Kimberly Moffitt, writer and professor of American Studies, will join other prominent leaders in higher education in a two-hour panel discussion on race equality, civil rights and policy change at Tufts University’s National Dialogue on Race Day.

Inspired by recent events such as the supreme court ruling on voting rights and the civil rights demonstrations following the verdict of the George Zimmerman case, the all-day conference, held in Boston, Mass. on Sept. 12, will focus on three broad themes and questions:

• 50 Years after the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom: How Far Have we Progressed as a Nation in Achieving Dr. King’s Dream of Multicultural and Multiracial Democracy?
• Trayvon Martin, Mass Incarceration, and the public school to prison crisis
• Race and Democracy in the 21st Century: What does racial integration, justice, and equality mean in contemporary America and how can we shape and impact this dialogue in our respective communities, nationally and globally?

For those who unable to attend, you can access the live stream of the event, available tomorrow morning.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded a 3-year, $750,000 grant the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR), The Hilltop Institute at UMBC, and the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative (GHHI) to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the reduction in asthma and associated Medicated expenditures resulting from the implementation of GHHI interventions.

GHHI is a national program spearheaded by the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning. GHHI integrates health-based housing interventions with weatherization to create access to healthy homes for children in low-income neighborhoods.

The UMBC study will focus on GHHI interventions in the homes of low-income families with asthma-diagnosed children in Baltimore City. The project will evaluate the extent to which GHHI interventions impact asthma morbidity and health care utilization costs, school absences, utility costs and work-loss days for parents or caregivers of children with asthma. The study will also examine how different levels of GHHI interventions impact post-intervention resident health and overall non-medical and energy cost savings.

The interdisciplinary research team includes principal investigator David Salkever, public policy/MIPAR; co-investigator Michael Abrams, Hilltop; researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health; and co-principal investigator Ruth Ann Norton, executive director of the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning/GHHI.

UMBC’s recent U.S. News and World Report rankings, in which the university was named the #1 “Up-and-Coming” school, and the #6 school for “Best Undergraduate Teaching,” was covered by several media outlets.

CBS Baltimore covered the story, interviewing both Dale Bittinger, director of admissions, and senior Kelsey Krach.  The video segment adnd the text are available here.

The Baltimore Sun spoke with Provost Philip Rous for their story.  “We take the recognition very seriously,” said Rous. The two rankings, he said, “really represent the fundamental commitments at UMBC. We are very innovative and entrepreneurial.”

The news magazine The List also reporterd on the ranking, featuring Krach, freshman Evan Leiter-Mason, and Rous.

The Examiner also covered the rankings, noting that “UMBC’s non-traditional approach to STEM teaching take students out of lecture halls for more hands-on, self-directed learning.”

The rankings were also highlighted by the Baltimore Business Journal, the Washington Post, In the Capital, and WBAL.

Data Access Worldwide announced today the global availability of the DataFlex Web Framework, making it much easier to build apps using less code, more re-use of code and components, better application structure, and robust scalability.

Now with JavaScript, Mobile, and LightSwitch Compatibility, Syncfusion’s Essential Studio 2013 is complete with enterprise class control suites enriched to simplify development of business applications.