Dr. Rheingans has been the Director of UMBC’s Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) since the summer of 2009. Since then, she has mentored over a hundred students within the CWIT and SITE scholarship programs.

Congratulations to Dr. Penny Rheingans, the recipient of one of this year’s University System of Maryland (USM) Regents’ Faculty Awards for Mentoring.

Awarded to no more than four USM professors each year, the USM Regents’ Faculty Award for Mentoring is regarded as the highest honor that the Board gives out to recognize outstanding faculty achievement. Mentoring is one of the five award categories, which includes Teaching, Scholarship, Research, or creative activity, Public Service, and Innovation.

“I feel humbled by being honored this way,” says Dr. Rheingans. “Most of the things I'm being honored for are the result of the inspiration and hard work of a whole team of people. I could not have done nearly so much without them.”

Each year, nominees for the mentoring award are chosen who have not only fulfilled their university-sanctioned obligations, but have “clearly exceed[ed] ordinary expectations,” says the USM website. Mentoring nominees are recognized for their influence in areas like developing their students’ careers, aiding with retention and graduation rates, and improving post-baccalaureate progression and employment rates. After being nominated by the Regents’ Faculty Awards Committee, nominees are ultimately chosen by the Board of Regents.

Dr. Rheingans’ most notable mentoring contributions have been her work as the Director of UMBC’s Center for Women in Technology (CWIT). In 2008, troubled by the obstacles facing women in the field and the fact that they made up a mere 10% of Computer Science majors at UMBC, Dr. Rheingans accepted an invitation to become Interim Director of CWIT. The position was a good fit, and in the summer of 2009, she became Director.

“My core goal has been to make the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) a more welcoming place for a broad array of students, in particular for women and those who support them,” wrote Dr. Rheingans in an essay to the award’s Institutional Faculty Nominating Committee (IFNC) that details her mentoring contributions. “My role as CWIT Director is to continue to inspire ripples of positive change, reaching well beyond my personal grasp.” 

As Director, Dr. Rheingans has helped scholars succeed by serving as a personal mentor and maintaining an infrastructure for student support. She will soon take on a similar role with the Transfer-Scholarships in Information Technology and Engineering program (T-SITE). Debuting next Fall, the T-SITE scholarship program targets transfer students majoring in technology fields.  

 “I chose to become a professor, in large part, because I wanted to help students learn new things, explore new fields, and develop new skills,” says Rheingans, who has been teaching in some capacity since high school. Teaching was something that always interested Rheingans, who came to UMBC in 1998 as an assistant professor. 

“Mentoring just seemed like a natural extension of teaching,” says Rheingans. “A good teacher inspires individual interactions beyond the classroom — that's the heart of mentoring.”

Dr. Rheingans will be recognized for this honor at UMBC’s Annual Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony on April 4.

Luke 13:6-9 (NIV)

⁶ Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. ⁷ So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

⁸ “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. ⁹ If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

John 15:9-17 (NIV)

⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

Reflection:

It’s that time of year again where we start seeing the trees blooming and all the colorful plants coming back to life after the winter season.It’s also during this spring season that a fig tree will produce its first fruits.God’s heart for us is that we also bear fruit.Because we have been touched by His love and changed by His Spirit, we now have a desire to bear fruit for His Kingdom. He is patient with us, and continues to walk beside us, teaching us His ways through His Spirit so that we may see fruit in our lives and experience joy.This is not merely the world’s joy, but God’s deeper joy as we learn to love others and bear fruit for His Kingdom.

Responding to the Transmission:

Let’s spend time in prayer asking the Lord for continued transformation in our lives so that we would become fruitful servants who will advance His Kingdom.May we experience His wonderful joy together!

The case of Trayvon Martin’s death continues to dominate headlines.

There has been a public outcry for justice of the death of Trayvon. In what was called the “Million Hoodie March”, hundreds of protesters took to the streets on Wednesday to mourn Trayvon’s death and to demand the arrest of the person responsible.

Even President Obama spoke out about the death of Trayvon.

The shooter, George Zimmerman has now become a household name. The 28 year-old neighborhood patrol volunteer mentioned in his 911 call that he considered Martin as:

“a real suspicious guy… looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something…And he’s a black male…Something’s wrong with him…These a**holes, they always get away.”

He described Martin as having his hand on his waistband, carrying an object, and coming towards him. This prompted him to shoot, despite the 911 dispatcher’s advice to not chase the boy.

Geraldo Rivera, while appearing on Fox and Friends stated:

“I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was… I’ll bet you money, if he didn’t have that hoodie on, that nutty neighborhood watch guy wouldn’t have responded in that violent and aggressive way.”

Rivera went on to tweet:

“It’s sad that I have to be the one reminding minority parents of the risk that comes with being a kid of color in America–channel the rage”

Craig Sonner, the legal advisor to Zimmerman,  had the following to say:

“This case is spinning out of control… I hope there’s a way to rein things in so it doesn’t become an issue of a racial battle. I hope that things come back so that there can be a time for justice and for healing and not for just skipping the whole judicial process and going straight to sentencing.”

