by Jess Myers

Baltimore Wicked History Tours (www.wickedhistorybaltimore.com), the same team that runs Baltimore Ghost Tours (www.baltimoreghosttours.com), has an opening this for a tour guide for our two hour Mt Vernon Wicked History pub tour in Mt Vernon, and our 1.5 hour Fells Point Wicked History Walking Tour in Fells Point.

"UMBC Suits You" is collecting new and gently used professional clothing as part of Career Crush in April.  Students will have the opportunity to learn about dressing professionally and will then be able to select one free outfit to use in their job search. We are asking staff to donate new and gently used professional clothing at collection bins around campus from February 23rd - March 10th.

Starting February 23rd, Professional Clothing can be dropped off at the following on-campus locations:

• Career Center, Math/Psych 212: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• The Women’s Center, The Commons: 

9 a.m. – 7 p.m. (Mon-Thurs), 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Fri)

• Campus Info Desk: 7:30 a.m. – 12 a.m. (Mon-Thurs), 

7:30 a.m. – 1 a.m. (Fri), 8 a.m. – 1 a.m. (Sat), 10 a.m. – 11 p.m. (Sun)

• Residential Life Office, Erickson Hall: 8:30 – 4:30 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• CWIT Office (ITE452)  8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• RAC Front Desk: 7:30 a.m. – 9 p.m. (Mon-Fri), 12 p.m. – 6 p.m. (Sat-Sun)

• The Shriver Center, Public Policy Building: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• Alumni House: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

UMBC Alumni and Community Members are encourage to drop off donations at some of our neighborhood locations:

• Alumni House: 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• UMBC Training Centers: 8:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• bwtech (Cyber Incubator): 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

•  bwtech (South Campus): 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• Catonsville Chamber of Commerce 10:00 a.m. – 3 p.m. (Mon-Fri)

• Baltimore County Public Library- Arbutus 9:00 a.m. – 5 p.m. 

 • Items that will be accepted: dresses, shell tops, button-up shirts and blouses, skirts, blazers, dress pants, garment bags, belts, ties, skirt suits and suits. 

• Items that will NOT be accepted: jewelry, handbags, shoes, and general accessories.

For more information on accepted items, check out the link here.

Clothing donations will be used to benefit UMBC students and will not be considered as gift-in-kind or donation to UMBC. Clothing donations are not eligible for a tax-deductible receipt. Any leftover clothing will be donated to local non-profits, Suited to Succeed and the Franciscan Center’s Attire 4 Hire program.

Special thanks to T. Rowe Price for partnering with us once again on this endeavor.

Any questions or concerns about this project can be addressed to Kate Phelps, Career  Center, kphelps@umbc.edu, 410-455-2216.

***Students be on the look out for more information about UMBC Suits You occurring on April 1 & 2 when you will be able to pick up a professional outfit.***

UMBC Women Who Rock is a blog series I’m working on throughout the 2014-15 academic year. In my role as Women’s Center director, I have some of the best opportunities to become acquainted with some of UMBC’s best and brightest women on campus. I admire the ways they live authentic lives unapologetically that challenge the stereotypes and assumptions that are often assigned to women. By debunking these stereotypes and forcing us to check our assumptions, they allow us to expand our notion of what a woman is and can be.

-Jess

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UMBC Women Who Rock! A Reflection on Encouragement and Accountability

With only three posts in this series, it might seem a little too early to spice things up, but the spirit of this series is really that of personal reflection (in addition to of course, celebrating other women) and I have some reflections to share. So for this post, I’m expanding the concept of the series to not just write about a particular UMBC woman but the experience of working with other UMBC women.  In this case, it’s the experience of writing a chapter for a women in leadership book series called Advancing Women and Leadership: Moving the Needle through Applied Theory Building with Virginia Byrne of Student Life and Crystal Diaz-Espinoza of CWIT. Our chapter called “The Non-Traditional Patchwork of College Women Student Leaders: A Multidisciplinary Reflection on Theory” focuses on ways in which we seek to build bridges at UMBC between marginalized groups of women leaders and the larger campus community in an effort to encourage transformational leadership development. We specifically focus on the experiences of UMBC women adult learners and women students majoring in information technology and engineering.

Now that the first hurdle of submitting our draft is behind us, I’ve had time to reflect on the experience. It was hard! I knew what I wanted to write and had all the confidence in the world until I sat in front of my computer trying to put my thoughts into words. It was like teaching someone to tie their shoe or ride a bike. I’ve been doing the action for so long that taking a step back and breaking it down part-by-part proved to be more difficult than I thought. On top of the challenge of actually writing, we were doing so with a week left before the spring semester begun. I felt behind on my work in the Women’s Center and some of our biggest programming and events were coming up in just a few short weeks. And it was cold and winter is the worst. Long story short, I was a grouchy baby.

