Members of UMBC’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) traveled to Norfolk, Virginia for their annual regional conference in November and came home with numerous awards. 

The UMBC team defeated Carnegie Mellon University and North Carolina State University to win the Tech Bowl competition, a Jeopardy-style game that tests teams’ knowledge of fundamental engineering principles. UMBC also claimed first through third place in the research poster presentation contest, which involved a 10-minute technical research talk followed by questions from the judges and audience.

The team relied on prior knowledge to excel in the Tech Bowl, only having decided to participate upon arriving at the conference. “It was really exciting getting so many questions right with our only practice being from our coursework,” shares UMBC NSBE chapter president Nelanne Bolima ’24, chemical engineering. “That just goes to show how well UMBC’s College of Engineering and IT prepares students to succeed.”

In addition to Bolima, the Tech Bowl team members included Kayla Magruder ’26, chemical engineering; Saleem Lawal ’25, computer science; and Daniel Williams ’24, computer science. Presentation winners were Williams (first), Bolima (second), and Christopher Appiah ’24, mechanical engineering (third). Keith Harmon, director of the UMBC Meyerhoff Scholars Program, serves as the chapter advisor.

“We are so proud of the UMBC NSBE Chapter,” Harmon shares. “They do tremendous work supporting UMBC STEM majors and offering service impacting youth in the Baltimore-Washington corridor.”

Students supporting students

NSBE is a completely student-run organization, creating leadership opportunities for hundreds of students across the country. UMBC’s NSBE chapter supports members through activities such as mentoring initiatives, conference preparation, networking opportunities, and leadership development programming. The chapter also focuses on community outreach, such as visiting high schools, collaborating with non-profits, and welcoming younger students to shadow the chapter’s board meetings.  

“I have benefitted from being a member of this team by gaining invaluable public speaking and collaboration skills,” Appiah shares. “I learned how to effectively present, detailing the broader impact of research I have done.” Appiah conducts research with Ankit Goel, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Goel’s group works on complex applications of control theory in robotics and autonomous systems. 

For Jaden Somerville ’25, mechanical engineering, “the competition not only improved my technical skills, but also taught me teamwork, problem-solving, and effective time management.”

In March 2024, the chapter will take its talents to the 50th annual NSBE convention in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Sonya Squires-Caesar, a doctoral candidate in UMBC’s language, literacy, and culture program, has been interviewing communities who use susus to save money for big-ticket items like homes, farms, or everyday needs like transportation and bills. Susu, a word thought to come linguistically from West African languages, is an informal structure of communal savings where individuals agree to give an equal amount of money to one pool. Members then decide the frequency of when someone receives the entire amount.

“I remember my mother planning her spending around when she would get her payment,” says Squires-Caesar, whose family is from Barbados. Squires-Caesar explains that susus—or rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs)—can be a way for people to access larger sums of money without the barriers formal banks and finance systems pose to people without high levels of disposable income.

“While there is a significant body of ROSCA research, it tends to focus on groups living in poverty or with minimal or no access to formal financial instruments,” says Squires-Caesar. “My study differs by focusing on middle-class and upper-middle-class immigrants who opt to use this informal, unregulated financial tool in the U.S. alongside mainstream financial services such as banks, credit cards, investments, etc.”

Squires-Caesar, the Dresher Center for the Humanities’ graduate student research fellow for fall 2023, is interested in studying the evolution of susus from the transatlantic slave trade to today. She explains that for centuries people have pooled their resources for individual and communal needs. 

Honoring African indigenous knowledge

Susus are a cultural practice rooted in African indigenous knowledge, a term for how various African cultures orally passed a range of information, customs, and beliefs from generation to generation. “In African indigenous knowledge, the act of learning is thought to be a fully engaged journey to ‘find one’s face,’” says Squires-Caesar, “which is considered the path to discovering your roots, revealing your spirit, and determining the ‘fire in your belly’ or core elements that matter most to you.”

Squires-Caesar “found her face” when she aligned her research path with her authentic identity. “Western research methods couldn’t guide mine. I felt I was trying to fit a square peg into a circle,” explains Squires-Caesar. “I found my face when I realized the methodology that my project needed had to model the community I was looking to understand.”

Researching what’s below the surface

Squires-Caesar’s approach to understanding financial literacy is less about the stock market and credit and more about what is intangible. She calls it the iceberg effect.

“On top of the iceberg are tangible things like bank accounts and credit cards,” explains Squires-Caesar. “You can see, touch, feel, and measure them, but beneath the iceberg are the processes that may not have official rules and regulations and where the general public may not know they are happening, like susus.” 

During the four years she managed a community college financial literacy program, Squires-Caesar met many students surviving from month to month. Through ethnographic research, she found students were using non-traditional ways to make ends meet, like getting cash advances from bingo halls to pay for bills and groceries. The data also showed that some students were overwhelmed by the idea of saving.

To shift that thinking, she created a microsavings project for her students to take them through the process of saving—a few cents here, a few dollars there, which grows over time. 

These stories about the complexities of susu communities have inspired Squires- Caesar, as part of her Dresher Fellowship, to decorate physical masks as three-dimensional representations of financial identity, of “finding face.”

MEMORANDUM

DATE:           12/5/2023

TO:               Business Managers/Department Chairs/Center Directors/Faculty

FROM:          Michael T. Walsh, Director, Office of Sponsored Programs

RE:               OSP Winter Break Deadlines: Dec. 21, 2023 - Jan. 1, 2024

________________________________________________________________

This is a special announcement concerning the OSP schedule for reviewing/approving proposals with deadlines to Federal, State, and Other Agencies that occur during UMBC's Winter Break this year. 

Please note the following:

1.     UMBC's holiday break begins at COB (5 PM) on Friday December 22^nd (first full day of holiday vacation is thus Monday December 25^th) and goes through Monday January 1^st.  UMBC opens for business on Tuesday January 2^nd.

2.  All proposals with submission deadlines occurring between Friday December 22, 2023 and Monday January 1, 2024 must be fully routed, ready for submission, and released to the OSP office for final review and submission by the close of business on Monday December 18, 2023; and

3.     All proposals with submission deadlines occurring between Tuesday January 2^nd and Thursday January 4th, 2024 (the first 3 business days after the break) will be due to OSP by 9 AM on Tuesday December 19, 2023.

This schedule is consistent with our current policy, which requires the submission of complete proposals to OSP at least three (3) FULL business days before the agency submission deadline. Since UMBC is closed during the Winter Break, OSP will also be closed and OSP personnel will not be available during the Winter Break for consultation or proposal submission(s). 

The campus closure during Winter Break traditionally has imparted a heavy workload on OSP staff. Therefore, we will enforce our current policy more consistently, with little maneuverability.   Proposals received after the OSP deadlines specified above will be reviewed on a first-come/first-serve basis and will be submitted only if time permits. 

In keeping with the deadline enforcement policy of ORCA (Office of the Vice President for Research & Creative Achievement), any proposal not fully routed and ready for submission by 9:00 a.m. of the deadline date will not be submitted to the agency.  If the deadline occurs over Winter Break, please refer to the deadline presented in #2 above.

Thank you for your understanding...and best wishes for a great Holiday season and Winter Break.

Best Regards,

Dr. Michael T. Walsh

Director

UMBC Office of Sponsored Programs