons from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. We’re also planning some screenings of the work of these filmmakers on campus in the week before the event. Please stay tuned!

Films by the alumni filmmakers will be shown at the Skylight Room in The Commons on the following dates:
Monday, October 10, 2011 at 7 p.m.: Saved! (Brian Dannelly ’97)

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 at 7 p.m.: Films by Richard Chisolm ’82, Steven Fischer ’98 and Daphne Gardner ’09

Read more about these alumni in the Fall 2011 issue of UMBC Magazine.

Searing waves of heat already ripple through West Baltimore at 9 a.m. on a Friday in July. The streets around 2201 N. Monroe Street – headquarters of the Baltimore-based nonprofit Center for Urban Families (CFUF) – are all but deserted.

Inside the center’s air-conditioned conference room, 40 or so adults – men and women, black and white, some as young as 18 and others old enough to be grandparents – sit in neat lines of metal folding chairs, sweating about their future. Some look anxious, others bleary-eyed. Most of the men wear ties, pressed pants and dress shoes; the women are in heels, panty hose and skirts. Some are ex-convicts. Many have been involved with the drug trade. Others have held jobs but haven’t been able to keep them.

If the room has the solemn air of a funeral, there’s a good reason. Everyone here is preparing to say goodbye to their old lives and start anew through the CFUF’s signature program, STRIVE, which is modeled after a prototype launched in New York City’s East Harlem.

When the center’s founder and CEO, Joseph T. Jones, Jr. ’06, social work, walks to the front of the room, everyone seems to sit up a little straighter. Standing more than six feet tall in a dark blue pin stripe suit, Jones’ imposing stature and deep, authoritative voice command the room. But his story also grabs attention with this audience: He’s walked a remarkably similar path.

“All the things I did suggest I should be dead, incarcerated, or debilitated,” Jones tells the group.

Read the full story by Elizabeth Heubeck ’91 in the Fall 2011 issue of UMBC Magazine.

The tale of a successful capital campaign is often told by the numbers. And by that yardstick, UMBC’s Exceptional by Example Campaign was a success.

The campaign exceeded its $100 million goal by $15 million – and strengthened UMBC in ways that improve access to the university, attract and retain the best students and faculty and support vital research.

But look past the spreadsheets and statistics and you’ll find stories of individual people – those who gave to the campaign and those whose lives and education were advanced in the effort.

Read the full story in UMBC Magazine‘s Fall 2011 issue, as well as an interview with four prominent alumni, including past (Anita Maddox Jackson ’80) and present (Bennett Moe ’88) presidents of the UMBC Alumni Board, a long-term donor (Emmerson Small ’74), and UMBC’s vice president of Institutional Advancement (Greg Simmons ’04).

Learn more about the results of UMBC’s Exceptional by Example Campaign here.

Teaching Teens About Abstinence May Delay Sexual Activity, Reduce Risk Behaviors

Researchers Evaluated Intervention Focusing on Preventive Health and Future Goal Attainment, Not Moral Choices

At the study's outset, 23.4 percent of the teens reported that they were already sexually active.

At the two-year follow-up, students who received the abstinence-based intervention and had not been sexually active at the study's outset were significantly less likely to have initiated sexual activity (33 percent) or to have recently had sex (20 percent) compared to the those who received the health promotion intervention; among students in the control group with no prior sexual activity, 49 percent reported first sexual contact and 29 percent recently had sex. None of the other interventions had a significant effect on the initiation of sexual activity when compared to the control condition. The researchers did not compare the four HIV-prevention interventions with each other on any outcome measures.

Students who received either the 8-hour or 12-hour comprehensive intervention were significantly less likely to report having multiple partners (about 9 percent in each group) than those in the control group (14 percent).

The intervention maintenance program modestly enhanced the effectiveness of the abstinence-based and 12-hour comprehensive interventions at reducing multiple partners, but showed no other benefits.

None of the interventions significantly affected consistent condom use."

Hello All -
    
    I am pleased to announce that the AMS 2012 Wind Power Forecasting data
    are available online at http://ai.metr.ou.edu/contest/.  The contest
    consists of two parts:  1. a day-ahead forecasting contest and 2. a
    short-term (1-, 2-, and 3-hr) contest.  Participants are welcome to
    enter either or both parts of the contests.  We welcome entries from
    professionals to students.  Entrants names will be kept blind - they
    must register an abstract to present a poster at AMS, then winners
    will be notified of an invitation to present a talk at the January AMS
    Annual Meeting in Atlanta.  So please publicize this contest widely.
    We expect to solicit prize money, which will be announced on the
    website at a later time.
    
    Thanks for spreading the word.
    Sue
    
    Dr. Sue Ellen Haupt
    Director, Weather Systems and Assessment Program
    Research Applications Laboratory
    National Center for Atmospheric Research
    3450 Mitchell Lane
    Boulder, CO  80301;  303-497-2763;  haupt@ucar.edu