Nominee: Tobias Coombs

Running for: President

Why?: I feel like I was finally starting to make serious progress on putting the club back together when Covid-19 ended the semester early and I want to try again next year

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Nominee: Stephen Vaudreuil
Running for: Vice President
Why?: I want to take an active role in the ORC helping to plan and develop events, and Vice President seems like a good opportunity to accomplish this.
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Nominee: Angelica Mansfield
Running for: Secretary
Why?: I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with ORC. Being able to ensure there is adequate communication between leadership and members is incredibly important to me. I would love to continue supporting the club's growth throughout the next year!

The Student Government Association Election Board announced the election results for executive and legislative positions in SGA for the 2020-2021 academic year on May 1 over a Webex call that lasted approximately ten minutes. Mehrshad Fahim Devin and Zachary Kay were voted as next year’s president and executive vice president, respectively, with 340 votes. 

There were 655 unique voters who cast a ballot in this year’s election. Candidates had to have received votes on at least five percent of ballots to win.

Devin and Kay, who both attended the Webex meeting announcement, reported feeling “nervous” before hearing the results, then overwhelming excitement once they were announced as winners, according to an email correspondence. 

“I am excited to work with all the elected officials and excited to take on the role of president, but most importantly I am excited to be able to serve the undergraduate student body!” Devin wrote. “I am thankful for everyone who voted and cannot wait to see what the academic year will hold for us and SGA as a body!”

Devin reiterated his plans to make sure all undergraduate students know that they are a part of the SGA, and that “they have the power to make the change they see fit on campus,” he wrote, a sentiment that Kay also echoed. 

“I’m confident that Mehrshad and I will be able to adapt and serve the needs of the students at [the University of Maryland, Baltimore County] in whatever way we can as well as to continue giving students more opportunities to express their opinions and make change on campus,” Kay wrote.

Additionally, both Devin and Kay are cognizant of their role in helping students transition back to campus, and Devin promised they would “work diligently” alongside the other elected officers to make this transition go as smoothly as possible.

Joshua Gray was elected vice president for student organizations with 314 votes, and Siri Keyaka was voted treasurer with 407 votes.

Gray noted two important aspects of his campaign in an email correspondence following the election results: engagement with as many student leaders across campus as possible and a support system that would guide the direction of his work.

He promises a “steadfast commitment” to both of these guiding principles in his campaign.

“I will continue to engage people in the conversation about the cultural development that is to occur at UMBC and will continue to seek counsel and work collaboratively with those that are committed to the work that needs to be done,” he wrote. “My experiences thus far have prepared me to step into this role but the Retrievers I proudly live, study, eat, and fellowship with daily will be what propels the work I do forward.” 

Elected senators include, in descending order, starting with those who received the most votes, Patrick Reid, Wendy Zhang, Nailah-Bena Chambers, Menna Nasser, Kai Hajos, Mariah Qureshi, Kayla Dunn, Julius Gayle, Emmanuel Okhuevbie, Mati Tadzong and Zachary Smith.

Rounding out the legislative positions, the elected Finance Board representatives include, in descending order, starting with those who received the most votes, Aliyah Adegun, Pooja Patel, Sierra Dubuque, Rehman Liaqat, Victor Kehinde,  Achelafac Akem and Liam Von Alt.

The SGA will be holding a virtual inauguration on May 6 at 12:30 p.m.

A full breakdown of votes for all positions can be found here.

The global pandemic has impacted all members of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in distinct ways. With the gloom of quarantine also comes inspiration for student artists, many of whom have ventured further into their creative talents and sought new projects, inspired by the current events. 

Aaron Wescott, an animation major, has been spending his off-campus semester at Trader Joe’s as an essential worker. Splitting his time between classes and work, Wescott has devoted the free time he collects to a new series of mini comics. Inspired by his own experience as an essential worker, Wescott comments on how art has provided him with an outlet during these trying times, “… I’ve come across some crazy characters since the pandemic started and giving them a place in my art helps me deal with the stresses that I get from real life.” Wescott’s project aims to visually voice his exposure to the changed behavior of the population. 

