Where did the ghost get their Halloween costume? At a bootique.

Choice will host a costume pop-up closet--a bootique--for neighbors in Cherry Hill (south Baltimore City) on Saturday October 25, 2-4 p.m. We hope to have 100 costumes to distribute. Do you have any butterfly wings, crowns, super hero get-ups that you would like to donate? I would love to take them off your hands. All sizes welcome.

I have a box outside of my office in Shriver: Public Policy (PUP) 116. Please feel free to drop them off until Thursday, October 23.

Thanks to the many student organizations who are supporting this effort including Sisterhood who held a bake sale to buy ones! And thanks to Division of Professional Studies/Shriver colleagues who have been generous too. 

Why Cherry Hill? It's our mothership! Choice was founded in Cherry Hill in 1988. It's our only residential neighborhood-based office. 

WordPress Accessibility Day is a 24-hour global event dedicated to promoting and learning best practices for creating accessible WordPress websites. Originally started in 2020 by the WordPress Core Accessibility Team, this independent, volunteer-led initiative brings together developers, designers, content creators, and users worldwide to ensure websites are usable for everyone, regardless of ability.

Why Accessibility Matters
An accessible website ensures that people with disabilities—and those using assistive technologies—can fully engage with online content. Accessibility also benefits broader audiences by improving readability, usability on mobile devices, translation accuracy, and overall user experience. Accessible websites truly benefit everyone.

Event Details

• Link to Register 
• Date: October 15, 2025
• Format: 24-hour virtual event featuring presentations from accessibility experts worldwide
• Cost: Free to attend with live captioning and ASL interpretation provided

Learn more and register for WordPress Accessibility Day!

UMBC Commitment to Accessibility
At UMBC, the Office of Accessibility and Disability Services is committed to fostering digital accessibility in all online spaces. As you participate in WordPress Accessibility Day—or create content of your own—we encourage you to review our Six Essential Steps for Accessible Digital Content.

Together, let's make accessibility a shared responsibility and celebrate WordPress Accessibility Day by building content that works for everyone.

Hey Retrievers! 

SCCS is looking to borrow 4–6 long, heavy-duty file boxes for a file-moving project. We'll only need them for about a week (or less) and promise to pick them up and return them safely!

Thanks in advance for lending us a paw!

Greetings Retrievers!

Free to a Good Home – Cherrywood Bookcase

Looking for some extra storage? We have a cherrywood bookcase in decent shape that's ready for a new home! It features 4 sturdy shelves and offers plenty of room for books, décor, or office supplies.

The bookcase is available for pickup right away, first come, first served.

Dr. James DeVita, assistant vice president for academic partnerships and high-impact experiences, will co-present at the American Association of Colleges and Universities'  International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Inc. (ISSOTL) annual conference in Christchurch, New Zealand this November in partnership with the University of Canterbury. Dr. DeVita will co-present "Large-Scale Assessment as SoTL: An Emerging Structure that Supports Data-Driven Practices in Higher Education" with Dr. Megan Bolden, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and Dr. Kristi Wiley, Lenoir Community College.

During their session, they will "explore how the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has evolved from reflective practice to a systematic, research-based approach to improving student learning. We argue that more emphasis should be placed on applying SoTL principles to large-scale assessment initiatives across institutions. Drawing from examples like the National Survey of Student Leaders and Queen's University Assessment Redesign Project, we showcase how SoTL frameworks can drive institutional change. We will present large-scale assessments that have led to meaningful reforms in undergraduate social work programs, multi-institutional research initiatives, and campus-wide career-readiness outcome mapping."

ISSOTL serves faculty members, staff, and students who care about teaching and learning as serious intellectual work. Through building intellectual and collaborative infrastructure, the Society supports the associational life that fosters scholarly work about teaching and learning. The Society provides this support by:

• recognizing and encouraging scholarly work on teaching and learning in each discipline, within scholarly societies and across educational levels,

• promoting cross-disciplinary conversations to create synergy and prompt new lines of inquiry,

• facilitating the collaboration of scholars in different countries and the flow of new findings and applications across national boundaries,

• encouraging the integration of discovery, learning, and public engagement, and

• advocating for support, review, recognition, and appropriate uses of the scholarship of teaching and learning.