A Scholar and an Athlete

Karl Strauss epitomizes the phrase “student-athlete.” As a swimmer, he was part of four straight ECAC Championship teams and 2003 men’s co-captain, but he worked equally hard academically, and was the men’s winner of the Matt Skalsky Outstanding Scholar Athlete award.

A member of Golden Key, Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Beta Kappa, Strauss compiled a 3.85 GPA and served as the treasurer of the Student Athlete Advisory Council. He was one of two students awarded the Outstanding Scholarly Leader Award by the Political Science department.

Strauss placed first in the 200 meter breaststroke in four NEC dual meets this season and was part of the NEC champion men’s 400 medley relay team. “It’s a lot of work, but the UMBC swim team made things exciting and fun during my time here,” Strauss says. “It’s like a big family.” Strauss also worked as a swim lesson instructor, student tutor and as a writer for The Retriever Weekly.

Now on his way to Law School at the University of Toledo, Strauss credits faculty mentors like Political Science professor George LaNoue as being a vital part of his UMBC experience.

“The open door policy and personal attention from professors here makes a difference,” says Strauss. “I thought I would be a pre-med major originally, but I took some political science classes, got comfortable with the subject matter very quickly, and really opened up and found my motivation.”

Turning Dreams into Plans

Having grown up near the campus of Tuskegee University, Jasmine McDonald was taught the importance of higher education at an early age. “My late grandparents were very college and academics-oriented, so a question that has driven me throughout my education has been ‘How will I make them proud of me?'” she says.

McDonald, who graduated in May with a B.S. in Chemistry, has done a lot to be proud of during her UMBC years. As a Meyerhoff scholar working in Dr. Michael Summers’ Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) lab, she was part of a research team whose findings were published in The Journal of Molecular Biology.

She also worked in the Boulder, Colorado, HHMI lab of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Thomas Cech. Back at home, she has spent her past year doing research in the Molecular Microbiology and Immunology Department of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Last summer took her to Connecticut, where she worked for Pfizer Global Research and Development.

Over the past two years, McDonald honed her leadership skills as president of UMBC’s Golden Key International Honors Society, which she led through two community service projects per month. She also participated in various service projects through the Meyerhoff program, ranging from picking spinach for the homeless on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to clearing the grounds of a historic park with a machete. Her hard work and dedication was recognized by Golden Key, which awarded her its Mid-Atlantic Region Leadership Award.

As she prepares for her next step, McDonald’s late grandparents indeed have even more to be proud of. She’s headed to Harvard on a Prize Fellowship to pursue her Ph.D. in immunology and infectious diseases.

“During my time at UMBC I’ve been able to turn my dreams into plans,” McDonald says. “I feel fortunate to have made my grandparents’ hard work pay off. They’re looking down right now and glowing.”

Leaping to New Heights

In June, senior jumper Huguens Jean became the third Retriever to earn Division I All-American honors.

The powerfully built Jean, on course to earn a degree in computer engineering next spring, literally leaped to new heights during his spectacular athletic career at UMBC. Jean is the second Retriever track and field athlete to earn All-American honors in two years (the other is Cleopatra Borel), after placing fourth in the nation at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the high jump this past June. Standing just 6�, his effort of 7� 3¼� broke his own school record by two inches.

�I feel like I am just getting started in the sport,� Jean said.  �My ultimate goal is to win a medal in the Olympic Games.  I never would have thought that any of this was possible before coming to UMBC.�

Jean collected numerous accolades this past year. Last January, he competed at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas and finished 10th in the nation in the high jump, coming up just shy of earning All-American status.  He dominated the competition in the Northeast Conference and was named the NEC�s Most Outstanding Field Performer at both the Indoor and Outdoor Championships after sweeping the high jump and the triple jump events.

In April, Jean sent a clear message to high jumpers around the nation by winning the event at the highly prestigious Penn Relay Games, thus pronouncing himself ready to compete against America�s elite at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

�I was more prepared for the NCAA Outdoor Championships and much more confident,� Jean admitted. �The NCAA Indoor Championships was a brand new experience and I felt like I had to rush to get ready for the event because I had qualified only a week before.�

Success for Jean, who was named UMBC�s 2002-03 Athlete of the Year, is not limited to his athletic prowess. He excels in the classroom, earning a 3.29 GPA in computer engineering. His achievements landed him a spot on the Verizon Academic All District II Second Team by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) this past year, after earning First Team honors in 2001-02. Jean, who would eventually like to run his own company, is considering attending graduate school for business management after he graduates from UMBC.

