UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III takes your questions.

Q. UMBC has made immense strides as an academic institution under your leadership, and students and alumni take great pride in those achievements. What role does athletics play at UMBC – and how can we infuse our athletics program with that same pride and school spirit?

– Tim O’Ferrall ’95, interdisciplinary studies

Athletics are exciting and enlightening. One can learn a lot playing a sport about teamwork, about leadership, about discipline, about hard work, about how to lose, and how to win.

We take great pride in viewing athletics as a part of a balanced vision for the education of our students. We think about the whole student, the whole person, and that means that every student here should be viewed as someone who is here on this campus to develop his or her ability to think well and dream about the possibilities – and also to develop the skills and values necessary to reach goals.

Our women’s soccer team is an excellent example the type of experience for which we’re striving. The team finished the 2012 season last in the America East Conference. The women took lessons from their losses, supported one another, and worked hard – led by an inspirational coach who cared about them as scholars and people, not just as athletes. In one season, they went from last to first in the conference, tying for the regular season championship and winning the tournament.

This year, both Women’s and Men’s Soccer, also the defending champions, continue to do well in conference play. It’s exciting to be doing so well in soccer as its profile as one of the leading sports in the world continues to rise. More important, I am inspired by all our coaches – across sports – who care about students and their academic performance and are teaching them valuable lessons through sports.

Whether a student at UMBC is an athlete in our Division I program, or participating in an organized club sport, or highly involved in recreation and intramural sports, they are learning how to put athletics in perspective. That is an essential part of our values. We don’t want students to believe that they’re here simply to be involved in a sport. They are also learning about the need to balance schoolwork and other responsibilities with the time necessary to do well in school.

I think it is significant that we have large numbers of UMBC student athletes who excel academically. About half of our athletes are working at the Dean’s List level, and we can point to large numbers who go one to graduate and professional schools. It’s an atmosphere – and a relationship between excellence in academics and excellence in athletics – that exists at some of the most privileged schools in the country.

We have decided as an institution to invest more money in athletics in recent years. Nancy Young, vice president for student affairs, is working with me on projects including the new Events Center that will be a home for many of our teams. We are determined to be as supportive of athletics as possible. We are also delighted that we have a great athletics director in Tim Hall, as well as a fine group of coaches.

But I do think that people would say we are different from most places in that we’ve never been overwhelmed by sports. And I mean by that we’ve always understood that academics should come first and that’s the most important principle. We stand by that. And as member of the America East conference, we’re aligned with other institutions that are academically strong and that are also believers in balance between athletics and academics at a time when some would say there is not the balance we need to see across the country.

We should take great pride in the wonderful times that a variety of our athletic teams have had over the years, and in the excitement that those who followed the teams have had watching UMBC athletes. We also know that our alumni often talk about the great times they have had participating in club sports and intramural sports on this campus.

I think our challenge is to keep telling those stories and to watch as the overall story of UMBC and its spirit evolves as we reach our 50^th anniversary in 2016 and beyond.

To send a question to President Hrabowski, visit www.umbc.edu/magazine

I’m happy to admit it. I’m a big Retriever sports fan.

There have been times when I have gone to extreme lengths to take in a UMBC men’s basketball game. I remember sitting in a Washington, D.C. hotel room back in March 2001, listening to online radio broadcasts of Northeast Conference tournament games involving the Retrievers.

That 2000-2001 men’s team was the first Retrievers men’s squad in a while that had come close the navigating the madness of pressure-packed early March basketball and snatching a bid to the men’s NCAA basketball tournament.

Sadly, the 2000-2001 team won only one game in the conference tournament before bowing out of contention. But the fire was lit. The 2001-2002 men’s hoops team came even closer to snatching a bid to the Big Dance, forging a 20-9 record and losing a 75-72 heartbreaker to Quinnipiac in that year’s Northeast Conference tournament.

It would take another six years and a switch to the America East Conference before the UMBC men’s hoops team threatened again to win their way onto one of the biggest stages in American sports.

The 2007-08 team fought to a 23-8 record on their way to the America East conference title. They had been forged in the heat of battles and growing pains to become a fiercely competitive squad. And when they beat Stony Brook and Vermont to earn a home game on ESPN for the conference title and a trip to the NCAA tournament, I knew that I had to make my way to the Retriever Activities Center and watch history in the making.

The crowd packed into the RAC that afternoon to watch UMBC play Hartford was as enthusiastic a crowd as has ever assembled on campus. And as the team broke away from Hartford midway through the second half, I was so proud to watch a generation of UMBC students finally get their chance to storm the court and dance at its center and celebrate a victory in front of the whole country.

This issue of UMBC Magazine focuses on UMBC’s impressive athletics program – both the glories of its past and an interview about the program’s present and future with athletics director Tim Hall.

Our look at the past of UMBC athletics reveals a university that’s always had successes. (And even a Division II national championship!) The university’s women’s teams have been equal partners in the program’s successes and strengths. And UMBC’s athletes have accomplished it all at a school that emphasizes the “scholar” part of “scholar-athlete.”

The notion that UMBC athletics is woven inextricably into the inclusive excellence of the university makes its successes even sweeter – and worth celebrating.

– Richard Byrne ’86

Michael Tully ’97, cinematic arts, is a professional screenwriter. Or at least he was – until last month.

Tully’s paychecks for writing his next feature, Don’t Leave Home, ran out on October 1. And if things go according to plan, he will fly to Ireland in April to start drawing a salary as director of that film – a spooky psychological thriller in the vein of David Lynch’s Lost Highway or Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now – for a full year.

Which still leaves Tully with a half-year gap in employment. He had a steady gig for several years as the chief writer/editor of the arthouse film website Hammer to Nail, but he’s given that up to devote himself full time to making movies.

