CNN’s “Schools of Thought” blog has featured UMBC students David H. Murray ’14, economics, and Edward Burroughs, who made headlines last week after strong wins in the Prince George’s County Board of Education primary election (districts 1 and 8).

“At the end of the day, it’s about student success,” Burroughs told CNN. “My number one priority is going to be hiring and retaining highly-qualified teachers…and the ones that are struggling we need to provide them professional development. If they’re not able to be successful after that, they have to exit our system.”

Reflecting on criticism that the candidates are too young to be effective leaders, Murray argued, “We’re the ones that can really make a difference, because we’ve been there and we understand what’s working and what’s not.” Emphasizing the importance of diversity on the school board, he continued, “It doesn’t help to have a room of 10 people if they all have the same background and the same set of ideas.”

This feature follows a front-page Metro story in the Washington Post on the students’ electoral success. Both received the most votes in their districts by wide margins.

The Greater Baltimore Technology Council is hosting a very interesting event on Friday, April 20th called BmoreFail — a conference celebrating failure. Entrepreneurs, investors, developers, students, designers, and others from across the innovation and creative communities will come together to learn from their failure and that of others. BmoreFail is modeled after San Francisco's famous FailCon conference.

The first 20 UMBC students who register using the promotion code XYZZYXYZZY will get the registration waived. (We've redacted the promo code in this post — CSEE students should check their email.) If you're not one of the first 20, you'll have to pay an unlucky $13 to get in.

The event will be held from aa:00am to 5:00pm in Baltimore's Du Burns Arena, located in the Canton neighborhood at 1301 South Ellwood Avenue.

BmoreFail will bring together more than 300 entrepreneurs, investors, developers, students, designers, and others from across the innovation and creative communities to share their failures and learn from the failures of others. It promises to be an exciting event that will help build momentum in Baltimore's entrepreneurial, innovation community.

Register and get more information at the BmoreFail web site.

Please take some time to go through the relationship screening tool in the relationship violence awareness and prevention website! This is a great tool for yourself or others that's interactive and informational!

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