Visual Arts major, Diana Chou’s painting, Play the Cards, has been selected for inclusion in a prominent, annual anthology of student work. Chou’s work originally appeared in the 2012 issue of Bartleby, where Chou’s piece wasn’t the only one to capture the attention of the judges. The highly selective collection, Bennington’s plain china: Best Undergraduate Writing 2012, will feature Chou’s work, along with fiction, poetry, non-fiction writing and fine art from a select few students of colleges and universities around the country.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts has awarded Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture Research Professor and Chief Curator, Dr. Maurice Berger, a $50,000 curatorial research fellowship award for his forthcoming project Revolution of The Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television. This exhibition and publication project represents the first collaborative institutional effort between the CADVC and the Jewish Museum in New York, where Berger holds the title of Consulting Curator. The grant will be administered through the Jewish Museum.

About Revolution of The Eye:

“From the early-1940s through the mid-1960s, a dynamic new visual medium emerged in the United States that, in its risk-taking and aesthetic experimentation, paralleled the cutting-edge nature of modern art: television. The revolutionary and uncharted medium attracted younger television executives, writers, producers, and directors. Scores of socially and culturally progressive and predominantly Jewish network executives, producers, directors, art directors, and writers—figures such as Paddy Chayefsky, William Golden, Leonard Goldenson, Robert Kintner, Ernie Kovacs, Dan Melnick, William S. Paley, David Sarnoff, Frank Stanton, David Susskind, and Rod Serling—mined the aesthetic, stylistic, and conceptual possibilities of a new and powerful technology. These innovators worked in a cultural milieu far less constricted by the competition for box office revenue and the censorious production codes then preoccupying the motion picture industry.

As the geographic focus of the networks shifted from the Hollywood movie studios to a television industry initially centered in New York, the proximity of these innovators to the city’s dynamic artistic and cultural community—particularly the avant-garde art and philosophies of the New York School, an artistic milieu also with a significant Jewish presence—would result in a powerful conceptual and stylistic synergy between modern art and early television.”

Revolution of The Eye: Modern Art and the Birth of American Television is scheduled to be presented at the Jewish Museum in New York in the spring of 2016, and at the CADVC in 2017.

Dr. Maurice Berger is also curator of the exhibition currently on display in the CADVC, For All The World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights.

The following full-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings! 

9255227 - Inside Sales - Aerotek
9253084 - Java Developer - GEICO
9255211 - Home Services Specialist I - Bank of America
9255274 - HR Administrator - Applied Defense Solutions

The following part-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9255199 - Audit Intern - UHY Advisors Mid-Atlantic M.D., Inc.
9255223 - Direct Support Person Wanted (Monkton) - Shared Support MD, Inc.
9255262 - Help Desk - Sage Dining, Inc.
9255191 - Laboratory Technician - Cloverland Farms Dairy

Are US labor unions in trouble?

A new law passed in Michigan may suggest so.

This week the state legislature became the 24th state to pass a controversial Right-to-Work law.

This law dictates those working in unionized workplaces are not required to join unions or pay union dues.  

For the state where many consider the middle class to have began, unions like The United Autoworkers, have been an integral part of business. In fact, 17.5 percent of Michigan workers belong to a union. 

 So what are the consequences if this Right-to-Work law is passed? 

Supporters of Right-to-Work laws believe it is unfair for those who do not want to be involved in a union to pay dues. However, union supporters suggest that making union membership voluntary weakens the power of unions, causing membership to go down.  With less dues to collect, the union will have less resources to use to organize drives and to voice the concerns of its membership.  

 In 2007, Hofstra professor Lonnie Stevens published a study which found that Right-to-Work  laws do increase the amount of businesses in a state. However, the positive effects result in gains for the business owners and  not the non-unionized workers. 

 Unfortunately, one of the problems with these laws is that it is extremely difficult to quantify their effects.  Oklahoma passed a Right-to-Work law in 2001 and then saw a great decline in its manufacturing industry.  This could also have been due to competition from manufacturing companies in China. 

 The power and activity of those in labor unions has been on a general decline since the 1960′s, the passage of this law could mark an even further decline in union activity. Many policy experts agree that if the Right-to-Work law passes in Michigan it could easily spark more laws in other states. 

President Obama made his position heard in Detroit on Monday, denouncing Right-to-Work as “The Right To Work For Less Money.” He explained how important it is to keep creating dignified middle-class jobs in order for families to rebuild their financial security. 

Is this new law the beginning of the end of labor unions as we know it?