Warmer weather is arriving and we’d like for you to mark your calendars now for two PROMISE AGEP events that are open to graduate students and postdocs within the University System of Maryland, and our friends and colleagues from other universities. We build community as part of our professional development efforts, so we’ll look forward to having you join us on those dates.

Stay tuned to this website for more information. Both events will utilize the Eventbrite registration system. Here are some details that you can add to your plans.

1. The Cookout and Celebration of Graduates will be held on Saturday, May 2, 2015, 1:00 – 4:00 PM. This event acknowledges all master’s and doctoral graduates from any school within the University System of Maryland. This year, we will also acknowledge postdocs who are moving on to other positions. Please send us your good news so that we can acknowledge you: promisestaff@gmail.com, with the subject: “May 2 Cookout Celebration.” This event will be held at the High Ridge Park Pavilion in Laurel, MD.

2. The PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI) will be held on Saturday, August 15, 2015, 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM. This conference (business attire) provides professional development for new/incoming graduate students, continuing graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, early-career professors, and professionals in the region. This is an annual event that has been in existence since 2003. All PROMISE alumni are welcome to return! Professionals in the area are welcome to attend to be part of this networking, professional development, and community building event. The 2015 SSI will be held at The Hotel at Arundel Preserve, in Hanover, MD.

Details for the 2015 SSI on August 15th will be posted here: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/promise-summer-success-institute-ssi-august-15-2015/

• See more about our SSI History: https://promiseagep.wordpress.com/promise/the-promise-summer-success-institute-ssi/

Please save the dates!

These events are sponsored by the National Science Foundation, 
    PROMISE AGEP: Maryland Transformation (AGEP-T) project. 

This post was written by Special Collections student assistant Jen Wachtel. Thank you, Jen!

The Retriever Weekly, our university’s proud student newspaper, began publishing as UMBC News in 1966. Special Collections and the University Archives maintain the print copies of all issues of the Retriever, and a large section of the issues (1966-1981 and 2002 to the present) are available online in UMBC's Digital Collections. With monetary support from UMBC's Office of Institutional Advancement, students and staff have been preparing to send the remaining issues to Creekside Digital, a digitization vendor located a short drive away in Glen Arm, MD. This project is a part of the Lyrasis Digitization Collaborative.

I conducted an inventory of the issues of the Retriever dating from January 1983 to May 1997, totaling over four hundred newspapers. Along the way, I found insights into some of UMBC’s hot-button topics of the 1980s and 1990s, including contentious construction projects and students’ demands for increased parking spaces (ed. note - complaining about parking is a long-standing UMBC tradition!). I particularly enjoyed following the timeline of the university administration, including the appointment of one Freeman A. Hrabowski III to Vice Provost at UMBC and his later position as Interim President for a “full academic year and possibly longer.” Of course, no inventory of The Retriever would be complete without the satirical Deceiver. Published annually on the week of April 1^st, the Deceiver  featured such choice headlines as “Giant Terrapin attacks UMBC” (referring to College Park’s mascot) and “SCHPORTZ” (1993).

Jen Wachtel working in Special Collections.

I also noticed some strange anomalies in The Retriever’s numbering system. From miswritten Roman numerals (XXVIV for 29 and IXX for 24) to a startling continuity error, the Retriever always had special surprises in store. The most bizarre circumstance was that in the academic year 1995-96, the Retriever accidentally published two separate versions of Volume 31 – one for fall, and one for spring, before continuing with Volumes 32 and 33 in 1996-97. This means that since spring 1996, every volume of The Retriever has been one number short!

Special Collections is located on the first floor of the library behind the gallery. We are open Monday through Friday from 1-4pm, on Thursdays from 1-8pm, and by appointment.

DoIT Update is a selection of campus IT news and events emailed 3-4 times a year, typically around the start and end of each Fall and Spring semester. For more information, visit  doit.umbc.edu. 

