It’s no surprise that an Honors University in Maryland has a chapter of America’s longest-lived and most prestigious academic honor society. But hosting a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), founded in 1776 at The College of William and Mary, requires an intensive application and review process by the organization. Success is a sign of great distinction and intellectual rigor – especially at a university as young as UMBC. Jay Freyman, associate professor of ancient studies and first president of UMBC’s chapter, Anna Shields, current president and director of UMBC’s Honors College and outgoing Phi Beta Kappa chapter president and professor of computer engineering John Pinkston sat down with UMBC Magazine to talk about UMBC’S chapter which was created in 1997.

Q: I have read that it took a decade to create UMBC’s chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Jay Freyman: Oh, longer. We put in a preliminary application in 1979. The campus was only 13 years old. The term for that is “chutzpah.” We put in another application in 1982. That didn’t go anywhere either. But it was important that we did it. Because the executive secretary of Phi Beta Kappa invited us down to his office… and told us, “This is what we have concerns about.” One of the things that he suggested was that we start an Honors Program, which is now the Honors College.

After another 12 years, we thought we had a chance, so we applied in 1994 and were eventually approved in 1997.

Q: Students can’t apply to Phi Beta Kappa. They are chosen based on academic excellence and fulfillment of certain criteria – including 90 credits in liberal studies subjects, at least one college-level course in mathematics, and 18 credits in a structured program outside their major. How do you let students know what they need to do to be eligible?

Anna Shields: As director of the Honors College, one of the things I have my advising teams do is to let students know that Phi Beta Kappa is something that should be on their radar. That they need a college-level math course, for instance.

John Pinkston: The eligibility requirements are spelled out on our web page, but we need to do a better job of informing people about how meaningful membership is, and differentiate Phi Beta Kappa from other honor societies that have come on the scene.

Jay Freyman: There are two hard pieces of evidence that Phi Beta Kappa is different. First, the age. It was formed in 1776. There really isn’t anything else that comes up to that on its prestige. Second, there is the difficulty in obtaining a chapter charter.

Q: What’s the greatest misconception about Phi Beta Kappa at UMBC?

John Pinkston: The question of liberal studies can be interpreted many ways. At Princeton, where I graduated, engineers were eligible for Phi Beta Kappa. And I think there is an argument to be made that knowledge of technology is an important part of a liberal education. I was very pleasantly surprised at how receptive the UMBC chapter was to that idea.

Anna Shields: I think there’s a misconception in the culture generally that the love of learning is something that’s affiliated only with humanistic modes of inquiry. That’s not the case. You can’t turn over a rock here at UMBC without finding a passionate chemist or physicist or computer scientist. Passion and love of learning and liberal education can all go together and be perfectly coherent and important at a school that has strong STEM [science, technology, engineering and mathematics] disciplines. Part of our job as the chapter is to explain to students how their membership reaffirms things about them that they may not have conceptualized or articulated as love of learning and passion for education.

— Richard Byrne ’86

With Esther Read, Field Archaeologist

So you’re digging a garden in your backyard, and all of a sudden the point of your trowel hits something hard. You poke around a little more, brush the soil away – probably just a rock, right? But on further inspection, the “thing” you have discovered is rather glossy, with faint drawings and a whiff of history about it. When you wash it off in the sink… Voila! You have a ceramics mystery in your hands.

Since Antiques Road Show only comes around town once in a blue moon, you might be scratching your head about what to do next: keep it, or toss it? Thankfully, Esther Read, a field archeologist and lecturer in UMBC’s department of Ancient Studies, is here to help.

— Jenny O’Grady

Step 1:
Look for decorative clues

“If you found something on the ground, the first thing you would do is look at it for its decoration,” says Read, who – with the help of UMBC students and volunteers – is in the process of cleaning, identifying and cataloguing more than 4,000 artifacts found in the backyard of an historic Fells Point home.

The first step is taking a close look at decoration and shape. Then take a closer look; was the piece painted with a brush, or does it seem like one of many copies? Feel the ceramic with your hands; was the clay molded smooth by a machine or more roughly by an artisan’s hands? Shape can also help you understand what kind of vessel the piece once was. Each detail is a key to solving your mystery.

“The decoration is going to give you a clue to what kind of ceramic it is,” says Read.

Step 2:
Use your clues to figure out historical context

Decorative style reveals much about the time period in which the piece was created. For instance, a dish with images of giraffes painted in a certain shade of purple might indicate a piece was manufactured between 1760 and 1780 – a time when images from “exotic” lands were all the rage.

“We know what kinds of designs were done during certain periods from old catalogues, from antiques magazines and articles,” says Read. Every bit of the design comes into play – from subject matter to painting style. A pastoral scene might have been manufactured during the time when Jane Austen first became popular. The use of stippling – or sharp dotting with a paintbrush – indicates another time entirely.

Step 3:
Location, location, location

One of the biggest challenges in archaeology is combining this collection of physical clues with information about where you found the object, and the context of the time period – ie., sociological, economic, or political trends. All of these things in combination are necessary to assemble a full picture of the artifact’s life as an object. That’s why Read hastens to add one very important rule for anyone interested in reassembling the puzzle: never move the artifact away from its original location.

“An artifact has a context…its place in time and space, and its association with other artifacts,” Read says. Without that context, she continues, you might miss the point of an object entirely.

“A lot of the training in doing this is not just learning the dishes, but learning past manners and how people used the material culture of the past,” adds Read. “You need to know all of these things to paint a really good picture.”

Step 4:
Check in with the experts

Read has spent more than 25 years learning everything she can about artifacts of the Mid-Atlantic region. So, admittedly, she has a brain full of details that help her identify objects much faster than the average Joe. But, she said, there are plenty of resources out there for budding archaeologists.

“It’s accumulated knowledge, it’s shared knowledge, and it’s knowing what the printed resources are and where to find them,” she says. (See “Now What?” for some of her suggestions .)

If you want to truly solve your pottery mystery, you might also contact someone like Read at a nearby university, or visit your local historical society. People there are often more than happy to talk shop, Read said.

“I get a lot of calls that start out, ‘I’ve got a rock, can you help me?’” Read says. After some clue-gathering, however, these seemingly insignificant discoveries in the backyard often lead us to better understand our nation’s history.

“We can never go back to the past,” she says, “so we have to reconstruct it from what we find.”

Now What?

Interested in learning more about archaeology? Check out these resources:

1. A Guide to the Artifacts of Colonial America by Ivor Noël Hume – With more than 100 photographs and illustrations, this book is considered the most accurate reference guide for artifacts of this time period.

2. UMBC Ancient Studies Website – The department website at www.umbc.edu/ancs includes information on upcoming travel/study opportunities and department news, as well as a list of online databases and other resources covering everything from the Bronze Age to medieval studies to nautical archaeology.

3. Local and National Societies – Visit the Archeological Society of Maryland at www.marylandarcheology.org or the nation’s oldest such society, the Archaeological Institute of America, online at www.archaeological.org, for dig news, resources and opportunities for networking.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSllKsQAtz8]

PLAYING WITH TYRE

As the lights dim to signal the commencement of the UMBC Theatre Department’s production of William Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the audience doesn’t quite know what to expect. The makeshift theater set up in the university’s Imaging Research Center (IRC) already defies expectations: A table for a stage. Actors dressed in all black.

At last, one of the actors picks up a toy man and gives it the deep booming voice of King Antiochus. A version of one of Shakespeare’s more difficult plays – blending technology and stagecraft – takes off.

The creative minds in UMBC’s theatre department never shy away from innovation, so when department chair Alan Kreizenbeck made a mental connection between the leaps of imagination in Pericles and his own observations of his two children at play, he decided to explore the possibility of staging a production of the play using Playmobil figures and other toys. The resulting production – which obtained some of its funding from a Kauffman Innovation Grant – grew into an interdisciplinary collaboration that spanned two semesters and three departments.

