Erickson School Helps Launch Nation’s
First Elder ER

In partnership with aging experts from the Erickson School at UMBC, Holy Cross Hospital (Silver Spring, Md.) recently launched one of the nation’s first emergency medical centers designed specifically for older adults.

The Seniors Emergency Center at Holy Cross Hospital opened its doors November 5, 2008, featuring a specially designed environment to reduce patients’ anxiety and risk of falling. After a 90-day observation period and review of patient outcomes conducted with Erickson School researchers, the center becomes fully operational in February.

Erickson School faculty, including internationally renowned geriatrician Bill Thomas and long-term care reformer Judah Ronch, led a team of researchers in designing the Seniors Emergency Center and providing specialty training in geriatrics for Holy Cross medical staff.

Holy Cross Hospital is part of Trinity Health, the nation’s fourth-largest Catholic healthcare system. Holy Cross provided emergency care to over 12,000 seniors in its emergency centers and admitted over 5,700 to its hospital in 2008. The hospital projects a sharp increase in older patients during the next decade as the nation’s population of older adults increases.

The Erickson School at UMBC offers graduate and undergraduate degree programs in the Management of Aging Services and cutting-edge research through its Center for Aging Studies.

The Washington Post reports: “Serenity in Emergencies.”

(2/2/09)

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Photo Caption: Hillol Kargupta’s ideas to help airlines reduce their carbon footprint were honored with an IBM Innovation Award.

Hillol Kargupta logs thousands of frequent flier miles each year to do research, conduct business for a successful, global firm and to visit his family. But it was his quest to make those flights friendlier to the environment that recently won him a highly competitive IBM Innovation Award and a $20,000 grant.

Kargupta, an associate professor of computer science, is an expert on deep data mining in mobile environments. He is also the founder and president of Agnik, a company that pioneered the use of sensor technology to improve efficiency in ground transportation.

Now he’s looking to take his research and business skyward. And when the European Union includes aviation pollution in its ambitious cap-and-trade emissions market system next year, Kargupta hopes his sensors will analyze the data that makes Europe’s skies greener.

“Every second of flight burns about a gallon of fuel.” says Kargupta. Airplanes already have sensors that monitor and adjust fuel/air ratios to yield the best fuel economy, he observes, but analyzing that data for emissions purposes “is a chance to meet a real market need.”

The available information is staggering. New York’s JFK Airport, says Kargupta, produces a continuous stream of about 100 megabytes of data per minute. “Multiply that times all the world’s airports,” he continues, “and it equals a huge amount of data changing rapidly over a large area.”

Kargupta is enthusiastic about the daunting task, however: “It’s just the type of challenge we like at UMBC.”

Q. We’ve named this feature “Up on the Roof” because taking visitors up to the very top of the Administration Building is one of your trademarks as UMBC’s president. How did it begin?

– Richard Byrne ’86, English
Editor, UMBC Magazine

A. Actually, I’ll tell you the first person to take me there – and it’s a special memory. (Former president of UMBC) Michael Hooker took me there. He talked about the fact that the campus – prior to his coming – had been far more oriented towards Washington than Baltimore. The real question was: What should be our focus? And we decided at that time to balance the areas of focus. To talk about the fact that we are, in many ways, in the center of the corridor. When we go to one end of the roof, we see downtown Baltimore. When we go to the other end, we’re looking right into the driveway of the airport that is only 40 minutes from Washington. We had a conversation about the advantages of being connected to both metropolitan areas. Connected with the corporate community, with the cultural institutions, with the national science and health-care infrastructure, with the schools throughout the region.

So it became clear to me that the tour to the roof gave me the chance to make the point about our central location. To make the point about the development of the campus. To make the point about the connection between the campus and the broader community. And finally, going to the roof allows us to dream about the possibilities for UMBC.

