When does a tragedy spark a movement?

One month after unarmed teenager Michael Brown’s killing by a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, this question is not academic. 

Police violence against People of Color (and particularly young Black men) is, sadly, nothing new. Even in the last two decades, dozens of unarmed Black men have been killed by police. But what will change, and when? 

Let’s peek at a handful of all-American injustices that ignited sweeping transformation:

- Historians credit the killing of three Boston residents by British soldiers in 1770 with igniting the American Revolution. 

-A fire the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911 killed 146 immigrant laborers. The tragedy led to the widespread adoption of labor and fire codes. 

-A 1969 police raid on New York gay bar “Stonewall Inn,” while not uncommon at the time, led to protests. The national registry of historic sites deems the event “the single most important event that led to the modern movement for gay and lesbian civil rights.”

However, tragedy does not a movement make. Just ask all the men who died before Michael Brown. 

Still, Ferguson residents seem determined to make our next list of successful protests. According to one woman, 

“These [young men] are not human targets. These are our babies.” 

Keep watching, America. 

The first part of UMBC's Alternative Spring Break program is under way!

We organize 4 -6 week long service-learning experiences for Spring Break every year, but they're entirely student organized, so we need your help.

If you've been involved in service regularly and have exceptional organizational skills then we'd like you to help us plan one of the 4-6 trips we'll be offering this year.  

You can read more about the program and get details about the expectations of the position at the application page:

http://goo.gl/n4FtnF

The Maryland Department of Aging has a last minute fall internship opportunity available. They are looking for an intern to work on Tues,Thurs, full time hours. This is an unpaid internship.

Maryland Department of Aging is looking for an intern to work on its Maryland Access Point (MAP) program's database. MAP is a partner in the national Aging and Disability Resource Center initiative supported by the Administration on Community Living (formally Administration on Aging) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. MAP Program is part of Maryland’s No Wrong Door approach for providing access to the Aging network to obtain information concerning benefits and programs for older adults and individuals with disabilities, their families, and caregivers. Through the program, seniors and individuals with disabilities receive information to make informed choices about services, referrals to appropriate agencies, assistance in obtaining services and benefits, and follow-up. The program promotes awareness of services for the elderly and individuals with disabilities through outreach and public education, and provides information about health care, Medicare/health insurance, in-home services, transportation, housing, legal services, senior centers, retirement communities, prescriptions drugs and more. Students will be exposed to different challenges that seniors may face in order to access service information online and organizing it where it's accessible to all.

If you are interested please contact Chrystle Samuels at chrystle.samuels@maryland.gov.

Julia Ross, Dean of the College of Engineering and Information and Technology along with her colleagues: Jon Singer and Chris Rakes from the Department of Education at UMBC and Richard Weisenhoff from Baltimore County Public Schools, received an NSF $3 million grant for engineering education.

In this study UMBC will partner with the Baltimore County Public School System to implement a professional development model that incorporates engineering curriculum in high school biology and technology classrooms.

CSEE’s Dr. Rick Forno, Cybersecurity GPD and Assistant Director of UMBC’s Center for Cybersecurity, has received an $84K grant from the National Security Agency (NSA) to fund the prizes for student winners at the 2014 Maryland Cyber Challenge finals that will take place at the CyberMaryland 2014 conference in Baltimore on 29 and 30 October.

The Maryland Cyber Challenge aims to build excitement around pursuing education and careers in the cybersecurity field by bringing together teams of students and cyber practitioners to compete in a series of ever-more-complex cybersecurity challenges. To date, approximately 700 competitors across 115 teams have participated in the past three annual competitions. With the generous support of NSA, UMBC has provided more than $252,000 in monetary prizes to highly skilled and talented computer science students during the competition.

First place team members each will receive $5K and runners-up receive $2K each to contribute toward their higher education and training in the cybersecurity and computer science fields. Identical prizes are awarded both in the high school and college divisions.

The 2014 Challenge begins with the first scored qualification round taking place over 13-15 September.

Dr. Forno and UMBC are co-founders of the Maryland Cyber Challenge, which is a partnership with Leidos and the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED).