First meeting of the semester Mon 02/03 at NOON, Common 332!

First meeting of the semester Mon 02/03 at NOON, Common 332! Be an ELEMENT of Change this semester and join The Force!

Hello Everyone!

Looking forward to seeing each of you at our first meeting tomorrow, Monday Feb 3rd at NOON in the Commons, room 332! It will be an exciting and interesting one with free pizza and drinks. Please make sure to come on time and be prepared to learn about our upcoming service projects, leadership opportunities and group discussions for this semester!

If looking for something to do this Spring Break, make sure to checkout this myUMBC post on ASB’s Environmental Trip (which spurred the creation of ETF) at http://my.umbc.edu/groups/serve/news/40811

Also, we will be using our website (http://umbceforce.wordpress.com/) as the main method of communication this semester, so make sure to follow us and stay updated!

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Hello Everyone! Looking forward to seeing each of you at our first meeting tomorrow, Monday Feb 3rd at NOON in the Commons, room 332! It will be an exciting and interesting one with free pizza...

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Read Maurice Berger's New York Times Blog.

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The harder you look at Carrie Mae Weems’s “Slow Fade to Black” — blurred, soft-focus images of mid-20th century stars like Marian Anderson, Dorothy Dandridge, Billie Holiday and Eartha Kitt — the...

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There was a time years ago, in high school and college, when I felt awkward, repulsive and worthless. I had a hard time talking to strangers because I imagined that they must resent me for taking up their time and space, and for the shame of being seen with me. The harshness with which I judged myself was not particularly rational, but so what? It was how I felt, and felt, and felt.

I did well in my classes and got elected to a couple of leadership positions, and those achievements became the basis for the story I started to tell myself to make myself less miserable. The achievements were just performances, but I began to imagine that they embodied my hidden worth. I maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout high school, and each exam became a test of the new story I was telling myself, on which everything now hinged.

I think a lot of us experience some version of what I did back then, albeit unconsciously. We tell ourselves stories that tie our worth to our performances, and then feel like imposters, vulnerable to being exposed if a performance slips. I think a lot of self-destructive or otherwise inexplicable behavior comes from that kind of thinking: Sticking with a major we don’t like in order to hold on to an image of ourselves as an achiever or a dutiful son or daughter; bullying others in order to cling to a sense of ourselves as strong and respected. When I was working in nonprofit organizations before coming to UMBC, I met some people who clung so hard to visions of themselves as altruistic heroes that they were not open to questioning the effectiveness or impact of their efforts. In state and national elections, many people seem to cast their votes for the candidates who affirm the stories they are already telling themselves about their own identities and worth, and feel unreasoning hatred toward the candidates who call those stories into question.

There is another way to live: With authenticity, humility and openness, and a bedrock understanding that our intrinsic worth does not depend on meeting our marks in some grandiose performance. But how can one achieve that kind of perspective? I can’t say I know for certain or for everyone, but what made all the difference for me, as I became more whole and real over the years, and grew to be less afraid, were environments in which I could lower my guard and be myself: vulnerable and incomplete, and yet powerful and valuable, all at the same time. It happened in the context of close friendships; during vacations and other timeouts from my everyday circumstances; and in the context of collaborative projects in which my contributions blended with others, each input necessary but insufficient on its own, in which the whole exceeded the sum of the parts.

A part of what I find so wonderful and compelling about UMBC is that we seem to do well at creating environments in which it’s possible to be real: to write a new story of self that isn’t just about performances. One of the many places that happens is at STRiVE, the week-long student leadership retreat hosted by Student Life and SGA. At the latest STRiVE, over the winter break, 61 people who had mostly been strangers to each other rapidly created a community in which the participants and coaches alike could explore their talents, discover shared passions, and give and receive honest feedback. I love that at UMBC we define leadership partly as the skill and commitment to co-create just that kind of community.

Where are you finding the thread of your own real story at UMBC? Let’s keep helping each other discover and experience our value beyond performances, by sharing and co-creating spaces that set us free.

Co-Create UMBC is a blog for and about UMBC, written by David Hoffman and Craig Berger from Student Life. Join the Co-Create UMBC group on MyUMBC. Like Co-Create UMBC on Facebook. And follow David and Craig on Twitter. ]]>

by David Hoffman There was a time years ago, in high school and college, when I felt awkward, repulsive and worthless. I had a hard time talking to strangers because I imagined that they must...

