Shannon Carney for The Retriever

• BY SHANNON CARNEY
 
• •   SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

The student-created project group, Retriever Treasures, braved the sweltering heat on Wednesday to host their first yard sale. With the goal of reducing waste on campus, the group collected donated items from students moving out of their dorms at the end of the spring semester.

Maddie Dahne, a junior biology and environmental science double major, led the project with her fellow students and enthusiastically sold goods to those passing through the quad on their way to classes.

“Going through the move-out process, we saw that perfectly usable stuff was being thrown away,” Dahne said. “At the end of last year all of the stuff here would have been thrown away.”

They prevented quite a bit of landfill waste. Their donations filled up eight long fold out tables piled high with t-shirts, shoes, lamps, laundry detergent and other dorm room knick-knacks. Plastic storage bins sat underneath each table with even more clothing, comforters and blankets.

The members of Retriever Treasures weren’t shy about calling out to passersby that every item for sale was under $10. Their dedication to the cause was evident as they kept upbeat and friendly attitudes even without tents to shield them from the sun.

Across the pathway, workers took down the many tables and the large tent used for orientation. The metal poles banged loudly on the ground, but the commotion didn’t deter the Retriever Treasures group or the shoppers.

A steady stream of people stopped by the tables to rifle through the goods and purchase new clothes or an item they may have left behind. Some people left empty-handed because it was a cash-only sale. Even so, Retriever Treasures considered their day a success.

“We haven’t even been open for an hour and we’ve already made a lot of money,” Dahne said early into their sale.

All the money goes toward sustaining the project, including storing the donated items throughout the year.

Rushika Nayak, a freshman biology major who lives on campus, was clothing shopping at the yard sale. After receiving a text message from a friend about the sale, she decided to check it out. While she said she doesn’t typically seek out secondhand sales, Nayak does enjoy coming across them.

“If [a sale] is there I’m going to check it out,” she said.

She purchased a bright orange shirt and still looked through bins of clothing with a friend.

In addition to the good value, Nayak also felt the project was useful for college students and sustainability.

She said, “It’s a community thing. It’s better than just throwing stuff out.”

Pig Pen Pond is a site of UMBC research. Photo by James Gallagher.

• BY CARRIE COOK
 
• •   MARCH 16, 2017

CARRIE COOK

If you went to collect trash on campus, what would you expect to find? Food waste and soda cans? During any given clean-up, eco-conscious students will stumble upon things like abandoned pipes, tires, fire hydrants or even toilets.

“We’ve collected enough chairs to have our own meeting,” said sophomore political science major Bergren Cliff. “And it’s not just folding chairs. We find nice upholstered ones, too.”

The Environmental Task Force ventures out every Wednesday and Friday for an hour-long campus clean-up. Each day, they focus on a single area like Herbert Run, Pig Pen Pond or some of the wooded areas around campus. They try to focus their efforts on areas where they haven’t spent as much time or where they notice trash.

In years past, the club did more projects outside the loop; however, changing leadership resulted in a shift in club direction. Now, ETF focuses their efforts on restoring on-campus spaces. The group plans to attend the People’s Climate March on April 29 in Washington, D.C.

While there are around 20 club members total, turnout for clean ups varies based on weather conditions and academic schedules. However, the club welcomes all interested students to join the group at any point, which departs from the stairs by the Yum Shoppe at 4:00 p.m. for each clean-up.

Club officers stressed that interested students need not be experts in environmental science: “[ETF] is basically for anyone who likes to go outside,” said ETF president, sophomore Zach Grzywacz. “Half of it is exploring campus.”

Several members are environmental science majors, but the group is diverse and includes art history, mechanical engineering and political science majors.

The group collects around 20 pounds of trash at their smallest clean-ups, but not all their findings end up in the dumpster. Sophomore biology major Matt Brown collects rebar, a metal used to stabilize concrete. Thanks to a blacksmithing course, he recycles the metal found at clean-ups and makes it in to keys and arrowheads.

Their benevolence is not limited to picking up trash; ETF members also control harmful invasive species. English ivy, an evergreen vine, wraps around trees eventually choking them to death. On their clean-ups, members cut the ivy with small saws. According to one member, cutting out a six-inch gap from the vine prevents further growth and saves the life of the affected tree.

Larry Hennessey, an associate director for quality management in Facilities Management, stumbled upon the students as they were cutting away the ivy. He expressed interest in their work and decided to join them. Now, the club makes use of his tools and vehicle to make the trash-hauling process more efficient. According to the students, he has become the “patron saint” of the organization.

“While picking up trash sounds like a lot of work, it’s actually fun,” said Grzywacz. “Being in ETF has been the highlight of my UMBC experience.”

A weekly round-up curated by Women’s Center staff member, Michael Jalloh Jamboria

In the spirit of my friend, who gave us the glorious name ‘Slaying on the Weekly’, every week I will be bringing you some interesting, funny or thought-provoking content from the internet! Be sure to join us next week for more and continue to slay!

Happy Women’s History Month! Join us in celebrating women, their lives, their stories and their resistance.

• Be sure to check out the Women’s Center’s Women’s History Calendar. There are great events and opportunities this month! Hope to see you some of the events!
• In case you needed it, this is your weekly reminder to stay on top of politics, question everything and resist. It’s difficult but your work helps us create a better future. Take a break from the TV and check out What the F*** Just Happened Today?, a chronicle of policy and decisions being made through the current presidency.
• Last week, Trump Signs New Order Blocking Arrivals From 6 Majority-Muslim Countries. Be sure to stay up to date on the issues revolving around this order which went into effect yesterday, March 16th. You can read about UMBC’s response here. (as an FYI, archived messages from the President and Provost of UMBC related to diversity and inclusion can be found on this page)
• UN Says World Faces Largest Humanitarian Crisis Since 1945. If you’re anything like me, you’re wonder what we can do about it. Here is a short list of things we can do. 
• Students at UCLA are trying to expand their school’s sanctuary campus policy to include queer, black and undocumented students. Check that out!! 
• Have you read Daniel Willey’s post, What Happened to the “Working” in International Working Women’s Day? yet? Check out this amazing read!
• Let’s talk about privilege! Here are 25+ Examples of Western Privilege. How can we start to unlearn them? Come on into the Women’s Center to chat!!

