**EVENTS UPDATE**

Following USM and UMBC guidance related to COVID-19, all on-campus events are canceled through April 6.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for further announcements from the Dresher Center for the Humanities, as virtual options, postponements, and/or cancellations for individual events are made.

Currently, there are no suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19, also known as coronavirus, at UMBC. Please visit covid19.umbc.edu for more information.

The first time I shopped in the Giant closest to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, I was surprised at a missing step in the checkout process: Paying for any plastic bags that a customer uses. I had gotten used to the practice at my local Giant in Montgomery County. Instituting a charge plastic bags or banning them altogether is an effective way to reduce their use and it should become a state-wide policy.

The five cent per bag charge I’ve gotten used to may seem like it won’t accomplish much, but in reality it can be a significant deterrent to using plastic bags. Since reusable bags are available in many stores, the charge can encourage people to buy those instead, because even though they’re more expensive at first, they end up saving money in the long run.

I see almost as many plastic bags blowing around parking lots, caught in trees or floating in bodies of water as I do in the self-checkout area of a grocery store, which is a major problem of plastic bags: They present a direct source of pollution. They are nonbiodegradable and have an extremely long life. In addition, the petroleum-based bags contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and therein global warming.

For many people, there are other viable options, including the more durable reusable bags that are readily available at many grocery stores or transporting items to a vehicle via a cart. Costco, Aldi’s and Save-a-Lot have done just fine without offering people any kind of bag for their groceries, and the extra trips to and from the car help me reach my step count for the day.

A plastic bag ban for Baltimore City was recently signed into law, and will take effect next year. Howard County also passed legislation to implement a five cent fee, which will take effect in October of this year. Individual parts of Maryland are doing what is right and taking action to address the issues with plastic bags, but a unified decision for the state needs to follow.

A ban would be the ideal action to erase the possibility of plastic bags altogether, but there are situations in which people forget their reusable bag or just want something to hold an item. A statewide fee is a viable alternative that still encourages a reduction in the use of plastic bags, while providing people with a choice.

Maryland state representatives and state senators are discussing legislation to completely ban the use of the plastic bags at checkout, but the proposed bills aren’t without issue.

Some have objected to provisions in the bills that would prevent individual counties from keeping the money that comes from the plastic bag fees, which has been used for programs like Montgomery County’s Water Quality Protection Charge Fund.

The provisions that prevent individual counties from benefiting from the fees shouldn’t be part of the bills that could bring Maryland into the future alongside other states like New York, which recently passed a plastic bag ban, or California, which banned them several years ago.

Any legislation that passes regarding plastic bags should also account for people at an economic disadvantage who can’t necessarily afford to pay the plastic bag fee, or for reusable bags and don’t have cars to transport their items home, but progress can still be made.

It’s a question of values. Maryland has to decide whether they are willing to let the desire for convenience contribute to our planet’s deterioration, and soon. In the meantime, the state continues to miss out on opportunities for economic gain.

COVID-19, the disease caused by a new strain of coronavirus, has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind, with summer study abroad programs being cancelled and cases popping up daily across the country. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s communication through email has come in a steady stream of increasing concern. Most recently, UMBC sent out a message informing students that faculty will be preparing to “move all classes to online instruction” if needed. 

But while moving classes online is a good start to prevent interaction, and potentially the spread of infectious diseases like COVID-19, students have much more than just classes on their plates. The university’s preparations for an epidemic need to account for the fact that most students’ lives do not revolve around school.

Consider, for example, the number of students who hold part-time employment here on campus. Should classes go fully online, will those students’ employers be required to offer students remote hours? What about students whose jobs require them to be physically present, like front of house staff and residential hall desk staffers? Some students rely on their on-campus, hourly jobs to pay the bills; it is unfair to take away their primary source of income while continuing to make them pay tuition on what may end up being a lower-quality education.

This is not to say that online courses are innately inferior to in-person classes, but there are elements of in-person classes, like collaboration, that are just not possible when you’re learning through clicks and videos. Working with faculty members when confusion about concepts arises is also very difficult when it comes to online courses. Some departments would face particular difficulty when moving to online courses, like the theatre department, which relies on students being able to give performances and build costumes and sets in designated spaces. STEM classes with a lab component would face similar issues.

