The semester is well underway, and many students are frantically doggy paddling to keep afloat amidst a sea of midterms, papers, twenty-page readings and extracurricular activities. In these trying times, it is important that students discover and utilize the educational resources available on campus.

Students are not always aware of the forms of aid available to them, and some who are aware decide not to use their resources because they think they do not need them, or that their work will no longer be their own, but these people are mistaken. The opportunities available are helpful and go beyond the popular twenty-four hour study space in the library.

An important source of educational assistance that may be overlooked by students is the Learning Resources Center, which offers students many different forms of aid, with new programs arriving every few years.

Students may be unaware of the services the center offers, which include placement testing, drop-in tutoring in the Math and Science Center, face-to-face and online tutoring in the Writing Center, the First-Year Intervention program aimed at providing resources to students in their first year at UMBC, tutoring by appointment for many one- and two-hundred level courses and more.

Cassie Bichy, director of the LRC, said in an email, “We build partnerships with students, faculty, and staff to provide successful academic support services ensuring that students have the means to perform better in their coursework, learn how to study independently and succeed in graduating.”

Additionally, Bichy expressed the belief that visits to the center allow students to gain a different perspective for learning. Students have the opportunity to lighten their load by working with people who are knowledgeable about their coursework. A tutor can walk a student through their assignments and ensure that, in the future, that student is better equipped to tackle further coursework.

One example of the LRC’s available opportunities for help is the Writing Center, where students can get help on the essays that often bring them to the verge of tears. Students can drop in or do online appointments and receive feedback for revision and improvement whether their assignment entails a short blog post or a full-length essay.

Harini Narayan, a sophomore modern language and linguistics major, has made use of the center. “Everyone at the writing center is very constructive and supportive,” she said. “They help you improve your writing while still maintaining your own voice.”

Refinement of writing skills is just one of the many things the LRC can offer.  For more information about specific forms of assistance the Learning Resources Center offers, students can visit the website or call 410-455-2444.

Taking advantage of the tools at their disposal will help students cut down on their stress and improve the quality of their work. Free academic support is not offered to students everywhere, but on this campus students have a variety of resources available, and they should make use of them.

Sleep is one of the cornerstones of good health as it helps the body reset after a long day, but many at UMBC may not be getting enough. For students, studying late at night may take precedence over their full night’s rest. Furthermore, cramming as much studying time as possible into a day may even hinder these students’ academic performance.  

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that teens and young adults receive between seven to nine hours of sleep per night, with six to ten hours still being within their appropriate range. However, some students here at UMBC receive as low as five hours on an average school night, and admitted to receiving even less sleep on nights when studying for exams or finishing papers. Although this might not seem like a problem since many students would use the weekends to regain lost sleep, it also meant they did not have a permanent sleep cycle, which puts them at risk to develop other issues trying to sleep later in life.

Additionally, some students reported that they felt the need to stay up and study to achieve better grades, which they believed would lead to better success after college. As a result, many described resorting to caffeine even after admitting they knew it was unhealthy and only prolonged the issue. Junior computer science major Adrianne Santinor commented, “I drink so much coffee, it’s not healthy. I think the most I’ve had in a day is three cups.”

According to UMBC’s Assistant Director of Health Promotions, Samantha Smith, sleep is connected to both physical and mental health, so those who are not getting enough will have a lower immunity to fight off diseases. Furthermore, despite studying all night, students will be less likely to retain information. Smith commented, “Research has shown us that students who are not getting … and this can be students, young adults, older adults, anything like that … students who are not getting enough sleep, though, are actually going to mirror the behavior of a student who’s intoxicated.”

Although the school provides services like the University Health Services and the Counseling Center, which assist students if they are having sleep-related issues, sleep is a personal responsibility students should take for themselves, along with time management as a whole. Despite the difficulty of maintaining a healthy balance of academics and relaxation, there is a way to take control of one’s nightly routines. 

Smith advised that students not only take into consideration their daily exercise and diet, but also make a step-by-step sleep routine for each night which gives the body mental cues to prepare it for to sleep. She also recommends that student avoid bright light before bed and do not use their beds for activities that require a high amount of cognitive activity. Lastly, students should try to go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, including weekends.

According to a study done by the UHS in 2015, 18 percent of students were sleep deprived. As a necessity for everyday life, sleep should be a priority here at UMBC just as much as grades, recreation, and other health. It helps to strengthen the memories we create here and allows students to recall and utilize the information they gather to make the most of their experiences in life.

