All posts by: UMBC News Staff

“What is the main reason you are here?”

That’s the question Stephen Slowe asks at the end of every training session he holds with the UMBC students who work alongside him as maintenance assistants.

Slowe says that he often gets the same answers from his trainees. “I’m here to learn how to fix locks.” Or, “I’m here to earn money.” Each time, however, he corrects them: “Your main job here is to get an education.”

Slowe has worked at UMBC since 1984, and he received his 30th year service award at a ceremony in December. He spent his first year at the university as a contractual groundskeeper, and became a permanent employee in the carpenter shop in 1985.

In 2003, Slowe moved to the university’s lockshop, where he worked until July 1, 2012. Then he joined a new team in the facilities maintenance offices that opened in the residence halls under Chesapeake dormitory. Slowe is one of the few facilities management personnel to work on the maintenance staffs of both academic services and residential life.

Over his 31 years at UMBC, Slowe has seen the university grow and change dramatically. And his work hasn’t all been repairing locks worn out by use. In that time, campus residences have been modernized, with card readers now replacing keys on the doors of many buildings. Along the way, Slowe has enlarged his professional skills and adapted his considerable knowledge of the campus to ensure that students are safe and that everything works as it should.

But while new buildings have sprung up in nearly every part of the campus, and the diversity of UMBC’s population expands, Slowe sees cohesion and community at the heart of the UMBC experience. The university has come a long way, he explains, but he sees UMBC students, faculty, and staff as “one unified community. You have different sections within the community, but one community.”

Slowe is especially proud of his work with UMBC students, and especially the student employees he trains in facilities management. He says the student maintenance assistants (also known as “MAs”) who provide most of the basic maintenance fixes across campus are the “first line of defense to troubleshoot problems.” They work with Slowe and the rest of the facilities management team to keep the university in proper working order.

Slowe says teaching the MAs to perform basic lock maintenance is only one part of his job. The other part of his work is anchored in that question he always asks his students. He is committed to keeping those with whom he works focused on their education and the real reason they are attending UMBC.

“Power is knowledge,” says Slowe. “When someone wants to show you or teach your something, learn it. I ain’t been around here for 52 years for nothing.”

— Nichole Zang Do ’15

Even in its earliest days, UMBC had a bookstore. At the university’s founding, the bookstore was the “go-to” place for the textbooks and course materials students needed to succeed.

A university bookstore is also a hub of university life – selling everything from batteries to swag – and strategically placed to be where the students are. For many years, UMBC’s bookstore was located in the Academic Services Building and in the University Center before moving to its current two-level home in The Commons.

The appeal of a career in the university bookstore biz was something that Robert Somers – the longest serving director of the UMBC Bookstore – was undecided upon when he took a job there in 1990. The man now known on campus as “Bookstore Bob” recalls thinking that working in a university atmosphere would either “keep him young” or “kill him.”

There have been sweeping changes in how students obtain the materials they need for courses over UMBC’s history. But talk with Somers and Ralph Anderson, the bookstore’s manager of shipping and receiving (who arrived at UMBC in 1982) and you get a sense not only about those shifts in technology and delivery, but also their commitment to and enthusiasm for the work of learning and building community at the university.

Anderson recalls that when he joined the UMBC staff in 1982, many more people knew about the nearby Community College of Baltimore County (known back then as Catonsville Community College, or CCC). It was a time, Anderson says, when “the library only had two stories, there were only three dorms, and work on the apartment buildings was just beginning.”

Both men say that one of the hallmarks of UMBC’s bookstore through the years has been a commitment to customer service. As a veteran of larger book retailers such Follett Books and Barnes & Noble, Somers brought his knowledge of best practices to campus. Both men agree that talking to their customers, including student workers, to find out what customers need is essential. As Somers puts it, it’s important to ask, “Who are we selling to?” Part of answering that question is making a regular effort to “go straight to the horse’s mouth” and “find out what students need” by asking them directly.

Another part of customer service is getting UMBC students and other members of the university community the best possible prices, especially since much of what the bookstore sells is required reading. Doing so in the age of online discount retailers such as Staples and Amazon presents significant challenges, and in some areas (such as office supplies, including furniture and file cabinets), large retailers’ ability to offer lower prices at the click of a mouse led UMBC’s bookstore to phase out the sale of such items.

Reflecting on the ability of online retailers to provide these items quickly and cheaply, Somers says, “You can try selling these other items…but who’s going to buy them? In today’s world, students can get what they need in 24 hours and at a better price.”

The digital age does offer the UMBC bookstore new opportunities as well. Somers and Anderson are both excited about “The Course MaterialsInitiative,” a new program launching this spring, which will provide materials for 12 courses exclusively via UMBC’s Blackboard system. Though Somers readily acknowledges that students will likely “always be able to find course materials cheaper elsewhere,” he says his negotiations with the publisher of the materials means “the vast majority of UMBC students are going to benefit from the initiative’s very low pricing.”

