Dear Faculty and Staff,

In past years, we implemented crossover parking during the summer and winter sessions, which enabled faculty and staff to park in additional zones during those times. Due to the increased availability of parking spaces on campus and after consultation with the Parking Advisory Committee,we have made the decision to discontinue crossover parking effective immediately. All faculty and staff are required to park in their assigned areas going forward.

For future parking updates and related information, please follow Parking Services on myUMBC, Facebook, and Twitter. If you have questions regarding this policy change, please contact us at parking@umbc.edu or 410-455-2551.

UMBC Parking Services

The DoIT Technology Support Center is looking to hire additional student consultants to work during the summer semester and beyond. Please see our job description below and visit our job posting on UMBCWorks to apply. (Search for TSC Student Consultant.) The application will be open until June 10, 2022.

We're specifically looking for students available to work during the following hours:

• Mondays 8 a.m. - 2 p.m.; 4 p.m. - 8 p.m.
• Tuesdays 8 a.m. - 10 a.m.
• Wednesdays 8 a.m. - 12 p.m.
• Thursdays 8 a.m. - 10 a.m.
• Fridays 8 a.m. - 12 p.m., 4 p.m. - 5 p.m.

TSC Student Consultant Job Description

Technology Support Center (TSC) student consultants are the first points of technical contact for the UMBC community and those who do well often go on to work in other areas of the Division of Information Technology (DoIT). Minimally, consultants are expected to provide initial triage and support for a wide range of information technologies including accounts, hardware, instructional technologies, networking, software, telecommunications, and basic web development.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Provide technical assistance to users by phone, online and in person;
• Answer TSC phones in a professional and courteous manner;
• Create, update and resolve tickets in the Request Tracker (RT) ticketing system;
• Create, update, suggest and recommend relevant FAQ articles to users (www.umbc.edu/faq);
• Provide direct assistance to users on technical issues they cannot easily resolve on their own;
• Respond to all work-related communications in a timely manner;
• Escalate urgent problems to the Full-Time staff, as appropriate.

Required Skills and Experience

• Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate by phone or in person.
• Demonstrated writing ability.
• Demonstrated ability to achieve successful outcomes in handling difficult situations and customers.
• Demonstrated analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Ability & willingness to learn coupled with a clear understanding of one’s technical abilities, so as to triage and escalate an issue that leads to an effective solution for the user.

This post is written by Special Collections Graduate Assistant Nikki Vietz, who recently finished processing the papers of prolific sci fi/fantasy author Lawrence Watt-Evans. Nikki, along with previous interns and student assistants, did a great job with this large collection of manuscripts, convention materials, correspondence, and more!

Do you believe that anyone can write a book? The highly acclaimed science fiction and fantasy writer, Lawrence Watt-Evans believes that all you need is a good idea, a keyboard, and some writing skills. According to him “there is no idea so stupid or hackneyed that a sufficiently-talented writer can’t get a good story out of it.” Whether you believe this or not, Lawrence Watt-Evans has recently donated a large amount of his manuscripts, proofs, science-fiction convention memorabilia, and other miscellaneous materials to UMBC’s Special Collections.

Born and raised in Arlington, Massachusetts, Lawrence Watt-Evans has been a full-time writer and editor for more than twenty years. His first attempt at writing science-fiction occurred at the young age of eight and after surviving twelve years of school, he followed in the footsteps of father and grandfather and attended Princeton University. Watt-Evans never finished his degree and in 1980, he published his first novel The Lure of the Basilisk with Del Rey Books. He went on to write three sequels and the highly popular Ethshar fantasy series, which was initially created for role-playing games. 

A prolific author with an immense imagination, Watt-Evans’s other fantasy work includes the short novel The Rebirth of Wonder and the collaboration with Esther Friesner, another acclaimed fantasy writer, entitled Split Heirs. Along with fantasy, Watt-Evans has written one horror novel, The Nightmare People, and several science fiction novels, including two Star Trek novels, The Cyborg and the Sorcerers, and his Three World Trilogy: Out of This World, In the Empire of Shadow, and The Reign of the Brown Magician. He also edited and compiled an anthology about contemporary and futuristic New York called Newer York, which includes twenty-four stories from various authors including Susan Shwartz, Mike Resnick, and Esther Friesner. 

However, Watt-Evans’s imagination and talents extend beyond the genres of fantasy, science-fiction, and horror. His personal favorite is his story Nightside City about a 24th century detective. Alongside more than a dozen novels and over one hundred short stories written under the name Lawrence Watt-Evans and his pseudonym Nathan Archer, Watt-Evans's work also ventures into the realm of DC and Marvel graphic novels and comics.

His novels have been translated into seven languages and have been enjoyed worldwide. In 1987, he was nominated for a Nebula award and one year later, in 1988, he received the Hugo award for best short story from the World Science Fiction Society for “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers” which was first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. The story is about a young man, who works at a greasy spoon diner near Sutton, West Virginia that acts as a popular hang-out for travelers from alternate Earths. After hearing about these far-off wonders, the young man decides to travel through the multiverse himself.

Watt-Evans also served as the president of the Horror Writers Association for two years from 1994-1996 and was the co-owner of the horror magazine Deathrealm with Terry Rossiobefore it ceased publication in 1997. The magazine won the International Horror Critics Guild Award in 1995 for best horror magazine, which was awarded at the 1996 World Horror Convention. And, according to Lawrence Watt-Evans, Deathrealm #27 was banned in Canada for “disturbing” cover art. 

His donation and gift will contribute significantly to UMBC’s growing collection of science fiction and fantasy literature. For more information, see the Lawrence Watt-Evans papers collection finding aid or contact Special Collections.

Thanks, Nikki!

Dear UMBC Community,

As we complete our spring semester, we want to share an important safety update for faculty members and students participating in the first Summer Session of 2022.

We will begin the first summer session with masks required in all in-person classes, instructional labs, and performance spaces being used for academic programs, including spaces where in-person examinations are held. 

The decision to implement this mandate  is based on current state and local conditions as reflected in the CDC’s recent elevation of the Community Risk Level for Maryland, and for Baltimore County, from low (green) to medium (yellow). 

We will continue to review state and local conditions weekly. If current prediction models remain accurate, it is expected that Maryland, and Baltimore County, will move back to CDC’s low risk level sometime this summer. At that time we will consider relaxing this masking requirement.

Free KN95 masks will continue to be available at locations across campus. Students, faculty, and staff are and will remain able to pick up free rapid antigen tests at the UMBC Police Station and the Commons information desk. On-campus PCR testing will pause during the summer session.

If you have questions, please contact covid19@umbc.edu. Thank you for supporting our community.

Provost Philip Rous

Vice President of Information Technology and CIO Jack Suess

COVID-19 Planning Coordinating Committee Co-Chairs