“When Alan first suggested it, I thought he was kidding,” said Michele Osherow, a professor of English and a resident dramaturg at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre.

As a prelude to the actual production, Osherow’s dramaturgy class created study and production notes for the creative team, actors and audience. “This is not an easy Shakespeare play,” she explains.

In part, the textual difficulties of Pericles arise from questions of corruption (the play only exists in quarto form, and it was not included in the first collection of Shakespeare’s plays) and disputed authorship (many scholars believe the text was co-written by George Wilkins, a minor Elizabethan author and tavern keeper involved in frequent scuffles with the law).

One goal shared by Osherow and her students was to help audiences shake their fear of such uncertainties in language and textual history. They dug deep into Pericles to uncover the fun in the text. That effort extended into the spring, when the actors cast in the production began to learn how to channel their talents through toys that they manipulated atop a table. Under the direction of the technical director of the Imaging Research Center, Eric Smallwood ’03 and ’10 M.F.A, imaging and digital arts, students in that program created dozens of images that corresponded with the play’s scenes.

The production that emerged married technology and performing arts in innovative ways. As the students played on stage, a camera was trained on the playing space, and this footage was imposed on one of the backgrounds and then projected onto the screen behind the actors. The result was a show that held three focal points for the audience: actors, toys and the images on the screen.

The performance itself reflected the sense of play and collaboration that everyone involved brought to the project. A Shakespeare action figure was used as the play’s narrator. When Pericles fed the hungry citizens of Tarsus with food from his ship, a student poured corn flakes onto the playing area.

“Imagination doesn’t stop just because we outgrow the toys,” said Kreizenbeck.

— Chelsea Haddaway

CREEDS AND CRISES

It’s not often that a historian gives a lecture in a series named in his honor, but that’s precisely what emeritus professor of history Robert K. Webb will do at 4 p.m. on October 27 at the Albin O. Kuhn Library.

The Robert K. Webb lecture is an annual event established by the History Department to honor Webb, a former UMBC professor who is also one of the preeminent historians of Great Britain’s religious and social movements. His talk is titled “The Very Long Eighteenth Century: An Experiment in the History of Religion?”

Reminiscing recently about his career as a historian, Webb recalls that he never had any intention of becoming a scholar whose work focused on religion.

“I sort of backed into working on the history of religion,” Webb says. “I saw myself as a social historian. I did my early work on literacy.”

Webb’s first book, The British Working Class Reader: 1790-1848; Literacy and Social Tension (1955), was part of a wave of research into that era. Webb and other scholars excavated the roots of the empowerment of the working class that fueled the social revolutions which convulsed Britain in the late 17th and 18th centuries.

“And then I became interested in middle-class radicals. I suppose that’s autobiographical to some extent,” Webb chuckles.

Webb first tackled the roots of the tumultuous career of political theorist Harriet Martineau in the Unitarian religion (leading to a 1960 book, Harriet Martineau: A Victorian Radical) and then widened his focus to religion’s importance as an animating force in British and European politics and history. In panoramic works on the era – including Modern England (1968) and Modern Europe (1972), co-written with his eminent colleague and friend Peter Gay – Webb reshaped our notions of how faith led to works of revolution and repression.

Webb says that his lecture will use “the Long 18th Century” – a term coined by University of Kansas professor Jonathan Charles Douglas Clark to describe the unity of religion and politics in Britain from 1660 to 1840 – as the springboard for an even more expansive investigation.

“My talk is about the relationship between religion and science,” Webb says, “or to put it better, religion and reason. I’m taking [Clarke’s] idea and making it into a very long 18th century – from the 1640s to the 1880s. It’s a period in which there was a real symbiosis between religion and science, which only gradually mutated into hostility.”

Renaissance philosopher Francis Bacon (who died in 1626) had argued that religion and philosophy (or science) should be separated, but Webb says that the 1640s marked a long period in which many thinkers abandoned that notion and embraced a belief “that science supports religion, and religion supports science.”

It was only near the end of the 19th century, Webb argues, that there was an explicit return to the notion that Bacon set out. “In the 1880s, it all finally changes,” he says, “and very quickly. And after that, science and religion are at real loggerheads. I can show you this in denomination after denomination.”

— Richard Byrne ’86
LAB LEADER

Ralph Semmel ’92, Ph.D., computer science, is the new director of the renowned Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (APL). He replaced Richard Roca on July 1 to become the eighth director of APL in the laboratory’s 68-year history.

Located in Laurel, Md., APL has close to 5,000 employees conducting and supporting research related to national defense and security. Semmel has worked at the lab for the past 23 years.

Semmel is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and he completed master’s degrees at Hopkins and the University of Southern California before pursuing his doctorate at UMBC.

— Richard Byrne ’86
SPLITTING SECONDS

In Anthony M. Johnson’s world, the blink of the eye is an eon.

Indeed, the pulses of light used by Johnson – a professor of physics and of computer science and electrical engineering – in his research are so quick that scientists had to invent new words to describe their elapsed time: picoseconds (a trillionth), femtoseconds (a quadrillionth), and attoseconds (a quintillionth) of a second.

Nature really moves that fast. The initial movement in the seemingly simple act of seeing, for instance, has been measured by lasers and occurs in about 300 femtoseconds – as a photon arrives and triggers a cascade of biochemical events leading to vision.

Johnson is the director of UMBC’s Center for Advanced Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR), and deputy director of the NSF Engineering Research Center, Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE), a collaboration of six research universities including UMBC based at Princeton.

One of Johnson’s main tools is a titanium-doped sapphire laser which emits pulses measured in femtoseconds. His labs consist of large tables on which it appears people have dumped hundreds of mirrors and lenses randomly. In fact, every mirror and lens is in a precise position facing a precise direction to intercept a precise beam of light from a laser.

Johnson’s research is deeply imbedded in the principles of optics and quantum mechanics. Because electronic instruments are too slow, he uses light to measure light. He splits beams of photons, the basic constituent of light, into two streams in a crystal. One stream is altered slightly to add just enough distance to hold its arrival to a determined amount. (Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity says light always travels at one speed and extending the length of the trip is the only way to delay its arrival).

Another crystal generates a “harmonic” (a doubled frequency) of the merged light nearly instantaneously, which he can measure.

“It has helped us understand how many things work,” he says. “The devices and optical techniques we use uncover the processes in physics and chemistry.”

To make faster microprocessors and integrated circuits, scientists have to understand what happens in the semiconductors, events happening in picoseconds or shorter.

“The only way to measure these ultrafast events is with short pulses of light,” he says. Johnson’s research may even lead to faster Internet connections as more information is crammed down through fiber optic cables.

A native of Brooklyn, NY, Johnson graduated magna cum laude from the Polytechnic Institute of New York. He conducted his thesis research at the Bell Labs in New Jersey and earned a Ph.D. in physics from the City College of New York. He went on to work at Bell Labs for 14 years, and then reentered university life as chair of the physics department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology for eight years.

Johnson was recruited by UMBC to become the director of CASPR in 2003. His work with MIRTHE centers on improving medical devices to detect minute quantities of chemicals that may adversely affect health and wellness. He is one of a small number of African-American physicists and is a fellow of the National Society of Black Physicists and other professional societies.

— Joel N. Shurkin
LATTES AND LETTERS

When Starbucks solicits the thoughts of its millions of customers on comment cards, they likely weren’t counting on someone like Christine Ferrera ’10, M.F.A. imaging and digital arts.

Musing over one of the ubiquitous cards a few years ago, Ferrera recalls asking herself: “What would I naturally say to a friend?” Then Ferrera began writing. And didn’t stop.

Five years later, Ferrera has penned nearly 2,000 letters to Starbucks – one for every day of every year. And she continues to write them today. They range in tone from fun and quirky to highly sensitive. In one, she asks the company, “Has anyone ever fallen in love at Starbucks?” In another, she discusses her pride in buying a new couch. In many letters, Ferrera writes about the daily struggles of being an artist.

