As part of our ongoing commitment to security, the Unix Infrastructure group will be conducting its quarterly system patching on Thursday, May 26th and Saturday,May 28th.  While many of the systems will be patched without any service disruption, there are some systems which require the downtime of key services.  The schedule below outlines which key services will be offline and for how long.

Thursday, 5/26/2022 between 5pm and 10pm (most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):

• Access to Cyrus (legacy) email (accounts not migrated to UMBC Gmail)
• All mail will be queued up and delivered after the server is patched
• All HFS (afs) servers - gl.umbc.edu home directories will be offline
• Between 9:15pm and 10pm only: Certain software licenses will be unavailable (autodesk, cadence, idl, schrodinger, xilinx, mathematica). 
• Between 9:15pm and 10pm only: The web hosting environments (virthost) will be partially unavailable (pages will be available but any database calls will not work)
• Between 5:00pm and 6:30pm only: LDAP-Master and Webadmin will be taken down for system maintenance.  During this time account creations and password changes will be unavailable.  Account authentication and logins will not be affected.

Saturday, 5/28/2022 between 7am and 9am(most systems will only be down for a short period during this time):

• myUMBC lite page will be up resulting in reduced myUMBC functionality
• The sites (wordpress) web hosting environment will be unreachable
• Wiki will be unavailable

Please let us know if you have any concerns or questions.

Thanks!

Tim Champ

Today, UMBC’s Division of Information Technology, DoIT, received a notification of a phishing campaign targeting the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS). The actors claim to provide a Summer Employee Benefit plan. Below is an example of the message.

The recipients of the message appear to have been taken from the CNMS staff directory (https://cnms.umbc.edu/directory/).

Please note that this message appears to have been sent from a compromised account at the Moore College of Art. It is unlikely that anyone at that institution is involved with employee benefits at UMBC.  Alwars examine unexpected or unusual messages carefully for inconsistencies that may indicate fraud.  If you find something questionable, please message with full headers to security@umbc.edu For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Receive any suspicious emails?

Forward it to security@umbc.edu along with the email headers. For instructions, visit: https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970.

Follow us on myUMBC:https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/itsecurity

Favour Nwagugo 

Degree: B.S., Biological Sciences
Hometown: Capitol Heights, MD
Plans: National Cancer Institute postbac program

“Every time I look at where I am, I always try to look around and give back to other people and to the community, because I feel like that’s what true success is—to be able to give back, and to use my gifts and talents to help others up any way I can.”

Favour Nwagugo ’22, biological sciences, is a Meyerhoff Scholar and LSAMP Scholar. From his first semester, he has also been a dedicated volunteer with the CHOICE Program at UMBC, working each week with elementary through high school students. He’s introduced them to the college campus environment through eating at True Grit’s dining hall and playing basketball in the Retriever Activities Center, and he’s led activities in science, art, computer coding, and more.

By spring 2020, Nwagugo was chosen to be a student coordinator with the program, which involved organizing volunteers, leading reflection sessions, and relaying information back to supervisors at the Shriver Center. Beginning in fall 2020, he also served as a peer health educator at UMBC, working to educate UMBC students about healthy lifestyles and choices.

Nwagugo completed research with Phyllis Robinson, professor of biological sciences at UMBC, and completed a summer research experience at Brown University. After a postbac at the National Cancer Institute, Nwagugo plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D.

Ashley Delgado

Degree: B.A., Psychology
Hometown: Baltimore, MD
Plans: Teacher at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School

“Growing up in Baltimore City, I only saw Hispanic teachers as Spanish educators. As an intern at a city elementary/middle school, walking through and just seeing so many Spanish-speaking teachers who aren’t just teaching Spanish really spoke to me.”

Ashley Delgado ’22, psychology, is a Sherman STEM Scholar and first-generation college student with a focus on early childhood education.

Ashley Delgado teaching at Maree G. Farring Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore. (Image courtesy of Delgado)

She completed research with Jennifer Mata-McMahon, associate professor of early childhood education. Delgado’s work was part of the Breathe2Think Program, a collaboration between the Sherman Center and the Sherman Scholars to teach emerging teachers how to use mindfulness techniques with young children and for themselves.

Already, Delgado has employed these techniques in her internship placements. She plans to continue using them in her teaching career, both with her students and for herself. Especially during a period of constant change, such as the pandemic, these techniques help children regulate their emotions in appropriate ways.

Delgado also prioritizes culturally responsive teaching. In her work, she will seek to “create that environment where students feel they are represented,” she says. She will also work to create “opportunities for them to express who they are and explain their backgrounds and their stories,” both to their instructors and their classmates. 

Both Mata-McMahon and Jackie Peng, Delgado’s supervisor during her internship at Maree G. Farring Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore City, have served as important mentors for Delgado. They have helped her gain confidence in her teaching as she begins her career.