One area in which the UMBC Bookstore has undoubtedly boomed is the increasing array of UMBC-branded items on offer, keeping pace with the university’s ever-growing alumni base. Somers reports that, “Whether it’s a UMBC mug, a notebook, or a tie, those sales are way up,” and estimates that sales of clothing emblazoned with the UMBC logo “have probably tripled” since he arrived in 1990.

Visiting alumni may also be pleased to see that the bookstore’s Yum (Your University of Maryland) Shoppe is still going strong. Somers and Anderson say that have worked hard over the years to ensure that the shop offers exactly what students want at the lowest prices possible. Anderson notes that not only is the Yum Shoppe competitively priced, but that it offers a variety of items not found anywhere else in the greater Baltimore area – from British candy bars to sodas normally sold only in the Southern United States. Even if just one student requests stocking a particular item, Anderson says, the Yum Shoppe will carry it. It’s part of a personal touch and a sense of community at UMBC that both men identify closely with the leadership of President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III. “At UMBC if you need help, all you have to do is ask for it,” says Somers.

— Theresa Donnelly ’13

UMBC is lauded for its strength in undergraduate teaching and its ability to involve undergraduates in academic research across disciplines. But how was this culture created?

Some of it was there from the beginning in the hiring of young, ambitious professors who were eager to innovate. That pioneering spirit was crucial to the creation of UMBC’s interdisciplinary studies program (first known as “Option II”) in 1969. But much of the infrastructure has been developed by staff members dedicated to student success.

UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program, created in 1988, is one of the landmark contributions to student success at the university – and has become a national and international model for creating greater diversity in STEM disciplines through concentrated cohort learning.

Ernestine Baker, former executive director
of UMBC’s landmark Meyerhoff Program.

Earnestine Baker, served as director and later executive director of the program before turning over the reins to her successor, the late LaMont Tolliver, who was succeeded by Keith Harmon. She recalls being in the room for the very first meeting with UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, to create the initiative in July 1988. Tackling a problem that had bedeviled American higher education for decades might have seemed daunting, but Baker says, “I never felt that it was a risk from the first day.”

Baker says offering the students in the program challenges and support in equal measure was a key to success. “I knew having worked with [UMBC] students that we had capable students who were not working consistently at the highest levels,” she recalls.

Setting a high level of expectation was a key to the program’s success. “A student would say ‘I got a 95,’” says Baker. “But we were always asking ‘What happened to the other five?’” Yet those expectations were accompanied by a “supportive environment” that included not only formal academic advising from faculty and staff, but “social and moral support and encouragement.”

Baker says that by the third year of the Meyerhoff Program, she realized that it was going to work. “You could see the culture changing,” she says. By the fifth year, she adds, “we observed Meyerhoff students displaying the strong values and goals of the program.”

The Meyerhoff Scholars Program was aligned with UMBC’s vision of itself in that era as an “Honors University in Maryland” – and it remains a significant point of pride for the university. But perhaps the most compelling part of the Meyerhoff story is how its culture spread throughout the entire institution, spurring new projects to promote student success to a growing number of UMBC students across colleges and disciplines.

Kathy Sutphin ’95, political science, is assistant dean for academic affairs in the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences.

As assistant dean for academic affairs in the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, Kathy Sutphin ’95, political science, has had a key role in creating, implementing and/or supporting a number of projects to assess and advance student outcomes, including new teaching spaces such as the CASTLE and the Science Learning Collaboratory. She has also been active in programs that support transfer student success (the CCCSTEP, and the STEM Transfer Student Success Initiative) and help provide pathways for students into research careers (the MARC U*STAR Program at UMBC). Sutphin’s most recent project – the STEM BUILD at UMBC Initiative – was recently funded by a $18 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

“I think we identify an area that we want to explore, and then we expand it.” For example, the Chemistry Discovery Center paved the way for the CASTLE, which was fun to put together with Provost Philip Rous. And then [William LaCourse, dean of CNMS, had the idea of doing the Science Learning Collaboratory, and now these projects have evolved into the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building. “We learn and grow, and keep trying to do a better job.”

Sutphin came to UMBC in 1995 from a career in journalism, which she says was good preparation for grant writing. She worked with the biological sciences department (including supporting the renovation of the Biological Science Building), before moving to the newly created College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences in 2005. She identifies increasing collaboration across the university as a key to success in new projects.

“It used to be UMBC had gotten as far as it had because the faculty and staff were very talented, and lots of times they could use their talents in roles and they would excel. But there were many small shops that were often dependent on one person. And now everything has grown and evolved, so you don’t just have one person. You have groups of talented people, and then they work together to make a difference.”