Ferrera started the lopsided correspondence when she lived in Richmond, taking classes at Virginia Commonwealth University. She enrolled in an endurance art class which required students to undertake a one-year project. The class was asked to do something out of their element, and since Ferrera was a painter, she chose writing.

“The only loose rule I had was that this wasn’t going to be some kind of political statement,” she says. “After the year was over, I just started doing it out of habit.”

Within a month, Ferrera received generic replies from Starbucks. Some even enclosed coupons. After six responses, Starbucks stopped writing back. But Ferrera kept writing. Occasionally, she would hear from the company – usually when she asked a question related to the coffee business. (For instance, Starbucks replied that people had fallen in love at the coffee shop.) In the main, however, the replies were curt.

After two years of writing, Ferrera moved to Korea. She didn’t hear from Starbucks that year, assuming they had lost her address. But when she returned to the United States, a surprise was waiting for her: a personal letter from a customer service representative at Starbucks.

“The letter was so direct, so confrontational,” she said. “But it was nice and obvious that she had something to say to me. She had been reading my letters for years and had been touched by them.”

Ferrera appreciated the reply, but she also felt something was lost. “The project served as a diary for me, and it was almost like no one was reading,” she says. “This letter assured me that someone had been reading, that my words were out there.”

Although Ferrara hopes she will be known for works other than her coffee correspondence, she observes that “Starbucks – and other corporations – are part of our every day landscape. Artists need to react to the times in which they live.” she said. “There may be some kind of shift eventually, and maybe I’ll know when to stop writing the letters. But for now, it is part of my routine, and I’ll keep doing it until there’s a reason to stop.”

— B. Rose Huber

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MAKING THE GRADE

Points on the scoreboard aren’t the only ones that UMBC’s women’s basketball team is scoring. Team members are also racking up the grade points.

The team was recognized by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) for posting the third-highest grade-point average in the country among NCAA Division I teams.

Only Utah Valley (3.630) and South Dakota State (3.622) earned higher GPAs than UMBC’s women’s hoops team (3.578) in Division I. And the Retrievers ranked 13th in the country among schools from all divisions. The high marks were also the best-ever ranking for an America East conference school.

“It’s a testament to how hard our kids work,” said UMBC coach Phil Stern. “The players that we recruit understand what it takes to succeed at an honors university.” Team members have consistently posted GPAs of 3.0 or higher through Stern’s eight years as coach.

Jessica Hammond, assistant athletic director for academic services for student-athletes, said UMBC coaches work diligently to recruit athletes who can succeed academically. She points to UMBC’s overall graduation rate of 86 percent among athletes last year. Fourteen UMBC student-athletes graduated with honors, including two who earned summa cum laude degrees.

Forward Meghan Colabella ’10, history, for instance, graduated in only three years this past spring (magna cum laude) and will start graduate school as she plays in her final year of eligibility with UMBC.

“Academics is number one and basketball is number two,” says Stern, “and fortunately we have kids that understand that right away.”

— Jeff Seidel ’85
CYCLING FOR A CAUSE

Road trip. Those two words together conjure up thoughts of freedom, wide open space, and self discovery.

This summer, three UMBC alumni and one rising junior at the university put their own spin on this classic journey of fun and self-discovery as they cycled across the country to raise money for Active:Water – a charity dedicated to bringing clean water to communities around the globe.

The trip’s itinerary unfurled from San Francisco, CA, to Baltimore, MD. The crew of three cyclists – Mike German ’09, Mike Pacella ’10, and Jesse Crow ’12 – and one support car driver, Shelly Kessler ’10 – is connected by their relationship with UMBC and their strong belief in the importance of helping others.

“Living on the East Coast, we take water for granted,” says German. “Clean water access is not a commodity, but a human right.”

The four participants hope to raise $8,000 for Active:Water, and they’re well on their way to that goal thanks to family, friends, and people they’ve met along the way.

The kindness hasn’t only come in the form of donations. From home-cooked meals in Utah to peach cobbler and fireworks in Texas, almost everyone they’ve encountered has helped out.

“Everyone has something to offer others,” German observes. “It might not be much money, but it might be a nice piece of advice, a kind word, a glass of water, or a sandwich.”

Kessler adds that while the trip runs cross-country, the goals that she has set for herself are ones that will last more than a summer. “This is not just about a trip,” she says. “It’s about deciding to live a life of service.”

— Meredith Purvis

RETRIEVER (BLOG) BELIEVER

Curtis Tarver ’03, psychology and music, has made music for UMBC as a former member of the “Down and Dirty Dawgs” pep band. And he keeps up with his alma mater and other matters musical and sporting via his blog: “80 Minutes of Regulation.”

A native of Wilmington, DE, Tarver banged the drums for UMBC’s pep band for four years. These days, he works as an associate director of student programs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, but part of his heart will always remain in Catonsville.

“I talk the most about the things that mean the most to me, and the things I follow most closely,” Tarver said. “Since I love UMBC and follow their programs, I tend to talk about them quite a bit.”

Tarver updates the blog once or twice a week. In the late spring, he posted an entry about his bout of sad nostalgia over the new look of UMBC’s athletics logo.

“I will not obsess over UMBC’s new logo,” Tarver wrote four times, tongue firmly in cheek. He also added a picture of the old logo, wishing it “Farewell and Godspeed, old friend.”

Tarver says that one of his post-graduation highlights was a chance to cheer on his alma mater in person when the Retrievers met Georgetown University in Raleigh, NC, in the 2008 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. He also made a trip to Chapel Hill to catch UMBC’s lacrosse team play the University of North Carolina in a 2009 NCAA tournament game.

“UMBC is where I met my wife, and, obviously, where I started my college career. It means the world to me,” Tarver says.

— Jeff Seidel ’85

Visit the blog.

WORLD TITLE TEAMMATES

Brendan Mundorf ’06, sociology, and Drew Westervelt ’09, economics, have taken on – and conquered – the lacrosse world with a friendship that began at UMBC.

Both Mundorf and Westervelt were members of the United States team that won the 2010 World Lacrosse Championships in England in late July. Mundorf scored 17 goals in the six-game tournament and made the All-World team. Westervelt tallied 12 goals.

The national teammates have also played lacrosse together for seven seasons now: three years at UMBC and four more with the Denver Outlaws in Major League Lacrosse. “It was an honor to be selected to that team,” Mundorf said. “Having Drew there makes it even more special. We’ve gone down the same road together.”

Mundorf played at UMBC from 2003 to 2006 and finished as the school’s sixth all-time leading scorer with 195 points. Westervelt finished his UMBC career – which ran from 2004 through 2007 – with 206 points, making him the university’s third all-time scorer.

“It just seems like we keep meeting up,” Westervelt says with a laugh. “I’m just happy that I got to experience this with him. It’s always fun playing with him.”

UMBC lacrosse coach Don Zimmerman points to the duo’s success as further proof of the university’s burgeoning lacrosse reputation. The Johns Hopkins University had three players on America’s championship team. Like UMBC, Princeton, Syracuse, College Park and 2010 national champion Duke all placed two members on the winning team.

“It just shows that UMBC is a top-notch lacrosse school,” Mundorf said. “The opportunity is there through UMBC.”

— Jeff Seidel ’85
Photo by Bryce Vickmark

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Spend a semester inside UMBC’s pioneering Chemistry Discovery Center and you’ll find that its successes are rooted in teamwork – and two hours a week without Twitter and Twinkies.

By Ann Griswold
Photos Chris Hartlove

Think Chemistry 101 is hard? A few years ago, Bill LaCourse, chair of UMBC’s chemistry department, devised a way to simultaneously make it seem harder.

He called his invention the “Chemistry Discovery Center.” Students call it “the isolation tank” or “boot camp.”

LaCourse’s brainstorm is housed in a brightly-lit room on the second floor University Center – just a horseshoe toss from the chemistry department’s offices. For two hours every week, the students who enter it abandon all hope of food and drink, texting and web-surfing, Twitter and Facebook.

