Amid ongoing precarity and multiple global crises, graduate programs in the United States continue to develop approaches to mentoring students through their studies and into employment. These efforts must create flexible, responsive, and enduring networks of care that offer students relationships attuned to their specific needs while engaging broader initiatives centering equity and justice. 

UMBC + UMB WRITING CENTERS PARTNERSHIP: HIRING GRADUATE STUDENTS

To contribute to these efforts, the UMBC Writing Center and the Writing Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), are partnering to share resources and offer UMBC graduate students the opportunity to apply for paid positions as peer writing consultants through the UMB Writing Center. 

Successful candidates will join the UMB Writing Center staff, working one-to-one with writers at UMBC and/or UMB in on-campus and in online graduate-level courses, as well as with UMBC and UMB staff and faculty writers and writers across Baltimore communities. These positions are especially ideal for graduate students interested in careers involving these fields: 

• teaching
• information literacy
• intercultural communication
• science communication
• publishing and editing
• academic research
• public advocacy
• public health and policy
• community-engaged non-profit work. 

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, + INCLUSION EXPERIENCE FOR HIRED GRADUATE STUDENTS

Newly hired graduate students will also participate in rigorous, ongoing training in consultation practice and, importantly, will join the Baltimore Writing Center Project (BWCP)—a collaboration among a diverse, interprofessional group of writing center administrators and graduate and undergraduate peer consultants from Baltimore metropolitan-area universities. 

This project focuses on how writing centers can leverage institutional resources across Baltimore City to grapple with structural and systemic racism inside and beyond the academy. Participants confront linguistic racism and the reproduction of white language supremacy in writing practice and research by engaging in multimodal composition strategies, egalitarian processes of consultation practice, and intersectional counter-storytelling.

Applications are processed through the UMB Writing Center’s employment page. 

Are you ReADY?

Facilities Management and Residential Life are excited to announce the launch of our new customer request portal ReADY for faculty, staff, and students to report maintenance issues and to request services, effective Wednesday, June 22, 2022.

ReADY is a user-friendly application which runs on all smart phones, tablets, and computers.

ReADY allows all campus users to request services, using an easy-to-follow system of tiles and dropdown selections. Based upon your affiliation as a faculty/staff, commuter student, or residential student, you will see a customized set of tiles to report issues and request services for buildings, grounds, roadways, and other infrastructure.

Access ReADY via this link using your UMBC email and password:

https://umbc.assetworks.cloud/ready

Customers will receive email notifications and be able to monitor status of requests by clicking on Process or Notifications in ReADY. 

For current AiM Users, ReADY replaces the AiM work order request process. The AiM interface for requests will be disabled at 5 pm on Tuesday, June 21, 2022.

A ReADY user guide and additional information is available on Facilities Management’s website:

https://fm.umbc.edu/work-request/

Accessibility and Disability Services works in strong partnership with Facilities Management and will be updating their Work Control information - though the on-the-go process for calling in a condition remains 410-455-2550 from any phone.  Campus faculty and staff are encouraged to bookmark the site to assist with prompt repair resolution.  

As always with Accessibility & Disability Services - please report accessibility concerns at any time via our online form linked here.

A photo of a toolbelt with a hammer and wrench accompanies this post.

The UMBC Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship
Application Deadline: Friday, July 15, 2022

The Dissertation Fellowship is designed to provide doctoral candidates at UMBC an opportunity to devote the necessary concentration and attention towards finishing the writing of their dissertations. The Fellowship is specifically designed for students with full-time jobs off-campus, for those without any financial support who are making steady progress with their writing, and for whom having additional time and resources would permit them to complete the process more expeditiously. This Fellowship is not available as an option for students with available graduate assistantship support.

The Dissertation Fellowship could provide promising doctoral candidates with financial support so that they may reduce their current obligations and partially offset any reductions in salary or increases in expenses. No additional work assignments other than work on the dissertation are to be associated with this support.

Priority will be given to students who demonstrate that the Fellowship will allow them the needed time to complete their writing and to make revisions in time to defend the work within a realistic but expeditious time frame. Awards will be made to students who have demonstrated a commitment to provide at least 20 hours per week for an entire academic semester to writing the dissertation.

Dissertation Fellowship awards are available for Fall 2022. The duration of an award is for one semester. The maximum level of support for Fall is a total stipend of $10,000 per Fellowship plus tuition remission for two credits of 899. Dissertation fellows are required to register for 9 credits of 899 (which is billed at 2 credits). We will provide tuition remission for the cost of 899 only. Please note that fellows are required to pay for 2 credits of mandatory fees associated with 899.

To be considered for a Dissertation Fellowship, the Ph.D. candidate must:

• be in good academic standing;
  
• provide a letter of support from the Chair of the Dissertation Committee that:(1) describes the state of the dissertation and the probable impact of receipt of the Fellowship on the progress toward completion; and, 2)verifies that no UMBC-administered financial support is available for the student;
• provide, if employed outside the university, written evidence from the student's employer indicating the employers willingness to reduce job time and duties in order for the student to participate in the Fellowship;
  
• submit a dissertation abstract of no more than two pages in length; and
  
• submit a 1 to 2-page management plan signed by the Chair of the Dissertation Committee describing the status of the dissertation work, the steps required to complete the work, and the feasible time line for completion.
  
• Identify, if a prior recipient of a Dissertation Fellowship, the prior term (e.g., Spring 2021) in which the Fellowship was received.

Applications for Fall 2022 Dissertation Fellowships will be accepted by the Office of the Associate Dean of the Graduate School until 4:30 p.m., Friday, July 15, 2022. Completed applications MUST be submitted via email as a single PDF to DFFall2022@umbc.edu. A committee consisting of three members of the Graduate School Leadership Team will review applications and announce recipients of the Fellowship by Friday, August 5, 2022. Selection will be based on the extent of convincing evidence that the award will provide the critical element needed to complete the dissertation.