When was the last time you thanked a teacher?
As morning bells begin to ring in a new school year, Brad Engel ’89, B.A. American studies, cert. secondary education, is doing his part to make sure teachers get some well-earned pats on the back. His new book, “T.E.A.M. (Thanking Educators Across Maryland),” features 300 thank-you letters from parents to teachers who have changed their children’s lives.
“My vision for this project was to let teachers know they are truly appreciated,” said Engel, Maryland’s 2005 Teacher of the Year, who recently was promoted to Assistant Principal at Kent Island High School on the Eastern Shore. He has taught history there for 17 years.
“T.E.A.M.” is just one of the results of Engel’s tenure as Teacher of the Year. Since accepting the honor last October, he’s also spoken at more than 100 schools, conferences and other venues, and been congratulated personally by everyone from Maryland State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick to President George W. Bush.
“It has been a very busy year,” said Engel, who came to UMBC as a student while working as an instructor for the Arc of Baltimore, which offers programs and services to people with mental retardation. Although he enjoyed teaching adults all of the useful life skills they would need to make it on their own, he longed to teach and mentor younger students.
“I wanted to work in the high school setting so that I could be a real role model to the students,” he said.
Over the years, he has learned that actions speak louder than words. In addition to chairing the Social Studies department and acting as Leadership Coordinator at the school, he also served on the School Improvement Team and chaired the Middle States Steering Committee. Engel also chairs the school-wide Mentor Advisory Program, where he advises 100 student leaders, and wrote and published “The Four Challenges of Leadership,” a textbook for the program, in 2003.
Although Engel didn’t always see himself as an administrator, his conversations with teachers across the state over the last year changed his mind.
“It completely changed my perspective of what administrators do,” he said. “It showed me that you really are still an educator no matter what you do.”
As a new vice principal, Engel looks forward to working with students in areas of discipline and leadership. He feels strongly that students need individualized attention, and that students must be treated with dignity and respect – something he has always tried to do in the classroom.
“You have to listen to them and help them understand that they are valuable members of society,” he said. “It’s almost magical when you can see a child turn around. It happens one student at a time.”
“T.E.A.M.” will be released within the Maryland school system on October 8. To read passages from the book, visit “T.E.A.M.” online at www.thankyou.ws.
– Jenny O’Grady
Originally posted September 2005

As the world reeled amid the latest terrorist attacks in London last month (July 2005), Vikki Valentine pushed her fears aside to do what she does best – tell it as she sees it.
Even as the world appeared to crumble around her, the former Retriever reporter and editor gathered tidbits of color commentary from the front lines in order to write the stirring “An American in London, Watching Brits ‘Press On,’” for National Public Radio online.
“It is hard, nearly impossible to put your emotions aside when in a situation like that,” admits Valentine, who studied English at UMBC and later went on to write for the Baltimore Sun, Discovery News, NPR and an assortment of other print, radio and web news outlets.
“I haven’t been in a bombing situation before, and hope not to do it again…but I tried to block out the sadness, anger and fear by thinking about how angry my editor would be if I screwed up,” she said. “It’s a mind game, but it worked!”
On leave from National Public Radio for a year while studying for her master’s in the history of medicine in London, Valentine found herself smack dab in the middle of history on July 7 when terrorists bombed the city’s subway system in several places, killing more than 50 people. In covering the event, Valentine called upon her powers of observation to record the average citizen’s reaction to the tragedy, everyone from white collar workers to drunks to Marylinn Benniman, an ambulance driver during World War II who now volunteers with the Red Cross:
She had spent this day trying to ‘soothe’ the injured with ‘extra cups of tea.’ She was not without righteous indignation and not above rebuke, however mild. ‘It’s a wicked, wicked thing he did,’ she told me, referring to the planner of the attacks. ‘I hope he can’t sleep at night.’
Valentine has plenty of practice documenting the details of life in her writing. At the Sun, she wrote local features – a profile on the one-armed high school tuba player, for instance – and later moved on to stories of more national interest, such as the 30th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. As her career progressed, Valentine wound up specializing in science and health journalism, which drove her to London to study the history of medicine.
But Valentine’s initial interest in journalism began at UMBC, when she joined the Retriever news staff her junior year. Not only did the experience convince her to switch majors from anthropology to English, it gave her the confidence she needed to start a career in journalism.
“The Retriever was great practical experience…and a way to see whether reporting would be a good fit for me,” she said. “It was a good chance to learn and practice a totally different form of writing. There’s a big difference in how you write an essay or research paper vs. a newspaper story.”
– Jenny O’Grady
Originally published August 2005

