Do you remember these moments? Taking your last final ever, walking across the stage, saying goodbye to tests and teachers and school… forever. These are moments the class of 2014 is living right now. Some of us will, of course, pursue further education, while others will launch new careers. But whether we continue on with school or not, the learning will never stop. UMBC has taught us to be brave, to see the world in a different way, to think outside of the box, and to always embrace the student inside.

I guess they really mean it when they say time flies when you’re having fun. For the class of 2014 this saying cannot be any closer to the truth. For some it seemed to take forever and for others it just flew by; but for all of us, well, the end is finally here. As we look back, we know we have UMBC to thank for preparing us for whatever comes next – because even as this journey ends, another adventure is just beginning.

Editor’s note: Today we say goodbye to our amazing intern, Jessie Orsburn, class of 2014! We are incredibly proud of her and wish her all the best as she moves forward with the next step of her journey. We’re also thankful for all that she has done as a member of our team during her last semester at UMBC, and we’re excited to share with you one of her projects – a video on the experience of graduating from UMBC and becoming an alum that Jessie planned, shot, and edited during the final weeks of her internship. Thanks, Jessie!

UMBC senior tennis standout Kim Berghaus (Offenbach, Germany) was named to the 2014 America East Women’s Tennis All-Academic Team, the conference announced on May 23.

Through the fall 2013 semester, Berghaus had posted a 3.84 grade-point average in physics and with minors in economics and mathematics. She earned President’s List honors by posting a 4.0 GPA during three of her first seven semesters as a Retriever.

The co-captain of the 2014 squad received the athletic department’s Matt Skalsky Female Outstanding Scholar-Athlete Award, which goes to the highest-performing scholar-athlete.

Berghaus, who earned her degree at UMBC’s Commencement last week was accepted to the physics graduate programs at Johns Hopkins and U. Texas, but will defer enrollment to work in research at Harvard medical school for one year.

She won six consecutive matches at the top flight down the stretch to lead the squad to the conference semifinals and earned America East first team honors as a result.

Berghaus earns her second All-Academic Team award, having received the honor in 2012. She missed the 2013 season due to injury, but returned to post a 9-6 singles mark in her final campaign.

In response to the tragic shootings last week in Santa Barbara, California, WEAA’s The Marc Steiner Show hosted a segment discussing issues of male entitlement, misogyny and violence against women after reports surfaced that the gunman had acted in part out of intense frustration over rejection by women.

Kate Drabinski, a Lecturer of Gender and Women’s Studies and Director of the Women Involved in Learning and Leadership (WILL) program, participated in the discussion and commented on how masculinity may have played a role in the violence.    

“One thing that I think is really important in this moment is to also interrogate masculinity because this is about misogyny, but it’s also about the construction of masculinity,” Drabinski said. “What is it about the construction of masculinity that would make him feel like he wasn’t a real man?”

Other panelists included Igor Volsky, Managing Editor of ThinkProgress.org, John Bullock, Professor of Political Science at Towson University and A. Adar Ayira, Project Manager of the More in the Middle Campaign for Associated Black Charities and Facilitator and Analyst at Baltimore Racial Justice Action, a program of Fusion Partnerships.

To listen to the full segment that aired May 28 on The Marc Steiner Show, click here.

Maryland’s Democratic primary in the race for governor is less than a month away, and Public Policy Professor and Chair Donald Norris has been in the news frequently commenting on several aspects of the race.

Updated campaign finance reports were released showing Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown’s campaign raising more than $1.2 million since the General Assembly session ended in April with $4.15 million total in cash on hand. Attorney General Douglas Gansler and Del. Heather Mizeur’s campaigns were reported at having $3.1 million and $961,000 in the bank respectively.

Norris told The Washington Post that the disparity in fundraising among the candidates reflects the disparity in the polls: “It tells me that the folks that give money have already picked a winner,” he said.

Norris also told WJZ 13 that there has been little interest in this year’s governor’s race and commented on what it will take to win the Democratic primary: “Whoever is going to be able to turn out the vote in his or her campaign in an election that’s going to have a very, very low turnout,” he said.

Below is a complete list of media coverage:

Big Draw of Democratic Race for Governor Still Falls Short in Voter Interest (WJZ 13)
Brown leads Gansler, Mizeur in money race, latest Md. campaign finance reports show (Washington Post)
Brown raises more than $1 million in 6 weeks (Baltimore Sun)
Frosh holds big lead in money in bank in AG race (Baltimore Sun)
Gubernatorial Primer (Baltimore Jewish Times)
Attack ads running in Gansler and Brown Primary Campaigns for Governor (WJZ 13)

In a column published May 27 in The Baltimore Sun, Political Science Professor Thomas Schaller writes about increasing political campaign contributions from the country’s super wealthy and growing income inequality between members of Congress and those who they govern.

“Adjusted for inflation, a million dollars isn’t what it was a century or even a decade ago. So sure, at some point the Congress was bound to have a majority of millionaires,” Schaller wrote. “Yet, in a country where the 2012 median household income was $51,017 — and fell between 2011 and 2012 — there is something truly perverse about not only the rising inequality between the incomes and wealth of the masses and the elites who govern them, but the rising political inequality that follows.”

Schaller noted rising income inequality is becoming increasingly dwarfed by campaign contribution inequalities: “Last November, Americans celebrated the sesquicentennial of what is arguably the greatest political speech in our nation’s history: Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But President Lincoln’s closing line is increasingly obsolete. For we are fast transforming from a democracy that prides itself on a government of, by and for the people into a plutocracy based on government of, by and for rich people,” he wrote.

You can read the full column in The Baltimore Sun by clicking here.