JOB SUMMARY

Mental Health First Aid is the help provided to a person developing a mental health problem or in a mental health crisis.  The first aid given until appropriate treatment is received or until the crisis is resolved.

Sometimes a person’s journey to become one of the state’s most effective CEOs is surprisingly direct.

Take Stephen Morgan ’72, psychology, who is the executive director of The Arc Baltimore. Morgan began his career at the organization as an undergraduate, teaching at a summer camp for disabled adults.

Fast forward to 2014, and the Maryland Daily Record names him as one of “Maryland’s Most Admired CEOs.” It’s an achievement that Morgan observes is as much about the organization as it is about his leadership.

“The award is flattering,” he says, “but what I like is that it’s for the ‘most admired.’ It’s not just about what we do, but how we do it. It’s really about all of us at The Arc, not just me.”

Headquartered in Towson, The Arc now has 10 state chapters. The organization provides employment training and support, residential services, family support and education, treatment foster care, respite care, public policy advocacy and information and referrals for over 6,000 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Morgan knew early on that he wanted to teach or work in human services. He transferred to UMBC in his sophomore year as a psychology major. As a member of one of UMBC’s first graduating classes, what Morgan remembers is the community atmosphere and direct access to faculty.

Recent visits to a fast-growing campus haven’t changed his view of the UMBC experience “It was a much smaller campus then,” says Morgan, “but even with more people and buildings, UMBC still has that warm, inviting atmosphere, that student-centered feeling.”

Morgan eventually completed all of the coursework for elementary school education as well as his degree in psychology.

“I felt that my academic training would prepare me to enter a variety of fields,” he recalls, “and even now I still come back to what I learned at UMBC – those fundamentals of psychology and education.”

Morgan felt a connection with the adults at the camp where he taught as an undergraduate, and joined The Arc (then known as the Baltimore Association for Retarded Citizens) full time after graduation as a teacher at one of its child development centers.

It was a historical moment – just a few years before the Equal Education Opportunities Act (EEOA) of 1974 was signed into law – when The Arc’s programs were one of the few educational options for disabled children. They could not attend public school, and after age 18 they were often institutionalized. Adults also had few, if any, chances for education or job training.

“The students I taught didn’t learn as easily or in a conventional fashion, but they were still able to learn, just at a different rate and in a different way,” Morgan explains.

Morgan was a program manager overseeing four child development centers for The Arc when the landmark federal legislation passed. He served as a liaison, helping to transition children into public schools. “The children who had been at The Arc had a much easier time acclimating because of the education they received with us,” he says.

Amid rapid increases in opportunity for the community he served, Morgan worked in training, curriculum development, and management positions at The Arc over the next two decades. By the time the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed in 1990, securing significant job training and employment programs for the disabled, he had been executive director for five years.

“The ADA was more like an omnibus civil rights bill that supported independence and integration,” says Morgan. “It established the rights of individuals to have access to the same public and private resources everyone else does, including access to transportation support, and it asked employers to find ways to adapt their workplaces for disabled workers. These changes helped the disabled become less isolated and more a part of their communities.”

Morgan says that he’s welcomed the opportunity to make the story of The Arc his own story throughout his professional life.

“It’s often considered an anomaly now,” he says, “to stay at the same organization your entire career. But I had the good fortune to have opportunities for advancement and new challenges at The Arc just when I was ready for them.”

– Eleanor Lewis

Read more from the latest issue of UMBC Magazine.

The US Navy Summer 2016  Internship Program is back and recruiting UMBC Students! 

The US Navy has partnered with UMBC to specifically hire multiple interns for 3 different Summer 2016 programs: Fleet Cyber Command Intern, Navy Cyber Warfare Development Group Intern, and Navy Information Operations Command Intern. Position descriptions and brochures are listed below. 

Additionally, on  September 9, the US Navy will be on campus to recruit interns and full-time hires for this competitive program as part of the UMBC Connects program. Military and Civilian career paths are available!

Summer 2016 Fleet Cyber Command Intern (9276401)

Brochure

Longer Description

All Policy, Business, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Majors Encouraged to Apply

Summer 2016 Navy Cyber Warfare Development Group Intern (9276402)

Brochure

Longer Description

All Technical Majors Encouraged to Apply (CS, CE, IS, BTA, EE, Cyber, and Math)

Summer 2016 Navy Information Operations Command Intern (9276403)

Brochure
Longer Description

All Technical Majors Encouraged to Apply (CS, CE, IS, BTA, EE, Engineering, Cyber, and Math)

You must apply to these positions via UMBCworks with an approved resume. All resumes must be submitted no later than September 30th. You need to complete the security application in order to apply. To schedule an appointment to have your resume reviewed, log into UMBCworks or call our office 410-455-2216. Additionally, you can stop by our drop-in hours (M-F 2-4pm).

