All posts by: UMBC News Staff

Sari Bennett Receives National Council for the Social Studies Award

“How can students be citizens of the world if they don’t have the background they need to know about its people and its places?” asks Sari Bennett, clinical associate professor of geography and environmental systems and a longtime advocate for strengthening the teaching of geography at the K-12 level.

On December 2, Bennett, coordinator for the Maryland Geographic Alliance–which has worked with over 12,000 K-12 teachers since 1989–will receive the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Outstanding Service Award. It honors exceptional service in support of K-16 social studies at the national and local levels.

A member of the National Council for the Social Studies and the Maryland Council for the Social Studies (MDCSS), Bennett has made contributions to the social studies profession at the local, state and national levels. She has been a member of MDCSS for more than 20 years and has served as its president and executive director. At the state level, she has served on numerous committees including the Social Studies Taskforce of the Maryland State Department of Education and has worked on the development of social studies content standards and the Voluntary State Curriculum. At the national level, Bennett has been a three-time program co-chair for the NCSS Annual Conference.

The Maryland Geographic Alliance, jointly funded by the State of Maryland and the National Geographic Society, develops lesson plans and other materials for teachers to use in their classrooms, and presents workshops and summer institutes.

Currently, Bennett and the Maryland Geographic Alliance are working with Sultana Projects, Inc. on lesson plans for the John Smith Four Hundred Project, which will retrace Captain John Smith’s 1608 Chesapeake expedition. In addition, they were asked by the Maryland State Department of Education to create educational materials and lesson plans for this year’s 300th anniversary of the Port of Baltimore. Previous projects include a collaborative project with Tom Rabenhorst, senior lecturer in geography and environmental systems at UMBC, and his students on a digital atlas of Maryland for 4th graders.

(11/28/06)

© 2006-07 University of Maryland, Baltimore County • 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 • 410-455-1000 •

Happy Birthday, UMBC

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Just 40 years ago, on September 19, 1966, UMBC officially opened its doors and began its rapid rise as one of the most diverse and dynamic universities in the nation.

UMBC has gained the attention and respect of many older, well established higher education leaders. Cambridge, founded in 1209, has invited UMBC’s Darwin scholar Sandra Herbert to serve as a visiting professor this year. Harvard, founded in 1636, recently recruited three of our graduates – one to a faculty position and two to doctoral and medical programs – from the lab of Michael Summers, the only Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at a Maryland public university. And Princeton, founded in 1746, is collaborating with UMBC to create a multi-million-dollar Engineering Research Center focused on sensor technology.

“The fact that we have achieved so much so quickly is a reflection of the quality and entrepreneurial spirit of our faculty, students and staff,” said President Freeman A. Hrabowski. “Ours is an exceptional community, where the life of the mind is paramount.”

“It is exhilarating to think about our future,” Hrabowski added. “At 40, the campus is young enough that all of us are still pioneers, building UMBC’s foundation.”

At noon on September 19, UMBC will begin celebrating some of the students, faculty, and staff – past and present – who make UMBC Exceptional by Example. The celebration includes birthday cake, the debut of the University’s alma mater, a talk by Carnegie Foundation President Lee Shulman, and a reception hosted by President and Mrs. Hrabowski to honor faculty and staff.

Please note that the 3 to 5 p.m. faculty/staff reception is being moved to the University Center Ballroom due to expected rainy weather. All other Sept. 19 events will continue at their originally scheduled locations.style> For more information, please visit www.umbc.edu/40th/events.html.

UMBC alumni, parents and the general public are invited to join the campus community for UMBC’s 40th Anniversary Homecoming and Family Celebration October 20-21. For more information, please visit www.umbc.edu/40th/events.html.

9/18/06

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

UMBC Students Exhibit with Leading Contemporary Artists at the Baltimore Museum of Art

An outdoor installation by recent UMBC Undergraduate Research Award (URA) recipients Christina Ralls and Katie Better was selected to be part of siteMaryland, an exhibition presented by the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and the Maryland State Arts Council.

