Meet Rachel Brubaker, M.A. ’00, historical studies, assistant director for grants and program development at the Dresher Center for the Humanities. Brubaker, a self-proclaimed humanities nerd, has worked in different positions at UMBC for 22 years, but her current seat in the Dresher Center allows her to combine her UMBC degree with her passion for public humanities and education to collaborate with faculty members on research proposals and help connect them to prestigious funding opportunities. Take it away, Rachel!

Q: What’s one essential thing you’d want another Retriever to know about you?

A: I have been assistant director for grants and program development in the Dresher Center for the Humanities for nearly 10 years. In that capacity, I assist faculty in the arts and humanities get prestigious grants and fellowships. It’s a joy to learn about their research projects and help bring them to fruition. 

Before that I worked for 12 years in the history department on “Teaching American History” professional development grants with eight area school districts. I received my master’s degree in historical studies from UMBC in 2000 and prior to that directed the National History Day Program for middle- and high-school students.

In a different life, I was a graphic designer and education communications professional, but that’s old news. I am a proud history/public history/humanities nerd, and I love working with our faculty!

Q: Tell us what you love about your place of work.

A: The Dresher Center is an interdisciplinary intellectual community in the truest sense. Our programs and grants support and promote faculty and graduate student research in the humanities at UMBC. We run a number of fellowship programs for faculty at all stages of their careers, and provide a temporary home for visiting and internal fellows to research, write, and think about the humanities in conversation with each other. 

Our multi-year Inclusion Imperative program, funded by the Mellon Foundation, challenged us to put the tools of the humanities to use to further equity, inclusion, and social justice. With that charge, we have expanded our support for the public humanities at UMBC and formed a regional diversity teaching network of humanities scholars at area institutions who are doing similar work.

Q: What part of your job do you enjoy the most and why?

A: Collaborating with faculty on their research proposals. This often begins in learning about them and their works in progress. Finding the right support for them to write books, create digital projects, and collaborate with community scholars and partners is supremely gratifying!

Q: Tell us about your primary WHY, and how it led you to UMBC.

A: I came to UMBC because I was transitioning from one career to another, and UMBC became the place to do it. I began as a freelance designer in OIA, then entered the M.A. program in historical studies. After finishing the program, I came back to help run grant programs in the Center for History Education in the history department. That led to my present position in the Dresher Center.

Q: Tell us about the people who have helped you at UMBC, and why their HOW made such a difference to you.

A: There are many people who have made a difference…too many to list, but I have truly appreciated the caliber of support and kindness from colleagues, who have challenged me and helped me grow in my career. I have become a better writer and thinker with their help.

Q: Tell us about someone in the community who has inspired you or supported you, and how they did it.

A: Kriste Lindenmeyer was professor of history and chair of the department at UMBC for a number of years (now retired). Kris was a true force of nature. She inspired me with her dedication to the department, students, faculty and to her scholarship.

Q: What would you tell someone who is considering a career at UMBC?

A: Think about UMBC not as an office, but as a community of like-minded people who value and produce knowledge and look to make a difference. As a long-time staff member and former student, I have had the pleasure of seeing the campus evolve to become a place that is inclusive, creative, and original!

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UMBC’s greatest strength is its people. When people meet Retrievers and hear about the passion they bring, the relationships they create, the ways they support each other, and the commitment they have to inclusive excellence, they truly get a sense of our community. That’s what “Meet a Retriever” is all about.

Learn more about how UMBC can help you achieve your goals.

The University System of Maryland (USM) will formally install Valerie Sheares Ashby as UMBC’s sixth president on April 27, 2023, after UMBC warmly welcomed her to the community last August. A longstanding tradition throughout academia, a presidential inauguration (including the formal Investiture ceremony) is a historic milestone in the life of a university, one not to be missed. 

At the Investiture, USM will formally endow President Sheares Ashby with the powers of the office. For several days before that ceremony, UMBC will celebrate with a series of inauguration events honoring the occasion. 

These events will offer opportunities for UMBC community members to connect with the new president and each other. Each event, in its own way, will recognize the university’s continued commitment to welcoming and inspiring inquisitive minds from all backgrounds as UMBC enters a new era. 

