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Art Matters Zachary Handler, who graduated magna cum laude from UMBC in May, begins a master’s degree in arts administration at Columbia University this fall. “My goal and dream in life is to start a visual and performing arts secondary school for deaf youth,” says Handler, a Linehan Artist Scholar who majored in visual arts. Handler is a American Sign Language Program creator and drama teacher at the Green Acres Day Camp (Rockville, Maryland). He has been a teacher’s assistant in deaf and hard-of-hearing K-12 classrooms and an arts assistant at the Maryland School for the deaf. He first became… Continue Reading Art Matters

The Power of Social Work In high school, Tera Foster decided she wanted to be a social worker after participating in a local social activism project dealing with sexual assault awareness. Now Foster is a member of the first class to graduate from the Universities at Shady Grove, where she received hands-on training and participated in community service. UMBC is one of eight University System of Maryland institutions that offer upper-division courses leading to a bachelor’s degree at the Shady Grove Center in Rockville, Maryland. UMBC offers programs in social work and information systems at Shady Grove. “Since the program is… Continue Reading The Power of Social Work

A Passion for UMBC AthleticsUMBC Athletic Director Dr. Charles Brown came to UMBC from his native New York in 1988 looking forward to the challenge of leading a Division I program after several years as AD for Division III Hunter College. “As soon as I stepped on campus, I knew UMBC was a diamond in the rough,” says Brown. “I wanted to take a chance to put UMBC on the map.”Fifteen years later, Brown has exceeded that goal and turned UMBC into a regional dynamo in college athletics. He has just been selected to receive UMBC’s Presidential Distinguished Professional Staff… Continue Reading A Passion for UMBC Athletics

Tomasz Macura loves a challenge.At sixteen, Macura is putting the finishing touches on two Honors Theses for B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science. He will continue studies towards a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Cambridge’s (UK) Trinity College — considered the most prestigious of the 37 Cambridge colleges. Cambridge has more Nobel Prize winning alumni, 70, than any other university in the world. He will be the school’s youngest and he will be its youngest Ph.D. student since World War I.Age aside, Macura stands out as one of the nation’s most promising scholars in the areas… Continue Reading Tomasz Macura, Class of 2003

One of the 1.8 million photographs in UMBC’s Special Collections: Newsboys and Supply Men at Newspaper Office for Baseball Edition,  5 p.m., Cincinnati, Ohio, August 1908 by Lewis Hine “Curating UMBC’s Special Collections”UMBC’s Special Collections Department is one of the country’s leading resources for photography, science fiction, Marylandia, biological science archives, and other notable collections of rare books, artifacts and manuscripts. And it’s all at the fingertips—wearing protective gloves, of course—of the campus community and visiting scholars. As Chief Curator, Tom Beck manages and continues to develop the collection, housed at the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery.UMBC’s Photography Collections… Continue Reading Curating UMBC’s Special Collections

Class of 2003 Valedictorian Erika Danna2003 Valedictorian Erika Danna  Class of 2003 Valedictorian Erika Danna balanced academic excellence, research experience and community service while at UMBC. She accumulated a 4.0 GPA while working in Dr. Suzanne Rosenberg’s lab since June 2001 as one of the first students in the Department of Defense-funded Breast Cancer Undergraduate Research Experience (BCURE) program.A biological sciences major, Danna presented her research findings at two major national scientific meetings, as well as four UMBC-sponsored research symposia. She also was part of the BCURE program’s Race for the Cure team to raise money and awareness for breast cancer… Continue Reading 2003 Valedictorian Erika Danna

An Advocate for the Uninsured When community activist and 1991 UMBC graduate Claudia Lennhoff took the stage recently to receive a $120,000 award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for her work fighting for affordable healthcare for the uninsured, it was the culmination of a personal struggle.Lennhoff was diagnosed with cancer fourteen years ago while she was an undergraduate psychology major and women’s studies minor at UMBC. She was between semesters that summer, and thus had no health insurance.While doctors urged her to seek immediate treatment, she was unable to find a physician in Baltimore willing to treat her without insurance.… Continue Reading An Advocate for the Uninsured

  “Building a Future” For the past 10 years, UMBC students from the University’s Habitat for Humanity  chapter and their advisor, Norma Green, have spent their spring break vacation working alongside hundreds of students in high-need areas across the country in a Habitat for Humanity International program called Collegiate Challenge. This year, from March 22 through 30, Green and 20 UMBC students will build houses in Florida.In addition, on weekends throughout the semester, groups of UMBC students renovate houses in the West Baltimore community of Sandtown. To date, more than 200 UMBC students have helped build or rebuild over 50 houses… Continue Reading Building a Future

  UMBC Psychology chair Carlo DiClemente’s work has revolutionized treatment for alcoholism and drug abuse. The Psychology of Conquering Addiction   Psychology professor and department chair Carlo DiClemente began studying addiction among smokers while completing his dissertation at the University of Rhode Island. Now, more than twenty years later, his research has revolutionized how health professionals treat alcoholism and drug abuse. In October, 2002, DiClemente’s work was recognized nationally when he received one of five Innovators Combating Substance Abuse awards from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). “I was first drawn to studying smoking because it was a behavior that… Continue Reading UMBC’s 2002 Distinguished Alumnus

Tracking a Satellite from the Sea 14 miles offshore from Virginia Beach, UMBC Assistant Professor of Physics Wallace McMillan and a rotating crew of scientists are firing lasers into the night sky and launching weather balloons by day to make sure a new multi-billion-dollar NASA research satellite is working properly.For two months, McMillan and his crew are taking turns living and working aboard the Chesapeake Light, a 1960’s-era U.S. Coast Guard lighthouse platform with a panoramic view of the Atlantic. Chesapeake Light looks a bit like an oil-drilling rig, perched on a rusty steel frame 75 feet above 34-foot-deep waters.“We… Continue Reading Tracking a Satellite from the Sea

  Members of UMBC’s Chess Team and Advisor Alan Sherman (bottom row, left) The Undisputed Kings of College Chess    UMBC has won titles at the “World Series, and the “Final Four” and has now completed the “Grand Slam” … of college chess that is. UMBC’s chess team is well-known as one of the most powerful in the nation, as it has won six Pan American Intercollegiate Chess Championships (The World Series of College Chess) in the past seven years and, in early April, took its first-ever President’s Cup title (The Final Four of College Chess).  They completed their victory… Continue Reading The Undisputed Kings of College Chess