World Leaders

UMBC is connecting students around the globe through a new online community leadership class for teenage English language learners administered by UMBC Training Centers.

The idea for the course was sparked when Joan Kang Shin �08 Ph.D., language, literacy and culture (LLC), and assistant professor of education, was contacted by the U.S. Consulate General in Brazil. Shin trains teachers for the U.S. State Department�s English Access Microscholarship Program, which provides English education to talented teens from economically disadvantaged areas, and Brazil�s English Language Officer was looking for a way to continue these students� education once they graduated.

�They go through this really great program and improve their English, and then they�re like �ok now what?�� said Shin. The English Language Officer was hoping that the answer might be a program that would prepare these students, already given an advantage through their English education, to be leaders in their communities.

Shin contacted her former LLC classmate and UMBC Colleague Joby Taylor �05 Ph.D., and director of the Shriver Peaceworker Fellows program, about developing an online course.

Taylor immediately saw the potential, and set to work adapting community engagement content from the Peaceworker program into an online course that teaches leadership while supporting students� still-developing English skills. The resulting class, the Access Alumni Community Leadership Challenge, leads students through a variety of self-reflection, community understanding and leadership exercises, culminating in a proposal for a project in students� own communities.

�We end at the proposal stage because we don�t pretend to know how to implement these, but we wanted the students to have a concrete takeaway and to put their ideas in a form that would be as easy to present or implement as possible,� Taylor said.

The class was a success in Brazil, which offered it twice, and news of it spread to other countries. This semester several Central American nations have partnered to offer the course to their Access alumni, and a class is being planned for students in Yemen.

�I wanted to build this in a way that it can go anywhere in the world with very modest adjustments,� said Taylor. A Peaceworker Fellow is currently serving as the teaching assistant for the class, and Taylor said that, with Fellows as teachers, UMBC could potentially offer classes in several countries simultaneously.

Now that the class is off the ground, Shin and Taylor are eager to find ways to enhance it. One is through a new partnership with Arundel High School�s global studies program. UMBC has partnered students at Arundel High with students enrolled in the Access class, and the pairs will complete parallel activities and hold biweekly conversations.

Taylor hopes that these conversation partners can be just the first step of a lasting partnership with Arundel. �If there�s a way for the Arundel students to be registered in the class and co-participating, we�d love it,� he said.

The class is also serving as a research opportunity for Heidi Faust �15 Ph.D., LLC, the class�s English language instructor. She realized that the pre- and post-course conversations in which she evaluates students� English proficiency were also great opportunities to gather data for her research on how educational institutions can mediate the impact of their power status and cultural background.

�We don�t want to come into the course and say we�re going to tell you how to make your communities better,� she said. �Our hope is that it�s not this top down, unidirectional flow of information. We want them to come back to us and say, �this is how we think we can change our communities.��

Finally, UMBC is bringing this online class into the offline world by inviting participants to campus. Students from Arundel High school will visit later this month, and this summer, Brazillian students will come to campus for an experience that will include activities with the American high school students, a trip to Washington D.C. and a homestay.

�We�re creating our own intercultural camp experience for them,� Taylor said.

(3/8/13)

Following a successful run on the internationally-ranked UMBC chess team, Ian Harris ’11, psychology, is making a career of the strategic game in his home state of Connecticut, the Norwalk Hour online reports.

Harris, who is ranked a national master by the United States Chess Federation and 7th in Connecticut, is working as an instructor at the Chess Club of Fairfield County, the story says. He has also co-authored a book, “Mastering Chess,” which is set to publish sometime next month.

On the topic of sharing his chess secrets with a new generation, Harris tells the Hour:

“I think a lot of people want to learn [chess] but are intimidated by it. We offer camps for kids to learn chess and a lot of kids love it. They get hooked because it’s fun and educational.”

Read the full story in the Hour here.

The New York Times today examined the experiences of older students — in their 60s and beyond — at colleges and universities. The article cites many reasons for retirees taking college courses, including tuition waivers, social connections and an interest in lifelong learning.

“Novelty is something the brain thrives on,” said Erickson School Dean Judah L. Ronch, commenting on the physiological and psychological health benefits that older students experience. “It helps connections between nerve cells form, and that’s the basis of new knowledge and ability. Research now supports the idea that at any age these connections can continue to be made.”

In addition to supporting brain health, the classroom can also be a helpful for adults coping with the death of a spouse and struggling to socialize with friends who are intact couples. Ronch noted that in college fellow students are unlikely to ask, “Is your husband dead or alive?” Read the full article to learn more.

On Tuesday, March 12, Robert Provine, professor of psychology, talked to WYPR’s “Midday with Dan Rodricks” about his new book, “Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccuping, and Beyond.”

