Left-to-right: UMBC Graduate Students: Hector Medina, Saadi Habib, Gloria Opoku-Boateng; David Delaine (Assistant Professor of Engineering Education at the Ohio State University); a student attendee from Colombia. Photo Credit: Hector Medina

From November 4 – 6, 2016, graduate students of the LSAMP Bridge to Doctorate Fellows and PROMISE AGEP community attended the World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) in Seoul, South Korea. The students were funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s International Engagement and Broadening Participation in STEM project.  The students had a wonderful time and their experience was featured in the UMBC News: http://news.umbc.edu/umbc-grad-students-talk-stem-teaching-mentorship-and-collaboration-in-south-korea/.

On May 6, 2017, PROMISE AGEP will be hosting its annual PROMISE AGEP Friends and Family Cookout! You are invited to come, bring your friends, family, and anyone who supports your journey through graduate school. This event is free. Graduate students from all schools within the University System of Maryland (USM) are invited!

Here is a list, if your school is listed, you are invited! http://www.usmd.edu/institutions/

Alumni, faculty, and staff are invited.

Friends and family members of students who have participated in PROMISE are invited. 

If you are from another school, e.g., Howard, Hopkins, GW, and have come to a PROMISE event in the past such as SSI, you are also invited to participate.

Event: PROMISE AGEP Friends and Family Cookout

Date: Saturday, May 6, 2017

Time: 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Location: UPDATED 5/5/17

UMBC Campus, Commons Building, 2nd Floor, Game Room!

Registration:

Driving directions:

UMBC Commons building

Parking:

Parking is free on weekends. The nearest parking to the building is located on Commons Drive. It is the only parking structure on the street. Follow the driving directions in the Google map link below.

UMBC Commons building

All PROMISE grads (master’s and doctoral degree recipients) will be celebrated! If you are graduating (December 2016, May 2017), please send email to promisestaff@gmail.com with the subject “Graduate!” so that you can be recognized. Please state your name,  school, department, and degree program.

You may bring games and other items to make your afternoon enjoyable. Food and beverages will be provided. Alcoholic beverages are not allowed.

Saturday, May 6, 2017 Update:

It is now raining, and updates are being provided on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PROMISE_AGEP (you do not need an account to view the information.) Typing “UMBC Commons” into your GPS typically works. The Game Room is on the second floor.

Directions (additional details)

From 95 (North or South)
The UMBC Exit is THE SAME EXIT off of 95 for the BWI Marshall Airport.
Follow the signs for UMBC, Rt. 166, Catonsville.

Once you are on UMBC’s campus (landmarks: Silo on the left, BW Research Park on the right plus construction), stay in the right lane.

* Make a RIGHT onto Hilltop Circle.

* Pass Administration Drive (immediately past the parking garage)

* Make the 2nd LEFT onto Commons Drive.

The Commons Building will be in front of you. It is a multi-leveled glass walled building. Park in any open space or open lot after 3:30. If you park at a meter, you must have coins available to pay the metered fees.

The Commons is surrounded by the Parking Garage, the Physics Building, the Public Policy Building, and the Theatre. You will know that you are in the right place because Commons Drive ends in a loop with these buildings at the edges.

If you come into the Commons Drive entrance you will be on the ground floor.

* The GAME ROOM is on the 2nd floor of the Commons.

Are you looking for which career path to consider with your graduate degree? Save the date and look no further, as PROMISE AGEP and the UMBC’s Career Services Center brings a career fair to the UMBC! Employers will cover all disciplines. Please RSVP below to reserve your spot! Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about career possibilities and to network with employers of their interest. Food will be served. Please arrive at 4 pm to sit down and eat. The program will begin at 4:30 pm. More details regarding employers will be posted soon.

Event: Career Paths for Graduate Students

Date: April 5, 2017

Time: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Please arrive at 4:00 so that you can get your food, and get settled at your tables.)