Q. Do you remember the first person you took up there as president?

A. The Baltimore Sun. The day I was appointed president. They had been hearing that I said it was a great place to be, and they wanted to go up there and get a picture with me and the Baltimore skyline. And the photographer asked me to get on top of the ledge. And I was so young and naïve, and excited, that I began to climb up to the top of the ledge. And as I was getting ready to get over there, I thought about it and said: What am I doing? Because I’m really afraid of heights, by the way. And I said, “I will do many things for UMBC, but this is not one of them… This is taking it too far. It was a great lesson for me. It’s great to be enthusiastic, but don’t let your enthusiasm get in the way of your reason.

When alumni go there, they are able to put our recent development in perspective.

Sometimes, if alumni have not been back to campus recently, they can be somewhat disoriented. Where’s the old gym? And when we go up on the roof, I can point out the Commons, which is built on top of the roof of the old gym. Or they can see where the new engineering building is in relationship to buildings they knew when they were here. And once they become oriented, they begin to connect to the past. This is the place where I was. And people are excited by the growth on campus. The development. The investment.

Q. “Will the state’s financial issues interfere with the funding of the new Fine Arts building?”

– Anne Lepore Burger ’87, English

A. First, we have received the money for the planning of the Fine Arts building. We are scheduled to get the money for construction in the next legislative session in 2010. We are ready to put the shovel in the ground, and we will be reminding people this year in preparation for next year. That building will cost about $150 million. And that process will involve our receiving approximately 80 million for the first half of the building in 2010.

Q. “As an educator and alum I continue to be concerned with the repeated cuts in higher education across the UM system. Beyond writing letters, what can we — as individuals — do to more effectively communicate to decision makers that critical infrastructure is being disproportionately affected with every cut?”

– Darniet K. Jennings ’98, ’99 M.S., ’03 Ph.D., information systems management and ’03 computer science

A. The budget cuts have meant that we have had to have a hiring freeze. And we have cut operating budgets. Our goal is to insure that we continue to protect people on the campus and the academic program. That means supporting students and faculty and staff, and making sure that we provide a first-rate education, even when we decide not to do things that can enhance the institution. In many cases, it’s a matter of delaying or postponing initiatives, and not necessarily stopping them completely. Or taking three years to do what we had hoped to do in two years.

Alumni can help us in several ways. Number one, coming back to campus and knowing people here can be helpful. Building relationships. Especially when alumni are working in places that may be hiring. This is a period for… “friend-raising” is what I call it. We want people who care about the university to help us support students in terms of jobs and internships. Opportunities for alumni to come back and speak to classes, or mentor students. Because jobs for students are as good as money. If students have jobs, they can stay in school. If you help the student, you help the university.

Alumni can also help by sending us well-prepared students: their own sons and daughters and relatives, or their students in classes, or their neighbors. When alumni tell their stories to friends – their stories related to their experiences at UMBC – people are impressed.

Q. UMBC has made great strides in its programs and its physical campus over the past 20 years, mainly under your leadership. What is your vision for UMBC over the next 10 years?

– Kellie M. McCants-Price ’95, interdisciplinary studies

A. I want alumni to know as much as possible about UMBC. Because by knowing about UMBC – and the world beyond UMBC – they can help us in shaping the vision for our future.

I’m certainly hoping that the Obama administration, along with our state leadership, will continue to build public universities and invest in them, and build the infrastructure of public universities.

The name of the game, the theme in America, will be greater access to higher education. And that greater access may lead to us being slightly larger than we are if we can get the money to grow. We’re at 12,000 students right now. It would be good if we receive the enrollment growth funds, in this next ten year period, to grow to 14 or 15,000 students. That would make us more comparable to many of our peers in size.

We will be continuing to build the academic program. People know we’re strong, but success is never final. We’ll continue to build the athletic program. We’ve gotten stronger than ever, but, again, success is never final. We’ll be building national visibility. It’s great to be in the Up and Coming list: Top 10 at Top 5. It’s great to be one of the best values in public universities. But that reputation will be enhanced. We’ll be known for our strong programs. We’ll be known for our excellence in diversity. We’ll be known for caring deeply about our students. The best is yet to come.