One of the most recognizable student leaders on campus, Jean is an extremely active member of campus society and student government. He has served as vice president of the Engineering Council of Majors and is a member of the Presidents� Council for Athletic Awareness. Jean has also been a dormitory resident assistant, and has tutored students in numerous courses. 

�UMBC has given me so much,� said Jean.  �It is only right that I give back and help others as much as I possibly can.�

A Future Light on Broadway

Doug Yetter, who has directed, written and/or conducted over 200 musicals, was one of seven finalists for UMBC’s 2003 valedictorian and graduated in May with a 4.0 GPA. This fall, he begins the world’s only graduate program in musical theatre writing at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he has received a full scholarship and housing allowance.

Yetter originally came to UMBC’s music department as an accompanist in 1998 and enrolled in the undergraduate program the following year. He began his career in musical theatre in Denver and has been involved in productions across the United States. He has been named “Baltimore’s Best Piano Bar Entertainer” numerous times, and is the former co-owner of the Chesapeake Music Hall, a dinner theatre in Annapolis, Maryland.

His work has been performed off-Broadway and around the country. Locally, his version of “A Christmas Carol” has become an annual tradition at the Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park, where his adaptation of “Dracula” will also be performed this spring.

At Tisch, MFA students in the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing program have the opportunity to participate in assistantships at New York theatres, and in their final year they each compose an entire Broadway show, which will be read for Broadway producers. Yetter says, “Without the depth of education I received at UMBC, and the life-changing experience I had in the music department, I would never have been accepted by an institution such as NYU.”

Service and Scholarship

OrLando Yarborough, who graduated in May with a B.S. in Biological Sciences, is on his way to Yale University’s biomedical research doctoral program, but it’s not the first time, nor likely the last, that he will be counted among the elite of scholarship and research. In addition to being a Meyerhoff Scholar at UMBC, Yarborough was part of the Undergraduate Scholarship Program (UGSP) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the world’s top biomedical research institutions.

For the past two summers, through the NIH UGSP’s Summer Biomedical Research Training Internship, Yarborough worked under the mentorship of Dr. Roland Owens, Senior Investigator of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Biology in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Yarborough’s other achievements during his four years at UMBC are numerous and equally impressive. During his freshman and sophomore years, he interned at Baltimore’s Center for Marine Biotechnology. He received additional scholarship support from the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Scholarship Fund, the Ray A. Kroc Youth Achievement Scholarship program and a Brown-Pettyway Scholarship.

He was also a member of the UMBC Honors College and the Golden Key International Honors Society. A highly active member of UMBC’s chapter of Alpha Nu Omega, Inc., Yarborough was named the fraternity’s national Undergraduate Brother of the Year for 2003. Yarborough also mentored elementary school students and spoke or served at various UMBC community service and academic events.

“As I move from UMBC to enter my graduate studies, I carry with me the mindset that academic integrity is a virtue and diversity is a blessing,” says Yarborough. “On this campus, I developed leadership skills, built strong social bonds, and embraced scholarship as a lifestyle. God has used UMBC to equip me for my future, and I am grateful for the experience.”

Caring for Communities

Sipi Gupta’s summer plans begin at the Office of Homeless Services in Baltimore and then take her to a community health organization in West India.

At the Office of Homeless Services, Gupta will help evaluate the 2002-03 Code Blue Policy, which includes a first-time program to find shelter for the homeless when temperatures fall to a minimum number of degrees. Her internship is sponsored by the Abell Foundation. In India, Gupta will survey community needs, including access to water for the elderly, and vision care.

Gupta, who has been a volunteer coordinator at UMBC’s Shriver Center, received both her bachelor’s (2002) and master�s (2003) degrees in sociology from UMBC. She says the department’s strong emphasis on field research and faculty support has been extremely helpful to her academic career. “Faculty are really supportive � if you tell them what you want to do, they will help lead you in the right direction,” she says. Her master’s thesis, “Physician’s Attitudes Toward Managed Care,” won first prize in her discipline at UMBC’s Graduate Research Conference.

At a UMBC Social Science Forum last spring, she was inspired by Maryland Insurance Commissioner Steven Larson’s lecture on “The CareFirst Conversion.” “I think his job sounds awesome,” says Gupta, who is interested in issues of corporate accountability. She is now getting ready to take the LSATs and will be applying to law schools this summer.

Art Matters

Zachary Handler, who graduated magna cum laude from UMBC in May, begins a master’s degree in arts administration at Columbia University this fall. “My goal and dream in life is to start a visual and performing arts secondary school for deaf youth,” says Handler, a Linehan Artist Scholar who majored in visual arts.

