Hello!

I have a room for rent 15 minutes from UMBC. Looking for a quiet and responsible roommate in a shared town house.

Amenities:

• parking space
• washer/dryer
• shared kitchen and living room
• internet
• furnished

Rent

• $650/month
• $650 deposit
• include utilities

Available June 29th

If you are interested please email lu12@umbc.edu for more information.

For the 2026-2027 academic year, the BGSO is actively seeking new leadership through its Executive Board nominations. Interested students can explore various e-board roles designed to drive the organization's mission forward and advocate for the graduate student body. 

*May 31st is the last day to fill out the form*

Nomination Link

Recently IRADs has reached out to build out an institutional schedule for routine surveys of our students and the rest of our UMBC community. Attached is the latest version of the rotation schedule that was presented in our Middle States Self-Study.

I recently reached out to DoSA SALT and ELT members to do the following steps between now and June 4th. This message is intended to inform all DoSA staff to reach out to your SALT/ELT leadership if you are someone from DoSA that coordinates surveys for students, faculty, staff, and/or families.

Step 1: Review the attached document as some of your departments are listed as administering survey instruments. If information is no longer accurate please communicate this to Mary Ellen Wade at mewade@umbc.edu 

Step 2: SALT and ELT are being asked to communicate with staff regarding their survey-related assessment plans. After consulting they are being asked to send me the following information:

• Survey Instrument Name (ex. NSSE)
• Who from your staff (at the present time) is the point of contact
• Department
• Year(s) the survey will be administered (ex. 2026-2027, 2029-2030)
  • Follow up if known- semester or month(s)
• Who is the audience: indicate all that apply. Options:
  • Admitted students
  • Undergraduate students
  • Residential students
  • Commuter students
  • First year students
  • Sophomore students
  • Junior students
  • Senior students
  • Graduate students
  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Alumni
  • Families

At this time, staffs should share any known survey and I will work with IRADs to see if it should be included on this master calendar.

I recognize that you may not be thinking all the way out through 2029-2030. However, in the meantime, be sure to send me any plans you are currently aware of. When IRADs has updated this calendar, I will share this back out to you through this myUMBC page. 

Thanks in advance for your information!

*Thank you for looking!  A couple of folks have reached out and we are in the processes of securing one.*

Hello! We have a colleague who has asked for a standing desk riser. Thought I'd ask around before purchasing one. Please contact Gina Hoagland at ghoaglan@umbc.edu.

Does anyone have an extra wireless (or wired) keyboard? Cathy catmyers@umbc.edu.  Thanks!  

From 05/25 – 06/07: The High Temp Hot Water System will be shutdown for annual repairs and maintenance. This outage is performed annually at this time of year. It is a shutdown of our campus main heating system referred to as the High Temp Hot Water (HTHW) system. The heat for this system is generated at the Central Plant and circulated throughout most of the academic buildings on campus. This outage is needed so that annual maintenance and repair can be performed on this system. Doing this work now is critical to ensuring it is working during the winter months when it is most needed.

This heating system is also part of the cooling system. To remove the humidity that spikes this time of year, the air circulating in a building is cooled down to about 55 degrees. This causes moisture to condense out of the air. Then the heating system heats the dryer air back up to comfortable temperatures. Because the heating system is turned off, the air may feel cooler than usual. The air conditioning needs to remain on to remove the humidity. If the AC is turned off, buildings would “sweat” on the inside and cause many other concerns.

This is the best time of year to do this. This outage cannot be performed in the winter because it is our main heating system. This outage cannot be performed later in the summer because the humidity is just too high and would cause more issues. The period right after commencement is the best time to perform this work due to the weather conditions and the low population on campus.

Please be aware that FM may not be able to address work orders for hot/cold situations during this period. If you believe there is an issue with the heating/cooling, please go ahead and submit the work order and FM will check it out, however, some of those conditions may be as close to "normal" as it can be until the outage is over and the heating system is back on. FM suggests that folks dress in layers to adjust to too warm or chilly conditions inside the building.

As always, thank you for your support and cooperation.

Are you thinking about graduate school?

