“With the Iowa caucuses less than three weeks away, the narrowed Republican presidential contest between Romney, Newt Gingrich, and the surging Ron Paul remains a muddle,” writes UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller in Salon.com. This landscape has led Romney to focus on a new strategy to win the GOP presidential nomination: surviving a tough fight in January to win more favorable states in February.

Schaller argues that the crucial step for Romney is to attack Gingrich “using a negative television and radio blitz on the issue of Medicare to win Florida’s pivotal seniors.” He suggests, “If Romney can pair his younger support four years ago with a better performance among Florida seniors this year, he can win Florida on January 31.” Such a win might carry him through to February’s primaries in Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada, where he was successful in 2008.

The December issue of Maryland Family magazine features a unique article on seniors who volunteer in local K-12 schools — a practice that Judah Ronch argues has significant benefits for both children and adults. Dean Ronch of UMBC’s Erickson School comments, “Doing things you enjoy makes [your activities] meaningful, and that means you are more likely to remember them.” For seniors who enjoy interacting with kids and sharing their skills and knowledge, volunteering in a local community can have positive effects on their physical and mental health and well-being.

UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller offered insight on the upcoming GOP primary election in two publications today. In the Colorlines article, “Why (Very White) Iowa and New Hampshire Mean So Much in Politics,” Schaller commented, “The prominence and first-in-nation position of Iowa and New Hampshire do elevate white primary voters over non-white ones, and in both parties.” However, the electoral process is beginning to change to better account for our nation’s diversity. According to Schaller, “Both parties, and especially the Democrats—who receive the lion’s share of the black and Latino vote in general election—have tried to address this inequality by moving Nevada and South Carolina up earlier into the calendar.”

Schaller also commented in a Baltimore Sun article that suggested for Maryland to have an impact on the primary, “Gingrich and Romney would have to come to a draw in several early battles.” For Schaller, “The real question is do they make it to March or do we have a clear winner by the end of February.”

Rebecca Boehling, professor of history and director of the Dresher Center for the Humanities, will appear on WYPR’s Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast on Friday, December 16 at approximately 9:15 a.m.  The subject of the discussion will be Boehling’s recent book, Life and Loss in the Shadow of the Holocaust.

The broadcast can be heard live here, or after the show here.

“Paul Schurick’s recent conviction for voter fraud is a sad coda to the 2010 Martin O’Malley-Bob Ehrlich gubernatorial rematch,” writes UMBC political science professor Thomas Schaller in his latest Baltimore Sun column. Schaller notes that was saddens him most is a broader trend that Schurick’s actions exemplify: an increase in efforts to suppress U.S. voter turnout.

Schaller writes: “In the past year, 19 new laws and two executive orders were issued in 14 states to create stricter voter identification requirements.” Citing the Brennan Center for Justice, Schaller argues such restrictions “disproportionately disfranchise poorer and nonwhite voters, as well as senior citizens and college-age students” — populations that would be more likely to vote Democratic. Read the column for Schaller’s full argument.

Baltimore entrepreneur Greg Cangialosi ’96, English, has set his sights on helping new tech companies take off and fly.

The founder of Blue Sky Factory, a tech marketing firm Cangialosi founded in 2001 and sold this year, will team up with Sean Lane, chief executive of BTS Corp., a software company in Baltimore, the Baltimore Sun reports:

Their goal: Make small investments in several startups, germinate their own ideas, and help nurture the city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.

“We want to bring in bright people who are running companies, to help give them a shot in the arm,” Cangialosi said.

A former member of the UMBC Alumni Association Board of Directors, Cangialosi has stayed involved with UMBC, most recently acting as a judge in the university’s entrepreneurially-inspired “IDEA competition.”

Read the full Baltimore Sun story here.

Douglas Lamdin, professor of economics, has edited a book entitled, “Consumer Knowledge and Financial Decisions”. More information on the book can be found on the publisher’s website.

The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture celebrates its Fall 2011 K-12 school and community partnerships with an exhibition in the Hall Gallery on the first floor of the Fine Arts Building through February 9. The multi-media display features original artwork by more than two hundred students from four area schools—Lansdowne High School (Academy of Arts & Communication), Benjamin Franklin High School at Masonville Cove, Highlandtown Elementary/Middle School and Hampstead Hill Academy—alongside work by their UMBC student and faculty collaborators. Their artwork responds to the CADVC’s main gallery exhibition Image Transfer: Pictures in a Remix Culture, which was on display in Fall 2011.

Work by students from two of these schools, Highlandtown Elementary/Middle School and Hampstead Hill Academy, are also on display at the Pop-Up Gallery at 401 South Conkling Street in Baltimore City through January 14. This exhibition, Highlandtown Transfer Remix, is the result of a partnership between the CADVC and the Highlandtown Arts & Entertainment District, also known as “ha!”.

More information is available at the CADVC’s Image Transfer exhibition page.

Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher, editorial cartoonist for The Economist and UMBC artist-in-residence, discussed his current work in an insightful interview on “The Signal” that aired December 9 and 10 on WYPR. KAL is known internationally for his lectures on freedom of the press and the power of caricature. At UMBC he advises student bloggers in their coverage of current events and politics on USDemocrazy, a particularly exciting project moving into the new electoral season. Listen to “The Signal” to learn more about KAL’s work at UMBC and the value he places on seeing current events — particularly the economic crisis — through the eyes of college students.

The Department of Theatre’s production of The Laramie Project, directed by Nyalls Hartman (associate professor), received a review in The Baltimore Sun and Howard County Times by critic Mike Giuliano on December 7, and received a review in Maryland Theatre Guide by UMBC alumna Amanda Gunther on December 9. The production concludes its run at the UMBC Theatre on Sunday, December 11.