Dr. Tracy Johnson, new HHMI Professor from UCLA, and a special guest of UMBC’s Dr. Michael Summers (Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry), will be speaking at UMBC on Thursday, March 26 at 1:00 PM in the Meyerhoff Chemistry Building, Conference Room 120. All are invited to attend. If you have a UMBC account, please RSVP on MyUMBC: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/31197. Guests from other schools may RSVP by sharing name and school in the comment section of this post.

Photo courtesy of http://newsroom.ucla.edu/

More about Dr. Johnson: 

https://www.mcdb.ucla.edu/faculty/tljohnson

http://www.hhmi.org/research/ucla-hhmi-pathways-success-program

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/two-ucla-faculty-members-named-howard-hughes-medical-institute-professors

About the Meyerhoff Graduate Fellows Program:

http://meyerhoffgrad.umbc.edu/

Through a University System of Maryland partnership with the Online Learning Consortium (OLC), DoIT is pleased to offer an exceptional online training opportunity to UMBC full-time and part-time faculty.

The OLC workshop format utilizes proven teaching strategies and learning activities while modeling best practices for online and hybrid learning. Collaborate with peers and experiences via synchronous (live) and asynchronous environments. Normally these workshop cost about $300 each, but our partnership provides a limited number of seats at no cost to UMBC faculty.

These workshops require a time commitment of 3-7 days on average with some lasting up to 3 weeks. All workshops are delivered online with either a synchronous or asynchronous component. A  full list of workshop titles  is  available through this year.  

Below you will find a list of recommended workshops for the months of March and April (workshop descriptions are linked in titles):

March 2015

• Fundamentals: ADA and Web Accessibility, 3/13-3/20

• Exploring Digital Storytelling, 3/13-3/20

• Creating Effective Assessments, 3/13-3/20

• Creating Multimedia Introductions, 3/18-3/20

• Managing Faculty Workload, 3/27-4/3

April 2015

• Facilitating Group Work Online, 4/3-4/10

• Introduction to Mobile Apps and Tablets, 4/3-4/10

• Facilitating Group Work Online, 4/3-4/10

• Fundamentals: Increasing Interaction and Engagement, 4/3-4/10

• Designing with Accessibility in Mind, 4/8-4/10

• New to Online: Putting Your Content Online, 4/10-4/17

• Fundamentals: Engaging Learners in Online Discussions, 4/10-4/17

To register for a workshop, please  open an RT ticket in the Instructional Technology queue. Be sure to include the  name of the workshop  you would like to attend and the date(s). Instructional technology staff will assist with your registration, answer any questions you may have about the experience, etc.

[Note: The Mastery Series workshops are not eligible for the coupon code.]

In 2003, the first year of programming for the PROMISE AGEP, a UMBC Public Policy graduate student named Robert Alexander asked if PROMISE could sponsor a “town hall” type of seminar with UMBC’s President, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski. That conversation birthed the concept of an annual seminar for graduate students that would feature the university’s president. Dr. Robert Alexander is now part of the Health & Analytics Business Unit at Battelle, after spending nearly 10 years in his first dream job in Health Communications at the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Similarly, after more than 10 years, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski is the Chair of the U.S. President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans, and has received numerous recognition from media outlets such as TIME, US News & World Report, PBS (“Charlie Rose,” “Tavis Smiley”), and CBS (“60 Minutes.”). The president continues to make time in his schedule to address graduate students. Dr. Hrabowski has been having his spring semester conversation with graduate students at UMBC since 2004. The 2015 talk will be held on Wednesday.

Pathways to Leadership

A Discussion with President Freeman Hrabowski

UMBC President, Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

1:00 – 2:15 PM

Lunch will be served at 1:00

Talk will begin at 1:30 PM. Everyone needs to be seated by 1:25 PM.

Library Gallery (first floor), AOK Library, UMBC Campus, Directions & Parking

REGISTER/RSVP

UMBC Community, Please RSVP on MyUMBC: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/29312

Guests, please RSVP by providing your name and school/organization in the comment section below.

This event is free, but you will need to register.

As part of our PROMISE AGEP-T alliance with the University System of Maryland, graduate students from any school within the USM may attend. Guests from other schools are also invited as part of our commitment to provide graduate students with professional development. Faculty and staff are also invited to attend.

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More about Dr. Hrabowski’s White House Appointment: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/26/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts

Hrabowski Photos courtesy of baltimore.cbslocal.com, blog.ted.com, amazon.com, and umbc.edu

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More about Dr. Robert Alexander’s work on the U.S.’ first federally funded anti-smoking campaign: Journal article in The Lancet. Dr. Alexander returned to be a Mentor-in-Residence for the PROMISE AGEP during the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI), August 2013.   Dr. Alexander was a member of the first cohort of the PROMISE AGEP Peer Mentors for UMBC, 2004. We thank Dr. Alexander, whose request as a PhD candidate, launched the plans for our annual present-day Presidential “Pathways to Leadership” seminar for graduate students.

The achievements tool allows instructors to create opportunities for students to earn recognition for their accomplishments in courses.  Instructors can designate criteria for issuing rewards to students in the form of both badges and certificates. Students can see which rewards they have earned and what is required to receive additional rewards, providing insight into learning progression toward defined competencies (help.blackboard.com).   

The Instructional Technology Team will be holding a workshop on Blackboard Achievements on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Click here  to RSVP and see event details.  

To learn more about using Achievements in Blackboard:

• visit our Blackboard Achievements FAQ page  

• open an RT Ticket  for any technical issues

• view the schedule of training workshops on the DoIT Group Page. 

•  contact the Instructional Technology Team with any questions or concerns

The PROMISE AGEP will be represented at the annual conference for the National Postdoctoral Association on Friday, March 13. The conference will run from March 13-15, and will be held at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), downtown, in the Southern Management Corporation’s Campus Center, (SMC CC) https://www.umaryland.edu/campuscenter/. This is the same location that hosted our PROMISE Summer Success Institute and anniversary celebration in 2013.

PROMISE AGEP will be discussed in a panel session, Institutional Diversity Postdoctoral Fellowships: Growing Your Own Faculty Pipeline, on Friday, March 13, 1:45 PM, SMC CC, Room 351. PROMISE Director, Dr. Renetta Tull will be one of the speakers. Discussions will include the PROMISE Postdoctoral Program, and UMBC’s Postdoctoral Fellowship for Faculty Diversity.

Websites:

Listed on MinorityPostdoc.org: http://www.minoritypostdoc.org/view/event-2015-NPA.html

NPA Website: http://www.npacommunity.org/?2015AMFriWorkshops

NPA Agenda site: http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/images/stories/Documents/AnnualMeetings/2015AnnualMeeting/NPA-2015-Annual-Meeting-Agenda-at-a-Glance-for-Web-02-20-2015.pdf

Postdocs from the University System of Maryland can register to attend the conference at a discount. Some postdoctoral affairs offices are also sponsoring waivers to attend.  Please email Dr. Renetta Tull, rtull@umbc.edu, with the subject “NPA Conference” if you are interested in attending. The deadline for registering online is Feb. 27, 2015; please email Dr. Tull by 12 noon on Feb. 27th to be included in the list of postdocs from Maryland.