The NWSA 2018 Call for Proposals is NOW AVAILABLE

• Afro-futurism, feminist futures, surrealist thought and radical imaginaries
• Rethinking gender, sexuality, family, disability and the bio-politics of what is or is not human?
• The future of the universities, schools, and knowledge production: maroon spaces, insurgent practices, and the future of the disciplines and the interdisciplines?
• Post-capitalism: imagining new economic futures
• Revolutions and utopian projects: sustained, incomplete and derailed
• Political, cultural and artistic movements that “demand the impossible:” “abolition” and beyond
• The earth’s future and legacies of its past: environmental justice, climate change, indigeneity, land rights, wars and occupations

AGNG498 will be taught by Margaret LaPorte, founder of the "Age in America" social media campaign. She offers alternative narratives and challenges long-held assumptions about what it means to be old by, as their motto suggests, chronicling lives, challenging stereotypes, and changing perceptions — one story at a time.

Classical computers have been getting faster, more powerful, and more compact for decades, but they may be reaching their limits, writes Sebastian Deffner, assistant professor of physics, in The Conversation. People have pinned their hopes on quantum computers for the next leap forward in computing technology, he explains, “but my recent research has revealed that quantum computers will have limits of their own, and has suggested ways to figure out what those limits are.”

The physical laws that govern quantum computers, known as quantum mechanics, are very different from the laws that govern classical computers—and everything else in the physical world with which we are familiar. For example, in the “quantum world,” where the largest objects are about the size of individual atoms, an observer can either know an object’s speed or its location—but never both at the same time.

“It is important to realize that this ‘quantum uncertainty’ is not a shortcoming of measurement equipment or engineering, but rather how our brains work,” says Deffner. “We have evolved to be so used to how the ‘classical world’ works that the actual physical mechanisms of the ‘quantum world’ are simply beyond our ability to fully grasp.”

Most people have a general, intuitive understanding of how a combustion engine burns fuel to release energy, for example. There are theoretical limits to gasoline engines that prevent cars from going at the speed of light, but other challenges to the efficiency of engines get in the way first, so in practice we don’t need to consider the ultimate limitations to combustion engines.

“Until recently, though, scholars only had a rather vague idea that quantum physics had limits too,” says Deffner, “but didn’t know how to figure out how they might apply in the real world.” Deffner has been on the cutting edge of finding those limits and defining their applications. “It’s not clear whether the quantum speed limit is so high it’s unattainable—like the car that will never even get close to the speed of light,” he writes, which means it may be important for the future of computing to figure out how the quantum speed limit affects computers that operate in the quantum world.

Fundamental physical limits impose a delay on detecting an object in the quantum world. Each delay is only a few quadrillionths of a second, but the delays accumulate across a computer’s millions of computations. That prevents a quantum computer from going arbitrarily fast and results in an overall quantum speed limit.

Deffner’s research group has found that the quantum speed limit can differ depending on a quantum computer’s design, and sometimes, “unexpected factors can help speed things up, at times, in counterintuitive ways.”

As an example of how the quantum world operates differently from the classical one, Deffner compares the speed of a quantum computer to a particle moving through water versus honey. You might expect the particle in honey to move more slowly, but in the quantum world, the displaced honey filling in the path where the particle has just traveled “can build up pressure that propels the quantum particle forward. This extra acceleration can make a quantum particle’s speed limit different from what an observer might otherwise expect.”

Growing researchers’ understanding of the quantum speed limit and how different factors may modify it will likely influence quantum processor design, Deffner says, noting, “There’s a lot for researchers like me to explore.” A pioneer in the field, Deffner has already published several papers related to the quantum speed limit, with more on the way.

“Just as engineers figured out how to shrink the size of transistors and pack them more closely together on a classical computer chip,” Deffner writes, “they’ll need some clever innovation to build the fastest possible quantum systems, operating as close as possible to the ultimate speed limit.”

As of January 18, 2018, Sebastian Deffner’s article in The Conversation has been viewed more than 40,000 times and republished in The Chicago Tribune, Live Science, RealClearScience, Space.com, Phys.org, and World Economic Forum.