“That’s the scary/fun part of filmmaking,” he says by phone from his home in Austin, Texas, where he moved from New York City in 2012 when his wife, Holly Herrick, landed a job with the Austin Film Society. “It’s always a hustle. You’ve never really arrived.”

An observer could be forgiven for believing that he has. Septien, Tully’s genre-defying feature about three troubled brothers living together on a farm, was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival in 2011. IFC bought it for $80,000, allowing Tully to pay off the $15,000 in production costs he’d put on his own credit card ­– and also pay back his parents and the friends who’d kicked in – within six months of shooting.

It was a happy ending for a movie Tully made “as a sort of lark middle finger to the film industry.” Septien broke every one of the dispiriting rules Tully was hearing at film festival panel discussions: Pick an easy-to-identify genre, don’t cast yourself, don’t spend your own money, and choose a title starting with A or B so video-on-demand viewers won’t have to scroll too far down their menu.

Tully’s much warmer, yet still idiosyncratic follow-up, the semi-autobiographical ’80s-set comedy Ping Pong Summer, also played at Sundance this year. Shot on location in Ocean City for a thrifty $1 million, Tully nonetheless managed to snag an honest-to-god movie star, Susan Sarandon, for a pivotal role, one he’d written with the legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog in mind.

Tully’s pal Jay Duplass, who directed the Oscar-winning actress in Jeff Who Lives at Home, passed the script to Sarandon and vouched for Tully’s worthiness. It helped that the character, Randi Jammer, is a retired champion of pingpong, a sport close to Sarandon’s heart: She’s a partner in SPiN, a chain of pingpong clubs in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Dubai.

Tully’s first feature as director, 2006’s Cocaine Angel, didn’t come until almost a decade after he’d graduated from UMBC’s film department. His UMBC education had given him a grounding in the physical details of film production, but when it came to getting an internship or learning to navigate the financial subtleties of filmmaking, he was largely on his own. “And I liked that,” he says.

But even small movies still cost a lot of money in the late ’90s. “It wasn’t as easy as saying, ‘I’m going to get a Panasonic DVX and get my buddies and make a movie,’” Tully recalls. “Which is finally what I did when I turned 30, with Cocaine Angel. It was a lot of being insecure and not having the confidence to take the plunge.”

Learning to believe in yourself is a big theme of Ping Pong Summer, a picture Tully sums up as “an experiment in combining my own life with the movies I loved in the ’80s” – teen comedies like Better Off Dead and National Lampoon’s Vacation – “and really trying to make an artifact film that feels like a lost movie from 1985.”

Thanks to his father, Tully has an Irish passport – which makes him a native filmmaker in the eyes of the Irish Film Board (IFB), eligible not just for tax rebates but for potentially several hundred thousand dollars in production funds too.

Tully was initially wary of claiming to be an Irish artist, but a talk with a gentleman from the IFB straightened him out. “He said, ‘People have come in here with accents stranger than yours,’” Tully laughs.

Don’t Leave Home will be another step on the progression that Ping Pong Summer began, stirring Tully’s idiosyncrasies into the tropes of a beloved genre.

“More and more,” Tully says, “I’m like: ‘Can you make something that feels soulful and earnest out of a premise that is just absolute movie hokum!’” Fingers crossed, he’ll have at least a year to figure that out. And get paid for it, too.

– Chris Klimek

STRONGER STEM

UMBC’s leadership in fostering the success of students seeking degrees in the sciences, technology, engineering and math (STEM) was highlighted in October when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced a groundbreaking series of awards totaling more than $18 million for the university.

The awards were part of a $240 million, five-year NIH investment to enhance diversity in the biomedical research workforce called Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (or, BUILD). Bill LaCourse, dean of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, and UMBC Provost Philip Rous, together serve as the award’s principal investigators and will direct the STEM BUILD@UMBC initiative.

Unlike programs that focus on supporting students at extreme ends of the achievement curve, STEM BUILD@UMBC will focus on high-potential students who are at risk for not completing their STEM degrees but who, with extra support, are likely to succeed. The university will collaborate with five community colleges, Gallaudet University, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in this initiative, which will combine innovation with the leveraging of effective components of existing UMBC programs to create a multifaceted new student support model.

A White House College Opportunity Initiative workshop held in September at UMBC revealed a demand for well-evaluated approaches to improving STEM education nationwide, as many U.S. universities struggle with lagging retention rates and achievement gaps.

– Dinah Winnick

Chancellor John W. Dorsey (1936 – 2014)

John W. Dorsey, the third Chancellor of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, passed away in July at the age of 78. Dorsey died at his home in Laurel of respiratory failure.

Dorsey was named as UMBC Chancellor in 1977. He came to UMBC from the University of Maryland, College Park, where he had held a number of academic leadership positions in the 1970s, including Vice Chancellor of Administrative Affairs and Acting Chancellor (1974-1975). Dorsey served as Chancellor at UMBC until 1986, overseeing nine years in which the university boosted its enrollment and significantly raised its academic profile.

A key element in Dorsey’s legacy was the stability he brought to a university whose development after its founding in 1966 had not been without growing pains, including the resignation of the university’s second Chancellor Calvin B. T. Lee under acrimonious circumstances in 1976.

Dorsey arrived at a moment when UMBC was under the constant threat of a significant revision or even termination of its mission as a public research institution. One of Dorsey’s most notable moments as Chancellor came in 1981, when local media reported that Sheldon Knorr, the executive director of the Maryland Higher Education Commission, was preparing a proposal that UMBC be shut down and converted into an industrial park.

The reports created a firestorm on campus, and Chancellor Dorsey rallied the university community at a large public meeting held in the UMBC dining hall with a stinging rejection of the scheme – which never reached formal consideration

UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, observes that Dorsey “was the protector and supporter of UMBC. When the university found itself and its future being questioned, he was the one who said we must protect this great institution because the people of the state need UMBC.”