Three more women stating they were sexually assaulted have joined two other alleged victims in a $10 million, federal class-action lawsuit that claims UMBC and Baltimore County officials deliberately misclassified cases of sexual assault to “lower the reported numbers of sexual assaults.”

One of the women, a former UMBC student, alleges she was gang-raped on campus by four members of the university’s basketball team in 2014. Another of the new plaintiffs alleges she was gang-raped by three members of the UMBC baseball team in 2017, along with one of the two original plaintiffs. The third woman was sexually assaulted in a laboratory by a UMBC graduate student in 2016, the suit alleges.

An amended, 120-page complaint detailing the events and subsequent actions by both university staff and county police was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore by lawyers representing the five women.

UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski III, Baltimore County Police Chief Terrence B. Sheridan, former County Police Chief James W. Johnson, another two county police detectives from the Special Victims Team and a second county police officer were added as defendants in the amended civil suit this week.

The Retriever is not identifying the women, who are named as plaintiffs in the suit, because they are alleged sexual assault victims.

Among the other defendants initially named in the lawsuit are Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, three members of his office, three county detectives, a UMBC “independent investigator” who looked into two of the sexual assault allegations, and UMBC Police Chief Paul M. Dillon.

The complaint, a civil rights lawsuit, alleges “intentional misconduct, gross negligence, and willful indifference” by the defendants “designed to suppress legitimate reports of rape and sexual assault.” It argues that the plaintiffs were not allowed equal protection under the law as female victims of sexual assault and were subsequently “denied educational access.” It also reports in a footnote that UMBC “has claimed, in writing, that a misclassified report of sexual assault does not count as a report of sexual assault.”

Four of the five plaintiffs are listed in the civil suit as having been UMBC students at some point, but after their cases were handled, they transferred to other schools. For one of the new plaintiffs, a graduate student at the University of Maryland at Baltimore who was assaulted by a UMBC graduate student in the lab, university officials “acknowledged” that her assault occurred, and then referred her accused assailant to one counseling session as “penalty,” the suit claims.

One of the three new plaintiffs was allegedly sexually assaulted by three UMBC baseball players at an apartment near Towson University, where she is now a student. She joins another woman – her friend — who alleged in the original lawsuit that she was sexually assaulted by the three baseball players. The alleged assault of the two women took place the same night, after they had been drinking at a Towson bar with the three UMBC athletes.

The third new plaintiff alleges she was raped on campus in August 2014 by four UMBC basketball players while she was intoxicated after a party. She did not recall the incident at the time, but found out about it two months later when she was “accidentally” told that the four basketball players had “run a train on her and pass[ed] her around,” the lawsuit alleges.

When she reported the assault to Baltimore County police, she was told by a detective that she had not been raped because in order for “some of the sex acts to be performed, she would have had to be conscious to participate,” the suit alleges.

The lawsuit states that two of the four players were expelled from the university after admitting to officials they were involved in the incident.

UMBC has not expelled any student for a Title IX violation where only two of the four alleged assailants in the plaintiff’s case were expelled for admitting to sexual assault, according to the lawsuit. Title IX prevents discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity that receives federal funding. No other accused assailants of the five plaintiffs were expelled.

Two weeks ago, the Maryland Attorney General’s office, which is representing Dillon, filed a motion for a judge to dismiss the count against him – alleging that he deliberately minimized sexual assault reports — or enter a summary judgment in his favor.

Attorney General Brian E. Frosh and two of his assistant attorneys general – Christopher Bowie Lord and Erik J. Delfosse – also argue in the Oct. 5 motion that Dillon is entitled to qualified immunity personally and to immunity in his professional capacity as a state official.

The federal judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow, has not ruled on the Dillion motion.

The complaint also looks at the classification and diversion of reports of rape and sexual assault to other non-police entities on UMBC’s campus. In “diverting” these cases, Dillon “created the illusion that the assaults did not occur and ensured that they received minimal attention.”

UMBC spokeswoman and Associate Vice President for Engagement Lisa Akchin told The Retriever that the university does not discuss individual cases “to protect the privacy of our students.”

Akchin did say, however, “it is the practice of the campus in all cases to handle these matters diligently, equitably, and consistent with university, state, and federal policies and procedures.”

Akchin said that the university’s process for handling cases of sexual assault allegations “have resulted in serious disciplinary actions, including the suspension and expulsion of students.”

