UPDATE: Our poll indicates that 4-5 is the best time slot for most people, so we will continue to work at this time. Thank you for participating.

Deemed accurate but not guaranteed.  Courses, days, instructors, times, and method of course delivery are subject to change.  Please always check the on-line UMBC Summer 2020 courses for the most updated information.  If you find that a course that should be listed here is missing, please contact Julie Rosenthal at julier@umbc.edu

HIST 103 – East-Asian Civilization – 3 credits
TuTh – 9:00 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.
Dr. Julie Oakes, Session 2, 6 weeks
IN PERSON
Attributes: Culture (GEP), Social Sciences (GEP), Culture (GFR), Social Sciences (GFR)

HIST 381 – From Samauri to “Salariman”: Japanese History through Film and Literature – 3 credits
Dr. Constantine Vaporis, Session 1, 4 weeks
ONLINE
Attributes: Culture (GEP), Culture (GFR)

HIST 382 – Pacific Crossings: Race, War, and Gender in Asian Migrations – 3 credits
Dr. Meredith Oyen, Session 2, 4 weeks
ONLINE
Attributes: Culture (GEP), Social Sciences (GEP)

JPNS 102 – Elementary Japanese II – 4 credits
T TH 9:00 a.m. – 11:10 a.m.
Michiko Perry, Session 2, 6 weeks
HYBRID
Attributes: Language (GFR)

MUSC 230 – Musics of the World – 3 credits
T, W, TH 9:00 a.m. – 12:10 p.m.
Dr. Gina Beck, Session 1, 4 weeks
IN PERSON
Attributes: Arts and Humanities (GEP), Culture (GEP), Arts and Humanities (GFR), Culture (GFR)

Support from Academic Success Center

(If you are unsure which service you need, email academicsuccess@umbc.edu and we will help you navigate the various options.)

Appointment Tutoring 

Appointment Tutoring will continue to be scheduled online using TutorTrac.  Appointments will be conducted in an online format instead of in person at the scheduled time.  Here are the instructions for scheduling tutoring appointments.  Once an appointment is scheduled, tutors will email students with a link to the online platform to conduct the tutoring session before the scheduled time.   

If you have any questions please contact: tutoring@umbc.edu 

Math and Science Tutoring Center 

All tutoring offered through the Math and Science Tutoring Center will be scheduled online by appointment using TutorTrac.  Appointments will be conducted in an online format instead of in person at the scheduled time.  Here are the instructions for scheduling tutoring appointments.  Once an appointment is scheduled, tutors will email students with a link to the online platform to conduct the tutoring session before the scheduled time.  

If you have any questions about the Math and Science Tutoring Center please contact: tutoring@umbc.edu

Writing Center 

Writing Center Tutoring will continue to be scheduled online using TutorTrac.  Here are the instructions for scheduling tutoring appointments through the Writing Center.  Appointments will be conducted online asynchronously. Once an appointment is scheduled, tutors will email students with instructions about how to share their writing assignment before the scheduled time. 

If you have any questions about the Writing Center please contact: efick1@umbc.edu 

SI PASS Supplemental Instruction Peer-Assisted Study Sessions 

SI PASS sessions will be conducted online at the scheduled times.  SI PASS sessions can be joined using Blackboard Collaborate in the Blackboard site of the class being supported.   

If you have any questions about SI PASS please contact: debwebb@umbc.edu

Academic Success Meetings 

Academic Success Meetings can be scheduled online using this link.  After a meeting is scheduled, students can use the link provided in the Google Calendar event to access the meeting online. 

If you have any questions about Academic Success Meetings please contact: victor6@umbc.edu 

Academic Advocacy 

Academic Advocates will continue to work with students, faculty and staff by phone, video and chat as requested. Students who have an assigned Academic Advocate can schedule a meeting using the link provided on their myUMBC profile page. If a student is unsure if they have an Academic Advocate and would like to request support, they may submit a self-referral using this link.  Any faculty or staff members who wish to submit a student referral can do so online and the Academic Advocates will reach out to students directly to provide support. 

