The Freeman-Asia scholarship is up and running again for students looking to do a semester in East and Southeast Asia.  The deadline for this nationally competitive scholarship  is October 18.  

Dr. Brian Souders is running a workshop for ASIA and GLBL students with complete details about this amazing scholarship. Students can receive up to $3,000 for a summer program, and up to $5,000 for a semester-length program.

Location:  Friday, September 29, noon, Admin Bldg. Conference Room 218.

Please don't miss this exciting opportunity to study abroad.  Please share with your friends.

UMBC has begun the process of establishing an updated climate action plan, building on substantial success in decreasing the university’s carbon footprint over the past decade and a continued commitment to environmental stewardship.

In 2007, President Freeman Hrabowski signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, pledging that UMBC would pursue carbon neutrality and serve as a leader in decreasing energy usage. In 2009, UMBC established its first climate action plan outlining specific goals, such as achieving carbon neutrality by 2075, initiating and completing an energy performance contract to achieve long-term energy savings, and increasing sustainability initiatives through a dedicated sustainability program. During the period of tremendous growth that would follow—growth in both UMBC enrollment and square footage of the main campus—UMBC actually cut emissions by 17 percent.

Since UMBC joined the President’s Climate Commitment, all newly constructed campus buildings have been LEED certified, and facilities management staff have upgraded older buildings with more efficient lighting, heating, and cooling systems to decrease electricity use per square foot by 22 percent. UMBC now has more than 100 green campus features, including rain gardens, green roofs, and ponds of all sizes that offset paved areas, help restore local waterways, and support wildlife. UMBC has also implemented measures to support a reduction in emissions from transportation, such as incentivizing carpooling, getting Zipcars on campus, offering UMBC Transit services and establishing a bike share program.

Building on this work, and joining universities, business, and municipalities across the nation in a commitment to uphold the spirit of the Paris Climate Accord, UMBC has initiated a process to establish an even stronger climate action plan for the future. Tanvi Gadhia ’09, environmental studies, and now UMBC’s sustainability coordinator, explains that “technology is changing really quickly around renewable energy, and the science around climate change is developing, too. Knowing that it’s a rapidly evolving area, we want to stay on top of it as opposed to just operating on cruise control.”

To develop the updated plan, UMBC’s Climate Action Steering Committee is beginning with two campus-wide community gatherings on September 25 where members of the university community can share their ideas. Next, working groups will tackle specific aspects of the plan informed by lessons learned through implementing UMBC’s previous and current sustainability programs. Such initiatives include the Green Office Program for staff, Eco-Ambassadors for students, and the recently-formed Faculty Learning Community for faculty seeking ways to incorporate sustainability into their teaching and research.

Drafting a new climate action plan is an opportunity to bring these different constituencies together to develop goals, define strategies, and set aggressive timelines for progress. “Although UMBC has made significant progress in reducing its carbon footprint, it is clear that our carbon neutrality goals need to be more aggressive,” says Lenn Caron, UMBC’s assistant vice president for facilities management. “By tapping into the talent and expertise residing at UMBC, we hope to establish new goals that both challenge UMBC and allow for a more rapid reduction of our carbon footprint.”

“UMBC is a community that recognizes climate change as a critical, global issue,” says UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski. “As we increase the sustainability of our campus and involve more students, faculty, and staff in this work, we are producing researchers and leaders with the insights and skills to address this complex challenge.”

Learn more about sustainability at UMBC at the Sustainability Matters website.

Banner image: Eco-ambassador Toluwanimi Bello ’17, chemical engineering, and Tanvi Gadhia (right) on Patapsco Hall’s green roof.

All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

A French diplomat walks into a bar in China and begins a twenty-year affair with a man disguised as a female opera singer who also happens to gather information from him for the Chinese Communist party. This is no punchline, but rather a production of “M. Butterfly,” written by David Henry Hwang and adapted from true events, at the Everyman Theatre.

Rene Gallimard, the French diplomat played with intense depth by Bruce Randolph Nelson, greets us first from his jail cell in the 1980s, and as the clock rewinds, he begins to tell us his story.

