UMBC launched a new $150 million campaign on June 9, on the heels of a joyful 50th anniversary year, by coming together in harmony, quite literally. With individually toned bells in hand and the UMBC Symphony Orchestra playing along on stage, visiting maestro Boris Brott led community members in a rousing impromptu performance of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

“You’ve gotten the hang of it quickly,” Brott told the crowd. “Must be all that grit and determination that UMBC is so famous for.”

The moment capped an evening celebrating how the UMBC community works together to achieve great things. The Grit & Greatness Campaign—which focuses on ways of making big breakthroughs, forging true partnerships, and transforming lives—will raise funds to support everything from endowed professorships and teaching assistantships, to merit and need-based scholarships, to maker spaces and other innovative learning opportunities for students.

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See more images from the event here.

While a major focus of the campaign will be encouraging support from the entire community, guests enjoyed a video tribute to leadership donors whose contributions over time have created some of UMBC’s most unique learning models, including the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, the Linehan Artist Scholars Program, and the Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program.

“They saw—before most others—what was possible at a place like UMBC,” said Simon Stacey, interim vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, of the featured donors. “I think you’ll agree that these individuals embody UMBC’s character and show us what we all stand to gain by investing in our future.”

President Freeman Hrabowski called UMBC “a 50-year-long American experiment”—one that tested the idea that people from all backgrounds deserve an education. Today, he said, UMBC stands as a leader in inclusive excellence.

Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar alumna Alicia Wilson ’04, political science, shared an example of this through her own story of how a visit to UMBC unlocked a future she didn’t realize was possible while growing up in East Baltimore.

College “was not a given,” said Wilson, who was only able to take the SATs because a donor paid her test fee. When she visited UMBC—and met Hrabowski—she knew where she needed to be. After earning her UMBC degree, she completed law school and joined Gordon Feinblatt’s labor and employment practice. Today, she serves as vice president of Sagamore Development, where she gives back to the community through the Lakeland STEAM Center project, a UMBC partnership.

“There’s no better investment than education. You’re guaranteed magnitudes of return,” she said. “No other investment yields returns so quickly for our economy.”

To date, UMBC has raised $92 million towards its campaign goals. UMBC’s most recent campaign—Exceptional by Example, which ran from 2002 to 2011—exceeded its goal of $100 million by $15 million, and included more than 22,000 donors.

Hrabowski appealed to the crowd of supporters with a call to help UMBC continue to grow as an essential education, research, and community-serving powerhouse at an important moment in our nation’s history.

“America needs its universities now more than ever. We live in a time of huge challenges and breathtaking discoveries. We live in a nation that is divided. We live in a time when too many young people are shut out of life-changing opportunities,” he said. “The UMBC community does not shy away from hard work. We show up. We show our grit. I’ve never been more excited about this University and what we can do.”

Learn more about Grit & Greatness: The Campaign for UMBC.

Hello ODK Members--

The online ballot is now open to the general body to vote for the 3-5 members of the ODK  Executive Committee.  You can vote using this link, which will remain open until Tuesday, June 27th.

More information about the Executive Committee:

Each summer ODK elects a new Executive Committee made up of 3-5 ODK members who are current full-time students at UMBC.  

Term: 1 academic year

Time Commitment: 3-4 hours per month

Responsibilities:

• Meet monthly with the advisors and other executive committee members

• Rotate responsibility of facilitating general body meetings

• Plan circle events

• Select the 2018 class of ODK

• Plan and execute the ODK induction ceremony in May

Thank you for contributing your voice to the selection of our ODK Executive Committee!

Corinne and Paisley

UMBC Circle ODK Advisors

bwtech@UMBC is pleased to announce that three bwtech@UMBC incubator companies won in their categories at last night’s Maryland Incubator Company of the Year Awards at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.  FZata won for best Life Sciences Company, Fearless Solutions won for Best Service/Consulting Company, and Leverege won in the Best Software Company category.  In total, bwtech@UMBC’s incubators are home to nine of the 23 finalists. Other bwtech finalists included GuardX, Grip Boost, Sparks Dynamics,Syncopated Engineering, Resilient Point, and Zavda Technologies.  Congrats to all our winners and finalists!!

The Penn Line service is currently suspended due to a trespasser strike near W. Baltimore.  Penn Line service will resume following a transfer of passengers, but all trains will be severely delayed.  Penn Line passengers are urged to consider using the Metro as a travel option.

The kind of fasting God desires is the same way He wants us to do all before Him.  Yet we (especially those of us who feel we have been in this Christian life for a while) can find ourselves doing the “things of God” to please ourselves:  whether our sense of duty, to feel good about ourselves, or to try to get what we want from God.

He corrects and teaches us, that we may receive something better.  Let’s read from and be washed by God’s word in Isaiah 58, below in the NIV and the NLT.

Isaiah 58:3-9a (NIV)
‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

Isaiah 58:3-9a (NLT)
‘We have fasted before you!’ they say.
‘Why aren’t you impressed?
We have been very hard on ourselves,
and you don’t even notice it!’
“I will tell you why!” I respond.
“It’s because you are fasting to please yourselves.
Even while you fast,
you keep oppressing your workers.
What good is fasting
when you keep on fighting and quarreling?
This kind of fasting
will never get you anywhere with me.
You humble yourselves
by going through the motions of penance,
bowing your heads
like reeds bending in the wind.
You dress in burlap
and cover yourselves with ashes.
Is this what you call fasting?
Do you really think this will please the Lord?
“No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
and remove the chains that bind people.
Share your food with the hungry,
and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them,
and do not hide from relatives who need your help.
“Then your salvation will come like the dawn,
and your wounds will quickly heal.
Your godliness will lead you forward,
and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
Then when you call, the Lord will answer.
‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.

Let’s respond in prayer to His word, as God puts certain portions on our hearts.  Let’s also pray for our churches:  that we will live in this kind of “fasting” before Him and that His salvation and healing may come to us and to our world.

-BR