Jill Randles, assistant vice provost and assistant dean for undergraduate education.

Balancing innovation in student success with strong fundamentals is just as important. One staff member who ensures that this happens is assistant vice provost and assistant dean for undergraduate education Jill Randles, who manages the university’s programs to boost undergraduate student success – including an array of first-year programs that get new students off to a flying start.

Randles arrived in 1992, working as a one-stop advising and assistance shop for evening students at UMBC. “I was the adviser,” she recalls. “I was the person who did their IDs and laminated them. I did everything for them.”

Eventually Randles moved to the College of Engineering and Information Technology, where she handled undergraduate student services for the college before moving to the provost’s office and working on undergraduate success across the entire university community.

Randles treasures her role as one-on-one adviser, and has made sure to maintain that individual contacts as she addresses broader issues. She also cherishes the diversity of the student community she serves. “When the first student I ever advised was a Russian immigrant,” she recalls, “I thought this is a place where I’m going to learn something different, and I’m going to learn more about the world community and be a part of something that’s more integrated with a global perspective.”

Preserving a balance between developing new ideas and building on successes is essential to preserving UMBC’s reputation as a model for undergraduate education. “I think we are learning how to be more strategic about the things we think are good
ideas, and I think that will serve as well,” Randles observes. “But I would not want this institution to be any less dynamic. I think that is one of the things that keeps it interesting and creative. But I do think we have to be thoughtfully dynamic…. I think we attract people who have that same sense of ideas and creativity. It’s an institution full of people who like to do things.”

— Richard Byrne ’86

Clolita Vitale ’75, theatre, started her influential career at UMBC as a resident assistant.

The UMBC journey of Clolita Vitale ’75, theatre, eventually took her to a top leadership position at the university. But one of her first steps was moving into one of UMBC’s then-new residence halls as a student.

Vitale vividly recalls the thrill of those first days of dorm life at UMBC. When she arrived at the university, the first dormitory building had not even opened. But as soon as Dorm I (now “Susquehanna Hall”) was ready in autumn 1970, Vitale was one of the first to move in.

As a student and then as a resident assistant (RA), Vitale lived in all three dorms built during her years as a UMBC student. “There was a certain excitement about being the first ones in the dorms,” she says. “UMBC was a little ahead of the curve back then.”

UMBC’s dorm rooms were relatively modern for that era, equipped with phones, individually controlled heat and air conditioning, and bathrooms shared between two rooms instead of communal showers and toilets.

Vitale remembers UMBC’s first resident students as a close-knit group who gathered together regularly outside in the mini-quad between the buildings, in each dorm’s lobby, or in her senior year, on the patio of what was once known as Dorm III. (Now known as Patapsco Hall.)

“We used to be out there all the time,” says Vitale, who after graduation held jobs in UMBC’s purchasing department, and then as director of procurement, before eventually becoming an assistant vice president and general counsel for the university until 2007. In every case, that work kept her involved in the growth of UMBC’s resident student community.

Along with Mark Behm, who was vice president of administrative affairs from 1988 to 2005, Vitale was involved in the planning, design, and furnishing of each new residential project. She remembers choosing furniture and looking at fabric swatches. “It was kind of like designing your house,” she says. “We were pretty much involved in the whole process.”

She brought her own experiences as a resident student to the work. “I had a lot of interaction with students doing that,” recalls Vitale. “This is your university. How can we make it work for you?”

Jim Milani ’73, political science, expanded
programs for UMBC’s resident students.

Making UMBC resident students feel at home has also been a driving force in the careers of current UMBC staffers Jim Milani ’73, political science, and Nancy Young, the school’s current vice president of student affairs.

Milani worked in UMBC’s Office of Residential Life from 1978 to 1987, and for the last five years served as its director. A desire to enhance the experience for resident students was in his mind each time he answered an emergency call or scheduled a program.

“We stressed a community where you appreciate differences,” says Milani, who is now the director of administrative affairs in the College of Engineering and Information Technology. “We’re all different, but that’s okay. You respect one another and you take care of one another,”

Milani, who holds a master’s degree in counseling and previously worked on UMBC’s counseling staff, organized student workshops to help build community. Most notable was a student wine tasting held as part of an alcohol education program, but other workshops focused on leadership, dating, and racial sensitivity.

UMBC also expanded its housing options beyond dormitories during Milani’s tenure. Students clamored for apartments but had few options off campus. So UMBC built its own.

The first complex, West Hills, was designed as much to meet the needs of faculty or staff families, recalls Milani. The students who lived there were polled for recommendations in planning the Terrace and Hillside apartments.

“Student voices mattered,” Milani says. “We got our best ideas from students.”

UMBC’s transformation from a commuter school – once expected to have 20,000 day students – to a residential campus where 75 percent of freshmen now live on campus and students can reside in “living learning communities” has meant even more growth.