Dorsey came to the job with an intimate knowledge of Maryland’s university system and its politics and tensions, and he usually preferred taking a quieter approach to building his lasting achievements on campus. Dorsey’s “wonderful, understated approach” was a key to his success, says Hrabowski, who adds that “it’s easy to see why the university went to the next level under his strong leadership.”

Shortly after his appointment as Chancellor, Dorsey commenced a sweeping internal reorganization of the university’s administrative and political governance which simplified and clarified UMBC’s structure and paved the way for sustainable growth. And far from shutting down or altering its core mission, UMBC’s enrollment grew steadily over Dorsey’s nine-year tenure and surged past the 6,000 mark in his last year as Chancellor.

Upon his departure from UMBC in 1986, Dorsey returned to College Park as a special assistant to President John S. Toll. He also returned to teaching economics and retired from College Park in 2001.

An alumnus of College Park with a B.S. in economics (1958), Dorsey also had a master’s degree and a doctorate in economics from Harvard University.

– Richard Byrne

HONOR ROLL

Each year at Homecoming, UMBC’s Alumni Association bestows its Alumni of the Year awards to notable graduates of the university, and the select group of this year’s honorees was among the most impressive yet.

This year’s ceremony was held in the recently-opened second phase of the university’s Performing Arts and Humanities Building, and the 2014 award winners included:

Claudia Pearce ’89 M.S. and ’94 Ph.D., computer science (Engineering and Information Technology), a senior computer science authority at the NSA.

Donna Lewis ’86, English (Humanities), a cartoonist with the Washington Post News Service and Syndicate and the unit chief of the Office of Professional Responsibility, Transportation Security Administration in the Department of Homeland Security.

Michael Adelstein ’96, biochemistry and molecular biology (Natural and Mathematical Sciences), CEO of Potomac Photonics, Inc.

Kaliope Parthemos ’93, psychology (Social and Behavioral Sciences), chief of staff in the office of Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Hadieh Shafie ’04 M.F.A., imaging and digital arts (Visual and Performing Arts), independent artist.

Gib Mason ’95, economics (Distinguished Service) chief operating officer and director of the Center for Leadership and Innovation, UMBC Training Centers.

Isaac Kinde ’05, biological sciences (Rising Star), M.D./Ph.D. candidate, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The Alumni Association also honored Anne Spence, professor of the practice in mechanical engineering, with the association’s inaugural Outstanding Faculty Award.

– Richard Byrne ‘86

Train a Dog to Perform Search and Rescue

Lisa Kakavas ’94, psychology, spends her days working as textbook manager in the UMBC Bookstore. At night and on weekends, however, you’ll find her out in the field with her sable German shepherd, Zildjian (or “Z” for short), working with Mason-Dixon Rescue Dogs. Kakavas is president of the all-volunteer group, which trains dogs – and their owners – to seek and find missing people, both alive and dead.

How do you transform a dog from lovable companion to hard-working rescue/recovery K9?

Step 1: FIND A TEAM TO TRAIN WITH

“There are numerous search and rescue groups around Maryland, and they are generally very open to helping newbies get started,” says Kakavas. She advises starting with a web search to identify groups that are close to where you live. You’ll likely be invited to a field day – most groups hold regular weekly sessions – and meet everyone involved in the group to see if you’re a good fit for that team. Training a rescue dog is a rigorous, long-term project, and it’s important that both the group’s location and overall zeitgeist work for you. “You’ll be spending a lot of pretty intense time with these folks,” Kakavas observes.

Step 2: LEARN FIELD SKILLS

Interestingly, the first step in training a search and rescue dog does not involve an actual canine. “You need to solidify certain skills yourself, as a handler, before you can start teaching your dog,” says Kakavas. On the learning curve: navigation with map, compass and GPS. You’ll also study search strategy – i.e., how to evaluate an area of land to devise the most effective and efficient search approach, since “when you’re looking for a live individual, time is of the essence” – and “scent theory,” or understanding how terrain, weather patterns and even vegetation affect how a search target’s scent disperses in the landscape.

This initial human training period varies, depending upon the individual’s previous outdoors experience and how much time they can devote to what is ultimately a volunteer gig. “The ballpark is about one year,” Kakavas says.

Step 3: CHOOSE YOUR DOG

Ideally, those interested in learning to do search and rescue acquire the dog after they’ve established their own skills. “This way you get to see a multitude of working dogs and start to understand what breed you’d like to work with, what makes a good search dog,” she says. Although many rescue canines come from certain working breeds like German shepherds, border collies, and Labrador retrievers, Kakavas says that any pup – so long as it is less than two years old – has potential. A dog’s particular characteristics are more important than its breed. “Look for a dog that is independent yet sociable, tractable, eager to learn, agile, and fearless,” she says. “And has a good nose!”

Step 4: EARN “THE PAYCHECK”

While a handler’s motivation is abstract – help the community, save lives, bring a loved one home to their family – dogs are motivated by food and play. Search and rescue training is built around the “paycheck” of a treat or some tug of war as a reward for performing tasks. Training a dog to certification level typically requires one to two years, when working at it part time, and involves activities like “runaways” which use the handler and a volunteer “subject” for the dog to find. “The subject runs away maybe 30 feet, which kicks in the dog’s natural prey drive even as they can still see the person,” Kakavas explains. Every time the dog goes to a subject, it is rewarded with a very vigorous playtime.  The distance gets longer and longer, until eventually the subject is out of the dog’s sight. The dog by this time understands the need to find a person in order to get their reward, thus naturally transitioning from sight to scent in order to go collect that paycheck.

“Training is essentially coupling the dog’s natural drives with a reward, over and over again until it’s deeply automatic,” says Kakavas. “Our dogs are searching for any human scent. No matter who is out there in the field, the dogs will find them, which we want: even if it’s not the missing person, it is someone who is a potential witness.”

