Sometimes, recent grad Roderick Howard II ’10, acting and media communications studies, just isn’t himself.

But, that’s the life of an actor — especially one, like Howard, who portrays multiple roles with the Maryland Historical Society Players. One day he’s Christian Fleetwood, a free black man who fought in the Civil War and received a Medal of Honor for bravery. The next he’s Charles Ball, a sailor in the War of 1812.

Howard loves bringing history to life. He and other MHS Players were profiled in a recent story in the Hagerstown Herald-Mail. Read it here.

For Howard, who has been with MHS since 2011 and who recently took on additional duties as a teacher for school programs, especially at the elementary and middle school level, it is exciting to teach as an actor.

“I enjoy the people I work with; the opportunity to expand my knowledge in American history, especially Maryland history; and the honor to portray a historical figure (Fleetwood) who, hopefully, will become even more of a well-known figure amongst those who consider Maryland to be their home, especially African-Americans,” said Howard.

“I also enjoy the opportunity to interact with visitors of the Maryland Historical Society and audiences of our outreach performances. It’s always a pleasure to hear how much they enjoy our performances and/or tours; how interested and knowledgeable they are with history; and stories about how historical events have directly impacted their lives or their loved ones.”

And the job has proved just as educational for Howard, he says.

“My work there has certainly opened my eyes. As an African-American, I have grown an even greater appreciation for those before me, who proudly and willing fought for the liberties and freedoms of America, despite being denied those same liberties and freedoms in their own country.”

Read more about the Maryland Historical Society Players and their schedule of appearances here.

Have you caught the fever?  It is that time of year when UMBC spirit becomes contagious! This is Retriever Fever!

UMBC’s 2012 Homecoming celebration is just around the corner and there are so many ways that you can get connected to campus, get free stuff and be entertained all over the course of a week.  Events span the entire week of October 8^th (including  a spirit day complete with a homecoming preview, snow cones, popcorn and megaphones, t-shirt exchanges, bonfires and more!), but you can actually start your homecoming spirit now!

Each residential community is signed up for the Homecoming Banner Competition. As part of your Community Action Board, you can participate in developing and creating the winning campus banner that captures a great prize for your community! Banners will be judged on Friday, October 5^th so grab friends and roommates and get to work! Even if you don’t want to create the banner, you can always vote for the winner. You will probably want to vote for Residential Life as the best decorated department (did you know we won the “People’s Choice” award last year? We have a title to defend!) and of course your own community to win great prizes. Voting will be online between October 5^th and October 8^th.  In addition to Residential Life banners, this year’s homecoming will introduce the involvement of several other student organizations creating banners to be displayed in The Commons. Be on the lookout for some decorations out on the quad and Erickson field as well!

Artistic expression not your specialty?  There are about 40 other events that you can join.  A few of the events require additional expenses (comedy show featuring B.J. Novak) or advanced registration (Rob Magin 5K Dawg Chase), but most events are free. Plan ahead and take advantage of all these events right here in your community! You can help celebrate Dr. Hrabowski’s 20^th anniversary at the picnic on Saturday, laugh yourself silly with the star of the Office, or watch a movie out on the quad. Whatever you do, we wish you a happy Homecoming and a fun and safe week!

Introduction to OpenACC

Mark Ebersole, NVIDIA

1:00pm Thursday, 27 September 2012, ENG 005a

Modern GPUs have grown past their graphics heritage and evolved into the world's most successful parallel computing architecture. The introduction of this talk will briefly cover where the GPU came from and how it turned into this processing powerhouse. We will then look into how to access this power by using the relatively new standard called OpenACC. This method is a balance between the maximum flexibility you get by writing your own kernels and the ease of use you get using existing libraries. We will then end the lecture looking at the existing GPU Computing ecosystem that works well with OpenACC.

As CUDA Educator at NVIDIA, Mark Ebersole teaches developers and programmers about the NVIDIA CUDA parallel computing platform and programming model, and the benefits of GPU computing. With more than ten years of experience as a low-level systems programmer, Mark has spent much of his time at NVIDIA as a GPU systems diagnostics programmer in which he developed a tool to test, debug, validate, and verify GPUs from pre-emulation through bringup and into production. Before joining NVIDIA, he worked for IBM developing Linux drivers for the IBM iSeries server. Mark holds a BS degree in math and computer science from St. Cloud State University.

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Howard as “Christian Fleetwood,” Civil War soldier

Sometimes, recent grad Roderick Howard II ’10, acting and media communications studies, just isn’t himself.

But, that’s the life of an actor — especially one, like Howard, who portrays multiple roles with the Maryland Historical Society Players. One day he’s Christian Fleetwood, a free black man who fought in the Civil War and received a Medal of Honor for bravery. The next he’s Charles Ball, a sailor in the War of 1812.

Howard loves bringing history to life. He and other MHS Players were profiled in a recent story in the Hagerstown Herald-Mail. Read it here.

For Howard, who has been with MHS since 2011 and who recently took on additional duties as a teacher for school programs, especially at the elementary and middle school level, it is exciting to teach as an actor.

“I enjoy the people I work with; the opportunity to expand my knowledge in American history, especially Maryland history; and the honor to portray a historical figure (Fleetwood) who, hopefully, will become even more of a well-known figure amongst those who consider Maryland to be their home, especially African-Americans,” said Howard.

“I also enjoy the opportunity to interact with visitors of the Maryland Historical Society and audiences of our outreach performances. It’s always a pleasure to hear how much they enjoy our performances and/or tours; how interested and knowledgeable they are with history; and stories about how historical events have directly impacted their lives or their loved ones.”

And the job has proved just as educational for Howard, he says.

“My work there has certainly opened my eyes. As an African-American, I have grown an even greater appreciation for those before me, who proudly and willing fought for the liberties and freedoms of America, despite being denied those same liberties and freedoms in their own country.”

Read more about the Maryland Historical Society Players and their schedule of appearances here.