The Retrievers’ March Madness journey continues as UMBC men’s basketball now advances to the America East title game, set for Saturday, March 10, at 11 a.m. against the #1 seed, rival University of Vermont.

The championship game marks UMBC’s first title appearance since 2009. It follows the Retrievers’ 75-60 home victory over Hartford on March 6—UMBC’s fourth win in a row.

Senior guard K.J. Maura ‘18, sociology, led the charge to the win over Hartford with 18 points. Jairus Lyles ‘17, sociology, M.A. ‘18, education, and Arkel Lamar ‘20, sociology, each contributed 13 points. Guard Jourdan Grant ‘18, media and communication studies, and forward Joe Sherburne ‘19, financial economics, added 11 points each.

This year’s remarkable UMBC men’s basketball team boasts what the Baltimore Sun has called “an offense that can move the ball as if it were from an instructional video.” The team has also focused substantially on defense this season, with Maura being named America East Defensive Player of the Year and Coach Ryan Odom telling the Sun, “Our defense has taken a huge jump, without a doubt.”

UMBC is now just one win shy of the university’s Division 1 record of 24 wins, achieved in the 2007-08 season.

The upcoming title game will be held in the Roy L. Patrick Gymnasium in Burlington, Vermont. Retriever fans can also tune in on ESPN2 and attend a watch party in the UMBC Sports Zone (The Commons, second floor), starting at 10:30 a.m. The league champion crowned on Saturday will earn automatic berth to the NCAA tournament.

See more Retrievers coverage from UMBC Magazine and UMBC Athletics.

Image: UMBC men’s basketball plays in the opening game in the UMBC Event Center, spring 2018. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC’s new Director of Undergraduate Research and Prestigious Scholarships, April Householder ’95, spends her days opening doors to students exploring the vast world of research.  As an alumna of visual and performing arts with a minor in art history, she also boasts a fascinating background in documentary filmmaking and media criticism. Here, Householder talks about how her time learning and working at UMBC helped shape her work in film, teaching, and her new work in the division of Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA).

Q: What are your thoughts about your education at UMBC? How did UMBC help prepare you for your research, teaching, and administrative work?

A: I was a transfer student to UMBC from Villanova University. I initially chose Villanova because it had a great name brand, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t for me because it lacked diversity, and it didn’t have many academic offerings in my growing fields of interest – art history and film/media studies. I was very familiar with the UMBC campus because I am native of Arbutus, and as a kid, I grew up riding my bike from my house to play video games in the game room at UMBC. So at the end of my sophomore year, I transferred to UMBC and was thrilled to find  diverse student life on campus and a vibrant arts community in the film/video department. I worked with really creative professors such as Vin Grabill and Dr. Kathy O’Dell, both of whom encouraged me to pursue graduate school, and inspired me creatively. The visual arts program drove me to work hard, and because of this I was the Visual Arts Student of the Year in 1995. As a first generation college student, I found the students and faculty at UMBC to be engaging and challenging, and I worked alongside some really talented film students like alumni Eric Dyer and Brian Dannelly, who have gone on to do amazing things. At UMBC, I learned filmmaking and research skills, and made great personal connections that helped me later in my professional life as an academic.

Q: You have done much work with documentary films and film criticism, you have written books, and you have taught classes (including some at UMBC) related to representations of gender, sexuality, and race in media. How did your interest in these areas develop and what inspired you to focus on these topics in your work?