Welcome to UMBC Magazine!

Q&A: Provost Elliot Hirschman

On July 1, Elliot Hirshman became the new Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at UMBC. Hirshman has a strong cross-disciplinary background (undergraduate degrees in economics and mathematics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from UCLA) and brings with him notable successes as a research and administrator – including a position as Chief Research Officer at George Washington University. UMBC Magazine asked Hirshman a few questions about his first few months on the job and how he traveled a path from a career as a researcher to the position of chief academic officer at UMBC.

Q: What attracted you to UMBC?

A: UMBC is an extraordinarily exciting university. The university has a strong focus on student’s personal, professional, and intellectual development, faculty members who are leading their fields in research and creative activity, and dedicated, hard working staff. Together, students, faculty and staff combine to create a supportive community that is focused on academic excellence. This combination of academic excellence and communal spirit is why UMBC was recently rated one of the top 5 up-and-coming national Universities by U.S. News & World Report.

Q: Why transition from a successful career as a researcher into academic leadership?

A: My primary motivation for becoming an educator and researcher was recognition of the transforming power of the university. For students, the university creates possibilities for personal, professional and intellectual development that dramatically enhance and alter the trajectory and purpose of students’ lives. Similarly, as one of our society’s central institutions for the creation and dissemination of knowledge and creative work, the University plays a critical role in enhancing economic development, cultural experiences, and the functioning of our democratic political system.

As with many academic leaders, my transition from a faculty role, emphasizing my personal role as an educator and research, to a leadership role, encompassing a broader purview, was spurred by personal mentoring. Dr. Michael Hooker, former President of UMBC and, at the time, Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, encouraged me to pursue an academic leadership role. Observing Michael’s dynamism and innovative perspectives helped me understand the role that academic leadership can play in advancing our educational and research missions. His example, and those of other mentors and friends, continues to provide motivation and encouragement on a daily basis.

Q: Most people know the provost is a very high-ranking job at UMBC, but might be at some loss to describe it specifically. How do you view the job of the provost?

A: The provost is responsible for the academic program, including instruction, research and academic services. In this context, the Provost plays a critical role in facilitating academic planning and budget development. I view the position as a highly collaborative one in which the provost works closely with the president, vice-presidents, vice-provosts, deans, chairs, directors, faculty, staff and students to coordinate the development and advancement of the academic program and other important University initiatives.

Q: Undergraduate research is increasingly important to students – as a selling point for prospective students and a key element in educating current students. What role does it play at UMBC?

A: I am very excited about the many opportunities UMBC offers for undergraduate research and creative activity. In addition to formal programs such as the Undergraduate Research Awards and the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Day, undergraduate students participate as research assistants on externally-funded faculty projects, in theatrical, dance, musical, and visual arts performances and exhibitions, and as leading authors on scholarly and creative works that are published in the UMBC Review and Bartleby. In addition, our location in the Baltimore-Washington corridor provides many opportunities to conduct research in collaboration with federal government agencies and USM partners such as the downtown medical campus. Participating in research and creative opportunities as an undergraduate provides critical preparation for graduate and professional studies, as well as participation in economic development that is increasingly focused on information and bio-medical technology. We began a pilot project to expand our undergraduate research and creative activity programs this year and I look forward to the further development of these programs.

Behind the Rankings

The August release of U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best Colleges Guide is one of the most-eagerly awaited dates in higher education. So when UMBC found itself at number five in a new category in the guide – “Up-and-Coming National Universities” – the sense of pride at the university was palpable.

The lofty ranking even spawned a promotional slogan: “You Knew It All Along!” What you might not know, however, is just how and why U.S. News created the category in the first place.

To find out, UMBC Magazine went straight to the source: Robert Morse, the director of data research for U.S. News. Put simply, Morse is the guru of college rankings and the other educational rankings that U.S. News creates. He also writes a blog called “Morse Code” that demystifies the methodologies behind the numbers.