Handler is a American Sign Language Program creator and drama teacher at the Green Acres Day Camp (Rockville, Maryland). He has been a teacher’s assistant in deaf and hard-of-hearing K-12 classrooms and an arts assistant at the Maryland School for the deaf.

He first became interested in working with the deaf after taking a sign language class at Quince Orchard High School. “My teacher, Susan Davidoff Gershowitz, taught me the importance, significance and pure beauty of the language, people and culture,” Handler says. “The deaf community is the community I am most passionate about and want to make sure that the art of the deaf is abundant and included within the greater art world. There aren’t enough deaf artists, and deaf youth should have an institution that can hone and focus their intrinsic talent, enlightening and providing their creative potential.”

Handler�s art often examines the struggle between popularity and ostracism, between those who have power and those who hunger for it. He received a Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award which helped fund the creation of his photography exhibition, “Sticks and Stones: Bullies, Brats and Bashers.” The show was recently on display at Chela Gallery in Baltimore�s Fells Point/Canton neighborhood.

Handler also presented his work at UMBC’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day. “I’ve been especially interested in Zack’s work this year,” says Beth Pennington, assistant to the provost and a member of the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards Committee. “It’s one of the most innovative projects we’ve ever sponsored.”

The Power of Social Work

In high school, Tera Foster decided she wanted to be a social worker after participating in a local social activism project dealing with sexual assault awareness. Now Foster is a member of the first class to graduate from the Universities at Shady Grove, where she received hands-on training and participated in community service.

UMBC is one of eight University System of Maryland institutions that offer upper-division courses leading to a bachelor�s degree at the Shady Grove Center in Rockville, Maryland. UMBC offers programs in social work and information systems at Shady Grove.

�Since the program is new, it brings some of the best, most influential professors from UMBC and what you end up with is a great education,� says Foster. �The classes are very hands-on and experimental; you learn a lot through group situations and class projects, which makes learning interesting.�

Classes at Shady Grove are small � usually between 15 and 20 students per class � and there is a close relationship between the teachers and students. �My professors are people who I�ll probably know for the rest of my life,� says Foster.

Last year, Foster was one of only two recipients of the Cliff and Camille Kendall Scholarship at Shady Grove, an award given based on personal need and academic strength, and she was the first student to receive the Shady Grove Student Achievement Award.

In addition to being a member of the Social Work Honor Society, Foster was the founding president of the Shady Grove Social Work Student Association, a 45-member group formed to help further the goals of students interested in social work. �We plan a lot of community service activities,� she says. �In April, we organized a Homeless Bag Lunch where our group made 200 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and distributed bag lunches to several area homeless shelters.�

Currently, Foster teaches two days a week at The Pathways School, a high school for emotional and behaviorally disturbed students. She planned and facilitated group therapy sessions and also worked with students one-on-one. �I�ve learned that even the smallest life event can have a life-altering influence on the students I work with,� she says. �I teach them how to visit a recruiter, how to interview for a job or enter a social situation. These are all small skills, that most of us take for granted, that will help them to be successful once they graduate from high school.�

In the future, Foster plans to continue her education with a Master�s in Social Work from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and pursue a position in the social work field.

Dr. Charles Brown, UMBC Director of Athletics

A Passion for UMBC Athletics

UMBC Athletic Director Dr. Charles Brown came to UMBC from his native New York in 1988 looking forward to the challenge of leading a Division I program after several years as AD for Division III Hunter College. “As soon as I stepped on campus, I knew UMBC was a diamond in the rough,” says Brown. “I wanted to take a chance to put UMBC on the map.”

Fifteen years later, Brown has exceeded that goal and turned UMBC into a regional dynamo in college athletics. He has just been selected to receive UMBC’s Presidential Distinguished Professional Staff award, after signing a three-year contract extension through the 2008 academic year.

Under Brown’s tenure, UMBC Athletics has made big strides. Most recently, Brown engineered UMBC Athletics’ move to the America East Conference, after the Retrievers experienced unprecedented success in their five years in the Northeast Conference.

UMBC teams have won 32 NEC Championships and made 22 appearances in NCAA Championship competition. In all five years of league play, UMBC has been awarded the Commissioner’s Cup, symbolic of the conference’s top overall program. Just last year, UMBC produced its first national champion; shot putter Cleopatra Borel, in NCAA Indoor Track & Field.

