Marc Schultz B.S., Political Science and Global Studies Minor: Chinese Language and Culture Summa Cum Laude Hometown: Columbia, Maryland Plans: Fulbright researcher, China
I have found the faculty at UMBC to be overwhelmingly encouraging, helpful, and engaging. Their support has made it possible for me to accept unique professional opportunities in D.C. and in China.
For Marc Schultz, UMBC has been a key to the world, giving him access to opportunities that, a few short years ago, he didn’t know would be possible. Schultz started at UMBC with a focus on developing his academic credentials and broadening his horizons. By sophomore year, he earned an internship at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. His next step in exploring his interest in China was to earn a Boren Scholarship, which provided $20,000 to study Mandarin and urban development at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China during his junior year. After graduation, Schultz will return to China to study urban planning policy in Chengdu through a Fulbright research award.
Schultz at the Harbin Institute of Technology during Chinese National Day. Photo courtesy of Shultz.
“I am not sure that I would have come as close to mastering the Chinese language as I have without attending UMBC,” explains Schultz. “Brian Souders, associate director of international education services, really encouraged me from the beginning of my university career to keep up my grades to be eligible for more international opportunities.” He followed Souders’s recommendation and is graduating with the Outstanding Senior Award in political science as well as memberships in the Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies. Schultz has also remained engaged in the campus community, serving as co-head delegate for UMBC’s Model United Nations, event programmer on UMBC’s Student Events Board (seb), an academic tutor, and a volunteer with the Refugee Youth Project. He shares, “Throughout my four years, the UMBC community has pushed me to be a better student, researcher, and community member.” Portrait by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.
Max Poole B.S., Computer Science, B.S., Mathematics, B.A., Economics Summa Cum Laude Hometown: Takoma Park, Maryland Plans: Site Reliability Engineer, eBay
UMBC provides extensive opportunities and support for students to get engaged and involved in service beginning in their freshman year. The UMBC Shriver Center has been incredibly supportive of every service endeavor I wanted to do.
Max Poolewants to live in a society where everyone can access an education, is informed, is open to hearing new ideas, and is willing to work together to achieve great things. With this ideal in mind, he is completing three majors in three different colleges, which has enabled him to explore problems from a range of angles. He has also pursued collaborative service-learning opportunities through the Shriver Center since his freshman year, with a focus on promoting college with middle school students and boosting access to computer science education.
“The amount of students with access to computer science in middle school is minuscule,” says Poole. Knowing that computing skills will be important for many kinds of jobs of the future, he suggests, “If you can get kids interested, learning, engaged, and involved as early as possible it prepares them to be successful.”
Poole has been recognized for his commitment to service with the 2016 Newman Civic Fellowship. He is also a Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar and a member of the Honors College, with stellar academic achievements that have garnered him recognition through the national honor societies Pi Mu Epsilon and Phi Beta Kappa.
“I have this need inside of me that pushes me to always be improving the world and myself, to create and collaborate,” explains Poole. “I feel like service is deeply ingrained in my DNA. It is something I have to do.”
Beyond UMBC, Poole even pursued service opportunities while a summer intern at eBay. He looks forward to resuming those projects when he begins a full-time position with the company after graduation.
Kaylin Corsiatto B.S., Psychology Minor: Sociology Summa Cum Laude Hometown: Middletown, Maryland Plans: International development
UMBC has given me a well-rounded education. I have had the opportunity to participate in both research and practice related work in the field of psychology. These diverse experiences have helped me realize my passions for international development and fighting to prevent intimate partner violence.
Kaylin Corsiatto sees herself as a global citizen, ready to get to work addressing major challenges related to violence, public health, human rights, and development. In her psychology studies at UMBC at the Universities at Shady Grove (UMBC@USG), Corsiatto has worked closely with Chris Murphy, professor, and chair of psychology, whose research focuses on understanding and preventing intimate partner violence. Her work earned her a Psychology Distinguished Achievement Award in spring 2018. Corsiatto came to understand the potential international applications of violence prevention research while working in Thailand with a non-profit that seeks to prevent human trafficking through outreach and education. “During my time studying in Thailand I fell in love with working on such a foundational level,” she says.