Morse says that the “Up-and-Coming” list has its roots in the critiques of the overall rankings in the Best Colleges Guide. He says that some observers believe “that the peer survey doesn’t capture rapid movements or changes at a school, and that it doesn’t change much on the upside or the downside. So we wanted to come up with another way of recognizing schools that are changing rapidly and making improvements that the regular rankings don’t pick up.”

The “Up and Coming” category was created from nominations made by administrators and academics in an annual survey that U.S. News sends to universities. Morse says that the magazine is considering making the list “more granular” by breaking it down further into categories such as “academic innovations” or “facilities.”

Morse says that achieving a high place in the new category does give the primary consumers of Best Colleges Guide – high-school students and their parents – an important message. “It tells them that the school isn’t sitting still,” he says.

“And, assuming they understand how we did it, that other top academics think that [school] is innovative and that they are coming up with new ways of education.” It’s especially useful, he says, “if people are interested in schools that are trying new things and being innovative in programs and not just sticking with the tried and true.”

— Richard Byrne ’86

Diversity & Dollars

Diversity and value are hallmark qualities of the UMBC experience. But ranking them can be difficult.

The Princeton Review is one organization that tries to do just that. And the nation’s preeminent education services and test preparation company has ranked UMBC in the upper tiers of its recent rankings of diversity and “bang for the buck” in higher education.

In The Princeton Review’s annual guide to The Best 368 Colleges: 2009 Edition, UMBC was ranked second on the list of schools with the “Most Diverse Student Body.” Only Baruch College – part of the City University of New York system – ranked higher than UMBC. At present, the minority population of the student body at UMBC stands at 37 percent: 18 percent Asian, 15 percent African American and 4 percent Hispanic and Native American.

“UMBC has met with tremendous success in attracting a diverse student body,” says Yvette Mozie-Ross ’88, assistant provost for enrollment management.

And in January, UMBC figured highly in another Princeton Review project: its annual examination of the “100 Best Value Colleges,” published in collaboration with USA Today. The university was among the 50 public universities listed as a great value.

In writing about UMBC, the Princeton Review noted that “Seventy-three percent of UMBC students receive some form of financial aid in the form of scholarships, loans, and grants.”

The Review’s conclusion was succinct: UMBC is a great value for the price.

— Kaitlin Taylor ’09 and Richard Byrne ’86

Regents Awards

The annual University System of Maryland’s Regents Awards are the most important benchmark of excellence for employees at the state’s higher education institutions. So the news that UMBC staffers took five of the six 2007-08 Regents Awards on offer this year is a big deal on campus.

The recipients include:
• Catherine Bielawski ’77, director of undergraduate student services for the College of Engineering and Information and Technology – “Outstanding Service to Students in an Academic or Residential Environment.”

• Patricia Martin, program management specialist, Student Support Services, and Dennis Cuddy, manager of administration and facilities, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry – “Exceptional Contribution to the Institution and/or Unit to Which a Person Belongs.”

• Earnestine Baker, executive director, Meyerhoff Scholars Program, and Karen Sweeney-Jett, executive administrative assistant, Office of Institutional Advancement – “Extraordinary Public Service to the University or to the Greater Community.”

“UMBC has a system-wide reputation for doing well,” says Beth Wells ’74, assistant vice provost and chairperson of the university’s nomination board. “That can be accounted for in two ways: we have some awfully good staff, and we have made a commitment as an institution to put resources into promoting these awards, making it as convenient as possible to pause and recognize staff members.”

All five UMBC Regents Awards winners will be honored at a ceremony in the University Center Ballroom on April 1.

— Joseph Cooper ’08

Talk to Paula Whittington ’01, biological sciences, and you might not guess she’s a researcher who’s getting potentially life-saving results. Modest and soft-spoken, the former Meyerhoff Scholar recently published the findings from experiments that could help thousands of women with breast cancer.

In her research, Whittington has shown that a form of vaccination using DNA can treat breast cancers that are resistant to other drugs. Her research was done on mice, but if the vaccine works similarly in people, it could give hope to women whose cancers either did not shrink when treated, or whose cancers have come back despite initial treatment success.