This time of the year, Linnyette Richardson-Hall’s phone never stops ringing.
The brides – 22 of them this season, to be exact – call her about the important details of their weddings at all hours of the day. Should they go with organza or satin gowns? Fresh tulips or gardenias? Garden tents or opulent ballrooms? At every turn, Linnyette’s ready.
“People think being a wedding planner is so glamorous, but it’s not,” said the Baltimore native who, in addition to running a high-profile business – Premiere Event Management – also serves as a consulting “wedding diva” on the Style Network’s “Whose Wedding is it Anyway?”
“It’s really hard work,” she said. “Television has glamorized this business, but there’s a lot of pressure. (Weddings are) a financial investment and an emotional investment.”
So, how did a sociology major with interests in religion, politics and economics wind up becoming an expert on all things matrimony? Richardson-Hall certainly didn’t see it coming following her 1984 graduation from UMBC.
“Did I have any idea I was going to be a wedding planner?” she asked. “Of course not. I had a degree, but I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do.”
Following graduation, Richardson-Hall “fell into” the financial industry, working her way up the ladders of a variety of local institutions. She then moved into telecommunications, serving as a regional administrative manager for what would later be known as MCI World.com. While her career fulfilled Richardson-Hall’s need to work with people, it still left her craving more.
It wasn’t until Richardson-Hall planned her very own wedding for 300 guests in 1993 that she truly found her calling. She thrilled in the planning, the details – and the compliments she received from her guests.
A year later, she launched Premiere Event Management and www.theWeddingDiva.com, “and it’s been going gangbusters ever since,” she said, laughing.
With an ever-growing list of clients, television and publishing commitments and a side business training wedding planner wannabes, Richardson-Hall appears to have found a niche, catering to a clientele interested in creating something new and different – often while preserving the traditions of a variety of cultures.
“I don’t do cookie-cutter weddings,” said Richardson-Hall, whose Web site touts several of her weddings, including a Carribbean-themed “Moonlight on the Beach,” a formal “Hollywood Glamour” event, and a “Fall Fantasy” wedding, complete with wreaths and décor meant to bring the colors of autumn indoors.
In handling such events, Richardson-Hall seems to have found the secret to wedding planner success: knowing that the bride is always right.
“I get very close to my clients. There are so many details, but they trust me implicitly,” she said. “They’re all a creative challenge.”
– Jenny O’Grady
Originally posted in July 2005

Question: How do you surprise a guy whose job it is to see ahead into the financial future?
Answer: Make him think he’s emcee for the night, then — quick! — pull a fast one and hand him the award.
“They got me!” admitted investment banker Don Blair ’89, of Tampa, Fla., who was named this year’s UMBC Economics Alumnus of the Year. “It was great to be back and to catch up with everybody.”
The economics department honors one graduate every year and celebrates the winner’s work at a banquet. Dr. Charles Peake, economics professor emeritus, said Blair exemplifies what the department is all about.
“Number one, he was a great student,” he said. “Number two, he’s been an active alum and he’s contributed to the university. That’s exactly the kind of person we look for.”
Blair started out at UMBC an engineering major, taking economics classes as electives just for fun. However, the more econ classes he took, the more the Catonsville native got hooked.
“I just got a lot more excited about those classes,” including “Money and Capital Markets” with Dr. Peake, he said. “The topics we covered were really relevant.”
After graduation, Blair worked as an accountant for two years in Baltimore. When he passed his CPA exam the same year, he did so with flying colors, earning the Elijah Watt Sells Gold Medal Award for the highest score in the nation.
Blair later earned his MBA from the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia in 1994, which allowed him to move into investment banking. After working for Goldman, Sachs & Co. in New York for three years, he joined Raymond James & Associates in Tampa, where he currently serves as Managing Director of Investment Banking and head of IT services.
Somehow, he manages to balance his career with his family life. He and his wife, Laura, have three kids — Allie, Bo and Luke — which mean Blair spends an awful lot of time coaching T-ball.
“We’ve got a lot going on,” he said, laughing. “It’s challenging, but you’ve got to keep your priorities straight.”
— Jenny O’Grady
Originally posted June 2005

