This essay was written by Manus O’Donnell ’72, English, who served as editor of the Retriever Weekly and as a senator in the Student Government Association.

A little over 40 years ago UMBC was embroiled in protests and occupation rumors. The Viet Nam War created a lot of controversy in that period. 8 students were killed by National Guard during the riots at Kent State University in Ohio. Colleges everywhere had spontaneous student rioting. Across the country student bodies were organizing and college administrations were scrambling. UMBC was no exception. An envoy from Rutgers University came to recruit UMBC into the national movement to shut down America’s college campuses in protest of the Viet Nam War.

The UMBC People’s Party had recently formed and was interested in promoting protests against the War and supporting Women’s liberation and in general changing how UMBC operated. The Student Government Association (SGA) officers and the People’s Party were in constant communication during the “riot preparations”. The Administration also wanted to have the SGA play a role in these turbulent times. So, here was the SGA in the middle of an Administration who wanted peace & calm and the People’s Party who wanted to disrupt the campus in order to make their political positions known to all. There were some sit-ins, but they were generally well controlled and peaceful. The UMBC SGA chose not to follow the national trend. Rather, we chose to forge our own path for involvement, yet in a peaceful way. Rioting would be a bad move for our relatively new campus.

Rumors circulated that the National Guard was preparing to use riot gas on the campus. That’s when I first got involved with the SGA. Being new to campus, I looked for a group to join. First, I went to a People’s Party meeting. They seemed too loose and anti-establishment. Then, I went to the SGA meeting where they were discussing what students should do if the campus is gassed. Being fresh out of the military, I was the only one who had experience with riot gas. They were anxious to hear what I knew. From then, I was hooked into the student government as Director of Student Activities, Junior Class president, and co-editor & writer for The Retriever.

Bill Soltesz was the Student Government (SGA) President at that time. Bill, along with Sal Maggio, Mike Runge, Mike Brushe and Manus O’Donnell were in meetings daily with Chancellor Albin O. Kuhn and Homer Schamp. Our common goal was to keep UMBC peaceful, yet active in the student movement. We also had emergency meetings with the Faculty Senate to discuss our options as a University Community.

The SGA, led by Bill Soltesz, was instrumental in being the mediator between the administration and the protestors. There were many rumors of unrest coming to UMBC. One rumor stemmed from the “Catonsville 9” who, led by the Berrigan Brothers who were Jesuit priests opposed to inhumanity of war. The “9” spilled blood over Selective Service (draft) records in the Catonsville draft office. Back then, men were recruited into the service by lottery, meaning, if you did not have an exemption, you would be drafted into the Military Service. No questions asked, you go! There were some “draft dodgers” who went to Canada to avoid the draft.

So what happened, you’re asking by now. The SGA asked Dr. Kuhn to convene an emergency meeting of the Faculty Senate to deal with the question of how to end the school year. Many students, inspired by the People’s Party, clamored for the school to shut down. No more school that year. The SGA officers took the position that it would not benefit all students to do that. Some students wanted to take finals so they could pull their grade up (have you been there?). Other students didn’t want finals to pull their grades down.

The Faculty Senate, at the urging of the SGA, came up with a compromise. This compromise settled the campus down. No more riots were imminent. The National Guard had no need to occupy the campus. Many campuses across the country were shut down. UMBC, once again, was a leader in “how to run a campus successfully with all parties involved”.

The resolution was to make final exams optional. If you wanted exams, take them; if not, then you get the grade as it stands before the exams. How many students would like to have optional exams today?

UMBC remained open. UMBC was relatively peaceful, involved in current affairs and productive for the student body. More importantly, UMBC acted as a whole community with Students, Faculty and Administration working together for the common good of OUR UMBC.

TO: The UMBC Community

FROM: Larrabee Strow, Research Professor of Physics, and Sergio DeSouza Machado, Research Assistant Professor of Physics

We are deeply saddened to report that Scott Hannon passed away
Thursday night after a nearly two-year battle with cancer.  Scott
received his BA, and in 1990, his MS in Physics from UMBC.  He
remained at UMBC for the next 22 years as a Research Assistant in the
Physics Department/Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology.

Scott’s early work in the Physics Department’s Atmospheric
Spectroscopy Laboratory involved laser spectroscopy of carbon dioxide
and nitrogen molecular collisions, providing a new model for
understanding carbon dioxide absorption in the earth’s atmosphere.

Following this work he spent most of his career helping to develop and
use a new generation of high-spectral resolution infrared satellite
instruments that provide input for daily weather forecasts around the
world, and are now being used for climate trending.  He also developed
algorithms for the measurement of various atmospheric gases using
high-spectral resolution infrared satellite data, including nitric
acid, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, dust, and volcanic ash.

Scott had a particular talent for distilling complicated physics
models into computationally simple but accurate algorithms.  He
applied this talent to topics such as the atmospheric water vapor
absorption, and more recently the effects of solar radiation on
mesospheric carbon dioxide emissions.  His model for this “non-LTE”
emission is now the standard for models being developed by other
research groups around the world.

Scott’s work is known, and used, world-wide by many national
meteorological centers and research centers.  This includes two
algorithms he helped develop for atmospheric radiative transfer that
provide the basis for converting the measured satellite radiances into
atmospheric temperature and water vapor.  To this day, and most likely
for years to come, his fast radiative transfer algorithm called SARTA,
is run every day on both NOAA and NASA computers to analyze the daily
satellite data from two US satellite instruments (AIRS and CrIS), and
a European instrument (IASI).  Scott participated in the ground
testing of both the NASA AIRS instrument, and the NOAA/JPSS CrIS
instrument, and his models of the instrument hardware are also used
worldwide by many meteorological centers (Europe, Japan, New Zealand,
Australia, etc.).

Scott was very well known to students in the Atmospheric Physics
Ph.D. program, who often took advantage of his in-depth knowledge of
atmospheric spectroscopy and radiative transfer for their classes and
thesis research.  He was always ready and willing to help anyone who
asked, including outside academics and industry.

Scott worked very closely for over 15 years with the AIRS Project
Office at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.  His advice and algorithms
were highly valued by JPL and he will be missed by many there.  One of
his last activities was to influence changes to the in-orbit operation
of the AIRS instrument in order to preserve the integrity of the
climate record produced by that instrument.

Scott’s quiet manner belied his intense commitment to integrity and
quality in everything he did.  He was one of those un-sung heroes of
science, quietly doing first-rate work with no interest in personal
accolades of any sort.  Unknown to many, Scott had a encyclopedic
knowledge of many topics, ranging from World History to Music, and he
was always happy to have friendly discussions on any topic.  His
presence and camaraderie, and willingness to help everyone, will be
missed by many.

Private services were held for Scott, and condolences may be sent to the Hannon family at 6614 Jacks Court, Mount Airy, MD 21771.

Their study concludes, “the Dream Act would generate $66 million in economic activity for each incoming new class of undocumented students.” See the website of UMBC’s Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR) for the original working paper: “Private and Government Fiscal Costs and Benefits of the Maryland Dream Act.”

NPR’s political news site and Inside Higher Ed link directly to the study itself. Other media referencing Gindling and Mandell’s findings include the Chronicle of Higher Education, Baltimore Sun, Gazette, Washington Times, Washington Examiner, Capital News Service and Delmarva Now.

Here is a great video from CNN that shows yesterday’s talk on Twitter. Uncensored and unedited, social media sites are fantastic ways to understand what average citizens in the country were thinking about on this historic day.