Step 5: DON’T FORGET TO HAVE FUN

Doing searches, which can be long and grueling, must also be fun for both dog and handler. Especially the dogs: if it’s not fun, they simply won’t do it. Fortunately, says Kakavas, search and rescue is the canine equivalent of a big game of hide and seek. And the handler? “Just watching that dog do a job it is born to do, just the way you’ve trained them to do it – that is the human paycheck.”

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

1. Dog treat or toy, depending upon your dog’s preference
2. A GPS, compass, and map
3. Working knowledge of search strategy
4. Spirit of fun and adventure

By The Numbers

Amount of area searched: Anywhere from a few hundred square feet to 80 acres.

Number of years Kakavas has been training dogs and doing rescue and recovery: 14.

Furthest Kakavas has ever traveled to do a search: 3,500 miles, searching for a lost hiker in Peru.

Number of searches Kakavas and Z have done in their five years of working together: more than 50.

– Michelle Gienow

UMBC alumni work to preserve and present history for broad audiences in Maryland and beyond.

By Max Cole

UMBC’s history department is the only one in Maryland that offers a graduate track in public history. Students who take courses in public history learn that it is a unique profession that requires a unique approach to research and interpretation. Each course creates opportunities for students to engage in work on real projects with real partners, which in turn helps prepare them to enter the workforce upon graduation.

“Public history is a form of public service,” says Denise Meringolo, an associate professor of history at UMBC and director of the public history program. “Public historians help create historical understanding by sharing authority and inquiry with a variety of partners.”

“At UMBC, graduate students in public history develop a portfolio of work, produced in class and in internships that demonstrates they have a marketable set of skills, most importantly including experience in community-based public history practice.”

UMBC students who go into public history careers understand the importance of rooting their work and research in the communities they serve. They preserve and present history for broad, non-academic audiences, and they strive to relate historic objects, materials, sites and places to everyday people to make them understand their significance and value. Above all, they have an appreciation for what they do and a passion for history that often starts at a young age.

Smelling the Campfire

When Jim Bailey was seven years old, he witnessed his first historical re-enactment at New Market Battlefield in Virginia. He remembers it as the moment he decided he wanted to work in public history.

“A living historian let me try on his coat and hold his musket. I could see the camps and I could smell the campfires,” remembers Bailey. “I remember as a child just being enthralled by everything I was hearing, seeing and smelling.”

Bailey ’03, history, and ’08 M.A., historical studies, now works as a park ranger and volunteer coordinator at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. As park ranger, Bailey presents interpretive programs, serves as historic weapons supervisor, and coordinates the living history volunteer program with the Fort McHenry Guard.

As a student of history and having grown up in nearby Catonsville, Bailey understands the significance of Fort McHenry to Baltimore and American history, and each day on the job he interacts with visitors from across the globe.

“In an age when we are addicted to our smartphones and everything moves so quickly, we have visitors here that don’t necessarily understand the War of 1812, let alone the Battle of Baltimore,” Bailey observes.

“Two hundred years ago is incredibly remote,” he continues, “so how do you engage people in a meaningful way and make a connection? That’s what interpretation is all about.”

Bailey says if visitors can think of the War of 1812 and its impact on American history, he has done his job.

“When you’re walking up on the fort walls and you begin to contemplate what happened there, it’s powerful. When you start to hear fifes and drums on the parade ground, and see soldiers marching and sergeants shouting out commands and can see them drilling just as they did 200 years ago…the fort becomes alive like it wasn’t 20 minutes ago. Those are things that stay with you for the rest of your life.”

Family Ties

Many UMBC history alumni have their own personal story — something they can point back to as being a stepping-stone for where they are now.

For Robert Bennett, it started with a research paper about a historical aspect of his family he produced as a student at UMBC.

Bennett ’12, history and ancient studies, is executive director of the William Brinton 1704 Historic House in West Chester, Pa. He landed the job through his research paper on the Bennett family, in which he discovered he was descended from English Quakers who helped colonize Pennsylvania in the mid-1680s. In the course of his research, he discovered that the descendants of this family owned and operated a historic house and museum dating back to 1704 in West Chester.

Eventually, Bennett found that his seven times great grandfather built the housewith his brother-in-law in 1704.

“Whenever I come here to the house, it makes me think about my seven times great grandfather and grandmother,” says Bennett. “It’s very personal for me. When I come here, it’s like coming home.”

As executive director, Bennett cleans and maintains historic objects at the home, maintains records, organizes volunteers, presents tours and coordinates events throughout the year. In all his work, he tries to make visitors understand his strong, personal connection to the historic home with the goal of having it resonate in their own lives.

“UMBC taught me that if you can find the personal connection or the human touch in a historical document, object or artifact, then you can relate to it better,” says Bennett. “If you can relate to it, you can relate it to others in that way.”

Bringing History to Life

UMBC’s history department teaches students research, interpretation, communication and writing skills, all of which are necessary to be a successful public historian.

Allison Seyler combines all of those skills in the day-to-day work she does as a research archivist at the Maryland State Archives.

Seyler describes her job as having three tiers: data mining, research and education. Seyler ’10, history and French, and ’12 M.A., historical studies, works on the grant-funded Legacy of Slavery in Maryland project. Focusing on five counties on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Seyler researchers newspapers, advertisements and government records from the 19^th century to create biographical sketches or case studies on slaves, slave owners and fugitives living on the Eastern Shore.

“It’s all about these individual stories we are rediscovering,” says Seyler. “They didn’t go anywhere. These stories are there. We just have to bring light to them. We illuminate these people’s struggles and their experiences because they’re worthwhile. They have value. They’re important to the American story and the Maryland story.”