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Has the Internet become so fundamental to our lives that it is, in essence, a utility that should be subject to regulation?

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Responding to intense competition, AT&T, the second largest American phone carrier, on Saturday said it would offer a cheaper phone plan for families with multiple devices.

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What words do you affiliate with the Super Bowl? Football? Excitement? Parties? Buffalo wings?

How about Slavery?

It is a phenomenon perhaps better known by its more sterile, clinical partner “Human Trafficking”. To many of us, Slavery belongs in other countries –in continents like Africa or Asia and not in the Land of the Free.

Besides, we all say, what has slavery got to do with anything I do anyways? Let alone the Super Bowl.

It’s because many prominent people, like George Abbott believe the Super bowl to be the “largest known trafficking instance in the United States”

Others, however, are not so sure about the truth behind the claim (http://deadspin.com/the-truth-about-the-nfl-the-super-bowl-and-sex-slaver-1511917053)

But we at US Democrazy are going to make the case that it’s important this story gets out, true or not. The Super Bowl is capable of bringing American attention to this tragedy that occurs everyday…but receives little attention. Let’s put some things straight for you:

Human trafficking occurs when others (like pimps) benefit off the exploitation of others. Sexual slavery, physical slavery, and child soldiers, are all forms of human trafficking. In a period of rapid globalization, physical and sexual slavery are even more accessible…which might explain why there are more slaves in the world today than ever before in history.

Yikes.

There are at least 17,000 people being trafficking around the US at any given time. It is not isolated to Thai cities or Cambodian countrysides. It’s happening here.(http://www.rescueandrestoreky.org/what-is-human-trafficking/statistics/)The given age for this to start is 12-14 (http://www.rescueandrestoreky.org/what-is-human-trafficking/statistics/)Women and girls are raped 20+ days by clients. Raped, because, this isn’t prostitution. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/rani-hong-human-trafficking-victim_n_2460506.html)

Chances are, we are all probably benefitting indirectly from slavery and to illustrate this, there’s a cool game here (http://slaveryfootprint.org/)

Is this not an issue we should be concerned about?

In 2012, President Obama gave a speech about his war on Modern slavery. But we can promise you two things: it didn’t get the views of the State Address and nothing has happened (policy wise) to change any of the problems he out lined (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe_ud_5XTBs)

Until the American public remains blind and apathetic towards human trafficking, policy-makers will also remained unenthused. Are we ready to change this?

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What words do you affiliate with the Super Bowl? Football? Excitement? Parties? Buffalo wings? How about Slavery? It is a phenomenon perhaps better known by its more sterile, clinical...

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Twitter and 300, a new company started by Lyor Cohen, one of music’s biggest power brokers, announced a partnership that hopes to analyze users’ posts to identify promising talent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/03/business/media/twitter-and-300-team-up-to-find-musical-talent.html?partner=rss&emc=rss https://my3.my.umbc.edu/api/v0/pixel/news/40893/guest@my.umbc.edu/ee2df3562fd6ffb66b24b13569a587e0/api/pixel 300-record-label cohen-lyor music new technology twitter-twtr-nyse york Web Developer - Build Group https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/retired-583 https://assets3-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/xsmall.png?1363101197 https://assets4-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/original.jpg?1363101197 https://assets4-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/xxlarge.png?1363101197 https://assets4-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/xlarge.png?1363101197 https://assets3-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/large.png?1363101197 https://assets3-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/medium.png?1363101197 https://assets4-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/small.png?1363101197 https://assets3-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/xsmall.png?1363101197 https://assets4-my.umbc.edu/system/shared/avatars/groups/000/000/583/fc60f5d7abc2e080599bb6dc465db54d/xxsmall.png?1363101197 Web Developer - Build Group 0 0 true Sun, 02 Feb 2014 10:55:41 -0500 Sun, 02 Feb 2014 10:55:41 -0500 Our favorite tweets of the week: January 27, 2014 – February 2, 2014

Every week we tweet a lot of interesting stuff highlighting great content that we find on the web that can be of interest to web designers.

The best way to keep track of our tweets is simply to follow us on Twitter, however, in case you missed some here’s a quick and useful compilation of the best tweets that we sent out this past week.

Note that this is only a very small selection of the links that we tweeted about, so don’t miss out.

To keep up to date with all the cool links, simply follow us @DesignerDepot

How Nintendo can save itself http://depot.ly/taile via @FastCoDesign