Tis the season of brand-new graduates! Which means, it’s also a great time for a fun refresher in one of the trickiest necks of Latin: alumni-dom.

Check out this quick video for a lesson in the differences between the words alumna, alumnus, alumnae and alumni. Which version of proud alum are you?

Raphael Falco, professor of English, has been named the Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the 2012-2013 academic year. Falco is one of the foremost scholars, nationally and internationally, of the English Renaissance.

“Professor Falco is a very distinguished and productive scholar, one who brings recognition and distinction not just to himself and his department but to the university. It is thus altogether fitting that he has been named Lipitz Professor,” said John Jeffries, dean of the college of arts, humanities, and social sciences.

The Lipitz professorship was established by Roger C. Lipitz and his family to “provide funds to recognize and support innovative and distinguished teaching and/or research.” The professorship comes with about $10,000 in funding.

Read about Falco’s award and research here.
Learn more about how to support UMBC here.

Raphael Falco, professor of English, has been named the Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the 2012-2013 academic year. Falco is one of the foremost scholars, nationally and internationally, of the English Renaissance.

“Professor Falco is a very distinguished and productive scholar, one who brings recognition and distinction not just to himself and his department but to the university. It is thus altogether fitting that he has been named Lipitz Professor,” said John Jeffries, dean of the college of arts, humanities, and social sciences.

The Lipitz professorship was established by Roger C. Lipitz and his family to “provide funds to recognize and support innovative and distinguished teaching and/or research.” The professorship comes with about $10,000 in funding.

Read about Falco’s award and research here.

The UMBC men’s soccer program had its most successful Alumni Game and Reception yet on Friday evening, April 27. A record 50 former Retrievers played at Retriever Soccer Park, representing four decades of play.

“I would like to publicly thank all of our alumni in attendance for their  participation in and contribution to the biggest and most successful men’s soccer Alumni Game ever,” head coach Pete Caringi said. “I have been fortunate to see and hear of other programs’ alumni games, and I believe that UMBC sets a standard of excellence that we all should take pride in.”

The alumni were divided into four playing groups, with each group taking on the current Retrievers for 20 minutes apiece. The first 60 minutes was competitive with the varsity winning, 3-1.  The lone alumni goal was scored by Kevin Mezzadra (2003-06).

During the final 20 minutes, the “older” guys played.  After about 10 minutes, the varsity was done for the night and the alumni played against each other. The current team and alumni gathered at Gianni’s after the game for a reception.

The record “50” in attendance were: Anthony Adams, Marco Angelini, Kokou Assigbe, Philippe Bissohong, Ricky Brown, Andrew Bulls, Miguel Calderon, Dustin Dzwonkowski, Jim Fendryk, Andrew Gillis, Kevin Gnatiko, Steve Goddard, Marcus Gross, Jesse Haislip, Levi Houapeu, Lou Karko, Steve King, J.J. Kremer, Jon Larsson, Mike Libber, Dan Louisignau, Andy Marchica, Brian Marchica, Rob Mamula, Brendon McCarron, Kevin Mezzadra, Jamal Molin, Justin Nall, Mike Novotny, Kingsley Onwuka, Paul Parsoneault, Franco Pastore, Bob Pierce, Sean Rothe, Vince Savarese, Andy Streilein, Darius Taylor, Ime Umoh, Aaron Velky, Oscar Villalobos, Bobby Wagner, PJ Wakefield, Bob Walker, Matt Ward, Adrian Washington, Marcus Weekes, Andrew Wells, Chris Williams, Tom Wunk, Steve Zerhusen.

– Submitted by Steve Levy ’85, UMBC Athletic Communications

A novel about coming of age in 1970s Baltimore is among the semi-finalists in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, reports alumna author Mary Volkman ’92, English. These Days, her first novel, specifically focuses on “the perils of romanticizing the past,” and is set in Baltimore’s infamous “block.”

