How did you get through UMBC? Many UMBC alumni do it the hard way. Working day jobs (or the night shift) as they earn their degrees. They didn’t just thirst for knowledge; they broke a sweat to make sure that they got it. Count two alumnae featured in this issue – Robin West ’76, philosophy and Tootsie Duvall ’75, theatre – among that group. West is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and one of the nation’s most prolific and provocative legal theorists. And Duvall’s acting career has spanned four decades and includes network sitcoms and the HBO series,… Continue Reading To You – Fall 2010
CRIMSON ACCOLADE On a bright and sunny late May morning in Cambridge, MA, UMBC’s president Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, received one of the most prestigious awards offered in American higher education: an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard University. Hrabowski was one of a group of 10 recipients that included Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Cech, retired U.S. Supreme Court justice David Souter and Oscar award-winning actress Meryl Streep. In her remarks on the occasion, Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust called Hrabowski “a galvanic force in his university’s ascent, spurring success against the odds. A leader whose wellspring of… Continue Reading The News – Fall 2010
American Studies professor Kimberly Moffitt felt like a stranger when she moved to Baltimore. But her research on public attitudes about the gritty HBO crime drama brought the city closer to home. By Richard Byrne ’86 Photos by Howard Korn When assistant professor of American Studies Kimberly Moffitt arrived in Maryland and moved into the Liberty Heights neighborhood in the northwest section of Baltimore four years ago, she had an almost immediate aversion to the place. For Moffitt, Charm City wasn’t so charming. “I’ve lived in a number of major cities,” she says. “New York, Boston, Chicago and D.C. And… Continue Reading Tapping Into the Wire
It’s no surprise that an Honors University in Maryland has a chapter of America’s longest-lived and most prestigious academic honor society. But hosting a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), founded in 1776 at The College of William and Mary, requires an intensive application and review process by the organization. Success is a sign of great distinction and intellectual rigor – especially at a university as young as UMBC. Jay Freyman, associate professor of ancient studies and first president of UMBC’s chapter, Anna Shields, current president and director of UMBC’s Honors College and outgoing Phi Beta Kappa chapter president and… Continue Reading Over Coffee – Fall 2010
PLAYING WITH TYRE As the lights dim to signal the commencement of the UMBC Theatre Department’s production of William Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the audience doesn’t quite know what to expect. The makeshift theater set up in the university’s Imaging Research Center (IRC) already defies expectations: A table for a stage. Actors dressed in all black. At last, one of the actors picks up a toy man and gives it the deep booming voice of King Antiochus. A version of one of Shakespeare’s more difficult plays – blending technology and stagecraft – takes off. The creative minds in UMBC’s… Continue Reading Discovery – Fall 2010
MAKING THE GRADE Points on the scoreboard aren’t the only ones that UMBC’s women’s basketball team is scoring. Team members are also racking up the grade points. The team was recognized by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) for posting the third-highest grade-point average in the country among NCAA Division I teams. Only Utah Valley (3.630) and South Dakota State (3.622) earned higher GPAs than UMBC’s women’s hoops team (3.578) in Division I. And the Retrievers ranked 13th in the country among schools from all divisions. The high marks were also the best-ever ranking for an America East conference school.… Continue Reading At Play – Fall 2010
Spend a semester inside UMBC’s pioneering Chemistry Discovery Center and you’ll find that its successes are rooted in teamwork – and two hours a week without Twitter and Twinkies. By Ann Griswold Photos Chris Hartlove Think Chemistry 101 is hard? A few years ago, Bill LaCourse, chair of UMBC’s chemistry department, devised a way to simultaneously make it seem harder. He called his invention the “Chemistry Discovery Center.” Students call it “the isolation tank” or “boot camp.” LaCourse’s brainstorm is housed in a brightly-lit room on the second floor University Center – just a horseshoe toss from the chemistry department’s… Continue Reading An Elemental Education
The Erickson School’s masters program for the Management of Aging Services (MAgS) counts among its alumni professionals as diverse as lawyers, publishers, artists, nursing directors, and, of course, seniors housing executives – hailing from states as far away as Texas. But one small retirement community in particular – Quaker-directed Broadmead in Cockeysville, Md. – dominates the school’s young crop of alumni with seven graduates, including the company’s CEO, Rich Compton ’08. It started with Compton hiring fellow classmate, Diana Givens ’08, midway through the program to become Broadmead’s Director of Community Excellence. Before even graduating in December 2008, Compton knew… Continue Reading Broad(mede) Vistas Aging
As a journalist and an author, UMBC English professor Christopher Corbett has a knack for finding marvelous and mislaid stories past and present. By Rafael Alvarez Christopher Corbett once chased news for the Central Maine Morning Sentinel, the last daily newspaper in New England to use hot type before computers took the noise out of the business. It was the final gasp of an epoch, when copy was still lowered down to the composing room in a wire basket to a few old goats who remembered the days of the newsroom telegrapher. “We wrote about bean suppers and lists of… Continue Reading Chasing Tales
