Every student at UMBC?

grrlpower:

Yes, THE Otis Redding! by AOK Library & Gallery, UMBC on Flickr.

Oh my. And Otis performed at the predecessor of Quadmania.

Okay… we know the debate on abortion can get a little crazy around the country.

But a recent debate on abortion rights in Georgia kicked crazy up a notch.

State rep.Terry England  got a case of Foot-in-Mouth disease when he spoke to defend bill 954 in the Georgia state legislature. The bill would move the limit on legal abortions in Georgia up six weeks to the 20 week mark.

Representative England, when asked why the bill makes no exception for women whose fetuses are stillborn, demonstrated the depth of his compassion and understanding for women in this sad situation.

He explained these women should carry the dead child for the full term of the pregnacy noting he has been emotionally devastated by helping his cows deliver stillborn calves.

No, seriously.

Advocates of the bill defend the measure as a necessary way to protect unborn fetuses from feeling pain (current studies suggest the structures in the brain necessary to perceive pain do not function until eleven weeks after the current legal abortion limit).

Rep Doug McKillip argues the bill will, “save 1,000 to 1,500 lives”.

Opponents point out that the bill currently offers no exceptions for stillbirths, cases of rape or incest, or for mothers whose medical condition is discovered after the twenty week mark.

Others simply feel the bill is an unnecessary invasion into the privacy of doctor and patients.

Dr. Ruth Cline, an obstetrician said,

“It is time for the government to get out of my examination room and my office. If you legislators want to practice medicine, go to medical school”.

Cows and controversy aside, bill 954 has passed in the Georgia house and is set to be reviewed by the state senate.

Photo courtesy www.midatlanticccdc.org

This weekend, UMBC’s Cyber Defense club, the Cyberdawgs, will be one of eight schools vying for the win at the CyberWatch Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) Regional Finals. The competition, the first of its kind to focus on the operational aspects of protecting and managing an existing “commercial” network infrastructure, will take place at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab from March 14–18, according to the CCDC website.

“I always get excited for these types of competitions,” says Marc Warfield, president of the Cyberdawgs. A Junior Information Systems major, Warfield hopes to eventually pursue a career in software development with a focus in network and computer security. “I enjoy the field because it’s so dynamic and keeps everyone on their toes.”

In late February, Warfield and his teammates competed against twenty-five schools during a three-hour virtual qualifying round. “We had to secure five different virtual machines and complete tasks that they assigned us during the three hours of scoring,” he explains.

Now only eight schools from the region are left; among them Towson University, Capitol College, and Howard County Community College. Warfield and seven of his teammates will represent UMBC. “We sadly didn’t make it to regionals last year, so it feels good to make it there this year,” he says. “I’m excited to meet people that are already working in the field and considered to be “rockstars” in the computer security discipline.”

Conceived in 2006, the CCDC is funded by CyberWatch, an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Center. Since then, the center’s mission has been to “improve the quantity and quality of the nation’s information assurance (IA) workforce,” says the website.This year, the competition’s theme is “Healthcare IT.” During the competition, the teams must “ensure the systems supply the specified services while under attack from a volunteer Red Team" and  “satisfy periodic “injects” that simulate business activities IT staff must deal with in the real world.”

Warfield explains that his preparation strategy includes “Redbull and long weekend nights.” “We practice securing machines and setting up web applications along with learning to configure them,” he says.  

This year’s CCDC is the first to include a Speaker Symposium that’s free and open to the public. Kicking off Wednesday morning, the symposium features founder and CEO of Oculis Labs, Bill Anderson with a speech entitled “Causes of Data Breaches in Healthcare? Just Look Around,” and Larry Pesce and Darren Wigley, members of the PaulDotCom Security Weekly podcast, whose presentation is called “MEDIC! Building and Rules of the 2012 Badges.”

If Warfield and his teammates place in the competition this weekend, they will make it to the National competition which will take place in San Antonio, Texas in mid-April. Schools currently slated to compete in the Nationals include the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the Air Force Academy, UNC Charlotte, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Texas A&M University.

Courtesy of The American

On Monday, one million women received mail from Obama.

Why? As women’s rights has been under the attack of certain political pundits, Obama’s new health care law coming under review by the Supreme Court…

And a Re-election right around the corner, the President thought, why not knock out three birds with one stone?

Obama’s ratings have improved over the last few weeks due to the recent controversy over women’s health care:

Women 30 to 55 are always the most important target in health care,’ said Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster who helps conduct the Journal/NBC poll. ‘They’re caregivers, taking care of children and parents, and are more engaged and active in the health care system, more than any other age and gender. It’s not surprising they’d be a target of the Obama administration and campaign on this issue.

The Supreme Court decision is expected to be a heated and historical one with a lot riding on Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion. In the past, a politically divided court such as our current one has provided close and controversial decisions.

Roberts will preside over the arduous three-day debate that decides the fate of the mandate beginning on March 26th.

