Dear Faculty and Staff,

As we prepare for the new academic year and the temperatures rise outside, we recognize that everyone needs a break. Join the Professional Staff Senate and Campus Life for Yappy Hour!

All faculty and staff are welcome to bring their pets to the Quad on Tuesday, August 2, from 4 p.m. -- 6 p.m. Come to socialize your pet with other pets or for a break to play with your coworkers' pets! Free giveaways, treats, and sniffs for all!

If you have questions, please contact Morgan Simonds at simonds1@umbc.edu.

We are disappointed and sad to inform you that Walter Christopher, who has been a member of the UMBC Police force for two years, is the person arrested in connection with a series of suspected arson incidents on campus. Mr. Christopher is currently being held without bail at the Baltimore County Detention Center.

When the arson incidents were reported on campus beginning in December 2021, UMBC Police immediately worked with the State Fire Marshal to investigate. Today's arrest was based on the results of this joint investigation. We are grateful to all those from our campus and beyond who participated. We take these allegations very seriously and will continue to cooperate with law enforcement authorities as the case moves through the judicial process. We will keep the campus informed of further developments.

President Freeman Hrabowski
Vice President for Administration and Finance Kathy L. Dettloff

Dear Community Members,

In recent weeks, we have seen an increase in internet and phone scams and attacks. These attacks and scams have been taking the form of fake job offers, fake checks, and fake requests for information.

We need you to be aware of this problem, be vigilant with your personal information, and help us all work together to make sure scammers and hackers are not successful. In order to stay up to date on the latest scams and threats, and for advice on how to stay safe on the internet; please visit the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) IT Security website. You can also subscribe to the DoIT security feed.  

Subscribe to DoIT Security Feed

Protecting Yourself

If an offer seems too good to be true, it likely is. 

• Scammers often impersonate someone when making fake offers. When you receive an offer, verify it is legitimate by directly contacting the person or company who appears to have sent it. For example, call a company using contact information from their website. Do not reply directly to emails.
• Scammers often forge the "from" address in their malicious email messages to make it appear to come from a UMBC email address. For offers that appear to come from members of the UMBC community, directly call or email the person making the offer after looking them up in the UMBC Directory.  
• Some scammers are now sending their fake offers and malicious messages through SMS text messages, not just through email. No matter how you receive the messages, if they seem too good to be true, verify if the message is legitimate by contacting the alleged sender directly.  
• UMBC sends many official messages through myUMBC Personal Posts, which are more secure than email. You can authenticate a myUMBC Personal Post by checking to see if you have a corresponding myUMBC notification. 
• Please forward suspicious messages to security@umbc.edu and ask for verification. We will verify any offer for you.  

Additional things to remember:

• Never provide your confidential information (credit card number, social security number, driver's license number, passport number, etc.) to anyone via email, text message, or a web page. 
• No legitimate job offer will ever require you to send money or to buy things with your own money.
• If you receive a check you were not expecting, be suspicious, especially if the sender asks you to deposit a check and then send money or purchase items. Also, UMBC will never email you a check. For additional information, please review the Federal Trade Commission's website on fake check scams.

Working Together to Help UMBC

• Report suspicious activity to security@umbc.edu. Don't assume that something is obvious or someone else will report it; always report anything suspicious. Forwarding the scam or attack to UMBC DoIT Security allows us to notify the rest of the community and track the trends of what is hitting our campus. When forwarding malicious email to security@umbc.edu, including the full email headers will speed up our ability to respond.
• If you get a suspicious message, check for information about scams on the DoIT IT Security website and to subscribe to the article feed. Once subscribed, you will receive articles in your inbox as they are published. For more information, check out our FAQ: How to Subscribe to DoIT IT Security Notices and Articles.

Thank you for helping our community fight back against the scammers and attackers.

Mark Cather, Chief Information Security Officer, Division of Information Technology

Dear UMBC Community,

We are excited to announce the Career Center's transition to Handshake, which has become the number one place employers recruit college students and recent graduates. More than 1,400 colleges and universities now partner with Handshake, making it the top platform among career centers across the nation.

This platform is now live and will replace the university's current system, UMBCworks.

There are a number of reasons we are making this change. Below are just a few:

• We will be able to seamlessly connect with new employers that may have otherwise been unreachable. More than 550,000 employers, including 100 percent of the Fortune 500 companies, use Handshake to post their open positions. We expect to triple the number of internships and full-time position postings.
• Students and alumni will receive personalized job and internship recommendations, connect with employers and peers working at organizations that interest them, and get an inside look at organizations with thousands of student reviews.
• Handshake's mobile app lets users explore events and position postings, review interview schedules, and access resources while on the go!

Colleges, divisions, departments, and units across campus are highly encouraged to start posting open student positions for both undergraduate and graduate students as soon as possible. New student enrollment is in full swing and our Retrievers are now logging into Handshake seeking jobs for the upcoming academic year. Please also be sure to update your webpages to reflect this change.

Students have started completing their profiles on Handshake and making appointments with our career specialists. Existing users of UMBCworks are encouraged to move any current documents--including resumes and cover letters--to Handshake.

The Shriver Center and Career Center are also working together to transition enrollment and evaluation processes for applied learning experiences, including internships, co-ops, research, and service-learning, for the start of the fall semester.

Although we still have more to do to make this transition a success, we know it will be the best career management tool for our UMBC community.

Learn more about Handshake and other services offered through the Career Center and Shriver Center.

Questions regarding Handshake?
Attend one of our Open Training and Q&A Sessions
Or email us at careers@umbc.edu

Christine Routzahn, Career Center Director

This is a repost of a post from the Center for Democracy and Civic Life; you can find the original post here.

Dear UMBC Community,

Voting will be easier than ever for the UMBC community for the 2022 gubernatorial election. For the first time, the Maryland Board of Elections has placed an official ballot dropoff box on the UMBC campus. Community members registered to vote anywhere in Maryland can cast their mail-in ballots for the primary and general elections by placing their completed ballots in the box, which is located next to the Campus Information Center in The Commons lobby. For the primary election, the Maryland Board of Elections will collect ballots from the box daily through Tuesday, July 19. The Maryland Board of Elections will return the box in late September or early October for the general election.

The placement of the ballot dropoff box on campus reflects UMBC's strong record of engagement in previous elections, and is the result of advocacy and planning by the Center for Democracy and Civic Life, Commons Operations, the Office of Institutional Advancement, the Student Government Association, and other campus leaders. We are grateful to the Maryland Board of Elections for extending this convenience to members of our community.

Center for Democracy and Civic Life Staff

Dear UMBC Community,

We continue to consult regularly with our health and safety experts about current campus and community health data. Given that the CDC's Community Risk Level for Baltimore County is currently medium (yellow), masking remains required for all Summer Session classes. We will provide updates as conditions warrant. In addition:

• Effective immediately and due to low attendance, the Retriever Activities Center will no longer offer mask-required hours.  
• Masks will be optional on UMBC Transit, in line with other public transit policies in the region.

Free KN95 masks continue to be available at locations across campus. Students, faculty, and staff can also pick up free rapid antigen tests at the UMBC Police Station and the Commons information desk.

Current public health models anticipate that our region should have a low community risk level (green) by the beginning of the fall semester. If these models prove accurate, we anticipate beginning the fall semester with masks recommended in classrooms but not required.

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