Don't miss: Online Exhibit: "From Ideas to Independence: A
Century of Entrepreneurial Women"

Women’s entrepreneurship is everywhere in the news these days. In September 2009, Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, declared that women’s businesses offer the “highest return on investment.” As of 2013, reporters and women’s business groups were hailing record growth: the number of women’s ventures has increased by 54 percent in the past fifteen years with revenues jumping 58 percent. Women’s achievements are more impressive given that they historically had little access to traditional forms of business capital, often having no other choice but to use credit cards and savings to launch their ventures.

There were other challenges, too. Operating both within the larger world of commerce yet without the insider status that men’s businesses have typically enjoyed, women entrepreneurs throughout history often had to go it alone, create parallel networks to traditionally male organizations, or forge alliances to gain access to vital means of producing, distributing and growing their businesses.

Women have always owned businesses; what changed over the last century is their increasing acceptance, prominence and movement into a vast assortment of enterprises and the role of technology in making entrepreneurship more accessible and affordable. This exhibit explores the forces in the last century that led to this moment.

Ryan Bloom ’03, visual and performing arts, and English lecturer, was recently awarded a fellowship at Yaddo, an artists’ community in Saratoga Springs, New York. Yaddo’s mission is to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.

Bloom is an internationally-recognized translator of Albert Camus. He has written for The New Yorker, The Arabesques Review, The Baltimore Sun, The Current, Horizon Magazine, The Orlando Sentinel, and other publications

Thank you to all of the wonderful donors and scholarship students who came out for last week’s 2nd annual Scholarship Luncheon, March 13. Often, this event marks the first meeting of donors and their scholars, making it a truly memorable occasion for all. The event drew more than 100 guests, and featured remarks by McCormick & Company President Alan D. Wilson and senior Nia N. Hampton ’14, media and communications studies, who is the recipient of a number of scholarships at UMBC, along with UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III.

We’ll be sharing stories of connections made at the luncheon over the course of the next couple months, but in the meantime, we hope you’ll enjoy this photo slideshow!

Manil Suri was deep into writing his latest novel, “The City of Devi,” when he realized something alarming: the novel was impossible to finish. The mathematics professor even used a mathematical construct, a possibility tree, to arrive at his conclusion.  He described the process of creating this mathematical “proof” in an essay for “The Daily Beast.”

Of course, Suri did eventually finish the novel, which was published earlier this year. Despite the fact that he disproved his own proof, Suri feels that his mathematical conclusion was a worthwhile endeavor, because it allowed him to reach the insights he needed about the story.

“My possibility tree still communicated something essential: a warning that the story could not be satisfactorily completed under the conditions I was imposing. I had been too beholden to literary orthodoxy, too insistent that the narrative obey the strictures of reality. It was time to loosen these constraints, let the plot freely borrow from whatever genre it pleased: adventure, Bollywood, fantasy,” he writes.

The full piece, “A Mathematically Impossible Novel: Manil Suri Explains ‘The City of Devi’” appeared online on March 15.

The Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) offers a 10-week summer research program for undergraduates in interactive virtual experiences. A multidisciplinary research institute affiliated with the University of Southern California, the ICT was established in 1999 to combine leading academic researchers in computing with the creative talents of Hollywood and the video game industry. Having grown to encompass a total of 170 faculty, staff, and students in a diverse array of fields, the ICT represents a unique interdisciplinary community brought together with a core unifying mission: advancing the state-of-the-art for creating virtual experiences so compelling that people will react as if they were real.

Reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of ICT research, we welcome applications from students in computer science, as well as many other fields, such as psychology, art/animation, interactive media, linguistics, and communications. Undergraduates will join a team of students, research staff, and faculty in one of several labs focusing on different aspects of interactive virtual experiences. In addition to participating in seminars and social events, students will also prepare a final written report and present their projects to the rest of the institute at the end of summer research fair.

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) site is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The site is expected to begin summer 2013, pending final award issuance.

Clowns instead of traffic police. A vaccine against crime. BOGOTÁ CHANGE is the story of two charismatic mayors, Antanas Mockus and Enrique Peñalosa who, with unorthodox methods, in less than 10 years turned one of the world's most dangerous, violent, and corrupt capitals into a peaceful model city populated by caring citizens. The film uncovers the ideas, philosophies, and strategies that underlie the changes in Bogotá which are now being exported to cities worldwide. The film discusses many civic issues related to the development of Bogota, Colombia, as well as sustainability aspects such as public transportation. (English and Spanish soundtrack with English subtitles.)

Join OCSS, seb, Transit, and ReSET in the Sports Zone of The Commons on March 27th during one of the three documentary screenings: 11:40AM-1PM, 2:40PM-4PM, 4:40PM-6PM. Free Popcorn.

In light of Recyclemania, the event will be "waste free" with compost bins available for food waste. Come to learn about composting and sustainable initiatives on campus, stay for the film!

A documentary reaction will be held on March 29th @ UC, Room 312 from 12-1:30PM where free lunch will be served.

For more information, visit http://my.umbc.edu/groups/ocss.

See you there!
Off-Campus Student Services

Eco-Education

A first-year seminar class offered this semester is giving students the chance to explore environmental issues from a humanities perspective. The class, Sustainability in American Culture, focuses on eco-literacy; that is, an awareness of how cultural influences can affect our relationship with the environment.

“In a humanities course, it’s possible to think about thing like culture, discourse and language and how those things shape our thinking and how our thinking shapes our interaction with the environment and the natural world,” said Rita Turner, ’11 Ph.D., language, literacy and culture, who is teaching the class. Turner’s dissertation is based on developing curriculum to cultivate environmental awareness in high school and college students, so when she heard that the university was testing the idea of having graduate students teach first-year seminars she jumped at the chance to use her materials.

The class allows students to approach environmental issues from multiple perspectives, rather than just learning the science of the environment. For example, students read about how everyday items are produced, wrote creative pieces from the perspective of nonhuman beings in the environment and created digital stories about places.

“We look critically about what’s said in the media, how our attitudes are shaped, what metaphors we use to talk about the natural world and what rights we have,” said Turner. By discussing popular discourse on the environment, Turner hopes to empower her students—many of whom are science majors who plan to work on environmental issues —to understand and critique the range of factors that contribute to our attitudes about the environment.

“I like the fact that we can step into the gray areas instead of being in the black-and-white place that we normally are when it comes to classes and answers,” said Heather Harshbarger ’14, chemical engineering.

“I was surprised at how much information the class covered,” said Jennie Williams ’14, social work. “Not only did the curriculum focus on conservation, but it also explored consumerism, corporate power, political influence and even art and creative reflection in nature.”

Williams, an avid recycler and vegetarian, said that she was aware of environmental issues before taking the class but that it has expanded her view of these issues. “I have definitely become more aware of consumerism in the American culture and it has motivated me to stay active in education and projects of environmental protection,” she said.

Turner said that teaching the class has helped her to hone the curriculum that she will present with her dissertation, and she looks forward to being able to share what she learned in a real classroom with her dissertation committee. Teaching the class has reinforced her belief that students should learn to think critically about the environment. “This sort of humanities piece of the puzzle is missing, and I feel like there’s a real need for that,” she said.

(12/6/10)