Blackboard course shells for FA2017 were created on July 18, 2017 after the completion of the cloud migration.

Summer 2017 courses will be archived from the separate cloud environment and migrated to the primary Blackboard site in mid-FA2017. Faculty will not need to export their summer content unless they require it for immediate use.

Returning faculty who have not used Blackboard since spring should consider the following before logging into the new cloud environment:

• Clear your Internet browser cache and cookies using these step-by-step instructions.
• Report any technical issues via RT ticket. If possible, please include screen captures or error messages.
• Familiarize yourself with Blackboard’s new features & updates
• Review the original Bb migration FAQ

About Course Creation

Bb shells for FA2017 are available for all courses (designated as lecture, lab, field or discussion) listed in the UMBC Schedule of Classes (SOC), provided that there is an instructor of record listed. As new course sections and/or instructors are added to the SOC by Department Scheduling Coordinators, corresponding Bb shells are automatically generated overnight. 

• If you are an instructor, and your name is not associated with the course you are teaching in the SOC, please see your Departmental Scheduling Coordinator to resolve the issue. Once you are listed in the SOC, your Bb course shell will be created automatically. 
• If you and your Department Scheduling Coordinator believe you are correctly assigned as the instructor of record in the SOC and you do not see your course shell in Blackboard, please submit a Request Tracker (RT) ticket via my.umbc.edu/help.
• If you need a Bb shell for a research or independent study course, please submit a new course request.

Instructors who teach multiple sections of the same course will find those enrollments merged into one Bb course shell. These sections may be split upon request by an RT ticket, which we recommend submitting at least one week before the semester starts, if not as soon as courses are created in Blackboard.

Student enrollment in Bb mirrors the official registration in SA and updates hourly. However, courses are not accessible to students by default until the instructor of record makes them available.

As always, if you have any questions, please consider the following options:

• Check our extensive FAQ collection
• Open a ticket via RT
• Follow the Instructional Technology & DoIT myUMBC groups
• Request a consult with instructional technology staff

Luke 10:36 - “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

In today’s passage, Jesus asks the expert in the law which of the three men was a neighbor to the Jew who was robbed, beaten, and left half-dead by the side of the road - the Priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan. The interesting aspect of this question is that Jesus forces the expert in the law to identify himself with the man on the side of the road, for his myopic religious views and nationalistic pride prevented him from identifying himself as the Samaritan in the story. However, to identify himself as the man on the side of the road, he has to become someone in need of mercy and compassion, and the one offering this mercy is a Samaritan. This is therefore the genius and the shock of this parable, for in order for the expert in the law to “go and do likewise,” meant that he needed to be identified as the man on the side of the road receiving saving mercy from a Samaritan, which meant that he needed to undergo a transformation in his heart, mind, soul, and strength. This is exactly what we are invited into on a daily basis, to humble ourselves and be identified as the man on the side of the road, and the only one who can save us is Jesus.

Today, let’s position ourselves as the man on the side of the road, and consider (remember) the clear moments when Jesus has come to your rescue-with the binding of our wounds and healing of our lives. As you consider this, spend time in worship with this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB-yX5p0p4I

-GK

After keeping scientists on their toes for weeks, the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula parted with a trillion-ton iceberg the size of Delaware on July 12. Chris Shuman, research associate professor at UMBC’s Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, closely followed the rift in the shelf leading up to the iceberg’s separation, and offered expert comments in the media about this complicated milestone.

Although the calving event is momentous, Shuman thinks an imminent collapse of the rest of the Larsen C ice shelf is unlikely. “At this time we don’t see any signs this is going to cause any further breaks,” he told Vox. “On the other hand, this is over 10 percent of the ice shelf area, so that’s not a good sign.”

Scientists will be watching for other signs of ice shelf instability, including accelerating glacier movement, new rifts, and melting pools accumulating on the glacier’s surface, Shuman explained to Buzzfeed. He told The Baltimore Sun that if any of these signs appear, “That would begin to tell us that, ‘Hey, things are probably going to change more in the future.’” Regardless, “The big picture is clear,” Shuman told WJZ-TV. “Changes are happening.”

One factor that makes the broader collapse of Larsen C less likely is that the shelf is still strongly anchored to the continent at the Gipps and Bawden Ice Rises. “If we had seen the Larsen C lose connection with these grounding points … that would have been much stronger evidence the whole shelf is becoming destabilized,” he told Vox. While signs of accelerated breakup are currently lacking, Shuman says scientists will be watching the shelf closely. If it were to collapse, it would contribute to rising sea levels.

It’s currently unclear how much climate change influenced this particular iceberg’s release. “I myself don’t see clear evidence convincing me that this [specific break] is climate change-related,” Shuman told CNN. “Yes, the Larsen C will have retreated farther west than we’ve ever known it to have retreated before. On the other hand, it has dropped large [bergs] before,” he added on CBC News, noting the last time Larsen C released an iceberg of comparable size was in 1986.

