Dr. Jeff Leips honored by USM Regents for excellence in teaching Jeff Leips, Associate Professor in Biological Sciences, was presented with the 2014 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Presidential Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony held in the University Center Ballroom on April 2, 2014.  He was the only UMBC faculty member to receive a prestigious Regents Award this year.

Leips spear-headed the creation of two new minors at UMBC in Quantitative Biology and Biomathematics.  He also co-chairs the Undergraduate Training in Biology and Mathematics (UBM) program.  In addition, Leips is a leader in creating student-centered experiences in undergraduate biology courses. He leads an HHMI grant-sponsored effort to create, implement, and evaluate student-centered modules in introductory biology classes at UMBC that emphasize quantitative skills.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Leips leads a research lab focused on quantitative and evolutionary genetics in fruit flies. “I like what I’m doing," [said Leips].  It’s part of our job – the teaching part probably affects way more students than anything I do in research.”

In that vein, Leips believes UMBC and other universities need to improve teaching training for graduate students and faculty.  If you are a graduate student thinking about a career in academia, “A large fraction of your job is going to be teaching.  And you’re doing the students a disservice if you don’t treat it seriously,” he said.

CSEE’s Marie desJardins is currently collaborating with Maryland educators and researchers for the NSF-funded CS10K Teacher Training Project. The project seeks to change how computer science is taught by high school teachers. Researchers work together with high school teachers to craft new curricula for high school computer science programs. This project is unique in that actual high school teachers are creating the new curricula, rather than professional curriculum writers. The CS10K Maryland Project team includes faculty from UMCP, as well as high school teachers from Charles County and Baltimore County.

The CS10K team has facilitated the creation of “a complete curriculum package for a new College Board Advanced Placement (AP) course called CS Principles.” Originally, the goal of the CS10K team was to train 10,000 teachers to teach computer science in 10,000 schools nationwide. The project has been revised to reflect its new goal of training teachers in all U.S. schools.

In academia there is a growing concern that females–as well as minorities and those with disabilities–are being repeatedly discouraged from pursuing programming in high school. Professor desJardins is trying to change this by directing the CS Matters in MD Project. (CS Matters in MD is part of the larger, NSF-supported initiative known as CS 10K.)

“I believe that CS should be included throughout the K-12 curriculum as a set of basic skills and knowledge for today’s world,” desJardins said. “All citizens of the 21st century, especially the next generation of knowledge workers, will benefit greatly from learning about computational thinking and the problem-solving skills that are a core part of computer science.”

In addition, desJardins explains that, “We need to expand the pool of available workers to fill the many computing-related jobs that our economy demands, and in order to be sure that the technology we develop is robust and useful, we need to increase the diversity of the computer scientists who take those jobs.  To meet these goals, we must broaden our notion of what it means to teach computer science (beyond just teaching coding skills), and we must reach a broader audience at an earlier age.  Our ‘CS Matters in Maryland’ project is particularly focused on creating appealing and engaging curriculum materials for the newly announced AP CS Principles course, and on training teachers to deliver this material effectively to a diverse population of learners.”

More information about CS Matters in Maryland and the CS10K Project can be found here.

Unleash your passion!

Handel Choir of Baltimore is holding auditions for the rest of our 2014-2015 season SATURDAY JANUARY 3, 2015.

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

WHERE: Church of the Holy Comforter, 130 West Seminary Avenue in Lutherville.

WHO: Community singers, all parts, for Jan-Apr 2015 AND soloists for our 2015-2016 season.

HOW DO I SIGN UP?: Call 667.206.4120 and leave a message, or email anne@handelchoir.org to schedule an audition.

UMBC Head Men’s Soccer Coach Pete Caringi was named 2014 National Division I Coach of the Year by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America.

The award is voted upon by Caringi’s fellow coaches who are members of the NSCAA. It is the Retriever mentor’s third top honor in 30 years, as he was selected as the National Junior College Coach of the Year in 1984 and 1989. At the senior college level, Caringi earned South Atlantic regional honors in 1999 and Northeast regional honors in 2013.

Caringi just completed his 24th season at UMBC and has piloted the Retrievers to America East titles and NCAA Championship appearances of four of the last five seasons and five overall.

The 2014 Retrievers advanced further in an NCAA tournament than any previous UMBC squad in school history. UMBC set a tournament record by knocking off four opponents on the road and all by shutout, before falling, 1-0, to eventual national champion Virginia in the national semifinals.

The Baltimore native has an overall record of 260-150-59 (.619) during his tenure on Hilltop Circle and in 32 years as a head coach, he is 430-177-67 (.691).

Starting Summer, The Shriver Center at UMBC will offer various hands-on learning opportunities for Middle and High School students through its new Summer Enrichment Experience (SEE).

SEE provides an opportunity for local middle and high school students to get a sense of the college learning experience. SEE participants will collaborate and learn under the direction of UMBC faculty and with the support of UMBC undergraduate students.

