The Women’s Center at UMBC turns 25 this year! We’re excited to share our important milestone with UMBC’s 50th Anniversary and will be celebrating throughout the year with the rest of campus! We were inspired by Special Collections archival project Archives Gold: 50 Objects for UMBC’s 50th and decided to do our own digging into the Women’s Center archives. Over the course of the year, we’ll be sharing 25 “Then vs Now” archives to celebrate the origin and evolution of the Women’s Center at UMBC.

This week we’re featuring the history of Women’s History Month Calendars and Programming!

This year, with added support and funding from the Provost’s office, the Women’s Center was able to celebrate International Women’s Working Day and A Day Without a Woman with a keynote addresses delivered by Loretta Ross, a human and women’s right’s activist. Her keynote lecture was entitled Human Right’s as Women’s Rights.

Women’s Center Staff and community members with Activist Loretta Ross on March 8th. We’re wearing red in solidarity with A Day Without a Woman. 

This year was indeed a special celebration of Women’s History Month, but regardless of whether we hosted a keynote event or not, the Women’s Center has been marking the celebration of Women’s History Month over our 25 years of existence. Below are some calendars from Women’s History Months passed.

Women’s History Month 2001

Women’s History Month 2011

What are the memories you have of the Women’s Center over the years that are meaningful to you? What does the Women’s Center mean to you today? Share your memories and pictures with us in the comment section below!

Stay up-to-date with our 25th anniversary on social media using #UMBCWC25. Share your Women’s Center experiences and memories with the UMBC community using #UMBCWC25 AND #UMBC50!

Baltimore Center Stage (BCS) is in search of a part-time Teaching Artist. A Baltimore Center Stage Teaching Artist is a professional theater artist with significant experience as an instructor, who will join Baltimore Center Stage, on a part-time basis, to help young people and classroom teachers learn and utilize the skills, competencies and understandings of theater. The BCS Teaching Artist has the demonstrated ability to design and facilitate arts integrated workshops in Baltimore City area public schools.

Summer Session GAs  with  appointments  during  the  Summer have  the  option to  register  for  the  graduate assistantship course, GRAD 603. 

In order to retain FICA-exemption during the Summer, domestic GAs must be registered for at least three (3) credits at all times during the Summer. GRAD 603 provides two (2) credits towards the three (3) credit requirement. International  Students  with  F-1,  J-1,  M-1,  or  Q-1  immigration  status  are  already  FICA-exempt. 

Students with these statuses have no registration requirements during Summer. Notes Applicable to Fall, Spring, and Summer a)GAs are not billed tuition or fees for GRAD 600, GRAD 601, or GRAD 603; b)GAs receive credit towards full-time status from GRAD 600 and GRAD 601; c)GRAD  600,  GRAD  601,  and  GRAD  603  are  not  eligible  for  financial  aid,  nor  are  they considered when determining financial aid eligibility; d)GRAD 600, GRAD 601, and GRAD 603 do not appear on transcripts; and e)GRAD  600,  GRAD  601,  and  GRAD  603  will  appear  at  registration  to  be  for  0  credits. However, GAs are receiving the proper number of credits (3, 5, and 2, respectively); Master’s thesis research (799) is a variable (2-9) credit course (billed at 1/2 rate), based on the amount of involvement in the University research program. Pre-candidacy doctoral dissertation research (898) (for students who have not reached the doctoral candidacy stage) is a variable (3-9) credit course (billed at 1/3 rate), based on the amount of involvement in the University research program. 

Doctoral dissertation research (899) (for students who have reached the doctoral candidacy) is a fixed (9) credit course (billed at 2/9 rate). 

A recently received grant of approximately $620 thousand dollars from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) will fund innovative work examining the role of law enforcement in schools by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from UMBC and the University of Louisville. The study examines the role of sworn law enforcement, also known as school resource officers (SROs), in two school districts in the South with a particular focus on their role in the elementary school setting. The work is funded as part of the NIJ’s Comprehensive School Safety Initiative.

“Law enforcement have become an increasingly common presence in school settings, particularly after high profile events like the tragedy at Sandy Hook”, notes principal investigator Chris Curran. “Our work seeks to understand the role of these officers in promoting safety, managing student behavior, and facilitating relationships with students. The support of the National Institute of Justice allows for an unprecedented look at the role and impacts of SROs in previously understudied settings.”

In addition to the principal investigator, Chris Curran, the project is also led by co-principal investigator Benjamin W. Fisher at the University of Louisville and project coordinator Samantha Viano of Vanderbilt University.  The study will be ongoing for a two year period and will involve extensive data collection through interviews, focus groups, large-scale surveys, and examination of administrative data.  The findings of the study will be useful for informing partnerships between school districts and law enforcement agencies as well as policy related to the use of school resource officers.To date there has been little research on the reasons why law enforcement personnel become involved with schools, what they do in schools, and the impacts they may have on schools. This research project will investigate school resource officers (SROs) within elementary schools within an affluent, high performing school district. This projected is guided by four research questions: 1) why and through what process were SROs implemented? 2) What roles and activities do SROs engage in within schools? 3) What impacts do SROs have on schools and students? And 4) how do the roles and impacts of SROs differ across school contexts? Data will come from interviews with the districts’ SROs, and a sample of teachers, school leaders, students and parents. Researchers will conduct full day observations of each of the SROs and have the SROs complete time logs that document their activities over a two week time period. Additionally, researchers will analyze official policy documents such as the memorandum of understanding between the law enforcement agency and the school district. Qualitative analyses will be conducted on all data collected, and results will be disseminated in the form of academic journals, conference presentations, interactive websites, and policy briefs.