All posts by: UMBC News Staff

 
Taryn Bayles gets freshmen excited about science through competitive, hands-on projects.

Making Engineering Exciting

If you’re strolling across the UMBC campus and happen upon a catapult contraption flinging water balloons across a field or homemade hot air balloons floating high above the Engineering and Computer Science building atrium, be sure to look for Taryn Bayles.

Bayles is an energetic and inspiring lecturer in UMBC’s Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering who specializes in getting freshmen excited about science through competitive, hands-on projects.

Three years ago, Bayles came to UMBC and began teaching ENES 101 – Introduction to Engineering Science. In addition to class lectures, Bayles ends each semester with a competition that puts theoretical principles into some fun, real-life use.

Bayles prides herself with coming up with a new contest each year. To date the competitions have revolved around human-powered water pumps, water balloon catapults and model hot-air balloons. The idea being that formulas and physical laws are easier to understand when students are using them to do something fun —  launching projectiles at a target, or seeing whose mini hot-air balloon stays aloft the longest.

“I like to have my students build things,” Bayles says. “The freshmen are always very creative. They come up with innovative things that a senior may not have thought of.”

Bayles likes to be hands-on as well, even making herself the target for the final stage of the water balloon catapult contest this spring. She also makes sure the materials are inexpensive, use only simple tools and require very little technical background since all the competitors are just starting out in college.

Bayles’ passion for making science education fun goes beyond her own classes. Since coming to UMBC, she has worked with Anne Spence, a lecturer in mechanical engineering and Claudia Morrell, director of planning and grants at the Center for Women and Information Technology, on four National Science Foundation grants for engineering education outreach.

One grant puts UMBC students in area high school science classrooms to give hands-on engineering demonstrations. Another project is developing a CD-ROM of engineering based algebra lessons to help high schools comply with a new Maryland law making algebra a required course. Other grants are funding a video project on women and technology and scholarships for computer science and engineering students.

“These grants work two ways,” Bayles says. “UMBC students get class management skills from teachers while the teachers get engineering knowledge from the students.” Bayles also teaches courses in Chemical Engineering Analysis, Transport Phenomena II and has taught a summer course for high school teachers and guidance counselors to help them better use engineering principles in their classrooms.

Bayles’ commitment to her students doesn’t end when they graduate. She often uses her extensive private sector background to help former students find summer jobs with industry leaders like DuPont. “I encourage all of my students to do research at another university or a summer internship so they can be sure they want to pursue a career in engineering,” Bayles says.

When she’s not working hard as an advocate for science education at UMBC, Bayles’ top priority is her two children. But even at home, it’s tough to take the engineer out of the mom. Bayles is proud that, in addition to being very involved in the PTA, she also regularly teaches hands-on science classes at her children’s elementary school.

Diane Bell-McKoy has been named UMBC’s Distinguished Alumna for 2003.

Empowering Baltimore  

Diane L. Bell-McKoy, who graduated from UMBC in 1973 with a B.A. in Sociology/Social Work, has been named UMBC’s Distinguished Alumna for 2003.

After almost 20 years working with drug treatment programs and poverty issues, and as an advocate for children, Diane Bell-McKoy took the reins as president and CEO of the Empower Baltimore Management Corporation in 1994. She has faced the challenge of bringing together people from different backgrounds with varying experiences and beliefs to put together and carry out a collective vision.

Under her leadership, Baltimore’s Empowerment Zone has had unparalleled success and has become a national and international model. Bell-McKoy and her staff, in partnership with others in the business community, have seen the creation of 5,000 new jobs and helped 8,000 unemployed city residents find work. Empower Baltimore has also created new initiatives, such as a Hospital Hopkins and University Hospital program, which has trained hospital workers and upgraded them to work as surgical technicians.

In her previous position as deputy chief of staff to the Honorable Kurt L. Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore, Bell-McKoy spearheaded the development of an agency dedicated to the delivery of both human services and community capacity building assistance; designed and implemented a new policy structure to guide the mayor in matters related to social capital (The Mayor’s Human Services Sub-Cabinet); designed the City’s rebuilding policies committee; served as the chair of the Sandtown-Winchester Initiative in partnership with the Jim Rouse Enterprise Foundation; and designed the City’s first Youth Leadership Program.

