The UMBC community gives back in many ways. The Clothing Closet and Sweeten Up Your Network events were great examples of exactly that. Thanks to your donations of time, money and clothes, students were able to find outfits for future job interviews, brush up on their networking skills and make connections that could last a lifetime. Weren’t able to make it? Take a look at some of the pictures and head over to the Student Alumni Association Facebook page for more!

Sometimes these types of articles are cheezy and filled with fairly obvious stuff, but not when Louis Lazaris does them. All of these are pretty non-obvious.

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12 Little-Known CSS Facts is a post from CSS-Tricks

Nice stuff by Michaël Villar. Tasteful, subtle, informative animations is a trend I can be behind.

Reminds me of the nice stuff Val Head has been teaching, Hakim El Hattab's experiments, Codrops examples, Pasquale D’Silva's thinking, Effeckt.css...

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Improve the payment experience with animations is a post from CSS-Tricks

For National Library Week, Honors College Professor Ellen Handler Spitz wrote an essay in City Paper that examines the value of borrowing books, especially children’s books, from the library.

“Feeling rebellious over our dizzying speed-mad era of e-books, e-readers, digital and virtual realities, I want to advocate for the practice of borrowing a good old-fashioned book from the library—especially now, during National Library Week. I want to remind everyone of the simple joy of settling down in a cozy nook, turning well-worn pages, and reading aloud to a child,” Spitz writes.

She discusses the value of reading children’s books of the past and maintaining links among generations, while also focusing on the importance of fostering imagination and creativity in young readers.

“With no slight intended but rather my sincere appreciation to the wonderful children’s book authors of today, I urge you to check out the classics of the past. Borrow them from your library. Share them with the children in your life.  Their quality rewards sustained attention—hushed, absorbed hours. Read alone or with an adult, they allow today’s children to slow down, to turn away from trivial distractions, and to expand inwardly in historic time, from generation to generation…”

To read the complete essay titled “Remembering Children’s Books of Yesteryear During National Library Week,” click here.

Asian Studies Program Director Constantine Vaporis has been selected as a Smithsonian expert for tours of Japan. As a director, the Smithsonian Journeys program will periodically ask Vaporis to lead tours in Japan, with the first one set for 2015.

Vaporis’s research focuses on the Edo period and he is interested in the entire range of Japanese history. He is author of Breaking Barriers: Travel and the State in Early Modern Japan; Tour of Duty: Samurai, Military Service in Edo and the Culture of Early Modern Japan; Nihonjin to sankin kôtai [The Japanese and Alternate Attendance]; and Voices of Early Modern Japan: Contemporary Accounts of Daily Life during the Age of the Shoguns.

You can learn more about the Smithsonian Journeys program and Vaporis’s tour expert selection by clicking here.

A Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate forum held at Towson University April 17 drew attention to college student participation in the upcoming election.

Laura Hussey, an assistant professor of political science, was interviewed for an article posted on MarylandReporter.com, and she noted interest groups and political parties tend to notice when candidates devote their time to appealing to younger voters – the generation that will serve as the future workforce behind their causes.

“The Obama campaign benefited from appealing to college students greatly,” Hussey said. “There are benefits beyond the actual votes.”

To read the full article  on MarylandReporter.com, click here.

In an op-ed published in The Baltimore Sun on April 15, Political Science Professor Thomas Schaller writes about how the increased use of credit cards will likely lead to more consequences than fraud. In addition to loss of consumer privacy, Schaller writes relying exclusively on credit cards leads to another big cost: the burden of servicing credit debt.

“When big banks get over-leveraged, they turn to the government for bailouts. And guess what? So do individuals: Americans’ average credit card balance dropped after the financial crisis — which sounds like good news until you learn that the decrease resulted from millions of people simply defaulting on their debts,” Schaller wrote.

He added the banks holding debts have to make up for their losses, so “even if you diligently pay the full monthly balance on all your credit cards, indirectly you’re subsidizing not only Visa and MasterCard, but the banks covering their losses from credit card defaulters.”

To read the full column titled “Paper or plastic?” in The Baltimore Sun, click here.

Our UMBC: A Strategic Plan for Advancing Excellence is founded on a broadly inclusive process. With campus input, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee identified four areas widely viewed as drivers of future success for UMBC: The Student Experience, Innovative Curriculum and Pedagogy, Collective Impact in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Achievement, and Community and Extended Connection. A strategy group will explore and recommend goals for each area, and will recommend metrics to assess how well we are addressing our objectives.

This is the first in a series of interviews with the co-chairs of each focus area.

The primary goal of The Student Experience Strategy Group is examining ways to create vibrant, exceptional and comprehensive undergraduate and graduate student experiences that integrate in- and out-of-classroom learning to prepare graduates for meaningful careers and civic and personal lives. Student Experience Strategy Group Co-Chairs Devin Hagerty, professor of political science and program director of global studies, and Kim Leisey, associate vice president of student affairs, believe that students continue to prioritize a strong sense of community and belonging, a theme that will help inform their work as co-chairs.

Both Hagerty and Leisey bring important perspectives to the Strategy Group research, which will examine the roles of safety, community and belonging; preparation in and out of the classroom; the impact of diversity; participation in global citizenship; delivery of services; and faculty and staff infrastructure.

