As part of our ongoing commitment to security, the Unix Infrastructure group will be conducting its quarterly system patching on Thursday, December 22nd from 5pm to 11pm.  While many systems will be patched without any service disruption, there are several systems which require the downtime of key services for short times during this window.  The schedule below outlines which key services will be offline and for how long.

• The new web hosting environment (virthost and jabba) will be partially unavailable (pages will be available but any database calls will not work)
  
• Access to Cyrus and UMBC Webmail (accounts not migrated to UMBC Gmail)
  
• All mail will be queued up and delivered after the server is patched
• Expected to be unreachable from 5pm to 8pm
• All HFS (user) servers will be offline
  
• Userpages will be unavailable
  
• License5 will be down (autodesk, cadence, idl, schrodinger, xilinx, mathematica)
  
• Perseus will be unavailable
  
• RT
  
• Expected to be down from 5pm to 6pm only
• myUMBC lite page will be up resulting in reduced myUMBC functionality
• Expected to be down from 5pm to 7pm only 
• Wiki will be unavailable
  
• The sites (wordpress) web hosting environment will be unreachable
  
• Expected to be down from 5pm to 7pm only

This Spring, Dr. Thomas Benson returns to UMBC to give the annual Petrovich Lecture in which he will talk about a remarkable life that includes…

• Renaming UMBC's "Option II" program as "Interdisciplinary Studies," as part of a national debate over the role of interdisciplinarity in undergraduate education

• Founding UMBC’s Honors Program (which went on to become today’s Honors College)

• Serving as the president of the international Association for Interdisciplinary Studies (who come to UMBC for their 37th annual conference in 2017) and leading national debate about the place of interdisciplinary studies in undergraduate education

• Becoming president of a Green Mountain college, VT which he led to win the Sierra Club’s prize for America’s number #1 environmental college in 2010

… and much, much more

When? 6:45 p.m. Skylight Room, March 15

Watch for further details…

John 14:12 (NIV) - “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

In the above passage, Jesus says something very remarkable-that whoever believes in Him will do the works that He has been doing, and will actually do even greater things. Now, what does it mean that we will do greater things? Just considering some of the works that Jesus has done, He turned water into wine, walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, multiplied food, and did countless other works of wonder. So, does Jesus mean that we will turn water to greater wine, or that we will multiply more food and so forth? Not only does it seem out of place to think such thoughts, but Scripture also does not support that as we read through the book of Acts. Hence, to understand what the greater works mean, the clue is in the passage that says “because I am going to the Father”.

In John 16:7 Jesus says something very similar to this passage “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” In this particular verse, Jesus says that it is better that He goes away, because when He does ascend to the Father, the Advocate will be sent to be with us-the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when we consider the message of John 16:7 with John 14:12, it helps us understand what Jesus meant when He says that we will do greater things-for the very Holy Spirit that enabled Jesus to minister and be raised from the dead, is the same power that is at work in our lives to continue the ministry that Jesus had begun. This is the ministry that the Apostles were empowered to continue in the book of Acts, and that work continues even today in our midst and throughout the world. The greater works is that the work of Jesus through the Holy Spirit is occurring not only in the confines of Jerusalem in its region, but it is being proclaimed also in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth! (Acts 1:8).

Today, as we are engaged in worship, in ministry, and in prayer, we are living out the greater works that Jesus told us we would be doing, as we are part of the ministry to the ends of the earth. Let’s spend time today in praying for God’s kingdom to continue to come to our five churches and the cities we reside in.

-AK

For the eighth consecutive year, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance has named UMBC a Best Value College, featuring UMBC on both its “top 100” public universities list and “top 300” national list. UMBC is one of just three universities in the state of Maryland to be featured for 2017.

The Kiplinger ranking recognizes affordable four-year colleges with outstanding academics—colleges regarded as a solid investment for students and their families. Their calculations are based on factors such as admission rate, incoming freshman SAT/ACT score, student-faculty ratio, four-year graduation rate, and financial aid, with quality criteria accounting for 55 percent and cost accounting for 45 percent (see methodology).

UMBC’s profile in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance offers additional detail.

Earlier this fall, Times Higher Education recognized UMBC as one of the world’s top universities for 2016 – 17. The publication noted that UMBC “defines itself as an ‘honors university’ committed both to cutting-edge research and to providing a excellent and demanding education for highly motivated students.” The profile also highlighted UMBC’s reputation as an innovator, noting, “It has never been afraid to pioneer new models of teaching and research, and new ways of contributing to the regional economy.”

U.S. News & World Report has also recently honored UMBC as a top global university and, just ahead of UMBC’s 50th anniversary, as a national leader in innovation and teaching.

See UMBC News for details on additional recent university rankings.

Image: UMBC library in autumn. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.