The views expressed in this article are the views of the author.

If you’ve been on YouTube the past week (then again, who hasn’t?), you might’ve caught onto an initiative involving many video stars. Mr. Beast — a popular YouTuber who constantly carries out crazy challenges — is teaming up with the organization, Team Trees, to plant 20 million trees by the year 2020. For every dollar donated, a tree will be plopped down in the ground.

Will this initiative work? Hard to tell, although at the time of this writing, almost 6 million trees have been planted, or at least will be thanks to many generous donations. That’s pretty impressive, considering that this fundraiser began three days ago. And honestly, the timing could not be better, as the future of our planet is dependent on humans making strict changes to our way of living to keep our planet flourishing. 

There are many issues plaguing humanity at the moment: climate change, human trafficking, drug addiction, poverty and racial discrimination, to name a few. As one person, it can feel pointless trying to make a long-lasting impact. After all, what’s the point of starting a charity to combat drug addiction if no one will pay attention?

However, Mr. Beast’s initiative is a great example of internet influencers using their platform and their power to speak about important global issues. People take notice, and action is generated. This is where influencers need to come in. People are already paying attention to them because they have the ability to captivate and motivate an audience. Why not change the spotlight to focus on important issues?

Again, one influencer may not be able to change the world alone. However, by teaming up with a popular, credible charity or organization, it becomes easier to tackle the world’s problems and get everyone on board. Just posting a 10-minute video is perfect for addressing issues that are strongly on your mind. It shows that the influencer is serious about changing things for the better.

I’m not asking you donate your entire net worth to people in need, but use your fame to somehow reach into the crack of problems so everyone can join the fight to mend them back together.

Everyone wants to be famous nowadays and enjoy their plethora of fans and all the perks fame brings. But in the calm of the fame storm, these celebrities should take a minute to stop and think, ‘How can I give back to my community?’ ‘How can I help so many who are less fortunate than me?’ At the end of the day, no one really cares how many riches you had or how much you contributed to the Internet with your original content.

But when an influencer uses their power of money, a large audience and a voice, they can contribute to helping so many who are less fortunate on Earth. And everyone will remember you for it. Mr. Beast is known for his insane videos. But, five years from now, when (hopefully) a majority of the trees are flourishing, we’ll remember him for taking an important call to action to help curb climate change.

While we’re at it, go donate a dollar to plant a tree right now at TeamTrees.

Congratulations!

• Bellese - “Good booth overall, student presentations were great”
• Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab - “Reps were extremely friendly, well-coordinated and great speakers”
• Clearview Group - “I’m not recruiting engineers, but this association’s booth caught my attention. It clearly showcases the focus of AICHE and indicates the members put thought into their presentation. This booth stood out to me more than any other! I forgot to mention they also included demonstrations so it was interactive. Great job!”

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author.

The education system in the United States is riddled with issues. From education practices and the structure of the curriculum to resource allocation and investment, we have a great deal of work to do to improve the way that kids are expected to acquire knowledge. The current system or group of systems fails the students it is meant to serve and makes education feel more like a burden than an opportunity.

We should encourage the use of different approaches to education, keeping in mind the range of needs that different students can have. A fluid approach to a personalized teaching method is, unfortunately, not as widely available as it should be. As a result, some students are dismissed as not understanding the material or as not wanting to participate when in reality, their struggles aren’t due to an inability to handle the material or a lack of willingness to engage. Rather, they struggle due to the fact that our education system tries to force them into a mold like trying to squeeze a circle into a triangular hole.

The way that our education systems are structured should be centered on the students and their needs and abilities rather than trying to get students to adhere to abstract ideas or principles of an ideal education.

On a school system level, there should be more equitable funding for public schools. There is an abysmal history of disproportionate funding in the public education system. While money is not everything, it does impact the resources and the programs that schools can have. Some school systems have programs that allow students to take home laptops while other schools do not even have updated textbooks. That kind of inequality creates gaps in achievement and if they start early in the education system, they not only persist but grow across a lifetime.

On an instructor level, we need to give teachers more respect and strive to meet their needs because what they do is a vital part of our society. This means more than just tipping your hat, smiling or making a Facebook post on Teacher Appreciation day. The fact that, all across the country, teachers have had strikes to earn the money that they deserve or to advocate for better resources for the classrooms is ludicrous and is a huge disruption to education.

Even a few days of missed instruction can be detrimental to students, especially when there are national exams to prepare for that cannot be rescheduled. Aside from the logistical problems of a teacher’s strike for students, the message sent by our current educational conditions are that teachers are not valued as professionals, or at least not enough to help them to help the future of our country.

These changes aren’t necessarily simple to make, but they are simple to justify. The fact is that our current educational systems are not giving enough students what they need to be successful and aren’t ensuring that their schools and teachers can provide them with the best chance to advance. With that said, we have a few options: we can continue to watch problems grow, we can try to grab some duct tape to patch them or we can try to adjust the foundational issues that create the problems. We get to choose.

Invite your students to apply for Johns Hopkins University’s first annual Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium!

The Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium provides hundreds of students across all fields of the humanities the opportunity to share their work in the professional presentation style most common to their fields. Attendees also participate in professionalization and recruitment events during the three-day symposium.

The inaugural Richard Macksey National Undergraduate Humanities Research Symposium will take place April 3-4, 2020, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD

Registration: Now open!
Abstract Submission Deadline: January 24, 2020
Early Registration Deadline: February 21, 2020
Final Registration Deadline: March 6, 2020
Conference Dates: April 3-4, 2020

All deadlines are at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

UMBC faculty poised to help shape national policies in computing

Adam Bargteil, assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering, has been named chair-elect of the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH). He will lead SIGGRAPH as chair starting Fall 2020.