If you’re ever in the position of having to choose teammates, pick Kathleen Warnock.
Not only was she calm and collected in “the hot seat” on ABC’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” she walked away from the game with a cool $50,000.
“I’m a big fan of game shows,” said Warnock, an editor with Frommers travel guides in New York who graduated from UMBC with a degree in interdisciplinary studies in 1980.
Warnock may be understating her devotion a bit. In fact, she has appeared on no less than four trivia game shows – from an obscure VH1 flop to the heights of gamedom, Jeopardy – always leaving at least a little richer than when she arrived.
Warnock seems the perfect candidate for tests of random knowledge. In addition to her work as a travel editor, she’s a playwright – one of her shows, “Grieving for Genevieve,” will be performed in New York this summer – and she’s a contributing editor with ROCKRGRL magazine. While a student at UMBC, she acted as sports editor and editor-in-chief of the Retriever, minored in ancient studies, and even took a stab at fencing.
But her winnings on the daytime version of “Millionaire” in March blew all of her other game show appearances away. Warnock attributes her good fortune to the fact that she was able to sit in on a taping before hitting the hot seat herself.
“I had a chance to spend the day watching and coming up with my strategy,” which was to use all the tools provided to her, she said. “I used all of my life lines, and all of them got me further along in the game.”
Warnock breezed through the early rounds, easily answering questions concerning compote and geldings. When a tough math question came up, however, she called her first life line, her brother-in-law, a science teacher in Montgomery County. Later on in the game, the audience helped her correctly narrow down the answer to a question about a NATO embassy bombing and up the stakes to $25,000.
After successfully using up her final strategic play – the option of switching one question for another – Warnock finally met her match with the following $100,000 question: What planet was once named “Georgium Sidus” in honor of England’s King George III?
Really, now. Does anyone know the answer to that? (It’s Uranus, by the way.)
“It was like, OK, it’s time to go home,” said Warnock, happy enough with the fifty grand. “And I walked away a winner.”
– Jenny O’Grady
Originally posted May 2005

Exploring New Territory

UMBC organizes international contemporary music festival.

Contemporary musicians from around the globe come to UMBC October 27-30 for Livewire, a festival of 21st century music. Through dozens of concerts, lecture-recitals and presentations, performers and attendees will explore new musical territory and bold new compositions. Musicians will premiere, perform and discuss new works from around the world.

�This is a celebration of the vast creative force that has emerged in the last decade,� said Linda Dusman, professor of music and Livewire organizer.

The festival program is a representation of the depth and variety of that creative force. Featured performers include the Ruckus ensemble, the Damocles Trio, the Hoffmann/Goldstein Duo, the Synchronous Trio and UMBC faculty Matthew Belzer, Lisa Cella, Tom Goldstein, Gita Ladd, Maria Lambros, E. Michael Richards and Airi Yoshioka.

Livewire begins with a student concert, Wedneday, October 27, at noon in the Fine Arts Recital Hall. �UMBC students are very involved in contemporary music-making,� said Dusman.

The International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Annual Concert, Thursday, October 28, 6 p.m. in Fine Arts 508, is a showcase of women composers from Australia, Poland, Ireland, France, Norway, Italy and the U.S., many of the pieces making their U.S. debut at Livewire.

Following the IAWM Annual Concert, Ruckus, the faculty contemporary ensemble at UMBC, will perform a variety of contemporary pieces at 8:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Recital Hall.

Friday will be a full day of contemporary music, starting at 9 a.m. with a series of lectures. Evening music includes a variety of solo performances, a concert by the Hoffman/Goldstein Duo and Livewire Latenight, an improv session at 10:30 p.m. with Jesse Stewart on waterphone with UMBC students.

The festival wraps up with another full day of events on Saturday. The Synchronous Trio will perform in the Fine Arts Recital Hall at 5 p.m., followed by the Damocles Trio at 8 p.m. and a question-and-answer session with composers and performers.

�I think people who enjoy going to contemporary music concerts go for the surprises. You will always be surprised by something, and to be surprised by a concert can be a really rejuvenating experience,� Dusman said.

Livewire is presented by the UMBC Department of Music. For the complete schedule of events, visit www.umbc.edu/blogs/music/livewire/.

