Alternative School Break (ASB) are student-run week long service engagement trips designed to challenge students and combat civic issues underlying larger societal concerns-- such as homelessness, health care, animal welfare and the environment. A successfully trip effectively teaches students the power of service and leaves them with a sense of camaraderie, compassion, and empathy for the people of the world, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic status.

Alternative School Breaks at UMBC consists of three tiers of service learning. We encourage the higher learning of the student via their maturity, critical thinking, and perceptions of society. ASB can be broken down into education, volunteering, and community. These components all come together with the vision and guidance of our Student Trip Leaders!

Ideally, a student trip leader would have participated in a previous ASB Trip or similar travel experience but we open the positions to the student body.  A student trip leader is a motivated, service-driven and skilled individual that will plan and lead a high quality ASB trip!  There are two ways to become trip leaders, by: leading an existing ASB Trip or by proposing a new trip that partners with local community partners to address social justice issues.  The Alternative School Break Trips are held during Spring Break; Sunday, March 17th to Friday, March 22nd.  Below are criteria for an ASB trip leader.

• Participant on an Alternative Break program or comparable travel experience
• Leadership, Organizational, Budgetary skills
• Responsible for organizing and coordinating all the logistics for the trip with local community partners
• Recruitment of participants on campus
• Planning the ASB reflection components and leading a group of peers
• Commitment to attending leader training workshops and meetings with the ASB Team
• Time to organize your ASB Trip (kickoff meeting in October; bi-weekly meetings in Fall and weekly in Spring)
• Understanding of social justice that goes beyond volunteerism

Click on the website to view and submit your application for a Trip Leader Position!

Photo courtesy baltimoretech.net

Take a look at the interactive map developed by Baltimoretech.net. The map identifies the locations of Baltimore startups, accelerators, incubators, investors, and more. It even shows which start-ups are hiring.

Photo courtesy baltimoretech.net

Take a look at the interactive map developed by Baltimoretech.net. The map identifies the locations of Baltimore startups, accelerators, incubators, investors, and more. It even shows which start-ups are hiring.

You know the saying: It’s not what you know, but who you know that matters.

Well, it’s a saying for a reason.

If you want to have an edge in today's economy, having friends in high places can only help. Baltimore is a growing hotbed of startups with a burgeoning technology community. Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur, or just want to mingle with a few like minds, here are five organizations, sites, or projects that you should check out to help you connect with Baltimore's technology community.

Innovate Baltimore:

Co-founders Tina Tyndal (brand strategist and marketing guru) and Benjamin Walsh (Producer, Bethesda Softworks) started Innovate Baltimore as a social community for creative technology leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals, and enthusiasts in Baltimore. “Our mission includes providing individuals with networking and educational opportunities which will allow them to generate new ideas, foster entrepreneurship and strengthen the technology community in the region,” explains the website.

Get involved: Innovate Baltimore has regular meet-ups. Check out Innovate Baltimore’s September Networking Social: September 21^st at The Get Down.

Baltimore Node:

Since 2009, Baltimore Node has been a member-run hackerspace that offers a collaborative environment where people can hack, craft, and make interesting things. Members have 24/7 access to the space and free use of the shared equipment and tools. Plus, the space brings together like-minded tech enthusiasts for potential collaborations. Anyone can join, as long as they can contribute $50 in monthly dues.

Get Involved: Baltimore Node meetings happen every other Thursday. They also sponsor workshops and events.

Baltimoretech.net:

Curious about the faces behind Baltimore’s start-ups? Take a look at Baltimoretech.net, which is basically a social networking tool for local entrepreneurs, developers, designers, Social Media “Ninjas”, and investors. Here you can check out the profiles and projects of over 200 people who’ve made a name for themselves in the community. The site also lists notable Baltimore startups, local events, and job opportunities. For students interested in getting involved, but who don’t know what’s out there, this is a great database of information.

Get Involved: Go ahead, browse a little. Then reach out to a company or person that catches your eye. While you’re at it, why not make your own profile.

Technically Baltimore:

Get your local tech news here. A collaborative project between Technical.ly and local entrepreneur extraordinaire Mike Brenner, this news site just stepped into the tech scene. The site is dedicated to the three following areas:

• Entrepreneurship and business innovation for job growth/retention
• Smarter workforce and opportunities for digital access/education
• Civic hacking and workflow management for govt policy/reform

Get Involved: Sign up for their weekly newsletter, follow them on Twitter, and Facebook.

Ignite Baltimore:

Voted “Best Nerd’s Night Out” by the City Paper, Ignite Baltimore brings together 16 thinkers from a range of disciplines to share one idea in five minutes on stage. These mini-lectures span from technology to science to art to anything you can imagine. The purpose is to encourage conversation and collaboration across cultures and disciplines. It’s also an opportunity to network with other like-minded individuals.

Get Involved: Ignite Baltimore #11 is schedule for October 18, 2012 in MICA’s Brown Center. Or, if you’ve got something to say, why not submit a proposal?

Colossians 3:1-4 (NIV)

1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Reflection:

Since the start of the Olympic games this summer, we have seen athletes from around the world come and compete to be number 1 in their particular sport. In team volleyball you may have noticed that there is one player whose uniform differs slightly from the rest of the team. This person is the team’s setter and usually has the best understanding of the game. They know the strengths and weaknesses of each spiker and having spent countless hours of training together, they know how to put their team in the best position to succeed. So in many ways, the setter is the one controlling the game. In turn, the spikers trust their setter to put the ball exactly where it needs to be for the sure kill and the victory.

In this passage Paul does something very interesting in telling the Colossians believers to set their minds on things above, or the heavenly things, which is by anyone’s standards a total impossibility. So how can this be possible for us? Because we have been raised with Christ! We have been made capable and empowered to live a renewed life, with our minds set on things above. Like the spiker on a volleyball team we can confidently go for the victory!

Responding to the Transmission:

We have been raised with Christ! Let’s thank God for this incredible life we get to live in this new resurrection power in Christ. Let’s pray that we would remember this truth today and set our minds on things above and not on earthly things trusting that this is possible because of Christ.

For the past two decades we have been talking about the need to reorganize higher education as part of the sustainability transformation. Much of the early discussion centered on the need to break down the academic disciplinary silos and from those discussions we saw the emergence of interdisciplinary departments, split appointments, and later, integration of knowledge from multiple disciplines into diverse learning settings. Similar discussions were taking place on the operations and administration side of the campus where even deciding where a sustainability staff position should reside was difficult because there were as many logical places as there were aspects to sustainability. In fact, these positions became especially important in demonstrating the need, not only to break down the silos within each of the areas but the need to break down the barriers between operations and academics to create a unified community.

It is in this context that AASHE emerged as an important proponent for ending the silo structure in higher education. But like so many organizations that start small and grow, as AASHE staff began taking on more specialized responsibilities (producing newsletters, planning events, developing specific programs), silos began to emerge. Among the 25 AASHE staff dispersed around the country we began to see a failure to optimize the knowledge and skills of the group. I realized that as Executive Director, I had helped create these silos that we called departments and that it was my job to dismantle them if I wanted to contribute to a sustainable AASHE. So began the process of reorganizing the AASHE staff so we could meet four very important goals.

First, we wanted to take advantage of the skills and knowledge of the staff. Given the wide range of experiences and training of the staff I was convinced that our problems weren’t a lack of talent – we have an incredibly talented staff who come from various sectors of higher education (from sustainability coordinators to institutional researchers to faculty), from other non-profits, and from the for-profit world. What we needed was a structure that would allow staff the flexibility to move among the various initiatives and projects where their skills and knowledge would be used in the best interest of AASHE and would allow them to maximize their professional development.

Second, we wanted to improve our internal communications so there would be better exchange of information among staff. As a virtual organization, we sometimes face challenges in ensuring that we all know what we need to know about what the rest of the organization is doing. We needed to restructure in a way that would ensure we could solve this problem.

Third, we had identified a few holes in our structure that needed to be filled (e.g. marketing) and needed to find ways to move the appropriate talent around while maintaining the quality of the services we provide. On the other hand we found some areas where we have duplication of activity in various departments and we needed to reduce that duplication to free up staff for other work.

Finally, we needed to create a more nimble organization that could more quickly respond to the needs of the members. We recognize that the future will require all organizations to be adaptable and that to be adaptable it is necessary to create structures that allow staffing to shift relatively quickly. Our approach is to not add and subtract staff but rather to move them among various projects that fit their knowledge and skills sets.

So several months ago, I began conversations with the staff about a reorganization. At our staff retreat a number of proposals were developed and they were later reduced to a few which were vetted with the staff until we finally had a single proposal that I presented to the Board of Directors for their review. The board supported moving forward with the reorganization and we have now completed the initial phase of the process.

Instead of 7 departments we will have three work areas (Operations, Information Technology, and Programs). Each of these areas is led by a Director who is a member of a Leadership Team consisting of the three directors and the executive director. The Leadership Team is responsible for ensuring that the organization is following the strategic plan approved by the Board of Directors. They are also charged with ensuring that their work areas do not become silos and that there is cross-area coordination and communication on projects. Directors are also responsible for the assignment of staff within their work area to ensure that skills and knowledge are optimally used to meet member needs. My role of executive director will significantly shift from internal management to external relations and the Board of Directors has revised my job description to reflect that shift.

Reorganizations are not easy on the people in an organization. They require rethinking what we do, how we do it, and who we do it with. They involve shifts of power, responsibility, and authority in a variety of directions. They typically create unease, unhappiness, concern, and disappointment in their early stages. But when done well, they create a more vibrant, effective, exciting organization to be a part of. I want to commend the staff for the support they have given to this process and their willingness (sometimes eagerness) to embrace a new structure for working together to both serve and lead our membership. I am very proud of them. I appreciate the support that the board has given us and I look forward to the new ways AASHE will be able to work with our members.

Our new organization chart can be found at http://www.aashe.org/files/aashe_organizational_chart_8.7.12.pdf .
We will begin shifting to this new structure during the month of August and hope to be fully converted by September.