Every year, Americans waste billions of pounds of food. A 2016 report by “The Guardian” states that roughly 50 percent of all produce in the United States is thrown away. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food waste also takes up the majority of space in all American landfills. But why do we have all of this uneaten food?

A huge part of the problem is that food is cheaper in the United States than anywhere else in the world due to subsidies on major crops such as corn, wheat and soybeans. There is also a cultural dynamic to the massive food waste problem that is unique to the American psyche.

Fruits, vegetables and other produce will naturally bruise, oxidize, brown or wilt as they travel from farm to supermarket and supermarket to home. The majority of American consumers would rather throw away slightly browned produce than eat it. For a family of four, the average value of discarded produce is nearly $1,600 every year. The American need for perfection is expensive.

Doug Rauch, a former president of Trader Joe’s, admitted that “[g]rocery stores routinely trash produce for being the wrong shape or containing minor blemishes.” This is under the lofty presumption that the produce even reaches stores. Insanely large quantities of produce are grown and then left to rot in the fields, fed to farm animals, or hauled off directly to landfills.

Another huge part of the problem is that there is no single regulation for expiration dates. The majority of Americans do not understand exactly what these labels mean. States have a dizzying variety of expiration date laws that are not based on science or public policy. So between the lack of label uniformity and the gap in understanding on what these labels mean, customers are understandably confused about when food has become too old to eat. This confusion can lead to tons of wasted food.

A federal standard is much needed if America ever wants to rectify its food waste problem. Expiration date labels need to be simplified to two clearly defined options: a quality date and a safety label. The quality date will tell the customer up to when the food will taste its best. The safety label will let the customer know when the food is no longer safe to eat without getting sick.

The amount of food the United States wastes every year has detrimental effects on the health of the environment. All of the food that sits in this country’s landfills releases hazardous methane into the already damaged atmosphere. Creating a uniform expiration date system is a key part to alleviating the problem of food waste and help the environment.

A key part in combating the problem is spreading awareness of the scale of the food wasted each year in the United States. Consumers eating that bruised apple instead of tossing it into the garbage could make all the difference.

After working at UMBC for over six years, SGA advisor Craig Berger will be relocating to Kent State University in Ohio.

His last day at UMBC was Nov. 17.

Although Berger wore multiple hats during his tenure at the university, he was best known as the full-time advisor to UMBC’s Student Government Association. In this position, he attended SGA meetings, including those of the Senate, and would often “meet with members one on one” to discuss current affairs.

SGA took up most of Berger’s workload, though not all. “I’d say I spent about 70 to 80 percent of my [working] time alongside the SGA,” he said.

The remaining 20 to 30 percent mainly belonged to his other duties as the Coordinator of Student Life for Campus and Civic Engagement. In this role, Berger was involved in events and civic engagement initiatives throughout UMBC. Additionally, he was engaged within the campus community as an author of Co-Create UMBC, a blog which, according to its Facebook page, “supports members of the UMBC community as leaders and change agents by sharing news, ideas, profiles and stories.”

As the advisor for SGA, Berger recalled some events that stood out to him. One of these was the impeachment trial of former SGA President Anthony Jankoski, which he described as a “pretty low point” for the organization. The trial took place in 2015 and Jankoski was accused of violating Rule 10, which states that candidates may not be “harassed, badgered, or intimidated by candidates or their supporters.” Jankoski was ultimately acquitted by the SGA Senate, 2-9.

Berger added, “Whenever there’s an impeachment trial, it’s like an atomic bomb… even if the impeachment is justified, that takes a toll on the organization and its reputation on campus.”

He mentioned specifically that these types of events draw attention to the drama and conflict at the expense of productive discussions about “the work that could be done.”

He also went on to say that he views the “work that is being done now” as a “high point” for SGA, noting that, as of this year, many people in positions within the organization have been taking responsibility in ways that previous leaders had not. “There are students that are really investing in their positions and making SGA a better organization or making the campus a better place,” he says, adding, “For me, that makes it inspiring, and it’s a little bit difficult to leave [SGA] knowing the upward trajectory of the organization.”