Whittington did that research at Wayne State University, where she is a student in the M.D./Ph.D. program. She published it along with her co-workers and her advisor, Wei-Zen Wei, in September in the journal Cancer Research. Whittington defended her dissertation in late 2007 and is now finishing her medical degree – which she hopes to complete in 2010.

The joy in discovery is not just in the brainstorming, says Whittington, but in the process of testing and winnowing that accompanies it.

“I like the creative aspect of research, the idea of coming up with something and then testing it to prove it right or wrong. Then it’s really cool that you might actually see a benefit in patients,” she says. “Even just the hope of it is really cool.”

Whittington already has impressed other scientists with her persistence and intelligence. “She’s a very hard worker,” says Suzanne Ostrand-Rosenberg, a professor of biological science at UMBC. “She just keeps trying and going for things. She’s smart and things work out for her.”

Whittington did research as an undergraduate in the laboratory of Angela Brodie, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center. Brodie says that Whittington “had a spark about her” and impressed her by keeping in touch even after finishing her laboratory work.

“Paula has a lively, thinking mind,” agrees her dissertation adviser, Wei. “She has a lot of interesting ideas.”

It was during her work in Wei’s laboratory that Whittington decided to take a cancer vaccine that her adviser has been working on since 1996 and see whether it works for tumors that are resistant to other treatments.

The vaccine is simply DNA injected into a muscle. The cells of the organism – mouse or human – then go to work making the protein encoded by the DNA, thereby alerting the immune system to the protein. Since it is the same protein that is overproduced by cancer cells, the organism’s immune system then attacks any cells that have that protein.

About a quarter of breast cancers produce too much of a protein called Her2, which instructs the cancer cells to grow. Tumors that produce Her2 grow and spread more quickly than do other breast cancers, and patients with so-called Her2-positive tumors tend to die sooner.

Their best treatment option is a drug called Herceptin, which shuts down the Her2 protein. But Herceptin works for only a small fraction of Her2-positive tumors – and even those tumors that do shrink sometimes come back after the cancer cells become resistant to the treatment.

So Whittington, Wei, and their co-workers were delighted to discover that a DNA vaccine saved mice that had breast-cancer cells injected into their sides, regardless of whether the cells were resistant to other therapies.

Wei’s vaccine has already undergone one small clinical trial, performed by researchers in Sweden, to test its safety. It had no adverse effects, Wei says. “They are planning another trial as we speak.”

But Whittington has moved on – for now – to patient care in medical school. As she learns about internal medicine, surgery, and other specialties, she now ponders her future options.

“There are an infinite number of paths you can take,” she says. “Strictly clinical? Strictly research? Both? Which field?”

Regardless, she’s not likely to lose touch with faculty members that have discussed her research with her, mentored her, or taught her. Good at making scientific allies, Whittington keeps them abreast of her work, even from afar.

“I want them to know how I’m doing and that I’m working really hard,” she says. “As appreciation for them taking the time to invest in me.”

– Lila Guterman

What is science telling us about autism?

By Joel N. Shurkin

Few medical disorders engender as much controversy as autism, or as it is now known, autism spectrum disorder or ASD.

The term describes a range of behaviors. But what all people with ASD share is difficulty in social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors or narrow obsessive interests. The “hallmark,” according to the National Institutes of Health, is impaired social interaction. About 75 percent of autistics are mentally retarded (“low functioning”). But the spectrum is broad, and includes people like Ari Ne’eman; the scientist Temple Grandin; British mathematician Richard Borcherds (“high functioning”), and the actress Daryl Hannah, who was diagnosed as borderline autistic as a child. The spectrum also includes children so violent, deranged and uncontrollable they have to be institutionalized.

According to most studies, the number of children diagnosed with autism has exploded in the last 30 years, perhaps by a factor of ten, to four to six children per 1,000. Autism advocates call it an “epidemic,” but that is not necessarily so, largely because the definition of autism has been expanded. Children who were not considered autistic before now fall under that rubric, which has expanded the numbers.

