If you have good programming skills and are looking for an interesting alternative to the usual summer internship, you might check out the Google Summer of Code program. It pays student developers $5000 stipends to write code for various open source projects over the summer. Over the past eight years, it has brought together over 6,000 students with over 300 open source projects to create millions of lines of code.

Students who are accepted into the program will put the skills they have learned to good use by working remotely on an actual software project over the summer. Students are paired with mentors to help address technical questions and concerns throughout the course of the project. With the knowledge and hands-on experience students gain during the summer they strengthen their future employment opportunities in fields related to their academic pursuits.

Students should submit applications via the Google Summer of Code 2013 site by May 3. Google says that that the best applications they receive are from students who took the time to interact with one of the participating mentoring organizations and discuss their ideas before submitting an application. About 1,200 students are expected to be funded this year.

The Joomla! Project is pleased to announce the availability of Joomla! CMS 3.1.0 Stable.

A hotly contested SGA election season ended tonight at 7:30 p.m. in The Commons Student Org Space. Arash Fallah and Jeffrey Kee were announced as the President-elect and Executive Vice President-elect of the UMBC Student Government Association.

Fallah and Kee brought in 1,300 votes, which represented 37.9 percent of the total turnout. The Elections Board Chair Collin Wojciechowskiannounced that this year's turnout of 3,532 votes is a new UMBC record.

Hamza Siddiqui and Melissa Hom brought in 1,091 votes, representing 31.8 percent of the vote, while Max Barnhart and Ganesh Mysore pulled in 1,004 votes, which is 29.3 percent of ballots cast.

Read the rest of the story here.

We'll have a follow-up article in the print edition on Tuesday, check it out!

The JavaScript Development Tools (JSDT) plug-in supports the development of JavaScript-powered applications as well as JavaScript within traditional web applications. In today's article, Rob Gravelle demonstrates how use the JSDT plugin to enhance the development of a static web project.

The Chapter of Black and Latino Alumni and the Office of Student Life’s Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity hosted the Black and Latino Senior Reception yesterday to celebrate the achievements of the Class of 2013. This annual dessert reception presents a great opportunity for black and Latino alumni to connect and network with some of our newly graduating seniors.

Congratulations to all! See a full slideshow of photos from the event here.

As injured survivors of the Boston bombing start their long and challenging road to recovery, Washington D.C.’s WTOP interviewed UMBC’s Seth D. Messinger yesterday on the topic of rehabilitation following traumatic limb loss.

Messinger, an associate professor of anthropology who works primarily with service members, notes, “the question is whether or not civilian patients are going to be able to have the kind of time in therapy or in rehab that military patients take for granted.” He also highlights the financial hardship that the recovery process might place on victims and their families, remarking, “It’s not only the individual who’s injured who then steps out of work, but also a caregiver.”

Thomas F. Schaller, professor of political science at UMBC, offers his expertise on Maryland politics in a new Governing Magazine article that asks “Are the States Deepening the Nation’s Red-Blue Divide?”

The article explores how the expansion of unified party control and legislative supermajorities at the state level are impacting policymaking, examining what policies are being approved in strongly Republican and strongly Democratic states.

The article identifies Maryland as a Democratic state that has taken a turn to the left with recent legislation on assault weapons, education, same-sex marriage and the death penalty. “Maryland is getting bluer in election results,” says Schaller; conveying that Maryland’s GOP has become increasingly marginalized.

Yesterday’s allegations that state prison guards helped a gang operate a contraband smuggling scheme from behind bars at the Baltimore City Detention Center are prompting strong responses from Maryland lawmakers. While Sen. Brian E. Frosh said the O’Malley administration deserves credit for its role in a “very bold, aggressive and appropriate” prosecution, Del. Curtis S. Anderson called the indictments “just horrific” and asked for further explanation from the governor.

Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC, told the Washington Post that any political fallout from the episode for O’Malley, who is considering a 2016 presidential bid, will likely be determined by “how he handles this, whether he gets out in front of it.” Norris notes, “If the state were riddled with incompetence and corruption, that’d be one thing, but it’s not. … This kind of thing happens in all prison systems, though maybe not this flagrant.”