If you have questions about Academic Advocacy please contact aknapp@umbc.edu  

Academic Standards and Policy Administration 

Petitions for exemptions to Academic Policy will continue to be handled online. Many helpful resources, including whom to contact, are available online.  

If you have any questions about Academic Standards and Policy Administration please contact: aknapp@umbc.edu  

Hiring Pause Effective Immediately

Autumn is a junior Meyerhoff Scholar (M29), pursuing a BS in Chemistry and a BA in Gender, Women and  Sexuality Studies dual degree, and currently a student intern at the Women’s Center.

Content Note: The content of this blog may be triggering. Topics addressed by this blog include transphobia, menstruation, pregnancy, dysphoria, and gender-confirmation surgery.

When I first received an offer to intern at the Women’s Center, I was very excited. Throughout my years at UMBC, the Women’s Center quickly became my home away from home and was a place to feel safe, included, and accepted. I participated in as many events as possible and volunteered whenever I had the time. I even had the privilege of being able to facilitate Spectrum meetings for a semester before formally joining the staff. By working in the Women’s Center, I thought I would be able to help create an even better space for the people I shared the space with and new community members alike. 

However, even while writing this blog post, I experience imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is “the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications—was first identified in 1978 by psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes.” I think that the sheer complexity of how this imposter syndrome is taking effect for me (and people like me with a pretty fraught, tenuous and ever-changing relationship with womanhood) is demonstrated in the carefulness of the words that I am using in this blog. This is a really multifaceted issue that deals with dysphoria, internalized transphobia, the differences of experiences between marginalized identities and intersectionality. 

Vaginas!? 

When I was born, the doctor looked at my genitals and proclaimed to the world and the government that “It’s a boy.” For those who know me, it is somewhat obvious that this label did not stick for the “normal” amount of time (read: the entire lifespan). If you’ve not caught on yet, I’m very much not a boy anymore and I identify as a nonbinary trans woman (I know its a bit of an oxymoron; gender is FUNKY).

I experience marginalization and oppression, but I also have privilege in this identity. I struggle with the privilege I have by being a trans feminine person that was able to come out early on in my life and that I was able to start my medical transition when I still was in high school. 

Even so, working in the Women’s Center at UMBC as a nonbinary, transgender woman is peculiar. Because of my experiences with transness and my body, I am not the best equipped to assist with issues that students may come to the Women’s Center to address. For example, I don’t have a vagina (YET!), and I didn’t grow up with one, therefore I don’t have the first-hand knowledge that comes with menstruating, pregnancy, or growing up as an AFAB person in a heterosexist and misogynistic society. 

This has made interactions with some community members weird when they ask for help with things I don’t have experience with. I’m deathly afraid of giving the wrong advice or having an interaction that makes someone uncomfortable. If a community member comes into the Center and asks about internal condoms or pregnancy tests (while I’m not uneducated on the subjects) I cannot give as good of an answer as someone with experience.  Even when I am pointing out the tampons and pads that the Women’s Center offers to the community for free, I deal with that fear and alienation. 

As a transfeminine person, I am acutely aware of how “womanhood,” as the greater society knows it, is defined in bioessentialist definitions. When doing the work that involves vaginas and helping people with vaginas, I am always reminded of the “essential” difference of my body and that I am not fully “them.”

I am wondering how much this anxiety stems from internalized transphobia that I have surrounding transgender women, including myself, not really being “full” women or that I don’t truly belong in a women’s space. Throughout my life, the topic of periods, reproduction and menstrual products have always been a sticking point for me and my experience: a constant trigger for my dysphoria. It’s a common trigger for a lot of trans women, not just because of the consistent TERF bioessentialist dog whistles, but because we as trans women lack the thing that is worshiped as a pillar of western societal femininity: the ability to reproduce. Of course, I want to acknowledge that this is a completely bogus measure of femininity because the ability to reproduce is completely disconnected to femininity. Femininity and reproduction are two distinct aspects of humanity that are conflated in a way that serves to not only enforce exclusion but to oppress those who do not fit the societal standards. To some extent, I believe that I’m invading a space that I really do not have the right to inhabit. 

