What’s it like adjusting to life as a professor?

For language, literacy and culture Ph.D. grad Karsonya “Kaye” Whitehead ’09, it was just as much about embracing a new sort of teaching — the Jesuit educational traditions upheld by her employer, Loyola University Maryland — as the challenges found in the everyday classroom. A member of Loyola’s full-time communications faculty since 2009, Whitehead was recently interviewed by the university about her experiences so far.

Read the full story here.

Whitehead earned her bachelor’s degree in history from Pennsylvania’s Lincoln University and her M.A. in international peace studies from the University of Notre Dame. She answered some additional questions about the professor’s life for UMBC’s Alumni Blog.

Q:  As a relatively new Ph.D. grad, what has it been like adjusting to your new work?

A:  One of the things that I enjoyed the most about my doctoral program was working so closely with my dissertation committee. I had both the support and the ear of five very accomplished scholar teachers who were committed to my success. They read every word that I wrote, listened when I felt overwhelmed, cheered for my every accomplishment, and believed in me even during the times when I could not believe in myself. My co-chairs were Drs. Christine Mallison (LLC) and Kriste Lindemeyer (former chair of the History department) and my committee members were Drs. Michele Scott (History), Cristel Temple (former associate professor in Africana Studies) and Debra Newman Ham (History, Morgan State). My biggest adjustment has been adjusting to the fact that I am now the teacher scholar and that I must do for others, what was done for me. I miss my committee and there are days when I miss being the student (who could focus only on myself) rather than the professor (as I must look outward to ensure that my students are learning and growing and are not being left behind).

Q:  What has been your most surprising discovery so far?

A:  I am constantly amazed by how much I enjoy teaching at a Jesuit university. I was first introduced to the Jesuit teachings when I was in graduate school at the University of Notre Dame. I was living in the “Peace House,” while I was working on my masters in international peace studies (fourteen graduate students in the peace program—students were from all around the world with no more than two from one country—were selected every year to live in the peace house and to actively work on building and maintaining a peaceful community. It was a yearlong commitment and it forced us to listen to one another and to bear one another’s burden. We had a white and a black student from South Africa, a student whose mom was Jewish and her father was Palestinian, students from China, Korea, Vietnam, Russia…) and someone mentioned that the Jesuits were committed to promoting peace when peace was an option and protesting when it wasn’t. I had never really heard of the Jesuits but I was familiar with protest and resistance and I was interested in hearing more about this group that did both and that did them in the name of love.

Since arriving at Loyola, I have immersed myself in the culture. I have gone on an Ignatian Pilgrimage, visiting all of the places in Spain and Rome where St. Ignatius developed the Jesuit teachings; I have participated in an Ignatian pedagogy class, where I learned how to infuse Jesuit teachings into my classroom; I have attended the Collegium program, a week-long retreat for faculty members from Jesuit and Catholic universities; and I have worked with a Jesuit priest to learn about the Examen process of daily meditative reflection and discernment. I enjoy being at a place where we take seriously the idea of cura personalis – the care of the entire student. We are concerned about them as people and we want them to think seriously about what they have to offer the world and how they can make a difference in whatever field they choose to enter.

Q:  And what advice might you give to current UMBC students looking to begin careers as professors?

A:  I am going into my fourth year and what I value the most about my colleagues is the feeling of collegiality and community. Loyola is a good fit for me and for my family. I like the way the school values both teaching and scholarship. For students that are considering becoming a university professor, I would advise them:

• Find a campus where they can see themselves working at everyday for the next 20+ years (even if they are not planning to stay that long, the field is always changing and you have to gauge when to make a move to another university, so just in case…)
• Find a department where they have a connection with the other professors (they will be your campus family and you will need them to support your annual reviews, your tenure package, your teaching…)
• Find a university whose mission fits with the way that you see the world; if you want to focus solely on research then look only at R1 universities and if you want to focus on both your teaching and your research – look for places like Loyola.

Earlier this week, I left class, walked across my campus, and realized how much I love being a university professor. I get paid to make an impact on the lives of the next generation; to think deeply about issues that are important to me; and to be engaged in the world around me!