“It is exciting to see emerging artists like Christina and Katie recognized with a URA,” said Steve Bradley, associate professor of visual arts, who is advising them on their project. “Now we see another testament to their creativity and hard work with siteMaryland awarding their continuing collaboration with a highly competitive and prodigious commission.”

siteMaryland is a free, month-long juried exhibition by the state’s leading contemporary artists, now on view through November 5. Designed to change venues each year, the inaugural exhibition features artwork that reinvents the BMA’s gardens and grounds. In addition to Ralls and Better, siteMaryland includes work by UMBC visual arts faculty Calla Thompson and Rick Dulaney.

Ralls and Better used their URA award to create and install their interactive sculpture, Traum Baum (Dream Tree). Visitors are invited to write their dreams, goals and aspirations on the banners of the colorful maypole-like structure. Small figures of children hold on to the banners.

“We initially wanted to ask ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ using the childhood notion that we can be anything we want to be,” said Ralls, a senior animation major and Imaging Research Center Fellow who is studying abroad at Schwäbisch Hall in Baden-Württemberg, Germany during the fall 2006 semester. “We want to give people a way to interact with art that can inspire them to continue reaching for their dreams despite adversity.”

Both Ralls and Better’s interest in community art grew out of their participation in a spring 2005 visual and performing arts class, which brought together UMBC students, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and residents of nearby Charlestown Retirement Community. “It was a real learning experience, to see how everyone can enjoy art from different perspectives and come together so nicely… and it was a lot of fun,” said Ralls.

“It introduced us to a new kind of art,” added Better, a junior animation major. “So when the time came to apply for the URA, we decided to create a community art piece.”

As part of their research, Ralls and Better studied environmental artists such as Christo. They also worked with inner-city school children in the College Gardens after-school program, who helped paint the figures of children on Traum Baum and wrote their goals and dreams on the banners. They will continue their research by chronicling the creation, installation and response process, and hope Traum Baum will travel to other venues.

Ralls and Better will be among the presenters at UMBC’s Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day on April 25, 2007. URA and URCAD are just two programs offered by UMBC’s Office of Undergraduate Education, which strives to present an honors university experience for every UMBC undergraduate.

(10/9/06)

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

A Closer Look at the Inner Space of Disease

Dan Fabris, associate professor of chemistry, became fascinated with the machinery of life at an early age. Now his passion for understanding the inner workings of cells is bringing UMBC a powerful new tool in the fight against diseases like cancer and AIDS.

Fabris was recently honored as one of just 14 U.S. researchers and the leader of the only lab in Maryland to receive a National Institutes of Health National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) High-End Instrumentation grant. With the $1.5 million grant, UMBC has purchased an extremely powerful, high-resolution, mass spectrometer known as a hybrid, 12 Tesla quadrupole-Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance or Q-FTICR.

The Q-FTICR allows researchers to see molecular-level biochemical reactions that impact drug resistance by HIV, other retroviruses and cancer. UMBC will soon become one of just a handful of U.S. institutions and only three on the east coast to have such a powerful mass spectrometer.

When the custom built instrument arrives in the spring 2007, it will be in high demand by biomedical researchers at UMBC and from across the region. Fabris’s lab will share the Q-FTICR with colleagues in similar research fields like Michael Summers (HIV), Lasse Lindahl (antibiotic resistant germs), Kathleen Seley-Radtke (antibacterial and antiviral drugs) and James Fishbein (cancer).

Fabris’s interest in the machinery of life started as a boy. “I used to drive my parents crazy by taking appliances apart to look inside them, save for being unable to putting them back together afterwards,” Fabris said. “Cells are the most amazing example of how molecular machines work together to accomplish the complex tasks that sustain life.”