With Bargteil’s election, UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) now has two faculty members serving as leaders of two of the ACM’s largest special interest groups. Helena Mentis, associate dean for academic programs and learning in COEIT and associate professor of information systems, has been president of the Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) since July 2018.

In these leadership roles, Bargteil and Mentis will have an opportunity to shape important policy matters, including redesigning computing education guidelines.

Bargteil’s group, SIGGRAPH, is the leading international society for computing professionals and students in computer graphics and interactive techniques, attracting people from academia, industry, and artistic communities. Bargteil helped create the ACM SIGGRAPH Frontiers program, which highlights emerging fields of research, such as machine learning, medical applications of computer graphics, and autonomous vehicles.

Bargteil plans to continue to empower the SIGGRAPH executive committee to create high-impact programming and opportunities for conversation among members when he is at the helm next year. “I’d like to continue to be proactive, and create more value for the members of SIGGRAPH,” he shares.

Over the summer, Bargteil participated in an intensive leadership program, which he says helped him prepare for his upcoming role in SIGGRAPH. Reflecting on the experience, Bargteil says that he found the selected readings, training exercises in public speaking, and opportunities to connect closely with fellow participants to be valuable for his growth as an emerging leader in computing.

SIGCHI, the group Mentis leads, is the world’s largest association for professionals in human-computer interaction. The group’s main conference attracts more than 3,500 attendees each year, and the SIG sponsors 23 specialized conferences.

Mentis is director of UMBC’s Bodies in Motion Lab, and focuses on how technologies can improve collaboration and coordination in healthcare contexts, from empowering patients to helping surgeons utilize interactive imaging. SIGCHI is a highly multi-disciplinary community that includes researchers and students in fields from sociology to mechanical engineering.

Adapted from an article by Megan Hanks. For additional stories, visit the UMBC News site.

The post UMBC faculty poised to help shape national policies in computing appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

dirt under your nails dig deep, deep, deep, deeper girl

dig yourself out

soil, worms, ants in your skin

in and out of your flesh

dig deep

dig, dig, dig, dig, 

dig into yourself

pull your skin back and press the grime into your nervous system

call it a rebirth

dig your own shrine

dig yourself down until you hit magma

and simmer there

soft baby, simmer until you’ve glossed over

and kiln and collided into rebirth

dig, dig, dig

dig out and steam off what’s left

call it new, call it holy, call it revelation

call it endtimes and entrails and

call your mother, call Nana, your aunties

use those hands to dig them out

pull them up out the rubble

so that they may see the sun too

Morgan Mullings

m132@umbc.ed

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author. 

Two weeks ago, twelve candidates lined the stage at the October Democratic Presidential Debate to convince the Ohio crowd — and the American public — why they are the best choice for America. The debate went as expected; front-runners tried to stay ahead, middle-of-the-pack candidates tried to make a name for themselves with soundbites and cute quips and Cory Booker stood there talking about love again. However, one candidate joined the party late.

Tom Steyer, a former hedge fund manager and billionaire, joined the race in early July and made his debut on the debate stage. Since then, he’s shot his way up the polls, amassing the necessary qualifications, including 2 percent in four approved polls and donations from 130,000 people. Steyer is a self-proclaimed ‘progressive outsider.’ His priorities include reducing economic inequality and eliminating the corporate stronghold on Washington. Steyer is not a captivating or exciting candidate and remains highly unlikely to receive the nomination. However, his acceleration shows a flaw within the Democratic debate system, the election process and our politics at large.

Steyer, essentially, bought his spot in this race. Within the first month of his candidacy, he spent $7 million on television ads alone, in addition to the $2.6 million he spent on digital advertisements. He spent nearly $50 million on impeachment ad campaigns and plans to spend another $90 million during this campaign. According to The New York Magazine, Steyer’s $150+ million campaign funding could fund nearly 1,000 Democratic state legislative candidates. Along with visiting a few key states, this was all the notoriety he needed to get on stage.

Popular candidates usually transfer money from their prior re-election campaigns to their presidential bids, which gives them a little boost in the beginning. Most no-name candidates have to trek across the country, send out emails to their constituents, meet with campaign boards and kiss babies to stay afloat in the campaign. However, Steyer’s massive wealth let him cut ahead of the line.

Even worse, his main concern in this race is reducing corporate influence in Washington. Alas, the irony! The tycoon’s plan to reduce corporate corruption in politics is to run for the most powerful office in the country, and, worse, to cheat his way there. How can Steyer call Donald Trump unfit for office and have the exact same qualifications he does? How can anyone trust that Steyer won’t put his own interest ahead of the interests of the country? How can Steyer fight economic inequality when his only asset is the cause of said inequality?

Steyer’s ascension through the polls and into the Democratic debates is the culmination of everything wrong with Washington. Billionaires assume that their money is a prerequisite to do just about anything. Perhaps everyone forgot the last time a billionaire entered politics and claimed that he was the answer to all of Washington’s problems.

Since America’s foundation, the wealthy have ignored the rules and rigged the system to benefit them. They have dodged taxes, lobbied in Congress and bought the support of lawmakers and members of Congress. The republic that the framers designed has mutated into an oligarchy, favoring the will of the rich and powerful instead of the will of the public. Now the affluent have compromised our election process, the crux of our democratic system.

We cannot afford to have a back door for billionaires in our politics and, even worse, in our election process. Billionaires cheating the system is wrong. Accumulating substantial amounts of wealth does not permit you to disregard the rules. Being wealthy isn’t a replacement for being qualified. Qualifications, political history and policy positions aren’t optional. While anyone can run for president, this doesn’t mean just anyone should run for president. Right now, the system is broken and it is not wise to trust the wealthy to put it back together.

America is not for sale.