On September 19, 1966, UMBC opened its doors to students for the first day of classes in the institution’s history. Mimi Dietrich ’70, American studies, was among those “pioneer” students, encouraged by faculty and administrators to take advantage of a campus where everything was both new and possible.

“So many of them were inspiring because they were joining us in this new university,” says Dietrich, who has in her decades as an alumna continued to show her passion for UMBC in a variety of ways.

Dietrich will receive the UMBC Alumni Award for Distinguished Service at a ceremony on October 4.

The pioneering spirit has continued to carry Dietrich to pursue her passion in quilting. After teaching middle school and pre-school for 6 years, Dietrich shifted her focus to teach needlework and quilting. For 50 years, Dietrich has traveled across the United States to teach at guilds, festivals, state conferences, cruises, and an American studies course at UMBC. Dietrich was inducted into The Quilters Hall of Fame in 2015 and was named Professional Quilt Teacher of the Year by the International Association of Creative Arts Professionals in 2013. The author of 17 books and countless publications, Dietrich now teaches a year-long class focused on Baltimore Album Quilts. A founding member of The Village Quilters in Catonsville and the Baltimore Applique Society, Dietrich is preparing for an exhibit of her quilts in 2019.

Alongside her professional successes, Dietrich hasn’t strayed far from UMBC in the decades following graduation. A founding member of the Fab Four, an alumni group comprised of graduates of UMBC’s first four graduating classes, Dietrich took on a pivotal volunteer role engaging the earliest alumni heading into UMBC’s milestone 25th and 50th anniversaries. During UMBC’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2016, The Fab Four hosted several events, and continues to plan initiatives aimed at connecting UMBC’s early alumni with the university.

Dietrich credits her husband and fellow alumnus Robert “Bob” Dietrich ’70, biological science, for keeping her connected to UMBC, where he worked for 40 years. A former member of UMBC’s Alumni Association Board of Directors, Dietrich was named UMBC Volunteer of the Year in 1997, an honor she shared with husband Bob. Together, they’ve raised two sons, Jon and Ryan, who have grown up to be wonderful dads to their three grandchildren.

– Amy Dalrymple

And even if you’re stuck with a lame, super un-spicy topic like saving the polar bears, you can still make your readers interested, without trying too hard. In fact, it’s surprisingly easy to do, as long as you start by providing context. 

Context 

While it may be tempting to wonder why you can’t just jump right into your topic and run with it, imagine if you tried to start a conversation the same way. Can you just start talking to someone about why tanning beds should have age restrictions, or why we need to protect the environment? No, and the reason for that is simple: they simply won’t care until you give them a reason. 

But if you were to mention a teenage girl who developed cancer from using tanning beds, or discuss the dwindling numbers of polar bears, this will tell your readers why they should care by providing a sense of relevant urgency. 

This is called providing context. Context is what it’s called when you show how your topic fits into reality and the world at large. The morality of tanning beds fits into the world because it affects people in real life by making them sick. Environmentalism fits into the world because it affects the animals we love, like polar bears. 

Providing this kind of context should be the focus of your introduction, because once your reader thinks your topic is important, they will be invested enough to read the rest of your paper. 

What this might look like: 

In the year 2016 alone, the number of polar bears living outside of captivity dwindled from 25,000 to 15,000.  

Background 

The next thing you want to discuss is some background. This is any information your readers will need to know in order to understand your topic. So, for instance, if any important, relevant laws were recently passed, or if your topics require lots of complicated definitions, then this would be the time to discuss such things. 

What this might look like: 

Although quite a few laws have been passed in favor of reducing humanity’s environmental impact, the populations of many endangered species continue to decline.  

Thesis and Moving On 

Once you’ve finished framing your topic you can move onto the part where you actually tell your audience what YOU think about the topic you’ve picked. So this would be the point at which you say: 

Due to these concerning ecological patterns, it’s morally mandated for the US Senate to introduce new legislation that will incentivize citizens to be more earth-conscious. 