After leaving UMBC, Craig will be positioned in Kent State University, the main campus of which is located close to his Ohio hometown. His new title will be Assistant Director for the Office of Experiential Education and Civic Engagement. In this post, he will be involved in creating and engaging in opportunities for students for purposes like participating in volunteer work, presenting research or making policies, which he says he looks forward to doing.

He noted, though, that he holds fond memories of UMBC and will miss his time here. During his one-on-one sessions with the students, he particularly enjoyed “getting to know them personally, watching them grow, and seeing what they would do after they left UMBC,” something he described as “the most rewarding part.”

In the days and weeks following the election of Donald Trump, a massive groundswell of anger against the new administration swept the nation. Since then, the opposition has had a hard time organizing. Numerous competing groups are vying for the political power that comes with such an intense level of emotion.

Perhaps the largest and most powerful of these groups feeding off the opposition is the Democratic Party. The party seems to want to harness it to regain some of the thousand seats they have lost in the past decade with their “#Resistance.”

Yet, the Democrats may be poor stewards for such a movement. In many ways they offer little change from the Republican line. For example, they accepted without argument a nearly $700 billion defense budget proposed by the GOP last September. And this is to say nothing of their wholehearted if not extremely vocal support of corporate welfare in the form of things like stimulus packages and institutions like the Export-Import Bank.

Not only that, but the Democrats seem to hold a disturbing tendency to back out of controversial Progressive commitments when the chips are down. This was proved when Baltimore’s Mayor Catherine Pugh ignored a campaign promise to support a living wage by vetoing a $15 minimum wage bill last March.

But the issues do not stop with their present policy; the Democratic Party seems to be headed in the complete opposite direction of forming a “Resistance.” This was indicated as early as this February, when the party declined Senator Bernie Sanders’ challenge to move left by appointing the corporatist Tom Perez to chairman over the progressive Keith Ellison. However, this move was loudly and clearly determined as early as the 2016 Democratic National Convention when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined the party’s electoral strategy.

“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia,” he declared in a clear challenge to the Sanders supporting faction, “and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”

The opposite, of course, proved to be true. “Moderate Republicans” voted with the real Republicans and many blue-collar Democrats, abandoned by their party, were left with no one to vote for at all. Thus, Trump carried working class districts even in supposedly deep-blue states.

This decision to pursue mythical Republican moderates instead of left-leaning Democrats or independents is frankly what produced Trump in the first place. How exactly can a party resist something that they themselves were complicit in creating? Furthermore, how can they defeat Trump without addressing the internal failings that allowed him to win in the first place? They cannot and they will not.

If this tendency continues, the United States will see progressive organizations eclipse the Democratic Party as the effective “Resistance” to the Conservative government, as groups ranging from the Democratic Socialists of America to the Green Party absorb the disenfranchised base of the old party.

At the moment it seems these progressive groups remain fractured and without serious direction. However, should these groups find some sort of unity and common direction they could prove to be a revolutionary force in American politics, providing something not seen in nearly half a century that the establishment simply cannot deal with: a truly different sort of political perspective.

John 15:12-13,16-17 – “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.”

Jesus’ central purpose and desire was to do the will of the Father, which was and still is to love us, this world, and bring everyone into his salvation.  Love is central to the will of God. Love, love one another, lay your life down for them…this is the will that Jesus chose us to experience and live out.

Love changed us and gave us life, and this is the love that will continually change us and draw us deeper into the will of God, our loving Father. When we are loving God (and this is the ultimate outcome of our worship), and when we are loving those around us, we will find that we are much more in the will of God, we are walking deep in the adventure, learning the wonder, and the power, and the beauty of living God’s will for our lives.

Love and loving is central to the will of God. Loving is clearest way of knowing that you are in God’s will. Worship and love. These bring us into the adventure of the Spirit-filled life, walking with the Spirit into the will of God. These are some of the primary means through which we can walk, live, and experience God’s will today. And as we press on to the things that lay before us, the things to come, the future direction that God has planned for us. His will unfolds right in the midst of these decisions and moments to worship and love.

Today, let’s simply pray through each of the passages from the last five days: Jeremiah 29:11-13 ; Galatians 5:16, 25; Romans 8:26-29a ; Romans 12:1-2; and John 15:12-13,16-17. And let’s ask the Spirit to fill our lives with worship and love.

