Pre-Law Students: 

The English Department will host two events relating to law and restorative justice on March 27, 2024, inspired by the career path of 2018 UMBC English Alumna Breia Lassiter. She will return to UMBC to share her experiences with the university community. 

12-1 pm. Library Gallery. "From the Classroom to the Courtroom: 2018 UMBC English Alumna Breia Lassiter Tells Her Story." Breia Lassiter (Juris Doctor, Michigan State University), Associate Attorney in the Employment Law practice group of Dinsmore & Shohl, a law firm in Cincinnati, Ohio, will discuss her personal history from her days as an English major at UMBC, through law school and work as a student clinician at Michigan State University, to taking the bar exam, passing it, and finally now working as an Associate Attorney at a law firm.  This talk will be of interest to all Alumni, and to Pre-Law, English, and other CAHSS majors, in particular, who are considering career paths in public service.  

4-5:30 pm. Library Gallery.  Panel, "Restorative Justice and the Rights of the Incarcerated."

Distinguished speakers will include:

Breia Lassiter, 2018 English Alumna, now working as an Associate Attorney for Dinsmore & Shohl. In her work as a law student clinician, Ms. Lassiter successfully advocated for the rights of an incarcerated man who was not receiving his religious meal accommodations from the prison. For months he could hardly eat anything that was served to him, and she was able to argue on his behalf as a student clinician at Michigan's Sixth Circuit. The court published the opinion ruling in his favor. She will speak on her work in this specific case. 

Walter Lomax, Executive Director, Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative.  Mr. Lomax was unjustly incarcerated in a Baltimore area prison for 39 years for crimes he didn't commit.  Since his exoneration and release in 2007,  he has used his voice to become a powerful, influential advocate for criminal justice reform in MD. He is the founder and leader of the Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative. In 2021, The Walter Lomax Act (Senate Bill 14) was signed into law, overhauling how the state compensates people who are wrongfully convicted, sentenced, and incarcerated for crimes.

Natasha Dartigue (J.D),  Office of the Public Defender, Baltimore, MD. She was just appointed in 2022 as Maryland's Public Defender and served in a related capacity in advocating for the rights of the incarcerated for more than twenty years.  She and her office have been associated with helping exonerate a number of individuals recently. Ms. Dartigue will speak about the work of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. On March 18, 1963, the United States Supreme Court guaranteed the right to counsel to indigent defendants in criminal cases in the landmark case, Gideon v. Wainwright.  On July 1, 1971, the Maryland Legislature created the Maryland Office of the Public Defender (OPD). OPD opened its doors in 1972 and is an independent state agency. 

All majors are welcome to attend these two in-person events!

Cosponsors: Alumni Association; the following departments: English, GWST, History, Political Science, American Studies, Center for Social Science Scholarship (CS3); and the Dresher Center for the Humanities 

Reminder:  The English Department will host two in-person events relating to law and restorative justice on March 27, 2024, inspired by the career path of 2018 UMBC English Alumna Breia Lassiter. 

12-1 pm. Library Gallery. "From the Classroom to the Courtroom: 2018 UMBC English Alumna Breia Lassiter Tells Her Story." Breia Lassiter (Juris Doctor, Michigan State University), Associate Attorney in the Employment Law practice group of Dinsmore & Shohl, a law firm in Cincinnati, Ohio, will discuss her personal history from her days as an English major at UMBC, through law school and work as a student clinician at Michigan State University, to taking the bar exam, passing it, and finally now working as an Associate Attorney at a law firm.  This talk will be of interest to all Alumni, and to Pre-Law, English, and other CAHSS majors, in particular, who are considering career paths in public service.  

4-5:30 pm. Library Gallery.  Panel, "Restorative Justice and the Rights of the Incarcerated."

Distinguished speakers will include:

Breia Lassiter, 2018 English Alumna, now working as an Associate Attorney for Dinsmore & Shohl. In her work as a law student clinician, Ms. Lassiter successfully advocated for the rights of an incarcerated man who was not receiving his religious meal accommodations from the prison. For months he could hardly eat anything that was served to him, and she was able to argue on his behalf as a student clinician at Michigan's Sixth Circuit. The court published the opinion ruling in his favor. She will speak on her work in this specific case. 

Walter Lomax, Executive Director, Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative.  Mr. Lomax was unjustly incarcerated in a Baltimore area prison for 39 years for crimes he didn't commit.  Since his exoneration and release in 2007,  he has used his voice to become a powerful, influential advocate for criminal justice reform in MD. He is the founder and leader of the Maryland Restorative Justice Initiative. In 2021, The Walter Lomax Act (Senate Bill 14) was signed into law, overhauling how the state compensates people who are wrongfully convicted, sentenced, and incarcerated for crimes.

Natasha Dartigue (J.D),  Office of the Public Defender, Baltimore, MD. She was just appointed in 2022 as Maryland's Public Defender and served in a related capacity in advocating for the rights of the incarcerated for more than twenty years.  She and her office have been associated with helping exonerate a number of individuals recently. Ms. Dartigue will speak about the work of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. On March 18, 1963, the United States Supreme Court guaranteed the right to counsel to indigent defendants in criminal cases in the landmark case, Gideon v. Wainwright.  On July 1, 1971, the Maryland Legislature created the Maryland Office of the Public Defender (OPD). OPD opened its doors in 1972 and is an independent state agency. 

All majors are welcome to attend these two in-person events!

Cosponsors: Alumni Association; the following departments: English, GWST, History, Political Science, American Studies, Center for Social Science Scholarship (CS3); and the Dresher Center for the Humanities 

OVERVIEW

The Baltimore Museum of Art seeks a focused, detail-oriented person to assist the Exhibition Designer in the planning and development of special exhibitions, as well as the rotation and maintenance of permanent collection galleries. Under the guidance of the Exhibition Designer, the Exhibition Design Assistant will develop technical drawings, plans, and mock-ups that will guide the installation of our exhibitions.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

UMBC’s Interdisciplinary Consortium for Applied Research in the Environment (ICARE) program, a cohort-based master’s program focused on local environmental research, held its first annual ICARE CoNavigator Day on Friday, February 23, in the University Center Ballroom. The all-day event consisted of research planning activities for ICARE trainees, poster sessions highlighting the trainees’ research, and a keynote address given by Jalonne White-Newsome, senior director for environmental justice in the White House Council for Environmental Quality. The Maryland deputy and assistant secretaries of the environment and representatives from the League of Conservation Voters also attended.

“ICARE is a unique training model in which master’s students in the environmental sciences and engineering are co-mentored by UMBC faculty mentors, professional scientists or engineers, and community leaders. This day brought together all the trainees and their mentors to conceptualize their research through CoNavigator and present their research in well-attended poster sessions,” shares Tamra Mendelson, ICARE director and professor of biological sciences. 

CoNavigator is a unique three-dimensional concept mapping protocol the ICARE trainees and their thesis committees used to brainstorm. The structured format encouraged creative thinking about their projects’ goals and implementation.

Danish researchers created CoNavigator in 2015, and “UMBC was a big part of the genesis of this,” shared Katrine Lindvig, one of CoNavigator’s founders who facilitated the ICARE session. UMBC was one of the first institutions to apply the unique protocol, Lindvig said.

White-Newsome said in her keynote that addressing environmental problems “takes multiple perspectives; it takes creativity; it takes ensuring that those folks who are most impacted are part of and given the space to implement and co-solve and create solutions that will benefit us all.” 

She also encouraged the ICARE trainees: “To read about the questions you’re asking, and the way you’re going about answering them— your work is so important.”

Learn more about ICARE.