The Walters Art Museum seeks a dynamic and energetic individual to work in its retail operation as a part time Lead Sales Assistant/Third Key to provide a high level of customer service to the Museum Store visitors and assuring the daily operation of the Museum Store in management’s absence. Reporting to the Manager of Retail Operations, the individual will have responsibility for:

The Walters Art Museum has an immediate opening for an individual to work in the Security Department on the Evening Shift (4:00pm to 12:00 midnight), Wednesday thru Sunday.

Responsibilities:

With art, ideas, and entertainment, UMBC will add spark to the second annual Light City Baltimore festival, running from March 31 through April 8 in the Inner Harbor and throughout the city. The evening celebration of light and its companion series of daytime innovation conferences — the Labs@LightCity — will prominently feature UMBC faculty, staff, students and alumni as artists and thought leaders.

Launched by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts in 2016, Light City Baltimore is the first large-scale international light festival in the United States, and last year attracted more than 400,000 visitors.

Members of the UMBC community (alumni, faculty, staff, students, and friends) are invited to visit the Black and Gold Lounge on Saturday, April 1, from 8 to 11 p.m. at the Harbor Club at Pier V, right on the path of the BGE Art Walk, offering an incredible elevated 180-degree panoramic view of Light City. Attendees to this free event will enjoy complimentary food and drink, and can pick up glow-in-the-dark swag (first come, first served).

Featured Artists
Two visual arts faculty — associate professor Eric Dyer and professor Timothy Nohe — are among the major artists on the BGE Light Art Walk, which will feature large-scale artworks that were selected through an international competition.

 
Dyer’s work, Shabamanetica (detail above), which will be located on Pier 5, “takes the form of two large spinning sculptures that evoke ships’ wheels,” explains the artist.

Spin a sculpture, and images on its face come to life with the aid of an over-arching strobe light. The animations combine imagery from Shanghai, Panama, and Baltimore: three places connected anew by the recent expansion of the Panama Canal and dredging of the Port of Baltimore in preparation for the gigantic Super Neopanamax container ships. One sculpture considers industrial heydays — Baltimore’s past versus China’s young and blossoming — with umbrellas as the common thread, set over a landscape of Panamanian highland waterfalls. The other presents the awe-inspiring ‘machine’ of canal operations and questions what it’s all for.

Nohe’s creation is also interactive and will be positioned near the National Aquarium. Entitled Electron Drawing — Visual Music (top image), the artwork will be “projected on a big LED screen mixes live electronic drawing with the ‘switched-on’ synthesizer music of the 1960s,” he describes. “Audiences sculpt the live ‘electron drawings’ and music with a wave of their hands.”

The Labs@LightCity
The daytime Labs@Light City, a series of six innovation conferences dedicated to sparking social change, will explore topics such as education, health, and design. The Labs will be held at the University System of Maryland (USM) Columbus Center on Pratt Street. USM will sponsor EduLab on Wednesday, April 5, at which UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski will discuss “The Path to the Future” with author Alec Ross, exploring how we look to the education system, business, and government to help cities like Baltimore tap into the promise of the industries of the future.

 
At HealthLab on Monday, April 3, Gymama Slaughter, associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, will speak on “The Body as a Battery,” in which she will discuss how the body’s chemical energy can be harnessed to power wearable and implantable sensors that diagnose and monitor diseases. Additional UMBC faculty who will speak at the Labs include Chris Swan, associate professor of geography and environmental systems; Lee Boot, director of the Imaging Research Center; and Kimberly R. Moffitt, associate professor of American studies and affiliate assistant professor of Africana studies and language, literacy, and culture. Lab attendees will also hear from UMBC alumni Maritha Gay ‘84, health science and policy; Greg Cangialosi ‘96, English; and Joseph T. Jones ‘06, social work.

UMBC SPARK Gallery

UMBC SPARK, a pop-up gallery of engaging, projection-based artworks, will be open at Calvert and Water streets nightly, 5 – 10 p.m.

Made possible through the vision and generosity of PNC, the gallery is produced by the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore and features the work of UMBC faculty (including Kelley Bell, Cathy Cook, Symmes Gardner, Lisa Moren, Jules Rosskam and Sarah G. Sharp) and graduate students. The gallery is curated by Joe Reinsel, a Baltimore based artist who uses new media, video, and sound to explore ideas about architectural space, time, and touch.

UMBC SPARK also features a schedule of special events, including performances by UMBC’s Baltimore Dance Project and the UMBC Percussion Ensemble, a special showing of films by Stan VanDerBeek (former chair of visual arts), an animation workshop by assistant professor Corrie Parks, and a visiting artist talk by Elizabeth Daggar.

“We’re very excited that film, video, animation, and projection art works by visual arts faculty, alumni, and graduate students are prominently featured in UMBC SPARK,” says Preminda Jacob, chair of visual arts. “Some highlights include an animation workshop for the public on Wednesday, April 5, that will be conducted by our talented undergraduate students in the UMBC Visual Arts Club. On Thursday, April 6, we will welcome visual arts alumni to the exhibition with a special hospitality event.”

On Demand
Artworks by UMBC faculty, staff, and students (including Cathy Cook, associate professor of visual arts; Corrie Parks, assistant professor of visual arts; and Catherine Borg, arts publicity coordinator) will be featured in “On Demand,” a Light City celebration of digital content along the BGE Light Art Walk.

For complete information on UMBC’s presence at the 2017 Light City Baltimore festival, visit UMBC’s Light City webpage.

In recent weeks, racist white nationalist and otherwise alt-right posters have been appearing at UMBC as well as campuses around Baltimore and throughout the nation. The unofficial UMBC Alt-Right group appears to be behind some of the postings on campus.