Rodricks asked Provine why he chose to research mundane – and even occasionally embarrassing – behaviors such as yawning, belching and farting.

“It’s fun to do, and it’s something that can get junior science students involved right away. It also has a lot of rewards for the serious scientist, which is what got me interested in it in the first place,” he said. “By looking at elemental behaviors, such as the instincts of yawning, laughing, coughing, sneezing, belching, and so on, this provides us with a molecular approach to human behavior. The opportunity to look at these exciting and important acts is only available because we’ve overlooked them. I believe that they will lead to important insights.”

The full interview can be heard here.

Last week, The Afro-American created and published a full-color collage featuring scenes from the CADVC’s outreach project, For All the World to Hear: Stories from the Struggle for Civil Rights, in it’s print and digital editions. The photos were taken during its final performance, February 23, at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Main Branch.

Click the image to view a larger version of the collage, or see the image at Afro.com.

The Hilltop Institute’s Hospital Community Benefit Program has just released a new online resource: the Community Benefit State Law Profiles.

The profiles are a compilation of hospital community benefit laws and regulations across the United States, analyzed in the context of the Affordable Care Act’s community benefit framework. They include data on tax exemptions that most states make available to nonprofit hospitals. Readers can access this information through a new interactive map, or see a summary table for side-by-side comparisons of different state policies.

A companion issue brief, “Hospital Community Benefits after the ACA: The State Law Landscape” (pdf), presents the profiles’ findings and begins the analysis of each state’s community benefit landscape and its significance in the context of national health reform.

The Hilltop Institute at UMBC is a non-partisan health research organization dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations. Hilltop’s Hospital Community Benefit Program is the central resource created specifically for state and local policymakers who seek to ensure that tax-exempt hospital community benefit activities are responsive to pressing community health needs. The program is funded through the Kresge Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

It’s all too easy to take successes for granted, especially when you see them every day around campus. At UMBC, the concept of pushing students of all backgrounds and academic levels to succeed is such a part of campus culture, we sometimes forget that’s not necessarily standard practice at other schools.

So when UMBC President Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, III, challenged audiences at the TED2013 conference in California last month to set higher expectations for all students at all levels of education, we were delighted — but not at all surprised. During his session — which fell within a grouping of talks based around the idea “The Spark” — Hrabowski explained how setting high standards for all students lets many who might otherwise be left behind excel. Case in point, he told the group:

“What makes our story especially important is that we have learned so much from students who are typically not at the top of the academic ladder.”

Read the TED blog’s take on Dr. Hrabowski’s talk.

UMBC sets incredibly high standards for its students. Professors and students know it will take a lot of hard work, but the results speak volumes. Our students and alumni are better for being pushed. Dr. Hrabowski touches on a few such examples in his talk.

Just as we sometimes take successes for granted, it’s also easy for forget that without the financial backing of UMBC’s donors, our efforts would be futile. Thank you for believing in Dr. Hrabowski’s message, and for supporting UMBC’s students!

The Department of Geography and Environmental Systems presents our next seminar of the 2012-2013 academic year, The Recognition, Regulation and Research of Headwater Streams in the Contemporary Landscape. The seminar will be presented by Dr. Sean M.C. Smith, University of Maine at Orono, School of Earth and Climate Sciences and Bryand Global Sciences Center. The seminar is next Wednesday, March 13, at noon in Sondheim 001.

For more information, click here or contact Andrew Miller at miller@umbc.edu.

A new Governing magazine article examines a recent study by UMBC professors T.H. Gindling (economics) and Marvin Mandell (public policy) on the economic impact of Maryland’s Dream Act, which extended in-county/in-state tuition at local community colleges and public universities to undocumented immigrants who graduate from Maryland high schools and meet other requirements.

The article notes that 13 states have similar “tuition equity” laws in place and more than a dozen additional states are considering proposals for them. “As state lawmakers think about offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants,” suggests J.B. Wogan, “the UMBC study could offer a model for weighing long-term net benefits and costs.”

Summarizing Gindling and Mandell’s report, Wogan writes, “For government at all levels, the total impact would be a net gain of $39.6 million. For society as a whole, they estimate a total economic benefit of $63.6 million.”

See the website of UMBC’s Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (MIPAR) for the original working paper: “Private and Government Fiscal Costs and Benefits of the Maryland Dream Act.” Coverage of the study has previously appeared on NPR, Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Baltimore Sun and other news outlets.

Thomas F. Schaller’s new Baltimore Sun column critiques the concept of “liberal media bias.”

Schaller writes, “Yes: The opinion media generally skew liberal on social issues related to abortion, gay rights, religion and maybe — maybe — guns. But that’s about the extent of it. On issues of war and peace, taxes and spending and government regulation, the corporate-owned American media are frequently anything but liberal.”

Read the full column on the Baltimore Sun website.