Sigma Phi Omega (SPO) is the national academic honor society in gerontology, for professionals who work with or on behalf of older persons. The UMBC chapter of SPO, Delta Lambda, has been tremendously active this year with volunteer activities, nurturing an ongoing relationship with Catholic Charities of Maryland, specifically two independent senior living apartment buildings near UMBC: DePaul House and St. Joachim House.

Delta Lambda has been assisting Congregate Housing Services (CHS) with a project to interview residents about their personal journeys coming to live at DePaul and St. Joachim, as well as their experiences utilizing the CHS program. These stories help to personalize the CHS program, which facilitates continued program funding at the local and state levels. Member Jennifer Howard-Doering has also led weekly computer classes for residents, helping the seniors learn to use email and other online tools.

Finally, Delta Lambda hosted a festive St. Patrick’s Day party for residents in mid-March (see photos) and is planning an annual Senior Prom and summer barbeque.

To learn more about this work, contact Delta Lambda at dlspoumbc@googlegroups.com. Thanks to this tremendous group of gerontology students for giving back to our senior community!

Several faculty members and alumni were awarded Individual Artist Awards by the Maryland State Art Council this month. The Maryland Art Council Individual Artist Awards are monetary prizes given to a select group of artists each year. This year the Maryland Art Council welcomed applications from artists working in fiction, painting, media/digital/electronic arts, solo theatrical performance and works on paper. Recipients in the media/digital/electronic arts category include:

• Kelley Bell ’06, MFA IMDA, Assistant Professor, Visual Arts
• Carrie Fucile, Adjunct faculty, Visual Arts
• Agnes Moon ’09, MFA IMDA
• Phil Davis ’07, MFA IMDA
• Christine Ferrera ’10, MFA IMDA

Recipients in the works on paper category include:

• Lisa Moren, Associate Professor, Visual Arts
• Leslie Shellow, Adjunct faculty, Visual Arts
• Gary Kachadourian ’12, MFA IMDA

The Maryland State Arts Council will host an event honoring the awardees in May. Congratulations to all!

Several faculty members and alumni were awarded Individual Artist Awards by the Maryland State Arts Council this month.

The Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards are monetary prizes given to a select group of artists each year. This year the Maryland Art Council welcomed applications from artists working in fiction, painting, media/digital/electronic arts, solo theatrical performance and works on paper. Recipients in the media/digital/electronic arts category include:

• Kelley Bell ’06, MFA IMDA, Assistant Professor, Visual Arts
• Carrie Fucile, Adjunct faculty, Visual Arts
• Agnes Moon ’99, MFA IMDA
• Phil Davis ’07, MFA IMDA
• Christine Ferrera ’10, MFA IMDA

Recipients in the works on paper category include:

• Lisa Moren, Associate Professor, Visual Arts
• Leslie Shellow, Adjunct faculty, Visual Arts
• Gary Kachadourian ’12, MFA IMDA

The Maryland State Arts Council will host an event honoring the awardees in May.

Congratulations to all!

Manil Suri, professor of mathematics, was a guest on the Marc Steiner show on March 14 to discuss his new book “The City of Devi.”

Steiner asked Suri how he reconciles his background in mathematics with the spiritual themes that run through his books, which feature Hindu deities.

“There’s a lot of contrast. On the one hand, I’m very enamored by these ideas from spirituality and almost mysticism,” “But on the other hand, the logical part of me says, ‘hey, wait a minute, that’s not really what’s happening.’”

The full segment can be heard here.

Former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon will kick off the Associated Black Charities’ speaker series next month, sparking speculation of a possible return to politics. “This is the year I’m going to decide,” Dixon told the Baltimore Sun, of her desire to run for office again after having completed probation following her 2009 embezzlement conviction. “I’m not going to hide the fact that I enjoyed what I was doing during my 27 years in public office.”

Donald F. Norris, professor and chair of public policy at UMBC, told the Sun that the substance of Dixon’s talk might signal, more definitively, her interest in returning to elective politics. “I would be listening for some indication that she is repentant for what happened,” Norris said, “and recognition that she’d made some mistakes.”