Corsiatto in Thailand reading to Thai children at a non-profit organization that works to prevent human trafficking.
Corsiatto has also been engaged in local community outreach in Baltimore, through projects that question privilege, equity, and access to resources. She helped to plan and execute two major civic engagement programs focused on education and service: the interactive privilege walk “A Mile in My Shoes,” and meal donation for hundreds of people experiencing homelessness. In her UMBC@USG community, Corsiatto serves on the Peer Advisory Team and is president of the Tau Sigma Honors Society at the Universities at Shady Grove. As to the future, Corsiatto is thinking globally. She feels inspired “to continue working in international development, disaster relief, and public health.” Portrait by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.
Summer Akhtar B.A., Political Science, B.S., Financial Economics Minor: Legal Policy and Economics Magna Cum Laude Hometown: Woodstock, Maryland Plans: The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law
Participating in UMBC Mock Trial has taught me to think more openly, appreciate the perspectives of those that disagree with me, speak professionally and articulately, think on my feet, and advocate for the things I believe in.
Summer Akhtar has served as a leader of UMBC Mock Trial at a particularly exciting time for the team, as it has risen to new heights in recognition and achievement. In 2017, Akhtar helped make history as part of the first UMBC Mock Trial team to travel to Los Angeles for the American Mock Trial Association’s national championship tournament. The team, in which Akhtar serves as senior vice president, has continued to compete in major tournaments throughout 2017-18. At a regional competition in Maryland this past fall, Akhtar received an all-region attorney award and UMBC earned a bid to the Opening Round Championship Series. Akhtar also received outstanding attorney awards at the Johns Hopkins Blue Jay Invitational in spring 2017 and the Tobacco Road Invitational in fall 2017.
Akhtar competes as a member of UMBC Mock Trial.
“Mock Trial introduced me to my greatest passion: trial advocacy,” says Akhtar. She reflects, “I have come so far since I started my UMBC Mock Trial career,” noting that she feels privileged to have acquired such significant experience as a student attorney on both defense and prosecution. Akhtar has also excelled academically in her time at UMBC, being recognized as an outstanding scholar-leader in political science and a member of the Pi Sigma Alpha Honor Society and Golden Key Honour Society. She knows the rigor of her academic and extracurricular activities will benefit her as she enters law school. Portrait by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.
Noah Zazanis B.A., Psychology Summa Cum Laude Hometown: Germantown, Maryland Plans: Researcher, Quiton Lab, UMBC
UMBC has given me amazing opportunities for research that have helped prepare me for graduate school and my career and furthered my development as a student and scholar. The mentorship I’ve experienced at UMBC Shady Grove and on main campus has been life-changing.
As an undergraduate researcher, Noah Zazanis is already making waves through a groundbreaking study of the biophysical factors that affect pain perception. Zazanis has been able to pursue their interest in LGBT health psychology through work in the lab of Raimi Quiton, assistant professor of psychology, focusing on the biopsychosocial influences of pain and pain management, including how social environments and social inequality affect health. “There is not a lot of research in LGBTQIA+ health disparities,” says Zazanis. “UMBC is impressive with the depth of undergraduate research opportunities, and encouraged me to actually spearhead research projects unique to my interests.”
Zazanis presenting at URCAD 2017. Photo courtesy of Zazanis.
Zazanis’s academic excellence and work in the Quiton lab has already earned them the psychology department’s Distinguished Achievement Award, as well as an academic achievement award from UMBC’s psychology program at the Universities at Shady Grove. They’ve also presented research twice at UMBC’s Undergraduate Research and Achievement Day. Beyond academic and research achievement, and advocacy for health equity, Zazanis also supports fellow students through tutoring in statistics, writing, and research methods. Zazanis will begin work this summer on a new research project at the Quiton lab focused on pain perception among transgender people, with the hope of improving their health care services. With excitement to move forward in the research, they share, “I have developed strong clinical research skills well-suited for a future in the interdisciplinary field of health sciences.” Portrait by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.