The heavy topic is beautifully contrasted with Wescott’s style, which is “very simplistic” and “cartoony,” as described by the artist. Typically featuring his friends, girlfriend and himself, Wescott’s art delivers an animated interpretation of events in his own life: “I like to draw things the way I imagine them, and the more they fester in my brain, the more creative I find myself being with what I draw.” 

Wescott uses Clip Studio Paint EX and Aseprite to create his digital art. His playful, nostalgic creations, abundant with color and often accompanied by humor, pair a lighthearted tone with the depicted images. The rounded features and recognizable facial expressions of the characters help translate Wescott’s reality into comics, even his reality as an essential worker. 

With his mini-comics showcasing his adventures social distancing while being a Trader Joe’s employee, Wescott hopes to brighten the days of viewers: “There is already so much news about the destruction that COVID-19 has caused, and while I want to raise people’s spirits, I do not want to misinform them or tell them to take anything less seriously.” Viewers follow Wescott’s cartoon character of himself through the ups and downs of his current life, including scenes of protest outside of his place of work, phone disinfecting and falling asleep in front of a computer screen. His comics document the environment in a memorable, enjoyable way, providing moments of distraction and relief from the rut of pandemic pessimism. 

A perfect representation of how art can serve as a coping mechanism as well as a method of healthy distraction, for both the artist and the viewer, Wescott’s comics bring some light to the redundancy quarantine has sustained. Readers are encouraged to keep up with Wescott’s mini-comics on his Instagram page, @ayeayerondrawn.

Over 50 players from across the America East competed in the conference’s first eSports Invitational on April 25. Players competed for prizes up to $1,500 in scholarship funds. The eight University of Maryland, Baltimore County students who competed in the single-elimination Super Smash Bros Ultimate tournament, three of which placed in the top eight, gave the invitational mixed reviews. 

While the money incentivized some Smash players to compete, President of UMBC Smash Club and Vice President of UMBC eSports Jake Knutsen said that many of UMBC’s better Smash players did not participate because the tournament was online.

“The issue with online events usually is, because online is usually so unpredictable, a lot of people lose interest, especially a lot of our better players,” Knutsen said. 

Much of online’s unpredictability comes from lag, a delay in the input of the action to the output of the character’s movement on the screen. Smash has a six-frame delay, meaning the image on the screen is refreshed six times before the player’s action is performed in the game. However, Knutsen states that playing Smash online adds another third of a second to that delay. That extra third of a second is due to the player’s action needing to travel from their console to the game’s server and then register on the other player’s console. 

“When every input is incredibly important, whether it’s because a specific move comes out because of that input, if something is dropped in translation, it can lose you the game really easily,” Knutsen said.

Knutsen was concerned about the invitational’s rules regarding lag. He believed the America East’s rules were vague compared to the 15 page rule set of the Xanadu Games, Maryland’s center for Smash tournament play and competitive training. Knutsen was particularly concerned about players abusing the tournament’s lag rule, which states that a match is to be reset if a player lags out.

“I think that they’re assuming that people aren’t going to be scumbags about it, but they most definitely are,” Knutsen said. “I mean, this is super competitive because there’s a lot of money on the line and there’s essentially nothing stopping someone, if they’re losing, from just shutting off their Switch and then turning it back off again and then cry that they have a bad connection.” 

The America East believes they did their best to create and run the invitational. The conference hired eSports Consultant Kiernan Ensor and solicited Mainline, an information systems company, to ensure it ran smoothly.  

Ensor says lag is inherently an issue with online tournaments and hiring enough match observers to ensure no one abuses lag is expensive.

“It’s a tough thing to really control for,” Ensor said. “The verification process to make sure that no one tries to abuse it [the lag rule] is almost a detriment to ever putting on an online tournament.”

Ensor stated that tournament moderators would verify competitors’ Wi-Fi connection if an issue arose. He also said that, even if a student abused lag, they would get caught if they made it to the broadcast matches in the top eight.

Junior math major Lorenzo “Disgaea” de Ocampo believes that America East’s lack of specific lag regulations played a large role in who won the tournament.

He also says that the invitational being unseeded affected who made it to the top eight. Normally, Smash tournaments are seeded like the NCAA D1 Basketball Tournament. Each player gets ranked according to skill and past wins and their opponent is determined based on that ranking. This ranking, or seeding, system ensures the two best players do not face each other in round one.