Maggie Lebherz ’08, modern languages and linguistics, was featured in a recent Baltimore Sun article about the evolution of olive oil. The owner of an olive oil shop in her native Frederick, Md., Lebherz shared her thoughts on the way the public has embraced the versatile oil in their cooking.

Read the full article in the Baltimore Sun.

Lebherz also shares her recipe for lemon olive oil cake with wild blueberry icing.

In an interview with UMBC Magazine in Fall 2011, Lebherz explained how she decided to pursue her business, Lebherz Oil & Vinegar Emporium (LOVE), and how she fell in love with olive oil while visiting Salamanca as an exchange student:

“Tasting fresh olive oil added an entirely new dimension to it, and I also learned about the health benefits of olive oil,” she says. “I had never had true balsamic vinegar, and even the best ones on the market here could not compare to what I had in Spain.”

Read the UMBC Magazine story here.

The UMBC Chess Team is training for the 2012 Pan-Am Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship (“The World Series of College Chess”), which will take place December 27-30, in Princeton, NJ. The Pan-Am determines the top college or university team in North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean. In its current form, it has been held annually since 1946. The Retrievers have won or tied for first place a record nine times (96,98,99,00(tie),01(tie),02,05,08(tie),09).

The top four USA schools will advance to the President’s Cup (“Final Four of College Chess”), which will take place in early April in Herndon, VA. Started in 2001, the Final Four determines the top USA college team. The Retrievers have won the Final Four a record six times.

Whereas the Pan-Am is a six-round team Swiss tournament scored by team points, the Final Four is a three-round team round robin tournament scored by individual points. Dr. Alan Sherman, Director of the UMBC Chess Program, considers team Swiss tournaments the most exciting form of college chess because each player must act in the best interest of the team, which might be in conflict with what is in the best interest for his or her individual game. For example, if the team needs a win, a player who normally might settle for a draw in an even or worse position in his or her game might have to assume the risk of playing for a win.

This year’s team includes two new players: International Grandmaster Niclaus Huschenbeth (FIDE rating 2536) from Hamburg, Germany, and International Woman Grandmaster Nazi Paidikze (2394) from the Republic of Georgia. Grandmaster Huschenbeth became the 2012-2013 UMBC Champion when he won the UMBC Chess Championship September 15-16 with an undefeated score of 4.5 points out of 5.

The two women on the team––International Women Grandmasters Paidikze and Sabina Foisor––are the fifth and sixth highest rated women in the USA. In early September, Foisor played on the USA Women’s Chess Team at the Chess Olympiads in Istanbul.

Last year, the University of Texas at Dallas won the Pan-Am, and Texas Tech won the Final Four. This year, however, the favorite is Webster University in St. Louis, MO, a newcomer to chess. Webster recruited the entire Texas Tech Team and its coach International Grandmaster Susan Polgar. Investing heavily in chess, they also recruited some of the top young rising stars, including Ray Robson.

The UMBC Team comprises Giorgi Margvelashvili (Captain), Niclas Huschenbeth, Sasha Kaplan, Sabina Foisor, and alternates Nazi Paikidze, Adithya Balasubramanian, and Benjamin Krause.

When UMBC political science professor Carolyn Forestiere moved to Catonsville, she and her husband knew they wanted to fill their new home with local art. After thinking about it some more, they decided to take their curatorial endeavor up a notch — and open their home as a part-time gallery.

Their first show, “UMBC Through the Lens,” will feature five UMBC visual arts alumnae — Brittney Danielle ’12, Chrystal Smith ’12, Marlayna Demond ’12, Stephanie Ellis ’12, and Kimberly M. Haines ’12 — who will present photography related to their time as students at UMBC.

Forestiere said she was pleased to have five “wonderful photographers,” explaining she hopes “that the artists will receive exposure and further their professional credentials.”

The first show will be on Friday, October 5th, from 5 to 7 p.m. Read more about the show and get the gallery address here. The community is welcome.

On Thursday, September 27, the Humanities Forum will present the annual Robert K. Webb History Department Lecture with Judith Walkowitz of Johns Hopkins University.