UMBC is a founding member and partner of a new consortium of 14 institutions to develop strategies to keep urban water systems healthy and address challenges that threaten them both nationally and internationally. The Urban Water Innovation Network, or UWIN, is led by Colorado State University and will build locally on research by UMBC geography and environmental systems professors Andrew Miller and Christopher Swan, with Claire Welty, a professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering and associate director of research for UWIN, leading UMBC’s participation in the program.

UMBC was recently featured in The Daily Record for its role in the project. “In the Chesapeake Bay region, there’s a lot of interest in how urban development affects water quality, said Professor Andrew Miller…” the article stated.

“Miller says his own work is concerned with how urban development changes the landscape of an area — such as by flattening hills and diverting surface water underground —  and how those changes can affect water quality…Swan, will look at biodiversity and the impact of green infrastructure projects, such as green roofs and pervious pavement, Miller said.

UMBC’s efforts will contribute to the development of an Urban Water Sustainability Blueprint, which the participating universities will produce in connection with government agencies, nonprofits and private-sector partners, Miller said,” according to the article.

Read more about the project on UMBC’s research news website. Read “UMBC faculty join urban water research project” (subscription required) in The Daily Record.

Mathematics Professor and New York Times Contributing Opinion Writer Manil Suri recently published his latest op-ed about abortion politics and legislation in India. In his column, Suri reacted to an amendment proposed last year by the Indian government that would allow abortions to be performed by specially trained registered nurses and licensed practitioners of traditional and alternative medicine systems. Suri analyzed the ongoing debate in India over the proposal, stating that “the real root of the tension is the government’s promotion of alternative medicine as a medically equivalent but cheaper alternative to allopathic (modern) medicine.”

Providing further context, Suri explained that, “There are legitimate concerns against giving equal status to Ayush and allopathic medicine. Although Ayush treatments can be effective in managing chronic conditions, very few are backed by scientifically rigorous evidence…Nevertheless, Ayush doctors provide invaluable services in rural and impoverished urban areas, where allopathic doctors are reluctant to practice. A long-term government goal, consistent with recommendations from the World Health Organization, is to integrate the two systems. This presents ethical and logistical challenges, so progress can be expected to be slow and marked by bouts of friction.”

Read “India’s Inverted Abortion Politics” in The New York Times.

Orianne Smith, associate professor and chair of English, has won the prestigious biennial First Book Prize from the British Association of Romantic Studies (BARS). Smith’s book Romantic Women Writers, Revolution, and Prophecy: Rebellious Daughters, 1786–1826 (Cambridge University Press, 2013) was selected from a strong shortlist of finalists for the inaugural prize.

Professor Smith traveled to Cardiff, Wales to accept the award. In an announcement posted on the BARS blog, the judges stated during the award ceremony that her book “corrects the gender imbalance of previous work on literary enthusiasm by shedding light on the previously obscured role of women writers in apocalyptic discourse…a tremendously fluent and incisive study, making surprising and productive use of speech-act theory to bring out the performative dimension of prophetic writing.”

Dr. Smith participated in a detailed and wide-ranging Q&A posted on the BARS blog about her research process in writing her award-winning book. She said the idea for the project first came to her when writing the conclusion for her final paper on the “wild, wacky and truly wonderful Civil War prophetesses” in her seventeenth-century sectarian writers class during her second year of graduate school.

Orianne Smith with Professor Emma Clery, the Chair of the First Book Prize Committee, giving her acceptance speech.

“It occurred to me that there could be an interesting connection between these seventeenth-century women who claimed the authority of God during a period of revolution and Romantic women writers who also assumed the mantle of the female prophet in the wake of the French Revolution,” she said. “I wrapped up the paper with this thought, but the idea of a British tradition of female prophecy stuck with me.”

Also in the Q&A, Smith discussed how the project evolved, the benefit of placing religious discourses at center of cultural debates and literary studies, and her future research, among other topics.

Dr. Smith’s teaching and research interests include gender and Romanticism, the Gothic, and the connections between religion, superstition, and magic in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and she has published widely in these fields. Read more about her work on the English department website.