General admission to the concerts is $10, $5 for seniors or free with a student ID or UMBC ID. For more information, call 410-455-2942 or visit www.umbc.edu/arts.

Listen to Linda Dusman talk about the Livewire festival here.

(10/25/10)

© 2007-08 University of Maryland, Baltimore County � 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 � 410-455-1000 �

UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III takes your questions.

Q. This past spring, the Baltimore Sun caused a bit of clamor on campus when an editorial celebrating the success of UMBC’s championship chess team suggested that UMBC change its name. Can you discuss your reaction to the idea and the discussion that it set off, and explain why a name change isn’t likely at the present moment?

— Richard Byrne ’86, English
Editor, UMBC Magazine

A. My first reaction is that the Baltimore Sun respects the quality of the educational experience at UMBC, They’re saying that we are a first-rate research university.

My second thought was “Here we go again.” Students, as they arrive at UMBC, sometimes bring up the same point that the Sun did.

I’d simply echo the response of one of our faculty members, Sheldon E. Broedel Jr. ’84 M.S. and ’90 Ph.D, biological sciences, whose letter to the editor in response to the Sun made this point: Why would we change the name when we’ve gotten such a great reputation? Why change a brand that is now associated with high quality? I was very encouraged by that response. It was the response that was most appropriate.

Also, few people understand the millions of dollars it would take to change UMBC’s name. It’s not a simple matter. It’s extraordinarily expensive.

The good news is that our brand – the UMBC brand – is associated with high quality and authenticity. We are who we are. And that’s a good thing.

(Broedel Letter: http://bit.ly/bAy1vQ)

Q. The path to success and achievement is often paved by those who came before us who offer us a hand-up. Our institution appears to be reaching a point of maturity in that we have graduated many alumni to positions of influence in our society (university presidents, business leaders, elected officials, teachers, etc.). What evidence do you encounter that suggests that our students and recent graduates are benefiting from the common connections of their Alma Mater?

— Jason Chamberlain ’97, economics
President, UMBC Alumni Association

A. Our students are being hired as full-time workers and as interns. Often, it is our own UMBC graduates – in national agencies such as the Social Security Administration or in companies like Legg Mason or T. Rowe Price, or in the school systems of our region and elsewhere – who are coming back to UMBC to find talent.

Graduates are serving as mentors for our students as well. They serve on advisory groups on campus. And they’re also giving us feedback on how our students are doing.

In the school systems, for instance, we have a number of graduates who are working in teaching or administrative roles. And they talk about the UMBC experience. When I travel around the state, these graduates introduce themselves and say, “I’m proud to be a UMBC graduate.” They are proud of the education they received.

Bad news travels fast. It’s much harder to get good news out. As the years go by and we have more success with our graduates and with our research and our publications, people are taking the time to think about and understand the value of the UMBC experience. So it’s great when alumni are proactive in saying that they got a great education and that they like getting graduates from UMBC into their workplaces – across the private and the public sectors.

And I hear this not only from our graduates, but from leaders in the community both here and around the country. People respect the quality of the UMBC education. And as more people talk about it, our success breeds success. People say this is a first-rate university – and the results speak for themselves.

Have a question for Dr. Hrabowski? Please visit retrievernet.umbc.edu/askthepresident

* * * * *Comments? Write a Letter to the Editor

How did you get through UMBC?

Many UMBC alumni do it the hard way. Working day jobs (or the night shift) as they earn their degrees. They didn’t just thirst for knowledge; they broke a sweat to make sure that they got it.

Count two alumnae featured in this issue – Robin West ’76, philosophy and Tootsie Duvall ’75, theatre – among that group. West is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and one of the nation’s most prolific and provocative legal theorists. And Duvall’s acting career has spanned four decades and includes network sitcoms and the HBO series, The Wire.

Both women worked their way through school, and reminisced about it in interviews with UMBC Magazine.

“I worked through UMBC as a waitress,” West recalls. “You could still do that back then, and come out of it with virtually no debt.”

Duvall also worked her way through school. She recalls that UMBC theatre professor Bill Brown and other UMBC faculty “taught me how to live. Because I was pretty much on my own by the time I was 18. They really took me under their wing.” Brown even helped Duvall secure a scholarship that allowed her to finish her degree.

