Romans 8: 32-39 - “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“‘For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’
“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

In v. 33 there is the fear of accusation, of being called in question. Every man who has known conviction of sin has experienced a little of what it means to be called in question by God; to have the foundations of self-confidence shaken and shattered by the knowledge of his justice and holiness. It can be an agonizing and bitter discovery to see that one’s whole life counts for nothing. But when the believer comes to that arena where his life may be called in question, he discovers that God is his justifier! What then of the opposition mentioned in v. 32? It is possible, says Paul, but insignificant when we know that God is for us. Who can then ultimately be against us, when he works all things together for our good according to his purpose?
This leads to the ultimate question. How do we know that God is for us, that he will be our justifier, that Christ is on our side, that we are more than conquerors? The ultimate ground of our assurance, expressed in one of the most moving statements in the whole of the New Testament, is this: He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, How shall he not with him, also freely give us all things? (8:32)

How does this bring assurance? It does so objectively because it provides the answers to my deepest doubts and fears. It shows me proof of God’s grace, in that, Abraham-like, he did not spare his own Son. It indicates the certainty of pardoned guilt. Christ was ‘delivered up,’ not merely by the hands of Judas, or the chief priests and rulers, or by Pontius Pilate, all of whom, we are told ‘delivered him.’ He was delivered more profoundly and mysteriously by the hand of his own Father, and according to his determinate counsel and foreknowledge. It pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief !
From such a premise, only one conclusion is possible. It is the conclusion of assurance. If this be true, then how shall God not also freely give me everything else I need, in Christ, for eternal salvation? The assured faith rests on Christ, clothed in the facts of the gospel, and the apostolic interpretation of these facts which makes them a gospel (The Assurance of Salvation, Sinclair B. Ferguson).

Take time to read through this passage several times and pray, thanking the Lord for His great salvation! Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ! No more doubt, no more fears! Worship Him and praise Him for we are secure in His great love for us.

-DP

The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has selected UMBC as one of 10 institutions nationwide to participate in a bold, new initiative designed to “educate, prepare, and inspire the next generation of leaders to advance justice and build equitable communities.”

Participating colleges and universities will establish Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers to engage campus and community stakeholders around issues impacting racial equity, such as conscious and unconscious bias. AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella shares that this is the first piece of a broader vision “to ensure that higher education is playing a leadership role in promoting racial and social justice” through a future national network of 150 such centers.

Frank Anderson, assistant director of The Choice Program at UMBC, coordinated UMBC’s TRHT proposal, with support from Zeevelle Nottingham-Lemon, associate director. The Choice Program has served more than 25,000 youth from Maryland’s most underserved communities for nearly 30 years, providing 24/7 wrap-around support. The program is based in UMBC’s Shriver Center, which works to realize the vision of Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver to mobilize higher education to confront and solve major challenges facing urban America today.

“The Shriver Center’s Choice Program at UMBC recognizes that now, more than ever, there exists a need to create platforms for Baltimore City youth, UMBC service-learners, and our communities to voice their truth about systemic racism, and to seek opportunities for transformation,” says Anderson.

UMBC’s proposal focuses on the Shriver Center’s service-learning and community engagement work with youth, artists, advocates and community-serving organizations in and around Baltimore. It also incorporates plans for youth-led community conversations, at UMBC and in Baltimore, around racial equality and transformation. The $30,000 AAC&U grant will support The Choice Program’s Youth in Action group, which unites students and service-learners at UMBC with youth in Baltimore through art and social justice, and college night programming for Baltimore City school students, among other activities.

“Youth are often the most affected by social justice issues, but the least represented when solutions are sought,” says Anderson. He suggests that UMBC is in a strong position to elevate their perspectives, experiences, and ideas given the university’s history of youth mentoring and organizing through The Choice Program, as well as robust partnerships in Baltimore City Public Schools and other youth-serving organizations.

Across the country, 125 institutions applied to participate in this first cohort of TRHT Campus Centers. UMBC is joined by Brown University, Duke University, Spelman College, Rutgers University, and other innovative institutions on the list of 10 sites selected to launch the program’s first stage.

The UMBC TRHT Campus Center team includes Eric Ford, associate director of the Choice Program; Beverly Bickel, clinical associate professor of language literacy and culture; Keisha Allen, assistant professor of education; Charlotte Keniston, associate director of the Peaceworker Program; and Eloise Grose, program coordinator for service-learning in the Shriver Center, in addition to Anderson and Nottingham-Lemon.

“We are honored that UMBC has been selected to help launch this new national program. Our university is dedicated to open inquiry and understands that the diversity of our community is one of our greatest strengths,” says President Freeman Hrabowski. “Preparing today’s young people to serve as the next generation of leaders in creating a more equitable society is core to our mission as a civically-engaged public research university.”

Featured image: Administration Building and flags at the main entrance to UMBC. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Ph.D. Dissertation Defense

Context-dependent privacy and security management on mobile devices

Prajit Kumar Das

8:00-11:00am Tuesday, 22 August 2017, ITE325b, UMBC

There are ongoing security and privacy concerns regarding mobile platforms which are being used by a growing number of citizens. Security and privacy models typically used by mobile platforms use one-time permission acquisition mechanisms. However, modifying access rights after initial authorization in mobile systems is often too tedious and complicated for users. User studies show that a typical user does not understand permissions requested by applications or are too eager to use the applications to care to understand the permission implications. For example, the Brightest Flashlight application was reported to have logged precise locations and unique user identifiers, which have nothing to do with a flashlight application’s intended functionality, but more than 50 million users used a version of this application which would have forced them to allow this permission. Given the penetration of mobile devices into our lives, a fine-grained context-dependent security and privacy control approach needs to be created.

We have created Mithril as an end-to-end mobile access control framework that allows us to capture access control needs for specific users, by observing violations of known policies. The framework studies mobile application executables to better inform users of the risks associated with using certain applications. The policy capture process involves an iterative user feedback process that captures policy modifications required to mediate observed violations. Precision of policy is used to determine convergence of the policy capture process. Policy rules in the system are written using Semantic Web technologies and the Platys ontology to define a hierarchical notion of context. Policy rule antecedents are comprised of context elements derived using the Platys ontology employing a query engine, an inference mechanism and mobile sensors. We performed a user study that proves the feasibility of using our violation driven policy capture process to gather user-specific policy modifications.

We contribute to the static and dynamic study of mobile applications by defining “application behavior” as a possible way of understanding mobile applications and creating access control policies for them. Our user study also shows that unlike our behavior-based policy, a “deny by default” mechanism hampers usability of access control systems. We also show that inclusion of crowd-sourced policies leads to further reduction in user burden and need for engagement while capturing context-based access control policy. We enrich knowledge about mobile “application behavior” and expose this knowledge through the Mobipedia knowledge-base. We also extend context synthesis for semantic presence detection on mobile devices by combining Bluetooth, low energy beacons and Nearby Messaging services from Google.

Committee: Drs. Anupam Joshi (chair), Tim Finin (co-chair), Tim Oates, Nilanjan Banerjee, Arkady Zaslavsky, (CSIRO), Dipanjan Chakraborty (Shopperts)

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) seeks an energetic, detail-oriented individual for the position of PT Conservation Department Assistant to handle general office duties for Conservation Department

RESPONSIBILITIES

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

Please be advised that there will be permanent changes to the traffic patterns in the area of Commons Garage, Physics Building and The Commons prior to the start of the Fall 2017 semester. The Commons Circle is being replaced with a new drop-off circle between the Physics Building and Commons Garage. The new circle will provide a drop-off area for The Commons, Physics and other adjacent buildings. Personal vehicles will no longer be allowed to enter the Commons Circle as this area is now limited to service vehicles and deliveries. A new entrance to Lot 2 has also been constructed off of the new drop-off circle.

Vehicles traveling on Commons Drive wishing to use the new circle or park in Lot 2 should take a right on Park Road and an immediate left into the circle. Access to the Commons Garage remains unchanged as vehicles may continue to use both existing entrances. Please refer to the diagram below for additional information. Additional temporary signs will be provided in this area in an effort to help navigate the new traffic patterns. 

The contractor will be finalizing the work at the new drop-off circle during the fall semester. UMBC Facilities Management will inform the UMBC community of any temporary vehicular or pedestrian traffic changes or closures. 

Thank you for your patience as we work to maintain and enhance the UMBC campus. 

Please be advised that there will be permanent changes to the traffic patterns in the area of Commons Garage, Physics Building and The Commons prior to the start of the Fall 2017 semester. The Commons Circle is being replaced with a new drop-off circle between the Physics Building and Commons Garage. The new circle will provide a drop-off area for The Commons, Physics and other adjacent buildings. Personal vehicles will no longer be allowed to enter the Commons Circle as this area is now limited to service vehicles and deliveries. A new entrance to Lot 2 has also been constructed off of the new drop-off circle.

Vehicles traveling on Commons Drive wishing to use the new circle or park in Lot 2 should take a right on Park Road and an immediate left into the circle. Access to the Commons Garage remains unchanged as vehicles may continue to use both existing entrances. Please refer to the diagram below for additional information. Additional temporary signs will be provided in this area in an effort to help navigate the new traffic patterns. 

The contractor will be finalizing the work at the new drop-off circle during the fall semester. UMBC Facilities Management will inform the UMBC community of any temporary vehicular or pedestrian traffic changes or closures. 

Thank you for your patience as we work to maintain and enhance the UMBC campus. 

The UMBC Intramural program will offer a Flag Football league this semester. The season will begin Monday, September 25, starting at 12:00pm. 

Games will take place Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 12-5pm on Field 1

Registration: Starting Friday, September 1, 2017 teams or  individuals will be able to register anytime during the semester through imleagues.com

Manager Meeting: Monday, September 18, 2017 at 12:00pm in RAC room 325

League Fee: $40 refundable deposit per team

UMBC Intramural leagues are open to anyone within the UMBC Community (faculty, staff, students)