“Diane is a distinguished alumna who is precisely the kind of citizen that UMBC strives to graduate,” says Cynthia M. Hill, assistant vice provost, who nominated Bell-McKoy for the award. “Her strong liberal education is effectively blended with a strong sense of social responsibility. She is in every sense a leader with an extraordinary ability to forge collaborations among government, business, and community entities to increase social capital and improve the quality of life for those who might otherwise remain
disenfranchised.”

At the annual Alumni Awards Reception and Ceremony on April 24, UMBC also             honored:

Outstanding Alumna of the Year

Adrienne A. Jones

B.A., Psychology ’76

Speaker Pro Tem, Maryland House of Delegates

Community Leadership Award

Emma Byrne

B.A., Sociology ’70

Retired Teacher, Baltimore City Schools

Alumni Volunteer of the Year

Robert Baruch

B.S., Computer Science ’89

President, CEO and Founder, Raba Technologies, Inc.

In addition to celebrating the achievements of UMBC alumni, over 40 student scholarship and award recipients were recognized.

Members of UMBC’s Chess Team and Advisor Alan Sherman (bottom row, left)

The Undisputed Kings of College Chess
  

UMBC has won titles at the “World Series, and the “Final Four” and has now completed the “Grand Slam” … of college chess that is.

UMBC’s chess team is well-known as one of the most powerful in the nation, as it has won six Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Championships (The World Series of College Chess) in the past seven years and, in early April, took its first-ever President’s Cup title (The Final Four of College Chess).  They completed their victory tour online by winning the National College Chess League’s online tournament, played over the Internet.

While the NCCL championship doesn’t have a snappy nickname of its own, it has a very special meaning to the UMBC team. They now hold all three major chess titles simultaneously — the Grand Slam of College Chess – a feat no other team has ever accomplished.

UMBC’s win at the President’s Cup effectively made them the undisputed champs of college chess, as they had been edged out in previous years by their rivals at the University of Texas, Dallas. This year was UMBC’s first time competing in the NCCL Championship.

UMBC’s success on the chess board has drawn attention to UMBC as a place with unbeatable brain power – an image backed up not only by their impressive wins by also by the soaring SAT scores of first-year students and the University’s federal research funding. UMBC’s reputation in chess, combined with its impressive academic record and scholarship opportunities has attracted some of the very best chess players from around the country and around the world.

The UMBC chess team has garnered attention from a host of national media outlets — from “Good Morning America” and “The Today Show” to CNN and National Public Radio. Why is chess such a big deal at UMBC? Perhaps the Baltimore Sun said it best in an April 8 editorial: “At UMBC, it’s cool to be smart, and the smartest students — even with names like ‘The Exterminator’ and ‘’The Maryland Mauler’ — are the heroes.”

 
UMBC Presidential Teaching Professor Robert Deluty is a clinical psychologist and published poet.

The Poetry of Experience

As a clinical psychologist, Presidential Teaching Professor Robert Deluty has devoted his adult life to exploring the workings of the human psyche. Recent years, however, have seen his work take a more creative turn. In addition to being a researcher, psychotherapist, and award-winning mentor, Deluty is also a poet whose work has appeared in publications such as The Baltimore Evening Sun and The Wall Street Journal.

Psychology is Deluty’s first passion and his research interests have ranged widely throughout the course of his career. In his graduate work and early years at UMBC, he explored the development and treatment of aggressive and submissive behavior in children. He now focuses on how clinical psychologists treat their patients, from  ways of assisting clients in making moral and ethical decisions to the influence of religious beliefs on approaches to therapy.

Deluty began his creative writing career almost  11 years ago when his wife encouraged him to write about a deeply personal event from his own life — the moments leading up to the arrival of his second adopted child. “We were waiting for our son to arrive from Korea,” he recalls, “and it led me to think about my relationship with my own father, who had passed away several years before.” This experience led to an essay that, much to Deluty’s surprise, was published in The Baltimore Evening Sun.