Nevertheless, she said, “we also know that compliance with policies and applicable laws is not a sufficiently wholistic response to the complex problem of sexual assault on college campuses.” As a result, through the UMBC Accountablility Team, the university is looking at ways to strengthen its prevention and response efforts to sexual assault, she said.

In an Oct. 11 e-mail, the UMBC Accountability Team, composed of administrators, faculty and staff established by President Hrabowski after the listening session he held with students on Sept. 20, updated students on prevention methods and actions the administration is taking to keep its students safe. While the e-mail references bringing in an external expert or firm to review proceedings, this external review would reportedly only look at “aspects of [UMBC’s] sexual misconduct prevention and response policies and training and awareness programs,” not any administrators, faculty or staff members at UMBC.

This report will be updated.

Artists, scientists, and social change agents from across UMBC presented the third annual GRIT-X talks on October 13, sharing their ideas and perspectives on stage in UMBC’s Dance Cube. “All our talks gave a different facet, a different beam of light, on what we do at UMBC,” said Vice President for Research Karl Steiner, who spearheaded the event.

The value of stories

Documentary filmmaker Richard Chisolm ’82, interdisciplinary studies, explained how many documentaries and reality television shows today are tightly scripted and controlled, and how, in contrast, he uses an in-the-moment style of filmmaking to produce films that honestly represent a microcosm of the larger story.

Through films like Cafeteria Man, focused on school food reform, and Gun Show, about an artist who makes sculptures of assault weapons out of found objects, Chisolm gives viewers an entry point into thorny issues. Each topic he tackles is a “huge iceberg, the tip of which is an hour documentary,” Chisolm says. “The noblest thing to do is to tell stories in a way that the tip of the iceberg represents the iceberg fairly.”

Manil Suri, mathematics, emphasized in his talk that storytelling can benefit disciplines beyond literature and film. “Stories underlie so much of what we do, including math and other STEM subjects,” he said.

Suri weaves together his passions for storytelling and math on a daily basis: He teaches a course with Michele Osherow, English, about the relationship between math and the humanities, and he’s written a novel, The Godfather of Numbers, that is a sort of creation story for mathematics. He’s using excerpts from it in his math classes this fall.

Suri also urges people who are less keen on mathematics to broaden their perspective of what math is. “Math is about more than calculations,” he says. “It’s about ideas, and ideas, such as infinity, can be enjoyed by everyone.”

Nicole King, American studies, enjoys listening to and learning from others’ stories, with a focus on residents of Baltimore City. After an accident totaled her Corolla in 2010, King decided to go carless, which, she says, removed a barrier to her truly listening to Baltimore. Through taking the bus and more closely connecting with Baltimore in other ways, King shared, “I started to really see the beauty—that cacophony of voices and sounds—that make a city a city.”

King’s research seeks to understand how Baltimore residents are responding to change across the city, with a particular focus on public markets like Lexington Market, and arts districts like Station North. Through that work, “I found listening, really listening, has been the most important, but also the most difficult, method I have used in my research,” she said. She creates opportunities for her students to “show up and listen” through immersive class projects.

Listening to her students has helped shape her teaching and research, too. “Give students the agency to shape projects,” she recommends. “They have good ideas and should be taken seriously.”

Doing things differently

Deborah Thompson Eisenberg ’91, political science, is a professor of law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, where she directs the Center for Dispute Resolution. She was motivated to pursue a law career because, she explained, “When our democracy encounters crisis, lawyers and the judiciary tend to step in to give voice to the powerless, enforce our laws and our Constitutional rights, and protect the most vulnerable.” However, over time, she reflected, “I’ve come to believe that if lawyers and judges truly want to foster a culture of conflict resolution, we need more than the power of the rule of law.”

Eisenberg began to focus on alternatives to traditional litigation: mediation and restorative justice practices, teaching our youth to “talk it out to work it out,” and teaching our politicians “to use consensus-building policies.” Conflict is inevitable and has been intensifying, Eisenberg argued, but “we can transform our culture of conflict to a culture of conflict resolution if we use all of our superpowers,” combining the rule of law, alternative dispute resolution, community connections, and education.

Disney’s Princess Tiana may not be a superhero, but, as the first black Disney princess, she is larger than life in the eyes of many young girls of color. Kimberly Moffitt, associate professor of language, literacy, and culture and Africana studies, discussed how Tiana broke the mold of the traditional Disney princess with her entrepreneurial, ambitious spirit in The Princess and the Frog. “Princess Tiana pushes the bounds of the princess trope and says, ‘No more. We can do this differently,’” Moffitt said.