Doopashika Welikala B.S., Biological Science; B.S, Anthropology; B.A, Sociology Magna Cum Laude Hometown: Gaithersburg, Maryland Plans: MSPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
As a first-generation college student, I did not know much about navigating college when I started at UMBC. My time at UMBC has shown me that with dedication and perseverance we can achieve anything.
Doopashika Welikala understands the importance of access to opportunity. As the first person in her family to attend college, and someone who has traveled internationally to study health care, she has a very personal perspective on the impact that having access to education, healthcare, and other resources, can have on a person and on a community. She hopes to channel that understanding into a career in public health. Welikala is already well on her way to developing the knowledge and skills she’ll need to become a global public health leader. She has completed an independent anthropology research project on childbirth and childbearing practices in Sri Lanka.
Welikala at Maranyundo Girls School in Kinazi, Rwanda, speaking to young women applying to college. Photo courtesy of Welikala.
She also traveled to Kinazi, Rwanda to conduct research on family planning and contraception use through a National Science Foundation REU Fellowship in summer 2017. While there she spoke with young women at the Maranyundo Girls School who were applying for college about her experience as a first-generation college student, and she continues to stay in touch with them, providing the kind of supportive feedback she has received in her time at UMBC. “The professors at UMBC were always open to discuss my career options and future plans,” says Welikala. “Professors went out of their way to help me pursue research opportunities that aided me to further my intellectual interests.” Welikala also participates in community life at UMBC as an institutional review board member, senior advisor to the Sri Lankan Student Association, teaching assistant in chemistry and sociology, and Writing Center tutor. In the fall Welikala will attend the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a graduate student in the population, family, and reproductive health program. She credits her success to the academic rigor at UMBC. “At UMBC I was part of a challenging environment that stimulated my growth and I can proudly say that it has prepared me for the next steps of my life after graduation,” she says. Portrait by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.
Denise Meringolo was teaching her graduate-level Introduction to Public History course in the spring of 2015 when Freddie Gray died in police custody and city residents responded with protest, marching in the streets of Baltimore. The events of that time didn’t just make national headlines, they also sparked difficult conversations in homes, offices, community centers, and classrooms across the city about equality, representation, and safety.
Knowing that history is often told through official documents and representatives, Meringolo, an associate professor of history at UMBC, felt an urgency to help the local community control and document the story of their experience, and she initiated the crowdsourced story and image collection platform BaltimoreUprising2015.org.
“Museums are often not very democratic places,” Meringolo notes, explaining that their collections processes and guidelines often reinforce the voices and experiences of wealthy, white people rather than broader communities in all their diversity. In contrast, the Baltimore Uprising digital collection puts decisions into the hands of the public.
The project offers individuals the opportunity to upload their own materials and decide what they want to become part of the accessible public record. The collection, built and managed in partnership with Joe Tropea, Maryland Historical Society digital projects specialist, now includes 3,000 images, oral histories, and written accounts, and that number continues to grow.
Recognizing the significant potential of this work to have a lasting impact, The Whiting Foundation has awarded Meringolo a $50,000 Public Engagement Fellowship to teach historical understanding through the “Preserve the Baltimore Uprising” project. Meringolo is one of just seven scholars to receive Whiting fellowships in 2018. The recipients represent the diversity of thought and research in the humanities, from history, literature, philosophy, and anthropology to gender studies, and they engage numerous different communities across the United States, particularly groups underrepresented in the humanities.
“The Whiting Fellowship Program is among the nation’s foremost awards for civically engaged research and scholarship,” says Scott Casper, dean of UMBC’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. “Dr. Meringolo’s recognition highlights the importance of her work preserving the archive of the Baltimore Uprising, a signal example of UMBC’s collaboration with communities in greater Baltimore.”
