On February 9, WYPR’s Maryland Morning hosted political science professor Roy Meyers to discuss education spending in Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s budget. Meyers discussed in-depth what K-12 education spending looks like for schools in the proposed budget.

“There are two kinds of cuts in the governor’s budget for all the counties and the cities across the board. One cut is the cut in the Geographic Cost of Education Index which under law he is allowed to make in his budget. That’s about $68 million in savings,” said Meyers. “The other savings, about $76 million, is in proposed changes to the law that allocates funds by formula to the 24 local school boards, and the legislature will have to agree to those cuts for those to go into place.”

Over the course of the discussion, Meyers commented on the history behind the Geographic Cost of Education Index (GCEI) and how the proposed education spending will affect Baltimore City schools, among other topics.

To listen to the full segment and to hear more in-depth analysis from Meyers, click here.

In a recent article published in the “City Folk” section of City Paper, Michelle Stefano, visiting assistant professor of American studies, wrote about Henry Reisinger, the longtime owner of E.M. Fenwick’s Choice Meats in Baltimore’s Cross Street Market.

Stefano’s profile of Reisinger traces the history of the business and the hard work Reisinger has put into it for four decades. It also provides a glimpse into how the market business has changed in recent years.

“Reisinger tells of the old days, when there were six or seven meat vendors at the market. Now, there remains only Fenwick’s and his competition, Nunnally Bros., just down the path. ‘Unfortunately, we have a lot of empty businesses now,’ he laments, crediting the vacant stalls to the introduction of fast food in the 1980s, and the fact that ‘droves’ of workers from places like the shipyards off Key Highway are a lunchtime dream of the past. Camden Yards was full of businesses with employees patronizing the market—’now? It’s two stadiums,’ he says.”

To read more about Henry Reisinger in Stefano’s article titled “Henry Reisinger of E.M. Fenwick’s Choice Meats carves out a good life at Cross Street Market,” click here.

WEAA’s The Marc Steiner Show hosted a panel discussion on February 9 on charter schools vs. traditional public schools, school closings, school funding, and the future of education.

Kimberly Moffitt, an associate professor of American studies and a founding parent at the Baltimore Collegiate School For Boys, discussed her views on charter schools and the reason she decided to help found the Baltimore Collegiate School For Boys.

“Even as I’m someone who is at the table creating a charter school, I’m very cognizant of charter schools are not the panacea,” Moffitt said. “It was more about a mission that was very much tied to the academic research that I do that looks at what we have done in this country for young black males and the need to really focus educational opportunities for them in environments that help them thrive.”

Other panelists in the discussion included Jessica T. Shiller, professor of urban education at Towson University, Roni Ellington, associate professor of mathematics education at Morgan State University, and Bobbi Macdonald, executive director of the City Neighbors Foundation.

To listen to the full segment, click here.

Wednesday, March 4 | 7:00 p.m.
There is a Crack in Everything: That’s How the Light Gets in*
(*from Anthem by Leonard Cohen)
Michael Rakowitz, Professor, Art Theory & Practice, Northwestern University
Performing Arts and Humanities Building, Room 132

Artist Michael Rakowitz discusses his work, in the context of hope and antagonism, and at the intersection of problem solving and trouble-making. Rakowitz’s symbolic interventions in problematic urban situations extend from paraSITE (1998 – ongoing), in which the artist custom builds inflatable shelters for homeless people that attach to the exterior outtake vents of a building’s HVAC system, to Minaret (2001-Ongoing), in which access is gained to an architecturally-appropriate rooftop in a Western city and the Islamic call to prayer is sounded five times a day with the help of a megaphone for amplification. In Spoils (2011) Rakowitz made a culinary intervention at New York City’s Park Avenue restaurant by inviting diners to eat traditional Iraqi dishes on plates looted from Saddam Hussein’s personal collection. The project culminated in the repatriation of the former Iraqi President’s flatware to the Republic of Iraq at the behest of current Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki on December 15, 2011, the date Coalition Forces left Iraq. In a related culinary-art project in Chicago, titled Enemy Kitchen (2012), Rakowitz devised a food truck that was manned by Iraqi War veterans working under Iraqi refugee chefs and served Iraqi cuisine to the public.