A: My interests in visual representation began in a course I took as an undergraduate student- we studied Michel Foucault’s interpretation of Diego Velazquez’ painting Las Meninas. That moment sparked my interests in issues of representation, identity, and gender in visual art. In graduate school, my focus shifted from film production to film history, theory, and criticism, and my research and teaching today has continued along the same themes that I became interested in as an undergraduate student. My doctoral dissertation was a documentary film about Bouboulina, the heroine of the 1821 Greek War of Independence. My first book is called Feminist Perspectives on Orange is the New Black. I’ve published essays on the HBO series, Girls and another essay on the biased ways in which the Greek economic crisis was represented in the media. I have a book chapter coming out this year on the history of Baltimore’s radical feminists with my colleague from the Honors College, Dr. Jodi Kelber Kaye. I’ve taught courses at UMBC about feminist and LGBT films; gender, race, and media; and even one about pornography. I feel that these topics continue to be important areas around which young people should develop critical thinking and cultural literacy. This way, they can have tools to interpret the world around them, form their own identities, develop a political consciousness, and be able to see clearly through the fog of media messaging that constantly surrounds us.

Q: You are UMBC’s new Director of Undergraduate Research and Prestigious Scholarships, and have taught classes here in the past. What brought you back to the UMBC community?

A: I got my first work study job in the Student Support Services office as an undergraduate. Years later when I was finishing my Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, College Park, and working part-time at the RAC, I landed my first job as the Assistant Director of the McNair Scholars program at UMBC. I also worked as an adjunct faculty member in the Gender and Women’s Studies Department where I taught courses related to film and media. In January 2017, I moved into my current role as the Director of Undergraduate Research and Prestigious Scholarships. So, most of my academic career has been spent here at UMBC. I still have connections that I made as a student, and now I work with amazing colleagues who are supportive of my research, teaching, and administrative work. I love being able to give back to the community that supported me, and my greatest joy is to inspire UMBC students who are just like me.  My time as an undergraduate student, and now fourteen years as a professional at UMBC has made me bleed black and gold!

Q: What future work do you see yourself doing in research?

A: Currently, I am working on research that focuses on themes of resistance and catharsis in Greek art, music, and film in the context of the European economic crisis. My research looks specifically at contemporary Greek poetry, graffiti, and the resurgence of Rembetika music (known as the “Greek blues”).

Q: What are your future plans here at UMBC?

A: I hope to continue to support UMBC’s undergraduate students by engaging them in meaningful research experiences and exposing them to opportunities for after they leave UMBC. Being a researcher myself, I am uniquely positioned to help students find their path, no matter how that might look. I enjoy exposing new students to research and getting them excited about working with faculty mentors on something that they are passionate about. Engaging in undergraduate research is a great resume builder for graduate school and their careers, introduces them to the culture of their disciplines, and builds their skills and networks in their fields.  I also work with seasoned students who are applying for prestigious scholarships, and hope that I can help them be competitive on a national and international scale. My goal is to contribute to UMBC as an institution that provides a distinctive undergraduate experience, and to the growing recognition that UMBC is an intellectual powerhouse that stands shoulder to shoulder with the highest ranking universities in the nation. I hope to build on the success of our first Rhodes scholarship (senior chemical engineering major Naomi Mburu) to motivate more students to do great things. UMBC undergrads inspire me!

— Interview by Allison Cruz ’18

URCAD 2018 is coming! Learn more about Undergraduate Research & Creative Achievement Day, April 25, here.

Before students leave for Spring Break, they will need to do a few things.  

Following this checklist below will help to reduce the risk of fire, minimize pest problems and increase the security of your room and its contents.

• Unplug all appliances and extension cords from electrical wall sockets.  Exception:  You may leave refrigerators and fish tanks plugged in after checking to make sure electrical connections are safe… that is, not running under rugs, not hanging loosely out of the wall, or plugged into a thin extension cord.
• Turn off all water completely.  Make sure faucets and shower heads are not dripping.
• Clean the bathroom well.  Suggestion:  to avoid a stuffy bathroom when returning, leave the bathroom door open to allow air to circulate.  Make sure it’s okay with suitemates before leaving the door unlocked.
• Remove all trash/recyclables and dispose of it in the trash room or in a dumpster.
• Check window to be sure it is securely locked.  If you should find windows unlocked and cannot lock it, notify your RA or FXIT (x53948).