In this next phase of the project, Meringolo seeks to ensure the collection grows and is accessible as a resource for Baltimore City teachers and students. “This is an opportunity to share methods and best practices in conducting oral histories and relevant historical research with the next generation of public historians and their teachers,” she says. Through this work, she hopes to highlight community-based understandings of “the historical roots of racial injustice, economic equality, and social and political unrest in Baltimore.”
Over the next year, Meringolo will collaborate with campus and community partners in this work. As part of the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Centers initiative, Frank Anderson, assistant director of the Choice Program, will lead the UMBC Shriver Center Choice education team in connecting the project with community partners and developing related youth-centered enrichment programs.
Community organizer Denise Griffin Johnson and Lee Boot, director of UMBC’s the Imaging Research Center, will support the initiative in creating story circles programs to guide student scholars in formulating and answering critical questions as they develop their stories. This arts-based component of the project will use materials assembled in the digital collection with and interviews Lee Boot and visual arts graduate students filmed with student protesters after the Baltimore Uprising.
“The work, I believe, will reflect, in particular, the young voices of tomorrow,” says Griffin Johnson. “I believe this action and work is instrumental in capturing the hearts, minds, and voices of people who embrace a community identity of self and others.”
Meringolo’s original collaboration with the Maryland Historical Society will expand to include oral history and interview techniques support by Joe Tropea. Thinking about conservation of the project for future community members, Lindsey Loeper, UMBC special collections archivist, will help the team develop a long-term plan to manage the digital collection.
Meringolo expects to conclude her Whiting Fellowship in a way that carries through her project’s initial vision: doing collaborative public history that honors and amplifies community voices. Participating Baltimore City students will present their research at a neighborhood branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Ultimately, the project all comes down to the “public” in “public history.” “I want to remind Freddie Gray’s community that the collection exists,” says Meringolo. “That it is theirs.”
Header image: Denise Meringolo. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.
The prime minister and minister of public health were in deep discussion about how to solve a major health pandemic, but their situation room wasn’t at the United Nations or in a parliament building, it was in a conference room. The state actors were UMBC students and, fortunately, the pandemic was actually an exercise in public affairs crisis management.
The UMBC School of Public Policy recently participated in its first National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA)-Batten Student Simulation Competition. Representing UMBC were Erica Peery, M.P.P. ‘18, public management; Rebecca Postowski ‘16, geography and environment systems and political science, M.P.P. ‘19, environmental policy, and David Anguish ‘12, political science and modern languages linguistics and intercultural communication, M.P.P. ‘18, public management.
UMBC’s students competed at the Washington, D.C. campus of the Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College of Information Systems, Public Policy, and Management, alongside students from the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Maryland, College Park, broken up into multi-university teams of 5-6 students each. Among the other 560 participants were students at competition sites in nine U.S. states as well as in China, Colombia, Egypt, Hungary, and South Korea.
David Marshall, NASPAA’s director of development, explains that the goal of the simulation “is to prepare public policy students with issues they are going to encounter in the real world.”
As simulation judge Anand Desai, section head of evaluation and assessment capability at the National Science Foundation, shared, “The competition helps policy students think through a broad range of “what if” scenarios, and the more complex and real the simulation feels, the more effective it will be as a tool to prepare participating students.” With this in mind, each competition takes on a significant area of international policy, and this year the focus was pandemic preparedness.
Each team represented a country, where team members simulated roles such as prime minister, minister of finance, and minister of public health. The teams made decisions based on a situation brief and available data. Each step in the game provided participants with a new opportunity to analyze, forecast, collaborate and provide policy recommendations.
The game was designed by the Center for Simulation and Gaming at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, directed by Noah Myung. “Public policy and science go hand in hand,” Myung explains, noting, “We need both to create realistic simulations that can be used across different disciplines and organizations to help create real global solutions by interdisciplinary teams.”
It was that interdisciplinary and global focus that inspired UMBC to join the competition this year. Susan Sterrett, director of UMBC’s School of Public Policy, selected the UMBC members for not only their exceptionally strong academic achievement but also their involvement in interdisciplinary activities.
