MIPAR and Hilltop Awarded $750,000 Grant for Healthy Homes Research

Sep 11, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded a 3-year, $750,000 grant the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR), The Hilltop Institute at UMBC, and the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative™ (GHHI) to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the reduction in asthma and associated Medicated expenditures resulting from the implementation of GHHI interventions. GHHI is a national program spearheaded by the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning. GHHI integrates health-based housing interventions with weatherization to create access to healthy homes for children in low-income neighborhoods. The UMBC study will focus on GHHI interventions in the homes… Continue Reading MIPAR and Hilltop Awarded $750,000 Grant for Healthy Homes Research

John Rennie Short, Public Policy, in The Atlantic Cities

Sep 11, 2013 / 2 minutes of reading

In advance of last Saturday’s announcement that Tokyo will host the 2020 Summer Olympic Games, public policy professor John Rennie Short offered a fresh take on how to make the games more sustainable: keep them in the same place. Short suggested to writer Nate Berg, in an article for The Atlantic Cities, that instead of asking cities to invest billions of dollars in new Olympic venues the OIC should create a single site that would function more or less as an international city-state, overseen by the United Nations, to host the Olympics and its training in perpetuity. “There would be maybe… Continue Reading John Rennie Short, Public Policy, in The Atlantic Cities

Once again, UMBC has been named one of the top national universities “where the faculty has an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching”

Sep 10, 2013 / 2 minutes of reading

UMBC was ranked #6 on U.S. News and World Report’s Best Colleges Guide’s list of schools with the “Best Undergraduate Teaching,” along with such universities as William and Mary, Berkeley, Princeton, and Brown. UMBC has also again been named the top national university for “promising and innovative changes.” This is the 5th consecutive year that UMBC has topped this “Up-and-Coming” list. “I’m encouraged that our colleagues around the country continue to recognize the quality of our academic program. Our faculty and staff are consistently looking for creative ways to strengthen teaching and learning on our campus, and we are proud… Continue Reading Once again, UMBC has been named one of the top national universities “where the faculty has an unusually strong commitment to undergraduate teaching”

Freeman Hrabowski shares UMBC culture, values and history with incoming students at 2013 Convocation

Sep 10, 2013 / 2 minutes of reading

At the 2013 UMBC Convocation, held on Tuesday, August 27, President Freeman Hrabowski welcomed incoming students and shared UMBC’s continued national recognition, the importance of the civil rights movement in opening the doors for diversity in education, and what it takes to succeed at UMBC – and in life. Dr. Hrabowski spoke to a crowd of more than 1,500, sharing his experience growing up during the civil rights movement and how those tumultuous times ultimately led to social and political change that made it possible for many more Americans – of all backgrounds – to attend college and earn degrees.… Continue Reading Freeman Hrabowski shares UMBC culture, values and history with incoming students at 2013 Convocation

Exhibition Curated by Lisa Moren, Visual Arts, Previewed in the Washington Post

Sep 9, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

Cyber In Securities curated by Lisa Moren, visual arts, and presented by the Washington Project for the Arts, received a positive review from the Washington Post, labeling it as a display that “should be one of the fall’s most discussed local exhibitions.” Read the article at the Washington Post’s website: “Fall gallery shows: ‘Cyber In Securities,’ ‘Silver Clouds,’ ‘This is Labor’” The exhibition features work by 13 artists or teams, “who contemplate the role of information-gathering, including surveillance by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. . . All use technology to comment on technology and its implications.” Cyber In Securities is on view through… Continue Reading Exhibition Curated by Lisa Moren, Visual Arts, Previewed in the Washington Post