Attire: Business casual. It is also recommended that you bring your resume/CV to the event.

Program:

• 4:00—Employers arrive (gather plates of food, settle in at tables)

  4:00 p.m.—Students arrive, register and start dinner

  4:30-4:35-(General welcome by Renetta G. Tull, Ph.D., Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Student Development & Postdoctoral Affairs )

  4:35: Special Remarks: K. Jill Barr, J.D., Sr. Assistant Dean, The Graduate School at UMBC

  4:45 –Special Remarks:  Christine Routzahn, Director, UMBC Career Center

  4:50—Facilitator: Diane Crump-Fogle, Associate Director, UMBC Career Center

  • Brief overview of Graduate Student Resources

  • Overview of program format (speed networking)

  • Employer Introductions

  5:00–Round Table rotations begin

  5:15-Switch (Round 2)

  5:30-Switch (Round 3)

  5:45 p.m.—Q and A and Thanks to employers

  5:45-6:00 p.m.—Informal networking

Registration:

• Members of the UMBC Community, please RSVP at: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/46039
• Members outside of the UMBC Community, please register by indicating in the comments section below of your interest in attending the event. Please include your name, major, and university.

UPDATE 3/28/17

Confirmed organizations to date:

1. Institute for Defense Analyses

2. Baltimore Corps

3. Dream Fit Solutions, LLC

4. Education Pioneers

5. EqualLevel, Inc.

6. IBM

7. U.S. Department of State

8. JHU/APL

9. Peregrin Services

10. MIT Lincoln Laboratory

11. Prometric

12. National Security Agency

13. Scientific Systems and Software International

14. U.S. Army and Army Reserves

15. T. Rowe Price

16. Verbal Beginnings, LLC

17. Verizon

18. Change Health Systems, Inc.

19. Therapeutic Connections

Update: This event will now be held on Thursday, April 13th, 2017, during Graduate Student Week. This event will be co-sponsored by the UMBC Graduate Student Association.

Update: 2/28/17, 4:27 PM:

This event has been postponed. Dr. Hrabowski had a sudden change in his schedule m, but he is trying to see if he can participate in the 2017 Graduate Student Week activities in April instead. Updates will be posted soon.

—————–

On April 13, 2017 (changed from March 1, 2017), we will be having our annual “Pathways to Leadership” seminar talk with Dr. Freeman Hrabowski. Everyone is invited to come.

On February 10, 2017, a panel will be held on the Salisbury University campus. Everyone is invited to come, and free transportation will be provided! Panel speakers will discuss the academic path in graduate school.

Spring 2017 is coming up and PROMISE AGEP has a new calendar of events for you!  Please see the calendar below to see our events for the next semester. To download the Spring 2017 Calendar of Events, click here: promise-agep-spring-2017-calendar

As part of our ongoing commitment to security, the Unix Infrastructure group will be conducting its quarterly system patching on Thursday, December 22nd from 5pm to 11pm.  While many systems will be patched without any service disruption, there are several systems which require the downtime of key services for short times during this window.  The schedule below outlines which key services will be offline and for how long.

• The new web hosting environment (virthost and jabba) will be partially unavailable (pages will be available but any database calls will not work)
  
• Access to Cyrus and UMBC Webmail (accounts not migrated to UMBC Gmail)
  
• All mail will be queued up and delivered after the server is patched
• Expected to be unreachable from 5pm to 8pm
• All HFS (user) servers will be offline
  
• Userpages will be unavailable
  
• License5 will be down (autodesk, cadence, idl, schrodinger, xilinx, mathematica)
  
• Perseus will be unavailable
  
• RT
  
• Expected to be down from 5pm to 6pm only
• myUMBC lite page will be up resulting in reduced myUMBC functionality
• Expected to be down from 5pm to 7pm only 
• Wiki will be unavailable
  
• The sites (wordpress) web hosting environment will be unreachable
  
• Expected to be down from 5pm to 7pm only