We wanted to remind everyone that on Saturday June 13th around 8am we will be migrating the main campus website environment so it is running on new hardware and software. This past fall an emergency preparedness exercise was conducted by the campus and it became clear that in the event of an emergency one of our main methods of communications, the campus web server, would be unable to respond to the demands placed on it. The new web environment will be running a modern set of web protocols and the infrastructure will be able to scale and meet the demands of the campus moving forward.

To help prepare for this transition we have been working with OIA to test compatibility between the main website as well as some of the departmental websites hosted on the main campus web server. We have been working with various departmental web administrators throughout the campus to help make this transition as smooth as possible. 

If you notice any issues after the upgrade please either contact your department's web administrator or open a RT ticket at http://rt.umbc.edu.

Thank You

Editor’s note: Here at UMBC, our students are the heartbeat of campus, and we are committed to providing them the best possible education. We’re highlighting our amazing academic departments, some of their recent achievements, and ways that you can help fund their continued excellence.

Your gift is extremely important and many of our students are depending on you. Please show your support and make an impact today. With you we can make a difference.

The Department of Biological Sciences is proud to announce that they were able to continue to impact students last year by providing an exceptional education. This year the department hopes to continue with their impact on students.

Your financial support will help award scholarships, sponsor internships, and provide state-of-the-art equipment for our students.

Support the Department of Biological Sciences!

Center Stage seeks an experienced Scene Shop Supervisor. Primary duties include the supervision of the scene shop staff in the execution of scenery (all aspects of construction, installation, strike, and repair, if necessary) for all productions in the Center Stage season as well as maintenance of shop and theater facilities, tools, and materials storage. Qualified candidates would have proficiency in Carpentry, Welding, Rigging, Pneumatics, Hydraulics, and a familiarity with AC/DC motors and motion control. Position is fulltime, seasonal with benefits.

Hiring Students for Summer Text Mining Project

A new, interdisciplinary research project offers a total of five positions to graduate or undergraduate students from multiple disciplines who exhibit the right combination of initiative, skills and reliability. The project investigates undergraduate teaching at UMBC, and is led by the combined expertise of the Shriver Center, Interdisciplinary Studies Program and the Honors College. The students will work as an integrated, interdisciplinary team, and may expect to expand their own knowledge, skills and experience as a result. UMBC graduate students and exceptionally qualified undergraduate students will be considered.

A group of Academic and Student Affairs Division faculty and staff are working to better track, assess, strengthen and increase, and recognize and reward applied learning experiences across the UMBC Campus. In FY15, this group’s work has focused on creating a plan for assessing the impact of applied learning experiences (broadly defined) on students’ affective development.

Each position offers partial summer support funded by a Hrabowski Fund for Innovation: Implementation and Research grant.

80 hours (may span across 4-8 weeks depending on availability-no more than 20 hrs/week)

Stipend of $1150

The five graduate students we seek will have a background in the following skills/disciplines: Information Systems; Computer Science; Human Centered Computing; Instructional Systems Design; Applied Mathematics; Statistics; Human Services Psychology; Applied Sociology; Education; Language, Literacy & Culture; and Public Policy.

The project aims to continue for a minimum of three years, expanding subject to further successful funding. Students who perform well may be invited to extend their role.

One goal is to explore, through written student feedback, how diverse courses have contributed to their perception of growth in key attributes.  This first summer of the project will look at pilot data, exploratory analysis of scrappy, inconsistent, self-reported text, in order to figure out how to collect better, more uniform data in the Fall semester. One of the skill sets we wish for in the team would be a computer scientist able to mine text to seek the suggestion of themes, patterns or clues to what we would need to ask to get such patterns more clearly in the future.

All interested candidates should send a letter of interest, resume with references, and a statement with general summer weekly availability (e.g., Monday, Wednesdays & Fridays from 9am – 2pm) to Michele Wolff at Sorry, you need javascript to view this email address. by Wednesday, June 24.  Exceptionally qualified undergraduate students will also be considered.