Thursday, November 20, 2025 · 3 - 4:30 PM

The Commons : 2B23

"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."

SistaCare is a community-care and dialogue group that explores the ways undergraduate and graduate students who identify as Black/Africana women and femmes, regardless of their gender expression, experience campus communities. Weekly sessions will explore experience, impact, and connection and are open to all individuals regardless of their sex, gender, race, ethnicity, or national origin. Come to learn, share, and connect!

CURL P.W.R (power with representation) was established to create a place that welcomes the discussion of and seeks a solution for social issues faced by People of Color in our UMBC community, specifically African American/African/Black people. This will happen through events that inform and connect individuals. This is so that we may come together as essential members of our community and so that others may be informed about how to be allies to their peers. What is one thing that connects us all? Our hair. This feature that connects us can be used for unity in our community as well as the education of others.

To request accommodation(s) or to inquire about event accessibility, please get in touch with us via email, csjdialogue.umbc.edu, with "Sistacare" in the subject line. All sessions are open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University's nondiscrimination policy.

ORIGINAL POST: https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/csjd/events/148566

Save the date!

CAHSS New Faculty Microtalks
February 25, 2026 | 4:30pm | AOK Library Gallery

三校友谊赛 UMBC × MICA × UMB

2025 年友谊赛圆满落幕啦！感谢所有前来参赛、助威的学生、访问学者、教职员工以及校友，让我们三校之间建立了新的友谊与联系。

以下是最终成绩——恭喜所有获胜者和参与者，为大家的体育精神与活力鼓掌！

SPORTS

获奖信息

 羽毛球 (单人)

 1st – Qi Zhao

 2nd – Jinhui Xu

 3rd – Chaoyi Chen

 Semifinalists – Fuxiao Liu

 Quarterfinalists – Ling Liu, Duo Zhong, Tianjiao Li, Yufeng Li

 匹克球 (单人)

 1st – Qi Zhao

 2nd – Ling Liu

 3rd – Fuxiao Liu

 Semifinalists – Yufeng Li (tie), Jinhui Xu (tie)

 Quarterfinalists – Jiajun Zhou, Tianjiao Li, Duo Zhong

 网球 (单人)

 1st – Qi Zhao

 2nd – Ling Liu

 3rd – Yufeng Li

 Semifinalist – Chaoyi Chen

 Quarterfinalists – Dayuan Tan, Jiajun Zhou, Duo Zhong, Tianjiao Li

Greetings,

Please be advised that effective Monday, November 24, 2025, a new process for handling C1 New Hires and Renewals will be implemented. This update is designed to streamline the initiation of contracts and standardize the documentation process in response to the new UMBC Contingent I contract requirements.

Key Changes and Resources

We have created two essential resources to guide you through this transition:

• Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)

• C1 New Hire/Renewal Checklist

Both the SOP and the Checklist are available on our Resource Page under the Templates tab. For your convenience, we have also attached these documents to this email.

New Contract Initiation Process via RT

The RT system has been updated to facilitate the new process flow:

**Departments will no longer initiate the Contingent I contract** instead we have added a few new fields to the RT system to collect contact information to allow OPSSC to initiate the contract on the departments behalf:

• Department POC Name

• Department POC Email

• Department POC Phone

The department POC should be the staff member within your unit who would previously initiate the contingent I contracts and has the necessary information to complete the required fields on the contract.

• When the Department Point of Contact has the required information for a C1 New Hire or Renewal, they will now fill out the updated fields in RT.

• Submitting the completed RT ticket will automatically notify the Payroll Preparer, who will then initiate the DocuSign C1 contract. This is the new method for CI contract initiation for both new hires and renewals.

Handling Contracts Currently in Process (Transition Period)

We understand that some C1 contracts may have already been initiated under the old process. If your department currently has C1 contracts in process, you may still select the corresponding hire/renewal options in RT and attach the already initiated contracts yourself.

This manual attachment option is only for contracts initiated before November 24, 2025. After Sunday, November 23, 2025, all C1 contract initiations should follow the new RT-to-DocuSign process.

Please review the attached SOP and Checklist and direct any questions regarding this new process to the General Inquiry Queue. 

Thank you!

