Utility Moratorium: The Public Service Commission has ordered a hold on all gas/electric service terminations until June 30, 2021 for the following two groups ONLY:
1) Any customer with a signed medical certification on file with the utility.
2) Any customer who has received or been qualified to receive Office of Home Energy assistance since February 15, 2017.
See the attachment for more details.
Utility Bill Payment Help:
- Check out a video on how to keep your power on even when you are facing high utility bills.
- All utilities are offering 12-month payment plans with no down payment required. Contact your utility for more information.
- The Office of People's Counsel has created an energy assistance toolkit to help Maryland households facing utility turn-off notices. This toolkit includes videos on how to fill out the Office of Home Energy Programs application, forms, and resource guides.
For more resources, visit our website.
Free Training on helping clients pay their energy bills: OPC offers free training on client utility issues and protections to government, nonprofit, and faith based agencies. Contact me if you are interested in free training for your agency.
Utility Help for Baltimore City: Maryland Volunteer Lawyer Services, Probono Resource Center of MD and Office of People's Counsel have come together to provide remote Utility Clinics. Baltimore City residents can receive free legal advice from volunteer attorneys and from OPC staff regarding their water, gas, and/or electric bills. Attorneys will advise on issues such as unusually high or delinquent bills, bill disputes, shutoffs, and questions about financial assistance that may be available. Everything is done via phone, email, text, and mail. See the attached flyer for more information about how to connect clients to this free service. Please feel free to distribute.
Eviction Information for Tenants: Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh has released “Residential Eviction in Maryland: Information for Tenants,” to help individuals and families who will be facing eviction, particularly due to nonpayment of rent during the COVID pandemic. The guidance issued by the Attorney General’s office is intended to help residential tenants understand their rights and where to look for legal help if an eviction lawsuit is filed against them.
Tax Credit: There have been changes to the Child Tax Credit that will help many families receive advance payments starting this summer. The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 expands the Child Tax Credit (CTC) for tax year 2021 only.
For tax year 2021, eligible families claiming the CTC will receive up to $3,000 per qualifying child between the ages of 6 and 17 at the end of 2021. They will receive $3,600 per qualifying child under age 6 at the end of 2021.
Advance payments of the 2021 Child Tax Credit will be made regularly from July through December to eligible taxpayers.
For more information visit the IRS website.
Student Loans: Interest and monthly payments on federally held loans are suspended through September 30, 2021. You do not need to contact your student loan servicer or take any action on your federally held student loans. For more information visit Consumer Protection Financial Bureau.
HelioCampus is a data analytics platform that provides UMBC with the next-generation decision support services. Helio integrates our enterprise data warehouse with advanced reporting and visualization tools.
With Helio, we can use information from our systems to answer key questions through analytics, data storytelling, and data science and do it easier and faster. Helio is a key component of an integrated infrastructure for academic planning, assessment, and analytics.
We’re delighted to tell you that the project and platform are starting to roll out to the campus.
We have deployed the platform and provided initial training to a first wave of approximately two dozen people who are active users of our existing data warehouse. This initial training focused on four key sets of dashboards: Admissions, Enrollment, Student Retention, and Graduation.
We will continue to conduct training sessions to additional waves of the community and provide resources for self-guided training in the use of Helio and Tableau, the platform’s visualization tool. Tableau is easy to use, and you can learn the basics in as little as 45 minutes using our curated self-training curriculum.
Access to the Helio platform can be found at analytics.umbc.edu. Request access to the platform or a Tableau license at https://analytics.umbc.edu/support/request/. Please note that there is a role-based approval process similar to that granting access to REX.
We’re grateful to our campus partners who participated in the validation and “soft launch” phase of the project.
Please see the latest updates on UMBC’s Retriever Ready website. Questions? Email covid19@umbc.edu.
Please see the latest updates on UMBC’s Retriever Ready website. Questions? Email covid19@umbc.edu.
Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (CLDE) conference is organized by American Democracy Project (ADP) and NASPA to bring together faculty, student affairs professionals, senior campus administrators, students, and community partners. The theme for the 2021 virtual conference is “Defining the Path Forward.”
On June 4th at 1.30 pm, Fariha Khalid, Samantha Fries, Faith Davis, and Erin Kosloski from UMBC will be presenting in a Civic Cafe Session at CLDE, “Improving Basic Needs Access on College Campus.” They will discuss the findings of a mixed-methods community-based research on food and basic needs insecurity among UMBC students, faculty, and staff. Additionally, they will highlight the role of Retriever Essentials in supporting vulnerable populations of our campus community. By the end of the session, participants are expected to understand the phenomenon of basic needs insecurity, share best practices to address the problem, and exchange knowledge/skills to form an ongoing network of resources.
]]>On May 13, 2021, J. Marvin Cook, Ph.D., Founder and Director of the Instructional Systems Development graduate program at UMBC, died peacefully with his family by his side at the Charlestown Retirement Community in Catonsville, Maryland. He was born in Natchitoches, Louisiana to Clyde and Ernestine Cook in 1929. Marvin was 91 at the time of his passing; he lived a full and impactful life, always focused on following his faith service to others. He was passionate about his faith, continually learning, and had always interested in helping people through his vocation and avocations. This was evident in his educational and life accomplishments, especially at UMBC.
Marvin earned his B.S. in electrical engineering at Louisiana Tech University, an M.S. in electrical engineering at Texas A&M University, and M.Th. at Southern Methodist University, and a Ph.D. in math-education and curriculum design at the University of Maryland. His successful career as an electrical engineer was followed by a second successful career in the field of adult training and education.
Dr. Cook founded the Instructional Systems Development graduate program at UMBC (now Learning & Performance Technology) in the early 1970s. It arguably was the first program of its kind in the nation. It was also one of UMBC’s first Master’s degree program. Dr. Cook was a pioneer by creating an applied professional program that targeted working adults. He was a sought after consultant by many public and private organizations. Dr. Cook impacted lives of countless individuals in the greater Baltimore–Washington Metro Area and mid-Atlantic region.
Watch an interview with Dr. Cook that includes reflections on his UMBC experience.
He authored and co-authored a dozen books and numerous articles in the field of adult education and training. Dr. Cook was also the co-founder and president of Educational Developmental Resources (EDR), a successful contracting and consulting firm.
Dr. Cook was predeceased by his wife of 58 years, Zula “Abby” Abington Cook, and his wife of 10 years, Gloria O’Donoghue Cook and his son Jim Cook and daughter Celeste Cook Dodson.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to either The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research at www.michaeljfox.org or the United Service Organization (USO) at www.uso.org. Online condolences may be made at www.legacy.com.
]]>