Privileged Transitions

In terms of my transition, I am exceptionally privileged. I was born to an accepting family who supported me when I came out after my freshman (literally “man”) year of high school. Me coming out to them was a bit of an accident even, but it went well. I was able to access hormones soon after and I just scheduled bottom surgery for after I graduate from UMBC. I’m white and I pass as a cis woman reasonably well, and I have the resources to access my endocrinologist regularly and I am able to afford my medical treatment. I also have the privilege of growing up as someone who was assigned male at birth in a society that greatly values maleness, especially in science and in leadership. Because of my socialization, I am allowed a higher level of confidence and ownership in science and leadership than someone who was reared as a woman in the same fields.

All of these compounding areas of privilege greatly influence how I can exist in a space, and how much space I take up, especially at a women’s center. As someone who was reared as a male in our society, it sometimes feels really weird to go to events that specifically cater to women.

I also see my own experience paralleled in a previous Women’s Center staff member Daniel, as they had to grapple with the realities of being a trans man when working in the Women’s Center. In their blog post about male privilege, Daniel discusses how they strive to be cognizant of the space they take up within the Women’s Center because Dan’s privilege is not as cut and dry as one might see between a cis man and a cis woman. Their blog posts detailed how they saw themselves within the Women’s Center as a “white, medically transitioning, ‘passing’ man,” and how that influenced Dan’s participation. Even though they have the privileges afforded to white men, because of their transness, Daniel is precariously perched on the Glass Elevator and experiences marginalization at the hands of a heterocissexist society. Although the experiences of all trans people are not the same, I can deeply relate to Dan’s experiences as a student staff member at the Women’s Center.

Privilege aside, there is a level of marginalization that I experience in entering and being a part of the Women’s Center. Cis women come into this space and feel entitled to it. Me? I do… and I also pause. I enter the space tentatively because my sense of belonging is not always assured. 

Existing Within the Bounds of My Triggers

Throughout my transition, my dysphoria, anxiety, and depression has been pretty intensely triggered by the topics of menstruation, reproduction, and topics around cis-women bodies. 

I was really, really worried about this when I started at the Women’s Center because I imagined that it would be very hard for me to remove myself from potentially triggering situations when I’m working (such as a community member needing assistance with something). I still really struggle with this even as I am halfway through my internship. However, I’ve been a lot less triggered by these situations than I thought I would initially.

I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I feel like this ease comes in part from the ability to put boundaries between my own sense of self and my sense of representing the Women’s Center. Regardless of what this means about my self-esteem and coping, boundaries allow me to exist and operate in this work.

Ultimately, I think that it is okay and normal to be uncomfortable in some spaces. This discomfort is good. The oppressive nature of the gender binary and the heterocissexist society is diametrically opposed to the reality that trans people live so discomfort is inevitable. But when dealing with big, overarching systems of power that influence our lives, sometimes identifying that there even is a problem is the first step of trying to challenge the norms. In other words, without identifying the problem, it is impossible to generate a solution. It may seem like the big, overall problem is the Gender Binary, but I think there is a smaller, more pervasive issue when thinking and talking about how transgender people fit within the model of a women’s center. 

I think that the problem isn’t that transgender people do not fit into the current framework of mainstream feminism. The real problem is with those who either knowingly or unknowingly perpetuate systems of oppression (read: most everyone), and don’t use their power or privilege toward the radical but simple process of affirming transgender identities. In spaces like the Women’s Center, trans people should not only feel welcome but also a sense of home and belonging–and it’s cis people’s prerogative to either build those bridges with intentionality and care or continue a system that oppresses everyone: the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

My transness is an integral part of my identity, and I’m exceptionally proud of it. However, I know that my belonging in the Women’s Center is not just tied to my identity as a nonbinary trans woman. In the Women’s Center, I am surrounded by people who support and care for me and it is in that where the promise of real and actionable liberatory justice resides.

COVID-19 has resulted in a number of lifestyle changes, including closed daycare facilities, unnecessary before and after-school care, or even a new need for daycare.