Sincerely,

OPSSC Team

When we think of toys, we imagine a finished product, a remote-controlled car, a mini piano, or a glitter-filled beach ball. The internal pieces that make up the toy are only seen if the toy breaks. However, for some children with disabilities, the feel, sound, and shape of a toy’s exterior can be as important as the internal components. Features such as a multi-button remote, pressing piano keys, or grasping a ball can reduce accessibility to developmentally essential play.

Molly Y. Mollica, assistant professor of mechanical engineering (ENME), challenges sophomores in her ENME 204 class, Engineering Design with Computer Aided Design (CAD), to create an accessible toy for an individual with a specific disability or a toy for collaborative play between children with and without disabilities. CAD helps students create, modify, and analyze technical drawings and 2D or 3D models.

Team Goat Cheese, a five-student collaboration that included Adam Harper, a mechanical engineering and theatre design sophomore, was voted the ENME 204’s Most Creative Design and the Most Viable Product by UMBC faculty, ENME 204 teaching staff, and needs experts. Their competitors also voted them the Most Creative Design for designing two accessible toys for children on the autism spectrum: a soft, stuffed sea turtle and a bald eagle with weighted body parts, textured fabrics, and interchangeable parts. 

Integral to their success was the involvement of community members on the autism spectrum. “Many of us have someone close to us on the autism spectrum,” said Harper. “We asked them what kind of toy they would have wanted when they were seven or eight.” Harper’s close friend shared that they never had a stuffed animal because the stuffed animals on the market never met their sensory needs. 

“Students have the opportunity to design in collaboration with needs experts—including physical therapists, special education teachers, and potential product users,” said Mollica. “In some cases, the resulting designs are developed enough to be shared with these experts to help address real challenges in accessible play.” 

Designing with needs experts

The team’s online market research found that stuffed animals with sensory designs, such as weighted bodies, textured fabric, and scents, can help reduce anxiety, increase focus, and ease transitions for children on the autism spectrum, fostering greater engagement with peers and family. Another key takeaway of their research was that many sensory toys included only one sensory feature, limiting their effectiveness for children who benefit from multiple tactile inputs. 

Team Goat Cheese used this as their inspiration. “We felt we could do better,” said Harper. “We decided to create two cartoon-like stuffed animals with multiple sensory inputs.” First, they used CAD to design interchangeable body parts. After several trial-and-error sessions, they created a lock-and-release mechanism for interchangeable parts. The eagle’s head, wings, and legs all come off the body. The sea turtle’s front and back flippers and head are also interchangeable. If a child doesn’t like the texture of the bald eagle’s head, they can swap it for the turtle’s head, creating a completely different sensory experience.

Sewing tactile play 

Choosing the materials was also a process. The team chose soft brown corduroy for the eagle’s wings due to its unique texture and geometry, and extra soft sweatshirt fleece for the eagle’s head and tail feathers. The beak and talons are a yellow iridescent mesh fabric with metallic gold squares fused onto it, noted Harper.

(l-r): The eagle’s right wing insert, stuffed eagle without weighted wing pockets, and the fabric for the beak and talons. (Images courtesy of Harper)

The turtle’s body was made of minky fabric—a soft, velvety green plush, polyester fabric—with raised almond-shaped dots that felt like soft scales. The shell was made from a soft brown fleece. 

Harper—the team’s secret weapon as the only member who knew how to sew—owned a sewing machine and had years of experience sewing, welding, sawing, and constructing theatre sets, so he was in charge of sewing the final product.

“For the weighted components, I double-stitched corduroy pockets and filled them with glass microbeads, then placed them inside the wings, head, and body. I filled the rest of the body with polyester fiberfill—a synthetic fiber used for stuffed animals,” said Harper. “It was many hours and days of sewing and making pouches and remaking pouches and seam ripping and fixing.” 

“Our goal is to prepare the next generation of engineers who understand the engineering design process,” said Mollica, “are proficient in engineering design tools, value input from needs experts, and are equipped to create high-quality products that are accessible to as many people as possible.” 

While photos of the eagle and turtle stuffed animals still exist, the physical toy is no longer in the team’s possession—it has been passed on, and they hope it’s now in the hands of a child who is happily creating turtle-eagles with their friends. 

Learn more about UMBC’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.