(11/8/06)

© 2006-07 University of Maryland, Baltimore County • 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 • 410-455-1000 •

Designing the Future of Animation

Shane Lynch,style> a senior computer science major, and Chad Eby ’06,style> MFA, imaging and digital arts, are members of a UMBC research design team responsible for the newest development in editorial cartoons. Led by famed-cartoonist Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher, Lynch, Eby and staff from UMBC’s Imaging Research Center designed a 3-D virtual bust of President George W. Bush.style>

The project’s concept, making a three-dimensional caricature talk, walk and interact with the public in real-time, is considered unprecedented for animation.

The digital bust is the brainchild of Kallaugher, a cartoonist for the Economist and former cartoonist for the Baltimore Sun, who came to UMBC in January 2006 as an artist-in-residence, a position sponsored partly by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation.

Lynch and Eby each had their own responsibilities for the project. Lynch programmed the coding for the 3-D cartoon, making it work in real-time. The stately figure can move its mouth in various directions, furrow its eyebrows and pop out its ears. Eby arranged the hardware interface, chose the equipment and programmed the software that operates the movements of the virtual puppet.

The project took four months to complete and required the diverse skills of the team members, which also included Dan Bailey,style> the Center’s director, and Eric Smallwood,style> technical director of the IRC.

Lynch and Eby both agree working with KAL and learning about the man behind the satirical cartoons was exciting and rewarding.

“We are pretty far ahead of the curve,” said Eby, who is beginning his first year as an assistant professor in Florida State University’s Art Department. “I have no doubt this is the future of animation.”

To view the design stages and to track the project’s progress, visit http://www.irc.umbc.edu/kal/.

(8/29/2006)

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

A Destination for Cultural Life:
UMBC hosts world-renowned speakers

UMBC will host The Maryland Forum, a new speaker series featuring Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel; Bob Woodward, Pulitzer-prizewinning journalist; Cal Ripken, Jr., record-breaking former Baltimore Oriole; and former Vice President Al Gore. The series is presented in partnership with the Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce, Inc.

“UMBC’s mission as a public research university includes stimulating the intellectual and cultural life of the region,” said President Freeman Hrabowski. “We are pleased that our partnership with The Maryland Forum will continue to build the University as a destination for cultural programming. I am particularly excited that our students will have the opportunity to attend these lectures and learn about the experiences of former leaders of nations and leading figures from other fields who also have shaped our national story.”

Lectures will be presented in the Retriever Activities Center. UMBC students, faculty and staff may purchase discounted tickets for $5 (one ticket per UMBC ID). Tickets will go on sale Monday, October 9 at The Commons Information Desk.

The Maryland Forum 2006-07 schedule:

Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Ehud Barak, former prime minister of Israel, will discuss how national politics, international events, terror and the economy all influence national and international relations. He will also speak about economic development issues facing nations today.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006
Bob Woodward, who, along with Carl Bernstein, received the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Watergate scandal, will discuss his latest book, The Secret Man, and his journalism career.

April 2007 (To Be Confirmed)
Former Oriole Cal Ripken, Jr., who broke Lou Gehrig’s streak of 2,131 consecutive games by 500, will speak about leadership, loyalty, patience and perseveranceóqualities that lead to success in baseball and in business.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007
The Honorable Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President, will give a special multimedia presentation of An Inconvenient Truth, which examines environmental issues and their impact on our global civilization. He also will discuss how physical changes in the planet will influence our global economy and key opportunities and challenges for the democratization of technology.

Tickets for the general public can be purchased online or by calling 1-866-49-FORUM. A discount is available to UMBC alumni. For more information about the Maryland Forum, visit www.themarylandforum.com.

(10/2/06)

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

UMBC’s New Homepage & Portal

UMBC is launching a new home page on the Web (www.umbc.edu) and (http://my.umbc.edu). The strategy for the August 2006 launch and future phases is to refocus the UMBC homepage on the needs of external users, while making myUMBC more useful to internal users through richer content and self-service options.