Since her arrival, President Sheares Ashby has dedicated herself to getting to know UMBC and its people. She has offered weekly office hours for students since her first week on campus. Throughout March and April, she has also attended dozens of UMBC Bold conversations to hear faculty, staff, and student perspectives on topics such as shared governance, supportive community, research infrastructure, and the undergraduate experience. 

“These first…months have been energizing, inspiring, and joyful. The more people I meet, and the more I start to make connections, the more I love this place,” Sheares Ashby recently told UMBC Magazine. “It has been especially rewarding to engage with students, see who they already are, and imagine what they will become as a result of their experiences at UMBC.”

Something for everyone

The festivities will kick off on April 18 with a special reception at the Universities of Shady Grove, recognizing the strength of the UMBC community throughout the Baltimore–Washington region. On April 21, the main UMBC campus will mark the occasion in the annual Quadmania Campus Talent Showcase. This event will include music, dance, spoken word, and more in celebration of UMBC’s talented students.

A lunch on April 24 will provide an opportunity for graduate students—critical contributors to UMBC’s teaching and research missions—to meet with President Sheares Ashby. The next day, a faculty and staff reception will offer a chance for camaraderie among colleagues and friends in recognition of the essential role UMBC’s faculty and staff play in moving the university forward.

On Wednesday, April 26, the Faculty Salon: Community-Engaged Scholarship will celebrate the role of faculty as scholars, researchers, and teachers, as well as UMBC’s distinction as a Carnegie-classified community-engaged institution and R1 research university. Faculty across the disciplines whose scholarship is community-based will offer brief remarks, including Kate Drabinski, principal lecturer of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies; Lynn Cazabon, professor of visual arts; Felipe A. Filomeno, associate professor of political science and global studies; Belay Demoz, professor of physics; and Ian Stockwell, associate professor of information systems.

A new era

The Inauguration Week events will culminate with the formal Investiture at 1 p.m. on April 27 at the Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena. The university welcomes students, faculty, staff, alumni, family members, and friends and community members to attend. Tickets are free, but must be reserved. The event will also stream live. 

“This is a particularly important moment for the UMBC community. The Inauguration is a chance for us to reaffirm our values as a university as we officially welcome Dr. Sheares Ashby as our president,” says Greg Simmons, M.P.P. ’04, vice president for institutional advancement. “It is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the significant progress we have made together, while looking toward the future of UMBC—it is exciting in so many ways.”

Guests will hear President Sheares Ashby share her thoughts on UMBC’s future, which will be deeply informed by recent UMBC Bold conversations. As Sheares Ashby told UMBC Magazine, “It’s becoming more clear every day what the possibilities are for what we can do together going forward.” 

Following the ceremony, all are welcome to a campus celebration on the Commons Quad, 2:30 – 5 p.m., with games, treats from local businesses, and joyful UMBC community spirit.

Reserve your tickets through the Inauguration website.

On a Friday afternoon in late February, two students hoisted a pair of oversized scissors and cut the ribbon for the space housing one of UMBC’s newest tutoring programs: the Computing Success Center. The Center is designed to provide peer-to-peer support to students from any major, taking any course, who have computing questions.

“The Computing Success Center started as just a few tables in the library,” says Amanda Knapp, who leads UMBC’s broader Academic Success Center. Since the Computing Success Center tutoring program launched in 2020, it has seen skyrocketing demand. 

“We are so happy for our students to now have a dedicated space for computing support, as a result of successful collaborations and valued partnerships from across the university,” says Knapp, associate vice provost and assistant dean for Undergraduate Academic Affairs. “We are thrilled to introduce new tutoring options to the growing portfolio of academic support offerings available to all undergraduate students.”

The growing demand for Computing Success Center services reflects in part increased demand for computing education. Over the past ten years, the number of UMBC students pursuing a computing-related bachelor’s degree in the College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) has increased by more than 60%. During that same time, the number of computing degrees awarded to women and students from racial and ethnic groups traditionally underrepresented in computing fields increased at an even higher rate.

The Computing Success Center is one of many UMBC initiatives that is boosting the success of diverse students in high-demand computing fields.