Scientists seeking greater clarity on this iceberg and the future of Larsen C will closely monitor the situation as it continues to shift over time, Shuman notes. “You can think of the Larsen C or really any ice shelf like it is a cork in the neck of a champagne bottle lying on its side,” he told NASA Earth Observatory, re-quoted in Christian Science Monitor in February. “Once you pop that cork, the wine inside – all that glacial ice sitting on land – will start flowing out. And that’s worrisome because such thinning land ice is directly increasing global sea levels.”

Moving forward, Shuman will carefully track the iceberg via satellite imagery as it travels north and east. He expects it to take a path toward South Georgia Island, a British territory east of the southern tip of South America, but that’s not guaranteed. Icebergs like this “kind of bump along over a number of years,” Shuman told the Boston Globe. “The other thing is, of course, it may run aground. It’s going to take a period of years to watch this berg’s journey from start to finish.”

Despite, or perhaps because of, the uncertainties, Shuman shared with the Globe that “watching the evolution and release of this new large iceberg from the Antarctic Peninsula has been a truly humbling and awe-inspiring experience.”

Read more of Chris Shuman’s comments on the iceberg in CBC News, Buzzfeed, The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, Patch, Vox, Forbes, PRI, Christian Science Monitor, KPAX-TV, La Tercera, VOA Noticias, WJZ-TV, CNN, and Motherboard. NASA’s Aqua satellite initially spotted the complete break, and the agency posted its own feature.

Image: A close-up of the rift in the Larsen C ice shelf from November 2016. Photo by John Sonntag for NASA.

Every so often, we’ll chat with an alum about what they do and how they got there. We recently caught up with Charles Mason III ’14, graphic design, an interdisciplinary artist and curator working in Baltimore. His latest exhibition, “Two Lane Stories,” features the work of six black male artists working across Maryland. It opened last Friday at Gallery CA in Greenmount West, and runs through August 31. 

Name: Charles Mason III
Grad Year: 2014
Major: Graphic Design
Current Job Title: Visual Artist and Curator of “Two Lane Stories” at Baltimore’s Gallery CA

Tell me about how this project came about: what made you decide to curate the show? I’ve been working on this exhibition, “Two Lane Stories,” for about a year now. It started in the spring and summer of 2016 […] I was working at Morgan State University, and me and Professor E.L. Briscoe would have conversations about day-to-day life, artists, artists of color, black artists…He gave me this book called 30 Americans to read, and it was about a collection of works from…men, women, all types of people of color. And I was really inspired by that. I was like, “I’m gonna do something talking about the obstacles [facing] black male artists.” […] Originally I did want to do 10 artists. It didn’t work out that way, but I was able to work with and interview six black male artists local to the state of Maryland. […] I felt like it was important, and I felt like telling the side of their story, how they navigate through the systems of being a black artist, and being a black person, and being a black man…how they’re able to convey that in their work…and how it influences them and whether it’s an obstacle.

[…]

In choosing these artists, I was able to reach out to mentors, brothers, uncles, these people that have been influential to my work and my process. [At UMBC] I had a lot of mentors, and a lot of friendships there, but for me, being a black man, I didn’t have a lot of black male artist role models. So when I started to really go after this fine art life and really started to explore creating with painting, photography, design…I started to meet these different artists. When I worked at Morgan State University, I started to meet these really important black men artists who are here in this state, who are very influential.

I went to grad school for a little bit, right after I graduated from UMBC. I went to [the Parsons School of Design], and I was only there for three months, but there I was also introduced to a lot of different artists of color. Going to the Brooklyn Museum, going to the Queens Museum, going to all these different places, I was exposed to so much. And for me personally, it was very important that I did that. Even though I didn’t stay, I got to see fine art through a different lens. For so long, I thought fine art was this very linear thing, when it’s not. I knew abstraction [and expressionism] existed, I knew all these different things existed, but for so long I had not…gone after it. I thought a drawing just had to look like a drawing. Like if I drew a chair, it had to look like that chair. It couldn’t look like anything else, it just had to look like that chair. And that kind of followed me, for so long, but when I was able to go to grad school, it was like…wow. This is what I’ve been missing. This felt like home, like I always should have been doing this.

