All posts by: Magazine Editor


Congratulations to the Alumni Scholarship Recipients!

The UMBC Alumni Association is pleased to offer scholarships to outstanding current UMBC undergraduate students. This year, the Alumni Association was proud to award scholarships to four deserving students. Eligible students may apply for general and legacy scholarships worth up to $1,500. Applicants for general scholarships must:

Be a rising senior scheduled to graduate in the 2011-2012 academic year

  • Have completed at least one semester of study at UMBC
  • Have earned a cumulative GPA of 2.75 or higher
  • Have unmet financial need

Applicants for the Legacy Scholarship must:

  • Be the child or grandchild of a UMBC graduate
  • Be a degree-seeking undergraduate student with at least 45 credits
  • Have completed at least one semester of study at UMBC
  • Have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher
  • Demonstrate campus or community leadership and involvement

The 2011-2012 winners are…

Continue reading “Congratulations to the Alumni Scholarship Recipients!” →

Three UMBC Alumni Recognized through “20 in their 20s”

In The Daily Record‘s inaugural year of recognizing Maryland’s top “Twenty in Their 20s,” three UMBC alumni made the list. Eduardo Gonzalez ’06, attorney with Hearne & Bailey in Salisbury; Aaron Merki ’05, associate with Venable LLP in Baltimore; and Alicia Wilson ’04, associate with Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander LLC in Baltimore, were selected by The Daily Record staff for this recognition. Honorees were chosen on the basis of professional accomplishment, civic involvement and impact of achievement. According to The Daily Record, “the program celebrates the best and brightest under 30…whose creativity and spirit are already contributing to a new energy in Maryland.”
Learn more about the awards and see video from the recent awards ceremony.

Touched by a Nobel: Phillip Fitzgerald '11

It’s not often one gets to meet a Nobel prize winner. But here’s our very own recent salutatorian, Phillip Fitzgerald ’11, biochemistry and molecular biology, rubbing elbows with Ei-ichi Negishi, who won the chemistry prize last year.

As you might imagine, this meeting was not a complete coincidence. Phillip, who plans to pursue an M.D./Ph.D. at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine this fall, is the second UMBC student in as many years to attend the annual meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany. (Read the full story here.) Perhaps someday he’ll be the first UMBC Nobel winner!

Where the Choices are Endless: Seth Sawyers '99, History

Headshot of Seth SawyersGrowing up in rural western Maryland, history alumnus Seth Sawyers ’99 couldn’t possibly have known what was in store for him — or how his world would expand — as a student at UMBC. Now a writing lecturer at UMBC, Sawyers shares some of those initial experiences in an essay appearing in The Morning News:

When I was 18, I left the skinny part of Maryland and woke up in a place paved over with asphalt, girded by concrete, nourished by it. I awoke fascinated by the mechanized hum, disoriented, wide-mouthed before the man-made angularity, the downtown steel visible from the top floor of the college library. I woke up that September in the middle of the great flowering of the American Dream. I woke up in the suburbs.

Read the full story here, and link to additional essays by Sawyers.

Jordan Hadfield '07, '08 on Fatherhood in Dundalk Patch

Expectant father, UMBC alumnus and UMBC development office Jordan Hadfield ’07, ’08, shares memories of his father, Ken Hadfield, Jr., in an essay in the Dundalk Patch.

While a student at UMBC, Jordan served as president of the Student Government Association, and also was a founding member of the a cappella group The Mama’s Boys.

Read the full story here.

Interview: Songwriter Adam Trice '04, English, in City Paper

English alumnus Adam Trice ’04, discusses his “graveyard country rock” band Red Sammy in a new interview with Baltimore City Paper editor Lee Gardner.

Read the full interview here.

After graduating from UMBC, Trice earned his M.F.A. in creative writing and publishing arts from the University of Baltimore. His band, Red Sammy, recently released a third album, A Cheaper Kind of Love Song.

Bob Mumma '94, Econ, Named New Head Baseball Coach

UMBC has named 1994 economics alumnus Bob Mumma the new head coach for baseball. Mumma, who was drafted by the White Sox following his graduation from UMBC, has served as assistant coach to the team for the last 15 seasons. He was inducted into UMBC Athletics’ Hall of Fame in 1997.

Mumma succeeds John Jancuska, who had coached the men since 1978.

Read the full press release here.

Gib Mason '95 to teach entrepreneurship course at UMBC

Via the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship:

In the spirit of entrepreneurship itself, the Alex. Brown Center is pleased to announce a new minor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation this fall. This new minor will not be housed under any one major, allowing any student to declare it and any faculty member to incorporate it in their curriculum. Faculty Fellow Bill LaCourse says the initial spark for the minor was to “infuse entrepreneurship into the university, looking for methodology and pathways that don’t disrupt the system.” He goes on to explain that everyone at UMBC is an entrepreneur – everyone here is in the “business of education,” from learning and teaching to grant writing and research.

Two new entrepreneurship courses will be introduced this fall. Both courses will give students a good entrepreneurial mind set and skill set that will be invaluable to them as they head into their own disciplines. Entrepreneurial Mindset, taught by guest instructor and serial entrepreneur Gib Mason ’95, will give students the tools necessary to apply entrepreneurial thinking to their studies, work and life. Through case studies, texts, projects, magazines and blogs, students will explore what it means to think like an entrepreneur, and how they can establish and leverage an entrepreneurial mindset to achieve career success. Mason says, “I am a very passionate person. My hope is that I can instill in the folks that take the class a passion behind one’s ideas and desires.” He is excited to return to a campus he knows very well and to “unlock the entrepreneurship in all of us.”

Entrepreneurship at UMBC…

Alumni Documentary Wins Film Festival

“Lift Up,” a new documentary on post-quake Haiti co-directed by Huguens Jean ’12, Ph.D., electrical engineering, and Phillip Knowlton ’03, visual arts, will have its film festival premiere this Sunday, June 5, 5:30 p.m., at the 2011 DC Caribbean Film Festival.

The creators of “Lift Up” also recently announced that the film received the Best Documentary Directing Award at the 2011 Amsterdam Film Festival. The juried festival received entries from over 20 countries this year.

Held at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD, the DC Caribbean Film Festival is co-presented with the Caribbean Association of World Bank and IMF Staff (CAI), Caribbean Professional Network (CPN), Institute of Caribbean Studies (ICS) and TransAfrica Forum. “Like” the film on Facebook to access future screening details.

Family of Alumnus Missing in Libya Seeks Help of Congress

The family of missing UMBC alumnus Matthew Van Dyke ’02, political science, has sought the aid of Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger in raising the profile of his case. Van Dyke, 31, who has not been heard from since March 13, is believed to have gone missing with several fellow journalists while traveling in Libya.

During a press conference at Van Dyke’s mother’s home yesterday, Ruppersberger told the Baltimore Sun he planned to introduce a resolution about the missing journalist on the House floor.

Read the full Baltimore Sun story here.

View coverage on WJZ-TV.

Read an April story about the search in the Atlantic magazine.