Katlyn Easter analyzed instances where responses on self-report questionnaires and clinician interviews disagreed in screening for psychosis-risk symptoms. Find out what psychosis is, and how looking for patterns in mismatch rates can improve psychosis-risk identification at URCAD 2016!

See our attached UMBC calendar of events highlighting what's happening on campus for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!!  This calendar is produced by Student Life’s Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity and highlights some of the many events happening this month at UMBC.  All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.  

Stay tuned to this post for updates as the month unfolds! 

Learn how Parental Stress Impacts Children’s Effortful Control through Maternal Psychological Well-Being and Physical Coercion

Children’s effortful control (EC) predicts their behavioral, emotional, and academic outcomes. Parents can undermine children’s EC by employing highly controlling parenting practices such as physical coercion (PC). Asian-American parents are characterized as more controlling than European-American parents. However, the processes through which contextual and personal characteristics lead to controlling parenting practices and ultimately Asian-American children’s EC is unknown. Asian-American mothers may experience high levels of parenting stress (PS) as immigrants navigating their new environment, which may impair their psychological well-being (PWB). Furthermore, mothers with decreased PWB might be more likely to use PC, which undermines their children’s EC. The present study examined if Asian-American mothers’ (N=111) PS predicted their PWB, which in turn predicted maternal use of PC, and ultimately their preschool children’s EC, using questionnaire data. Serial mediation analysis indicated that higher PS predicted lower levels of maternal PWB (a1=-0.90, SE=0.17, p<.001), which in turn was associated with an increased use of PC. Higher PC was ultimately associated with lower levels of children’s EC (a3=-0.02, SE=0.01, p<.01). All indirect effects were significant. Implications for the implementation of culturally-appropriate programs will be discussed.

A blog reflection written by Women’s Center student staff member Meagé Clements. This post is an expansion of her statement in the UMBC Women’s Center and Women of Color Coalition’s “I’m Not” anti-stereotype campaign for the Telling Our Stories project, which we posted about here.

It’s been over a year since I first read recent UMBC alumna and former Women’s Center student staff member Bria Hamlet’s blog post Blackish: Telling My Story and her words continue to resonate with me. She described how she often felt that her blackness was invalidated by others because she didn’t fit the “stereotypical Black mold.” Her blog post made me recall my own experiences with microaggressions and respectability politics, even before I had words to describe what I was facing.

Upon thinking about my “favorite” microaggressions to include on my anti-stereotype poster for the Telling Our Stories Project, a million ideas popped in my head; several about my name, a few about my natural hair, but most were about me being — or not being — “Black enough,” and how other people often take it upon themselves to decide when I am capable of being associated with my blackness.

Growing up, I attended predominantly white schools, but I had always surrounded myself with a small yet diverse group of friends. I remember several times when my Black and non-Black friends alike would joke about how my “Black card should be revoked” or how I was “barely Black” for any number of reasons.

Most often, it came down to the fact that by being an introvert, I couldn’t possibly be Black. Because I wasn’t the stereotypical “loud Black woman,” I wasn’t Black enough. Because I grew up in a two-parent household, I couldn’t be Black. Because I “spoke like a white girl,” I wasn’t deemed Black enough.

Since when did each of these things become associated with Blackness and why were they the determinants? What exactly did it mean to be “Black enough?”

Due to stereotypes associated with being Black, people often assume that there is a singular Black experience and that there is a set of definitive criteria to test one’s blackness. If someone doesn’t appear to conform to X,Y, and Z, they are deemed less Black. At the same time, it seems as if people regard stereotypical white traits as “good,” and stereotypical Black traits as “bad,” which further perpetuates harmful dichotomies.

Consequently, Black people become torn between the societal pressures to assimilate to “mainstream” culture and the pressures to embrace their cultures and express themselves freely. My grandparents are Black, my parents are Black, and I have always identified as Black, too. Yet as I grew up, I found myself constantly attempting to “prove” my blackness in one way or another.

My name is Meagé and I’m not “barely Black.”