Image: Sebastian Deffner, photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the classroom teacher population is more than 75% women — and over 80% white. As school systems examine how best to create classrooms where all students feel represented, engaged, and included, UMBC’s education department is working to address this and other inequalities in education through innovative programs, initiatives, partnerships, and as a platform to amplify critical issues in education.

On January 22, the department will host “Teaching and Reaching Black Boys in America: A Conversation,” a panel discussion based on the book The Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys. President Freeman Hrabowski will introduce author and educator Eddie Moore, Jr., who will lead an interactive discussion with several contributors to the book, including Jack Hill and Debby Irving, both renowned nationally for their work in race and education.

“The book furthers critical conversations about how whiteness, even enacted by teachers of color, prevents educators from seeing and noticing the brilliance of Black boys,” reflects Keisha Allen, assistant professor of education and the UMBC lead in the Learning Center partnership with Baltimore County Public Schools. “Failing to recognize and build upon the talents and lived experiences of Black boys is a disservice to them, constrains their potential, and is really a national loss.”

It is Allen’s hope that by addressing these topics in the curriculum, evaluation of pre-service teachers, and department programming, education as a whole will also attract Black men who want to become teachers. “In order to fully value and appreciate Black boys and men, teacher candidates need many opportunities to learn from and interact with them as equals before becoming a teacher and assuming a position of power over Black boys,” says Allen.

UMBC education graduates are expected to respect diversity, be leaders in their schools, and advocate for democracy and social change. “This includes the ability to address their own beliefs and attitudes that may perpetuate the injustices and inequalities that persist in our society, and have the courage and wisdom to recognize racism and injustice and to become agents of change,” states Linda Oliva, assistant professor of secondary education.

Faculty across campus engage in the rigorous development and discussion of culturally responsive pedagogy in all undergraduate and graduate programs. This commitment extends beyond teacher preparation to Professional Development Network Sites in twenty-eight schools across all counties which help engage teachers in dialogue and in planning culturally-responsive classrooms and instruction.

UMBC also participates in interdisciplinary collaborations where culturally responsive pedagogy is applied through partnerships like Lakeland Elementary and Middle School with the Sherman STEM Teachers Scholars Program and the new Center for Early Learning in Urban Communities with Baltimore City Public Schools; the STEM partnership with Howard County Public Schools, the STEAM partnership with Digital Harbor Foundation and programs like Hour of Code, the Path Before Me, and the development of the Valuable Voices App that helps teachers create linguistically inclusive classrooms.

Christine Mallinson, professor of language literacy and culture (LLC) and co-creator of the Valuable Voices app has worked with other linguists and educators since 2009 to provide workshops and trainings to hundreds of K-12 teachers across the United States. Through her outreach, she has found it especially important for white female teachers to understand how they communicate with students, especially Black male students, in order to establish strong relationships and create a welcoming environment across gender and racial boundaries.

“This is important for everyone who is an educator—not only K-12 teachers, but also those of us who teach in college and university settings, including here at UMBC,” says Mallinson. “ Each of us must bring our intentions as well as our actions to the task of making education inclusive, supportive, and culturally sustaining for our students.”

Events where participants can reflect, plan, and implement the ideas shared during the panel are already scheduled and will continue throughout the year. The first follow-up will be held at the BCPS Learning Center with faculty from the Arbutus Learning Center to further discuss and plan with teachers and members of the BCPS Office of Equity and Cultural Proficiency, which promotes support for equity and fairness for students and teachers in all academic programs. The second will be led by the UMBC education department’s diversity committee, with teacher candidates, administration, faculty, staff, and members of partnerships schools.

The UMBC teaching master’s degree program is accepting applications for summer and fall. Educators interested in creating culturally inclusive classrooms in Maryland can attend the Maryland Education Recruitment Consortium’s 10th annual Teach Maryland Fair on Saturday, March 24, 2018, at UMBC.

Banner image: UMBC students volunteer at Lakeland. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.