The teams played four rounds, which also included writing policy briefs and making a final presentation. Postowski’s team advanced to the semifinal round, and she reflects that the simulation experience helped her to more clearly understand the interconnectedness of economic, health, environmental and transportation issues, and the relationship between domestic and international concerns.
“The simulation helps you think broadly and strategically,” the UMBC environmental policy graduate student says. “The key concepts of policy considerations, how they are weighted, considering the stakeholders involved, and measuring those outcomes can be applied to any scenario.”
Banner image by Catalina Sofia Dansberger Duque for UMBC.
According to the Center for American Women in Politics, in 2017 women held under 20 percent of seats in the United States Congress: 105 out of 535 seats, plus five of six non-voting delegate positions in the U.S. House of Representatives. The UMBC Gender and Women’s Studies Department wants college women to know that increasing the representation of women in government is possible, and that the country’s future leaders can start their journey in college.
“Over the last five years of running the Elect Her program we have had more women running for SGA office, and more women participate who didn’t know they were going to run or join a campaign. That matters,” says Kate Drabinski, senior lecturer in gender and women’s students. “Whether or not women run for office here, the program reminds all of us that we can do it, that we are the leaders we think we need.”
Meghan Lynch‘18, political science, participated last year after deciding to run for a position in UMBC’s Student Government Association (SGA). She has been an active member of College Democrats since her freshman year and shares that she’s learned a great deal from seeing women be effective leaders both in legislative chambers and boardrooms. “Out of the four SGA executives, three of us are women,” says Lynch. “This fact gives me great pride because I think it is symbolic of UMBC’s commitment to equal representation.”
Elect Her is a nationwide training program begun in 2009 by the American Association of University Women. It is currently led by Running Start, a non-partisan organization working to support equal representation of women in government.
Across the U.S., Elect Her trainings offer women communication and organization strategies to campaign for student government or to pursue other leadership opportunities. Rina Shah, a Republican strategist, media commentator, and entrepreneur, will speak at UMBC’s Elect Her event on March 9, 2018, along with Sarah Elfreth, Democratic candidate for Maryland Senate, District 30. Students interested in attending the event, 10:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. in Fine Arts 011, can register online.
Rina Shah. Image courtesy of speaker.
Shah, who is from West Virginia, grew up listening to her father discuss politics at home and seeing him be involved in a gubernatorial campaign. “My dad immigrated from Uganda and saw civic engagement as the beauty of being American,” she reflects. “I got a sense that being involved in the process was cool because we get to have a say in how our government functions.”
Shah’s path to politics began in college through journalism and leadership, first as an assistant managing editor her campus conservative publication and later as president of her school’s Panhellenic Council. After college, she worked briefly as a field reporter for a local television station. As she interviewed people, she learned more about issues affecting West Virginians, and found herself wanting to advocate for them. “People wanted me to take messages back to government officials, thinking I was somehow involved,” she says.
Shah moved to Washington D.C. for an internship with the National Association of Community Health Centers before going on to become a senior-level aide for two Republican Members of Congress in Capitol Hill in 2011. Seven years later, she opened her own political consulting and government affairs practice and co-founded the Women Influencers Network, which provides campaign training and internships for women interested in running for elected office anywhere in the U.S.
Sarah Elfreth speaks with her constituents. Image courtesy of Bryan Barnes.
Elfreth was raised in New Jersey, where her parents, an engineer and a parole officer, were involved in labor unions, but it wasn’t until she was a student at Towson University that she became involved in government. “I fell in love with the ability to have a voice in the process when I visited Annapolis to advocate for student voting rights,” she says.
Elfreth’s experience in state-level leadership and government grew quickly when, in her senior year of college, then-Gov. Martin O’Malley appointed her to be the student member of the University System Board of Regents. Through that role she met with students and university leaders across Maryland, including UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski. She pursued a career in government relations, including as government affairs director for the National Aquarium, prior to deciding to run for office herself.
Both women were motivated to get involved in government, and to support the next generation of women leaders, to promote democracy and to help their communities. They stress that democratic engagement and leadership development must begin at the local level—on campus, at a place of worship, in a school club or neighborhood association.
