The Baltimore Sun  recently published an article about a series of volunteer opportunities organized by the Jewish Federation of Howard County on Christmas Day. Last year, 250 volunteers participated throughout the day, and this year, the Jewish Federation is partnering with Food on the 15th and the Asian Studies Food Pantry program for low-income Asian seniors.

Asian Studies Program Management Specialist Julie Rosenthal is founder and director of Food on the 15th and was quoted in the article discussing the overall impact of the volunteer program.

“We are partnering with the Jewish Federation for Mitzvah Day because we want to provide a rewarding experience for children of any age and their parents,” said Rosenthal. “Helping to deliver food to a low-income senior citizen building in Howard County brightens the day of not only the residents living at the building that are receiving the delivery, but also the students, parents and families doing the delivery,” she added.

To learn more about the Asian Studies Food Pantry program, click here. To read the full article in the Baltimore Sun, click here.

History Professor Kate Brown has been named to the Physics World 2014 Books of the Year list for her book Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2013). Physics World is a publication issued by the United Kingdom’s Institute of Physics. Below is an excerpt describing the process for selecting the ten best books of the year:

“As in previous years, the entries on our ‘Book of the Year’ shortlist are all well written, novel and scientifically interesting for a physics audience. They represent the best of the 57 books that Physics World reviewed in 2014, being highly commended by external experts (the diverse group of professional physicists and freelance science writers who review books for the magazine) and by members of our own editorial staff, who helped winnow the field down to a shortlist of 10.”

In a blog post announcing the finalists, Physics World provided the following description for Brown’s book:

“This hard-hitting look at life in the ‘atomic cities’ that produced plutonium for the US and Soviet nuclear arsenals during the Cold War will make compelling reading for many physicists. Those who have a professional interest in radiation safety or the nuclear industry will have special reason to be outraged by the long list of environmental crimes described in Kate Brown’s important book, which also featured in a Physics World podcast earlier this year.”

The winner of the physics book of the year will be announced in a podcast on December 16. For more information, click here. The honor was the latest in a series of awards that Brown has received for Plutopia.

Photo Courtesy National Academy of Public Administration

Earlier this month at the National Academy of Public Administration annual meeting, Political Science Professor Roy Meyers was inducted as a new fellow for the organization. The Academy is an independent, non-profit organization that assists government leaders to build more transparent, efficient, and effective organizations.

The fellowship program includes prominent scholars, former members of Congress, cabinet officers, governors, business executives, and public administrators who provide valuable insight and support, guidance to the organization, and address emerging policy issues while contributing to intellectual and popular discourse on government.

Meyers was formerly a principal analyst with the Budget Analysis Division in the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. For Meyers’ biography page on the Academy website, click here. To read more about the National Academy of Public Administration fellowship program, click here.

Zane Berge, professor of education, has won two prestigious Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) awards. Berge was named the winner of the Distance Education Book Award, which is given for the outstanding book published within the last three years that describes important aspects of distance education, theory, or examples that can help others involved in distance education or research on an important aspect of distance education. The award-winning book Handbook of Mobile Learning (Routledge 2013) was co-edited by Berge and his colleague at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, Lin Muilenburg. For more information, click here.

Berge also received the Distance Learning Division Journal Article Award for his publication “Barriers to Communication in Distance Education,” published in the Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (January 2013). The article describes how improvements in distance education technology have lead to opportunities to overcome barriers to ineffective communication and the complexity of those barriers faced by participants.

The awards were announced earlier this month during the Distance Learning Division luncheon at the AECT annual conference.