The redesign, a collaborative effort between the Offices of Institutional Advancement (OIA) and Information Technology (OIT), reflects input gathered over the last three years during talks with prospective undergraduate and graduate students, and UMBC students, faculty and staff.

UMBC’s enrollment goals play an important role in the homepage design. In order to attract prospective undergraduate and graduate students, it will be important to use the homepage as a marketing tool, promoting campus life and student success stories, for example. Site users and prospective students said that information on both the old homepage and portal was hard to find and the homepage did not give a sense of the campus or what it is like to attend UMBC.

The new design by Jim Lord ’99, OIA’s associate director of creative services, features an upgraded navigational scheme that highlights audience-specific resources (prospective students, parents, alumni, etc.), a collage of campus photos and more room for events and feature stories. The new homepage and portal will also highlight our 40th anniversary and upcoming capital campaign.

The new myUMBC was designed by UMBC’s new campus portal architect B. Collier Jones in OIT. The redesign changes the look and feel of the campus’ internal site, which provides access to tools and utilities faculty, staff and students need to do their work and live on campus. For now, most of those functions remain the same; the presentation, however, has changed.

For the fall 2006 launch, the new portal is particularly focused on the needs of students and will be a one-stop shop for news about what’s happening on campus. The Start Page features announcements, information about upcoming events and news of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, such as student government, information about registration and commencement, residential life, arts and athletics.

In the next year, faculty and staff will have their own Start Pages, but the new portal currently features a front-page “dashboard” with access to most popular applications for faculty, staff and students – blackboard, e-mail and Oracle Calendar (for faculty and staff).

This facelift is just the beginning of plans to improve UMBC’s Internet presence. The OIA and OIT Web team, collectively known as “Emedia,” calls it “a down payment” on the future sites. In addition to Jones and Lord, the team includes John Fritz, director of instructional technology and new media and Jackie Ward, campus Web architect from OIT and Eleanor Lewis, associate director of internal and digital communications from OIA.

Read more about the new features on UMBC’s homepage and portal and next steps for a site-wide redesign.

Please send your comments and suggestions on the new homepage and myUMBC to helpdesk@umbc.edu.

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution

A Presidential Honor

UMBC biologist Rachel M. Brewsterstyle> recently made a short drive to Washington, D.C. that was a big leap forward for her and the University. She received the nation’s top honor for promising young scientists, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), at a White House ceremony in July.

The PECASE provides up to five years of financial support to the honored scientists for research and community outreach. Awardees must be nominated by a participating federal agency or department. Brewster was one of just three U.S. biologists nominated by the National Science Foundation (NSF) who were selected for the PECASE. A total of 60 researchers from a variety of fields were honored at the ceremony.

Brewster will use her PECASE funding to involve high school, undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds in her lab’s research. Brewster’s specialty is genetic analysis of zebrafish embryos to better understand the causes of birth defects of the brain and central nervous system, the most common of which is spina bifida, the leading cause of childhood paralysis in the United States.

“It’s certainly an amazing honor to receive this award,” said Brewster. In her acceptance speech, she thanked UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowskistyle> as the catalyst for the University’s Meyerhoff Scholarship Program, which has become known as a national model for drawing talented minority students into research careers.

“I have been very fortunate to work with Meyerhoff students in my lab,” said Brewster. She singled out UMBC alumna and former Meyerhoff Scholar Keisha John ’06,style> who now attends the Watson Graduate School of Biological Sciences, as instrumental in producing some key pieces of data which made the award nomination possible.

“Rachel Brewster is a wonderful colleague, an inspiring role model and a dedicated mentor to many students at UMBC,” said Lynn Zimmerman,style> vice provost for academic initiatives and professor of biological sciences at UMBC. “She is a tremendous asset to UMBC’s biological sciences department and we are delighted to see her receive this well deserved recognition.”

9/5/2006

UMBC is an Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution