UMBC CSEE Professor Penny Rheingans received an NSF research award, Transforming the Freshman Experience of Computing Majors, to develop and evaluate an innovative first-year seminar for computing majors aimed at increasing retention, completion, and success among students, especially women and those from underrepresented groups. Dr. Rheingans will serve as the principal investigator for the three year, project that will also include Drs. Marie desJardins (CSEE), Carolyn Seaman (IS) and Susan Martin (CWIT).

The seminar will combine elements from successful first-year engineering courses, introductory computing courses, general first-year seminars and the new AP CS Principles course to give new computing majors an overview of the discipline, foundational technical skills, a group design experience and relevant professional development. The highly interactive and learner-centered course will be delivered by a team of computing professors, staff with student affairs experience, and undergraduate peer mentors and teachers. The project will also include regional workshops to share course materials and insights with computing faculty from local two and four-year institutions.

Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale and Dr. Renetta G. Tull of the PROMISE Dissertation House have been invited by the Empowering Leadership Alliance (ELA) Mentoring Program of Rice University to lead two webinars next week on preparing the proposal and the final defense.

*Proposal Writing: Monday, July 16, 10AM Pacific, 12PM Central, 1PM Eastern. Sign up for this session here by Sunday, July 15.

*The Final Defense: Tuesday, July 17, 10AM Pacific, 12PM Central, 1PM Eastern.  Sign up for this session here by Sunday, July 15.

__________________________________________________________

There will be a 5 minute overview of the topic at hand, and then the rest of the time will be devoted to responding to students’ questions.  Don’t miss out on this opportunity!  Graduate students from all schools are invited.

__________________________________________________________

Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale and Dr. Renetta G. Tull of the PROMISE Dissertation House have been invited by the Empowering Leadership Alliance (ELA) Mentoring Program of Rice University to lead two webinars next week on preparing the proposal and the final defense.

*Proposal Writing: Monday, July 16, 10AM Pacific, 12PM Central, 1PM Eastern. Sign up for this session here by Sunday, July 15.

*The Final Defense: Tuesday, July 17, 10AM Pacific, 12PM Central, 1PM Eastern.  Sign up for this session here by Sunday, July 15.

__________________________________________________________

There will be a 5 minute overview of the topic at hand, and then the rest of the time will be devoted to responding to students’ questions.  Don’t miss out on this opportunity!  Graduate students from all schools are invited.

__________________________________________________________

Donald Norris, professor and chair of public policy, recently spoke with The Gazette for on efforts to create a Maryland House of Delegates single-member subdistrict in Montgomery County, which would ostensibly aid in the election of a Latino lawmaker to represent a largely-Latino area.

Those in favor feel that such a subdistrict would be beneficial in strengthening populations with common backgrounds and interests, while skeptics argue that these efforts could do long-term harm by creating uncompetitive seats and limiting chances to unseat incumbents. Norris listed a number of complexities to the single-member issue, speaking of issues involving parochialism, partisanship, the benefits and drawback of at-large districts and the history of redistricting, among others.

The story, “Single-member districts offer mixed-bag for minorities,” ran on July 13.

In a July 12 piece for Salon entitled “Will Obama’s Bain blows land?” Tom Schaller, professor of political science, analyzed the president’s emerging strategy of focusing on Mitt Romney’s history with the investment firm Bain Capital. Schaller expressed doubts that these critiques will work. ” After all, Obama’s populist record is mixed: undeniably strong on some issues (expanded healthcare coverage, student loans and payroll taxes), and spotty if not weak on others (Wall Street prosecutions and reform, extension of Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and job outsourcing),” he wrote.

Schaller concludes the piece by writing that “even if the president, given his own economic record over the past three-plus years, struggles to advance economic populist critiques along policy lines, the Obama campaign will mount a powerful populist critique of Romney as a businessman and politician who literally embodies all that’s wrong economically with America right now.”

Stephanie Archer-Smith ’85, developmental psychology, was recently named the executive director for Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland.

“We are delighted to be able to hire someone as experienced and capable as Stephanie to lead Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland,” said board president Jonathan Wachs.  “She is well-qualified for the post, and her strengths and abilities are tailor-made to lead our organization into the next phase of growth and sustainability.”

Archer-Smith, who received a graduate degree at the University of Baltimore, has served as senior vice president of operations for St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore for the past eight years, where “she played a key role in securing capital expansion funding, ensuring quality operations, adding and increasing program growth as well as boosting annual revenues,” according to a press release available on Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland’s website.

You can learn about Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland and its mission in the Baltimore area here.

This post originally appeared in UMBC Insights.

Michael Bok ’14 Ph.D., biological sciences, was featured in a July 8th blog post on the science blog io9.

The piece focused on a video, filmed by Bok and posted on his website Arthropoda, of a dead Longfin Inshore Squid whose chromatophores were still active. Bok set the piece to Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel.

You can watch the video and read other posts by Bok at Arthropoda.

Stephanie Archer-Smith ’85, developmental psychology, was recently named the executive director for Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland.

“We are delighted to be able to hire someone as experienced and capable as Stephanie to lead Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland,” said board president Jonathan Wachs.  “She is well-qualified for the post, and her strengths and abilities are tailor-made to lead our organization into the next phase of growth and sustainabiliy.”

Archer-Smith, who received a graduate degree at the University of Baltimore, her served as senior vice president of operations for St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore for the past eight years, where “she played a key role in securing capital expansion funding, ensuring quality operations, adding and increasing program growth as well as boosting annual revenues,” according to a press release available on Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland’s website.

You can learn about Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland and its mission in the Baltimore area here.