While Hagerty’s focus is academics and Leisey’s is student affairs, the collaborative nature of the campus helps them to see the big picture and hear from all members of the community. As former chair and now program director, Hagerty’s work centers on the classroom experience, but he also has worked with students in a variety of settings, including bringing workshops into residence halls. “I’ve seen all of the student issues, both academic and personal, and the relationships I have across campus have been helpful to that experience,” he explains. On the other hand, although Leisey’s work focuses on both undergraduate and graduate students, she also works closely with faculty and staff across the campus.

As they begin their work as co-chairs, Hagerty and Leisey say they are reflecting on how the campus and the student experience have changed since they first came to UMBC 13 and 23 years ago, respectively. UMBC has grown into a nationally and internationally recognized institution, and an inclusive strategic planning process is critical to understanding the needs of its students and the role the university plays in a rapidly changing world. Both feel it is important to make sure students feel they are a part of a community, and are connected with and supported by the institution.

“I’ve worked with both undergraduate and graduate students and I get a lot of input from them,” says Leisey. “For me, co-chairing this group is an opportunity to share that input and focus on what we want UMBC to look like in the next few decades – what exists now and what’s missing. In doing that, we also have to project what’s ahead in the world and the impact that will have both in and out of the classroom.”

Hagerty agrees, sharing, “This also is a good opportunity to audit ourselves as we are proactive, creative and innovative in keeping up with the student body. There’s a lot we do well, and it’s good to take a fresh look to make sure we’re doing as well as we think. We try to excel at everything, and we want to stay on the map without losing the liberal arts teaching. We want to know how that feels for students: How do they interact with all of the different parts of the campus and what kind of experience do they have?”

UMBC is well known for its diversity. Leisey explains that one challenge is taking advantage of that diversity in helping people connect and provide experiences that help students learn about one another – and find commonalities among the differences. Hagerty adds that it is important to understand the student experience as a whole, and how it transforms and prepares students for the future. “The challenges students have now are preparing them to be global citizens and professionals.”

While the role of technology has grown exponentially, both feel that students may be missing more face-to-face connections. “I’d like to better understand the role of technology [in the student experience], but I have a hunch that, although this generation is connected technologically, they miss just being with people,” says Leisey.

Hagerty and Leisey would like to receive input on the student experience from students and colleagues across the campus, and look forward to meeting with focus groups during the strategic planning process. They also welcome questions and comments from the campus. You can contact them at dhagerty@umbc.edu and leisey@umbc.edu.

Name: Aastha Jain

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START)

Major(s)/Minor(s): Interdisciplinary Studies: Criminology and Criminal Justice

Expected Graduation Year: May 2015

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service-learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

START triages (or "takes in") news media covering incidents of terrorism from around the world. Senior staff at START creates summaries of the terrorist incidents and makes them available on the Database Management System (DMS). The Global Terrorism Database (GTD) is run on the DMS and includes variables such as the location, perpetrators, and targets of each terrorist event. My job is to identify who was targeted in any given terrorist attack around the world.

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

I enjoy that interns are allowed the responsibility of coding on such an important database. Senior-level staff members bring interns into their meetings to discuss coding progress. In that way, I feel like I am part of something truly unique and important.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

I have been able to bring an interdisciplinary perspective to this internship. This is not possible everywhere. START is made up of a team of researchers, programmers, media specialists, and IT personnel all working together. This is interdisciplinarity at its finest.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

My advice to students seeking an internship is to make sure the internship fits you, not just that you fit the internship. As students we always want to look qualified but we need to make sure not to sacrifice our personal qualities.

How do you see your experience as meaningful? This might involve skills you’ve gained, information you’ve learned, mentors you’ve connected with, or projects you’ve completed.

My experience is meaningful because there is nothing like the Global Terrorism Database! There is no where else researchers and academic professionals can search for certain variables of all the terrorist incidents in one area. Where else can you look up the number of businesses that were targeted in Yemen during a specific span of time??

Please provide a short quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process.

Viewing terrorist incidents from all around the world provides me a global perspective on the nature of terrorist attacks.

More insight about Aastha’s internship experience.

I worked on the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) at The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). START has defined terrorism for its purposes so all incidents included are of a uniform standard. The GTD is an incident-level database that can be searched based on many variables. Want to know how many police personnel were killed by firearms in Kenya between 2000-2007? That is the kind of information provided by the GTD.

More specifically, I worked on the target classification distinction of the database. There were four interns populating this portion of the GTD for 2012-2013 terrorist attacks around the world. Currently, there are over 20 types of targets within the GTD. Some of these include civilians, transportation, military, and business targets amongst many. The type of target was determined after reading aggregated news media about each attack from many sources. Staff members worked on filtering through the articles and determining relevancy before interns began coding.

Based on my networking and interests, I asked Dr. Gary LaFree, director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, to come serve as the INDS Council of Majors Annual Petrovich Lecturer. He came and spoke at UMBC on March 2nd to shed the myths of terrorism and share some of the exciting research coming out of START. I loved my experience at START and was very fortunate to foster that relationship past a semester.