If you have experienced either a reduction in dependent care costs or a new need for dependent care, you can request a change to your Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (DCFSA) or enroll in a DCSFA for the remainder of the 2020 calendar year.  

To make a change to your DCFSA or enroll in a DCFSA, please login to your SPS Workday account and select the Benefit Event Type, “Employee: Change in Dependent Daycare”. Here is a link to some helpful instructions for completing this event in your SPS Workday account.

Please note: EBD has temporarily removed the supporting documentation requirement for this benefit change.

Please consider the overall impact to your annual 2020 daycare costs, as the DCFSA runs through December 31, 2020 and is subject to the IRS maximum of $5,000.00 per household per year.

For more information about Dependent Care FSAs, please see the 2020 Benefits Guide, pp. 29-32.

What is SPS Workday?

Please email hrbenefits@umbc.edu with any questions. 

In the wake of a global pandemic that has halted the world, all of my emotions are heightened. Feelings of fear, anger, sadness, and concern have occupied every single second of existence as I move through life at a languid pace. Though I have been infinitely blessed with my health, there are few things as disorientating as daily routines being turned on their heads after pleas from health and government officials echo louder and louder. Clicking through television channels and scrolling through Twitter unleashes a flood of panicked headlines and harrowing statistics, and it is no doubt overwhelming to listen to the world fall around you as you sit alone in a room unsure of what comes next. This is a time like no other. And so, it calls on us to rise to the occasion. Those who are healthy alter their timetables for the sake of the ill and those who are wealthy take care of the disenfranchised and the poor. As we spend the next few weeks unified in our uncertainty, I implore you to take advantage of writing as a means of escape, as a step towards healing, and as an effort to stop the feeling of your world ending.

Having an unprecedented amount of time due to social distancing measures enacted to decrease the spread of the virus may increase feelings of unproductivity. This can often trigger emotions of discontent and unease which fuel anxiety and self-deprecation. Creating lists of tasks that you want to complete not only keeps you organized but produces a sense of accomplishment that fills your need to be ‘active’. This is a subtle opportunity for writing that can be expounded to cultivate additional opportunities to be more creative. If drawing a line through a completed assignment is somehow not fulfilling enough, challenge yourself to create more intricate spreads in a bullet journal or another medium. As we move to virtual classrooms, this will also help combat a lack of motivation and accountability, and set you up to be the best possible student you can be during this time of turmoil.

Taking it one step further, journaling or dabbling in other creative writing prompts such as poetry is another significant way to express your feelings, especially when the doors of communication seem limited. Alone in our rooms means being alone with our thoughts which is not always an easy reality to face. Mental health issues will likely spike during these few months for a variety of reasons, and though writing is not a cure to any diagnosed illness, it can provide a momentary relief from the hardships of life. Being honest with yourself and engaging in self-reflection is essential to your growth as a person. Blossoming in this time of darkness can only be done by having another source of light. It may help to dedicate a few minutes of your day to understanding and appreciating the complexity of thoughts and emotions you are experiencing.

Even if you do not think of yourself as a creative writer, set aside a few minutes before bed to unpack the occurrences of the day. If you are happy, write down how you feel so you will remember the ecstasy of joy when you are upset. Write in free verse or write in rhyme, it does not matter so long as you are recognizing the whirling thoughts in your brain. If you are angry, perhaps at the way institutions are handling this pandemic, write a letter. Maybe you can even send it in the morning. If you feel lonesome, revel in the idea that thousands of people are understanding of your circumstance because they too are living it. If you want to write but do not know where to start, start there. Write about how desperately you want to commit words to paper. Write a love poem between two inanimate objects. Write a haiku about what you see outside your window. Write about what you miss or what you look forward to. If you need more ideas, UMBC Retriever Poets will be holding online meetings on Tuesdays from 5-6:30pm (email them for more information at retrieverpoets@umbc.edu).

Your resilience and kindness during this time are inspiring. I hope that these moments of confusion and chaos are short-lived, and that you are prioritizing your health and happiness.

Contributed by: Ilsa Mir, Writing Center intern