De Campo says that his top 20 regional Smash ranking would likely have seeded him first if the America East had seeded the invitational. He says he got lucky with his random seed but still believes the invitational should have been seeded.

“If you are going to host a serious tournament with money on the line, make sure you do your player research,” de Ocampo said.

De Ocampo was also frustrated the tournament was single-elimination and not double-elimination. A double-elimination tournament involves two brackets: a winners’ bracket and a losers’ bracket. If a player loses a game in the winners’ bracket, they are sent to the losers’ bracket. If they lose in the losers’ bracket, they are eliminated from the tournament. However, if they make it to the top of the losers’ bracket, they play the winner of the winners’ bracket. If the winner wins, the tournament is over. If the loser wins, they play again and the second game decides the tournament.

Most Smash tournaments are double-elimination. Many competitors asked tournament moderators whether the invitational would change to double-elimination in the America East Invitational Discord server. Knutsen and de Ocampo both said the America East told them that if there was a small number of competitors, that they would transition to double-elimination. However, Ensor repeatedly told players that they would not do double-elimination in the days leading up to the tournament.

De Ocampo admits that double-elimination tournaments take longer. He said invitationals of over 120 players average between four and five hours. However, the America East’s eSports Invitational single-elimination tournament took over five hours with less than half as many players.

The reason for the invitational’s duration was deadtime between matches. De Ocampo stated that players had to wait over 50 minutes between sets of matches. In most Smash tournaments, once a match is over, another one starts a few minutes later.   

“This clearly shows that these people have no idea how to run a Smash tournament,” de Ocampo said. “Before these people start running Smash tournaments, they need to get actual experience from actual tournament organizers.”

Unlike de Ocampo, senior computer science major Nazily “Winstoneee” Zaza said the tournament went smoothly for it being online and directed over Discord. While Zaza does wish it had been a double-elimination tournament, he said that it was a fun way for him to compete against other America East and UMBC students in a game he plays online regularly.

Zaza also enjoyed having his matches broadcasted on the invitational’s live stream. He appreciated the commentators’ post-game interviews with players. Zaza said his interview, after he lost a match to his friend, senior computer science major Rashad “Rashad” Balashov, was fun.  

“If there were more [invitationals] like this, I’d always join,” Zaza said.

Retriever Essentials disseminates an annual survey to gauge the levels of food/housing insecurity among UMBC students, staff, and faculty members. This survey assists us to measure our program awareness and refine our functions to better help the community.
Your responses will not only help us in providing essential resources to those in need, but also support us in advocating for increased food access and improved housing security for the vulnerable members of the UMBC community.
To complete the survey please click on the version that applies to you. The survey takes about 3 to 7 minutes.

As the University of Maryland, Baltimore County wraps up an unprecedented semester, students are beginning to look forward to fall 2020, scheduling classes, applying to jobs and seeking out research or internship experiences. 

But UMBC’s returning students face the impossible: preparing for the unknown. Students do not know yet whether next semester will continue with online instruction, resume in-person classes or find some solution that falls in the middle due to the threat of COVID-19.

An email correspondence sent to the UMBC community and signed by President Freeman Hrabowski and Provost Philip Rous explained that UMBC does not yet have a plan for fall 2020, but will be “[considering] a variety of potential scenarios before commiting [sic] to a plan,” though it did not expand upon what those scenarios would be. The email also noted the establishment of “a fall planning coordinating committee,” which will be co-chaired by Lynne Schaefer, provost and vice president of Finance and Administration, “to explore options and facilitate plans for physical campus reopening.” The email did not indicate when a decision will be announced to students. 

Mike Lurie, media relations manager for the University System of Maryland, reiterated via email that several options were being considered regarding the possible return to school in the fall. When asked about a specific solution that would entail students returning midway through the semester, Lurie replied that “system leadership is keeping an open mind and will emphasize planning that maintains both flexibility for campus leaders and emphasizes what’s best for the students for both learning and health/safety.” 

The Baltimore Sun reported that University System of Maryland Chancellor Jay Perman is forming an advisory group, composed of leaders from a variety of departments across USM campuses, to determine when this return to campus may occur. Lurie told The Retriever that “more precise information [about returning to campus] will be available in the coming weeks.”

