NODA, the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education, recently held their annual conference in Orlando, FL.

UMBC, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions and Orientation, Marketing and Creative Services won for Best Family Calendar/Handbook for mid-size institutions. The calendar was distributed to all incoming freshman and transfer parents and family members this summer. The Publications & Media Showcase awards highlight the best of the promotional materials submitted for the 2014 orientation season.

You want a new car?

You’re a broke college kid, so, no doubt,  you can’t afford a new car. So what if you could get a new car for free by…voting in the next election?

According to President Obama, you can do just that.

In a wide-ranging interview aired Sunday on ABC’s This Week, the President said that

“I think the American people, you know, they’re going to want that new car smell. You know, they want to drive something off that lot that doesn’t have as much mileage as me.”

It seems that the President believes his two terms have taken some of the luster off of his brand: 

“When you’ve been president for six years, you know, you’ve got some dings.”

After the Democratic Party’s midterm drubbing, it’s not hard to see why the President feels this way. Facing Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, he is close to ‘lame duck’ territory–the portion of a president’s second term where his influence lags as people begin to look to the next presidential election.

Speaking about the next election, Obama reiterated his wish to see Democrats retain control of the White House:

“I am very interested in making sure that I’ve got a Democratic successor.”

Asked to speculate about Hillary Clinton’s seemingly inevitable presidential run:

“If she decides to run, I think she will be a formidable candidate and I think she’d be a great president.”

About helping Democrats win in 2016:

“I’m gonna do everything I can, obviously, to make sure that whoever the nominee is is successful.”

He’ll do everything he can except, of course, getting too close. He must be careful not to wipe the luster off the Democrats’ new 2016 ride. 

In advance of the UMBC public policy program 40th anniversary celebration, Donald Norris, professor and chair of the department, wrote an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun in which he defended the value of studying public policy to meet the growing demand for public servants who can improve government at all levels.

In the column, Norris discussed the strength of the UMBC public policy program in educating students to make a strong, local impact after graduation: “Over the past 40 years, the public policy graduate program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) has grown from 12 master’s students to 135 doctoral and master’s students. One key to our success is the program’s focus on issues impacting the state,” Norris wrote.

“The UMBC public policy program welcomes students from many nations and many states, but the majority of our students are from Maryland, and the majority of our graduates remain in Maryland. Moreover, at a time when fewer and fewer college students say that they want to work in the public sector, more than half of UMBC’s public policy students who graduated in the last 10 years are employed by Maryland state and local government, federal agencies and nonprofits,” he added.

Norris was also quoted in two recent Baltimore Sun articles analyzing the clout of Maryland’s congressional delegation after the election and a failed loan repayment from Anthony Brown’s campaign. To read the column and articles, click below.

Public policy schools more relevant than ever (Column)
Clout for Maryland lawmakers in Congress slips after midterm elections
Brown failed to repay $500,000 on time 

Earlier this month at the National Academy of Public Administration annual meeting, Political Science Professor Roy Meyers was inducted as a new fellow for the organization. The Academy is an independent, non-profit organization that assists government leaders to build more transparent, efficient, and effective organizations.

The fellowship program includes prominent scholars, former members of Congress, cabinet officers, governors, business executives, and public administrators who provide valuable insight and support, guidance to the organization, and address emerging policy issues while contributing to intellectual and popular discourse on government.

Meyers was formerly a principal analyst with the Budget Analysis Division in the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. For Meyers’ biography page on the Academy website, click here. To read more about the National Academy of Public Administration fellowship program, click here.

English Writer in Residence Lia Purpura is featured in the November 24 edition of The New Yorker. The magazine published her poem “Study with Melon.” You can read the poem in The New Yorker by clicking here. The full text of the poem is below:

Study with Melon

The stem end of a melon
is weblike, form
finding a pattern
that’s thinking itself
a density
a concentration
beginning a line
then casting it out
and moving on from,
an order established,
a gesture complete.
Completion: how
someone at a distance
might see it.

In addition, Purpura’s essay “In The Despoiled and Radiant Now” appears in the November/December issue of Orion Magazine.

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