He turned to writing poetry after a failed attempt at an essay evolved into a publishable poem. He has since published over 500 poems in a variety of publications, including his book, Within and Between, released in 2000. Deluty’s poetry takes many forms, although he most frequently writes in a Japanese poetic form called senryu. Senryu share the same structure as haiku, but, unlike haiku, usually describe human subjective situations and are often satiric, pathetic, or ironic. Like his first essay, much of his poetry comes directly from his own experiences with his family and work.

Deluty’s creative endeavors have not stopped his work in psychology. In fact, his latest research finds common ground within the two fields. In a recent article published in the Journal of Poetry Therapy, Deluty explores the common processes and goals of a psychotherapist and a writer of haiku or senryu poetry. “The psychotherapist and the senryu writer share characteristics such as the desire to bring about new awareness or insight in their audience and the need to be absolutely genuine in the feelings and attitudes they express,” says Deluty. “My writing has made me a better psychotherapist and my work as a psychotherapist has made me a better poet because these common goals and processes reinforce each other in all aspects of my work.”

Click here to read Robert Deluty’s poetry.

 
UMBC Psychology chair Carlo DiClemente’s work has revolutionized treatment for alcoholism and drug abuse.

The Psychology of Conquering Addiction

Psychology professor and department chair Carlo DiClemente began studying addiction among smokers while completing his dissertation at the University of Rhode Island. Now, more than twenty years later, his research has revolutionized how health professionals treat alcoholism and drug abuse.

In October, 2002, DiClemente’s work was recognized nationally when he received one of five Innovators Combating Substance Abuse awards from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

“I was first drawn to studying smoking because it was a behavior that was easy to evaluate and where it was always possible to find people actively trying to change their behavior,” says DiClemente, “What I found was that many different treatments produced change equally well and that people who stopped smoking without any outside medical intervention could be as successful as those who had.”

From these observations, DiClemente, with colleague James Prochaska of the University of Rhode Island, went on to develop a model for the process of change among addicts. This model, the Transtheoretical Model of Change, identifies stages of change and other factors that predict treatment outcomes.

Previously, treatment for substance abuse was thought to benefit only people who were motivated to enter treatment on their own. The Transtheoretical Model, however, is a more effective treatment developed for the individual rather than a “one size fits all” approach.

DiClemente has also applied the model in studies on alcoholism and will soon use his $300,000 RWJF award to fund a study of the model for cocaine users. The funding will also allow DiClemente to gather a small group of substance abuse researchers and treatment providers who use the Transtheoretical Model to discuss the most effective ways to apply it in treatment.

Since 1984, when DiClemente and Prochaska published their first book on the Transtheoretical Model, it has been incorporated in the treatment of a number of health and addictive behaviors in the United States and abroad. “I’ve been in touch with colleagues as far away as Germany and New Zealand who are using aspects of the Transtheoretical Model to assist patients with a wide variety of health problems such as asthma and diabetes, as well as substance abuse.”

The continuing importance of his work keeps DiClemente excited about his research. “I’ve seen the ravages of alcohol and drug problems. To see the impact this model and my research has made gives meaning to my work. It’s been wonderful to be part of a process of helping people understand how to get from addiction to recovery.”

 
Men’s Lacrosse Coach Don Zimmerman was recently inducted into the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

A Classroom with Goals

Don Zimmerman is a teacher. You may know him as the head coach of the men’s lacrosse program at UMBC, but for over two decades he has taught the game to All Americans and beginners with the same basic principles.

On January 25, Zimmerman was inducted into the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the United States Lacrosse Hall of Fame. UMBC standout defenseman Gary Clipp ‘77 joined him as an inductee during the gala affair at Martin’s West in Baltimore.

“My coaching philosophy has always focused on teaching the fundamentals – the little things that make the big difference. Lacrosse is a game of skill and precision, best played when using a simple, basic approach,” said Zimmerman.