Students contend with lack of information

But as other schools around the country begin to announce decisions — or, at least, tentative plans — for fall 2020, UMBC students are beginning to feel increasingly concerned and confused about what the upcoming semester may hold for them.

Bella Dastvan, a sophomore geography and environmental systems major, is one such student; she is planning to take two lab courses in the fall that will count towards her major’s requirements, but she is worried that if the fall semester remains online, she may not get the most out of these courses. This could potentially hamper her success in future classes or in her career as a researcher.

“If it’s an online module, you’re still getting information but you’re not really applying yourself if you’re not physically there, if you’re not physically at the field,” she explains.

Additionally, a research opportunity she had been looking forward to, working with a Ph.D. student studying birds’ behavioral patterns, may be in jeopardy. Fortunately, the opportunity is not completely off the table. The doctoral candidate she would have been working with alerted her that they may be able to maintain social distancing while completing this research, which, according to Dastva, takes place “isolated in the field.”

Ultimately, though, the transition to online learning has been easier on Dastvan than it has been on others — she had previously taken an online class during the winter semester, and so was already familiar with distance learning by the time classes moved online in March. 

Transfer student Rachel Rehling, on the other hand, has struggled significantly in her online courses, and although she is signed up for fall classes, she plans to drop them and take the semester off if online learning continues.

“It’s not my favorite option, but I really don’t do well with online classes,” Rehling explains. She benefits from face-to-face conversations with her professors about the material, something she has recently found to be lacking in her online courses. 

In addition, as a biochemistry major, taking a semester off could have serious repercussions for Rehling in terms of degree completion; as some courses are only offered every other semester, she fears that missing one semester could in fact throw her studies off by an entire year.

Despite the challenges many students are facing, Dr. Kenneth Baron, assistant vice provost for academic advising and student success, reports that 66.07% of students have registered for next semester’s classes, down only 3.14% from the number of students who had registered by this time last year.

Professors plan for worst case scenario

Professors have as little information as students regarding when and how UMBC will eventually return to in-person learning. Nevertheless, some professors have opted to begin preparing for the coming fall semester under the assumption that classes will remain online.

One such professor is Dr. Mariajose Castellanos, a lecturer in the Department of Chemical, Biochemical and Environmental Engineering. She is teaching what she says is a notoriously difficult chemical engineering class and feels that, if classes do end up remaining online in the fall, she will regret it if she does not begin planning for that situation well in advance.

“I think if I try to be optimistic, and just say, ‘oh, maybe everything will be fine,’ and it’s not, I don’t want to be in the same situation as I [am] now,” she explains, referring to the fact that UMBC professors had little more than a week to prepare for the pivot to online classes in March. 

Her preparations include producing guided videos to help students understand how to read their chemical engineering textbook and developing basic tenets for students’ classroom behavior based on her experiences this semester.. This extra preparation, she feels, will be useful additions to the class even if UMBC returns to in-person learning in the fall.

Dr. Lindsay DiCuirci, an English professor, is also looking ahead. She is planning to co-teach a new seminar for freshman humanities scholars in the fall, and part of the development of that course has involved creating two syllabi — one designed for online learning and one designed for a traditional class. The seminar, which focuses on the history of books, was supposed to be a hands-on course that would meet in the Special Collections area of the library. DiCuirci and her co-professor, Dr. Craig Saper, a professor of Language, Literacy and Culture, have already begun brainstorming how their students may be able to have those hands-on experiences in their own homes.

“The contingency plan syllabus … would look for ways to ensure that some of that hands-on work could be done but wouldn’t at all be dependent on access to any kind of specialty books or materials. [It] would be things [that are] found easily around the house, or things that we could actually get to students,” DiCuirci says, explaining that she and Saper have discussed the possibility of mailing items to students if needed.

Though the wait for the USM to make a decision regarding the fall semester may make students anxious, there is one thing they can be certain of: This time around, many professors will be able to spend months adjusting their courses to an online format, rather than just over one week.

“I do think that with the additional trainings that we’ll all receive and with the extra support that will be provided by the school … we will have the time and space and the resources to build the courses with the perspective of online instruction,” DiCuirci says, “rather than the kind of slapdash [transition] that we had to do [in March].”