HEADLINES

1. DoIT Recommends Course Copy vs. Export/Import

1. FAQs available and two workshops set for  April 28  and  May 12.

2. Deadline to Order Clickers for Fall 2015 is 3/27

3. New Workshops Announced for Rest of SP2015 Semester  including the following

1. Full Service or à La Carte: Enhancing Course Delivery  (3/25)

2. Faculty panel on iPads in the Classroom  (4/8)

4. DoIT Offers “4/15 Alternate Delivery Program (ADP) Information Session” and Partners in upcoming  ADP Call for Participation

5. FYI: Engineering Prof Conquers Snow Days with Virtual Class

6. FYI: Desktone is the Virtual Lab Students Need

For IT help, we recommend 1) consulting the  FAQs, 2) submitting an  RT ticket, or 3) contacting the  Technology Support Center  located on the Library’s first floor or call 410.455.3838. See also  doit.umbc.edu/support/tips/

Dear Graduate Students,

You are invited to apply for a summer internship at IBM. Our friends from IBM note that these opportunities can be in Africa if you have a request, or in the US. To broaden participation, IBM extends a special invitation to underrepresented groups (Black, Hispanic and Native American students in Computer Science, Math, Statistics, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Material Science and Chemistry.)

• Positions are available for Summer 2015 and Full-time, starting 2015.
• Ph.D students are preferred
• IBM is also looking for Masters students who will complete their education by Spring 2015 and are looking for full-time Research or Development opportunities.
• The internship opportunity is open to continuing students who are looking for Summer 2015 IBM Research or Development opportunities.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Send your resume/cv to Terry Davis at davistb@us.ibm.com, and cc Renetta Tull at rtull@umbc.edu
2) Please advise Mr. Davis if you are completing your education by Spring 2015, and looking for full time opportunities, or if you are a continuing student in the Fall of 2015 therefore, looking for a summer internship opportunities in Summer 2015.
3) Specify the Research or Development area of your education that is a match for your interests, http://www.research.ibm.com/. Also specify if you are interested in the special internship opportunities that are available Africa (Nairobi, Kenya).

4) Post your resume/cv to the IBM Applicant portal: http://www-03.ibm.com/employment/.

Please note that you must follow all four steps.

All students are considered for IBM opportunities, this is an outreach for an underrepresented group in the Science and Engineering field. IBM Research and Development groups sponsors Foreign Nationals.

Thank you to Jaye Clark-Nias, Computer Science doctoral candidate at Bowie State University who re-connected PROMISE to representatives at IBM following the 2015 Tapia Conference. Jaye participated in this IBM internships in the past and had a great experience. More about Jaye: http://www.cs.bowiestate.edu/~cturner/Students/Jay_Clark.html

This post was written by Special Collections Graduate Assistant Nichole Zang. Thank you, Nichole!

UMBC Special Collections is pleased to announce that the Office of Institutional Advancement records are now open to researchers! This collection contains newspaper clippings, press releases, Office of Arts and Management publications, and information on UMBC faculty and departments from the 1960s through 2009. This collection is useful tool for any researcher looking into the university’s exciting past.

The first series of the collection is composed of about forty years of newspaper clippings relating to UMBC. The many clippings in these files share parallels for what we may see around campus today. In August of 1975, for example, construction on the Library Pond began as a flood control dam, creating a scene not unlike the one students walk past on their way to class every day. Come see what other exciting news stories were written about UMBC over the past 50 years!

For anyone looking for the university’s statements on university events between 1963 and 1991, this is also the collection to choose! Series II of the collection contains press releases from those years, arranged by date. The Office of University Relations created the releases for the media in order to inform them of commencements, awards ceremonies, campus events, and other university news. One of these releases describes the festivities of the Fine Arts Building’s open house in November 1975. The newly constructed building was intended to house the visual and performing arts concentrations, as well as art exhibits and performances.

Are you interested in past UMBC art, dance, or gallery events? The Office of Arts Management series of the collection includes publications and photographs printed for advertisement of various shows throughout campus, including Shakespeare on Wheels, theatre and dance performances.

The collections also consists a select number of records regarding university faculty, departments, and other campus events from the mid-1970s to late-2000s. Topics of these files include the proposed UMBC and UMB merger, commencement ceremonies, faculty member CVs and correspondence, and the education department.

A finding aid is available on the Special Collections website.