DoIT is pleased to announce the official launch of the new REX Analytics Portal (REX 2.0), our comprehensive campus reporting portal at rexanalytics.umbc.edu, also accessible at umbc.edu/go/rex20. This portal is powered by Tableau, providing a more dynamic and user-friendly experience for accessing crucial institutional data.

What's New in the REX Analytics Portal?

Importantly, the new portal helps everyone know what’s in the REX data warehouse by showing all reports, even if you don’t have access to them. Also, with the adoption of HelioCampus as our new data warehouse, we have transitioned key institutional reports to the updated REX platform, which offers streamlined access to a collection of new and updated reports, dashboards, and data visualizations in Tableau for authorized users. Main categories include Admissions, Student Records and Enrollment, Financial & Administrative Dashboards, Human Resources, and the Strategic Enrollment Plan reporting. 

In the upper-right corner, click the i icon for an informational overlay on navigating the landing page or the ? icon in the upper-right to request access to reports or get additional help.

Getting Started and Resources

Access the UMBC REX Analytics Portal today to explore the new platform and reports.

• To access the REX Analytics Portal from off-campus (or using the Visitor wireless network on-campus), you will need to be in the VPN.

• The REX Analytics Portal can also be found in the Guide in myUMBC.

• If you have trouble finding a report, in REX, you can look for "_Where are … Reports" in individual folders for links to the reports in the REX Analytics Portal.

• Why & How to Explore Analytics@UMBC – Division of Information Technology 

• How do I self-enroll in the "Analytics at UMBC" training organization?

• Learn more about Analytics at UMBC on our website: analytics.umbc.edu

• Get Help with REX - Submit a Ticket

Future REX Analytics News

We are actively transitioning and developing additional reports. More report folders and categories will be made available throughout 2026. Please keep an eye out for future DoIT announcements regarding new reports, training opportunities, and system enhancements.

Reminder: Authorized faculty, staff, and institutional researchers have varying degrees of access to reports, dependent upon their role at the institution. To request access, click here. Please note that this is a role-based approval process.

Should you have any issues or questions, submit a ticket to the REX Data Analytics team here.

Hello everyone!

Retriever Essentials will have a delayed opening today until 12:00pm. Please plan your trip accordingly, and we apologize for any inconviences 

URAs provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate students to support their research, scholarship, or creative work with a UMBC faculty mentor on an original project. UMBC students of all years and disciplines are invited to apply, as long as they remain enrolled at UMBC long enough to complete the proposed work.

Applications require a research proposal and mentor statement of support.

Undergraduate Research Award recipients enroll in a 0 credit, 0 cost URA PRAC course that goes on your transcript to mark your research experience, get one-one-one mentoring, present at URCAD, and earn a graduation cord.

Deadline: May 6th at 11:59pm

UR.umbc.edu/ura

A wonderful piece about Dr. Taj was just published on UMBC Stories. Read the interview here: Zareen Taj earns her Ph.D., publishing the first autoethnography by a Hazara Afghan woman about the ongoing genocide of Hazara women under Taliban rule

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Join us today at 1:30pm for a screening of and discussion of Dr. Taj's film.

Join us on Wed, May 6 for a film screening of Dr. Zareen Taj's براي قوما | For my people: A Hazara Woman's Journey. Dr. Zareen Taj is an Adjunct Faculty in American Studies and Asian Studies and a graduate of the Language, Literacy and Cultural doctoral program (2026.

We'll kick off the event with some delicious Afghan appetizers. We'll then engage in a participatory dialogue about hope & culture building rooted in UMBC's 2025-2026 Culture Builders Program and the themes of the film. We'll screen the film and have a conversation with Dr. Taj moderated by Dr. Sally Scott, Director of the Community Leadership Graduate Programs at UMBC, Professor of Practice, and affiliate faculty in the Department of Anthropology, Sociology, and Public Health.

About the Film

"This film brings together my life story, my academic work, and my years of activism into a single narrative that moves between memory and analysis. Beginning in a rural village in Afghanistan and shaped by war, displacement, and life as a refugee, the film traces how I came to question the expectations placed on girls and, over time, found my voice in resisting them. It also documents my return to Afghanistan to record the stories of Hazara communities living through violence and loss, and the difficult process of making sense of those experiences through both filmmaking and scholarship. At its core, the film reflects on what it means to live at the intersection of gender and ethnic oppression, while also showing how storytelling can create connection, visibility, and a sense of belonging—for myself and for the communities whose stories I carry.

The film’s title, “براي قوما | For my people,” speaks to my work advocating for my people and the message I share to Hazaras across the world: to tell their stories." - Dr. Zareen Taj '26, LLC; Adjunct Faculty, AMST & ASIA

About Culture Builders at UMBC

This event is co-organized by Priya Bhayana, Global Asias Project Manager, who is a 2025-2026 UMBC Culture Builder. Culture Builders is a cohort-based initiative launched by the Division of Institutional Equity. Culture building is the intentional practice of developing shared values, beliefs, and behaviors that shape how we live, learn, and lead together. In a time marked by polarization and a loss of shared humanity, creating an inclusive culture requires all of us. Each of us has a role to play. Read more here.

