Baltimore entrepreneur Greg Cangialosi ’96, English, has set his sights on helping new tech companies take off and fly.

The founder of Blue Sky Factory, a tech marketing firm Cangialosi founded in 2001 and sold this year, will team up with Sean Lane, chief executive of BTS Corp., a software company in Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun reports:

Their goal: Make small investments in several startups, germinate their own ideas, and help nurture the city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

“We want to bring in bright people who are running companies, to help give them a shot in the arm,” Cangialosi said.

A former member of the UMBC Alumni Association Board of Directors, Cangialosi has stayed involved with UMBC, most recently acting as a judge in the university’s entrepreneurially-inspired “IDEA competition.”

Read the full Baltimore Sun story here.

And the first EBI Raffle winners are…

In an effort to thank the residents who filled out their Resident Satisfaction Survey (EBI) early, we gave away a few of our available prizes in a raffle in True Grits on Friday, December 2^nd.  Check out the short video of the raffle.  Congratulations to the winners!  There’s still time to fill out your EBI survey to be entered to win awesome prizes!  Check out a video from last year's winner talking about her PRIZE!

Available Prizes:

·         All participants are entered to win:

o   Up to $200 in food funds

o   Priority for a single room during housing selection

·         Participating residents in the Top 3 residence halls (by %) and Top 3 apartments (by %) will be entered to win a Kindle Fire tablet computer

So stand up and SPEAK!  Check your UMBC email every Monday and Thursday for the rest of the semester for your link!  If you cannot find it or have deleted it, please contact Shari Metzger at smetz2@umbc.edu, and she will send you a new one.

There is still time to apply to be a Residential Life team member.  Be an RA, DM or MA and be the change!  For best consideration apply by January 3rd, 2012: http://www.umbc.edu/reslife/about/ppselection_2012.html

Watch the video here to see what it takes to be a Super Hero!

Image from Politico

Do you remember S.B. 1070, Arizona’s highly disputed immigration law?

Well, the disputed law is about to be disputed by the top disputers in the country…

The U.S. Supreme Court!

On Monday, the high court agreed to review the constitutionality of the law, which made headlines in 2010.

The Arizona law requires local police to try to determine the immigration status of people they detain during a traffic stop or for questioning if there’s a ‘reasonable suspicion’ that those individuals are in the U.S. illegally.

Under the measure, police are required to determine whether someone arrested is a citizen or legal resident before releasing him or her. The law also demands that foreigners have immigration papers in their possession at all times.”

The Obama administration argues that immigration control is the responsibility of the Federal government not local police.

Border states respond by saying the federal government is not doing its job controlling illegal immigration. They suggest laws like S.B. 1070 are meant to compliment Federal enforcement.

Others argue the law is an unfair attack on the Latino community. And, legal challenges and appeals from the Obama administration have already blocked several of the law’s key parts.

The Supreme Court is currently looking at two other notable cases which could also impact the 2012 election.

Do you think S.B 1070 goes too far?

Acts 26:14-18

We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen and will see of me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

Reflection:

This passage from Acts is Paul’s own salvation and transformation experience.  What we see is that what Paul was called to do does not match who and how Paul lived, felt, and thought at that time.  However, Paul is formed by the calling that he receives, where he goes from a persecutor to an apostle, from anger to love and forgiveness, hater of gentiles, to the apostle to the gentiles, from the person bent on destroying the work of the Lord, to the one who can no longer ignore the prodding of the kind Master. Paul was called to a life that was the complete opposite of how he had been breathing and living. Paul’s life was being formed by the Spirit!

Response:

Someone who truly cares and loves us wouldn’t let us remain in the same state of harming ourselves and others. When they know that we are to be a certain way, like in a parent and child relationship, the former’s love shows in speaking truth that brings life transformation and hope. Because they often see what we don’t, let’s be willing to be knocked to the ground and hear what they have to say. In a deeper way, when the Lord calls us, we cannot help but turn. Let’s pray today that we have the eyes to see and ears to hear the Spirit’s urging to turn because we have already been formed by Him.