Next fall, a new scholarship program geared toward transfer students majoring in technology fields will offer ten students the support—both financial and otherwise—that they need. It’s called T-SITE (Transfer-Scholarships in Information Technology and Engineering), and similar to the previous SITE (Scholars in Information Technology and Engineering) program, is supported by an NSF S-STEM grant.

The program is the brainchild of a team of seven women sprinkled throughout IT and Engineering departments in the College of Engineering and Information Technology at UMBC. Dr. Penny Rheingans, Director of the Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) and a professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, is the Principal Investigator for the project. Five professors will serve as faculty mentors for the future scholars: Dr. Marie desJardins (Computer Science), Dr. Gymama Slaughter (Computer Engineering), Dr. Anne Spence (Mechanical Engineering), Dr. Taryn Bayles (Chemical, Biochemical, and Environmental Engineering), and Dr. Carolyn Seaman (Information Systems). Dr. Susan Martin, the Associate Director of CWIT, has been reaching out to Maryland community colleges and will teach a transfer student seminar for the selected scholars. “I don’t think any of us could do it without the others,” says Dr. Rheingans of her team of dedicated collaborators.

“It’s particularly hard for transfer students to really become an integrated part of the community,” says Dr. Penny Rheingans. Transfer students often are at a disadvantage because they miss out on all the orientating activities showered on freshman, she explains. As a result, they’re less aware of campus resources and tend to feel disconnected from the campus community. T-SITE aims to change all that.

Starting in the fall of 2012, the grant will award ten financially needy transfer students with partial scholarships: $6,700 each, capped by an individual student's financial need. Eligible students must intend to major in one of the five IT or Engineering majors: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, and Information Systems. In addition to financial support, future T-SITE scholars will be warmly integrated into the CWIT Scholars community, where they can take advantage of its outpouring of resources and community events.  

“We are leveraging CWIT to make this work and we’re taking advantage of CWIT infrastructure. It’s an extension of CWIT in that we’re looking at it as a vehicle for increasing diversity in these fields,” says Dr. Rheingans. “Not just gender,” she adds, “but gender’s what we’re particularly good at.”

Like the CWIT program, T-SITE won’t limit the scholarship pool by gender. “We would want men that we bring in as part of the T-SITE program to be supportive of increasing gender diversity,” says Dr. Rheingans. “Having allies that believe in the mission is part of what makes it work.”

Dr. Rheingans’ experience with the successes of the CWIT and SITE programs makes her confident that the T-SITE programs will give its scholars a leg up. “The support network makes a huge difference,” says Dr. Rheingans, who explains that the CWIT and SITE programs had nearly 90% retention in the major compared to the nationwide statistic of around 50%.

In addition to community support, the team has conceived a transfer student transition seminar to ensure that T-SITE scholars have the means to make a smooth transition. Taught by Dr. Martin, the seminar will have students connect with campus resources, identify and apply for internships, develop a career portfolio, learn about their own leadership styles, practice collaboration, and get insights from industry speakers. “The real purpose is to help them with the transition to UMBC and to address the professional development issues that are on the minds of transfer students,” says Dr. Martin.

Dr. Martin has been collaborating with UMBC’s Transfer Student Alliance to reach out to Montgomery College, the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC), and Prince George’s Community College for help identifying qualified students. Application materials are available on the CWIT website and transfer students entering UMBC for the Fall 2012 semester must apply by April 20, 2012. The scholarship committee—made up of the band of five faculty mentors, Dr. Rheingans, and Dr. Martin—will then interview candidates to select the first cohort of ten T-SITE scholars.

Though the current NSF grant will support the T-SITE program for three years (30 students in all), Dr. Rheingans hopes the program will extend well beyond that. “This is something for which the need will not go away,” she says about supporting transfer students. Though the renewal of the program into future years isn’t a certainty, chances are that when the time comes, the team will re-submit a proposal to seek further funding. “It’s hard to imagine not wanting to do that.”

Luke 5:1-11 (NIV)

¹ One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. ² He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³ He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

⁴ When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

⁵ Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

⁶ When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. ⁷ So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

⁸ When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” ⁹ For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰ and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” ¹¹ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

Reflection:

The sea in this story is the place where the disciples’ faith in Jesus ‘began.’ It’s evident from Simon’s response that he wasn’t 100% certain what would result from simply trusting and obeying Jesus’ command to let down his net.But the result was a catch of fish so huge that their nets began to break and boats began to sink.More so, towards the end of the passage we see that Simon and his companions pulled their boats to shore, left everything and followed Jesus.The disciples knew Jesus had something more to life than what they could have imagined.Jesus did and does.

Response:

Like many of our stories, God stepped into Simon’s life and did something unique and amazing.Let’s spend some time remembering and thanking God for all of those times.Let’s pray for our missional groups and campuses that we, like the disciples, would respond to the amazing love of our Lord by continuing to trust Him with everything and follow His leading and voice alone.