For this potential transition to go as smoothly as possible, these details need to be explained candidly to students, staff and faculty. However, as of now, the university has not done so.

While COVID-19 is still considered an epidemic (a more limited disease outbreak), UMBC has a pandemic plan with a system of levels based off of severity. However, the pandemic plan isn’t readily available online. Students have to fill out a Freedom of Information Act request in order to view the plan in full. The Retriever asked the Office of Institutional Advancement for the plan, but after being declined, filled out the FOIA request on March 9.

When students receive general guidance about possible preparations, and the same warnings about washing hands, administration is both diminishing the severity of the problem and not trusting students to disseminate information by themselves. By not providing the pandemic plan online for students to review or refer to on their own time, the administration is doing students a huge disservice.

Students are just as nervous and scared as administration. We know that the pandemic plan won’t answer all of our questions, but by releasing the levels of the pandemic plan, administration will at least answer a few of the many questions students have. Additionally, it will show students that even though the plan is in flux (because of the ever-changing situation), that we do, indeed, have a plan.

In 2018, University of Maryland College Park students suffered the consequences of a private pandemic plan. Students were not notified of an adenovirus outbreak until 18 days after UMD officials learned of it, leaving those on campus in a heightened state of vulnerability and unawareness. This had devastating consequences, namely the death of student Olivia Paregol after contracting adenovirus. The lack of a public pandemic plan only perpetuates the anxieties and unpreparedness of campus students and their families, forcing the affected into ignorance. 

Information regarding student safety should not be withheld from the students regardless of whether we’ve had a case of COVID-19 on our campus. The key to prevention is preparation, and the students’ right to prepare is seemingly being hindered through lack of accessibility.

It was 12:22 A.M. on a Thursday night when I got the notification reminding me that I had an annotated bibliography due in less than 24 hours that had completely fallen off my radar.

Naturally, I hadn’t started it yet. I had spent around 12 hours of that day working, between going to class, doing homework, working on an assignment for my internship and researching an independent project. Then, after I got home, I had worked on my project for another hour before cooking a very late dinner and heading to bed around midnight. The days preceding that had looked similar, composed of a miscellany of classes, homework, meetings, work and, of course, lots and lots of writing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m having a blast. Since I was nine, I’ve dreamed of being a writer, and over the past few years, that dream had slowly solidified into a reality in which I get paid to write things I’m genuinely passionate about. Even after my 11-hour days, I still feel invigorated, constantly seeking out the next story and feeling thrilled whenever a new idea is able to take root.

It’s all I think about, which sometimes means that schoolwork falls to the wayside, as it did on that fateful Thursday night.

The panic quickly set in. Friday was booked with meetings from morning to evening, and I had plans with friends at night that had been so hard to schedule that I was reluctant to cancel. And while I’m not such an anxious person that I thought that turning this assignment in late would cost me my grade, I was worried that this would be an indication of the rest of the semester. If I could completely forget about one assignment, who’s to say I wouldn’t forget about two? Five? And what about the classes where the teachers were real sticklers about deadlines? Could I get away with being this careless in those classes?

Rest assured, I did turn the assignment in, though it meant I was still writing for about an hour after my friends came over. Since then, though, I’ve missed a handful of assignments and classes in the interest of keeping up with my outside work. But those weren’t moments of forgetfulness or oversight, as the incident with the annotated bibliography. I recently decided that in my last semester at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, I would place gaining work experience and expanding my portfolio above all else on my list of priorities.

So far, it’s one of the best decisions I’ve made in college.

When I graduate, the last thing potential employers are going to care about is whether I aced every test in my final semester of college. They’re not going to care whether I dutifully attended a few largely irrelevant classes every week, and they’re certainly not going to care whether I rolled up late to class one time because I deemed my daily latte more important than the first two minutes of lecture.

What they are going to care about is my portfolio and seeing that I’ve put my utmost effort and care into every article I’ve published. This — or some variation of it — is true across most, if not all, majors. Will a B in an elective matter if your lab PI is so impressed by your work ethic that he passes your info on to his colleagues? If the work you do at your internship is so remarkable that you get offered a full-time position after your graduation? If your independent research becomes the singular element of your graduate school application that puts you above your competition?