Gallimard loves the opera “Madama Butterfly,” composed by Puccini, which tells the story of a Western man who falls in love with a Japanese woman, Butterfly, and then leaves her shortly after their wedding. Butterfly waits dutifully for his return, only to commit suicide when she realizes he is never coming back.

His Western prejudices and stereotypes about Asian people are brought to the forefront of the play very early when he meets and falls in love with Song Lilith, an opera singer played by Vichet Chum, who contests his opinions about “Madama Butterfly” and about the East as their relationship begins.

Their affair continues for twenty years, during which Gallimard never discovers his lover is also a man, who through gaining Gallimard’s trust, begins to collect information for the Chinese Communist party to use, subverting the stereotypical Western-Asian power dynamic. As much as Gallimard believes he is in control, Song is the one who truly has the power in their relationship.

Throughout the play, alternate narrators fight for dominance over the tale in a sort of meta-documentary-style story-telling. Gallimard is often interrupted in the beginning of his story by a particularly boisterous and womanizing childhood friend, Marc (played by Yaegel T. Welch) and by the end, he almost splits the story-telling with Song.

While sometimes feeling too much, this change of narration adds a lot to Gallimard’s character as we learn of past failed sexual experiences with women and of Song’s view of Gallimard throughout the affair, challenging us to see past the single point of view with which we are so often confronted.

Perhaps the most interesting artistic decision throughout the three act play was to effectively throw away the last intermission. Song takes this time to change back into a man, taking off his makeup at a vanity that projects his transformation to a dimly lit audience. The audience is invited to leave if they want, but, on opening night, no one did.

“M. Butterfly” tries to tackle more social issues than it has time for. As a destruction of the stereotype that Asian women are submissive to Western men, the play is phenomenal. In this “M. Butterfly,” it is not Song who is ultimately the Butterfly of Puccini’s opera. Rather, it is Gallimard who finds himself pierced through the heart and left to perish in a jail cell, broken-hearted and alone.

There is more to it than that, though, and those other issues—like Gallimard’s sexuality or Song’s attraction to the Communist party—were not as well explored or destructed as they could have been, leaving the audience with more questions than answers in the wake of the play’s ending scene, a blatantly symbolic suicide attempt by Gallimard as he literally becomes the Butterfly of Puccini’s opera.

“M. Butterfly” is running through October 8 at the Everyman Theatre. Everyman features a $10 student rush for B location seating 30 minutes before every scheduled performance and is offered to those with a valid student ID. Additionally, all Sunday evening performances are $10 for students in B location seating with a valid ID. Full price tickets can be purchased for $43-49.

UMBC has begun the process of establishing an updated climate action plan, building on substantial success in decreasing the university’s carbon footprint over the past decade and a continued commitment to environmental stewardship.

In 2007, President Freeman Hrabowski signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, pledging that UMBC would pursue carbon neutrality and serve as a leader in decreasing energy usage. In 2009, UMBC established its first climate action plan outlining specific goals, such as achieving carbon neutrality by 2075, initiating and completing an energy performance contract to achieve long-term energy savings, and increasing sustainability initiatives through a dedicated sustainability program. During the period of tremendous growth that would follow—growth in both UMBC enrollment and square footage of the main campus—UMBC actually cut emissions by 17 percent.

Since UMBC joined the President’s Climate Commitment, all newly constructed campus buildings have been LEED certified, and facilities management staff have upgraded older buildings with more efficient lighting, heating, and cooling systems to decrease electricity use per square foot by 22 percent. UMBC now has more than 100 green campus features, including rain gardens, green roofs, and ponds of all sizes that offset paved areas, help restore local waterways, and support wildlife. UMBC has also implemented measures to support a reduction in emissions from transportation, such as incentivizing carpooling, getting Zipcars on campus, offering UMBC Transit services and establishing a bike share program.

Building on this work, and joining universities, business, and municipalities across the nation in a commitment to uphold the spirit of the Paris Climate Accord, UMBC has initiated a process to establish an even stronger climate action plan for the future. Tanvi Gadhia ’09, environmental studies, and now UMBC’s sustainability coordinator, explains that “technology is changing really quickly around renewable energy, and the science around climate change is developing, too. Knowing that it’s a rapidly evolving area, we want to stay on top of it as opposed to just operating on cruise control.”

To develop the updated plan, UMBC’s Climate Action Steering Committee is beginning with two campus-wide community gatherings on September 25 where members of the university community can share their ideas. Next, working groups will tackle specific aspects of the plan informed by lessons learned through implementing UMBC’s previous and current sustainability programs. Such initiatives include the Green Office Program for staff, Eco-Ambassadors for students, and the recently-formed Faculty Learning Community for faculty seeking ways to incorporate sustainability into their teaching and research.

Drafting a new climate action plan is an opportunity to bring these different constituencies together to develop goals, define strategies, and set aggressive timelines for progress. “Although UMBC has made significant progress in reducing its carbon footprint, it is clear that our carbon neutrality goals need to be more aggressive,” says Lenn Caron, UMBC’s assistant vice president for facilities management. “By tapping into the talent and expertise residing at UMBC, we hope to establish new goals that both challenge UMBC and allow for a more rapid reduction of our carbon footprint.”

“UMBC is a community that recognizes climate change as a critical, global issue,” says UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski. “As we increase the sustainability of our campus and involve more students, faculty, and staff in this work, we are producing researchers and leaders with the insights and skills to address this complex challenge.”

Banner image: Eco-ambassador Toluwanimi Bello ’17, chemical engineering, and Tanvi Gadhia (right) on the Administration Building’s green roof.

How Girls Code held its third annual camp at UMBC this past summer, enrolling a record 130 girls in grades 3 – 9. Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the campers learned about computer science and robotics, and balanced time spent completing technical projects with yoga practice designed to promote health, self-awareness, and mindfulness.

CBS Baltimore recently highlighted the camp, founded by Katie Egan ‘94, history, and Lisa Schlossnagle out of a desire to connect girls with greater opportunities to learn about STEM fields early on. “As a parent, I noticed that a lot of the after school classes were tailored toward boys,” particularly in STEM, Egan explained.

As Associate Dean Marie desJardins, of UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology, has previously commented, early exposure can be key to capturing children’s interest in a technical field and sustaining it over time, and thus plays an important role in diversifying computer sciences fields. “Coding, robotics, and computational thinking is a practice,” Schlossnagle told a reporter from Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, in additional media coverage of the program. “You don’t just get introduced to one little bit of it and you suddenly master it and you can just do it. It’s like learning an instrument, it’s like any discipline.”

UMBC’s Summer Enrichment Experience program offers the How Girls Code camp in addition to 16 other camps, which welcomed nearly 275 K – 12 students to UMBC this summer. Additional programs focused on everything from Japanese anime to music performance to chess.

See full coverage of the How Girls Code camp at UMBC on CBS Baltimore and in Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.

Banner image: Campers in a computer lab learning about computing and robotics. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

"“UMBC is a community that recognizes climate change as a critical, global issue,” says UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski. 
“As we increase the sustainability of our campus and involve more students, faculty, and staff in this work, we are producing researchers and leaders with the insights and skills to address this complex challenge.”

Learn more in the UMBC News article: 
UMBC to build on success in shrinking carbon footprint through updated Climate Action Plan
http://news.umbc.edu/umbc-to-build-on-success-in-shrinking-carbon-footprint-through-updated-climate-action-plan/

Campus leaders, Vice President Lynne Schaefer (Administration and Finance), and Associate Vice President Lenn Caron (Facilities) lead the campus wide committees on climate and energy. They are also spearheading efforts to update UMBC's Climate Action Plan with support from Deborah Howard, Climate Action Coordinator, and Tanvi Gadhia, Sustainability Coordinator. 

The two upcoming Climate Action Forums on Mon, Sept 25th (12-1pm lunch or 5-6pm dinner) will be an important way for the community to contribute to decisions being made about our future. 

The UMBC community can also comment online on the Sustainability Matters website.