UMBC STEM Initiative (USI) is an out-of-school time program for 1^st through 4^th graders.  It was created with two things in mind: students’ academic and personal growth.

Academic: While USI is an academic program, it will be different than the school day.  We value the natural curiosity of children and will use it to engage USI Scholars in fun, hands-on reading, math, and STEM activities. 

Enriching: USI wants Scholars to try new things, so they will get to do things like create art and music, play sports, and build robots from LEGOs. 

Giving: USI cares about the community and believes that everyone, including children can make a difference.  Scholars will work on a service-learning project of importance to them.

 USI Fellows

We are seeking 4 Fellows to co-facilitate After-School Program activities.  Specific responsibilities include: 1) Co-facilitating all aspects of the program (homework help, academic and enrichment activities, community meeting, transitions between activities); 2) Collaborating with Lakeland teachers in the planning and delivery of academic activities; 3) Leading one enrichment activity per week (i.e. sport; robotics; chess; performance arts); 4) Supervising volunteers (UMBC students); 5) Serving as a “real” model to USI Scholars.

These positions require a time commitment of 8 hours per week.  Fellows must be available Monday and Wednesday OR Tuesday and Thursday from 2:30-6:30pm.   Preference is given to applicants who can commit to the full 27-week program calendar: September 30-December 12,2013 and January 6-May 16^, 2014.  A stipend of $2200 is offered for fulfillment of the total commitment of 8 hours per week for 27 weeks.  Fellows will also be enrolled in the Shriver Center’s 096 Leadership Practicum, so they will have a transcript notation of their work.

 Please complete the following and return it to Ms. Rehana Shafi.

Room 106C Academic Services Building (1-story building behind the Commons)

 Applications are due NO LATER THAN 5 p.m. on Wednesday, September 18, 2013.

Interviews will be scheduled the week of September 23^rd-26^th.

Selected Fellows will start immediately the week of September 30^th.

 If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact Ms. Shafi!  You can stop by her office (Room 106C Academic Services Building), email her at rshafi@umbc.edu, or call her at 410.455.1736.

The Political Science Department is currently looking for two students to represent UMBC at the Student Conference on US Affairs. This annual four-day conference takes place at West Point October 30 - November 2. The theme for this year is: Navigating Demographic Flows: Populations, Power and Policy.

The Department will cover the registration fees and travel costs for the two participants, and the conference hosts will provide lodging and meals. For those of you interested in foreign affairs, in particular, this is an excellent opportunity.

I am pasting information from the organizers below. While their site has not been updated with the current announcement, more information from last year's conference can be found at:

http://www.usma.edu/sosh/sitepages/scusa.aspx

If you are interested, please email Dr. Grodsky (bgrodsky@umbc.edu) with a one paragraph statement of interest (in the email body), describing your motivation and qualifications. Please also include your GPA.

The deadline is September 20.

Information from organizers: 

"West Point hosts SCUSA every fall. It is the largest, oldest, and most prestigious undergraduate conference of its type in the world. Approximately 200 undergraduate students from over 100 colleges and universities worldwide attend SCUSA. Throughout the conference, the student delegates and cadets debate and formulate policy recommendations that realistically model American strategic responses to significant national and global challenges.  The highlights of the four-day conference include the opening senior panel discussion on the evening of October 30th, an evening keynote banquet address, four roundtable sessions, and a closing-report session on November 2nd.  Recent keynote speakers have included Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, Dr. Leslie Gelb, Admiral James Stavridis, Dr. Rajiv Shah, and Ms. Susan Eisenhower.

"Our organizing theme this year is 'Navigating Demographic Flows: Populations, Power and Policy.'  Our goal is to have the cadets and undergraduate delegates consider the current direction and velocity of demographic trends across regions and topics, and then determine how US policy might manage these trends into the future to best advance US interests." 

Teachers College, Columbia University Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics is an online journal
(http://www.tc.columbia.edu/tesolalwebjournal) dedicated to publishing research in progress in the fields of TESOL and Applied Linguistics.

Within a conceptual framework that values an integration of theory and practice, the journal publishes full-length articles dealing, in a principled way, with language, language acquisition, language teaching, and language assessment. The journal also publishes interviews, short commentaries, and book reviews.

The Editorial Board is currently accepting manuscripts for future issues. Articles submitted to the journal should normally be no longer than 8,000 words. Each paper must begin with an abstract not exceeding 200 words. No information that identifies the author should be included in the paper. A separate title page should be provided, with the following information: title, the author's name, affiliation, address, e-mail address and both a daytime and an evening telephone number. Contributors may submit their papers in either of two ways. Three printed copies (double-spaced throughout) or an electronic version of the initial submission should be sent/e-mailed to:

TESOL/AL Web Journal
Teachers College, Columbia University
Box 66
525 West 120th Street
New York, NY 10027
E-mail: tcwebjournal@tc.columbia.edu

Manuscripts submitted should follow APA format. Works referred to should be separately listed at the end of the article. Submission Preparation Checklist is available at
http://journals.tc-library.org/index.php/tesol/about/submissions

Questions concerning submission can be directed to Catherine Box, Editor
(tcwebjournal@tc.columbia.edu).

--
Catherine DiFelice Box
Editor

Teachers College, Columbia University Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics

Department of Africana Studies,

 Tyson King-Meadows, Ph.D.

Beginning Fall 2013

Dr. Tyson D. King-Meadows is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). He is also an affiliate of the Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR), an affiliate of the Department of Public Policy, and a Faculty Fellow of the Honors College. He received a B.A. in Political Science from North Carolina Central University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His primary research interests concern African American political behavior and attitudes, identity politics, race and representation, Congress, and elections. His other research interests involve democratization and public attitudes toward democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. King-Meadows has been involved in numerous community service and engagement, professional development, and academic enrichment initiatives, ranging from the Shriver Center Advisory Board, the President’s Commission for Women, and the McNair Scholars Program to the Honors College Advisory Board, the URCAD Committee, and the CAHSS Black Faculty Committee. Dr. King-Meadows has received a number of teaching, service, and research awards, including a fellowship to the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African American Research at Harvard University, a Fulbright Scholar Award to Ghana, West Africa, a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for a residency at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University, a residency as a Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Africana Studies, a grant from the National Science Foundation, and an American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellowship. He has also served as an Alumni Ambassador of the Fulbright Scholar Program. Dr. King-Meadows is active in the American Political Science Association (APSA) and the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA). He has served as president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS) [from 2011 – 2013] and currently serves as its treasurer. Dr. King-Meadows is particularly interested in exploring the impact of black political engagement, civil rights law, identity group politics, and racial representation on the black socioeconomic condition from the latter twentieth century to present day. For example, see the recently released book When the Letter Betrays the Spirit: Voting Rights Enforcement and African American Participation from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama (Lexington Books, 2011). This book draws from government data, legislative history, Supreme Court decisions, survey results, and the 2006 reauthorization debate to examine how executive and judicial discretion facilitates violations of the Voting Rights Act. While challenging the executive-centered model of leadership on voting rights, this book puts forth a Congress-centered leadership model that would satisfy the goals of the black civil rights movement and give fuller support to the Fifteenth Amendment. His next book (forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press) examines contemporary racial identity politics and the senatorial and gubernatorial candidacies of black federal representatives. Dr. King-Meadows’ next book length project examines the dynamics of racial group identity politics in the public and congressional response to the 2009 nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Dr. King-Meadows is also co-author with Thomas F. Schaller of Devolution and Black State Legislators: Challenges and Choices in the Twenty-first Century (State University of New York Press, 2006).