Zimmerman has been associated with Baltimore lacrosse since the early 1970’s. He was a prep standout at St. Paul’s School and earned All America honors in 1976 at Johns Hopkins. After assistant coaching stints at both Princeton and North Carolina, he returned to Baltimore in 1984 as head coach of his alma mater. Zimmerman became the first lacrosse coach to win a national title in his initial season, taking Hopkins (14-0) to the top in 1984, and capturing the title again in  1985 and 1987.

In 1994, Zimmerman came to UMBC and changed the direction of the program. On May 2, 1998, UMBC shocked the lacrosse world with a 12-8 win over #1-ranked Maryland and earned its first-ever NCAA Division I championship appearance. The 1999 Retrievers proved the previous year was no fluke, as wins over Navy, North Carolina and Maryland once again landed them in the tournament.

“Our goal at UMBC has always been to get ourselves to the same level as the other top teams in the country. What we’re doing in lacrosse runs parallel to what we’re doing as a university. We feel we have an outstanding product at UMBC and we want people to know that,” Zimmerman says.

The Retriever mentor is well-known outside of Baltimore as well. He served as an assistant coach of the United States team in the 1986 World Games and as head coach for the South squad in the 2002 North-South All Star game. He has been an ambassador for international lacrosse, becoming one of the first coaches to teach the game in Japan.

“I have been fortunate to work with so many quality young men throughout my career,” Zimmerman says. “Whether All America, All World or role player, my heart holds a special place for those that have made the sacrifice and commitment demanded of them. My hope is that as these players look back, they remember me as a mentor who treated them with fairness and respect.”

Policy Sciences PhD graduate Keith Elder’s studies how race impacts America’s health care system.

Inquiries and Inequities in managed Care
  

In a time when health care is one of the most urgent issues in the U.S. political spectrum, Keith Elder, Ph.D. graduate from the UMBC Policy Sciences (POSI) Graduate Program, is examining the tough questions surrounding our nation’s health care system.

Elder’s dissertation examines the racial disparities in managed care between majority and minority physicians. Specifically, it looks at health care contracts between physicians and organizations (such as HMOs) and attempts to determine if there is any connection between termination or denial of contracts and ethnicity.

“Patient demographics impact the rate of contract denials and terminations,” says Elder. “The greater the percentage of Latino and African American patients a physician serves, the higher the probability that physician will have a contract denied. The larger the percentage of Asian patients a physician sees, the higher the probability the physician will have a contract terminated.”

“After examining certain economic market level variables, the differences still exist. Some may look to other explanations for these differences in rate of contract denial and termination – namely, discrimination,” Elder says. Nancy Miller, assistant professor of policy sciences, corroborates Elder’s results, stating that they “offer evidence that requires serious reflection and action on the part of policy makers.”

Elder’s research draws data from the Maryland Physician Survey developed and conducted by the Center for Health Program Development and Management at UMBC. He drew from a sample size of about 1200 people. Elder will present his research at a symposium the center is holding March 26, The Effect of Managed Care on Minority Physicians and Socially Vulnerable Populations in Maryland: Data Findings and Policy Alternatives.

Unfortunately, the inequity that Elder identified in his research is not a new pattern in health care. “Minority physicians have reported inequities for years,” says Elder. In a 1994 survey of minority physicians, Elder says that “over 90 percent believed that they had experienced some form of discrimination. The same physicians believed that any health care reform would place them at a disadvantage in the managed care selection process.”

In addition to the Policy Sciences faculty, UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski has also been of great help to Elder: “He’s always given me support,” says Elder. “He gave me direction in how to plan for my dissertation defense, personal insights, told me what research opportunities I should be involved in. He wanted to make sure when I left here that I was ready for every opportunity that crossed my radar.”

Elder graduated from UMBC last fall and is currently doing research analysis for the POSI program. Next semester, he will begin a position as assistant professor in the School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. While he will teach a university course, he also plans to spend a lot of time pursuing his research interests: “I definitely hope to further examine aspects of managed care and racial disparity,” states Elder.

