In the face of another political stalemate on Capitol Hill, Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein turned to Roy T. Meyers, professor of political science, to understand the possible impact of a government shutdown. Meyers, a former Congressional Budget Office analyst, argues that we may underestimate the costs of shutdowns by not accounting for the value of lost work hours, decreased federal parks revenue or the reduced pace of IRS audits.

Klein writes, “Meyers suggests that contractors might start charging the government a premium after shutdowns to compensate for the uncertainty of their payments. And a large body of work shows that unstable budget processes at the state level raise borrowing costs. Add those together and a real, sustained shutdown would cost much more than the $1.6 billion that separated this week’s two bills.”

The article, “Government Shutdown Would Cost Much More Than the Two Parties are Fighting Over,” appeared September 26.

Christopher Corbett, professor of the practice of English, may be from Maine, but the author enjoys traveling through America’s West and is currently teaching a course entitled “America’s Road Trip.”

The Baltimore Sun recently interviewed Corbett for a story entitled “UMBC Professor, Author Heeds Call of the West” in which he describes the experience of traveling through these deserted parts of the country.

“You can see enormous distances—the road in some spots is so straight that your eye almost can’t comprehend the distance you are taking in. It just melts into the horizon. You’re so far out in the middle of nowhere, you can’t get anything on the radio; the dial just keeps spinning around,” Corbett says.

The story appeared in the Sun on September 23.

Baltimore magazine recently reviewed “Since You Have No Body,” the latest book of poetry from Michael Fallon, senior lecturer of English.

“These interrelated, elegiac poems dance around the mysteries of death, as they celebrate friendship and ponder the notion that life’s grand waltz eventually slows to a roaring silence that can make even the most avowed atheists and religious devotees flinch,” says John Lewis in a review for the magazine.

The review appeared in the October 2011 issue of the magazine.

Do you think clouds are cool? Have a penchant for prognostication? Well, Bob Marshall ’88, mechanical engineering, is your man.

A story in the Washington Post says Marshall — owner of Earth Networks — “prays for crazy weather.”

“We buzz off this stuff,” Marshall says, staring at his computer monitor as it follows a path of lightning across Massachusetts.

His company, Earth Networks, grosses $50 million from its 10,000 suitcase-size weather stations spanning the globe.

The information pours in to the privately held company’s Germantown headquarters, home to Marshall and a posse of scientists and meteorologists.

Local emergency crews subscribe so they can jump on flash floods or lay down sand before the snow hits. Sports leagues need to know whether that thunderstorm heading their way is going to hit the stadium.

Bob was honored by the UMBC Alumni Association during its 2007 Outstanding Alumni Awards.

Read the full Washington Post story here.

Read more alumni stories on Retriever Net.

Lipitz Professor Leslie Morgan, sociology and anthropology, responded to the announcement that an advocate against elder abuse received a MacArthur “genius” grant through a powerful letter in the Washington Post, recognizing the importance of this advocacy but also the unsung heroes of elder care. “Studies show that 60 million Americans provide care to adult relatives, with an average lifetime economic cost per person of $300,000, mostly from early retirement or reduced work hours… The great majority of these caregivers do exemplary jobs, sacrificing free time, sleep and sometimes their own health,” she wrote.

Morgan went on to reference research she conducted with colleagues at UMBC’s Center for Aging Studies that shows “older people in residential-care settings describe both exemplary paid care providers and some who are mediocre or poor.” She argued, “This positive quality of care, however, is not newsworthy, and most news stories focus on the few, horrific cases where abuse or neglect leads to harm or death. In elder care, there are most certainly a few villains but many, many unsung heroes.”

“100,000 Stories, a Selection of Women Photographers from the Photography Collections, in Honor of the 20th Anniversary of the UMBC Women’s Center” will open for public viewing on Wednesday, September 28, noon, in the Library Rotunda. Refreshments will be served.

100,000 people have visited the UMBC Women’s Center and have shared their lives and stories with other visitors and the staff. Equally, that many stories have been told by the women photographers held in the Photography Collections of the Albiin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery. A selection of photographs is presented with the stories of the photographers and their images in honor of the 20th anniversary of the UMBC Women’s Center.

(Photo: “Father and Daughter at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom at Washington, D.C.” by Mildred Grossman, silver gelatin print, 1957, acc. no. 89.25.005)

“By now, hundreds of children’s books about the Holocaust have been published—fiction and non-fiction, as well as hybrids of varying quality: books about hiding, about substitute parents, about successful and failed escapes, attempted rescues and resistance,” writes Ellen Handler Spitz, honors college professor of visual arts, in “Pedagogy in Purgatory,” her latest essay for the New Republic. “Two recent non-fiction books… reveal that the choice of any particular book—and, similarly, the decision to visit a memorial or a museum—may be less important than what surrounds the experience whenever it does occur.”

Spitz goes on to review Ruth Thomson’s “Terezín: Voices from the Holocaust” and Linney Wix’s “Through a Narrow Window,” praising the fact that these books give children and their parents opportunities to discuss the Holocaust, and particularly the situation of children during the holocaust, without the heavy-handed commentary that is often found in children’s books about the time.

The review appeared on the website on September 21.

The Crofton Patch reports that Eric Tedrow ’13, psychology, is the driving force behind a new skate park that will soon open in Crofton.

Tedrow, a rollerblader, saw the need for a place where skaters could practice their sport. “Give children a place where they can push the boundaries of the sport. They need an outlet for that activity,” he told the website.

Tedrow hopes to one day use the psychology skills he is learning at UMBC to research alternative athletes. “What makes them get out there and want to risk it all? There has to be a pattern,” said Tedrow.

The story, “Building a Safe Place to Skate,” appeared on the site on September 18.

September 20, 2011 marked the official end of the the U.S. military’s controversial Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, which mandated openly gay and bisexual military service members be discharged from the Armed Forces. Jeremy Johnson ’12, sociology, was one of over 14,000 service members discharged under DADT, and one of many who now plans to return to service.

In an interview on PRI’s “The World,” Johnson describes the impact the policy has had on his life and career, and his current plan to return to the Navy. Until he finishes his degree, Johnson plans to return as a reservist, saying, “Even if it’s only devoting one week a month, I want to get back to it.” When asked why, he responded, “I never really wanted to leave. I felt forced to write [a resignation] letter because I was compromising my integrity and… being treated unequally. Now that that’s gone, I really don’t see any other barriers… I’m ready to go back.”

Johnson is also featured in a Baltimore Sun story on how Baltimoreans have celebrated the repeal of DADT.

Smithsonian Magazine devoted two pages in its October issue to Research Professor Maurice Berger, curator of the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture exhibition “For All the World to See.” The exhibition continues on display at the Smithsonian through late November and will visit UMBC in 2012.