Although Dixon still has some supporters in Baltimore, Norris noted that if the city’s voters were to return Dixon to public office, “It would say to the outside world that a corrupt elected official can spend a little time away and get re-elected.” He concluded, “That’s not an image Baltimore wants, or that any city needs.”

On Saturday, April 20, the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum will unveil a wax figure of Freeman Hrabowski during a ceremony at Morgan State University.  The figure is part of a salute to educators, and Hrabowski’s likeness will be joined by figures of Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, the founder of Bethune-Cookman University and the National Council of Negro Women; Benjamin Mays, the former president of Morehouse College; and Benjamin Quarles, the former chair of the history department at Morgan State University.

For more information about the event, including information on ordering tickets click here.

The UMBC English department’s composition course redesign was recently profiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“In an age when many educators are promoting active learning by “flipping” classrooms, instructors here are rotating them instead. In a novel twist, they are providing composition instruction in three distinct venues.

Previously the classes, of 24 students each, met twice a week in a classroom for 75-minute sessions. The instruction was lecture-based, with time allotted for small-group activities.

Now each section, of two dozen students, meets as a group only once a week. On the other day of class, a dozen students gather in the university’s new writing lab, where they work on short assignments or revisions, guided by a trained undergraduate writing tutor. Meanwhile, the other 12 meet four at a time with their instructor. The schedule rotates so all students have a regular small-group meeting every other week,” the Chronicle reports.

The full story can be read here.

Robert Provine, professor of psychology, is a contributor to the recent “Body Issue” of New Scientist magazine.

Provine’s piece, “It’s Only Natural,” discusses the curious behaviors of our bodies. “It’s your body, and you like to think you’ve got it under control. But underneath the calm exterior lurk unruly instincts and urges that are struggling to escape, putting you at risk of embarrassment or ridicule. These disreputable behaviours – the likes of the fart, hiccup, itch and yawn – are familiar to us all, yet they are also decidedly curious. Although they have been the source of folklore and puzzlement since antiquity, they have largely been overlooked by scientists. After all, where is the scientific grandeur in such ignoble acts? I take a different view. Where others see forbidden areas, I find unexplored territory and new frontiers of research. So I have made a point of studying our curious behaviours. What I have found sheds new light on our body, our mind and our evolution as a social animal,” Provine begins, before discussing yawning, itching, hiccupping, vomiting, tickling, and farting.

The magazine was published on March 16.

Christopher Corbett, professor of the practice of English, recently reviewed a new book about Davy Crockett for the Washington Post. In “Born on a Mountaintop,” author Bob Thompson visits sites associated with Crockett to discover the man behind the legend.

Corbett, who is the author of “Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express” and “The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West,” used his own knowledge of the West’s legends to evaluate the book.

“[Thompson’s] book also shows a fine appreciation of the truth, half-truth and no truth at all that connoisseurs of the West understand and accept. Crockett’s story is part of that world. A hell of a lot of it might not be true,” Corbett writes. “I stopped worrying about what was true on Page 13, and it made for a more pleasant read, too.”

The full review, “‘Born on a Mountaintop: On the Road with Davy Crockett and the Ghosts of the Wild Frontier’ by Bob Thompson,” appeared on March 22.

Public policy professor John Rennie Short will present the talk “Restless Urban Landscape” at Michigan State University on Friday, March 29th, through MSU’s Global Urban Studies Program. The talk will be at 2:00 p.m. in MSU’s Eustace Cole Hall 207/208.

John Rennie Short is an expert on urban and environmental issues, globalization, political geography and the history of cartography. He is the author of over 30 books, founding co-editor of the journal Society and Space, and founding editor of both the Space, Place and Society book series and Critical Introduction to Urbanism book series. His most recent books include Korea: A Cartographic History (watch video) and the soon-to-be-released Stress Testing the USA: Public Policy and Reaction to Disaster Events.