According to U.S. News rankings released today, UMBC graduate programs are some of the best in the nation for 2020. The rankings are developed based on expert opinions and statistical indicators for quality. Over 2,000 programs and more than 22,000 individuals were polled to determine this year’s honorees. While some programs have been newly recognized on 2020 rankings lists, others continue to lead on lists developed in prior cycles.

It was another strong year for the graduate programs in UMBC’s College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS). Five CNMS fields are recognized in U.S. News graduate program rankings, including mathematics, statistics, biological sciences, chemistry, and physics.

“The breadth of programs recognized in CNMS is a testament to the dedication and extraordinary effort of the faculty and staff across the college,” says Bill LaCourse, dean of CNMS. “I gratefully appreciate their commitment to setting high standards and providing a quality education for all our students.”

As a whole, UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) stands as one of the best engineering colleges in the nation. Just three other Maryland institutions appear on the overall 2020 list of best engineering programs. COEIT remains on the lists of the country’s best electrical, mechanical, and environmental engineering graduate programs, and is featured on the new 2020 list for chemical engineering.

“All of our researchers, faculty, staff, postdocs, and especially graduate students, contribute to an environment that enables innovations that help keep UMBC at the forefront of engineering and computing,” says COEIT Dean Keith J. Bowman.

UMBC’s School of Public Policy welcomed new director Susan Sterett in 2017. Since then, the school’s graduate programs in public policy have continued to thrive. Their success is evident with a 2020 U.S. News ranking in the top 100 of all public affairs graduate programs across the nation.

“UMBC’s School of Public Policy is proud of our excellent faculty and students, who contribute every day to informing the public about health and education policy, equity in cities, and public management and regulation,” says Sterett. “With such excellent scholars in publicly significant fields, we look forward to growing and continuing to contribute to the field in a way that rivals our larger, older peers.”

Graduate programs in fine arts, psychology, and clinical psychology also continue to be recognized as among the best. Earlier this year, U.S. News heralded UMBC’s online master’s degree in information systems as one of the top 20 in the nation, up four spots from last year.

Banner image: UMBC graduates at May 2018 Commencement. Photo by Catherine Borg for UMBC. All other photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein went viral on Twitter on Friday Feb. 22 because she was visited by a group of teenage and preteen students who had concerns about climate change and asked the senator to support the Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal is a bill championed by Congressional freshman and democratic-socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who represents the 14th congressional district of New York. The bill pushes polarizing progressive policies including 100 percent clean and renewable energy nationwide within the next 10 years.

The Democratic party has had mixed reactions, as some are wary of siding with such a progressive bill. Even the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has not completely endorsed this bill. However, when approached, Feinstein had a rather dismissive and condescending tone when addressing the students. When the students practically begged her to support the initiative she boasted that she had been a Senator for over a quarter of a century. She said, “I’ve been doing this for thirty years. I know what I’m doing.”

Now, this is one of the bigger underlying issues within politics today. It is an attitude of complacency, entitlement and stubbornness. It is an old style of politics where seniority and status quo overrule the will and safety of the constituency. It is the attitude of “I deserve my spot here.” Politics should have no place for that. However, over the past eight months, I have noticed two more instances of political entitlement.

Starting off with a fairly popular example, in October of 2018, the Senate voted in the Supreme Court Justice Judge Brett Kavanaugh to take over for Former Justice Anthony Kennedy. However, Judge Kavanaugh was surrounded by three different cases of sexual assault, going down as the most disliked Supreme court nominee in nearly 30 years.

Now, whether you think the hearings were politically motivated or a genuine attempt to believe survivors is up to you. However, one theme I saw coming up in his defense is his time at Yale. He consistently addressed the facts that he “worked his butt off” in Yale, got into law school and became a circuit court judge. He inferred that he had earned his position on the Supreme Court, by working hard.

Another example happened last month. Scott Wong, a reporter from the Hill, wrote an article about some Democratic lawmakers who were upset that Ocasio-Cortez won her seat over the incumbent Joe Crowley. There has been murmurs of making her a one-term congresswoman by backing a different opponent in the 2020 Primary. An anonymous Democratic lawmaker even stated that “You’ve got numerous council people and state legislators who’ve been waiting 20 years for that seat.” This is another inference of political entitlement, where legislators believe that they’re waiting their turn to get that seat.