And PRESTO — you have a basic introduction! Just keep in mind that your context and background portions should probably be larger than these examples, but not TOO big. You want to give your readers just the right amount of information to get them hooked without boring them. But most importantly, remember — you can do this! 

Happy writing!

*Follow the UMBC Writing Center Blog here: https://umbcwritingcorner.wordpress.com/blog/

Meagan Barrett — Writing Tutor 

Major/Minor: English major, pursuing both a Creative Writing and Psychology minor
Strengths: English, creative writing, and overall organization
About me:  I’m a huge writing and reading nerd; when I’m not in class or working in the Writing Center, I’m almost definitely either reading, writing, or drawing. I hope to edit novels some day, and maybe write a few of my own!

As the semester slowly grinds to a start students have begun to notice that the much anticipated accessibility ramp between Academic Row and the ruins of the Quad is a bit more stairlike than originally anticipated. In fact, some are saying it is quite a bit more stairlike.

It’s a staircase.

This has led people with mobility concerns and people who care about people with mobility concerns to demand answers from campus administration. Which in turn has responded by unveiling a bold new accessibility plan.

A statement released by the university about their new plan described it as a “first of its kind, convenient high speed accessibility slingshot.” It goes on to explain how, when completed, the slingshot will stand 15 to 20 feet high. This all depending on how much rebar they can scrape together. This new service will provide service from the Quad to many high-demand parts of campus; including the Library Pond, the sad remains of Flat Tuesday’s, and the other side of Quad.

This, like most next level web 2.0 innovations, has led to some critique. These critiques have been taken to heart by UMBC Accessibility Coordinator Froseph Yoseph as he explained when we sat down with him for his take.

“Some say that this is ‘recklessly dangerous’ and puts particularly disadvantaged students at risk of ‘gross bodily harm’, but to that I say: Who cares? We already have their money.”

-Doctor Ector

Following one of the lowest turnout rates for Student Government Association candidates during last year’s SGA election, the current President and Vice President are preparing to make changes to prevent a similar turnout for next year’s SGA election.

One of the chief concerns of the SGA this semester is increasing engagement between the SGA and the student body of UMBC. The last SGA election saw low voter turnout, partially due to a small number of actual candidates. Most of the positions that were voted on during the 2018 SGA elections saw little competition. The President and Executive Vice President ran unopposed, the SGA Finance Board had six candidates running for the five available positions, and the SGA Senate had twelve candidates running for 11 available positions.

To help solve this issue with engagement, Executive Vice President and junior science and mathematics dual major Vrinda Deshpande believes that having students talking to the SGA would help. “Even though there was super low turnout, we are representatives of the student voice,” she says.

In order to help prevent another election with few candidates, the SGA is working on different solutions. SGA President and senior information systems and economics major Collin Sullivan believes that solving this problem is “not something we can do right now. It’s something that we’re going to have to build up over time. We have until spring semester, so what we’re trying to do during fall is look at how can we have programs that will help with sustainability of the organization.”

Sullivan recognizes the SGA’s issue with student engagement. “For a long time, the expectation is [sic], ‘Why haven’t people come talk to us in the SGA office?’ Well, our office is up in the student [organization] space. This is not the easiest place to get to if you don’t know where the student [organization] space is, or if you don’t ever come up to the second or third floor of the Commons, then this isn’t easy access to you. That part’s on us, we could be doing a better job of going out and our plan is to do that.”

Sullivan’s advice to anyone who is thinking about running for an SGA position is to “do it. Even if the thought ‘I don’t know if I should’ is coming in to play, you probably should. There’s low risk. I ran for president last year and lost – and I’m not going to lie, it did suck – but I had the greatest year and this experience now has been so rewarding that it was worth it … I think that we have a really bad notion in our democracy that if you lose an election, then you go away. I don’t think that’s how we should be looking at it. I think your involvement is in a different capacity. You can think about what you want to do and what you really care about, but having a fancy title or a fancy position shouldn’t determine whether or not you are engagement-worthy in the community.”