Ronald Holzloehner (right) celebrates his successful Ph.D. defense with his mentor, Prof. Curtis Menyuk.

A Global Education in Telecommunications  

Berlin, Germany native Ronald Holzloehner will receive his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at UMBC this month, after traveling the world while winning international acclaim for his research on how to make fiber optics communications faster and more reliable.

Holzloehner came to UMBC after receiving his master’s degree from the Technical University of Berlin and spending a year at UC Santa Barbara on a Fulbright scholarship. In late 1998 he came to UMBC and joined Dr. Curtis Menyuk’s research team in the  Optical Fiber Communications Laboratory, which works closely with the telecommunications industry to push the frontiers of communications technology.

During his four and a half years at UMBC, Holzloehner and the rest of the team presented their work at national and international conferences, were published in respected journals, and won prestigious awards. Holzloehner received the Best Speaker Award at the UMBC Student Conference last year, and also won an IEEE LEOS student award fellowship last fall, an award of which only 10–20 are given annually world-wide. His dissertation describes a new method for computing bit error rates in optical fiber communications systems.

“Working with Curtis Menyuk was a good experience, and I certainly learned a lot,” he says. “I worked hard, many nights and weekends, but I wrote a bunch of papers, won some awards, got to travel the world by visiting conferences, and learned much about how science is conducted and managed in the US. What’s amazing about UMBC is the energy and tenacity with which it pursues its goals — President Freeman Hrabowski does a whole lot to promote the school, much like a sports team.”

Like other high-tech researchers, Holzloehner also experienced the ups and downs of the so-called “New Economy.” At the 2003 UMBC Engineer of the Year ceremony, Holzloehner spoke about the lessons high-tech industry has learned from recent scandals. “Corporate greed existed not only at Enron, but also in the telecom industry, and I think we engineers should do whatever we can to fight for solid and sound business models,” he said.

After an arduous search, Holzloehner accepted a postdoctoral position back in Germany at the University of Nuremberg’s newly founded Max-Planck Institute, and will start working there in July. The institute focuses on quantum optics, quantum computing, and some communications, while working closely with top companies like Lucent.

As he prepares to return home for a new chapter in his career, Holzloehner carries with him memories of his American education. “The U.S. is really an amazing country, and it is still able to attract many foreigners that help it grow,” he says. “The advantage that the U.S. has over many other countries is impressive, at times frightening. People should remember that many of these achievements are due to immigrants who work extremely hard.”

 
UMBC’s Ram Hosmane is the 2002 Maryland Chemist of the Year

Maryland Chemist of the Year

UMBC chemistry professor Ramachandra “Ram” Hosmane was named the Maryland Chemist of the Year by the Maryland division of the American Chemical Society in a ceremony on December 11 in Towson.

Hosmane, a faculty member at UMBC for 20 years, was honored for his career contributions to biomedical research, including the development of anti-cancer and anti-viral drugs as well as for creation of a powdered, artificial blood mix for use in emergency transfusions.

Hosmane is the third UMBC chemist to be named Chemist of the Year since the Society began giving the award in 1962. “This award is well-deserved recognition for the outstanding contributions that Ram Hosmane has made to synthetic and medicinal chemistry.” says Ralph Pollack, UMBC chemistry department chair and professor.

“I was surprised and shocked to win this honor,” says Hosmane. “I thought had little chance of winning it considering the fact that the nominations come from all over Maryland, including academia, industry and government.”

Hosmane’s recent breakthroughs include development of bulkier and leaner
forms of the natural building blocks of genetic material, nucleosides and nucleotides. The compounds have shown potential to fight against cancers including prostate, breast, lung, leukemia, colon, skin, kidney, brain and ovarian. The compounds also show promise against a dozen different viral infections, the major ones being hepatitis B and C, West Nile and herpes.

Hosmane’s artificial blood invention holds promise as a universal substitute for whole blood during emergency transfusions. The artificial blood requires no typing or cross-matching, is free of bacteria or viruses and is storable as a dry powder for indefinite periods of time. It can be carried to the scene of accident and administered as a buffered salt solution in water without having to transport the patient to the
nearest hospital.