“Experience comes through engaging with your community by applying your strengths, whether that be communications, policy, advocacy, fundraising, or technology,” says Shah.
Elfreth is focused on ensuring that government reflects the needs and interests of the people it serves, and she suggests that inspiring and preparing more women to run for office at all levels is key. “In order to shake up this culture for women and people of color, we have to continue to be involved,” she says. “We cannot afford to give up now.”
The UMBC Dresher Center for the Humanities will host its second Humanities Teaching Lab (HT Lab) on Thursday, March 8, with a focus on how digital media tools can help boost access to and further equity in humanities education and research. The HT Labs theme “Digital Humanities and Difference in Research and Teaching” extends a conversation already underway in the vibrant humanities community convened through UMBC’s newInclusion Imperative program, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Roopika Risam, assistant professor of English and secondary English education at Salem State University, will deliver the keynote address in the UMBC Dresher Center for the Humanities in the Performing Arts and Humanities Building from, 11:30 –1 p.m. Risam, who wrote the book New Digital World: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy, will discuss her new project Mapping W.E.B. DuBois. Joining her will be UMBC faculty panelists Anne Sarah Rubin, professor of history and associate director of the Imaging Research Center; Bryce Peake, assistant professor of media and communication studies; Tania Lizarazo, assistant professor of modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; and Drew Holladay, assistant professor of English.
The expanded use of digital tools has enabled new, visionary kinds of humanities work in formats that would have been impossible ten or twenty years ago. It has also increased the visibility and accessibility of existing humanities research that pushes the boundaries on issues of race, community, equity, access, and agency.
“The way I make sense of the giant field of digital humanities is that it emphasizes human creativity and how people creatively engage with issues of oppression and segregation,” says Peake. On one hand, he explains, “this approach is a way to help students use digital tools to create humanities scholarship through coding.” At the same time, “it is also a way of helping students think critically about existing humanities work through data science analysis by teaching them how to the understand algorithms that guide us to sources, how to talk to data scientists, and how to understand the social media platforms that they rely on to do humanities work.”
Risam, who focuses on what a postcolonial critique brings to the digital humanities, also sees the field as a major opportunity to reach new audiences and revisit questions humanities scholars have been asking for centuries with new tools like digital textual analysis, mapping, and data visualization. “For English majors, who are skilled at being incisive readers, communicating, writing effectively, making arguments, and evaluating evidence, it means having a new medium to critically apply existing skills,” she explains.
This process has allowed Risam to examine in new ways W.E.B. Du Bois’s work and legacy across audiences and disciplines. At the same time, she wants to highlight the importance of not just reexamining historical texts through digital tools, but also taking contemporary texts seriously as objects of research.
“There is so much textual production happening online and if we were to dismiss it we would be missing out on an important moment on how humans are producing text and composing,” Risam says. “We need to look at how these tools are being used and ask the same challenging questions of this new form of composition that we have traditionally asked about alphabetic or published text.”
Panelist Drew Holladay agrees that today’s popular digital platforms are essential to working in the humanities. Holladay’s health research centers on communication, specifically the digital rhetoric of health and medicine, by focusing on the ways in which people with disabilities talk about themselves online compared to how health practitioners describe them. He views platforms like Facebook as not only relevant subjects of or platforms for research, but also as a gateway to connect students with current research on how social media impacts our use of language and how persuasion changes in digital spaces.
“I often hear from students, I didn’t know you could do this in English,” reflects Holladay. “Digital humanities research helps dispel the stereotype that the humanities are disconnected from the way the world is changing right now.”
Through the digital humanities, he notes, English composition moves beyond writing to include composing with video, podcasts, building websites, or utilizing databases—a broader range of forms of cultural expression and communication. For example, Holladay suggests, digital humanities opens avenues for us to examine the multitude of media and public conversations around the film Black Panther: a comic that has become a blockbuster movie, and has now led to new cultural production in many forms, from fan fiction to cosplay.