Their full attention is on chemistry – and in particular – thinking and talking about chemistry. “The idea is to get them in there to share their collective thoughts,” says LaCourse. “Give them roles to perform, take away their pads and pencils and make them talk.”

Complaints about the rules and rationale abound. The center is a waste of time, some students say. Others argue that they could solve the assigned problems in 45 minutes if left to their own devices.

LaCourse deflects the gripes with two words: “It works.” And he has the numbers to prove it.

In its five years of operation, the Chemistry Discovery Center has helped slash the failure rate for Chemistry 101 by half. But it has done more. Grades among students at all levels are up, even after the department raised the grading standards. (See page 21.) And the number of UMBC undergraduates who choose chemistry as their major has also dramatically increased.

In the spring 2010 semester, I followed one group of students through the Chemistry Discovery Center experience. My question was simple: How does a weekly plunge into a world without social media and snacking create better – and more – chemistry students?

February 3, 2010

The campus is still buried in snow when students trudge into the center, wearing heavy coats and scarves. It’s their first day, and most of them look as if they’d rather be outside sledding.

Diana Hamilton, a lecturer in the Chemistry Department, explains how the center works to the 72 students in attendance. Teams are created from four students. Each team member is assigned a role, which shifts every few weeks. A “blogger” types the group’s answers on a keyboard. (These responses are conveyed to a computer used by Hamilton.) A “scribe” jots the team’s calculations on a whiteboard. A “researcher” uses a calculator to manage the math.

The final team member is a “manager” who keeps the group focused and enforces the Chemistry Discovery Center’s rules. (Breaking them costs the team valuable points.) “Managers aren’t typing or drawing,” Hamilton says, “but your brains should be actively involved…. If we come by, you should be able to give us a quick rundown on what the team is doing.”

The first task? A set of chemistry problems based on an hour-long lecture students attended earlier that morning.

The members of Team Nitrogen are already struggling with their new roles. Most of the answers are provided by Brennen Cheung, a chemical engineering major who acts as the manager. Kuntal Patel, a pajama pant-clad psychology major who ambled into the center late, yawns, tilts back in his chair and stares into midair.

“You have to write that on the board,” Cheung says to Patel, who looks up. “Question three,” Cheung repeats.

“You have to write the answer on the board.” Patel swivels his chair and leans over to grab the dry-erase marker. “No,” Cheung says. “Take out the ‘S’ and put an ‘R.’”

Hamilton circulates among the students, stopping here and there to read the answers scribbled on each group’s whiteboard. At one point, she freezes the students’ monitors and calls for attention. “A lot of you seem to be having trouble with question three,” she says. Hamilton explains the problem and drops a few hints to steer the teams back on track.

By the end of the first session, the groups have picked up the momentum of solving problems as teams. But many are hesitant to admit the session was anything but tedious.

Jennifer Fedorowski, a third-year graduate student and teaching assistant, says it takes a few weeks before students realize that the benefits reaped from the Discovery Center depend largely on the energy they put into it. “The students on their first day need to be pushed,” she says. “In the second or third week, we hardly ever have any issues.”

March 3, 2010

It’s a wet morning a few days before the first exam, and the students wear anxious looks. Seven of them dropped the class after the first week, and several more wonder if they should follow suit.

“Just for this time, we’re going to look at some of the stuff you need to know on Friday,” Hamilton announces. The review session takes the form of a game: questions pop up on each team’s monitor and the students scramble for answers.

Team Nitrogen’s table remains empty until 10 minutes after the hour, when Kuntal Patel ambles through the door. “I think our other dudes dropped,” he says, falling into a chair at an empty table. Hamilton steers him into a seat at Team Gold’s table, where he take on the blogger’s role.

It’s a good match. Patel is already engaged by the time the next question pops up: “Your biodiesel car gets 48 miles per gallon. Biodiesel’s energy density is 127,000 Btu per gallon. If 1 Btu = 1055 Joules, how many kilojoules would be produced by travelling 250 miles?”

“You gotta do the…” Patel begins, before his teammates finish reading the question.

“…dimensional analysis,” finishes Michael Criswell, a returning student with a bachelor’s degree in theatre arts who is here to brush up on chemistry for his MCATs.

“I knew it started with a ‘d’,” Patel says, searching for the calculator. “Do 48 times 120,000 times 655 times 250 times 10 to the minus three.”

The teams grapple with the review questions. It’s a messy process. Sometimes a blogger abandons the calculator and grabs a dry-erase pen. Hamilton watches to see if the teams adhere to the rules. At one point, she stands behind Criswell and peers over his shoulder at the group’s answers.

“It’s terribly frightening to have you here,” Criswell says. “It’s like Darth Vader in the academy for the storm troopers.”

“I’m sorry I make you feel that way,” Hamilton laughs. She points out an error in their calculations before moving on to the next table.

If the center’s goal is to get students to puzzle through chemistry together, however, it’s working as intended today.

Hamilton offers to stay afterwards, but everyone seems eager to leave when the session is over. Outside in the courtyard, the students seem confident about the upcoming exam.

“Discovery Center is the reason I’m going to pass chemistry,” Criswell says. “They actually hold your hand and walk you through it. It’s ingenious, actually.”

Necessity and Invention

The Chemistry Discovery Center’s founder says that it was an invention born out of necessity.

Only a few years ago, LaCourse recalls, introductory chemistry at UMBC was in a downward spiral. Fewer and fewer students attended classes. Exam scores had plummeted. Student discontent became so loud that even the university’s administration took note. Something had to change, and fast.

UMBC’s academic leadership had already made student retention and success a university-wide priority. And the Chemistry Discovery Center was one key part of the strategy to improve the university’s success.

LaCourse took his cue for creating the center from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a host of smaller colleges that were attempting to revolutionize science education by using an approach called “constructivism” – encouraging students to learn by doing and share their knowledge with each other.

Other schools experimenting with this approach were moving slowly, with pilot programs and small groups of students. But the challenges facing UMBC compelled LaCourse to move faster.

“We were failing and we didn’t want to subject anyone to a placebo,” says LaCourse. “Our GPA average was going down; you had to keep lowering the cutoffs to get the same percentage of people passing. So we just went out and tried it.”

So LaCourse and his colleagues dismantled and rebuilt UMBC’s introductory chemistry program. Gone were antiquated discussion rooms and laboratory benches. They also ditched a method of instruction that saw students muddle through problem sets on their own and bring them back to large discussions groups where a teaching assistant simply announced the answers.

“You’d have 90 kids in a discussion group,” LaCourse recalls. “The alpha people in there were getting the answers they wanted, but students who were a bit shy or overburdened with other things were left behind.”

The lectures have remained, but a room with tables and intensive small-group interaction (without the distractions of snacking and social media websites) replaced the discussions. LaCourse and his colleagues sought to level the playing field and engage even the most introverted students.

The center also works because it helps students overcome barriers that prevent them from grasping the concepts of what LaCourse calls an ‘invisible’ science. “The [periodic] table is full of atoms; you’ve got millions of them in your hand. You can’t see them,” he says. “If you’re studying chimpanzees, you can see their behavior. But how do you see the behavior of a molecule? That’s the trouble.”

In the Chemistry Discovery Center, he says, the problem sets often ask students to contemplate more tangible concepts like how the molecules swirling in their morning coffee react with air to give the drink its bitter taste.

“At some point, you make the connection,” LaCourse says. “The things you see around you now become explainable.”

April 7, 2010

White cherry blossoms adorn the branches of a tree outside the Chemistry Discovery Center’s windows. The theme of today’s problem set is food. “If you can cook, you can do chemistry,” says Hamilton. “And if you can do chemistry, you can cook.”