Since joining the UMBC faculty in 1982, Hosmane has contributed well over a hundred original research articles in peer-reviewed, international scholarly journals and he is also the author of a half-dozen patents and disclosures on a variety of themes. He has been continuously funded since 1984 by both federal agencies and industrial partnerships. In addition to his research endeavors, Hosmane has trained
more than 75 scientists from all over the world, including undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scientists and visiting professors.

Two years ago, Hosmane won the “Outstanding Educator of the Year” award from the Maryland Association for Higher Education (MAHE). He was the UMBC Presidential Research Professor during 1998-2001, and has been the Provost’s Exceptional Sponsored Research Fellow ever since that program was initiated at UMBC.

 
Jim Bembry is an associate professor of social work.

Teaching from Experience

As if nearly 20 years of teaching and scholarship weren’t enough, Jim Bembry brings a lifetime of experience to future social workers in his classroom.

Bembry, an associate professor of social work, now realizes that his interest in the field began during his own childhood growing up in a tough Philadelphia neighborhood. “At one point, I got into enough trouble to be sent away for over a year,” he says, “During that time, I met a teacher who gave me a lot of wise advice and helped me learn that I couldn’t fight my way through everything.”

Bembry took that advice to heart and soon put his life back together. A few years later, while a junior majoring in sociology at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, he was offered an opportunity that confirmed his interest in helping other young people overcome the same difficulties he faced in his own childhood. He volunteered to work with troubled students in Worcester’s public schools, where he served as a part-time counselor for three to four schools, meeting with several students at each school. “I couldn’t have been very effective,” says Bembry, reflecting on the experience, “but the kids came to school on the days that I met with them and that was a definite improvement.”

After graduation, Bembry worked for two years as a residential counselor at a facility in Virginia before returning to school for a master’s degree in social work from Temple University. His field placements at Temple included time spent teaching undergraduates, but he was a practicing social worker for seven more years before he began teaching full-time.

Bembry began teaching at UMBC 16 years ago while finishing his doctorate at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He currently teaches the methods courses in both practice and research for social work majors–a combination that even he admits is unusual in his field.

Melding theory with experience and practice, however, has been a hallmark of Jim Bembry’s career. His research continues to examine how to address the needs of underserved and at-risk young people. Currently, he is leading an evaluation of a state program that promotes discussion between state agencies that provide services for children and youth. The program’s directors hope that Bembry’s evaluation will allow them to obtain long-term federal funding that will allow them to offer more coordinated state responses to issues such as school safety and adolescent pregnancy.