To study Black Panther, Holladay argues, you must change your methods of analysis as forms of media and culture evolve. “You could analyze the film from a traditional text analysis point of view, but digital humanities also lets you consider the movie as a wider cultural event where narrative, art, culture, and activism come together,” he says. “It is a cultural text that communicates social and political issues of our time and inspires critical conversations in classrooms.”
The UMBC Office of International Education Services (IES) hosted its first Passport Caravan this spring to jump-start students’ study abroad journeys. In partnership with UMBC’s study abroad affiliate, the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), and the Baltimore County Public Library, the event, organized by Caylie Zidwick ’08, modern languages, linguistics and intercultural communication, IES assistant director, increased access to study abroad programs by fully funding 40 students’ new passport applications and providing information to students across all majors on how international education can enhance academic and professional opportunities.
The study abroad team (l-r): Caylie Zidwick, assistant director international education services; David Anguish ’12, political science and modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication and M.P.P. ’18, public management, international student advisor; Brian Souders, David Di Maria, and Rachel McCloud ’16, Asian studies, study abroad advisor.
Study abroad can involve a complex set of logistics and, while there are certainly support resources available, starting the process can be challenging for students who are juggling many responsibilities. “Getting a passport is often the first step in changing a student’s mindset about international education, to see it as a realistic option for them,” says Brian Souders, Ph.D. ’09, language literacy, and culture, IES associate director.
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“Getting a passport is often the first step in changing a student’s mindset about international education, to see it as a realistic option for them.”
UMBC's Brian Souders
The program also highlighted how simply being prepared to travel internationally—by developing cross-cultural communication or foreign language skills, or securing that first passport—can make a new graduate more competitive in the job market.
“It is important for students to apply for a passport now to ensure they are ready for professional opportunities after graduation,” says David Di Maria, associate vice provost for international education. “If their boss needs someone to travel to another country to assist with an important project, we want UMBC graduates to be able to stand up and say, ‘I have my passport. I’m ready to go,’ or even better, ‘I have my passport, and I have prior international experience from studying abroad while a student at UMBC.’”
Heather Moore ‘18, media and communications studies, was thrilled to submit her passport application. She wants to use travel to merge her first career in business with her new focus on communications. “I have not traveled abroad before and it is something I have always wanted to do. I am now one step closer to making it happen.”
Study Abroad 101 student leaders (l-r): Sara Masoudi, Marijka Frazier, and Megan Savastuk.
Beyond the Passport Caravan, UMBC study abroad student leaders also work to share the messagethat credit-bearing international experiences can open doors for future careersthrough weekly Study Abroad 101 information sessions.
Marijka Frazier ‘19, social work, studied Spanish in Madrid, while living with a host family to strengthen her language skills. “I plan to go back as an English assistant in schools to further my knowledge of Spanish for a couple of years before continuing to a master’s in social work to become a bilingual play therapist,” she shares.
Megan Savastuk ‘18, emergency health services and global studies, studied Spanish in Costa Rica and will teach English in Japan next fall while studying building code design for national disasters. Sara Masoudi ‘18, computer science, who is also a Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) Scholar, studied computer science in Sweden, and says being part of CWIT and having an international study experience helped her secure a position on Disney’s ESPN web team for after she graduates this spring.
Faculty from CNMS, COEIT, and CAHSS participated in a workshop to learn more about faculty-led international educational experiences.
Zidwick is also working to increase awareness of credit-bearing international educational opportunities among faculty, recently hosting a packed workshop on faculty-led educational experiences abroad with CEA, another study abroad partner. Caroline Forestiere, associate professor and chair of political science, shared her successful experiences leading groups of students to Italy, focused on learning Italian language and politics. Faculty also heard about the work of colleagues like Chuck Eggleton, professor and chair of mechanical engineering, who is exploring bringing students to Colombia after winning a Fulbright award in the country last year, and Preminda Jacob, associate professor of visual arts, who is examining opportunities for arts-focused student experiences in India.