This is something I need to make sure that Kavanaugh, Feinstein and all the legacy members of Congress understand. We live in a democracy, a system where the people for their representation and in turn, the legislative create and negotiate policies that align with what their constituency may want, even if they personally disagree. You work for the people, and when your constituents say that they are worried about an issue, your job is not to condescend them or flex that you were “elected by almost a million-vote plurality.” Your job is to support the bills your constituents align with.

Now, I am not discounting the merit of hard work. But, in politics, longevity and experience is not the whole battle. You’re chosen by the citizens of your district, state, city or even country.  This is not a deli, where you take a number or wait in line for your turn at representing your base. This midterm election is a great instance. The 104 legislators that left Congress can testify that if you don’t appropriately represent your base, they will replace you.  

These aren’t common jobs. As senators, congresspeople or even Supreme Court justices, you will represent districts, states or even your entire nation. This is no place for bullheadedness or complacency. Your position is not given to you, it is an earned privilege to take the title and it is your responsibility to listen to the concerns of your constituents, to create policies that align to those concerns and to continue to pursue a career of integrity, honesty and justice.

Less than two months ago, the docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly” reported the jarring stories of sexual assault, physical abuse and statutory rape by famous R&B singer, R. Kelly. He has since denied these allegations but has been sued by the city of Chicago for ten counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Social communities have erupted in rage and disappointment. Black Twitter has created hashtags and campaigns to #MuteRKelly that seem to be working. Spotify has removed him from all their playlists. RCA Records dropped Kelly two weeks after the docuseries broadcasted. Event companies in New Zealand and the U.S. have canceled his upcoming concerts.

Every day, we find out about a different celebrity or prominent person who has done something horrible, whether in the distant past or within the hour. The response of many social media communities is to cancel the person. Canceling someone means to remove social approval from someone by no longer engaging with them. Canceling someone can take form in boycotting the person’s goods or services. In Kelly’s case, people aren’t listening to or buying his music.

R. Kelly’s abuse is a clear example of cancel culture being used to rescind public support from an objectively bad person, however in more ambiguous circumstances, cancel culture can have negative effects on public perception. Specifically, the culture seems inconsistent. I have a few questions about how we judge canceling people. Now, I want to make it clear that I do not support the actions of Kelly or those like him, nor am I attacking society as a whole.  I do not endorse or commend the despicable or offensive behavior of people. I am pointing out issues with the system. It is healthy to critique institutions so we can understand them even better. Understanding this, I have three main questions about cancel culture to make us think deeper about one’s actions and our response.

The first question I have is “What are the guidelines?” Where are the boundaries?  We have set up a vague set of guidelines to determine what behavior is acceptable and what isn’t. Our collective is very different. We represent our different races, religions, gender identities and sexualities. So, which group gets to determine what behavior is acceptable? Are beliefs subject to chastisement?  The problem lies in consensus. We can’t trust a group with so many varying backgrounds to make specific decisions regarding morals.

The next question is “Is there a scale to compare action?” Cancel culture seems to respond to all actions with the same punishment by excluding the person from society. However, some behavior is far worse than others. Should we create different punishments for different offensive actions, or create a scale from unfavorable to reprehensible? Again, we would have to come to a consensus. It’s difficult for a diverse group to make that decision. Now, we ask the question, “Are some actions allowed redemption?” The whole idea of reconciliation is difficult. In some cases, the effects of one’s actions will traumatize a person for the rest of their lives. However, in cases of genuine ignorance and minimal damage, public forgiveness should be an option.

The final question is “What’s the point?” A social icon’s journey from ridicule to reconciliation seems cyclical. The person does the act. Next, social communities chastise and cancel the person. Then, the person goes on an apology tour throughout the media. Finally, he or she rises back in favor, and we all forget. This cycle happens again with a different celebrity nearly every week. But, is there any room for rehabilitation or growth? The person says “I’m learning.” They will say “I’m only human.” They will say “I want to be better,” but do they ever really get better? It is hard to grow and change from your mistakes if no one is willing to teach or help you.

Now, in some aspects, cancel culture can be good. It alerts society to important issues that, otherwise, would take a backseat. It helps us reevaluate who we put up on a pedestal. It is a sign of a changing culture that will not stand for offensive or disrespectful behavior. These are all great things.

However, to make an effect on the world around us, our responses must be unified. No two situations are similar. We need to take a second and think deeper about what we do and do not stand for as a society. Then, we must decide how we respond to those who break our social guidelines.