Provost Philip Rous and Vice Provost Simon Stacy came to the Women’s Center to pay us a visit!

Enjoy your Spring Break! See you in two weeks! Same place, same time! Stay safe and continue to slay! Happy Women’s History Month!

How does a performance group proceed when their stage is on the chopping block? They find a new stage.

The Musical Theater club, which performs every semester, is stuck in limbo after using the old theater. Located inside the Academic Services building, it will be demolished this semester to make room for the new Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building (ILSB). The ILSB is scheduled for completion by the summer of 2019.

The university closed the old theater for student group activities following the fall semester. Members of MTC were told that the demolition and construction of the new building would begin during this semester. No apparent progress is visible from the outside.

According to Joseph Rexing, director of design and construction services in Facilities Management, the ILSB project is on schedule and demolition will begin on May 1. Remaining occupants of Academic Services including the Registrar’s Office, Office for Academic and Pre-Professional Advising and the Meyerhoff Scholarship Office will vacate to Sherman Hall during spring break in late March.

MTC has performed four successive shows in the old theater: Urinetown (Spring 2015), The Last Ten Years (Fall 2015), The Addam’s Family (Spring 2016) and Happily Never After: A Villian’s Showcase (Fall 2016). MTC performs a showcase each fall, in which all interested students can participate. In the spring, students can audition for a part in the yearly musical. Before the old theater became available to them, they performed in a lecture hall in Fine Arts, which has since been renovated and can no longer accommodate their needs.

Their upcoming musical, Legally Blonde, will take place from April 7-9. Club leadership knew that the old theater would not be available, so they kept to a small cast of 24. However, some ensemble members have to double, triple or quadruple parts to account for the expansive number of roles that the show requires.

“It was a tough time during casting, because we had 40 or 50 people show up and only had 24 spots. We had to cut over half, which is really tough,” said junior biochemistry major Danny Morris.

For regular rehearsals, the club reserves classrooms just like other clubs on campus. Meanwhile, board members searched tirelessly for a new location, contacting the theater department, dance department, The Commons staff and student life. Senior acting major and vice president Nell Quinn-Gibney called the search “an extremely challenging and frustrating process.”

After numerous unsuccessful attempts, the club secured Fine Arts 317 for their April performance and their rehearsals the week prior. The space is currently used for dance rehearsals and classes. While MTC is grateful to the dance department for allowing them to use their space, they know that its layout will present challenges for Legally Blonde.

“It will definitely impact turnout, from the simple fact that we can’t fit nearly as many chairs in that space,” said Quinn-Gibney. “It was designed to be a rehearsal studio, not a performance space.”

The smaller space requires a minimalist set and a smaller cast than usual. They are still determining where to place the pit orchestra, which performs live music for the production.

Students are still not certain where their permanent location will be, though there is some hope. Members were told that they would be allowed to use the recital hall in Fine Arts permanently, though ongoing renovations prevented them from using it for Legally Blonde this semester.

“The University has related that the Fine Arts Recital Hall is being renovated and will be ready for use in the Fall of 2017,” said MTC advisor Stephen Caracciolo. “The Musical Theater Club expects to make every use allowable of that important performance space on campus.”

The post For displaced Musical Theater Club, the show must go on appeared first on The Retriever.

The Semantics Toolkit

Paul Cuddihy and Justin McHugh
GE Global Research Center, Niskayuna, NY

10:00-11:00 Tuesday, 4 April 2017, ITE 346, UMBC

SemTk (Semantics Toolkit) is an open source technology stack built by GE Scientists on top of W3C Semantic Web standards.  It was originally conceived for data exploration and simplified query generation, and later expanded to a more general semantics abstraction platform. SemTk is made up of a Java API and microservices along with Javascript front ends that cover drag-and-drop query generation, path finding, data ingestion and the beginnings of stored procedure support.   In this talk we will give a tour of SemTk, discussing its architecture and direction, and demonstrate it’s features using the SPARQLGraph front-end hosted at http://semtk.research.ge.com.

Paul Cuddihy is a senior computer scientist and software systems architect in AI and Learning Systems at the GE Global Research Center in Niskayuna, NY. He earned an M.S. in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology. The focus of his twenty-year career at GE Research has ranged from machine learning for medical imaging equipment diagnostics, monitoring and diagnostic techniques for commercial aircraft engines, modeling techniques for monitoring seniors living independently in their own homes, to parallel execution of simulation and prediction tasks, and big data ontologies.  He is one of the creators of the open source software “Semantics Toolkit” (SemTk) which provides a simplified interface to the semantic tech stack, opening its use to a broader set of users by providing features such as drag-and-drop query generation and data ingestion.  Paul has holds over twenty U.S. patents.

Justin McHugh is computer scientist and software systems architect working in the AI and Learning Systems group at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY. Justin attended the State University of New York at Albany where he earned an M.S in computer science. He has worked as a systems architect and programmer for large scale reporting, before moving into the research sector. In the six years since, he has worked on complex system integration, Big Data systems and knowledge representation/querying systems. Justin is one of the architects and creators of SemTK (the Semantics Toolkit), a toolkit aimed at making the power of the semantic web stack available to programmers, automation and subject matter experts without their having to be deeply invested in the workings of the Semantic Web.