“At both the undergraduate and graduate level, applications for our programs from a broad diversity of students are incredibly strong,” says Keith Bowman, the dean of COEIT. “New students have shared that more senior students’ positive views of our programs inspired them to pursue computing degrees, which we find very gratifying.”

Careful course design

When Annamaria Palmiero came to UMBC as a freshman in 2021, she had never programmed before. Still, she was curious about the subject, and a good friend encouraged her to try it out. So, she enrolled in a class—called Computational Design and Thinking, or COMP101—designed with students like her in mind.

The course, which debuted in 2012 and has become increasingly popular, assumes no prior experience with computing. It provides students with a broad overview of the field, builds their technical and professional skills, and gives them opportunities to work on group projects. Since 2019, it has also focused on ethical considerations in computing, a component of the course that was designed and implemented under the leadership of UMBC’s Engineering and Computing Education Program.

“Many students say the course helps them feel less intimidated by coding. It also helps them decide which computing program is best for them,” says Mark Berczynski, a lecturer who has been teaching the course since 2019. UMBC offers a broad range of computing pathways, such as majors and minors in computer science and information systems and majors in business technology administration and computer engineering.

The course has been shown to increase the likelihood that students, especially women, will stay in a computing major. For Palmiero, the experience in the course convinced her to pursue a computer science degree in addition to her already planned statistics degree. She has also become a teaching fellow for the course.

“COMP101 provided a safe space for me to launch into programming, without the overwhelmingly fast-paced nature of other introductory computing courses. I’m unsure if I would have ever become a computer science major, let alone tried programming, if it wasn’t for the course,” Palmiero says.

Other students who have taken COMP101 agree. Drew Barlow took the course in 2019 because he hadn’t taken the precalculus math classes required for a typical first computer science course. He is now pursuing a Ph.D. in computer science at UMBC. “I can definitely attribute my love for this subject in many ways to my experience in COMP101,” he said.

The ethos behind the design of COMP101—to break down barriers to success in computing for students from a variety of backgrounds—also pervades other curriculum decisions in COEIT, from adding courses to help transfer students with backgrounds in different coding languages, to forging pathways for students who wish to transfer between computing degree programs.

Easy access to support

Carefully designed computing courses start students on the road to success, while services such as the Computing Success Center help students deepen their knowledge as they progress in their studies. The center offers drop-in tutoring, including both course-specific resources and general guidance in programming languages. All of the course-specific tutors are supporting students in classes they have taken themselves.

The Computing Success Center responds to expanding demand for this kind of support. In fall 2022, the Center logged nearly 1,500 student visits, a more than ten-fold increase from when it launched in fall 2020. 

Ariana Pray, a sophomore computer science major, says the tutoring at the Center goes beyond helping her complete assignments, offering conceptual guidance that has made her a more efficient coder. She appreciates the wide range of tutoring times available and the opportunity to learn from her peers in person.

“I definitely recommend going to the Computing Success Center,” she says. “You’ll come away with a better understanding of the material and will be better prepared when it comes time for exams.” 

Students can also access mentoring in study skills and time management, personalized assistance from academic advocates, and other support through the broader Academic Success Center. Meanwhile, departments that offer computing degrees have worked to foster a culture where students make it a habit to access additional learning resources early and often.

Opportunities to connect and explore

While supporting academic success is a priority for computing programs, that goes far beyond coursework. UMBC faculty and staff mentor students as they seek to discover their passions and find pathways to meaningful careers.

Shaniah Reece is a senior information systems major and Center for Women in Technology Scholar who credits the culture of UMBC for helping her discover how to connect a technical career to her values and passions.

“I care about social justice and equity,” she says. “I’ve realized I can apply technical tools to study and address these issues.” 

Recently, Reece has been working with James Foulds, assistant professor of information systems, to identify biases in artificial intelligence systems and work to improve their fairness. She plans to continue her research career and is currently deciding between graduate programs at Emory University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Pittsburgh.

Reece says her classwork and her mentors helped her think outside the box and identify career options that were truly meaningful to her. She shares, “My whole experience at UMBC, not just in research but throughout my time here, helped me discover who I am.”