There are a few influential blogs in the world, blogs that we trust and depend on (USDemocrazy is one of those, right? … Right?).

But if a blog started writing about how the world was going to end, most people wouldn’t listen… At least that’s what you’d think.

THE WORLD IS GOING TO END.

Just kidding. I just wanted to see if you were still with me. Anyway, it turns out that kind of scare tactic works on many.

A blogger in Taiwan, who goes by the name Teacher Wang, has convinced many Taiwanese that an impending earthquake and tsunami (a magnitude 14!) will soon ravage their country.

The blogger goes on to say that only cargo containers can protect people from the impending doom.

People seem to be buying his message… and buying cargo containers!

There has been panic rush to buy those items. Police are wondering if Teacher Wang is in cahoots with a cargo container supplier to defraud people. And at $5,500 each, the cargo containers could make the blogger a pretty penny.

The cops have removed his blog entry about the tsunami and earthquake, but the blogger remains elusive.

Weather officials have also made statements declaiming Teacher Wang’s statements about the earthquake and tsunami, saying that an earthquake with a magnitude of 14 is unheard of.

It just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read in a blog (present company excluded, of course).

2010-2011 Exec Initiatives

Academic Affairs

• Fall Break: Looking into what sort of action would need to be taken in order to implement a break during fall semesters similar to the week-long spring break during spring semesters.
• Student Academic Network (SAN): Established an online network through myUMBC where students can talk and ask one another questions related to academics or student life. We have worked with Collier Jones and others from marketing and the Office of Undergraduate Education to facilitate this network’s success. The SAN can be accessed at: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/academicnetwork/.
• Academic Integrity: Working with the Office of Undergraduate Education to encourage all professors to distribute their syllabi online before classes start. Additionally, we are making initial strides towards including an explicit statement of instructor responsibility to be put in all syllabi. Several of our staff are also participating in an SGA-wide discussion of academic integrity, working with the Office of the Executive Vice President as well as the Department of Student Advocates and the Supreme Court.
• SCEQ Committee: We are represented, along with the Executive Vice President, on the university’s ad hoc SCEQ (the student surveys about professors at the ends of semesters) evaluation committee, which is in place to review the effectiveness of this tool and possibly develop something that will provide a better picture of the teaching effectiveness of a professor. This committee may also work with the implementation of this tool across the university.
• Add/Drop Date: Reviewed the implementation of the change in drop date from 20 days to 10 days, which began in fall 2010. It was found that of the 900+ class roster spots that were additionally dropped in fall 2010 as compared to fall 2009, more than 800 class roster spots were added within the same add date (between days 0 and 10 of the semester). Additionally, there was no change in the overall pass/fail rate and GPA of the UMBC student body. As a result, the change in drop date was successful in allowing for students to take up more classes which were dropped during the schedule adjustment period, an opportunity which would have otherwise been closed off after the add date in previous semesters.
• Undecided Council of Majors: OAA is working closely with the Office of Academic Advising and the Senate to establish a support system for the ‘Undecided’ majors at UMBC to provide students who have yet to declare or are considering changing majors with avenues to become educated in what opportunities are afforded through other majors and academic career plans.
• PE Credit: Worked with the SGA Department of Health & Wellness to make sure that PE classes are achieving their goal of promoting lasting fitness and health to UMBC undergraduates. This includes making sure instructors do not implement a sign-in/sign-out system of attendance for classes, which can discourage students from actually conducting fitness during class time. Use of end-of-the-year instructor reviews is now being implemented as well.
• Minor Advisor: Working with the Office of Academic Advising to see what options are available to students who decided to minor in a certain subject area but do not know what classes to take.
• Degree Audit and “What If” Degree Audit: Worked with project directors from the Provost’s Office and the Office of Academic and Pre-Professional Advising to review and publicize the new Degree Audit and “What If” Degree Audit tools. Students can now use the Degree Audit to see what graduation requirements they have and have yet to complete. Using the “What If” Degree Audit tool, students can see what classes and requirements are needed if they want to change majors, add majors or minors, or change degree goals.
• Academic Student Organizations: Worked together with SGA’s Office of Student Organizations Support to host the annual Din Din & Blah Blah: Dinner and Discussion for Academic Student Organizations, which was a dinner and discussion for leaders of on-campus academic student organizations to promote interaction and networking.
• Transcript Fee: Worked with the Office of the Registrar and Yvette Mozie-Ross to review the costs of obtaining a transcript through the Registrar’s Office. Costs are unable to be changed; however, the discount given to students purchasing 8 or more transcripts in bulk will soon be much easier to receive. Additionally, OAA is helping to review future moves to ordering and distributing official transcripts online via e-mail, which will likely decrease overall costs.

