UMBC has again made the Kiplinger’s Personal Finance list of the 100 best values in public higher education. The list ranks four-year colleges and universities that “deliver academic quality and affordability.” This marks the fourth year in a row UMBC has appeared among Kiplinger’s best values. On the 2013 list, UMBC ranks 78 for in-state students and 61 for out-of-state ones, both up from last year. Four other Maryland universities made the list, highlighting the state’s commitment to both affordability and excellence in public higher education.

Kiplinger’s assesses quality and affordability based on a number of factors, including retention and graduation rates; student-to-faculty ratios; tuition and fees; and financial aid. The full methodology is available here. The complete rankings are online here.

Robert Deluty, associate dean of the graduate school and associate professor of psychology, has published a new volume of poetry, “The Inventor as Observer.” In his review, Richard M. Berlin writes:

“In his 39th book, Robert Deluty continues his long record as the contemporary poet whose work is guaranteed to make me laugh out loud one minute and bring tears to my eyes the next.  His craft has evolved to what seems like an effortless level of mastery in poems filled with sly observations, surprise, word play, and his trademark warmth and wit.  Who else could write a book that includes the mind-set of a mastiff, exhausted poets, car mechanics, children, professors, and an illiterate man living on Brooklyn’s Avenue X. Like its predecessors, this collection of poems sparkles on every page.”

“The Inventor as Observer,” as well as all of Deluty’s other books, may be purchased at the UMBC Bookstore.

The department of American studies has received a civic engagement grant from the Maryland Humanities Council for the project, “Looking Forward from the 45th Anniversary of the Catonsville Nine Actions.”Civic Engagement Grants support public programs that promote informed dialogue and civic engagement about critical issues identified by the grant applicant.

The Catonsville Nine were nine activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War. On May 17, 1968 they went to the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot, poured home-made napalm over them, and set them on fire.

The project consists of classroom visits, a public tour of sites in the story of the Catonsville Nine, film screenings, a public dialogue, and the creation of mobile mapping software highlighting key sites. The department hopes to engage students, community-based activists, the general public and the community of Catonsville about not only the historical significance of the actions of the Catonsville Nine, but also how we think about social protest, civic duty, and citizenship for our time.

“The University of Maryland, Baltimore County chess team tied four other college teams for first place at the Pan-American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship on Sunday — maintaining its record as one of two colleges with the most top finishes in the history of the international event,” wrote Kevin Rector in the Baltimore Sun.

The UMBC chess team tied for first place December 30, 2012 in the Pan-Am Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship, advancing to the 2013 President’s Cup, known as the “Final Four” of chess.

The team headed into the 2012 Pan-Am Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship with a record nine titles to its name. The competition known informally as the Pan-Am, was held December 27 to 30 in Princeton, New Jersey. Since the tournament began in 1946, dozens of universities throughout the Americas have participated. The Retrievers won their first Pan-Am title in 1996, and then embarked on a five-year title streak from 1998 to 2002.

This year, the Retrievers tied for first place with 3 other Universities: University of Texas, Dallas; Webster University, which had 2 teams; and the University of Illinois.
“It was an exciting finish. This was the strongest Pan Am in the history of the event. Twenty – three grandmasters as well as 5 teams rated over 2500 competed,” says Alan Sherman, Director of the UMBC Chess Program.

The UMBC team, all on chess scholarships, is composed of students not only with exceptional chess skills but also with strong academic records, Sherman says. UMBC requires students to maintain a 3.0 GPA to maintain chess scholarships.
The Retrievers last won the Pan-Am title in 2009, and took second last year. This year’s team will compete in the 2012 President’s Cup, the “Final Four of College Chess,” to be held in April 6-7, 2013 in Herndon, Va.

Library Journal has named Curious Behavior: Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond by Robert Provine, professor of psychology, as one of the best books of 2012.

In the publication’s original review of the book, the reviewer said that the book ” is a delectable presentation for all who love the territory between pop and hardcore science writing.”

Hillol Kargupta, professor of computer science, is the winner of the 2012 10-Year ICDM Highest-Impact Paper Award for the ICDM 2003 paper on “On the Privacy Preserving Properties of Random Data Perturbation Techniques.” Researchers, Souptik Datta (UMBC), Qi Wang (Washington State University), and Krishnamoorthy Sivakumar (Washington State University), were also authors on the paper.

ICDM is the premier international conference on data mining (with an acceptance ratio of approx. 8-12% in the last ten years). The 10-Year ICDM Highest-Impact Paper Award is awarded every year since 2010. The first ICDM was held in 2001.

Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, recently reviewed the art show The Event of a Thread by Ann Hamilton, which runs through January 6 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, for the online magazine Artcritical.

Spitz says that “The Gothic Revival Park Avenue Armory… provides a perfect venue for Hamilton’s swings, her 42 pigeons in miniature, stacked dovecotes, and the immense white silken fabric that billows from on high, responsively rising and falling according to the visitors’ velocities as they sway on their swings, pushed often by perfect strangers.”

Relating the exhibition to its title, Spitz says, “by the most gossamer of threads— of silk and of sound—connections proliferate.”

The review, “Gentling The Savage Enormity Of Gargantuan Space: Ann Hamilton at the Armory,” appeared online on December 20.

Josiah Dykstra, a Ph.D. student in Computer Science, won the Outstanding Case Study Award for 2012 of the The American Academy of Forensic Sciences, based on his presentation of a paper by Dykstra and his advisor Alan Sherman,
published in the Journal of Network Forensics. Dykstra will accept the award in February at the Academy’s annual meeting.

Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, was a guest on the “Marc Steiner Show” on Tuesday, December 18, to discuss children’s literature, the best children’s literature of the year, and books that make good gifts.  Spitz was joined by Deborah Taylor, School and Student Services Coordinator for the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and JoAnn Fruchtman, owner of The Children’s Bookstore in Roland Park.

Spitz spoke to the bond that books can create between a parents and a child.  Because children cannot read when they are very young, the experience of books must be shared with an adult, which creates a bond.

“Even though we have all kind of wonderful technology, the books are there for a relational cultural experience,” she said.

Spitz also encouraged parents to take care with the books they share with their children.

“I feel passionately that just as we think about the food that we give to our children, and we want to give them something nourishing, I think what goes into their minds, into their heads, is equally important.  I think parents, and teachers, and editors, and the writers themselves, need to think very seriously about the cultural lives of children. When you are a child, you are a sponge.  Everything goes in; every subtle hint becomes a part of your psychic equipment,” she said.

The full segment can be heard here.

Here’s wishing our wonderful alumni a safe and happy holiday season, and a brilliant new year! We look forward to seeing you in 2013!