I look back over the past week of writing sessions and writing and recognize they weren’t some of my proudest moments. I kept looking for ways to convince myself that I wasn’t smart enough to write this paper and that I possibly didn’t have anything worth including in a real-life book. I kept hoping that maybe Crystal or Virginia felt the same way and we could quit this whole thing.

Shine Theory fail.

Through my love of podcasts, I’ve recently been exposed to this concept of Shine Theory. Explained by Ann Friedman in her article over at The Cut, she explores the idea that powerful women make the best of friends. She writes, “Surrounding yourself with the best people doesn’t make you look worse by comparison. It makes you better.” I can get on board with that, but what I really take away from Shine Theory is how Anne’s best friend, Amina, sums it up:  “I don’t shine if you don’t shine.”

Thank goodness Virginia and Crystal were willing and able to share their shine with me. As Friedman continues in her article, “True confidence is infectious.” While I know we all had our doubts, my writing partners wouldn’t let me quit. Time and time again, they’d share accolades and encouragement with me and with each other. This is great. You’ve got this. Yes, keep going. We’re going to finish this.

And, you know what? The more I heard it, the more I believed it. As our paper came together, I gained more confidence. The words came out easier and I was able to be a better teammate in the process.  I also think our chapter is pretty darn awesome and I’m really glad I didn’t give up. Thank you Virginia and Crystal!

When I hear people talk about Shine Theory, I hear it presented from the perspective of “you, good person… go find other great people to help you shine,” which I think is important and enriching for one’s personal and professional lives. We all need people to learn from and share encouragement. But, I want to hold myself accountable as well. I want to be a person that just isn’t doing the taking of the shine but is giving of the shine. This experience reminds how easy it can be to make something just about you. I wasn’t the only one who was busy and working through other deadlines or feeling challenged by the task at hand. Where could I have provided more support and encouragement to my writing partners? What steps do I need to take next time to get my shine on earlier? These are questions I’m going to keep in mind as I move into a busy spring semester and will be confronted with opportunities to shine for others and be motivated by the shine of UMBC Women Who Rock.

Shine on UMBC…. Shine on.

Who are the UMBC women in your life that inspire you to think outside your expectations and assumptions? What are the counter narrative stories they’re sharing with us allowing UMBC and our greater community to be more of exactly who we want to be? Comment below and maybe you’ll just find them featured in a future UMBC Women Who Rock post.

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Check out other UMBC Women Who Rock:

Amanda Knapp (featured August 2014)
Susan Dumont (featured October 2014)
Jahia Knobloch (featured January 2015)

Special Collections has a new music collection available for you to come and explore! Whether you’re a musician-in-training or simply a lover of the classics, you now have access to an impressive collection of noted concert violinist and conductor Robert Gerle’s personal, marked scores. At UMBC, Gerle is perhaps best known for beginning the orchestral program here and remaining its conductor for nearly two decades. In addition to conducting the UMBC Orchestra, Gerle also taught at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and the Mannes College of Music in New York.

In 1972, when the first concert was planned, UMBC’s music major was actually in jeopardy of being removed from the school by the Maryland Council on Higher Education. The council cited that there were other, similar programs offered by nearby University of Maryland institutions and therefore did not need to be repeated. Despite this threat, the UMBC Orchestra’s inaugural concert remained slated to take place on December 11, 1972. To read all of the details, be sure to check out the Retriever article in our Digital Collections (hint: take a look at pages 1 and 5)! Scores from several of the pieces played at this concert can be found in the collection, including Richard Wagner’s “Overture to Die Meistersinger,” Wagner’s only comic opera.

Robert Gerle was born in 1924 to Jewish Hungarian parents. According to a New York Times article [1] published in 1958, during World War II Gerle and 26 other Hungarian Jews were caught and arrested by a group of Soviet soldiers while they were hiding in the crawl space above a music professor’s house. The Soviet soldiers suspected them of being snipers. As Gerle was brought before the firing squad, the officer in charge noticed his violin case and demanded that he play a work by Tschaikovsky. A student of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and the Hungarian National Conservatory of Music, Gerle’s technique impressed the officer. He was convinced that Gerle was a musician, not a soldier. Gerle’s technique, which would be coined as “flawless” later in his career, supposedly saved not only his life, but the lives of the 26 other individuals with him.

When the war ended, Gerle began to play concert engagements in both New York and London, becoming best known for his performances of Back’s Chaconne for solo violin and Heinrich Biber’s violin sonatas. He and his wife, Marilyn Neely - also a UMBC professor - even won an Emmy for the video presentation of the complete Beethoven violin and piano sonatas.