West and Duvall also agree about the quality of their UMBC education. “I still have very strong and positive memories of educational experiences at UMBC that were tremendously important to me,” West says. “I felt very nurtured at UMBC intellectually.”

Under the tutelage of Brown and other professors, Duvall obtained the skills and the visibility to leap from UMBC to the ABC sitcom Angie. “Brown started the summer theatre program,” she recalls. “That’s where I originally got seen and where I could meet [All in the Family star] Jean Stapleton, who was my mentor as a comedy and character actress.”

This is why assisting students with the costs of attending UMBC is a top priority in the university’s philanthropic efforts. Helping students who are willing to work hard and stretch themselves financially to get their degrees is an investment that pays off. The successes of West and Duvall are cases in point.

UMBC Magazine at UMBC Homecoming! This year’s UMBC Homecoming (October 13-16) promises to be the best ever! (Check our calendar at www.umbc.edu/homecoming.)

UMBC Magazine is sponsoring an “Arts and Humanities Afternoon” on Saturday, October 16. Hear bestselling faculty author Christopher Corbett (featured in the Summer 2010 issue) spin yarns of the Wild West at 2 p.m. And playwriting’s the thing at 3 p.m., with staged readings of works by UMBC alumnae Kara Corthron ’99 and Kathleen Warnock ’80, followed by a discussion with the playwrights – and a preview of future UMBC Theatre productions. We hope to see you there!

— Richard Byrne ’86

CRIMSON ACCOLADE

On a bright and sunny late May morning in Cambridge, MA, UMBC’s president Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, received one of the most prestigious awards offered in American higher education: an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard University.

Hrabowski was one of a group of 10 recipients that included Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Cech, retired U.S. Supreme Court justice David Souter and Oscar award-winning actress Meryl Streep.

In her remarks on the occasion, Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust called Hrabowski “a galvanic force in his university’s ascent, spurring success against the odds. A leader whose wellspring of energy and insight has plenished pools of talent in science and beyond.”

Reflecting on the award a few weeks after the ceremony, UMBC’s president says that “I consider that award as an award for the institution. It comes as a result of the respect our colleagues there have for the academic enterprise here.”

Hrabowski adds that the festivities – and the chance to talk with academic leaders at Harvard – revealed to him the depth and breadth of that respect.

“The point made to me over and over again was that the UMBC product is superb,” says UMBC’s president. “And that the students who have graduated from here and gone to Harvard – across a range of disciplines – have done extraordinary work and come from a wide range of racial and ethnic and economic backgrounds. So we have become a symbol of inclusive excellence in American higher education.”

— Richard Byrne ’86
Image: Staff Photographer Justin Ide/Harvard University

ALUMNI ACHIEVERS

Last year, the UMBC Alumni of the Year awards moved back to campus and were scheduled to coincide with the university’s Homecoming celebrations. It was such a smashing success that it’s happening again on Thursday, October 14, 2010, with a new crop of alumni award winners picked by UMBC’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. This year’s recipients are:

• Michael George ’87, information systems – a vice president at Amazon.com – is the Engineering and Information Technology Alumnus of the Year.
• Vikki Valentine ’96, English – a science editor at National Public Radio – is the Humanities Alumna of the Year.
• Michael Nishimura ’80, M.S. ’84 and Ph.D. ’89 – Vice Chair of Research, Department of Surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina – is Natural and Mathematical Science Alumnus of the Year.
• Chad Cradock ’97, psychology – director of aquatics at UMBC and leader of the university’s highly successful swimming teams — is Social and Behavioral Sciences Alumnus of the Year.
• Dean Alexander ’88, visual arts – award-winning photographer – is the Visual and Performing Arts Alumnus of the Year.
• Gene Trainor ’86, health science and policy and economics – chair of the alumni committee for UMBC’s Exceptional by Example campaign – will receive the Distinguished Service to the University and the Alumni Association Award.
• Aaron Merki ’05, political science – an associate at Venable LLP – will receive the Young Alumni Rising Star Award.

— Richard Byrne ’86

U.S. News: UMBC IS STILL NUMBER ONE

Getting to the top is hard. But ask any competitor, and they’ll tell you that staying there is much harder.

That’s why UMBC’s repeat appearance at the top of the list of “Up-and-Coming National Universities” in the U.S. News and World Report America’s Best Colleges Guide this year is an acknowledgment that UMBC has raised itself to prominence in discussions about best practices in higher education.