Michael Rakowitz is Professor of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University.  Born in New York  in 1973, Rakowitz is an Iraqi-American conceptual artist who works in a range of media to provoke discourse on contemporary politics. His solo exhibition, The worst condition is to pass under a sword which is not one’s own (2010), was exhibited at the Tate Modern, London. Another project, The Breakup, first presented at Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem in 2010, was exhibited at Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago in 2014. Rakowitz’s work  is featured in major private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Neue Galerie, Kassel, Germany; Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; Van Abbemuseum, Endhoven, Netherlands; British Museum; Kabul National Museum, Afghanistan; and UNESCO, Paris. Rakowitz is the recipient of a six prestigious awards from international foundations, most recently, a 2012 Louis Tiffany Foundation Award.

Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the Visual Arts Department; the Center for Innovation, Research, and Creativity in the Arts; the Center for Arts, Design and Visual Culture; the American Studies Department; and the Modern Languages, Linguistics and Intercultural Communications Department.

Wednesday, March 4 | 4:00 p.m.
Janet Shibley Hyde, Evjue-Bascom Professor & Helen Thompson Woolley Professor of Psychology and Gender & Women’s Studies and Director at the Center for Research on Gender & Women at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
Albin. O Kuhn Library Gallery 

The media portray psychological differences between women and men as large and biologically determined—men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Dr. Hyde’s research uses the statistical method of meta-analysis to investigate whether these claims are accurate. The results are surprising.

Distinguished Lecture in Psychology, Co-sponsored by the Departments of Psychology and Gender + Women’s Studies

The Business Journals released their 2015 list of top U.S. public colleges today, ranking UMBC at No. 78. The list identifies public universities and colleges that offer the best educational experiences to their students.

Universities were ranked according to selectivity, retention and graduation rates, reputation, tuition and housing cost, and diversity. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the 2012 American Community Survey helped inform the rankings.

UMBC scored especially high marks in selectivity, advancement, diversity and community. Communications director Dinah Winnick shared, “UMBC’s distinctive combination of innovative teaching, leading-edge research, and supportive community empowers and inspires students. We are honored to be recognized for the strength of our programs, and we are proud of the accomplishments of the faculty, staff, students, alumni and partners who work together to make UMBC a community with such tremendous impact.”

Click here to see the complete list of The Business Journals‘ 2015 rankings of U.s. public colleges and here to read “These Maryland public colleges are among the top 100 in the U.S.” in the Baltimore Business Journal.

Asian Studies Lecture and Book Signing
Tuesday, March 3 | 7:00 p.m.
Suki Kim, Award-Winning Journalist
Albin O. Kuhn Library 7th Floor 

In this talk, Suki Kim, an award-winning journalist, will discuss her book Without You, There is No Us. A New York Times bestseller and already in its sixth printing since its publication three months ago, Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea’s Elite is an investigative nonfiction work and expose of life in North Korea and one of its elite schools and thus far has received rave reviews from New York Times Book Review, Wall Street Journal, Slate, Foreign Policy, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune, Washington Independent Review of Books, LA Review of Books, Philadelphia Inquirer, Vogue, Oprah’s O magazine, Salon, etc; was picked as an editors’ pick at New York Times Book Review, O Magazine, Slate, etc; excerpted eight times including in the New York Times Magazine,Slate, Newsweek, Harper’s, Foreign Affairs, Rumpus, etc; featured on NPR (Morning Edition & Diane Rehm Show, Here & Now, etc), New York Times Book Review podcast, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and CNN with Fareed Zakariah.

The event is sponsored by the Asian Studies Program and cosponsored by the Global Studies Program, Dresher Center for the Humanities, History Department, English Department, and Korean Society of Maryland. For more information on UMBC’s Asian Studies program, click here.

Tuesday, February 24 | 4:00 p.m.
William Earle Williams, Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Fine Arts, and Curator of Photography, Haverford College
Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery

A Stirring Song Sung Heroic features the work of photographer William Earle Williams. The history of American slavery is presented across three series of 80 black and white silver gelatin prints.  These images document mostly anonymous, unheralded, and uncelebrated places in the New World—from the Caribbean to North America—where Americans black and white determined the meaning of freedom. Archives of prints, newspapers, and other ephemera related to the struggle accompany the work.

William E. Williams is the Audrey A. and John L. Dusseau Professor in the Humanities, Professor of Fine Arts, and Curator of Photography at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania. His photographs have been widely exhibited including group and solo exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art, George Eastman House, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The National Gallery, Smith College and Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. His work is represented in many public collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Williams has received individual artist fellowships from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities, the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery, the Africana Studies Department, and the History Department.