Dance & Bmore Seeks Outstanding Dancers for 2025 Season

Dance & Bmore, is seeking dynamic dancers for our 2025 season. Dance and Bmore is a Baltimore based ensemble of dancers, musicians, and theater-makers under the direction of award winning artist, CJay Philip. Their performances are a dynamic fusion of contemporary dance, live music, vocals, and spoken-word that invite audiences to participate and celebrate light.

Hi there,

I am UMBC student looking for roommates. I have two rooms for rent 12 minutes away from UMBC Main Campus, Catonsville. I'm looking for quiet and responsible roommates to share a town house with. The two rooms (unfurnished) in a fully furnished townhouse are available to rent from January 15, 2025. You can furnish the room to your taste and style, just as you wish. Please do check some attached photos of the property and rooms below.

• 12 mins drive from UMBC Main Campus.
  
• The rent is negotiable based on your choice of a room.

Amenities:

Rent:

• $700 per month
• $700 Deposit

Available from January 15, 2025.

If you are interested or have any questions, please email ofaniyi1@umbc.edu for more details.

Reposted from the International Student and Scholar Services page.

We are looking for a small cohort of students to participate in UMBC’s Intercultural Engagement Prep program in Spring 2025. This program is designed to grow your intercultural competency and skills. 

This program is open to:

• International students

• Future or returned study abroad students

• Students interested in applying to the Peace Corps after graduation

• Students who have an interest in preparing for other international or intercultural experiences

• Students who want to prepare themselves as global citizens in a multicultural world 

As a participant in the Intercultural Engagement Prep pilot program, you will:

• Meet other globally-minded students at UMBC;

• Develop your critical analytical skills;

• Increase your cultural self-awareness and critically reflect on your own unconscious bias;

• Develop strategies to improve your intercultural communication and how you’ll apply it in your future career;

• Recognize cultural differences, commonalities, perceptions, power and privilege dynamics, and how they can lead to conflict; and

• Understand the importance of intercultural dialogue and intercultural citizenship competencies for fostering social justice.

This non-credit/no-fee course, PRAC 103 (course # 6928), will meet twice in the Spring 2025 semester at a mutually agreeable time, but the majority of the course is accessed through asynchronous learning. Students will be required to attend two globally themed events or activities and will also have independent assignments to complete in Blackboard. Upon successful completion of the program, participants will earn two digital badgestitled Increasing Cultural Self-Awareness and Reinforcing Intercultural Dialogue. 

You can register for the course under PRAC 103 and course number 6928.

For questions regarding this certification please contact Dr. Irina Golubeva at golubeva@umbc.edu.

UMBC’s Ethics Bowl team won third place at the 2024 Chesapeake Regional Ethics Bowl competition in December. The team competed at UMBC against 15 teams from the Mid-Atlantic region, all vying for one of three qualifying spots in the 2025 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl National Competition. UMBC will join Virginia Tech, first-place winner, Salisbury University, second-place winner, and 33 qualifying teams across the country at the national competition in February 2025.

“Activities like the Ethics Bowl engage students to think more critically about their own values and decisions, and thereby be better able to engage with those whose views differ,” says Jessica Pfeifer, associate professor of philosophy and department chair. “This will make them better scientists, doctors, programmers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, parents, and citizens.”

Six weeks before the competition, teams receive detailed information about the topics they will discuss, allowing them to prepare and strategize their arguments. Students must be ready to answer judges’ questions and defend their responses to the opposing team in just a few minutes. Each team competes in four preliminary rounds to advance to the semifinals and finals.

Greg Ealick, a philosophy lecturer, has coached the undergraduate team 15 years. He meets with the team year-round to hone their critical thinking skills, debate challenging ethical issues across all disciplines, and develop strategies for conveying their research respectfully and succinctly. Ealick knows what it takes to make it to the top. In 1988, Ealick ’89, philosophy, helped lead UMBC’s debate team to number one in the United States and to the Parliamentary Debate Association world finals in Australia, where he was ranked as the number one American speaker. Over the 15 years Ealick has coached the Ethics Bowl team, UMBC has qualified for nationals seven times, most recently in 2023 and 2020.

“Qualifying means a lot since it is a testament to all our hard work throughout the semester. We spent several hours each week preparing for these cases, which were sometimes incredibly difficult to hash out,” says Tafat Boudif, a political science junior. Boudif helps Retrievers engage with government, politics, and policy-making as a political engagement intern at UMBC’s Center for Democracy and Civic Life. She also serves on the Student Government Association’s Appeals Board. “There are also so many additional things that we have to take into account, such as tone, confidence, etc. So I’m super proud of our team for being able to juggle all these things against some pretty tough teams!”

This year’s achievement comes shortly after UMBC’s new Center for Ethics and Values, home to the UMBC Ethics Bowl team, announced it would be a new host in the national line-up for the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics regional competitions. The event was co-hosted by UMBC’s Department of Philosophy and made possible with over 50 former Ethics Bowl team members and community members who helped to run, moderate, and judge the tournament, which took place on December 7, 2024, in the Performing Arts and Humanities Building. 

This is what keeps former Ethics Bowl team member Stephanie Ferrone ’09, physics, returning to UMBC—her role as a coach. She notes that the skills she developed in Ethics Bowl continue to guide her thinking and communication as a physicist at the Underwater Electromagnetics Sensors branch of the Naval Surface Warfare Center.

“Coaching Ethics Bowl has been a joy; past the highs and lows of competition, there is a true delight in sitting in a room in the PAHB every week to help students talk through all aspects of Ethics Bowl, from Beauchamp’s principles of biomedical ethics to the importance of signposting in public speaking,” says Ferrone. “It’s even more meaningful of an experience to know how deeply this is likely to affect these students—this type of experience is one that shapes a college career and crafts friendships and connections that truly last.”

Learn more about UMBC’s philosophy department.