Volkman, who writes under the pen name Margo Christie, shared a bit of her story pitch:

Fueled by a passion for golden-era Hollywood and her musician father’s tales of a time when “every hole-in-the wall bar had a band,” 14-year old Becky Shelling dreams of a career in show biz.  When her beloved dad disappears, abandoning her to an abusive step-mother and an indifferent step-sister, Becky is left with an emotional wound that can be soothed only by the attention of Lenny Moss, a smooth-talking married businessman whose nostalgia is limited to a time when men ruled and women knew their place.  Taking Becky to work for him on Baltimore’s World-Famous Block, Lenny inadvertently leads her down a path of self-discovery on a once-stylish, now-decrepit adult entertainment strip where everyone has a tale about “the good old days,” but nothing is quite as it seems.

Volkman is working on a second novel, which she describes as “a moving tale of family secrets, it focuses on a forty-something retired Swing Band singer whose disappearance off the family radar screen in the 1950s intrigues her awestruck 20-something niece into uncovering the seedy truth about her aunt’s supposedly glamorous life.”  Read more about Volkman and her novel here.

Learn more about the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest here.

After an ATV accident in 2006, Matt Courson ’11, political science, was paralyzed from the waist down and given a 1% chance of walking again. Thanks to aggressive physical therapy at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s International Center for Spinal Cord Injury, he was able to walk across the stage to receive his UMBC diploma just five years later—a moment captured by the Baltimore Sun and featured on CNN’s “Human Factor.”

Courson attended a celebration marking the 75th anniversary of the Kennedy Krieger Institute this week. He told CBS News, “This place has done so much for me, the therapists, the doctors…they are family to me and I definitely hold a special place for Kennedy Krieger in my heart.”

This article originally appeared in UMBC Insights.

After an ATV accident in 2006, Matt Courson was paralyzed from the waist down and given a 1% chance of walking again. Thanks to aggressive physical therapy at the Kennedy Krieger Institute’s International Center for Spinal Cord Injury, he was able to walk across the stage to receive his UMBC diploma just five years later—a moment captured by the Baltimore Sun and featured on CNN’s “Human Factor.”

Courson attended a celebration marking the 75th anniversary of the Kennedy Krieger Institute this week. He told CBS News, “This place has done so much for me, the therapists, the doctors…they are family to me and I definitely hold a special place for Kennedy Krieger in my heart.”

Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, appeared on Southern California Public Radio’s “The Madeleine Brand Show” on May 8 to discuss the death of Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak. Spitz is a renowned expert on children’s literature.

“It’s hard to think of any other American who did more for children’s literature,” Spitz said. “Maurice Sendak had an uncanny way of seeing into a child’s private world, a child’s world of fantasy. But I think what is most important about his legacy is that he was able to create books and characters that captured the way every child, at some point, feels alone.”

The full interview can be heard here.

Maurice Sendak, a children’s author best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, passed away on Tuesday, May 8.

Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, wrote about Sendak for The New Republic in a piece entitled “Remembering Maurice Sendak, Who Brought Loneliness to Children’s Literature,” which appeared on the website on May 9.

“Sendak knew from within the profound sense in which every child, from time to time, perceives himself or herself to be alone—an outsider—and feels the need to retreat into some private space, some nook or secret hiding place. Sendak’s books are themselves such places; they can so function even when being read aloud by an adult. Sendak’s supreme gift, as visual artist as well as author, was to discover pictorial as well as verbal and narrative means to portray the existential separateness of childhood,” she wrote.

Catie Collins ’12, English literature and psychology, participated in a conference call with Maryland Governor O’Malley and President Obama on Monday, May 7. The call, which included elected officials and student leaders from across the country, concerned the the effort to prevent interest rates on student loans from increasing this summer.

Collins was joined by Rosa Abraha from College Park.

More photos and information about the call can be found on the White House blog.

(Photo: MDGovpics)