For instance, when autism was first described by Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins in 1943, about two thirds of children we now consider autistic would not have fit into his definition. Since then, the definition has been modified at least four times, each time adding children that would not have been included previously. That explains much, but not all, of the increase in diagnosis.

Increased awareness also plays a role. Pediatricians and therapists believe they now can clearly identify ASD in children, although misdiagnoses—as happened to Ari Ne’eman in high school­—once were common. Parents are likely the first to notice something odd about their child and pediatricians can now spot a problem. Is the child not learning language normally? Does the child avoid eye contact? Is the child obsessive about minor things? Unusually inflexible?

A series of tests has been developed to pin down the diagnosis, all based on observation. One test, developed in England by Simon Baron-Cohen, is the standard for picking up signs as early as 18 months of age.

There are no chemical or biological tests at present, although many scientists are researching them, often using animal models. Scientists in Philadelphia, examining autistic children with magnetoencephalography, found that their brains respond a fraction of a second more slowly than those of healthy children to vowel sounds and tones. That is just one test with a small number of children but is the kind that might well lead to a clinical diagnosis.

BATTLEGROUNDS ABOUND

The hunt for the cause of autism also is wrought with contention. Despite the passion and volume of the discussion, scientists now agree on the general cause, even if they don’t know the complete etiology. They certainly agree on what does not cause the disorder: In 1967, the famed psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim blamed “refrigerator mothers” and cold parenting for autism. That theory has been discredited.

The hypothesis now generating the most heated debate is that childhood vaccinations cause autism. Yet it is a controversy that seems to exist largely in the minds of parents who are wedded to the vaccine theory, and some newspaper writers.

The science about that hypothesis is unambiguous. An Advanced Google Scholar search of the scientific literature shows more than 800 scientific papers on the origin of autism since 2000, virtually none of which demonstrate a link between childhood vaccination and autism. And Sanjay Gupta­—the physician and CNN medical reporter recently nominated for the post of Surgeon General by President Barack Obama, used PubMed, the medical data research tool, to find 404 papers that specifically rejected the vaccine argument. The Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Pediatrics also agree vaccines are not the cause of the syndrome.

This rejection has not diminished the fervor of some parents of autistic children who charge a vast conspiracy by the scientific establishment. Nonetheless, there is no scientific evidence that vaccinations are in any way responsible­—and much solid evidence they are not. Autism begins well before children receive standard vaccinations.

The scientific consensus is that genetics is responsible for 90 percent of autism cases (not including Asperger’s, which may in fact be an entirely different disorder). Some researchers have even narrowed the location of the mutations involved on chromosome 11. That’s the good news. The bad news is that there are 160 genes in that chromosome, and since autism is highly unlikely to be caused by a mutation to a single gene, the mechanics are not close to being worked out. At least 10 genes are likely involved. (The cause of Asperger’s is still unknown.)

The evidence for a genetic factor is compelling. If one child in a family has autism, the odds of a sibling also having autism increases by two to eight percent, much higher than expected in the general population but not as great as if only one gene were involved. Identical twins are superb test platforms for studying genetics, and that is true of ASD as well. If one identical twin has classical autism, the odds are 60 percent that the other twin will as well. And if the other twin does not have autism he or she is likely to have learning or social disorders. Not so in fraternal twins. Boys are three to four times more likely to have ASD as girls.

One Yale study – of a small sample – found that the placentas of children later diagnosed with ASD were abnormal. The growth pattern of the cells was different from the placentas of children who never developed ASD. If so, that would further the belief that ASD was planted on conception, not after birth. That also could lead to prenatal testing for autism, raising exactly the moral issue that Ari Ne’eman finds so frightening.

