• President Obama named UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski as Chair of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. And U.S. News named Dr. Hrabowski to the STEM Leadership Hall of Fame.

• The University System of Maryland adopted a system-wide on-campus smoking ban, effective June 30, 2013.

• Dr. William Lacourse was appointed Dean of UMBC's College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences.

• Dr. Rebecca Boehling, Director of UMBC's Dresher Center for the Humanities, was appointed Director of the International Tracing Service, an international organization dedicated to "serving the victims of Nazi persecution and their families by documenting the fate of the victims and keeping their memory alive."

• Dr. Hrabowski created a new fund to support innovative teaching at UMBC.

• UMBC Events Coordinator Shannon Booker, of #shannonbookerdoesstuff fame, left for Nova Southeastern University in Florida. Jackie Aliotta will now be working with student organizations as they plan their amazing events.

• The Student Events Board launched a new web site.

• Many people at UMBC had a hand in envisioning and preparing for BreakingGround, an initiative that launched today.

• And way back before it was super-trendy (during final exam week, actually), staff members in the Division of Student Affairs said, "I threw a wish in a well, don't ask me I'll never tell, I looked to you as it fell, and now you're in my way."

The Baltimore Sun reports that the state of Maryland has secured $123 million of federal funding to launch its health insurance exchange, the Maryland Health Connection, where hundreds of thousands of uninsured Marylanders will buy coverage. The Hilltop Institute at UMBC suggests this could cut the number of uninsured Maryland residents by half.

The Sun cites a Hilltop report in noting that “up to 150,000 individuals are expected to sign up for insurance through the Maryland exchange in the first year, and up to 275,000 by 2020.” The article continues, “[the Hilltop] review also found that approximately 101,000 will enroll in Medicaid in the first year and up to 187,275 will receive such coverage by 2020.”

An aggressive campaign to educate uninsured residents about the Maryland Health Connection will launch in January 2013.

The impulse small children have towards creating pictures and stories lies at the center of several new children’s books reviewed by Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, in a story entitled “Drawn Out” in the August 23rd edition of The New York Times.

I Gotta Draw, by Bruce Degen, and Dog Loves Drawing by Louise Yates deal with the visual side of children’s imagination, while Rocket Writes a Story by Tad Hills deals with the written word, with all featuring canine protagonists as they go about letting their imaginations run free, even if it causes them trouble.

Spitz praised all three stories in her review, writing that the books “by example and by counsel, empower young children to engage their fertile imaginations: to mark, to match, to make and to record — to become ever more active constructors of their own inner and outer worlds.”

Political science professor Tom Schaller’s latest column on Salon dealt with the run-up to the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay.

“Republican National Convention: The heart of whiteness” was published on August 27th, and discussed what Schaller characterizes as the Republican Party’s efforts to present itself as a party of diversity to the American public while simultaneously having difficulty earning the votes of women and minorities.

Schaller described the approach as “window dressing,” and noted that such actions were unlikely to translate into a “winning coalition” this November. To Schaller, Mitt Romney’s choice of ultra-conservative Paul Ryan as a running mate and the party’s controversial support of voter ID initiatives which could adversely affect the voting rights of low-income and minority voters demonstrate the superficiality of the convention’s public face.

Schaller concluded the piece by writing that “[l]est a moving speech by Marco Rubio or Susana Martinez fool anyone, understand that Mitt Romney and the Republicans are not trying to unify America, broaden their coalition very much, move to the middle, or traffic in anything like the electoral kumbaya practiced by George W. Bush or Barack Obama in their first bids for the White House. Rather, in these anxious economic times, and despite a new cohort of female and minority politicians, Romney and the GOP hope to grind out a narrow win by building outward from their older, white male voter base. Any window dressing you see at this week’s truncated convention is just that.”

The following part-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9253379 - Accounts Payable Specialist - Curtis Engine and Equipment, Inc.
9253427 - Administrative Assistant - Towson University
9253314 - After-School Drama Program Teacher - Drama Kids International
9253350 - Beverage Cart Attendant - The Woodlands & Diamond Ridge Golf

The following full-time positions have been posted within the past week to UMBCworks. Login to your account (via the link in the Jobs & Internships topic in myUMBC) and find details and application instructions as well as hundreds of other job postings!

9253214 - Associate Engineer - REQ 12016211 - XEROX Corporation
9253382 - Computer Programmer I - The American Physical Society
9253387 - Accountant - Partnership Finance - New Enterprise Associates, Inc.
9253300 - .NET Developer w/SharePoint Designer - LCG Systems