Anticipation bubbles as UMBC’s basketball team gears up for March Madness. For those who have pulled off the nearly impossible feat of not hearing about it, last year UMBC’s 16 seed basketball team pulled off a miraculous victory against the number one seed University of Virginia.

Quite the miracle it was, and there was only one way to handle it — celebration. That is, there would have been dramatic festivities all around, if it were not for the fact that UMBC was closed for spring break. As such, it was a true UMBC celebration — everyone alone at home, watching TV and doing nothing of true substance.

Looking forward, we interviewed a few students to see how grossly inaccurate their perceptions were of the upcoming March Madness 2019. One student asserted the mistaken belief that, “anything can happen,” expressing an undue optimism for the basketball team’s chances of victory. Another student agreed with the optimism; however, he prefaced his positivity by saying that he “acknowledged that it was, at best, a severely misplaced hopefulness.” A final student, when queried about the intricacies of UMBC’s delicate positioning in the tournament, merely asked, “what’s March Madness?”

The players, meanwhile, have much less time to speculate, given how they are hard at work in their inevitable failure to live up to last year’s lofty height. Nonetheless, we asked to see if they held any hope in making distance in the tournament. The team replied with a resounding no. “Honestly,” said one of the players, “we still can’t believe it happened. We didn’t belong there, and everyone knew.” Even the custodial staff, he explained, was confounded by their presence.

A few of the players nodded their heads, one even saying, “if it weren’t for everyone and their cousin bringing it up every second last March, then I’d just think it was some fake news. There’s no way we were really that good.” They proceeded to explain how, rather than making themselves look good, their 2018 victory only put into question the competency of all of the collegiate teams.

Opinions aside, when one looks at the raw numbers of the game, their prospects still do not look promising. Using a sample size n=2, UMBC has proven itself most effective against the number one seed. Last year, the game to play against UVA was against the divisional number one seed, Vermont. Thus, if UMBC wants to have any hopes of pulling off a victory, they will need to only play against number one seeds.

Given that the chances of only playing against first seed teams is impossible, UMBC’s hopes of victory are looking even slimmer still. Nonetheless, they will certainly try, because as much of a letdown it is to lose, it is that much more so to not even try.

Apple has made a series of regrettable decisions recently that have had consumers up in arms when it comes to iPhones. It started with the removal of the headphone jack with the iPhone 7 and ended recently with the removal of the home button. Instead of listening to what consumers want, Apple has continued to do what they think is best, and it’s up for debate if the reason they think their decisions are for the best is money.

After all, with the removal of the headphone jack, Apple was able to push the purchase and use of their easily broken adapters, which currently have a 1.5-star rating on the apple website. The far more expensive AirPods are another apple product that consumers are more likely to buy when they purchase an iPhone 7 or the phones that were released after it..

Apple needs to listen to consumers and walk back their decisions instead of chugging ahead with the mistakes that they have made. Buyers pay into the hundreds and thousands of dollars for their Apple products and their opinions deserve to be heard about what they are buying. It is easy to say that if consumers are dissatisfied they can take their business elsewhere, but for some that’s easier said than done.

For those with multiple Apple products, such as people with some combination of Macbooks, iPhones and iPads, the devices might be synced in a way that gets disrupted if you use different brands for any of the devices. So in this case giving Apple your money has ensured that you have to continue to give them your money, or else disrupt your life.

Apple products have been integrated into people’s lives far too much for the “simple suggestion” of just getting a different brand. Here at UMBC for example, visual arts majors are strongly encouraged, if not required to have a Macbook, because they are told professors will only be using them in visual arts courses.

People should not have to shell out extra money just to be able to use all of the functions on their extremely pricey phones. One of the many reasons Apple users have remained faithful to the brand is the supposed superiority of the products, but that should be called into question if the products don’t reflect the desires of consumers.

I love being able to access Facetime and talk to people instead of relying on some external app like skype. I would rather have my portrait mode camera, and an iPhone group chat is just one of life’s little pleasures. These perks shouldn’t come at the expense of having the expected functions that smartphones have had along.

What Apple could do now is release a line of phones that still have the features that people know and love along with some of the newer features of the iPhone 7, 8 and X. Until then I guess I’ll have to hold on to the phone I have along with the army of adapters growing in my desk drawer.