Patel is a bit lost. He’s been shunted to a less-enthusiastic group, and he spends some of his time exploring the limits of the group’s computer. Despite the risk of losing points, Patel pokes around to see how computer applications are actually off limits. Annoyed that the team’s researcher is not using the calculator on the table, Patel opens the calculator application in the computer’s Accessories folder, only to elicit an error message: “UTILITY BLOCKED.”

“Aww, bastard!” he mutters. “Someone type in 144 divided by 8.” No one picks up the calculator. No one stands at the whiteboard. Patel’s teammates also won’t discuss the answers out loud, so he does a lot of thinking and typing. His frustration is palpable.

“The atmosphere definitely feels like a high school environment where you’re heavily monitored to stay on task,” Patel says, bemoaning the strictness of the rules.

“Stand up, stand up,” Hamilton says, striding briskly past the team’s table and snapping her fingers at the member who has been designated as the scribe. “If you need to, go splash water on your face. Wake up.”

It’s times like these – when hunger, fatigue and restlessness set in before the session is even halfway over – that the urges to ignore chemistry and doodle on a notepad are most compelling. Which is precisely why laptops, iPods and cell phones are prohibited. Distractions dissipate the energy, particularly in groups where the energy level is already lacking.

“Edutainment – that’s not what we’re going for,” says LaCourse.

Over at the next table, Criswell is part of an animated and jovial Team Mercury. He punches numbers into the calculator as the team’s blogger, Ed Kim, types the group’s answers on the keyboard. Freshman Dena Lehmann jots down calculations on the whiteboard enthusiastically.

“We are destroying this,” says Criswell, pleased with his current teammates and thankful that – at least for now – he’s not stuck in a group where no one speaks.

“So much of it depends on the synergy,” Criswell says later, empathizing with Patel’s plight. “I was in a couple of groups where they were just like toast. There was nothing exciting about them. The best group I had was my first group because there was a large spectrum of personalities. There would be an obnoxious person, and a super nerd that wanted to get 100 percent on the test and was really anxious about the material, and someone who knew it well and was just really relaxed about it, and that was Kuntal [Patel].”

Hamilton says that she is not surprised by the contrast. In groups where everyone works well together, the session moves quickly and everyone has fun. But that’s not always the case.

“With so many students, I’ve seen it all,” Hamilton says. “Some students, you can tell they’d rather work alone. They’re either too competitive or not comfortable in social situations. But some just seem to be natural tutors, whatever role they play. And other people, you can see they’re smart; they can do chemistry and they understand. Kuntal seems like that. No matter what the context, other students can get along with him.”

May 12, 2010

It’s the last session of the semester. Attendance is uncharacteristically low, with many students cramming for finals in other courses. “Hopefully we’ll have some more people coming in shortly,” Hamilton says. “Otherwise we’ll have to shuffle people around to fill the tables.”

The session starts off with a quick game to review the material. Patel, who is a scribe for Team Noble Gases, madly writes the complete electron configuration of lead on the whiteboard, hoping to be the first to arrive at the answer: 1s²2s²2p⁶3s²3p⁶4s²3d¹⁰4p⁶5s²4d¹⁰5p⁶6s²5d¹⁰6p⁶7s²4f⁴…

“How far am I?” he asks.

“Almost done,” says the manager, a sophomore named Andrea Mancilla.

“I’m going to need the whole board for this,” Patel sighs. “What’s the next question?”

“What is the complete electron configuration of the cation that formed the solid lead iodide?” Mancilla reads.

“Agh! Now I have to do iodide?” Patel asks. “Are you serious?”

But before he can start, Hamilton freezes the monitors and congratulates Team Cadmium for arriving at the right answer.

“They got it,” Mancilla says, shaking her head.

Patel’s disappointment is short-lived: Noble Gases win the next round. In retrospect, he says his experience with the Discovery Center wasn’t all bad. The real-world examples it offered and the teamwork approach helped him nail down important concepts.

“It’s not about getting it in your head, it’s about getting it back out,” Patel says. “You’re not going to understand something until you actually apply it or at least recite it.”

So what happens to the UMBC chemistry students who survive the rigors of the center – and the gnawing absence of websites, texting and snacks? In most cases, they thrive. More than 80 percent of the students I followed earned a grade of ‘C’ or better. And true to the statistics, some of the students did decide to become chemistry majors. Among them, Patel, who earned a high B in the course.

Still, he laughs when asked if the Chemistry Discovery Center influenced his decision to double-major in chemistry and psychology. “Oh no, absolutely not,” he says. “I’ll put it this way. At the end of the day, it’s a two-hour session and no one really wants to do it. People I’ve talked to pretty much unanimously say it’s torture. But whether you want to do it or not, it’s a mandatory component of Chem 101, so I just did the best I could with what they gave me.”

Patel may deny that the Discovery Center influenced his decision to become a chemistry major, but LaCourse says the historical data suggests otherwise. The chemistry department has seen a steady and dramatic increase in majors since the Discovery Center began.

In the end, what does this love-hate relationship with the Chemistry Discovery Center mean? For Patel, it represents hope for a future career in neuroscience. For the chemistry department, it means higher scores and more chemistry alumni. And for society at large, it helps build a stronger, more disciplined and collaborative workforce.

“I don’t think all of the students who take the course will be chemists,” LaCourse says, “But they will all be more productive citizens in the end.”

Renaissance Man

James Grubb, professor of history, has been named the Lipitz Professor of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the 2010-2011 academic year. Grubb is an expert on Renaissance Italy.

“Jim Grubb is not only one of the foremost scholars internationally of the Renaissance, but is a talented, dedicated and selfless teacher and member of the UMBC community. He richly deserves being honored as this year’s Lipitz Professor,” said John Jeffries, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Grubb’s work has earned him several grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and his books include Firstborn of Venice: Vicenza in the Early Renaissance State and Provincial Families in the Renaissance: Private and Public Life in the Veneto. The latter book won the 1997 American Historical Association’s Marraro prize for the best book in Italian history.

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 $15,000 in funds.

Grubb plans to divide his stipend into two parts. About two-thirds of the funding will be used to provide scholarships for graduate students in the M.A. in Historical Studies program. “There’s lots of scholarship money for undergrads and almost none for M.A. students,” he said. “We have a lot of students who are mature, they’re out working, they’ve got families, and if we can provide the tuition, it will allow them to go through much faster.”

The rest of the funding will be put towards a research trip that he plans to take early next summer. Grubb will travel to several European cities to view original sources as part of research for a book about the social history of Venice. “I’m totally dependent upon archival sources, and there are manuscripts are scattered all over the world,” he said.

Grubb’s book focuses on how such a small city became so influential. “Venice is about the size of the UMBC campus, and yet was the most powerful economic engine of its time,” he said.

Grubb was chosen for the professorship by a six-person committee of tenured faculty in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. To apply for the fellowship, he submitted a proposal for how he would use the funds.

At the end of the academic year, he will deliver the annual Lipitz lecture, for which he will draw from the research he completes during his professorship.

Grubb has been a professor at UMBC since 1983, and was named the Presidential Research Professor for 2004-2007. He said that he has seen the history department develop, and believes that the award is as much a recognition as the work done in the department than by him alone.

Past Lipitz professors include Thomas Field, professor of modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication; John Sturgeon, professor of visual arts; and Carlo DiClemente, professor of psychology.

9/10/10

From UMBC Magazine Fall 2010, How to be a Pottery Detective, featuring Ester Read.

Video by Jenny O’Grady.

From UMBC Magazine Summer 2011: How to Tell the Difference Between Alumna/us/ae/i.

Video by Jenny O’Grady.

Shriver 2010 Interns

Learn how some UMBC students spent their summer engaged in applied learning.

Kola Bakre
Intern
Erickson Retirement Communities – Charlestown, Catonsville, Maryland
Major:  Management of Aging Services
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
As an intern, I learned about the process of community building and leadership development. I gained valuable knowledge and experience, and practiced a variety of skill sets including group facilitation, event planning, publicity and display arrangement, among others.

