Events Subcommittee Notes

Jan 29, 2018

Jason, Andy, Alan

What is a Teach-In?

    Less structured than a symposium. Connotes an activist orientation. Suggests a specific outcome may result. Definitely implies a broader, more democratic approach to engaging students in programming.

Type of Event

Single event or multiple events scattered throughout year?
Or a multi-day event that takes up two weekdays and part of weekend.

Fall 2018 or Spring 2019. Avoid Earth Day

Might be too late to get this up and running for this Fall. Unless we piggyback on Homecoming?

We’ll need money, space, resources from Administration. The sooner we can make these requests, the better.

It’s not too soon to think about reserving space..

Questions about scale. How big is too big?   

We can host events on and off campus, including field events--- go to waterfront--- look at sea level rise, etc.

Bring experts with experience with positive climate adaptation solutions to campus to speak.

Hopkins Public Health..

Baltimore City Council members already working on this locally

Philadelphia Big Green Block

NYC green infrastructure, Jamaica Bay efforts

Others

Miller can contact Zoe Johnson, Climate Change Coordinator for National Marine Fisheries Service - she has extensive experience working on policy related to climate change pertaining to the Chesapeake Bay watershed

Important to hit balance between bringing people together in plenaries and letting smaller gatherings happen.

Content:

Should be interdisciplinary. Example: An artist and a scientist talking together—and to audience—about how their work engages relevant climate issues.

Important to have think about ways to engage but not overwhelm with dire predictions.

Important to provide examples of positive solutions at various scales ranging from individual to municipal.

Possible Theme: What Can I Do? The importance of an All Of The Above strategy.

Possible Theme: Resilience

Prof of Psychology Ann Brodsky could talk on the psychology of resilience

Visual Arts Prof Lisa Moren could talk on making paint pigments from oil from the Deep Water Horizon Gulf spill.

Blue Green Cities approach in the UK

Who is affected---

Inclusion and equity—the impact on Global South and locally on poorer/more vulnerable communities should be emphasized. Dawn and Dena’s (and others’) work and teaching…

Wave of climate refugees coming.

How it’s already happening…

Possible theme/emphasis: Climate Change PLUS—(ie, we can should talk about other environmental work whose primary focus may not be climate but which has climate benefits. Example: fisheries restoration in PNW. Extensive efforts within the Chesapeake Bay Program.

Possible theme/emphasis: Climate Change Careers. Will planning for/ responding to/mitigating/ and communicating about climate change and related impacts be as big an impact on jobs/careers/industries as internet/web was? Important to let students know that knowing/caring/working on this is not only charity work/volunteer work but may lead to meaningful and rewarding careers.

Important to include Success Stories of past and present interventions to mitigate climate change and other environmental disasters

History of Clean Air and Clean Water Acts and what they’ve done… Ozone hole… and Acid Rain progress--- thanks to Clean Air Acts

What is already being Done with Paris Accords in other countries….Europe and China…

Important to emphasize that the problem by its very nature requires multi/inter/trans disciplinary effort to understand, mitigate, respond to, reverse

Off campus public, private, technical, social activists—speakers…

Ask food vendors to pitch in---to make a commitment ???

Get Freeman to make a commitment?? Announce a policy change??

22nd Annual Undergraduate Research and
Creative Achievement Day is
April 25, 2018

Application Deadline: This MONDAY, Feb. 26, 2018

Applying is easy- submit a 200-word abstract and mentor support form! 

Go to:

ur.umbc.edu/urcad

Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD) features research, scholarship, and creative work carried out by UMBC undergraduates. Student work is shared through oral presentations, posters, artistic exhibits, performances, and film. Over 300 presenters participate annually. Researchers work with faculty mentors on independent research, or research that is part of the mentor’s on-going projects.  They are from all disciplines, and can be working on a thesis, capstone project, part of a scholars or honors program, or they can be unaffiliated.This campus-wide celebration of achievement affirms UMBC’s commitment to the twin goals of research and a distinctive undergraduate experience.

Friday, March 16, 2018
Tip-Off & Complimentary Lunch at Noon • Ends 4:00 pm

Sheraton Columbia Town Center Hotel
10207 Wincopin Cir
Columbia, MD 21044
Free Parking

Compare leading data center technology, education solutions and enterprise security. Follow all the NCAA action during the day on the latest AV technology from Epson & Sharp.