This event is supported by Culture Builders, the Global Studies Program and the Global Asias Initiative.

**Curl P.W.R Raffle Entry Form is now open!!!**

Remember your Curl PWR Punch Card? If you’ve come to our events throughout the semester and have gotten your punchcard filled, enter into our raffle for a prize!

YOU CAN CONTACT US TO RESERVE YOUR ITEM, AND YOU CAN PICK IT UP EARLIER IF NEEDED. ITEMS CAN BE DISASSEMBLED.

Are you a freshman who is curious about the final senior project for the Anthropology major? What about a junior or senior on their final steps to completing their Anthropology major?

Join Anthropology Club for its last meeting of the semester where we will be learning about the Anthropology major’s senior capstone project course—ANTH 480: Anthropological Research Capstone!

We will go over the basic elements of the capstone course and have Anthropology students who are currently taking the capstone course talk about their projects and experiences. We will also have Anthropology professors at the meeting to give insight into the capstone and the major as well. Any questions you may have about the course or the Anthropology major can be answered!

This meeting is open to all Anthropology majors and minors of any year. There will be free food and drinks. Hope to see you there!

Join us Wednesday afternoon to celebrate four English faculty and other CAHSS colleagues for their recently published books! The Dresher Center is hosting a CAHSS Book Celebration May 6 from 4:30-6:00 PM in PAHB 216. Light refreshments will be served. 

Congratulations to all for this monumental achievement!

English faculty:

Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public (Columbia University Press)
By Keegan Cook Finberg
Assistant Professor, English

Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Life Writing, and the Victorian Nomad (Routledge Press)
By Jean Fernandez
Professor, English

Romanticism Bewitched: Witchcraft, Revolution and the Female Demonic
(Cambridge University Press)
By Orianne Smith
Professor, English

Asian Girlhood in the Shadows of U.S. Empire (University of Minnesota Press)
By Sharon Tran
Assistant Professor, English

Dresher Center/CAHSS Book Celebration

Celebrating Humanities Books from 2025-2026

Wednesday, May 6, 2026 · 4:30 - 6 PM

In-Person · Performing Arts & Humanities Building : 216

List of Faculty books:

Let Us Alone: The Origins of Baltimore's Police State (University of Illinois Press)
By Michael Casiano
Assistant Professor, American Studies

Poetry in General: How a Literary Form Became Public (Columbia University Press)
By Keegan Cook Finberg
Assistant Professor, English

Double Feature (Saint Lucy Books)
By Mark Alice Durant
Professor, Visual Arts

Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Life Writing, and the Victorian Nomad (Routledge Press)
By Jean Fernandez
Professor, English

Rebuilding New Orleans: Immigrant Laborers and Street Food Vendors in the Post-Katrina Era (University of North Carolina Press)
By Sarah Fouts
Associate Professor, American Studies

Empathy Machines: This American Life, Podcasting and the Public Radio Structure of Feeling (Bloomsbury Publishing)
By Jason Loviglio
Professor, Media and Communication Studies

Across Canons: Language, Latin American Immigrant Literature, and the Making of Latinx Narratives (University of Arizona Press)
By Thania Muñoz
Associate Professor, Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication

Auteur-Publishers: Small Press Practices as Avant-Garde Writing (Edinburgh University Press)
By Craig Saper
Professor, Language, Literacy, and Culture

Amos Badertscher Images and Stories (Phaidon)
Edited by Beth Saunders
Associate Director and Curator of Special Collections, Albin O. Kuhn Library and Gallery

Romanticism Bewitched: Witchcraft, Revolution and the Female Demonic
(Cambridge University Press)
By Orianne Smith
Professor, English

Asian Girlhood in the Shadows of U.S. Empire (University of Minnesota Press)
By Sharon Tran
Assistant Professor, English

Light refreshments will be served

The UMBC Institute of Politics invites you to the event honoring Asian, Pacific Islander, Desi American Heritage Month. This event is part of their Politics Everywhere series.

Location: Skylight Room, The Commons
Date: Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Time: 6:45 pm to 8:30 pm

Click here to RSVP. 

Asian Americans are a rapidly growing population with significantly higher voter turnout and political participation than a decade ago. Their diverse experiences, identities, and policy priorities make them a dynamic voting bloc whose electoral influence will only continue to grow in Maryland and beyond.

Join the UMBC Institute of Politics (IoP) for an event examining the growing influence of Asian American voters and what drives their political engagement. The event will feature a reception with food and drinks from across Asian cultures, followed by a keynote address and moderated panel discussion with Asian American leaders in Maryland.

Keynote
Lt. Governor Aruna Miller, State of Maryland
Lt. Governor Miller is the first Asian American and immigrant elected to statewide office in Maryland.

Moderators
Del. Mark Chang (’99), District 32
Trisha Sirsat (’27), IoP Research Assistant

Panelists
Del. David Moon, District 20
Del. Kris Valderrama, District 26
Del. Harry Bhandari (‘21), District 8
Sushant Sidh, Principal, Capitol Strategies

IoP sponsored events are open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University’s nondiscrimination policy