Community and Governmental Affairs

• Budget Lobbying: Continuing to lobby in support of Governor Martin O'Malley's proposed FY2012 Operating Budget. After successfully completing a lobbying trip to Annapolis and talking to several legislators about higher education OGCA will continue to lobby for students and make our voices heard in the state house.

• Community Relations: Working to foster continued relations with the communities adjacent to campus through focus groups, neighborhood discussions and collaborative efforts with other local agencies.
  
• Consultation and Reference: Serving as a channel for students concerned about how government action effects their education to find resources and answers by serving as consult on various bills impacting student organizations.

• Red Card Program: Expanding the Red Card Program to offer students discounts at local businesses. A full list of businesses and discounts is soon to come.

Environmental Affairs

• EcoFest (collaborating with SEA): This annual event will feature local producers and organizations offering sustainable options that mesh with our daily lives, promote local producers, and raise awareness for sustainability.
• 
  Recyclemania (working with facilities management and Sustainability Interns): Promote and raise awareness concerning waste reduction practices around campus. This is a national 10-week competition that keeps track of trash and recyclables.

• Arbor Day (working with Landscape and Stewardship committee and Facilities Management): This is an event to inspire people to plant, nurture, and celebrate trees. Raise awareness to the importance of trees.

• Co-Op: This is still in the exploratory stages. In the process of talking with members of UMD's co-op. This program would work with prepared foods, organic and local, with the aid of student volunteers.

• Farmers Market: Raise awareness and promote local producers. Encourage healthier eating for students and create bonds with local producers.

• Zero waste event: Hold an event that is completely zero waste. Promote sustainability in the student body. Raise awareness about the harmful effects of water bottles. Implement water refilling stations.
  

Health and Wellness

• Wellness Class: Laying the groundwork for a new type of wellness classes to be offered to students. We feel that many students, particularly freshman, are unaware of the effects that their choices have on their bodies. Students stay up late, eat junk food, and rely heavily on caffeine, without fully understanding the harm they are doing. Current health education programs on campus simply say “sleep eight hours a night” or “do not eat junk food” but do not offer viable alternatives or fully explain the effects. The new wellness classes would integrate scientific health information, relevant health advice, and include information on holistic and alternative techniques for making the most out of students’ college years. H & W strongly believes that lifelong health habits are learned now, and we should be doing more to teach UMBC students how to get healthy and stay healthy.
  Currently, we are preparing for a future meeting with administrators. Members of our staff are researching national health data, designing surveys to gauge student knowledge and interests, and looking at what types of wellness services are currently being offered at other universities. We are also working on building contacts with partners in the community to coordinate on building these courses, the most prominent of with is Tai Sophia, a local wellness institute. Staff members are also conducting cost-benefit analysis of implementing these classes, looking at things like the cost of adding the courses to the curriculum as well as the larger costs and benefits of health behaviors.
  This is a very long-term project. It is unlikely that the wellness courses will become a part of the curriculum for some time, but our work this semester will hopefully lay the groundwork for progress in future semesters.
• Wellness Event: We are working to organize a wellness-focused event on April 19^th.
• Wellness Vision: Meeting with Administrators to develop a vision for wellness on campus.

Service, Volunteerism, and Awareness

• Patterson High Prom: Fundraising for four Bhutanese refugees at Patterson High to attend their graduation and prom this spring. We are holding multiple bake sales with Pre-Med and the Bengali Club, as well as other student organizations to raise money. We are recruiting students to help us staff concessions at sports games, as well as hold a dine-in night at a local restaurant.
  
• Supporting UMBC's Invisible Children: We are helping IC advertise their events, the Tony Screening and Resolve Tour, this semester by helping design promotional material and spreading the news to the student body. We are helping IC with their bake sales and various other fundraising events, including basket-making. We are connecting IC to other student organizations as well.
  
• Homeless Awareness Event: We are currently choosing a shelter to join forces with. After choosing the site, we will help this organization by setting up a student volunteer program through The Shriver Center, fundraising, and raising awareness of homeless in Baltimore in general. The major event is planned for late April and will include a speaker from the shelter, musical guests, student performances, and an explanation of what it truly means to be homeless in Baltimore.

