Stories

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

The Eyes Have It When you think of advanced, complex visual systems – eyes with far more acuity of vision than human eyes – you do not think of shrimp. Tom Cronin does. He collects samples of a variety of the animals to study how they view the world, and to see if anything he can learn from them would be useful to us. Specifically, Cronin, a professor of biological sciences at UMBC, studies mantis shrimps, named because of their folded arms and tilted, mantis-like stance. The creatures – some of which are edible, and can range in size from… Continue Reading Discovery – Summer 2010

When Robin Keller Mayne ’69, American studies, graduated from UMBC, she wore no robes and no mortarboard. There was no crowd to cheer her across the stage. In fact, there was no stage. It was 1969, just three years after the university opened its doors, and one year before its first official commencement ceremony. So instead of publicly turning a tassel – or even giving much thought to her pioneer status in UMBC’s history – Mayne quietly collected her books and resumed her daily life as a mother and teacher. “I feel as though it was just an accident that… Continue Reading First of the Fab Fours – Robin Keller Mayne ’69, American studies

With Jim Lord ’99, Design Director, Creative Services They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but how about an old Dawg? As universities change, mascots evolve along with them, and so it goes for True Grit this summer with the rollout of a brand-new look, as voted upon by more than 2,500 students, faculty, staff and alumni. Creating a new athletics mascot for UMBC was more than a simple point of pride for Design Director Jim Lord ’99, visual arts – it was a matter of keeping up with the big boys of university athletics. As designer… Continue Reading How to Give a Dawg a Facelift

Most members of the UMBC community who drive between the university’s main campus and its south campus don’t know that they’re passing a bit of Baltimore’s cultural and religious history along the way. Tucked on a hill near south campus is the motherhouse of the Oblate Sisters of Providence – a Catholic religious community founded in the United States by women of African descent. During her studies at UMBC, Sharon Knecht ’99 and ’03 M.A., history, became involved in helping the Oblates tell their uniquely American story. In the following essay, Knecht shares her experience as an archivist with the… Continue Reading Pictures From Providence – Sharon Knecht ’99 and ’03 M.A., history

When Reid Thompson ’85, biological sciences, was named chairman of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Neurological Surgery this past fall, it was yet another big step forward on a road that began at UMBC. The recipient of the Outstanding Alumnus in Natural and Mathematical Sciences in 2008, Thompson credits UMBC with giving him a wide-ranging store of knowledge that has helped to shape him as a surgeon, a researcher and an administrator. “One of the things I learned at UMBC was a different way of looking at the world,” says Thompson. “A broad way of looking at the world that comes… Continue Reading The Matter of Mind – Reid Thompson ’85, biological sciences