Eric Zeemering named Fulbright Canada Scholar

Sep 4, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

Dr. Eric Zeemering, an assistant professor of public policy, has been named a 2013-14 Fulbright Scholar by Fulbright Canada. He will spend five months at the University of Ottawa investigating how urban sustainability is defined in Canadian cities, with special attention on how social policy and programs are integrated with economic and environmental initiatives. Dr. Zeemering’s research and teaching interests focus on public management, intergovernmental relations and urban policy (see video below). [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzVW-RaTDiY&w=560&h=315] To learn more about Dr. Zeemering’s work, read his upcoming profile in UMBC Magazine, online and in print later this month. Fulbright Canada is a binational, treaty-based… Continue Reading Eric Zeemering named Fulbright Canada Scholar

UMBC ranked as a top college where students get ‘best bang for their buck’

Sep 4, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

According to a recent PolicyMic ranking, UMBC is listed as a top ten school where students get the ‘best bang for their buck’ in terms of cost, graduation rates and starting salary, and debt at time of graduation. Using recent data for average student debt upon graduation, starting salaries, tuition and room and board for four-year universities, six-year graduation rates, and percentage of students who qualify for Pell grants as rough indicators, the rankings identified the top dozen schools that are performing above average.

Christopher Corbett, English, in the Wall Street Journal

Sep 4, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

Christopher Corbett reviews Michael Daly’s Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked Tailed Elephant, P.T. Barnum and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison, the story of dueling impresarios and the American appetite for curiosities surrounding a grim and poignant recount of the public electrocution of a so-called rogue circus elephant. “‘Topsy’ is a fascinating but disturbing story, a skillfully told and admirably researched reminder of a time not as long ago as we’d like to think,” said Corbett. “The material is sometimes thin, more the making of a long magazine piece than the subject for a 345-page book, but it is full of fabulous… Continue Reading Christopher Corbett, English, in the Wall Street Journal

Donald Norris, Public Policy, in The Baltimore Sun

Sep 3, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

The Baltimore Sun reports that support is building among lawmakers to raise Maryland’s minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to at least $10 an hour. Why now? Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC, says, “People are running in a primary election for governor, that’s what’s different.” In addition to citing the support some candidates hope to get from labor, Norris says he also senses a legitimate concern among politicians about the growing number of workers who have been struggling, since the recession, to survive on $7.25 an hour. Whether or not this support translates into the… Continue Reading Donald Norris, Public Policy, in The Baltimore Sun

Dennis Coates, Economics, in The Baltimore Sun

Sep 3, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

The U.S. Olympic Committee is expected to decide on a site to propose for the 2024 Summer Games in September 2015. Under the plans DC 2024 — the group exploring a Washington, D.C. bid — Baltimore-area venues would stage Olympic events and Baltimore would support the games with transit and hotel infrastructure. Critics are asking what benefit this would bring to the city and region, and if the costs could outweigh the revenue. Econimcs professor Dennis Coates told The Baltimore Sun that the Olympics are a financial boon to the International Olympic Committee, but not necessarily to the host cities. “The question… Continue Reading Dennis Coates, Economics, in The Baltimore Sun

Thomas Schaller, Political Science, in The Baltimore Sun and New Republic

Sep 3, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

In his latest Baltimore Sun opinion column, political science professor Thomas Schaller suggests that persistent and growing dependence on federal subsidies like food stamps, unemployment insurance and Medicaid “implies that economic inequality is worsening” in the U.S., in contrast to “preposterous warnings about creeping socialism.” Schaller cites data indicating that between 2009 and 2011 overall household incomes grew by 14%, but while wealth rose by 21% for the wealthiest 13% of Americans, it actually declined for every other wealth category in the bottom 87%. In time for Labor Day, the New Republic has highlighted another of Schaller’s Baltimore Sun columns,… Continue Reading Thomas Schaller, Political Science, in The Baltimore Sun and New Republic

Ryan Bloom, English, in the New Yorker

Sep 3, 2013 / 1 minute of reading

English lecturer Ryan Bloom’s The Life of the Artist: A Mimodrama in Two Parts, a translation of Albert Camus’s “Notebooks 1951-1959” (Rowman & Littlefield), has been published in the New Yorker. Bloom’s translation was nominated for the 2009 French-American and Florence Gould Foundation’s Excellence in Translation award.

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