THE CONUNDRUM OF CURE

There is no “cure” for autism, and because, as most experts believe, every case is unique, there is not likely to be one cure. There are treatments and about the only thing everyone agrees on is that the earlier such treatment begins, the better. The Internet and mass media are full of stories about miraculous treatments, often involving animals, usually horses or dolphins. The non-verbal relationship between the child and the animal is believed to ameliorate the symptoms. There is anecdotal evidence behind some of them, but the plural of anecdote is not data.

Generally accepted treatments fall into two categories: education and behavioral interventions, and medications. The behavioral approach involves highly structured and very intensive training sessions to help the child develop communication and social skills. Medications include antidepressants to counter anxiety, depression or obsessive-compulsive behavior. In extreme cases, anti-psychotics and anti-seizure drugs also are prescribed. Occasionally, stimulants like Ritalin help when attention deficit disorder is involved. There is no scientific evidence to support anything else.

Joel Shurkin is a Baltimore-based freelance writer and the author of nine books, mostly on the history of science and medicine and on human intelligence. He was science editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and part of the team that won a Pulitzer Prize for covering Three Mile Island. He has taught journalism at Stanford University, the University of California, Santa Cruz, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and is currently an adjunct at Towson University.

Last year, Michael Graham ’84, M.P.S., was thinking about retirement as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Naval Reserves. After more than two decades in the reserves, Graham had risen to the rank of commander. And he did so as he built a successful career as a senior lobbyist for the American Dental Association.

The Navy, however, had other ideas.

“Last spring,” recalls Graham, “when I announced that I was about to retire, they said. “No, not quite. We’ve got one last trip for you. You’re going to Iraq.”

Graham was deployed to Iraq in May of 2008 as an intelligence officer, but quickly found a new position at the Joint Task Force on Law and Order – a collaborative effort between the U.S. military and the Department of Justice to help build the capacity of Iraq’s government to investigate cases involving terrorism and major crimes and then bring them to trial. Building that capacity, Graham says, involved working closely with judges and introducing contemporary investigative techniques – including the capability to gather and analyze forensic evidence and use it in trials.

The task force also had another ambitious goal: clearing an immense docket of thousands of Iraqi detainees arrested over the past few years by Iraqi and U.S.-led coalition forces. Graham says that the acceleration in the tempo of adjudicated cases has led to faster due process, a substantial number of acquittals, and a rise in public trust in the new Iraqi courts.

As chief of staff of the task force, Graham was the third-ranking officer in the effort, which has its headquarters at a U.S. military base five miles from the international “Green Zone” in central Baghdad. The compound is situated on the edge of the volatile Sadr City neighborhood, which is a stronghold of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr.

“There are only two ways to get there – you get in a heavily armed convoy or you take a helicopter,” he says. “It’s a fairly dangerous place.”

Graham says that the task force worked long hours seven days a week (with time off on Sundays for religious services). As chief of staff, he split his time with judges – who were also housed on the base for their own safety – and with investigators.

“We had quite a few judges living there in what we called the Laguna Apartments,” he says. “They worried for their lives. There had been – soon before my arrival – five assassination attempts on judges, two of which were successful.”

Graham’s work with Iraqi investigators often took him out onto the mean streets of Baghdad.

“You were traveling with various [military police] units to go to police stations, sites where incidents occurred to look at the area, and even to collect evidence.”

Graham’s deployment with the task force ended in November of last year. In his six months in Iraq, he says that he saw immense progress in both the justice system and in public attitudes to investigations.

“As time went on,” he says, “we saw the level of cooperation increase dramatically. It has to do perhaps with the Iraqi people being a little tired of their lives being in danger from day to day. They’re tired of war. They’re tired of a foul economy.”

Graham also says that momentum had been gained in building an infrastructure for Iraq’s legal system. A new courthouse on the compound where he was stationed began hearing cases ahead of a scheduled ribbon-cutting ceremony for its opening.

“They took complete ownership of that,” Graham observes. “There’s a lot of pride… Iraqis say that we don’t need you to hold our hand.”