In addition to using her research and writing skills to produce case studies, Seyler presents her findings to a variety of audiences: teachers, students at all levels, and even descendants of Eastern Shore families who have lived there for centuries.

“This is the human experience,” explains Seyler. “Who is to say that’s not important?”

When the Light Bulb Goes Off

While many alumni who are now working as public historians thoroughly enjoy their jobs, it is important to understand how much of the work can be a time-consuming challenge, especially in a managerial role at a national museum.

When Alice Donahue first started working at the National ElectronicsMuseum in Linthicum, her first job was to project manage the opening of a new gallery about the introduction to concepts and principals of electronics.

“When I came in, I had to literally cut half the words [for interpretive displays],” says Donahue ’05, history, and ’08 M.A., historical studies. “When you take historiography at UMBC, you need to be able to reduce the argument of a 400-page book to one page. That skill definitely translated to exhibit writing.”

As the museum’s assistant director, Donahue manages the museum’s collection and volunteer program. She brings in new objects, organizes and cleans objects on display, and maintains mountains of paperwork on them noting where they came from and why they are important.

The museum helps people understand how electronics and communications have evolved, which makes the job worthwhile for Donahue.

“Public history is about making history that people care about. How do I pick which words people are going to care about and what about this history makes them understand themselves and their experience better?” says Donahue, describing the challenges of her job.

“When the light bulb goes off and people realize they knew more than they thought they did and the world is suddenly bigger and their role in it is bigger…it cements their place in history and that is what I really enjoy.”

It’s Not Just About the History

As demonstrated by several UMBC alumni working at International Mapping Company in Ellicott City, one doesn’t necessarily need to major in history to pursue a career in the public history field.

International Mapping creates interactive maps, applications, signage, videos andother materials to enhance the user’s experience while visiting historic sites, national parks or even studying history in the classroom.

“We specialize in displaying geographic information for people so they can better understand it,” explains Dan Przywara ’94, geography, and director of sales and marketing at the company. “It’s one thing to read a word and try to visualize what happened. It’s another thing to actually see something and be able to comprehend it from that image.”

International Mapping has worked on projects from Maine’s Acadia National Park to Harpers Ferry National Historic Park and beyond. Twelve employees of the company are UMBC alumni representing majors from geography and visual arts to computer science. While much of the work involves advanced technical skills, employees still need to have strong research, writing and analytical skills, all of which are the foundation of what goes into producing compelling public history.

“With a historical map video, I have to research historical events in order to map them properly, so it combines a lot of other skills – both technology and general research knowledge,” says Kevin Lear ’85, geography, who is senior project manager at International Mapping and recently completed a video history project on the Korean War.

“We know the skills that UMBC alumni have when they get here can transfer to our company,” explains Przywara. “With the range of skills that we require, UMBC provides that.”

People and Community

Graduates of UMBC’s public history program and other related majors are prepared to enter the workforce with a full complement of skills that will enable them to contribute to preserving and presenting history for decades to come.

Whether it’s creating digital maps, presenting re-enactments or leading tours, alumni are prepared for a variety of jobs in public history. However, there is one common thread that is taught at UMBC that carries over into the everyday work: it’s all about people and community.

“It is truly crucial for public historians to understand that the questions guiding their research and the interpretive products they produce must be rooted in the communities they serve,” says Denise Meringolo. “Otherwise, they will be insignificant and unimportant.”

The desire to serve the community is evident with public history alumni, and perhaps more powerful is the fact that many of them wish to continue giving back.

“As a graduate of the program, I thought it was so enriching and well put together, I want to stay involved in that community,” says Alice Donahue. “We want to keep giving back. We got so much from the program, and we want to continue to help the next generation to keep getting that.”

Rubin Rakovsky was an in-house auditor for a multinational accounting firm, but wasn’t happy with his job. “I was just a number there,” he says. “I wanted to feel like I was part of something.”

Rakovsky’s search for a more satisfying position led him to Elliot Lasson ’87, psychology. Lasson, the executive director of Joblink of Maryland, helped match him with a small real estate investment fund in Laurel that satisfied the young accountant’s desire to meet new people and participate in multiple aspects of the business.

“Employment is so central to who people are,” says Lasson, who moved into the leadership role at the Baltimore-based nonprofit six years ago. “[Rakovsky] was at a place in his life where he needed a change, and I was in a place I could help.”

Lasson traces his own interest in a career in human resources to his father, who was a clinical psychologist. He wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, but sought to apply that curiosity about human behavior to a business environment.

As an undergraduate at UMBC, Lasson was able to meld his dual interests by concentrating his course work on organizational psychology – the scientific study of human behavior in the workplace.

“I tend to be a very focused person. I determine where I want to go and I find a path to get there. I didn’t feel I needed to turn back or second guess. I knew what I wanted,” says Lasson, who lives in Baltimore’s Mount Washington neighborhood with his wife, Sheryl.

Lasson also received a master’s degree and a doctorate in organizational psychology at Wayne State University in Detroit. He worked for private firms in Michigan and Maryland, and eventually for the state of Maryland, where he heard through some friends that Joblink was looking for a new leader.

He recalls liking how the organization – which works primarily works with members of the state’s Jewish community but is open to all – was still young and growing.

“I saw an opportunity to build something there,” says Lasson, who also earned a second bachelor’s degree in Talmudic Studies from Ner Israel College in Pikesville while attending UMBC.

Joblink has helped more than 400 people find new jobs since he took over – and has provided assistance to another 2,400 people seeking work. All of Joblink’s services are free to job applicants, employers and search firms. Lasson says that one key is to look beyond resumes and minimum job requirements, and take into account an applicant’s personality and goals, as well as the business’ culture, when matching job seekers with prospective employers.

Lasson identifies a few key elements for a successful job search. He urges job seekers to develop new skills by volunteering in a preferred field or helping with projects outside their current department. They should focus on “portable skills,” especially in computers.