“Charlestown is a great organization that will help shape your future. I couldn’t have asked for a better internship. I enjoyed the exposure and support I got from different departmental heads and co-workers in the community.”

Richard Blissett
Governor’s Summer Intern
Maryland State Department of Education, Division of Academic Policy, Baltimore, Maryland
Major(s): Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
In my position, I had the opportunity to observe and participate in many different aspects of the field of education. I visited an academy that helps biology teachers, looked at the issue of racial bias in the SAT, reviewed and cataloged nominations for parent involvement, put together content for STEM materials and participated in Maryland’s Race to the Top effort.

“An internship is a learning experience, so while it can also be where the rubber meets the road, I think the most important thing about this real-world experience is that it helps you figure out what kind of car you want to drive.”

Brian Brown
Summer Intern
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland
Major(s): Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Expected Graduation Date: May 2013

Position Description:
I worked in the Malaria Research Institute with Dr. David Sullivan on the malarial pigment, hemozoin. This summer, I had a three-part project. First, I investigated the conditions required to grow large hemozoin crystals in order to further understand their morphology by X-ray diffraction. I also worked on determining a pattern in the susceptibility to hydrogen peroxide degradation of hemozoin crystals produced by Plasmodium parasites with certain genes knocked out that code for hemozoin formation. And finally, I tried to understand if a group of antimalarials called quinolines inhibit heme degradation by performing a hydrogen peroxide degradation assay.

“I really liked being given pretty much full responsibility for my work. I received guidance from my mentor, but in the long run, all the data I gathered and presented was my own, and I found that exciting. Having credits on my transcript that show that is just the icing on the cake. If it weren’t for the Shriver Center, I’m not sure where I would have been this summer, or if I would even be participating in my first-ever research experience!”

Elisia Clark
Summer Intern
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Major: Biochemistry
Expected Graduation Date: May 2012

Position Description:
For my internship assignment, I used fMRI techniques to study the hippocampus, which is a part of the brain that is involved with memory, and try to read what people are thinking. Volunteer subjects participate in a virtual maze while in the MRI machine. At the beginning of this maze they are shown a face or an object and have to work their way through the maze to find that same face or object hidden in a room, while using their memory skills. I used Multi Voxel Pattern Analysis to train and test this program in Matlab with incorporated intelligence to help tell me what the person is thinking at different parts of the maze, which gave us some information on what parts of the brain are being activated during decision making.

“Choosing to spend my summer participating in an internship helped me to gain experience in my field of interest for graduate school.  Prior to starting this position I didn’t have any knowledge of this subject. But I wasn’t scared to try and learn something new, and my experience has been very rewarding!”

Thomas Davis
College Student Technical Specialist
Lockheed Martin, Information Systems & Global Solutions, Gaithersburg, Maryland
Major: Computer Science
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
At Lockheed Martin, I provided technical support on government-related contracts awarded to the company.  To that end, my work ranged from documenting various processes, to testing software and lab-based computer workstations, and preparing software and related media for delivery to various government customers.

“Through interning with Lockheed Martin, I have been afforded the opportunity to extend my classroom learning to an ever-growing, ever-changing information technology field, and have come out of this experience with a set of tools that will prepare me for my future work.  The Shriver Center has started me in the right direction toward a rewarding career after college.”

Hannah Dier
Governor’s Summer Intern
Governor’s StateStat Office, Annapolis, Maryland
Major(s): Political Science & Media and Communication Studies
Expected Graduation Date: Spring 2011

Position Description:
As a StateStat Intern, I supported analysts in developing and monitoring performance measures for state agencies, prepared meeting memos and summaries, attended weekly Stat meetings with participating state departments, and developed social networking web pages. Because I also participated in the Governor’s Summer Internship Program, I was also responsible for participating in a group policy analysis project. My group’s topic was cell phone confiscations in correctional facilities.

“I have been involved with the Shriver Center since I began participating in service- learning at the beginning of my freshman year at UMBC. In the past three years, the Shriver Center has been a great asset as I have explored different volunteer and internship positions that complement the work that I am pursuing through my majors.”

Deanna C. Easley
Early Identification Program Intern
GE Healthcare, Maternal Infant Care Site (MIC), Laurel, Maryland
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Expected Graduation Date: May 2012

Position Description:
As an intern, I was at the forefront of helping the company release some new product offerings by working cross-functionally with other teams on and offsite to ensure necessary tasks get done in a timely manner. For the first part of the summer, I essentially filled the role of a lead project integrator. For the latter half of the summer, I assisted in the creation of a design for a product in order to satisfy customers of a specific market and help expand the current product offered more globally, which will help increase revenue for the company.

“Some of the benefits of participating in this internship have been building long-lasting relationships, career building and hands-on experience. The value of hands-on experience to apply what has been taught in the classroom is priceless.   I got to be a large part of upcoming projects, and sometimes I even worked with the engineers that created some of the products MIC currently offers.  Being in that environment exposed me to what it would feel like to work for a company, because interns are fully involved and observe projects.”

Jonathon Edmands
Maryland Department of Transportation Fellows Intern
Maryland Port Administration, Division of Engineering, The World Trade Center, Baltimore, Maryland
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Expected Graduation Date: December 2011

Position Description:
I was involved in multiple large-scale contracts for the World Trade Center Baltimore (WTCB) and for Baltimore’s critical Marine Terminals.  My efforts focused on the review of electrical and mechanical components of each contract, including the review of technical specifications, special provisions, and CAD drawings.  I attended many site visits to confirm existing conditions for certain contracts and to address any issues or discrepancies in the drawings.  I also participated in a land survey study and attended progress meetings for ongoing MPA projects.  Additionally, I had many opportunities to apply my mechanical engineering knowledge and experience by analyzing heat exchangers and general HVAC systems at the WTCB, and by contributing to a manhole survey project involving generation of electrical manhole drawings using the “MicroStation” CAD software.

“The MDOT Fellows Internship Program, organized through the Shriver Center at UMBC, was an excellent match in terms of my work experience and college background.  The engineering and professional experience I gained was invaluable.  My mentors made an effort to get me involved in contracts/projects of interest as much as possible.  I received college credit, earned a stipend and developed a profound interest in pursuing a future career choice with the MPA.  I give many thanks to the Shriver Center for helping me out with the internship application and placement process.”

Adam Gerber
Summer Intern
Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland
Major: Interdisciplinary Studies, Neuropsychology
Expected Graduation Date: May, 2013

Position Description:
Along with two other interns, we investigated risk genes shared between autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia that would correlate the two diseases.  I also had the opportunity to observe schizophrenic patients during rounds.

“Interning at one of the premiere institutions for research, I had the fantastic opportunity to engage in research with fellow peers and to bring the classroom into actual practice.  Observing schizophrenic patients during rounds put into perspective how crucial my scientific research could impact the lives of people who have these disorders.  NIH has motivated me exponentially to continue my journey at UMBC in the area of neuroscience.”

Andrew Guseman
Summer Intern, Fuel and Air Controls Design
GE Aviation, Cincinnati, Ohio
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
As an intern, I worked in the fuel and air control design group within GE Aviation.  We designed the fuel system of airplane engines including all the fuel-draulic components. I worked to develop the fuel system architecture for future engine designs and made a software model to analyze fuel flow data for the GEnx engine.

“Summer internships are great because they give you real exposure to the working world.  It’s nice to see how the things we learn in the classroom are actually used in real life, they aren’t just random theories thrown into textbooks.  It’s also a great way to stay busy over the summer, make some money and jump-start your career.”

Riley Hansen
Document Publishing Intern- Print & Mail
T. Rowe Price, Owings Mills, Maryland
Major(s): Financial Economics and Business Technology Administration
Expected Graduation Date: May 2013

Position Description:
My internship position entailed negotiating, purchasing and coordinating offset printing and direct mail services for the full T. Rowe Price enterprise. I also collaborated with the firm’s marketing groups to provide direct mail services related to marketing and shareholder communications. This position required me to analyze and manage material production for legal compliance.