On the U.S. side, Graham points to a successful trial and guilty verdict in a high profile case that involved the kidnapping, killing and mutilation of two U.S. soldiers in 2006. The guilty verdict and death sentence for one of the three suspects arrested in the case that came down from an Iraqi court in late October was a milestone in Iraqi justice, he says, in part because of the key role that the new investigative techniques played in the conviction. Forensic evidence, he observes, “helped find the individual who was responsible for this crime.”

Graham believes that the work accomplished in Iraq will not fall apart as the United States withdraws its combat forces in the next few years.

“You can’t force Iraqis,” he observes. “It’s their country. But you can show the benefits of improving the justice system, and making it more streamlined, more efficient, and eventually more effective.”

– Richard Byrne ’86

For two decades, the Honors College at UMBC has offered select students an intensive and interdisciplinary approach to undergraduate education. As the college celebrated its 20th anniversary last fall, UMBC Magazine asked Mark Tyler ’99, history – an Honors College alumnus who is now an assistant state’s attorney in Anne Arundel County – and a current Honors College student, Allison Seyler ’11, to reflect on their experiences in the program.

Q: What attracted you to the Honors College?

Mark: It represented an opportunity to have a more up-close and in-depth interaction with peers and professors. I didn’t join the Honors College until my sophomore year, and throughout my first year and part of my second year, I was noticing that I was not getting as much of a chance as I wanted to have that interaction. Some friends of mine in the Honors College told me about their experiences – and that’s exactly what they were getting.

Allison: Through joining the Honors College, I got a sense of community that I didn’t think was here. UMBC is not a huge school, but it’s a bigger school. And I felt that in the Honors College, I wouldn’t be swallowed up. You get to know your professor personally. You know everybody personally.

Q: What Honors College courses had the most influence on you?

Mark: The Enlightenment Course I took with (Victor) Wexler of the history department. We went through many of the great political writers of the modern era: Voltaire, John Locke. I also took a course on Industrial Britain with Dan Ritschel of the history department. Out of the Industrial Revolution came lots of socialist writings like Karl Marx and the traditional liberal arguments. I feel I am better able now to put all the different political arguments from our government leaders into better perspective. What they are borrowing from when they say we need to cut taxes on the bottom 90 percent. People are borrowing and picking and choosing from all these different philosophers.

Allison: One of the courses I’m taking right now is a Chinese literature course. Honestly, I never thought I would have any interest in Chinese literature. But I have had my eyes opened. I think it’s incredible to have that kind of diversity in your academics. I’ve never read poetry by Du Fu and Su Shi before. It’s been eye-opening because there’s this universality of struggle with politics and struggle with society. It’s a great course.

Mark: The Honors College helps to facilitate an important facet of undergraduate experience: the willingness to branch out, to go out of your comfort zone, and try something that you wouldn’t have necessarily tried, solely for the chance that what you do you might actually enjoy, or that it will spark in you a new intellectual interest.

Q: How has travel fit into the Honors College experience?

Allison: I went to France this past year with the Honors College. They sponsored a trip to Normandy and Brittany, and we ended up in Paris. It incorporated my interest in the French language and in history. That was my first time flying. That was my first trip out of the country. I had to get my passport and all that stuff. For me, it was amazing. I did so much there in two weeks. I saw all these things I’ve been learning about for years in my history classes and my French classes. It confirmed for me that all these things I’m learning are actually out there and actually happened. One of my goals is to join the Peace Corps, so I want to experience as much culture and as much difference as possible.

Mark: I took a trip to Kiplin Hall, which was the ancestral home of Maryland’s Calvert family, up in Yorkshire. It was a survey of British history, culture and literature. We read everything from Tacitus to Jane Austen. It was my first time abroad. We had great meals every night cooked by an English lady – Mrs. Glue – but after she left we were alone in the house, and we wrote a murder mystery. I think some people may have dressed up a bit. But we took turns writing it, and we acted out the characters and let ourselves get lost in the experience of staying at this wealthy manor house and acting out this whodunit fiction that we wrote up. It was a blast!