This case has brought Florida’s Stand Your Ground law under much scrutiny:

“[Stand Your Ground] gives the benefit of the doubt to a person who claims self-defense…In Florida, if people feel they are in imminent danger of being killed or badly injured, they do not have to retreat, even if it would seem reasonable to do so. They have the right to ’stand their ground’ and protect themselves.”

What are your thoughts about the “Stand your ground Law? What about Rivera’s argument… is Martin’s attire to blame for his death?

SGA candidate applications are due TODAY, March 26th, at 5 p.m.  Is yours in yet?

Over the next week, our website will be going through a transformation to become a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about the candidates to get ready for elections on April 23rd-25th.

But before we start getting ready to vote, we’ve got to make sure we’ve got the best slate of candidates running…have you clicked submit yet?

You may think that you’re not ready to make preparations for your proposal or dissertation, but at PROMISE, we believe that it is never too early to start thinking about how to communicate your research.  This week, regardless of your year in graduate school, 1st to final, come and join us! We are hosting a Dissertation House in Pittsburgh on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University.  In addition to hosting the students who applied in advance to be in-residence for the multi-day sessions of the full-scale Dissertation House, we invite graduate students in Pittsburgh to our “open sessions.”  All graduate students (all disciplines, all backgrounds, all levels) at CMU, the University of Pittsburgh, local campuses, along with visiting graduate students who are coming to town for the national NSBE conference or the NSBE Graduate School Conference (GSC) are invited to attend our  open (free) workshops and consultation hours.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

• Workshop 1:  10 Common Mistakes That Graduate Students Should Avoid
• Time:  1:00 – 2:00 PM.  Location:  Gates-Hillman Center (GHC), Room 4405
  • Office hours/consultation will follow: 2:00 – 3:00 PM, Gates-Hillman Room 7501. Bring your drafts. Ask any questions.
  • RSVP as a comment to this post, or send email to promisestaff@gmail.com with the subject “CMU DH.”

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

• Workshop 2:  Understanding Your Advisor and Committee
• Time: 1:00 – 2:00 PM. Location: Gates-Hillman Center (GHC), Room 4405
• Office hours/consultation will follow: 2:00 – 4:00 PM, Gates-Hillman Room 7501. RSVP as a comment to this post, or send email to promisestaff@gmail.com with the subject “CMU DH.”

Please let us know that you are coming by replying to this post or sending email to promisestaff@gmail.com.

Head Coach: Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale, Facilitator: Dr. Renetta G. Tull

——————————–

The Dissertation House is a program of PROMISE: Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP).  The Quality of Life Technology Center (QoLT)  (an NSF collaboration between Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh) has partnered with PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP to sponsor Dissertation House activities in Pittsburgh. PROMISE is a National Science Foundation alliance between UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland (lead institution), the University of Maryland College Park, and the University of Maryland Baltimore.

Related articles

• Next full-scale Dissertation House at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, March 26-28, 2012 (dissertationhouse.wordpress.com)

You may think that you’re not ready to make preparations for your proposal or dissertation, but at PROMISE, we believe that it is never too early to start thinking about how to communicate your research.  This week, regardless of your year in graduate school, 1st to final, come and join us! We are hosting a Dissertation House in Pittsburgh on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University.  In addition to hosting the students who applied in advance to be in-residence for the multi-day sessions of the full-scale Dissertation House, we invite graduate students in Pittsburgh to our “open sessions.”  All graduate students (all disciplines, all backgrounds, all levels) at CMU, the University of Pittsburgh, local campuses, along with visiting graduate students who are coming to town for the national NSBE conference or the NSBE Graduate School Conference (GSC) are invited to attend our  open (free) workshops and consultation hours.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

• Workshop 1:  10 Common Mistakes That Graduate Students Should Avoid
• Time:  1:00 – 2:00 PM.  Location:  Gates-Hillman Center (GHC), Room 4405
  • Office hours/consultation will follow: 2:00 – 3:00 PM, Gates-Hillman Room 7501. Bring your drafts. Ask any questions.
  • RSVP as a comment to this post, or send email to promisestaff@gmail.com with the subject “CMU DH.”

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

• Workshop 2:  Understanding Your Advisor and Committee
• Time: 1:00 – 2:00 PM. Location: Gates-Hillman Center (GHC), Room 4405
• Office hours/consultation will follow: 2:00 – 4:00 PM, Gates-Hillman Room 7501. RSVP as a comment to this post, or send email to promisestaff@gmail.com with the subject “CMU DH.”

Please let us know that you are coming by replying to this post or sending email to promisestaff@gmail.com.

Head Coach: Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale, Facilitator: Dr. Renetta G. Tull

——————————–

The Dissertation House is a program of PROMISE: Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP).  The Quality of Life Technology Center (QoLT)  (an NSF collaboration between Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh) has partnered with PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP to sponsor Dissertation House activities in Pittsburgh. PROMISE is a National Science Foundation alliance between UMBC: An Honors University in Maryland (lead institution), the University of Maryland College Park, and the University of Maryland Baltimore.

Related articles

• Next full-scale Dissertation House at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, March 26-28, 2012 (dissertationhouse.wordpress.com)