“This internship with T. Rowe Price truly allowed me to meet great people and develop relationships that will last a lifetime.  I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity to intern with T. Rowe Price; not only does it allow me to gain great work experience but I also earn college credit.  The Shriver Center is a great tool for helping students of any age find an internship that appeals to a person’s interests. I could not have attained my internship alone, I am very thankful for the help that was provided by the Shriver Center!”

William Hathaway
Intern
The National Geographic Society, Washington, DC
Major:  Environmental Studies
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
I worked within the Image College for the National Geographic Society.  My work mainly consisted of editorial projects and helping to add photos from early editions of the National Geographic Magazine into the collection and researching said photos to ensure accuracy of captions.

“You get a feel of what it’s like to work in an area/industry you are interested in, and contacts are everything- especially in photojournalism.  It is crucial to have people that can vouch for you and who actually know who you are and what you can do.”

Alesia Hovatter
Health Policy Analyst Intern
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Clinical Standards and Quality (OCSQ), Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group (QMHAG), Division of Ambulatory Care (DAC), Baltimore, Maryland
Major:  Public Policy—Concentration in Health Policy, Ph.D.
Expected Graduation Date:  May 2012                          

Position Description:                 
As a health policy analyst, I compose regulation language and develop briefing documents/materials, in collaboration with staff across CMS, for the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program rule.

“Growing up in rural Virginia I always wanted to work for the federal government and The Shriver Center helped guide me down the path to make this happen.  My internship led me to a full-time job at CMS.  The benefits of an internship with the federal government are many.  I began my internship with CMS in April 2009, and I have had the opportunity to work with many knowledgeable staff across CMS on the Resident Assessment Instrument for the Minimum Data Set (MDS) 3.0 to most recently working as a rule writer.  Every day at CMS has been challenging and rewarding, especially during the recent passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and health care reform legislation.”

Grace Kahler
Animal Care Intern
The Wildcat Sanctuary, Sandstone, Minnesota
Major: Psychology- Animal Behavior
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
We fed, cleaned and cared for over 100 wild cats that have been abused, neglected, abandoned or orphaned. From hybrids (Bengals and Savannahs) to lions and tigers, we help every day. We provided enrichment from frozen blood balls, to scents and paper mache monsters. We built new enclosures for old and incoming residents. We read case studies and books on the residents of TWS and learned what goes on behind the scenes. We had individual intern projects and put lots of sweat, blood, and hundreds of band aids into them. There is nothing glamorous about the work of an intern, but at the end of each day we lie down with a smile on our faces.

“The best part of my internship was knowing that every day I have improved the lives of these amazing animals. Remember to keep the wild in your heart, not in your home.”

Jennifer Mercer
Intern – Victim/Witness Waiting Room
Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office – Juvenile Division, Baltimore, Maryland
Major(s): Interdisciplinary Studies – Women and Law
Expected Graduation Date: May 2012

Position Description:
The office where I worked is designated as a special area for crime victims and prosecution witnesses to wait until the assistant state’s attorney assigned to the case is ready to talk to them about their testimony and/or to take them to court. My responsibilities included signing people in, notifying their assistant state’s attorney that they are present to testify, preparing victims’ contact information for attorneys and support staff and sending letters to victims and witnesses reminding them of their attorney’s need to speak with them prior to their hearing date.

“Handling numerous case files every day has taught me about the impact of juvenile delinquency in Baltimore through the eyes of the victim and the juvenile, as well as parents, schools, the justice system, and the citizens of Baltimore. Most of all, my contact with victims of crime has encouraged me to further pursue the field of criminal law in order to prevent others from enduring the pain of victimization. Working alongside the devoted professionals in the State’s Attorney’s Office has strengthened my resolve to fill their shoes in the future.”

Jamal Molin
Cybersecurity/Networking Intern
SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), Columbia, Maryland
Major(s): Computer Engineering
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
I worked on a number of cyber and networking defense projects for scientific, engineering, and technology applications to solve problems of vital importance to the nation and the world, in national security, energy and the environment, critical infrastructure and health.

“The UMBC Shriver Center was very supportive during my search for a summer internship. I am grateful that the Shriver Center opened my eyes to this opportunity to intern at SAIC, a Fortune 500 company.  I am thankful that, as an undergraduate, I get to experience computer engineering work on the professional and corporate level.”

Katrin Patterson
Walter Sondheim Jr. Maryland Nonprofit Leadership Program
Heathcote Community, Freeland, Maryland
Major(s): Anthropology and Gender & Women’s Studies
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
I interned at Heathcote Community, an intentional community in northern Baltimore County. It was a crash-course in gardening, cooking, marketing, fundraising, budgeting, managing a non-profit, living in a community and more. My assumptions about relationships, truth, and contemporary society were challenged on a regular basis, and every day brought an opportunity to learn something new.

“The benefits of interning over the summer are plenty! I didn’t have to worry about another job or classes, I received credit for work that I think is meaningful, I feel supported by my university, and I increased my skill set and enhanced my marketability.”

Jeddalyn Puzon
Business Systems Analyst Intern
PNC Financial Services, Strongsville, Ohio
Major(s): Information Systems and Visual Arts: Photography
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
I worked as a part of the Technology Department of PNC Financial Services. I helped with managing the different projects that occurred during the National City acquisition such as closing and updating projects through the project management tool, Clarity. I also designed databases for project audits that organized and simplified the way records were kept for project managers.

“Interning for PNC Financial Services the summer before my senior year is possibly one of the best decisions I have ever made. I learned and experienced first-hand the roles of the business analyst and project manager in a corporate setting, which has helped me decide the path that I need to take after graduation. I believe that networking with people that had the same goals as me has helped my professional growth.”

Yasmin Radbod
UMBC Fellow/Project HEALTH Volunteer
STEM at North Bend Elementary/Middle School and Cherry Hill
Project HEALTH at St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland
Major(s): East Asian History and Geography
Expected Graduation Date: May 2013

Position Description:
As a UMBC Fellow, I spent two days a week with North Bend middle school students. It is a summer enrichment program called Learning Through Experience and is funded through a grant from the Maryland Higher Education Commission called ACCES: Adventures in College & Career Exploration in STEM (Science, Technology, and Math).

For Project HEALTH, I visit the clinic at St. Agnes Hospital once a week for two hours at a time to consult with clients to find out if they have any needs such as housing, food, employment, insurance, etc. I connect them with resources and follow up with my clients until the case is closed.

“My studies at UMBC serve the purpose of giving me the skills I need to assist others, whether that be refugees, indigenous populations, people placed into poverty, my family, my friends, my neighbors or my coworkers. The Shriver Center, meanwhile, gives me the hands-on experience necessary for me to be successful in the human rights work I plan to pursue in the future.”

Michael Rahimi
Information Management Leadership Program (IMLP) Intern
GE Capital, Stamford, Connecticut        
Major: Information Systems
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
At GE Capital, the environment is fast paced and interns are empowered to drive deliverables for the projects they are assigned to. I learned that information technology is not just about support. IT’s value is in improving everything and anything that touches internal and external customers. Working for a global company means that it is common for members of your team to be located all over the world. Every day brings a new challenge and the whole experience is incredibly rewarding.

“I have gained invaluable corporate experience working for one of the largest and most innovative companies in the world. I networked with experienced professionals who provided me with industry insight and offered me motivation and mentoring. On top of all these opportunities, I gained academic credit in the process.”

Jacqueline Ross
Research Assistant Intern
Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Baltimore, Maryland
Major(s): Psychology and Biology
Expected Graduation Date: MAY 2011

Position Description:
I conducted schizophrenic research – understanding adolescent brain development and how gonadal steroids like estrogen and testosterone impact this process to influence behaviors that are disrupted in mental illness. The research examines sex-specific neuroanatomical, behavioral and brain gene expression changes that occur during adolescence in the context of preclinical models of psychiatric illness.