“That is really critical,” says Lasson, who also serves as a member of the Governor’s Workforce Investment Board, a panel that advises the state’s executive branch on how to best address Maryland’s workforce needs. “Tech skills are a prerequisite for most jobs these days,” he says.

Lasson has also extended his vision to higher education, and has returned to UMBC to teach graduate-level psychology courses as an adjunct professor.

“He’s got a soft spot for this school it seems,” says Ted Rosen, director of UMBC’s industrial/organizational psychology master’s program. “He is really dedicated to his students and they really appreciate him.”

Lasson says it’s been especially hard to find people good jobs the past few years, “but with a little luck I can usually help. I find it very gratifying.”

There is hope that comes along with the hard work, he adds. “People should never give up,” he says. “Keep looking.”

– Scott Daugherty ’02

UMBC Athletics Director Tim Hall Lays Out His Program for the Future of Retriever Fever

Interview by Richard Byrne ’86

When Tim Hall was appointed director of athletics, physical education and recreation in July 2013, he had some big shoes to fill. Longtime director Charles Brown had led UMBC’s program for 24 years, solidifying and growing the program’s Division I successes while keeping the department true to UMBC’s mission of emphasizing both sides of the student-athlete experience.

Yet in Hall’s first semester, he had the chance to oversee the ascent of UMBC men’s and women’s soccer to simultaneous 2013 America East conference championships and (in the case of the men’s team), lofty national rankings that have been rare for past UMBC teams.

Before coming to UMBC, Hall was director of athletics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) for six years, and he helped propel UMKC to new heights at the NCAA Division I level in athletic competitiveness, academic success, fund-raising and community service efforts.  He has also worked at Kent State University, Eastern Kentucky University, St. Xavier College and Youngstown State University.

Interviewed recently in his office in the Retriever Activities Center, Hall radiated a quiet intensity of purpose – both in embracing the priority to balance academic and athletic success articulated by UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, and making plans to take UMBC athletics to even greater success by involving its alumni and the wider community.

What have you learned about UMBC athletics and the school spirit of the university in your first year on campus?

Tim Hall: Certainly our mascot, “True Grit,” is appropriate. The word “grit” is associated with UMBC as an institution, and it’s synonymous with our athletics department, too. We’re a relatively young institution, and there’s a growing amount of school spirit. Our colors – black and gold – resonate with alumni. We have pockets of very strong support and spirit.

We are working to engender a stronger sense of pride in the university through our athletics programs: primarily men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s lacrosse. And a stronger sense of pride in the success of our athletics program I think will bode well for having a stronger sense of overall school spirit.

How do you assess where our athletics program is at the present moment? What challenges do we face as a university?

The landscape of college athletics is changing a great deal. We’ve gone through a massive overhaul of the legislative process and NCAA governance structure. The big five conferences – about 65 institutions – really are going to control, by and large, the governance structure and process. The word used a lot in anticipation of these changes is “permissive” – which means if you have the resources to do it, you can do it. There is going to be a lot of deregulation.

What it’s going to mean for UMBC as a smaller, mid-major division one program is that we’re going to have to prioritize our expenditures. We need to talk about return on investment – and, as I always say, return on objective. What are our major objectives? Our funding will have to be in line with those objectives if we’re going to realize success.

We love all of our sports at UMBC, but as an NCAA Division I-AAA school – which means we don’t sponsor football – our best opportunities for revenues are in soccer, lacrosse and basketball – primarily basketball, though. And for us to realize revenues from those sports, we have to put teams on the field that are competitive and can win more than they lose. You have to make sure that you have the coaches and the student-athletes and the tools that they need to be successful: scholarships, equipment, and appropriate facilities, etc.

That doesn’t mean we don’t want baseball or tennis or track and field to be successful. We want all of our programs to be successful.

You mentioned pockets of spirit and support. How does UMBC athletics build on that?

One of my initiatives as we put our strategic plan for UMBC athletics together is to grow and to engender more of a sense of pride from all constituencies, but specifically from our former student athletes.

When I got to UMBC last year, I was able to discern fairly quickly that our former student-athletes are very active within their own particular sports. For example, former lacrosse players come back to Homecoming and interact just with former teammates at lacrosse-specific functions. Soccer, the same. Tennis, the same. The phrase “siloed” would probably be accurate.

What we want to do is tear down some of the silos. We want to say: “Yes, your sport is important, but there’s strength in numbers. A rising tide raises all ships. We want you to come to events that are athletic department-wide and institution-wide.”

What opportunities are presented for UMBC athletics by the new facilities in the works right now – especially the new Events Center that is planned for 2017?

From an organizational perspective, having the new Events Center will allow us to move nearly all of our varsity programs to that facility. All of our coaches’ offices and all of our support units for intercollegiate athletics will be housed there. This move will allow us to then have the RAC refurbished to become specifically a facility for recreation and wellness and club sports, which would be more consistent with other similar universities. That’s a big growth step in our maturation process in the areas of athletics, recreation and physical education.

And, again, our basketball program has to be successful for us to be successful as a department, so having a venue that’s going to be one of the finest of its kind in the mid-Atlantic region will give us a recruiting advantage from as far north as Boston to as far south as Florida. Having this new state-of-the-art venue will put us in a different conversation in terms of prospective student athletes that we could recruit to UMBC.

You can’t be successful in getting new facilities and growing an intercollegiate athletic program without the support of the university’s leadership. President Hrabowski and Dr. Nancy Young, vice president of student affairs, want to see a very strong and vibrant athletics program, and we have aligned our activities based on the success of the student first, and the athlete second – but a real close second – to prepare them for graduation and to be future leaders of our society. I think that that’s really where we keep our focus.

