Earlier this week, UMBC SGA President Kaylesh Ramu ’13, political science, shared the stage with the U.S. Under Secretary of Education and other leaders at the National Press Club as they launched Shaping Our Future, a new national civic engagement initiative (watch video).

Education Week covered the event, quoting Ramu on the role of college students as active agents of change in their communities, on campus and beyond. “We are starting to have a culture change and understand that we all bring about what is UMBC,” said Ramu, describing the ethos that grounds UMBC’s new BreakingGround initiative, which launched last week.

Shaping Our Future is a year-long national dialogue on the future of higher education. Ramu has been involved through her membership on the board of the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP), a national alliance supporting innovative approaches to civic education and strong connections between universities and communities. President Hrabowski serves on ACP’s Presidents’ Advisory Council and UMBC staff David Hoffman, Michele Wolff and Craig Berger serve with Ramu on the national board.

UMBC senior back Liam Paddock (Worcestershire, England/Chase Technology College) has been named the male 2012 Eastern College Athletic Conference Division I Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Paddock will be feted at the 2012 ECAC Honors dinner held in conjunction with the 24th Annual ECAC Convention and Trade Show that will be held September 29-October 2 at the Mystic Marriott Hotel & Spa in Groton, Conn. The Honors Dinner is slated for Sunday evening, September 30.

Rider University soccer standout Abi Cottam was the female recipient of the award.

Paddock is the first Retriever to receive this ECAC honor. He has been a starter on the soccer field since his freshman year, and is a team co-captain for UMBC in this, his final collegiate season. A center back, Paddock anchors the Retriever defense, and was named to the America East All-Rookie Team in 2009. The Retrievers won the America East title and earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament during Paddock’s sophomore season.A double major in Psychology and Sociology, Paddock will graduate a semester early in December. In February of 2012, Paddock became the first Retriever to be named an America East Scholar-Athlete in the sport of men’s soccer. Paddock earned first-team all-conference honors and was the only first-team league honoree to be named to the All-Academic team in 2011. Additionally that year he was among three Retrievers selected to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America University Division Men’s Scholar All-East Region team, where he landed on the second team. Paddock has earned a place on the Fall 2010 and Fall 2011 America East Commissioner’s Honor Roll, and is a five-time member of the UMBC President’s List for earning a perfect 4.0 semester grade point average.

In his spare time, Paddock has spent over 30 hours tutoring at-risk youth in the College Gardens Youth Program. He has devoted time to Arbutus Middle School for Earth Day and the College for Every Student Program. He has also made time to volunteer with the Casey Cares Foundation Soccer Clinic for critically ill children.

One male and one female student-athlete from each NCAA Division are selected annually for the scholar-athlete awards based on extraordinary achievements in academics, athletics, and community service.

The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is the nation’s largest athletic conference and only multi-divisional conference, with approximately 300 member institutions ranging across 16 states from Maine to North Carolina and westerly to Illinois. Established in 1938 with 58 charter members, the ECAC has since emerged as the nationwide leader in service.

Two Computer Science and Electrical Engineering (CSEE) professors Alan Sherman and Rick Forno received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) this month. The grant is $2.5 million in total, and is a part of part of the Federal Cyber Scholarship for Service (SFS) program, whose aim “to increase and strengthen the cadre of federal information assurance professionals that protect the government’s critical information infrastructure,” according to the SFS website.

The grant will give students at UMBC from the undergraduate to the professional studies programs a full scholarship plus an annual stipend of $8,000 for undergraduate and $12,000 for graduate students. In an article on the grant published on CSEE’s departmental page, Forno spoke of the benefits the honor will pay for the university, saying, “UMBC’s strength in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, and related STEM fields, combined with our reputation for producing qualified technologitsts makes our participation in SFS very attractive both to the school and our current and future students.”

The Baltimore Sun reported on August 28th the awarding of grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) totalling $9.2-million with the aim of “planting trees, restoring wetlands, installing rain gardens” and undertaking other projects to improve the condition of the Chesapeake Bay area.

Among the organizations awarded was UMBC’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE). The center received $324,000 and according to reporter Tim Wheeler will collaborate with the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and Maryland State Highway Administration (MSHA) on runoff controls like pervious concrete and a practice called subsoiling, where ground soil is loosened in order to hopefully allow it to soak up more rainfall.

CUERE’s project is among 41 in located Maryland, DC, and five other bay-watershed states, with all focused on dealing with polluted runoff, which Wheeler described as “one of the most challenging and costly aspects of the bay restoration” in the article.

Political science professor Thomas Schaller appeared on yesterday’s Marc Steiner Show to discuss the kickoff of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Schaller spoke about the DNC and what it means for the election with fellow panelists Rae Abileah (Code Pink), Neil Sroka (Progressive Change Campaign Committee), Cory McCray (BEST Democratic Club) and legislative consultant Tyrone Keys. The program also received calls from Gov. Martin O’Malley and Maryland State Delegate Mary L. Washington, directly from the DNC.

Want to learn more about Schaller’s perspective on the election? Check out his regular columns in Salon and the Baltimore Sun.