– TR

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV) – “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

As we offer our lives to the Lord in worship, as we center our lives on knowing God’s heart and His ways we, “will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom. 12:2). The Holy Spirit is at work in us making this our reality!

In and through a life of worship we are transformed. When we begin to live out each day as worship to the Lord – our work is worship, our classed are worship, our raising of kids is worship-filled, etc. Being in God’s presence, living in worship will change us. That is how wonderful and powerful God’s Presence is. And it is in His presence that we know His will more clearly and more deeply.

Let’s that the Lord for His mercies in our lives and the many ways He has rescued us, forgiven us, and changed us. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to increase His activity in the area of worship in our lives, reminding us to live worshipful in all that we do. Let’s scan our days and tasks today and decide to make them all worship unto the Lord.

– TR

The week of Thanksgiving break is a high-traffic holiday. Peaking on Tuesday, with high-traffic intervals on Wednesday, it is difficult for people to get where they want to go without at least a day allocated for travel. UMBC is only closed the day of and after Thanksgiving. This long-standing schedule should change in order to give all students, in and out of state, the travel time necessary to get home or to a holiday destination.

Choosing optimal times to travel is necessary when planning to leave for a holiday weekend. Having Tuesday night and Wednesday dedicated to travel is a must. Studies show that peak hours of traffic occur on Tuesday evening and various instances on Wednesday. However, there are specific junctures on both days where the traffic lulls.

On Tuesday after 8 p.m., traffic is relatively low on the often congested highway I-95. However, traveling on a Tuesday night is impossible if someone has classes the next day. Traffic on Wednesday peaks in the afternoon but is normal before and after. Again, picking an ideal time on Wednesday is impossible with classes at various times of the day.

UMBC’s out-of-state student population is only an estimated five percent. However, that small percentage is still over 500 undergraduates who will have trouble getting home on time, especially if they have evening or night classes.

Marissa Gabel, a statistics and dance double major from New Jersey, stated that since train tickets during the holidays are expensive and limited she has to, “book so far ahead that [she] often ends up having to plan for skipping class or hoping that professors cancel class.”

The vast majority of UMBC students are in-state. However, that does not necessarily mean that each in-state student has an easy commute back home. Maryland, although not a very large state, still has areas that are easily an hour or two from campus. Traffic can also conflict with an in-state student’s holiday if their family is planning to travel.

John Hutchison, a junior mechanical engineer major, lives 45 minutes away from campus. He stated, “I do not end up getting home until the late afternoon/evening which complicates things because it makes my family have to wait before we leave [we always go to see relatives in New Jersey for Thanksgiving]. Since I do not get home until late, usually we end up having to leave early Thursday morning.”

Many professors cancel class on Wednesday. However, planning a schedule based on that assumption is a gamble that does not always pay off. When the professor does not cancel, there are still students who have no choice — like Gabel who buys her ticket home ahead of time — but to skip class.

On canceling classes, Hutchinson said, “some of my professors do cancel class on Wednesday, but some do not … having to stay at school all morning just to go to a 4 p.m. class is extremely annoying.” Gabel also says, “since most professors cancel class anyways, it would be a consistent decision school-wide … plus it’s a nice break for the teachers as well!”

Giving the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off would be very beneficial for in-state and out-of-state students, and for professors and staff alike. Although UMBC is a state school with many commuter students, that does not negate the necessity for an extra day of travel time.

For the first time in University of Maryland, Baltimore County history, a UMBC student, Naomi Mburu, has been selected to receive the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship.

The oldest international scholarship in the world, The Rhodes Scholarship was established in 1902. Students are selected each year from a pool of applicants that includes students from 320 United States Universities and colleges.

Mburu, senior chemical engineering major, is one of 32 students out of the 866 applicants to receive the award for the 2018 academic year. A Meyerhoff Scholar, MARC U*STAR Trainee, and a peer mentor for freshmen and sophomores pursuing chemical engineering and physics, Mburu is a first generation American. Her parents immigrated from Kenya.

According to the Baltimore Sun, “Hrabowski … got goosebumps and tears in his eyes when he learned Mburu had been selected. He was one of the school officials who recruited her to UMBC, with the promise that she would be able to attend any graduate school of her choosing afterward.”