What does UMBC offer to recruits by that strong emphasis on both elements of the term “student-athlete”? In an economy where recent graduates continue to struggle, is there an advantage in taking in the whole person, and being able to say: “This is a place where you’re going to compete and where you’re going to excel and be prepared to do almost anything?”

I believe that success in athletics and success in academics are not mutually exclusive. You can be successful and balanced in both.

We talk to our coaches all the time about finding student who fit in at UMBC academically, athletically and socially. If any one of those three is not present, then it probably won’t be the right fit for a young person. I think the three of them really go together. You spend a lot of time with your teammates as an athlete, you spend a lot of time with them pursuing academics, and then there’s some of that time that’s also social. You want to make sure that you’re maximizing each one of those facets of the university experience.

It’s rigorous to be a division one athlete. There are the maximum mandated hours that the NCAA allows you to practice and compete, but then there’s also the training that you do during the off season to keep yourself in peak physical shape.

If you put in the student piece, and then the athlete piece, and also put in the social “enjoy your college experience” piece, it doesn’t leave you a lot of time to prepare to enter the working world. We must find creative ways for internships, externships, shadowing opportunities, summer jobs, so that our young people are tangibly prepared to enter the workforce.

We partner with our Career Services Center to ensure that our student-athletes have all of the appropriate preparation that they need to be successful when they have graduated so that they are prepared to enter into the working world. I think that’s something we do very well here.

Where do alumni fit in to where you see UMBC athletics headed?

Alumni play a very integral role. They are crucial to our future success. You have to have alumni – that group of individuals that have come before – to really show that sense of unity, that sense of family, that sense of school spirit and pride to (and for) current and future student-athletes.

Over the coming three to five years, we’re implementing an aggressive strategic plan that has a strong external component to it. One of our highest priorities is further connecting and reconnecting athletic alumni to really be involved with our athletic department and our university at a level that’s commensurate with their personal and professional situation. If we’re successful, it will be through the support of those alums – their time, talent and treasure – that will give us the margin of excellence.

And when I say time, talent and treasure, we really need all three. For example, we need alums to give of their time to volunteer as part of an alumni mentoring program, where they can also manifest their talent. But we’re also going to need treasure. We’re going to need alums to step up and give – to say yes to our funding initiatives – whether they are facility-related or scholarship-related initiatives. There’s a direct correlation between alumni involvement and alumni investment and successful athletic programs.

And as the university looks to celebrate its 50th where does athletics fit in? And finding those special moments in the history of our athletic department and really celebrating those and using those as a launching pad for the next 20 to 30 to 50 years, I think is going to be really important.

Hopefully our success comes in terms of being able to recruit the right young men and women here to win championships, and graduate many fantastic, well-prepared young people who go on to be leaders of our society and contribute to the betterment of our world.

As an athletics department we don’t determine what our brand is: our constituencies determine what our brand is. And from an athletics perspective, I don’t think, in the past, we’ve been as consistent with our messaging as we need to be. What our alumni and our various constituencies will see going forward is, number one, more consistency in our messaging, and then, number two, that our messaging will be very closely aligned with that of the broader university.

INSPIRED CHOICE

Julia M. Ross’ path to becoming the new dean of UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) was paved by numerous achievements as a scholar and an academic leader. But it is a deep commitment to breaking down disciplinary boundaries, ensuring graduate student success, and increasing diversity in the fields encompassed by her college that have characterized her time at UMBC.

Ross arrived at the university in 1995, rising eventually to become Constellation Professor of Information Technology and Engineering at UMBC. In 2011, under her leadership as chair, UMBC’s chemical and biochemical engineering department merged with the civil and environmental engineering department to create a single entity. (Ross remains a professor in the new chemical, biochemical, and environmental engineering department.)

The new dean has a stellar record of scholarship in bioengineering and engineering education, and is the author or co-author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. In 2013, Ross received a prestigious American Council on Education fellowship, which is the nation’s premier higher education leadership development program. During that year, Ross worked with Jay Perman, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

At UMBC, Ross also served as special assistant to the provost for inter-institutional research initiatives and was instrumental in enhancing research relationships and collaborations between UMBC and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, including the development of the universities’ joint seed grant program.

Another initiative that Ross has helped spearhead is the INSPIRES Curriculum – a program for high school students supported by the National Science Foundation and designed to promote interdisciplinary research in science and engineering education. The program’s acronym stands for “INcreasing Student Participation, Interest and Recruitment in Engineering and Science,” and the research team led by Ross began its work by building a curriculum that could be used in high school classrooms to teach engineering.

“We were trying to put something together that could be used by all students,” says Ross. “We’ve developed an engineering curriculum that is well suited for putting into science and technology classes. There are very few curricula for either that incorporate engineering. We were trying to develop something that was low cost and modular but still had real engineering in it.”

Ross and her colleagues recently received $3 million from the NSF to continue their work, and she believes the timing couldn’t be better. “Science standards have changed,” Ross observes, “and they now place engineering as part of the Next Generation Science Standards.”

“UMBC is very fortunate to have someone of Ross’s impressive experience and talent to serve as our next dean of the College of Engineering and Information Technology,” says Provost Philip Rous.

In her new role, Ross is seeking to attract top graduate students to the college. Yet she adds that her college also must focus on attracting and retaining just the sort of undergraduate students who may be inspired by the curriculum she has helped develop in high schools.

“We have to work to diversify the undergraduate population,” says Ross. “I’d love to see us exceeding the national average regarding minorities and women. And we also need to make sure that as students move through the college that they are progressing equally regardless of their backgrounds.”

– Nicole Ruediger

SAFER AND STRONGER

UMBC’s increasingly central role in strengthening our nation’s cybersecurity infrastructure – and its growing ability to collaborate with private industry in that effort – were highlighted in October by the announcement of the university’s participation in a new Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC).

The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – which promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve national quality of life – awarded a contract to operate the new center to the MITRE Corporation.