Student Advocates

• One-on-ones: Promote our student advocates as resources for everyone on campus to build connections, brainstorm initiatives, and receive one-on-one peer guidance with issues that may be happening in any aspect of student life.
• Advocate and Actions: Facilitate discussion and goal setting at our upcoming weekly Advocate and Action series. We will then help coordinate committees to work on these goals that involve interested community members and student advocates.

Student Organizations Support

• Student Organizations Dinners: A series of catered networking sessions where student organization leaders from various categories meet leaders of similar student organizations, campus staff and administrators that serve as resources or have relevant expertise, and members of the SGA dedicated to supporting and working with them.  It’s also an opportunity to advertise and or be exposed to opportunities for co-sponsorships and resource sharing.
• Student Organizations Network (SON): A new approach to organization outreach, members of the SOS routinely visit student organizations to see what the SGA can do, what questions student organization members may have that the SGA may be able to help with or connect students to the proper resource(s).
• Starting a Student Organization Video: A brief video highlighting the process of starting a student organization at UMBC.
• myUMBC SOS Page: An internet-based resource where student organization leaders can access documents related to the formation, registration, maintenance, financing and support of their student organizations.  Other resources like Black & Gold Awards and Finance Board have been linked in order to build a 1-stop shop for student organization questions.  It is also used as a contact tool complementing the stuorgs and osl-info listprocs.
• Student Organization Recognition: The bulk of SOS work, we receive student organization applications, and walk the applicants through the process acquiring an advisor, generating a constitution and completing registration.
• Student Organizations Policy: We are working with members of the steering committee to draft a guiding document for the Student Organizations Committee and a document of understanding between OSL and the SGA about the written changes in the governance of student organizations.
• Funding Workshop: Members of SOS developed an in-depth, interactive workshop for student organizations to practice navigating the SGA financing process.  From requesting money to spending and reimbursements, the entire process is covered from beginning to end, and is meant to be a voluntary supplement to the Treasurer Training program.  It is open to all students and can be requested by e-mail to happen during any student organization meeting or by appointment in the Student Involvement Center.  
• SGA Finance Transparency: We established Finance Board group on myUMBC that allows the Finance Board to make allocation requests and decisions public for all students to see and discuss in addition to view Finance Boar updates and initiatives.  This group is subscribed by the Student Organizations Support (SOS) myUMBC group that also subscribes to other student organization related groups and webpages.  The SOS group posts all documents and tutorials available for student organizations to start, maintain and finance a student organization.  It also centralizes communication between key Student Organization personnel resources from the Office of Student Life and Event Planning and Conference Services.
• Restricted vs. Funded Status: We are reviewing all standing constitutions to create an up-to-date list of student organizations in the “Funded Status” and “Restricted Funding Status” categories for use by the all parties involved in SGA’s financing student organizations.
• Student Organizations Info Centralization: We are researching ways that all information about student organizations can be centralized into a single source for use by SGA, OSL, EPCS, the Business Center and the student body.  This will reduce confusion, redundant data entry and information asymmetry while increasing communication and transparency between departments and organizations.
• Free Hour: This unit is researching the impact of free hour discontinuation on student organization, especially on the commuter student involvement in organized campus life.
• Sports Club Recognition and Financing: The Associate Vice-President for Student Organizations has been working with the Sports Club Council, the Sports Club Coordinator, members of the Athletics Department and SGA staff to identify current grievances with the recognition and financial support of sports clubs; and then identifying potential solutions to these problems.
• Catering: We worked with the Finance Board, UMBC’s Department of Finance & Administration and a university attorney to develop a system to allow student organizations to work with caterers and restaurants outside of the approved caterers list.

Thank you to the wonderful and amazing SGA officers who helped make this year such a success!:

Thanks to NPR and the Associated Press

Yesterday, USDemocrazy posted a link about the series of tornadoes that devastated the southern United States.

The death toll has now risen to 329, the deadliest day for tornadoes since the Great Depression. The tornado was rated at an EF-5, the worst tornado rating, with wind speeds of over 200 mph. Reports say that over 5 states have been effected.

Today, President Obama visited Alabama to survey the damage and offer promises of support. What he found shocked him.

I’ve never seen devastation like this.”

1,000s of businesses and countless residents are without power.  Homes and belongings are destroyed. Families are seperated. There isn’t enough water to put out a fire, so resident’s are encouraged to not use candles.

Obama’s reaction and promise to Alabama and others who have been effected by this tragedy are echoed throughout the nation:

We’re going to make sure you’re not forgotten.”