Could you tell me more about your own art? What motivates you to create? My own work, again, is a mix between different mediums. Depending on the message I’m trying to convey, my medium will change. Some people might look at that as a bad thing, or others might look at it as a good thing. I look at it as just me being interdisciplinary. I love fine art, but I know for a fact that depending on what I’m trying to talk about, a painting may do it more justice than a photograph, or a photograph may do it more justice than a painting, and so on. I think that’s so important to the way I create. I am so influenced by society today, and historical context. I’m influenced by what happened in the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s, the ’90s, the early 2000s, whether it’s from music or whether it’s what’s happening politically…I have to express myself, to get something out, because this feeling is so overwhelming [that] if I don’t create, if I don’t do something, I kind of feel stuck. I kind of feel backed up. It keeps me sane, almost, to create. I’ve done watercolors, I’ve done paintings, I’ve done photographs. Everything has its own tone, but it all ties in back to being…socially, politically, historically aware. Context…is so important to me, and these artists that I’ve interviewed are so important to me, because my practice is this one way, but my mindset is completely different than it’s ever been right now because of the conversations that I’ve had and how they’ve pushed me to be aware of what I’m doing. Once you’re aware, you can never go back. At least I can’t go back to what I used to do, or what I’m used to thinking or perceiving. [My] practice is constantly being influenced, because the work will come, but it’s all about the mindset that sets you apart from different artists. You can have 10 different painters, but all of them paint differently because of their experiences, because of their knowledge, because of their history, because of their culture. All these things are so important to their practice, and same with me.

You are headed off to Pennsylvania for grad school in the fall. What will you be studying and what draws you to it? I will be getting my M.F.A. in fine art, which is an interdisciplinary program at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. I applied to several programs throughout this nation and overseas…and was fortunate enough to get into five out of the six programs that I applied to. […] There were a lot of really good programs, and it was just about having the best scenario for myself. I mentioned that I went to grad school before, but I kind of went up there half-cocked, because once I graduated college, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. [New York] was one of the greatest experiences of my life, but I left, and now I feel like I’m in a better headspace, a better mindset.

Were there any particular professors or courses at UMBC that had an impact on you? Tell us a little more about those. There were quite a few professors who challenged me in ways I hadn’t been challenged, who saw something, who were very approachable. [IRC director] Lee Boot was my mentor, a friend of mine, a really good friend who’s introduced me to these really phenomenal artists. I didn’t meet him until I became a McNair Scholar, and Cynthia Hill [and] Dr. April Householder were very influential to me as well, just pushing me. [Kwame Ansah-Brew taught] an African-American music class, but he was just so fun to listen to and to hear talk. […]

I was at UMBC longer than I should have been, honestly, but I figured, since I was here, I would learn different things that I’d always wanted to learn. I always wanted to learn the piano, and I had to literally, like, ask. Because I’m not a music major! I wasn’t a music major, so I had to ask, I had to talk to somebody and express to them that I really wanted to learn. And I did. I learned it, I had fun. I wish piano classes were a little more affordable, or I’d still be learning now. It was very influential to me. All these different people have been important to my growth overall, from undergrad to now. [A] professor by the name of Vin Grabill in the visual arts department, he was very influential. He was my mentor when I became an Undergraduate Research Award recipient. I had a lot of fun at UMBC, mostly because…I found people, and I found things and subject matter that I could get into. That was really important to me.

What’s your number one piece of advice for an incoming UMBC student? Have fun, and don’t rush the process. We get so caught up in wanting to graduate at a certain time, or just do something at a certain time…[You’re] going to learn so much from the classes that you really care about. You may be a biology major, but learn an important life lesson from an art teacher, you know? [We’re] so worried about graduating and finding that job that we forget to actually enjoy our undergraduate [experience]. I’m not even talking about partying and stuff like that…I’m talking about really having fun in the classes that you take. Even if you’re taking all math classes…you may not want to be an artist, but if you love art, take that class! If you love history, take that class. Because you’ll never get this time again, really, to be an undergraduate, to be that young person, just having that experience and being able to fail. And not everyone is looking at you to succeed all the time, because you’re still figuring it out. Even when you’re 30, you’re still trying to figure things out. […]

Creating a diamond takes a lot of pressure, and that pressure that you get from undergraduate or graduate school…is important to your development and you should have fun doing it. Take that time. Enjoy the process.

At UMBC, we create new pathways and transform lives every day. Learn more here.

The Baltimore Choral Arts Society is one of Maryland’s premier professional cultural institutions. The Symphonic Chorus, Full Chorus, and Chamber Chorus perform throughout the mid-Atlantic region, as well as in Washington, DC, New York, and Europe.

The Baltimore Choral Arts Society is one of Maryland’s premier professional cultural institutions. The Symphonic Chorus, Full Chorus, and Chamber Chorus perform throughout the mid-Atlantic region, as well as in Washington, DC, New York, and Europe.

The Baltimore Choral Arts Society is one of Maryland’s premier professional cultural institutions. The Symphonic Chorus, Full Chorus, and Chamber Chorus perform throughout the mid-Atlantic region, as well as in Washington, DC, New York, and Europe.

The Baltimore Choral Arts Society is one of Maryland’s premier professional cultural institutions. The Symphonic Chorus, Full Chorus, and Chamber Chorus perform throughout the mid-Atlantic region, as well as in Washington, DC, New York, and Europe.