How do we know that? Well, the “Up-and-Coming” list is what’s known as a “reputational survey.” U.S. News canvasses a wide range of academic leaders (college and university presidents, provosts and admissions deans) and asks them which 10 institutions “are worth watching because they are making promising and innovative changes.”

In short: the more those leaders are talking about you, the higher your ranking. UMBC’s place at the summit of the list for a second straight year means that the university has people talking – and in a good way.

UMBC’s commitment to undergraduate education was also highlighted once again by the university’s placement on the annual guide’s list of the top 16 national universities “where the faculty has an unusual commitment to undergraduate teaching.” Other universities on that list include Dartmouth, Princeton, Brown, the University of California-Berkeley, Stanford, and Yale.

In a joint letter to the campus community, UMBC’s president Freeman A. Hrabowski, III and provost Elliot Hirshman wrote that “needless to say, we are extremely proud to be recognized for our commitment to our students and to be seen as a national leader in higher education.”

— Richard Byrne ’86

HIGH ASSESSMENT

Books about higher education attract policy makers and academic leaders, but they also increasingly find readers among parents and students making tough decisions about where to spend their tuition dollars.

One book about America’s colleges being widely discussed this autumn is Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids And What We Can Do About It. Co-written by Queens College professor Andrew Hacker and New York Times columnist Claudia Dreifus, the book has been serialized in The Chronicle of Higher Education and is stirring up spirited debate.

The big news for UMBC is that Hacker and Dreifus’ assessment of the university squares significantly with the plaudits for overall excellence and undergraduate teaching that UMBC has received from U.S. News and World Report and other media outlets.

“Of all the research universities we’ve visited, [UMBC] is the place that has most capably connected research with undergraduate education,” Hacker and Dreifus write. The authors cite a number of UMBC success stories in undergraduate education – and a palpable overall enthusiasm among students – observed in a campus visit made as they researched their book.

While Hacker and Dreifus also noted the Meyerhoff Scholars Program’s immense success in increasing minority presence in the sciences and engineering, their conclusions about UMBC and its president focused keenly on an issue that many students and parents value most highly in selecting a university:

“[Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III] sets a tone from the top that says teaching undergraduates is important, and the faculty knows he means it.”

— Richard Byrne ’86

Back to Top

American Studies professor Kimberly Moffitt felt like a stranger when she moved to Baltimore. But her research on public attitudes about the gritty HBO crime drama brought the city closer to home.

By Richard Byrne ’86
Photos by Howard Korn

When assistant professor of American Studies Kimberly Moffitt arrived in Maryland and moved into the Liberty Heights neighborhood in the northwest section of Baltimore four years ago, she had an almost immediate aversion to the place. For Moffitt, Charm City wasn’t so charming.

“I’ve lived in a number of major cities,” she says. “New York, Boston, Chicago and D.C. And this one seemed to rub me the wrong way.”

So Moffitt sought to resolve her dilemma as many academics do: Make her strange new environment the subject of pedagogy by creating a course on Baltimore in film.

“It forced me to learn about Baltimore,” Moffitt recalls. “This is going to be home. So how can I embrace it in ways that fit my own interests? And how we bring film and other media into how we understand America is precisely what I’m interested in.”

Moffitt stocked her course with works by the best-known names who had used the city as a setting for their films. But she balked at first when a colleague insisted that she include the critically-acclaimed HBO series The Wire – which tracks the intersection of the drug trade with the decline of American cities and institutions.

“He said it was the most contemporary example using the city as a landscape,” Moffitt recalls. “And he asked: What were the chances of the students knowing John Waters or Barry Levinson or even Charles Dutton in their age group? You have to talk about The Wire because that’s what they know.”

Moffitt picked up on The Wire in its fourth season – which included a masterful excavation of the problems facing urban schools. And like many viewers, she got hooked. And not merely as a fan of the show, but also as a scholar who saw an opportunity – through the show’s unblinking gaze on the grit and graft of Baltimore – to analyze how the city’s residents and others saw themselves and their metropolis.

FINDING BALTIMORE’S VOICE

Moffitt observes that academics in various disciplines such as sociology, urban planning and political science were already mining The Wire for their research. “The voice I felt wasn’t being talked about was the perspective of Baltimore itself,” she says. “People who live and work here day-to-day. Do they love it? Do they hate it? Is it a bad reflection on their city – or truth telling that needs to be heard?”

