Stories

The rise of chess as a symbol of UMBC’s aspirations as an honors university coincided with the appointment of UMBC professor of computer science Alan Sherman as the faculty advisor of the UMBC chess club in 1991. Sherman was committed to renovating the university’s chess identity, and the program he led steadily shot up the national rankings between 1991 and 1996. He helped pioneer innovations now considered essential in the world of college chess: scholarships, use of technology, and a recruitment of young chess superstars (including a number from Central and Eastern Europe). UMBC’s team has worked hard to maintain… Continue Reading Fall 2015: UMBC’s Elite Chess Team

Want to get a sense of the changes at UMBC over its four decades of existence? Map it out. In 2010, the firm Ayers Saint Gross created a brand new map of the UMBC campus (right) that will replace the university’s current maps over the next few months. The creation of a new campus map is a good occasion to take a look back at how UMBC mapped itself out in its earliest days. The campus map below was created in 1970, when UMBC had a total of 13 buildings and a half-finished loop. We’ve also noted a few other… Continue Reading Summer 2010: Mapping Out UMBC

UMBC had yearbooks in 1968, 1969, 1970, and 1986 – and they remain an invaluable source of information about the early history of the university. What about those other years? We need your help. So we’ve created a new digital space (‘Retriever Stories’) so alumni and others in the UMBC community can share their experiences of UMBC. Read more about it on page 6 of this issue – then dig out your old photos and memories and join us at retrieverstories.umbc.edu.

September 20, 1969 – The Velvet Underground “I was just a couple of weeks into freshman year, straight out of Loyola High School, and still struggling to get the hang of the looser, hippier culture that was UMBC at the time, when the Velvet Underground played a concert there. “I confess my memories of it are vague. Partly that’s because we were all then experimenting with consciousness-altering substances of one sort or another. But mostly it’s because I was with a girl I must have met just a week or so before. I think I remember the concert was in… Continue Reading Fall 2010: Past vs. Present Quadmania

Today’s control booth (below) in the Black Box theatre of UMBC’s Performing Arts & Humanities Building is filled with sleek, cutting-edge equipment, like a Yamaha digital mixer, and used as much as a teaching lab as the nerve center for lighting and sound. While the technology may be eons ahead of that found in the control room of the past, though, nothing could ever replace the heart of shows past, as evidenced by (above) the underside of this plywood board used in the old theatre both as a makeshift tech table and a Sharpie-tastic yearbook of productions from as far… Continue Reading Spring 2017: Preserving the Old Theatre

Ancient studies at UMBC has always meant to travel, as we discovered when Phyllis Hicks Clark ‘70, history, shared her photos with UMBC Magazine of a 1969 ancient studies trip to Greece. Forty years later, UMBC students went back to Greece on an ancient studies-organized trip. Here are some photographic relics of both journeys. Picture Captions: The amphitheatre at Epidauros (330 BCE), shot in 2009. 1969 UMBC sojourners caught Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on film at an Athens market. Larry Wilder ‘70, biological sciences, at Olympos. Billy Johnson, a current student in Ancient studies, at the Temple of Athena Aphaea on… Continue Reading Winter 2010: Traveling the World with UMBC’s Ancient Studies

It’s only 7:15, doors open at 8 so surely I will get a good spot in line; or so I thought. You can imagine my dismay to find that the line into the RAC Arena stretched all the way past the Biology Building and was wrapping back around; I got comfortable in front of the Meyerhoff Chemistry Building. The line continued to grow and eventually went far up the steps between Sherman Hall and the University Center. The line that wrapped around our UMBC campus – and somehow managed to fit inside the RAC – was for none other than… Continue Reading Reflections on Trevor Noah at UMBC

In its almost two decades, the Women’s Center at UMBC has touched countless lives. As the center and its staff (left) begin a yearlong celebration of its 20th anniversary in September, acting director Jess Myers is looking for your memories of this UMBC Institution. Does our collection of Women’s Center memories jog your own memory? Find out more about the ‘100,000 Stories – Which One is Your’s?’ commemoration and how you might get involved or share your story at www.umbc.edu/womenscenter/.

When learning to play an instrument, you have to jump right in. This is what I learned when I recently stopped by one of the rehearsals for UMBC’s student Gamelan ensemble taught by Professor Gina Beck. The Gamelan is an Indonesian instrument made up of separate parts all contributing to its warm, relaxing sound. The saron, bonang, gong, and kendang, for example, are some of the different instruments used in an ensemble. UMBC’s Gamelan course is offered every semester and is made up students from a diverse set of majors. Anyone is welcome to take the course for credit, even… Continue Reading UMBC’s Gamelan Ensemble

Whether it’s 1967 or 2011, the arrival of a new set of freshmen at UMBC is always a headline event. (Especially when you move in during Hurricane Irene!) And now that the university has cemented its transition from a primarily commuter campus to a residential campus, move-in day becomes a bigger event each year. In 2010, 74% of incoming UMBC freshmen lived on campus! Let the invasion begin!

Congratulations to