UMBC’s student-athletes have also excelled in the classroom. In the last five years, 20 student-athletes have earned Academic All America status, and for the past two semesters, over 50% of Retriever student-athletes have earned 3.0 or higher grade-point averages.

Brown has increased the full-time faculty and staff of the athletic
department and initiated the UMBC Dance Team, the Down and Dirty Dawg Band and the Spirit Squad. He has presided over an increase of over 1000 percent in fund-raising. In the area of community service, UMBC student-athletes currently donate over 1,000 hours of time per year to mentor local middle school students and coaches make hundreds of appearances throughout the year.

Brown has also improved the visibility of UMBC and the greater Baltimore
region in the national sports scene. In 1995, he brought the first and
second rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships to the Baltimore Arena. In 1998, UMBC hosted the Women’s Lacrosse national championships at the Stadium, drawing record crowds and kudos from the national media. Dr. Brown also led the successful bid to bring the highly success Men’s Lacrosse National Championships to Ravens’ Stadium in 2003, 2004, and perhaps for many years to come.

Brown has helped lead the university’s growth and improvement in
world-class athletic and recreational facilities during his tenure. Over the next three years, he will preside over another multi-million dollar facility
enhancement.

Despite all the individual and team glory obtained for UMBC during competition, some of Brown’s finest memories at UMBC occur off the field
of play. “The Hall of Fame Dinners are some of my most special memories,” he says. “When the alums that were here when I was AD talk about their experiences, those are the most rewarding moments I can remember, more than the individual or team championships. You feel great that you have been a part of making college life a great experience.”

Recently, the former LIU wrestling standout and Hunter wrestling coach has contemplated retirement and spending more time with his wife, Linda,
UMBC’s Associate Director of MIPAR, and family. But UMBC’s move to the America East Conference has put those plans on temporary hold.

“The America East has gotten my juices flowing as we challenge our program at a higher level. I’m excited to plan with my coaches and staff how we’re going to be successful at this new level. There will be challenges, but, as Linda says, I am the ultimate optimist and I never give up.”

Tomasz Macura, Class of 2003

Tomasz Macura, Class of 2003

Tomasz Macura loves a challenge.

At sixteen, Macura is putting the finishing touches on two Honors Theses for B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science. He will continue studies towards a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Cambridge’s (UK) Trinity College — considered the most prestigious of the 37 Cambridge colleges. Cambridge has more Nobel Prize winning alumni, 70, than any other university in the world. He will be the school’s youngest and he will be its youngest Ph.D. student since World War I.

Age aside, Macura stands out as one of the nation’s most promising scholars in the areas of math and science. He was one of sixteen winners of the Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship, which pays tuition, fees, and a $29,000 stipend per year for four years. Because of its selectivity, the Fellowship is considered the most prestigious Science and Engineering graduate award in the U.S. All together, Macura – who only ten years ago didn’t speak a word of English – has been offered more than $800,000 in academic awards from some of the most prestigious foundations and institutions in the U.S. and beyond.

He credits his parents, both M.D./Ph.D.s, for instilling in him love and respect for knowledge. “A major part of my academic success is due to UMBC faculty. I was lucky to do research with Professors Matthias Gobbert and Jacob Kogan. They are brilliant professors who are very busy with their own research but make the time to focus on mentoring.”

“Tomasz is young, bright, highly motivated, and already an independent researcher. I am confident that Tomasz will become a leading authority in his research field,” said Kogan.

Macura is establishing a legacy at UMBC. His 13-year-old brother, Wiktor, is a sophomore here with a 4.0 GPA and a full merit scholarship. “Wiktor is my brother and my best friend.” Wiktor is also his partner, as the brothers have formed a foundation to give back to the community.

The Macura Brothers Foundation was established by the Macuras to help gifted children from Poland (their homeland) and other Eastern-European countries. “We are very fortunate and grateful for the opportunities presented to us in America and are doing our best to give back.” The Foundation donated over $5,000 of educational materials to the Hungarian Student Research Society and the Polish Library in Washington D.C. Now the Brothers are working on establishing “The One” Scholarship for immigrant prodigies studying in the United States.

“Tomasz is exceptionally bright,” said UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski III. “But he’s a very hard worker, very inquisitive, and has a great sense of humor. I am impressed not only by Tomasz’s achievements in the classroom and lab, but also by his sincere interest in others. He is a wonderful role model for other academically talented young people.”

Macura is sure of one thing, “No matter what I will do after my Ph.D. degree, I will always cherish the time I spent at UMBC – my Alma Mater. This is the place I grew up intellectually and personally.”