However, I soon realized that this was useless. Living in a society where appearance and first impressions are so influential, I learned that no matter how I act, I am always going to be Black and I am going to continue to experience the discrimination associated with being a Black woman. Whether I “speak like a white girl” or not, my voice coming from my body is still subject to scrutiny. I am going to continue to experience discrimination because of my “Black-sounding” name, and, regardless, I am going to continue to embrace being a Black woman.

Most importantly, I learned that no one is capable of defining me but myself. I’ve always been Black, I’ve had the experiences of a Black woman and I have nothing to prove. People need to recognize the diversity that exists among Black women. We have different skin tones, talents, quirks and, most importantly, we have different personalities and traits that make us unique. Instead of policing Black women and attempting to define their blackness with a finite set of traits, we should “celebrate the fullness of Black womanhood” and realize that we are more than the media misrepresentations, the stereotypes, and the assumptions.  

To talk more about this topic and other issues impacting women of color, Women of Color Coalition meets weekly on Tuesdays at 5pm. This Women’s Center discussion-based program is open to all self-identified women of color in the UMBC community. 

Braxton Dubin, Samantha McDonald, Niara Comrie, and Nicholas Carter have been researching an alternative use for 3-D printing- creating technology to help therapy patients!

Their goal is to create customized and inexpensive materials and familiarize the professionals with the equipment for creating their own 3-D models. Find out more about their research techniques and findings at this year's URCAD!

A playlist brought to you by Women’s Center staff member, MJ Jalloh Jamboria

As we approach the end of Women’s History Month, I wanted to share a playlist I made for a Women’s History Month Empowerment Program. The playlist features some throwbacks, a few current jams, Beyoncé (more than once) and I throw in Kelis’ “Milkshake” just for fun!

Get up and dance like this kid

Check it out on Spotify or YouTube below!

DJ Rekha: Ambassador of Bhangra

I will present DJ Rekha’s “Basement Bhangra Anthem” and discuss the various influences this piece reflects. DJ Rekha is a New York-based DJ, producer, educator, and curator. The New York Times called her the “Ambassador of Bhangra.” Bhangra is a style of folk music and dance from the Indian state Punjab. DJ Rekha is known for being one of the first DJs to merge the classic sounds of Bhangra and Bollywood with contemporary hip-hop and dance-hall beats. One of her notable songs is “Basement Bhangra Anthem.” Musician and composer Wendy Carlos can be seen as an influence. Carlos popularized the Moog synthesizer with the release of her 1968 album Switched-On Bach, which featured Bach compositions played on a Moog synthesizer as well as film scores in a more popular musical language. Carlos combined classical music with electronic music. DJ Rekha is also a musical pioneer. She was raised in an Indian family and faced criticism for being passionate about hip-hop. She took her passion for music and made a career out of it by fusing different musical styles to create a new musical genre. I am investigating the cultural melting pot of her music.

Probing the Secondary Structure of the Monomeric Conformation in the HIV-1 5`-Leader RNA by NMR Spectroscopy

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the AIDS pathogen, proliferates within infected human helper T cells, compromising an otherwise healthy and responsive immune system. Viral replication is mediated by the 5`Leader (5`L) element in viral genomic RNA. This 5`-L RNA exists in an equilibrium of two structural conformers – monomer and dimer, by which it directs and mediates viral assembly and replication. Here, we demonstrate an approach to probe for and characterize secondary structure in the 5`-L monomeric conformer by high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, a technique used for high-resolution biomolecular structural studies. Signal assignment and validation of characteristic peaks in NMR experiments designed to explore the through-space interactions of base-paired residues provide evidence to support the formation of distinct secondary structures in our proposed model. Our study of the HIV-1 5`-L monomeric conformer structure and the processes that this highly conserved RNA sequence mediates in retroviral replication not only provide further insight into our current understanding of the functional and dynamic nature of three-dimensional RNA structure, but also highlight potential therapeutic value in the monomer as a drug target in clinical medicine.