Christine Mallinson, professor of language, literacy, and culture, is already planning to lead a new credit-bearing educational experience in Amsterdam, English as A Global Language, this summer. The program is designed for students interested in studying the roots, development, and globalization of the English language and its many variations.
Students interested in faculty-led international learning experiences for the summer of 2019 should apply by next February. The deadline for individual study abroad opportunities for the summer and fall of 2018 is Saturday, March 10. IES requests that students attend a Study Abroad 101 session before initiating the application process. Sessions are held on Mondays, 12 – 1 p.m., and Thursdays, 3 – 4 p.m., each week during the fall and spring semesters in Administration Building room 218.
John Rennie Short, public policy, is a fan of all the Olympics represent for individual athletes, teams, and countries vying to be recognized as champions on the global stage. However, his new book, Hosting theOlympic Games: The Real Costs for Cities, goes behind the glamour and prestige of the games to focus on how the events come together at a local level.
Rennie Short’s research examines how preparing for a global event on the scale of the Olympics poses significant challenges for host cities, and can have substantial negative impacts for urban communities, from the displacement of marginalized people to environmental harm to shifts in infrastructure investment. The solution? Rennie Short suggests two possibilities: a fixed location or requiring host cities to integrate Olympics proposals into long-term urban development plans.
Rennie Short began to study the Olympics in 2002 when he received a professorship to research globalization and cities at Loughborough University, an institution known for drawing sports scientists because of its large sports library. It was here that his colleagues encouraged him to study the globalization of sport. The Olympics, as the largest global sporting event held in urban areas, was a natural fit with his research.
Two years later Rennie Short received a grant from National Geographic to visit former Olympic host cities struggling to manage the high costs of servicing large, empty sports arenas and hotels, and unemployment in the tourism industry. He took away a trend from these site visits: that many Olympic host cities were using the games for a heightened period of regional development, but that long-term positive impacts often failed to materialize.
“You don’t have to wait long to see the decay unfold. Usually, a journalist will return shortly after the closing of the Olympics and report decaying venues left behind,” says Rennie Short.
Further, to build venues can require destruction as much as construction, he suggests. “In Pyeongchang, parts of ancient forests were cleared and communities were displaced to build ski lifts,” Rennie Short notes. “Who knows what the global impact of disrupting pristine mountain environments will be.”
Rennie Short argues that many of the problems he has found stem from greed and corruption at the local level, with contractors and large landowners often benefiting the most. Once a city wins an Olympic bid, the kinds of investment that follow—building roads to increase access to and from the airport and on clearing land for large sports complexes—tend to benefit Olympics participants and visitors, but not long-term residents. They are also difficult to maintain and take away essential resources from long-term roads, bridges, and buildings with high local use.
Watch John Rennie Short’s interview with NBC Think.
“I feel a social responsibility to taxpayers to inform them of what is happening,” says Rennie Short. “Local communities are not always aware of how their money is being used to take away needed resources for individual gain. But it doesn’t have to be this way.” He draws attention to former host cities like Barcelona, that increased the long-term benefits of hosting by planning years in advance with the local community in mind and exploring ideas for sustainable global tourism plans. He also describes the experiences of cities like London and Sochi, which have emphasized the continued use of existing arenas and event sites.
While arguing for a fixed Olympics location that would decrease the need for intensive planning and investment in different host cities, Rennie Short says these cities offer examples for how to adjust the existing model to make it work for host city residents. “If the games don’t switch to a more sustainable centralized fixed location,” he argues,”then host cities must lead the way in innovative, sustainable, eco-friendly development.”
To read more about the Rennie Short’s thoughts on the urban impact of the Olympics read: “The Olympics should be in Vancouver. Winter and Summer. Every two years.” in Slate; “On rocky road to Rio, the biggest loser may be the glory of hosting Olympics,” in The Conversation” and “We should host the Olympics in the same place every time,” in The Washington Post.”
Banner Image: Untitled photo of Beijing Olympic site, November 2012, by Marko Kudjerski (CC BY 2.0)