The experiences cover a broad range of academic interests, including STEM and the arts and humanities, and program material focuses on relevant topics, ranging from cybersecurity to devised theatre. View a complete list of experiences offered here.

Registration for SEE is now open, and can be accessed at see.umbc.edu. Registration discounts are offered to UMBC faculty, staff and alumni. Learn more at: http://see.umbc.edu/

Last week the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, visited UMBC to meet with President Hrabowski, faculty and students.

WBAL’s Tim Tooten covered the visit. Tooten reported that Moniz explained that there was a growing need for underrepresented minorities to help fill the energy-related jobs of the future.

Moniz first met with a group of students from UMBC’s prestigious Meyerhoff Scholars program. Students said that Moniz’s remarks made a big impact on them.

“I think I am going to go and look more into what energy can do and what I can do in research for energy,” Aida Berhane ’17, chemical engineering, told Tooten.

“To see the amount of funding available for the future of energy and to see someone like him kind of taking charge, not supporting one particular project, but a variety of different energy-related fields, it was nice to see,”Stephen Vicchio ’15, chemical engineering.

But the visit was not just limited to students. Faculty and administrators met with the Secretary as well.

“The Secretary provided an insightful picture of the breadth and scope of the Department of Energy and its impact on scientific research, development, and technology. His inspirational approach highlighted many of the opportunities afforded by the DOE that will indeed benefit our students and faculty at UMBC,” said William LaCourse, Dean of the College and Natural Mathematical Sciences.

“It was a very successful conversation,” added Karl Steiner, Vice President for Research. “It allowed us to share with the Secretary the breadth of our expertise in energy research.”

Faculty included in the visit were: Belay Demoz, Director for the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET); Ruben Delgado, Assistant Research Scientist, JCET; Andrei Draganescu, Associate Professor, Mathematics and Statistics; Tinoosh Mohsenin, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering; Jeffrey Gardner, Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences; and Mark Allen, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

As many of you discovered today, we’ve started to release our Early Action notification letters. Many of the letters sent on Wednesday were for students who applied before our Early Action Deadline (November 1). We will be sending Regular Decision notification letters in late February. The timing of when you submitted your application, and also when you completed your application, have an impact on when you will receive your decision letter. Please be sure to check your application status online to ensure that you have completed your application. When checking your status, make sure you allow processing time for your application and online checklist to be updated.

Now a few notes on decision letters. Below, you will find a bit of advice on decisions.

Admitted to UMBC: Congratulations! Being offered admission to a college or university is an exciting experience, especially if this is the first college decision letter you’ve received. In your UMBC admission packet you will find a variety of information about the campus and a future at UMBC. Later in the spring we’ll host several receptions and events, on-campus and off, for admitted students to get to know UMBC. May 1 is the national deadline to submit an enrollment deposit so take some time to consider what school will be the best fit for you. Also, feel free to share your decision with friends and family, but keep in mind that not everyone received this decision. If you have questions for us, feel free to get in touch.

Wait List: In a way, being placed on the wait list is a non-decision; you’ve not been offered admission, nor have you been denied admission. We place students on the wait list for further review as we learn more about our enrollment numbers. Essentially, as more students submit their enrollment deposit to UMBC we have a better idea of our incoming class and we can determine if we can admit students from the wait list. Additional academic information is welcome from wait list applicants, this can include mid-year grades or additional test scores. We do not assign students a number on the wait list, the wait list will be reviewed as a whole when we get to the point of reviewing the wait list. I don’t have an exact notification date for wait list students but we do our best to send decisions by the end of May.

Not offered admission to UMBC: This, of course, is the hardest decision to receive. Believe it or not, this is also the hardest decision to give. We truly value our applicants but the reality of college admissions is that we cannot admit all of our applicants. In the last few years UMBC has experienced significant growth in our applicant pool, and this larger applicant pool has becoming increasingly competitive. I often see students do two things when they receive this decision: 1) try to compare their application with other students, and 2) try to rack their brains on what they “did wrong” on their application. I discourage students from trying to do either of these things. For the first point, it is very difficult to compare students to one another because we consider each applicant individually. As admissions counselors we have the entire application, and while the exact criteria and review process for applications is kept internal, suffice it to say that we consider many factors. For the second point, students rarely do something “wrong.” As mentioned earlier, we cannot offer admission to all of our applications. There exists a reality that we only have so much space in our incoming class and therefore, because of numbers, we have to make decisions to not offer admission to some students. If you’re not offered admission please know that you can still attend UMBC later down the line by transferring.

Next Steps: Plenty of emotions come with receiving decision letters from colleges. We’re very excited to get to know our admitted students over the next few months, and we hope to see you here in the fall. If you were placed on the wait list or not offered admission, please know we are still here as a resource. We’re happy to guide you through the process and clear up any questions you may have. One note I would make, if you do want to follow up with an application decision we want to hear from the student. Family members, we appreciate you, but your student should be making the call, sending the email, etc. We know you want to help, parents, but this is a time for your about-to-be-a-college-student to take the reigns.

As always, let us know if you have questions. Take care!