However, Moffitt explained, Tiana is also an example of the “glass cliff,” a phenomenon in business where companies are more likely to hire women and people of color to leadership roles when those companies are in times of crisis and the risk of failure is highest. When Tiana came out in 2009, Disney hadn’t had a new princess-style protagonist since Mulan in 1998, and the brand was faltering. The Princess and the Frog didn’t achieve box office success itself, but, Moffitt argued, “Tiana created space for the next three princesses,” who all were more independent than their predecessors: Rapunzel in Tangled, Merida in Brave, and Moana in Moana. “Tiana was a catalyst to shift our perception of what a princess could look like—in skin tone as well as her actions.”

Eric Dyer ’95, professor of visual arts, shifts our perception of what moving pictures can be by reimagining the zoetrope, one of the original forms of motion picture. Zoetropes use a series of snapshots in a spinning cylinder to trick the mind into seeing a moving scene. “As an artist, I pick up the tactile and interactive zoetrope where it was abandoned 120 years ago,” Dyer said, “and continuously reinvent it to make films, interactive animated sculptures, and immersive installations.”

At GRIT-X, Dyer demonstrated his work for the audience and, for the first time, shared the story behind each piece. Attendees enjoyed frolicking onions and peppers and reflected on Dyer’s exploration of the industrial heydays of the U.S. and China. “Thank you for sharing this performance storytelling experience with me today,” Dyer shared as he closed. “There’s something very human about it that isn’t possible either virtually or remotely.”

Shifting the culture

Diane Bell McKoy ’73, social work and sociology, is the CEO of Associated Black Charities of Maryland. She used her GRIT-X talk as an opportunity to share a powerful personal story of seeking treatment for depression in a broken mental healthcare system. Systems in place in the United States, she argued, perpetuate stigma and fail to support a sense of self-worth for people of color, and she is working to change them.

McKoy’s work has a particular focus on closing the racial wealth gap. If wealth continues to accrue at current rates, it would take a black family 228 years to accrue as much wealth as a white family, McKoy said, and it would take a Latino family 84 years. McKoy encouraged attendees to “look at the world through a new lens” and be willing to question current systems, from employment to education to healthcare.

Shawn Bediako, psychology, is also interested in changing perceptions around race, with a focus on health and science. “Ideas about race can become inscribed in our minds if they’re repeated often enough,” he said at GRIT-X, using the example that many people seem to believe, incorrectly, that sickle cell disease is exclusive to black people.

Bediako went on to explain how race is a complex legal, social, and cultural construct that impacts people’s lives in dramatic ways. But he also shared that he has hope this can change, and that UMBC can develop leaders who will impact the way we think about race. “I feel confident that an institution like ours, with a commitment to inclusive excellence at all levels of the arts, humanities, and sciences,” he said, “can help…change this inscription and hopefully shift this paradigm.”

To close the program, Kavita Krishnaswamy ’07, computer science and mathematics, Ph.D. ’19, computer science, shared her work developing solutions to assist people with disabilities and mobility challenges. Krishnaswamy, who has spinal muscular atrophy, gave her presentation via a telepresence device that allows her to navigate the world from her home in Columbia, Maryland.

Krishnaswamy is the recipient of the Google Lime Scholarship, was named a Microsoft Fellow, and was included among the Baltimore Sun’s “25 Women to Watch.” She is currently working on projects including a bed that allows people with mobility challenges to adjust their position along many different axes of movement, and a robot to enable people who previously could not use the bathroom unassisted to do so independently.

“We have a lot of problems in the world, and I really feel that robotics can solve many of those problems,” Krishnaswamy said. “So in that way we can really promote social progress and elevate the global living standards. That, in turn, can increase the quality of life for people with disabilities, seniors, and their families.”

One of her closing remarks echoed the sentiments of others at GRIT-X. “Even though our perspectives are many and diverse, our vision is one,” she concluded. Whether dismantling stigma, finding new ways to connect students with intimidating subjects, or changing how we think about conflict, all the speakers emphasized how the UMBC community can reach together to improve the world of tomorrow.

Banner image: Manil Suri, mathematics, at GRIT-X. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.
Explore video of all GRIT-X talks on the Research at UMBC website.