On a Mission to Support Women and Minority Graduate Students
 
On December 5, UMBC was honored by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) for its efforts to build a comprehensive, supportive environment for women and minority graduate students
“There has been a 50 percent rate of attrition for doctoral students at U.S. graduate schools over the past 20 years—and among minority students, this figure is even higher,” said Scott Bass, dean of the UMBC Graduate School, as he accepted the CGS/Peterson’s Award for Innovation in Promoting an Inclusive Graduate Community at the Council’s annual meeting in Washington, DC.
“We must diversify and support our graduate student population for the nation to remain a world leader in science, engineering, and technology,” Bass said. “I’m receiving this award today on behalf of the entire UMBC community. This is at the core of our academic mission.”
UMBC, one of Newsweek’s hottest schools in America, has earned national acclaim for its comprehensive support for minority science and technology undergrads. The university is best known for its Meyerhoff Scholars Program. Founded in 1988, the program regularly sends large numbers of minorities on to advanced studies in science, technology and engineering at such institutions as Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. The scholars are among the best in the nation, many of whom turn down scholarship offers from Ivy League schools in favor of the personal attention they receive at UMBC.
Now Bass and Janet Rutledge, associate dean of UMBC’s Graduate School, are on a mission to expand that comprehensive approach to graduate students. “UMBC has done a tremendous job at the undergraduate level, so we’re primed to do the same at the graduate level,” Bass says.  
Rutledge, the first African American female to receive a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech’s electrical engineering program, knows firsthand the challenges minority Ph.D. students face. “There’s a feeling of invisibility,” says Rutledge, who concentrated on the scarcity of minority science Ph.D.’s as program director in the Division of Graduate Education at the National Science Foundation prior to coming to UMBC. 
Hrabowski, Bass and Rutledge preach the mantra of better mentorship between faculty and graduate students as the key to getting more minorities and women to excel in science, math, engineering and technology graduate programs. “I’m a product of the national minority engineering education movement of the 1970’s,” says Rutledge. “There was a big emphasis on mentoring. If we’re to achieve the diversity we’re looking for with graduate students, we must mentor.”
Rutledge sees the two-year award from as a big step towards drawing national attention to the problem and hopefully spreading the comprehensive model to other U.S. campuses.
Earlier this year, Rutledge was instrumental in landing a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to establish the Maryland Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (MAGEP), a consortium of universities led by UMBC that includes the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore. MAGEP seeks to expand the principles of UMBC’s Meyerhoff Program throughout other disciplines to build graduate student recruitment, mentoring and professional development statewide.
Bass and Rutledge point out that the UMBC faculty is dedicated to the mission as much as they are. Michael Summers, the only Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in Maryland and winner of the 2000 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, recently volunteered to expand the Meyerhoff graduate biomedical program. Summers started with two minority students and has since grown the program to include 31 students across six departments.
“Our faculty sees this opportunity to be unique in the nation, and they have seized it,” Bass says. “At other campuses, often this type of mission is peripheral; you’ll see an office of minority affairs on the side somewhere. But here, as administrators, we’re just responding to faculty who really want to do this. They’re saying ‘Give us the tools and we’ll do it.’ ”
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

/b> to address the longstanding issues surrounding the gender gap in IT.

CWIT Advisory Board Member Anne Spence, a lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering with a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering, understands the challenges of being a woman in a technical field. “One of my college professors told me that women should not be engineers, so I got the highest grade in the class to prove him wrong,” she says. “When I graduated with my degree I had six job offers. I did encounter initial resistance as an engineer at Bell Helicopter, but I was always able to get rid of the resistance by proving myself.”

“Motivating girls to get involved in IT requires that we offer opportunities for them to work with computers in non-threatening environments,” Spence adds. “Computer Mania is one of those environments. It also gives the girls an opportunity to meet role models — from college age women to business leaders and college faculty.”

Spence believes that Computer Mania will help diminish the “geek” stereotype that discourages young girls from IT and will provide resources to help them understand the importance of technology in every aspect of their lives. “Most girls start to lose interest in math and science during middle school. It is crucial that we keep them engaged during those years to make sure that they are taking upper level math, science, computer and engineering courses when they reach high school,” she says.

As a child, Spence says that both she and her brother were “raised to do anything we wanted to do. My father was an engineering professor and my mother an elementary school teacher. Often, we would go to a field near our house to launch the model rockets we had built — I thought that was normal! So it never really occurred to me that I could not succeed.”

Because not every young girl is so lucky, Spence set out to provide mentors for her female students at UMBC. She is advisor for the University’s chapter of Mentor Net, a national program that provides mentors for women studying engineering and computer science. “Some of the young women in my classes are not only the first member of their family to major in engineering but they are often the first member of their family to attend a university,” she explains. “This is a very difficult position since, often, they have very little support from home. That’s where my own role as mentor comes in to play. I can encourage them and show them that women can succeed in the field.”

Spence hopes to continue inspiring both girls and boys alike to learn more about engineering at an earlier age. She recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a program that will introduce engineering in middle and high school algebra classes across Maryland. “The students will see how algebra is used to solve engineering problems, not just how many apples and oranges you can buy for one dollar,” she says. When she’s not at UMBC, Spence is incorporating practical hands-on projects and engineering challenges at Oak Hill Elementary in her hometown of Severna Park, Maryland.