The Bryn Mawr School is seeking a Upper School Ceramics Instructor to begin September, 2017 who will oversee the management and supervision of a recently upgraded ceramics studio and program.

This position requires working knowledge of current methods and the ability to teach throwing and hand building skills and various glazing techniques to high school students 2 afternoon sessions per week (with the possibility of adding other grade levels sessions) in the fall and winter activity seasons, and teach an Upper School ceramics elective in the Spring semester.

David B. Muhlhausen, PhD 2004, UMBC, to be Director of the National Institute of Justice, Department of Justice. 

Dr. Muhlhausen, a research fellow in empirical policy analysis at the Heritage Foundation, has championed using rigorous, empirical research to formulate and evaluate government policies.  Dr. Muhlhausen has testified frequently before Congress on the efficiency and effectiveness of various Federal programs.  He has been called most often by the House and Senate Committees on the Judiciary to discuss how to improve policing strategies, prisoner reentry programs, and other important criminal justice programs.  He holds a doctorate in public policy from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (evaluation and analytical methods track) and a bachelor’s degree in political science and justice studies from Frostburg State University.  As an adjunct professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, Dr. Muhlhausen has taught program evaluation and statistical methods to graduate students for 11 years.

Steve Sharkey, MPP 2006

Director, Baltimore City Department of General Services

has been named a winner of the Daily Record 2017 VIP List -

Very Important Professionals Successful by 40 awards

The Daily Record created the VIP List in 2011 to recognize professionals 40 years of age and younger who have been successful in Maryland. Winners, chosen by a panel of previous VIP List honorees and business leaders, were selected on the basis of professional accomplishments, community service and commitment to inspiring  change.  The winners will honored Sept. 13th at a reception at Gertrude's at the Baltimore Museum of Art. and profiled in a special section of the Daily Record in the September 14, 2017 issue of The Daily Record.   (www.TheDailyRecord.com)

Two faculty in UMBC’s College of Engineering and Information Technology (COEIT) have received special honors, at the national level, in recognition of their contributions as teachers and mentors.

The Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Foundation recognized Lee Blaney, associate professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering, with the AEESP Award for Outstanding Teaching in Environmental Engineering and Science during the organization’s annual AEESP conference, held June 22. Each year, the award is presented to one professor of environmental engineering or environmental science to recognize their particularly meaningful contributions as an educator in the field.

“I was absolutely thrilled to receive the 2017 AEESP Award for Outstanding Teaching in Environmental Engineering and Science. As this is the premier teaching award for environmental engineering, I was immensely honored and humbled to be chosen,” Blaney says. “In putting together the documentation for the award package, I was able to reflect not only on teaching traditional courses, but also mentoring students in my laboratory and working with students to complete humanitarian service projects.”

In addition to his teaching, international infrastructure development work, research on water contaminants of emerging concern, and mentoring students in the field and in the lab, Blaney is now focusing on growing collaboration opportunities in Baltimore. As part of his recent NSF CAREER Award, he is developing and launching a citizen science program in Baltimore City. The program will help community members become more connected with their environment, and increase their scientific and environmental literacy, while valuing their contributions to the study of local water safety.

“The common thread in all of these activities is the hardworking, positive, and diverse UMBC student body. I am grateful to those students that have taken my classes, worked in my laboratory, and dedicated their time and effort to ensuring that others have clean water and safe sanitation,” he says. “They are my motivation, and I look forward to continuing to work with them in the coming years.”

Blaney also presented during the annual AEESP meeting. Using data from the American Society of Engineering Education, he discussed the demographics of students and faculty in the field, and and the importance of workplace diversity in engineering. Diversity in STEM fields is an area that both Blaney and UMBC are working to address in numerous ways. He says that supporting students from underrepresented groups as they pursue undergraduate degrees in environmental engineering plays a crucial role in encouraging their future success in graduate school, as researchers, and as educators.

Marie desJardins, COEIT associate dean and professor of computer science and electrical engineering, has been named the recipient of the A. Richard Newton Education ABIE Award from the Anita Borg Institute. The award “recognizes educators for developing innovative teaching practices and approaches that attract girls and women to computing, engineering, and math in K-12 or undergraduate education.” The Anita Borg Institute will formally honor desJardins with the award during the upcoming Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, an annual conference that desJardins describes as “the heart of the movement to increase gender diversity in computing.”

Increasing gender diversity in computing has become both a professional focus and personal commitment for desJardins over the course of her career. “It’s part of a broader equity issue — for everyone to be able to envision themselves as creators of technology, and for the future of technology to be created by a diverse community of scientists and engineers,” she says.

This summer, desJardins shared her passion for encouraging girls and women to pursue careers in computing with nearly 150 elementary and middle school girls who attend the Mind, Body, Coding camp at UMBC. “Seeing these young girls whose lives could be transformed by greater access to computing is incredibly inspiring,” she says. “It’s a big part of what gets me energized every day to do the work that I do, from supporting diversity in K-12 computing education to mentoring junior female faculty who will train the next generation of computer scientists.”

Banner image: Lee Blaney, left, works with a student in his lab. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

John 3:17-18 (NIV) - “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

Do you find the world is a loveable place? We don’t need to be told that the world is messed up because we hear about what happens every day - God still loves the world. Whenever John uses the word “world,” he is using the word ‘cosmos’, which has two main definitions attached to it: first, the created world, and every human being on it; second, the sin-dominated and broken world. Therefore, the word “world” is also everything that does not love God, is against God. The world God made has turned against God and rejects His words. When we take an honest look at our personal lives, circumstances and relationships, and all that we go through - do we think we are lovely? A lot of the time, it’s difficult to love ourselves because we can’t believe some of the thoughts we have and the things we do when no one is watching, yet God loves us. We are not the good ones. We are sinful. No matter what we may think of ourselves and of others, our default setting is that we are deserving of judgment and hell bound. How foolish to think otherwise when the ache of our soul tells us so. But it’s about love-God’s love towards a sinful and broken world.

Today, spend time honestly considering where salvation comes from. It does not arise from humanity’s need of God’s salvation, for Isaiah 53 makes it clear that all have gone astray, and there is no one who seeks God. Therefore, the genesis of salvation is from God’s own heart of love and compassion. God’s love was present before our asking and recognizing our need of salvation. Let’s pray today and recognize that salvation comes from God alone.

-GK