Awards presentation with a surprise celebrity guest!

Free Admission with RSVP, below • Free Parking, Light Refreshments & Reception

hcgi.com/solutionssummit

ACM Faculty Talk Series

Semi-supervised Learning for Visual Recognition

Dr. Hamed Pirsiavash, Assistant Professor, CSEE

1:00-2:00pm Friday, February 23, 2018, ITE 325, UMBC

We are interested in learning representations (features) that are discriminative for semantic image understanding tasks such as object classification, detection, and segmentation in images. A common approach to obtain such features is to use supervised learning. However, this requires manual annotation of images, which is costly, time-consuming, and prone to errors. In contrast, unsupervised or self-supervised feature learning methods exploiting unlabeled data can be much more scalable and flexible. I will present some of our efforts in this direction.

Hamed Pirsiavash is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Prior to joining UMBC in 2015 he was a postdoctoral research associate at MIT and he obtained his PhD at the University of California Irvine. He does research in the intersection of computer vision and machine learning.

This talk is sponsored by the UMBC Student Chapter of the ACM. Contact *protected email* with any questions regarding this event.

The post talk: Semi-supervised Learning for Visual Recognition, 1pm Fri 2/23, ITE325, UMBC appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Friday mornings often resemble a surge of crowds headed to their early classes or opening shift. However, one recent Friday morning in Baltimore city, many commuters were surprised to be turned around when encountering a sign reading:

“THIS STATION IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED”

On Sunday, the Maryland Transit Administration announced that the Baltimore Metro SubwayLink system will be closed for an estimated month due to emergency repairs. After a safety inspection conducted on underground tracks in the Northwest region, MTA declared the transportation system to be out of commission until conditions improve.

However, the condition of Baltimore residents who depend on riding the rails will also need alleviating. On the MTA’s online data portal, they have recorded the average weekday ridership per month is at 50,000. But of course, these numbers do not speak for the tremendous effect this change will have on residents these next few weeks.

In reaction to this disparity, Governor Larry Hogan has utilized $2.2 million in emergency funds to provide a shuttle bus service to operate while Metro SubwayLink is down.

What seems to be the most unfortunate matter of these circumstances is the suddenness of it all. A UMBC employee and Baltimore native, Devin Hanson shared, “It’s just not fair. I know they’re doing everything they can but what I have no way of knowing that.” The confusion and frustration that Hanson experiences reflects the same attitude of many individuals in under-resourced communities.

Countless civilians share a mutual understanding that the administration is taking precautionary measures. Still, they also believe it was their responsibility to take preventative measures as well.

Officials and politicians have gone back and forth over who should be held accountable. Deputy Transportation Secretary James F. Ports Jr. stated at a Monday hearing before the House Appropriations subcommittee that, “There was a neglect throughout the system, so we are picking up where they left off.” Although we suspect who is involved in this great infrastructure decline, the problem persists. In retrospect, the immediate response that travelers were expecting may equate to this weekend’s shutdown.

Metro, which was established in 1983, would undoubtedly expect to face technicalities in the long-term. To combat this development, Hogan’s administration promised to instate a $135 million BaltimoreLink Program. This initiative, which was proposed over the summer of 2017, was meant to instrument a customer-focused transit system that would better meet the needs of city residents.

The needs of Baltimore resident, Tihira Turrell, have yet to be met.

“It’s really disappointing. Now, I have to borrow a car from one of my family members to get to work and drop them off at work on the way. I don’t know how long I can keep this up,” Turrell stated in a brief interview.

How we approach such issues is dependent on finances, resources, etc. But the value system we have in place is more important. The deterioration of the rail system is far worse than anyone predicted and a failure of the system.

Another downtrend follows in discovering that the bus service scheduled to run the Metro’s route has yet to launch. The MTA had not distributed information specifically about where the buses would stop or when they would arrive. The appropriate call to action may not be clear cut but it must be on time, else resident Turrell will continue to suffer.

Turrell later stated, “We were told that the metro would be closed for a weekend, and somehow it’s now closed until March.”

The inconvenience caused by a lack of public transportation is significant. As commuters pass by Lexington Market station, the temporarily closed sign will remain hanging along with the balance of their daily lives. A temporary solution is always welcome, but like Baltimore residents, it should be here to stay.