So-called hate groups advertising on college campuses are not a new trend; however, UMBC students are alarmed by the organization and intensity of this latest wave of postings. Some posters placed outside of the library on light poles read, “UMBC Alt-Right. Identity, Order, and Strength.” Another poster had a picture of Thomas Jefferson and asked students to “Embrace white identity today.”

Although the posters and stickers were quickly removed by general student body not long after they were found, many still wondered what the campus was going to do.

UMBC senior american studies and political science major, Richard Elliot, founder of UMBC Progressives, reached out to every applicable department and organization on campus looking for explanations and solutions. He said, “I thought it was an urgent matter because of the recent anti-Semitic incidents on campus and we want to ensure that people who believe this remain in the shadows so the ideologies of white supremacy and white nationalism don’t blossom on our tolerant campus.”

The immediate response of UMBC Administration was to pen an email to the student body, showing support for freedom of speech on campus but condemning the posting of signage on fixtures not designed to hold advertisements and that are contrary to other parts of the UMBC Posting Policy.

Still, other entities on campus are taking action against these postings.

From noon to one o’clock on Monday, March 27, UMBC Progressives, alongside several other student organizations, planned to have students that “hate white supremacy” sign a 48 inch volleyball on Academic Row that will be given to the Mosaic Center.

“The grander idea,” Elliot said, is to convene an anti-racism town-hall that would be attended by UMBC faculty and staff as well as “swaths of the UMBC student body.” Several departments of the UMBC SGA as well as other student organizations are also looking to do a similar town-hall style forum centered around matters of race and cultural identity. Expanding on the event, Elliot said, “Having events that show we have many more students who oppose this than who support it is intended to be a comfort to those who are scared by the hateful ideologies we oppose.”

So far, support for the posters has been minimal on campus, but many students have been showing their disapproval. One UMBC student who wished to remain anonymous believes “it is important for students to recognize some of these organizations, their imageries and the potential danger they pose, especially toward marginalized communities and oppose them.”

UMBC’s campus culture typically embraces diversity and cultural awareness. In a campus wide email shortly after the discovery of the signage, President Hrabowski ensured students that “UMBC is committed to inclusive excellence, social justice and freedom of expression. As a diverse academic community, we have many opportunities to thoughtfully engage in discussion and advocacy on issues that matter to each of us.”

Similar occurrences have occurred at nearby institutions such as College Park, which recently had posters urging white Americans to report “illegal aliens” to authorities and includes a website address for Vanguard America, a fascist, white supremacist group. Vanguard America, formerly known as American Vanguard, actively encourages college students to post fliers on school campuses.

Other organizations that have been known to distribute similar white nationalist signage in the Baltimore area include the Traditional Worker Party, a conservative fringe group founded by a Towson graduate; Identity Evropa, a eugenicist “fraternity;” and American Renaissance, a monthly online “white supremacist” publication, as described by the Washington Post.

The post White nationalism posters at UMBC appeared first on The Retriever.

Amelia Hallworth ’17, Biology and member of the Honors College, was featured in a post yesterday by the Learning Resources Center highlighting her as an exceptional tutor. Amelia tutors both Math and Genetics. In the fall, Amelia will begin a PhD program in Microbiology at Yale. Read more about Amelia by following the link below.

Congratulations Amelia! Keep up the good work!

Lee Blaney, assistant professor of chemical, biochemical and environmental engineering, has received a prestigious CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance his research on contaminants of emerging concern and their effects on the environment. The grant, totaling $500,000 over five years, will support Blaney’s research on pharmaceuticals, hormones, and personal care products in the local Gwynns Falls watershed.

“We congratulate Dr. Blaney on his NSF CAREER Award, a recognition of his commitment to impacting and engaging the UMBC and greater Baltimore communities through his research and teaching,” said Karl V. Steiner, vice president for research.

Contaminants of emerging concern include pharmaceuticals and personal care products, such as antibiotics, hormones, sunscreens, and fragrances. Sewer leaks can introduce these everyday chemicals to urban streams, contaminating the environment. Recently, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave wastewater systems in the U.S. a grade of “D.” Blaney explains that it is crucial for these systems to be upgraded to maintain water quality and protect the environment.

Blaney will work alongside the Baltimore Department of Public Works and other stakeholders in the Gwynns Falls watershed to complete his research and put his findings into action. He explains, “This project has a strong potential for broader impacts. It will provide a wealth of information on the occurrence and effects of contaminants of emerging concern in our local environment that can be extrapolated to other urban systems around the world.”

Blaney will use screening tools that identify the presence of wastewater in urban streams to locate sewer leaks that may be adversely affecting streamwater quality and that require repair. In waterways affected by wastewater, contaminants of emerging concern have already been detected in the tissue of both vertebrates and invertebrates, highlighting potential concerns to human and ecological health through antibiotic resistance, endocrine disruption, and other toxicity mechanisms.

This CAREER award also recognizes Blaney’s commitment to increasing the number of women and underrepresented minority students in environmental engineering research through collaboration with UMBC’s Center for Women in Technology, Meyerhoff Scholars Program, STEM BUILD Program, and programs supporting community college alumni completing their undergraduate degrees at UMBC. In addition, Blaney will develop and launch a citizen science program in Baltimore City to increase opportunities for community members to connect with their environment, collect important environmental data, and increase their scientific literacy.

“I cherish the role of teacher-scholar, and I am honored to receive the CAREER Award,” Blaney says. “This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication that I bring to work everyday. The CAREER Award reinforces my approach and will allow me to continue to integrate my research and teaching programs in new and exciting ways.”

UMBC faculty have received 34 NSF CAREER awards since 1995 across a number of fields, including engineering, physics, information systems, and computer science.