All posts by: Dinah Winnick

This week EMS World features an EMS Squadcast interview with Dwight Polk, UMBC’s paramedic program director. Polk was interviewed by Tim Perkins, a UMBC alumnus who now works for the Virginia Office of EMS. The conversation focuses on Polk’s EMS World Expo presentation “HIV/AIDS: Why Don’t We Talk About It Anymore.” Key topics include how trimming educational budgets has harmed preventative measures targeting the disease and how instructors can better prepare EMS practitioners to provide quality care for patients with HIV/AIDS. To access the podcast click here. Polk appears 8 min 51 sec into the recording.

MarylandReporter today noted that unless the U.S. Congress acts by January 1, physicians will face a Medicare reimbursement rate cut of 30%. Expense concerns have motivated some doctors to close their practices and go to work for hospitals, says UMBC Erickson School Professor Joe Gribbin, a former associate commissioner for the Social Security Administration. He explains, “The implications [of changes to reimbursement rates] are huge not just for physicians but for the beneficiary community, and they’re not well understood.” The article was also picked up by Citybizlist Baltimore.

Mario Monti “may be just what Italy needs” to avert economic crisis, writes UMBC associate professor of political science Carolyn Forestiere in a letter to the Baltimore Sun. She notes, “Mr. Monti does not belong to a specific political party and was not directly elected by the public,” which makes his rise to the office of prime minister perplexing for some. However, Forestiere argues, at a time of political disagreement over how to manage necessary reforms, “Prime Minister Monti’s technocratic government may be the best immediate solution to thwart economic crisis in Italy.”

UMBC public policy professor David Salkever delves into the University System of Maryland merger debate in a new Washington Post letter to the editor and Baltimore Sun commentary, published last week.

In the Sun, Salkever argues that merging the University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland, Baltimore in an effort to “raise their national rankings based on total research funding” represents flawed logic, given that rankings groups are aware of and have mechanisms to mitigate the effects of such tactics, such as collecting data at the campus rather than institutional level. He writes, “to increase the College Park rankings, in the authoritative ‘Top American Research Universities’ report, we would need to make some (very expensive and disruptive) geographic moves of programs to the College Park campus.” Continue reading “David Salkever, Public Policy, in the Post and Sun” →

Thomas Schaller’s new Baltimore Sun commentary responds to Rick Perry’s recent debate gaffe, where he failed to recall the third cabinet agency he’d like to close, after naming the Depts. of Education and Commerce. Beyond the “oops” moment, UMBC political science professor Schaller asks why Perry wants to eliminate those three departments in particular, rather than cutting spending across all departments or eliminating newer agencies.
Schaller has also written a new guest post for Sabato’s Crystal Ball, exploring the limited political impact of President Obama’s foreign policy successes in Iraq, Libya and with the killing of Osama bin Laden. Schaller writes: “His performance thus far has been pretty solid, but he stands to reap little to no electoral benefit from it.”

The Baltimore Sun quoted UMBC’s Donald Norris, chair of public policy, today in its ongoing coverage of the Sen. Ulysses Currie corruption case. “The evidence does suggest that what he did, if not criminal, is unethical,” Norris said. When asked about the Senate’s possible censure of Currie, however, he noted, “Currie is very well-liked by his colleagues, and that may mitigate the penalty.” For more, read “Common Cause calls for Currie censure.”

Yesterday, Norris reflected in the Sun on the election of Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to her first full term. “Will she have signature achievements? I’m not sure,” said Norris. “The bottom line is going to be the quality of her stewardship of the city of Baltimore.”

In his latest Baltimore Sun opinion column, UMBC political science professor Thomas F. Schaller focuses on the US tax policy debate. “We talk a lot about spending cuts but rarely, if ever, about revenue increases. Why the asymmetry?” Schaller asks. Read “The Gospel of Tax Cuts” to find out.

The Maryland Humanities Council (MHC) has elected seven new members to its Board of Directors, including Stephen J. Sfekas, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge who previously taught health care law and administrative law at UMBC. According to Baltimore Citybizlist, Sfekas has served on the boards of The ARC Baltimore, the Maryland Disabilities Law Center, the Society for Values in Higher Education, and the President’s Advisory Council for UMBC. MHC board members are involved in strategic planning, fundraising and fiscal management for the group.

“It would have been easy in recent days to mistake Courtroom 5D as the site of a Maryland political convention rather than the forum for a public corruption trial,” wrote the Washington Post‘s John Wagner, on the defense of Sen. Ulysses Currie. Prominent character witnesses were brought to the stand over several days to vouch for Currie’s integrity in light of corruption allegations — a potentially risky move for some, considering their own career ambitions.

“I don’t know whether a jury will look at politicians saying nice things about other politicians in a cynical way or a laudatory way,” said Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC. “I don’t think we have a way to know that.” For additional reflections on the case, see the Baltimore Sun, where Norris offered insight into how elected officials in different states react to ethics concerns.