This isn’t to say that college seniors should be slacking off in school entirely — though, as the adage goes, Cs do, indeed, get degrees. But your last few months of school are the only opportunity you have to start transitioning from college student to working adult, and if you spend it all studying for quizzes in that one general education course you put off for four years (looking at you, lab science credit!), you’re going to end up behind.

The onus to free seniors of their academic shackles (or at least to loosen them up a bit) doesn’t fall only on the students themselves, though. Professors, too, need to understand this restructuring of priorities and be willing to give students leeway in situations where doing so will help them in the long run. I’m fortunate enough that three — yes, three! — of my professors this semester have allowed me to miss class, without penalty, to conduct a few hard-to-schedule interviews.

But, honestly, before the first one, I was terrified to even ask. It seemed like such an unreasonable request at the time: “Please, exempt me from your attendance policy, which is laid out clearly in the syllabus, so that I can miss class to go do something else.” It felt like it should be offensive to them, like it was an insult to the quality of their classes to work on an extracurricular project in their stead.

But all three said “yes,” presumably because they are reasonable people who could tell from my description of the project that it was important to me, that it was important to my education and that it was, in some small but valuable way, important to my future.

I was relieved, if not overjoyed. The only thing that deflated me was knowing that there are likely dozens of professors on this campus who would not have honored that request, thinking that their 200-level philosophy lecture deserved to be the sole focus of my Wednesday afternoon.

So, future seniors, bearing in mind that not every professor will be happy about it, bearing in mind that it might result in a slight drop in your GPA and bearing in mind that it will probably feel wrong, here is my advice to you: Let your academics be your last priority. Let the things that matter to you take up the bulk of your time. If you’re feeling particularly rebellious, do what I could not and let a few bibliographies go unannotated. Your last semester of college can be your best if you make it so.

Do you struggle with presenting your pitch or wish you could get feedback on it? Your ability to effectively communicate your business idea is critical to your success.  This is especially true when delivering a “Pitch”. Your pitch, sometimes in a matter of minutes or seconds, will determine whether a stranger will take an interest in you and your business or just walk away.  When that stranger is a potential investor, partner, or customer, it is easy to understand how critical an effective pitch can be. This talk will cover different types of pitches with an emphasis on the investor pitch including what should be said and how it should be delivered. 

Come to our workshop with Stephen Auvil, the executive vice president for operations and programs at the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) and gain some feedback and insight on how to perfect your pitch!

A little bit about Stephen:

Stephen Auvil is the executive vice president for operations and programs at the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO).  In this capacity, he oversees TEDCO’s general operations, various investment programs, and other programs designed to support entrepreneurial activity in the State of Maryland.  TEDCO is a technology-based, economic development organization that supports early-stage technology companies – especially those commercializing technology from Maryland’s universities and federal labs.  Prior to TEDCO, Stephen spent 17 years in university technology transfer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and the Johns Hopkins University. He has an undergraduate degree in biology and engineering science, and he has master’s degrees in business administration and biotechnology.

Do you struggle with presenting your pitch or wish you could get feedback on it? Your ability to effectively communicate your business idea is critical to your success.  This is especially true when delivering a “Pitch”. Your pitch, sometimes in a matter of minutes or seconds, will determine whether a stranger will take an interest in you and your business or just walk away.  When that stranger is a potential investor, partner, or customer, it is easy to understand how critical an effective pitch can be. This talk will cover different types of pitches with an emphasis on the investor pitch including what should be said and how it should be delivered. 

Come to our workshop with Stephen Auvil, the executive vice president for operations and programs at the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) and gain some feedback and insight on how to perfect your pitch!

A little bit about Stephen:

Stephen Auvil is the executive vice president for operations and programs at the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO).  In this capacity, he oversees TEDCO’s general operations, various investment programs, and other programs designed to support entrepreneurial activity in the State of Maryland.  TEDCO is a technology-based, economic development organization that supports early-stage technology companies – especially those commercializing technology from Maryland’s universities and federal labs.  Prior to TEDCO, Stephen spent 17 years in university technology transfer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and the Johns Hopkins University. He has an undergraduate degree in biology and engineering science, and he has master’s degrees in business administration and biotechnology.