• Leave blinds and shades open except for first floor – first floor rooms should fully CLOSE shades or blinds

• Feed fish and water plants.  Remember, students won’t be able to get back in until 12 Noon on Sunday, March 25.
• Turn off lights.  If you’re the last one to leave from a suite, make sure the bathroom light / fan is off.  Also, turn off alarm clocks.
• Remember to pack any medications or others necessities needed.
• Lock doors and take keys with you.
• Secure vehicles if they are being left on campus. 

Resident Assistants (RAs) will conduct a pre-break inspection of each room.  Please help save time by following checkout procedures.

Communities reopen Sunday, March 25, 2018 at noon. 

If you have any questions feel free to contact Residential Life at 410-455-2591.

The Birthday Party Host delivers an exciting, creative, and engaging birthday party experience. The Host should ensure smiles, laughter, excitement and positive emotions resulting in meaningful memories for all. This Host is also responsible for providing excellent and responsive service to all party guests and support the museum’s mission of playful learning and discovery through meaningful interactions.

In honor of International Women’s Day (IWD), we wanted to share a list by Interesting Engineering of outstanding women in STEM who have made significant contributions in science, technology, engineering, and math.

International Women’s Day (March 8) is a day of global celebration. On this day, we honor the accomplishments and contributions women have made socially, economically, culturally and politically. People from around the world celebrate this day, which also serves as call to action for accelerating gender parity. IWD began over a century ago when over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland gathered for the first ever March 8 IWD. In 2018, we see the evidence of a collective enthusiasm to keep the light of this day burning brightly to remind us of the importance that women, from all around the world, bring to our great planet!

“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist not to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.” Gloria Steinem, world-renowned feminist, journalist and activist.

A List of Notable Women in STEM:

Hypatia

She was a prolific polymath in Roman Alexandria. Hypathia spent her life working as a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in what was then the Byzantine Empire. If you want to get to know her life story even more, check out the film Agora.

Marie Curie

Madam Curie opened up a whole new world to humankind through her pioneering research on radioactivity. She sacrificed greatly for her contributions, leading ultimately to her death. The first woman to earn a Nobel Prize, she blazed a trail for humanity. She then climbed even higher when she earned her second Nobel Prize, the first woman to ever do that in history, as well.

Rosalind Franklin

If it weren’t for the brilliant mind of Rosalind Franklin, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins, may not have discovered the double helix structure in 1962. Through her work with X-Ray diffraction images of DNA, humankind’s understanding of DNA structure revealed itself as did the molecular structures of RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.

Continue reading about more brilliant women in STEM...

“Get the habit of analysis – analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind.”

– Frank Lloyd Wright

This summer delve into what makes text effective in its transmission and the information it conveys.

MLL 301 – Textual Analysis: Words, Images, Music focuses on tangible communications and inspects the different biases, cultural and historical effects and properties that affect the way text communicates information.

Investigate the tools that allow us to decode the products of communication that surround us, including commercials, songs, political speeches, films, paintings, poems, plays, and folk tales. Examine their structural properties, their place in social reality, and the relationships among linguistic, visual, and musical codes and critical approaches that purport to read them.

“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.”

– Tony Robbins

MLL 301 is a 3 credit hybrid course. Potential students should have taken English 100 and it’s recommended that students have passed another linguistics course to prepare for this one.

View Course

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The course is taught by Associate Professor Zakaria Fatih, who earned his PhD from University of Buffalo. Professor Fatih has been with UMBC since 2004 and is fluent in English, French, Dutch and Arabic.

• Master of Library & Information Science degree (or equivalent ALA accredited degree)
• Demonstrated ability and interest in providing dynamic library instruction and contributing to a team-based information literacy program
• Demonstrated ability and interest in the areas of library public services and outreach
• Demonstrated high-quality written and verbal communication
• Ability to work effectively independently or as part of a team
• Ability to initiate and lead projects to completion
• Interest and/or experience working with diverse populations, particularly students
• Undergraduate or advanced degree in a humanities discipline preferred
• Reference experience in an academic library setting preferred
• Direct teaching or library instruction experience preferred