Mburu’s future plans include pursuing a Ph.D. in engineering science at the University of Oxford.

This fall, hundreds of students from across the East Coast gathered to present their research and compete for awards at UMBC’s Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Chemical and Biological Sciences (URS). Fifty-two of the student scientists attend UMBC and participate in a program designed to provide research opportunities to a broad range of students in STEM and boost their confidence, increase the likelihood they pursue STEM graduate degrees, and set them on a path to success.

The program is UMBC STEM Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD).  Eight BUILD students won awards, which is a good sign for the effectiveness of this relative newcomer among UMBC’s cohort programs. UMBC is one of 10 lead institutions on the STEM BUILD initiative nationwide and received $18 million from the National Institutes of Health to launch it in 2014 with the goal to “create a national model of comprehensive support to expand and increase the success of students in STEM.”

“The BUILD participants at URS exemplify the objectives of the program,” says Laura Ott, STEM BUILD active learning coordinator and director of UMBC’s Science Education Research Unit. All BUILD participants complete summer research, either in opportunities they arrange themselves or in small groups on campus organized by the program. BUILD students also receive financial support and extensive academic advising.

STEM BUILD is also a scientific study, so participants’ progress is carefully tracked to try to tease out which supports have the biggest impact on student success. “By participating in the BUILD program, they’re helping us explore novel strategies to increase participation in undergraduate research for all students,” Ott says.

Teodora (“Roxie”) Danaila ’20, biological sciences, Arjun Sharma ’20, biological sciences, and Amber Thompson ’20, biochemistry and molecular biology and mathematics, worked together to characterize antibiotic resistance genes present in local freshwater samples. Their team won second place in their biochemical and molecular biology group at URS. Mohammed Arafat ‘20, psychology; Yasmin Khan ‘20, biological sciences; and Sharanja Mathyvannan ‘20, pre-mechanical engineering, completed a similar project and won second place in their group.

Caitlin Kowalewski ’14, biological sciences, M.S. ’15, applied molecular biology, and now research coordinator for the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences; Josh Wilhide, M.S. ’10, chemistry, and manager of UMBC’s Molecular Characterization and Analysis Complex; and their assistants, Dave Varisco and Tim Cain ’18, chemistry education, mentored the students in the on-campus, three-week “Summer Bridge” experience.

“Ms. Kowalewski was able to get me to step my game up and allowed me to see what I was capable of,” Arafat shares. “If you ever had questions or were having trouble,” Danaila says, “they were there.” The mentors “allowed us to relay ideas back and forth with people who had much more experience and knowledge than us,” adds Sharma.

Presenting at the symposium had benefits, too. “It allowed me to explore fields of research that may interest me, and also helped me improve my presentation and research methods,” Sharma says. Thompson appreciated the opportunity to speak with students from other schools. “I was interested in how they got into their labs and what it was like for them in a different lab environment,” she shared.

“I felt that my role in mentoring the students was not only to teach them the laboratory skills, but to help them grow as scientists and researchers,” Kowalewski says. She was impressed by their rapid progress in the content-intensive program. “The fact that they were able to understand the information and present it well enough to win an award at URS was a testament to all of their hard work,” she says. Overall, the summer experience under Kowalewski’s tutelage is intended to build the students’ proficiency in a wide range of scientific techniques and prepare them for independent research opportunities.

Temiloluwa Okusolubo ’19, biological sciences, and Ifeoma (“Fefe”) Azinge ’19, biological sciences, are in their second year of BUILD participation and both earned first place in their biochemical and molecular biology groups at URS for independent research. Okusolubo studied the folding of serpin proteins, which are implicated in various diseases related to lung function, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Azinge’s research at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore focused on calcium transport in sweat glands, which is critical for temperature regulation.

Okusolubo and Azinge’s successes are the kind of outcomes that UMBC STEM BUILD hopes to facilitate, using systems that other schools can eventually adopt. Ott is proud of the students in the program, she says, “and I have high hopes for where they’ll go in the future.”

Image: Students and faculty at the 2017 UMBC Undergraduate Research Symposium. Photo by Mohammed Arafat ’20.