The Gerle collection was transferred from College Park last year. It contains a wide variety of musical scores and compositions, ranging from full orchestral pieces to solo violin pieces. The collection contains not only classics such as Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, but also a host of lesser known treasures to explore. My personal favorite is Vivaldi’s Violin-Konzert, Ops. 3, No. 6. This score, just one of Gerle’s many personal marked scores, is available for you to come in and take a look at. Check out our finding aid for more information!

[1] MEYER BERGER. "About New York." New York Times (1923-Current File), Oct 20, 1958. http://search.proquest.com/docview/114511079?accountid=14577.

This post was written by Special Collections Graduate Assistant Jessi Deane. Thank you, Jessi!

If you were like any of the millions of listeners who tuned into the weekly podcast Serial, you probably heard of the recent news- Adnan Syed will be allowed to appeal his conviction. 

Brief background for those of you who are not familiar with the show:

Syed’s case reached the limelight with the wildly popular podcast Serial. The podcast investigated the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, a high school student at Woodlawn High School in Maryland. With little evidence, Adnan Syed was convicted of murder and currently is serving a life sentence at a state prison in Western Maryland. 

Last Friday, The Maryland Court of Special Appeals agreed to hear Syed’s case again.

Many believe Syed should receive a new trial because his “trial attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, provided him ineffective counsel.” However, many are skeptical that Syded will be granted that. Research shows that of all cases arguing ineffective assistance of counsel, only 8% receive a new trial.

This new chance for Adnan Syed also highlights the influence of the media. Would his case have been revisited if millions of people had not heard it on Serial? Will his new-found popularity play a role? 

Like the end of a Serial episode, it doesn’t seem like we have any answers either. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi”Netanyahu is no stranger to criticism and outcry.

But even the testy Netanyahu may have gone a step too far this time.

The Israeli prime minister recently announced his intention to ignore diplomatic protocol and accept an invitation by Republicans to address the U.S. Congress on March 3. Netanyahu has been weary (to put it mildly), of Obama’s efforts to strike a deal with Tehran regarding its nuclear development program. Bibi’s primary goal was to use the forum to speak out against Barack Obama’s policy.

Yet not all of Capitol Hill will be offering Bibi the royal welcome. Vice-President Joe Biden said that he will be out of town on March 3, though he was silent on the details. Democrat members of the House of Representatives have declared that they will be absent as well.

U.S. lawmakers are not alone in displaying their feelings against Netanyahu’s speech. The director of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, said that Netanyahu ought to cancel the visit. Even center-left Israeli legislators have expressed dissent, accussing Bibi of playing politics at the risk of further damaging U.S.-Israeli relations.

Whether Netanyahu heeds to the mounting critiques and stays home remains to be seen.

He won’t, however, be able to expect a warm welcome if he stays the course.

We are all familiar with the game of Dominoes. In this board game one small piece can have a knock on effect. When one falls, scores of others can fall with it.

Today many fear the little country of Greece may be such a domino. As Greece wobbles, so does the future of the European Union (EU). If it falters, there will be negative knock on effects throughout the region and for us here in the USA.

Sitting atop the Greek domino is newly elected Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of the newly formed SYRIZA party. A left wing polyglot of former Communists, socialists, independants and generally disaffected citizens, Syriza quickly rose to prominance during in that last two months with promises to reverse the crippling austerity measures imposed by EU lenders on the poor suffering Greeks.

Tsipras won a land-slide victory in a Greek snap-election in late January ( though he only garnered 35% of the vote). Without skipping a beat, Tsipras appointed Athens University professor and Valve Corp. resident economist Yanis Varoufakis as the new Finance Minister of Greece. In time-honored Greek fashion, Varoufakis is happy to unabashedly voice his unpopular and radical positions to the world, undaunted by the number of those who oppose him.

This week Varoufakis took his show on the road: He made a grand diplomatic tour of the Euro-zone to personally demand that the EU renegotiate the terms of Greece’s €240 bailout. Unsurprisingly, Varoufakis returned to Athens without a single vote of confidence from another nation in the Union; even fellow left-leaning countries like France and Italy rejected the finance-firebrand’s proposal.

That seemed to matter little to the people of Greece, as citizens flooded the streets of the capital city to show their support of their new hero’s defiance of the EU giants in Brussels and Berlin.

And who can really blame them?

To the Greeks, Varoufakis is the only man brave enough to challenge the authority of the world’s most powerful woman, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel.

With speculation now abuzz about the possibility of the rigid Merkel being brought to her knees, the German PM has asserted that the Greeks will not get away with reforming the terms of their debt. For Varoufakis, that assertion still remains to be seen.

A head to head confrontation seems to be certain.

It appears that before there is a game of dominoes in Europe there is going to be a game of “Chicken” between Greece and its European adversaries.