Nancy Young says residence halls are a key part of the “cultural interaction” at UMBC.

When Nancy Young joined the Office of Residential Life in 1986, UMBC offered 1,500 beds in its three 1970s-era dorms and the two apartment complexes. Now it boasts over 3,500 places in 31 buildings. She has overseen construction of virtually every residence since – first in the Office of Residential Life where she later became co-director, and since 2007 as vice president for student affairs.

Young says one of her priorities is to ensure every residence hall has “double-loaded corridors” that require students to interact with fellow residents. She cites post-graduation assessments from students that recall fond memories of interactions with students with different life experiences and cultures. “The residence hall is where most of that cultural interaction takes place,” she says.

Both Milani and Young credit previous residence life directors Dave Herman and Clarence Robinson for fostering what Young describes as “a sense of an individual caring for students” that continues to this day under Kim Leisey, associate vice president for student affairs.

“We really are a culture of care,” Young says.

Milani concurs. “Since the first students occupied the residence halls at UMBC, there has been a cadre of professional staff and student staff who focused on creating and developing environments that fostered the academic, personal, intellectual, cultural, and social development of our residents,” he observes. “In this sense, every generation has stood on the shoulders of those who came before and further developed the system that they inherited.”

Young observes that these values have endured. She recalls a retreat held before UMBC’s 40th anniversary during which students, alumni, faculty, and staff discussed what they valued about their campus experience. Students from each decade chose the same core values: family, growth and opportunity, diversity, superior academic achievement, and pioneering spirit.

“We have become the place we are, reflecting our values from the 60s that continue to weave through all 50 years of our experience,” Young says. “Students matter. I want them to have all the benefits of a large research university with all the warmth and personal care and attention of a small liberal arts college. For me that’s what UMBC is.”

— Mary K. Tilghman ’79

Ernie Kent ’77, M.P.P. public policy, recently returned to campus to talk about her time as one the first group of 12 students enrolled in UMBC’s public policy master’s program – a group dubbed “the Dirty Dozen.”

Many of those students – including Kent and other members of the program’s first graduating class of seven students in 1977 – went on to have distinguished careers in public service in Maryland and elsewhere.

Indeed, Kent was among the most knowledgeable and effective figures in Maryland politics from the 1960s through her retirement from state government in 2000. Her career was spent mostly behind the scenes, starting as a researcher for the Maryland Constitutional Convention in 1967–1968. Her achievements and her passion for making state government function better won her key positions under a number of Maryland administrations – starting with Governor Marvin Mandel in 1968 – and in the private sector.

In December 2000, Baltimore Sun political columnist Barry Rascovar lauded Kent’s roles in streamlining of Maryland’s governmental structure under Governor Mandel and in a number of state redistricting efforts, calling her “one of those silent heroes with an institutional memory and a grasp of government detail who makes government work.”

Kent also played a role in the founding of UMBC’s highly-regarded Public Policy program – which became the UMBC School of Public Policy in 2015. “We were asked to be part of the program,” recalls Kent, who was impressed by the wide range of governmental experience and discipline represented in the first group of graduates.

A picture of the program’s first seven graduates that Kent provided to UMBC Magazine illustrates that perfectly. Along with Kent, who was still a member of Governor Mandel’s staff at that time, one sees her husband, Jack Kent ’77, M.P.P. public policy, who was then an assistant secretary in Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and became a delegate in the Maryland House of Delegates and a senior executive at Sheppard Pratt Hospital. There is another future member of the Maryland House, Larry LaMotte ’71, sociology, and ’77, M.P.P. public policy, in the photo, along with Lauretta De Busk ’72, psychology, and ’77, M.P.P. public policy, who worked as a planner at Maryland’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and later joined the U.S. State Department. The late Ben Kleinberg, a professor of sociology who was one of the initiators of the program, is there as well, along with the late Sonia Sheinbach ’72, political science, and ’77, M.P.P. public policy, who worked for the Baltimore Social Services Administration, and her husband, Jerry Sheinbach ’77, M.P.P. public policy, who ran the Medicare Program at Social Security in Baltimore.

Kent says she “learned from the interchange of ideas with other members of the class and the teachers.” The program’s professors were drawn from disciplines including sociology, history, economics, psychology, and political science, and students even had the chance to use some of the university’s early mainframe computers. “I also acquired some computer skills,” Kent recalls, though she also remembers that results could vary “depending on which way you put the cards in.”

UMBC’s graduate programs in public policy have come a long way since that first class. The program admitted its first class of Ph.D. students in 1978 – and its doctoral program has become one of the largest in the nation, celebrating its 40th anniversary in November 2014.

“I am amazed how much the program has grown,” Kent says, “and how many tracks were now available to the students, as well as many more course offerings.”

— Richard Byrne ’86