The center is the first to be dedicated solely to enhancing cybersecurity and protecting national information systems. MITRE will partner with the University System of Maryland (USM) to carry out the center’s goals, with UMBC and the University of Maryland, College Park as the essential collaborators in that effort. The contract to operate the center has maximum funding of $5 billion over 25 years.

“Securing our cyber infrastructure requires government, industry, and higher education to work closely together, and this center makes that powerful collaboration possible,” says UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III. “Further, it solidifies Maryland’s role as the hub of cybersecurity in our nation.”

Anupam Joshi (photo, left), director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, will serve in a leadership role for UMBC in the new project. Joshi says that “while national security interests are usually central to the security conversation, this center will also work to meet the cybersecurity needs of individuals and businesses in a variety of sectors, such as health care and energy. Individuals and small and medium-size businesses constitute a major part of the nation’s cyber-infrastructure, but can lack the resources and technical expertise to respond effectively to cyber threats.”

Geography – and the proximity of the USM and UMBC to a growing hub of activity in cybersecurity – also played a role in the award. The federal government sponsors fewer than 50 FFRDCs across the country, and all are designed to tackle complex, long-term problems of significant national interest. Maryland hosts a large number of federal agencies and companies on the cutting edge of cybersecurity, and the USM is nationally recognized for its research and education programs in the field.

U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski lauds the public-private collaboration created by the new project. “This new center unites the knowledge of the government with the know-how of the private sector,” she observes, “to develop cyber technology solutions needed to protect dot-com entities and make our cyber-infrastructure more resilient.”

This new center will support the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), established in 2012 by NIST, the state of Maryland, and Montgomery County to help businesses secure their data and digital infrastructure by bringing together information security experts from industry, government, and academia. The collaboration between the USM and MITRE will further the NCCoE’s goal to foster public-private collaborations to identify and solve today’s most pressing cybersecurity challenges.

“I am delighted about this new strategic collaboration with our colleagues at College Park and at MITRE,” says Karl Steiner, Vice President for Research at UMBC. “It will provide opportunities to further expand and apply our scientific capabilities in an area of such critical importance.”

– Dinah Winnick

CONTEMPLATING COMMUNITY

When Anne E. Brodsky won a national award in February 2014 for contributions to the field of community psychology, it came as no surprise to her students and colleagues at UMBC. Brodsky is a tireless scholar who has nurtured dozens of graduate and undergraduate researchers – all while working in collaboration with a range of social-service organizations in Baltimore and beyond.

Over the last 20 years, Brodsky has made creative use of narrative and other qualitative methods in her field. She also conducted extraordinary field work in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 2001 through 2007, including the study of an underground feminist organization there at a pivotal moment in the region’s history.

Brodsky, a professor of psychology, joined UMBC’s faculty in 1997. Her research initially focused on resilience and community-building among East Baltimore women affected by welfare reform. In 2000, however, Brodsky’s work took an unexpected turn when she met members of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) – a feminist organization that has resisted the Soviet, Taliban, and post-Taliban regimes since 1977 – at a conference in Baltimore.

“This was an organization that had never been able to come to the West, never been able to share its stories,” Brodsky recalls. “We put together an informal national tour, and for four months, they were in and out of my house.”

One morning not long after the tour, Brodsky says, “I woke up and thought, wait: Risk. Resilience. Women’s communities. I do this for a living.” She sent her RAWA contacts an e-mail message and, to her surprise, they were willing to have an American academic visit their clandestine sites in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Brodsky made her first visit in July and August of 2001, just weeks before the September 11 attacks, and returned for several more months in 2002. The resulting book, With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, was published by Routledge in 2003 and received strong reviews.

One major concept that Brodsky has attempted to formalize throughout her work is resilience – that is, the strengths that allow women to endure in contexts of risk and adversity. In both Afghanistan and East Baltimore, she and her colleagues have found, having children can serve as a protective factor, providing hope and motivation to persist even in extremely challenging climates.

Gitika Talwar, who is completing a doctorate in psychology at UMBC, is one of 13 past and present UMBC graduate students who have co-authored papers with Brodsky. “She has an amazing range of scholarly interests,” Talwar says. “I’m on the West Coast now studying Afghan immigrant communities, but we still make time every two or three weeks to talk about my research. She’s been very supportive the entire way.”

Brodsky is a former director of UMBC’s Gender and Women’s Studies program and is an associate dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

“Anne’s just top-notch,” says Kenneth Maton, a professor of psychology. “She asks really difficult and appropriate questions, and she brings to bear important theoretical perspectives. When she went to Afghanistan, that was an intellectual stretch and also a personal risk. But she’s always been determined to follow her intellectual passions.”

– David Glenn

STEPS TO THE FUTURE

Dance has been an integral part of the artistic and academic environment at UMBC since the university’s earliest days, and the completion of the second and final phase of university’s Performing Arts and Humanities Building (PAHB) is an opportunity for the entire community to reflect on the importance of the centrality of the arts in the UMBC experience.

The dance department at UMBC has long occupied a large and well-lit studio in the university’s Fine Arts Building. Over the years, thousands of UMBC students – be they dance majors or students who have woven the art into their academic life – have taken flight in that space.

The studio in Fine Arts that saw so much motion and energy over the last four decades is now in the process of an extensive remodeling and repurposing for other uses, but the new home for the dance department in the PAHB features a 120-seat dance studio and a separate dance technology studio.

The opening of the second phase of the PAHB – which was formally commemorated at a ceremony in October – concluded a transition that encompassed not only UMBC’s dance department, but also its music, philosophy and ancient studies departments. The new phase of the building also includes a 350-seat concert hall, a new rehearsal hall, a recording studio for the music department, and an archaeology lab that is central to the continuing teaching mission of UMBC’s ancient studies department.

– Richard Byrne