Take advantage of Free Graduate Application Week running from May 27 to June 3. Use code Retriever2026 to get your application fee waived. Additionally, the application deadline has been extended from July 1 to August 1! 

Apply at umbc.edu/freeapp.

The CBEE graduate program has a unique, vibrant research environment that encompasses interdisciplinary approaches to major questions in chemical, biological, and environmental engineering. Our work runs the gamut, from computational analyses to experimental in vitro and in vivo systems, clinical studies, and field work. Interested? We encourage you to visit our website and apply!

More information about our graduate programs can be found below: 

MS in Biochemical Engineering
PhD in Biochemical Engineering

MS in Environmental Engineering
PhD in Environmental Engineering

Please see the arena's website for a full list of graduation ceremonies.  We can expect heavy traffic for an hour before and immediately after each event.  Parking Services says that anyone with a valid UMBC parking permit will be allowed to park in any legal space across campus on graduation days.

What if a wrong answer could teach just as much as a right one? This month’s Blackboard update brings tools that let instructors do exactly that: Guiding students not just to the correct response, but to a clearer understanding of why other options don't fit. Paired with a few improvements to how rubrics work in practice, this is a helpful update for anyone who invests time in thoughtful assessment design.

Answer-Level Feedback gives instructors a new way to turn multiple choice and multiple answer questions into active learning moments. When creating or editing a question, instructors can enable Option Feedback to reveal feedback text boxes beneath each individual answer choice. This makes it possible to explain why a particular option is correct or, just as usefully, why a common wrong answer misses the mark. Whether you're addressing frequent misconceptions or helping students self-correct on formative assessments, answer-level feedback adds a layer of guidance that goes well beyond a simple right/wrong indicator.

Image 1: Instructors can enter answer-level feedback.

Complementing this, Lock Answer in Fixed Position gives instructors precise control over how answer options behave when randomization is enabled. Specific choices, typically those like "None of the above" or "All of the above", can now be pinned to a fixed spot in the list, so they always appear where they belong regardless of how other options are shuffled. It's a small but meaningful quality-of-life improvement that keeps question logic intact without requiring instructors to abandon randomization.

Image 2: Instructors can select the lock icon next to the answer option to lock that option in place. To trigger the lock icons, select Randomize answers in the Assessment Settings.

Rubric Usability Improvements address several practical friction points that instructors have encountered when grading with rubrics. First, instructors can now override a student's grade without locking the rubric, preserving the ability to go back and adjust rubric-based feedback after a grade has been modified. Second, criterion-level feedback is now available for both single and multiple attempts, giving instructors a place to leave targeted comments at the row level, not just at the overall submission level. Discussion and journal grades now save at the attempt level, improving consistency across multi-attempt workflows. Lastly, when a grade is entered directly in the rubric grade pill, it immediately updates the attempt grade, eliminating the extra step of manually syncing the two.

Finally, Instructors can now check which announcements a student has or hasn't read on the new Announcements tab of the Student Overview page, making it easier to follow up with students who may have missed important course communications.

When can you expect the update?

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around June 4-5, 2026. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on June 9, 2026; release notes will be posted to the What's New in Ultra page within two weeks. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra.

Connect with Instructional Technology

As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection

  • What's new in Ultra? |Known Issues

• Open a ticket via RT

• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups

• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

The Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has identified an issue affecting Google Calendar add-ins (such as Webex, Microsoft Teams, and others). A recent update starting on or around May 26th, 2026 from Google has interfered with these integrations, causing some users to experience connectivity errors or authentication prompts when trying to use them.

How to Fix It: The remedy requires clearing the cached data for the affected add-in within your Google account to re-initialize the connection.

We have published a detailed FAQ document with step-by-step instructions on how to quickly resolve this issue: 👉 Page: How to Re-add Cisco Webex Add-In access for Google Calendar

Need Assistance? If you follow the steps in the FAQ and continue to experience issues, or if you need additional help walking through the process, please contact the Technology Support Center (TSC):

• Phone: 410-455-3838

• Online: Submit a support ticket at https://help.umbc.edu

Thank you for your patience as we work to ensure all campus collaboration tools are functioning smoothly.

Sincerely,

Division of Information Technology
University of Maryland, Baltimore County