So Moffitt set out to find them. She initially wanted to create focus groups with various constituencies represented in The Wire (teachers, journalists, law enforcement), but ran into some yellow “Do Not Cross” tape – particularly with Baltimore’s finest.

“It was hard to get police officers to talk about The Wire, period,” says Moffitt. Her efforts extended to walking unannounced into precincts and approaching squad cars, but availed her little in the way of scholarly insight.

“The thing I heard back from the [Baltimore Police Department] public affairs office was, ‘We do not participate in entertainment research,’” Moffitt recalls. So the UMBC professor pursued another avenue to obtain her data: a web survey. The full survey featured 55 questions, including 14 targeted specifically at local residents.

Moffitt’s sample grew quickly from current and former Baltimore residents to a cohort that included Wire viewers from across the United States. She even put up links to the survey on a Facebook page devoted to the series.

After receiving queries from the United Kingdom (where The Wire was being aired a few years behind its U.S. showings) and elsewhere, she opened up the survey to anyone with an interest in the show. Eventually, Moffitt received 800 completed responses.

Opening up the survey did result in less than 25 percent of the responses coming from the target audience. But it did reveal the depth and breadth of the show’s popularity – and how those outside the city viewed Baltimore after watching The Wire. (Season Four, by the way, was the fan favorite of all five seasons.)

“I’m happy with the survey,” says Moffitt, who is now doing follow-up interviews with Baltimore-area survey participants who agreed to be interviewed at greater length about their perceptions of the interplay between the city, various professions and the show. She’s hoping that those interviews will lead to other local residents that the web survey didn’t pick up.

“The voices I hear are loving the city, loving the realism of The Wire, but worrying about its effect on tourism,” she concludes.

Part of what Moffitt hopes to do in the follow-up interviews is “to cultivate greater diversity in the voices.” In particular, she says, the fact that more than two-thirds of the web survey respondents were white means that she has some work to do to encompass the city’s full ethnic weave.

“The city is not 68 percent white,” she says. “I want to get a greater sense of racial and ethnic diversity in response to the show. I really want to hear the voice of Baltimore.”

MAKING SENSE OF MOTHERS

While her own ambivalence about Baltimore sparked her initial scholarly interest in The Wire, Moffitt’s latest work is now plunging headlong into the politics of gender and race depicted in the series.

“I have issues with the show,” Moffitt says. “I think it’s fabulously written, but I do have issues with it… especially how it can perpetuate the ways in which we look at certain people.”

In particular, Moffitt says that she is drawn to the topic of how black mothers are depicted on the show. “Personally, I was very taken aback by these moms,” she says.

Indeed, as the professor and this reporter tally up the mothers represented on The Wire during an interview, it’s agreed that only two women could be considered “good” mothers – one is a white police officer and the other is an older black adoptive mother. The preponderance of black mothers on the show are abusive, neglectful and – in some cases – willing to sell out their children for the good of a larger drug syndicate or their own personal comfort.

“There’s a particular story being told,” Moffitt says. [University of Maryland at College Park professor of sociology] Patricia Hill Collins talks about there being these particular images that are constantly recycled about black women – and one of them is the bad black mother. That easily, without much effort, fits into what [series creators] David Simon and Ed Burns are doing on The Wire.”

Moffitt says that her interest in this aspect of The Wire springs from similar work she did as a scholar with Stevenson University professor Heather Harris on the films of Spike Lee. “One of the things that sticks out time and again [in Lee’s films] is how he reports on motherhood – and it’s not very flattering.”

When Moffitt’s survey asked respondents what they thought was missing from the show, a number of them – a majority of whom were white and middle-class and male – commented that they felt that their voice was missing from the series and that they did not see their Baltimore reflected in the show.

As a researcher who sought to help find her place in a strange city through a close study of The Wire, Moffitt says that she too is searching for her voice in the show as she looks for its missing good black mothers.

“As a black woman who is a wife and mother,” Moffitt asks, “where am I in this process? I live in Baltimore yet I do not see the women who look like me. Where is the face of the concerned black woman who is simply trying to succeed at keeping her family together and in good health, physically, emotionally, and spiritually?”