Walkowitz will speak on “Schleppers and Shoppers: Jews, Street Markets, and the Selling of Ready-to-Wear Fashion in London in the 1920′s and 1930′s” at 5 p.m. in the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery.

The lecture will spotlight a Jewish street market that emerged as the cutting edge retail space for mass market fashion in the West End. Whereas journalists described the smartly-dressed, fast-talking shop assistants locally known as “schleppers,” and the working-class female patrons they pulled into gown shops as straying from the class codes and styles of established English culture, Jewish Sohoites told hilarious tales of the “schlepper” as a Jewish street character, alternately resembling a red hot mama and a flashily dressed fellow emulating the dress of celluloid gangsters. Their memories recall a safe and modern space of ethnic settlement, simultaneously tied to Soho’s irregular world of sex, crime, and entertainment.

More information can be found here.

The Pitch Across Maryland Tour rolled into UMBC yesterday and the Daily Record was on hand to cover it.

“The statewide Pitch Across Maryland tour targets dozens of hopeful entrepreneurs from the Eastern Shore to Western Maryland. At each stop, participants meet and receive feedback from top business leaders and have the opportunity to record a four- to six-minute business pitch inside the bus studio,” wrote Daily Record reporter, Alissa Gulin in her story, Startup Maryland and its studio bus rolls into UMBC. “A panel of business professionals will judge the entries and choose several to advance to the next round. The winners will fine-tune their pitches for showcase at the Entrepreneur Expo, an event on Nov. 13 sponsored by the Maryland Technology Development Corp., or TEDCO.”

UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller has tough news for Americans frustrated with government gridlock. In his latest Baltimore Sun column, Schaller writes:

Americans sent divided governments to Washington in both 2006 and 2010, and will likely do so again this November. Since the conventions, President Obama’s lead over Republican nominee Mitt Romney has widened, and almost no sane analyst thinks the GOP will lose the U.S. House this November. So buckle up for two more years of stalemated, sometimes ugly governance in the nation’s capital.

The one remaining toss-up for Schaller is the Senate race, which might offer election night’s greatest excitement. However, he concludes, “Whichever party emerges this November with a Senate majority…the inability of the two national parties to solve major national problems is almost certain to continue for another biennium.”

David H. Murray ’14, economics, is hard at work campaigning for a seat on the Prince George’s County Board of Education, reports The Baltimore Sun‘s Explore Howard, and his chances look good.

Murray is speaking with as many voters as he can before the election, commenting, “Any time I’m not in school, I’m rushing back here to talk to people.” Next week he will participate in a forum sponsored by the Prince George’s County branches of the League of Women Voters and NAACP, alongside candidate Zabrina Epps. Murray was the front-runner in the April 2012 primary, garnering 56% of the total votes and receiving 1,500 more votes than Epps.

Responding to queries about his age, Murray notes that voters he meets seem pleasantly surprised that “they have a young person growing up in the county, deciding they’re not going to leave, or wait till they get older to solve problems, that they’re willing to jump in now and do that.”

Alumna Jeehye Yun ’97, computer science, was profiled along with her cybersecurity company Secured Sciences Group (SSG) by The Baltimore Business Journal’s Jack Lambert in an article published on September 7th.
Read the full story here.
Yun told Lambert that SSG–a member of UMBC’s Research and Technology Park, and which is in the process of working with the research park on a plan to attract investors–is particularly adept at cutting through red tape and redundancies which can occur in government applications, saying, “We can take a lot of disparate policies and figure out where the overlaps are.”
The alumna, who is CEO/President of SSG as well as a former teacher at her alma mater from the late-90′s, also told Lambert that the company’s upcoming technology will new technology will hopefully cut through the quantity of material companies have to sift through from government grant applications and contracts by finding the overlaps between for organizations like the Department of Defense, the Navy and the Marines.
Yun also noted that her company’s products also have value for colleges, management consultants and small businesses, saying, “The biggest rule of thumb for us is, actually, are we solving a problem where we would want to use the product?”
This story originally appeared in UMBC Insights.