“My internship at the MPRC gave me so much not just as a student learning at a research center, but as a new scientist in the biopsychology field. From giving surgical implants to running assays, I was able to continually hone my lab techniques. To be involved in research that can potentially apply not just to the scientific community, but also to the general population, brought a great feeling about and purpose to my contribution.”

Kaitlyn Sadtler
Technical Aide
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, Laurel, Maryland
Major: Biological Sciences
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
JHUAPL has a summer internship program for undergraduate students. I worked in the Applied Biology, Chemistry and Nuclear Sciences Group, and researched bioremediation to degrade trace explosives, and a detection method for enterotoxins.

“The internship allowed me to experience a real laboratory setting. No matter how many lab courses you take at school, nothing compares to having the ability to research a topic that could introduce something completely novel to an ever-expanding field, and allows you to meet new people and talk with them about their research.”

Daniel Sallitt        
IT Intern/Associate
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield Corporate HQ, Owings Mills, Maryland        
Major: Information Systems
Expected Graduation Date: May 2012

Position Description:
I was a member of the Information Technology Best Practices & Planning Team at CareFirst BCBS, a major health insurance provider in Maryland and Washington, D.C. Our team was responsible for tracking all of the projects in development in the Information Technology division of CareFirst. We generated comprehensive reports and regularly presented our findings to the VPs, the CIO and CEO. The IT division at CareFirst employs over 600, so it was a great way to experience working in the corporate world for the first time.

 “The representative from the Shriver Center that I met with, Casey Miller, personally emailed me and recommended the summer intern position at CareFirst, so I took his advice, applied and ended up having a great experience. I would recommend this internship to any undergrad information systems major, and I may not have even applied for it if it wasn’t for the Shriver Center.”

Christelle Samen
Summer Intern
Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
Major(s): Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
My project was to investigate whether selected species of the mosquito’s natural bacterial flora are mediating inhibitory activity on the development of Plasmodium (the parasite responsible for malaria) through the IMD innate immune pathway. To carry this out, I injected Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, co-fed them with field-isolated bacteria and P. falciparum, and counted oocysts to determine parasite infection levels. Further assays using Anopheles cell lines and selected bacteria were performed to investigate the capacity of the bacteria to activate anti-Plasmodium immune effectors and identify potential bacterial candidates for Plasmodium control agents.

“Choosing to spend your summer participating in an internship allows you discover strengths and weaknesses, identify areas of interest and determine what career path is best for you.”

Maria Satyshur
Marketing Intern
Urbanite Baltimore and Light Industries, Baltimore and Millersville, Maryland
Major(s): Media and Communication Studies with minors in Journalism and Music
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:

Urbanite: I was part of the marketing team for Urbanite magazine, a Baltimore-based magazine about arts, culture, food, news, sustainability and anything else you could think of. I worked on a presentation analyzing Urbanite’s use of social media with the launch of its new e-zine campaign and website. I also worked at local events like Artscape and on other marketing efforts.

Light Industries: I was a marketing intern for Light Industries Technology Solutions. I surveyed customers from a recent merger in efforts to better understand our communications with them and how we might work with them in the future.

 “Getting an internship through the Shriver Center meant that I knew I was going to be in a place where learning was a priority.”

Anne (Griffy)Tanenbaum
Contract Intern
Internship through Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), Edgewood, Maryland
Major: Graphic Design
Expected Graduation Date: May, 2011

Position Description:
I did design work for the Conceptual Modeling and Animation Team at ECBC, in the Edgewood branch of the Army Research Lab. I used Photoshop to create real-looking textures and then applyed them to the surfaces of objects (such as smoke grenades) that are modeled in 3-D and animated to help soldiers understand what they look like and how they work. I also designed the interface of a website in Flash that includes a gallery of the many projects my team has done for customers.

“It was wonderful to have an internship because I was paid, received credit from UMBC and gained invaluable experience in the world of applied graphic design. Without this crucial step between school and a career, I would definitely have a much harder time getting hired after graduation.”

Abigail Urbanas
Pricing and Estimating Summer Intern
AAI Corporation, Hunt Valley, Maryland
Major(s): Financial Economics and Accounting Certificate
Expected Graduation Date: May 2011

Position Description:
I worked in the Pricing and Estimating department at AAI. Our main goal was to take the estimates we received from the engineers and project managers to come up with the most accurate price we can for our customers. In addition, we provided many graphs, charts and reports to assist our project manager in selling our product to our potential customer. I  worked with Excel to create macros, which helped us import information more efficiently and create easy to comprehend and organized reports and charts.

 “My internship has taught me so much about where I can go with my education and what I can do in the future. It was also wonderful knowing that my internship would appear on my transcript, and I earned extra credits for the fall semester. Since I am planning on taking the Certified Public Accountant exam (which you need 150 credits in order to take) it was a really nice way of earning extra credits.”

Daniel Wienhold
Engineering Intern
Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE), Front Street Office, Baltimore, Maryland
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Expected Graduation Date: May 2012

Position Description:
As a mechanical engineering intern, I worked in the Program Management Unit which is part of the Regulatory Programs Department. I met with project/program managers to discuss their individual programs and then formulate process flow charts for each. These charts were posted on one of the company’s websites to inform new hires of the programs/projects. I also managed the restoration/replacement/relocation of light poles that are within violation of new clearance codes. The mitigation cost for my 34 light poles was $144,000 and is part of a $5.5 million program.

“One of the benefits of having an internship like this is the real-life experience that gives you a feeling of what you might be interested in after college. It’s also a great experience to work on your communication, networking and team-building skills. You become more competitive in the job market.”

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Winning Season

After competing in three international Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) events this year, UMBC finished in second place for the 2010 season. The UMBC Baja team is the number one team in the U.S. (first place went to Ecole de Technologie Superieure (ETS) of Montreal.).

“We finished in the top ten in all three events. Only seven other teams in the history of Baja have done this,” said Steve Storck, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering and captain of the Baja team. As a long- time member, this is a long-awaited achievement.

In April the UMBC Baja team traveled to Greenville, South Carolina, to compete in the first SAE Baja race of the year. Along with 100 international teams, they competed in five dynamic events: acceleration, towing, suspension and traction and maneuverability. There were also static events such as design and cost. Impressively, UMBC placed 15th in the design category, and took the number one place for most cost-effective vehicle. In the end, UMBC placed sixth in the overall competition, the highest ranking in the history of the program.

In May, the team, comprised of 11 UMBC mechanical engineering students, competed in the second SAE event of the year in Bellingham, Washington. UMBC went up against over 100 international teams and for the first time the team took second place overall in the design event. They were one of 34 teams to finish the maneuverability course, and went home with an eighth place title, another top ten finish.

In June the team traveled to Rochester, New York for the last SAE event. For the first time, the UMBC Baja team competed in a race that required water maneuverability. The system the team put together was built only days before the race, and finished 31st in that event. Once again, UMBC took first place for cost effectiveness.

After all three events had passed, UMBC held the title of second place overall, and number one in the U.S.

“We were told we were doing things that no other team had ever done,” said Caroline Scheck, who is the only female member and project manager of the UMBC Baja team. She is entering her second semester as a master’s student this year.

The innovation of the UMBC team’s design came from the need to budget and find new ways to improve on the vehicle without compromising cost effectiveness. The challenges they faced — and the long hours spent coming up with inexpensive alternatives and reinventing parts — paid off.

“The program really pushes the envelope in terms of hands-on experience you can’t get in class. Many of our team members get offers from top companies,” said Storck. One of the companies is their sponsor, Lockheed Martin, which supports the team financially along with the mechanical engineering department. One member, Sam Markkula, is currently an employee there.

“We learn everything from budgeting, to shipping, to building a gear box from scratch,” explained Storck.

Scheck, who has redesigned the gear box that will be used in the upcoming racing season, said the Baja team has provided her with an in-depth, hands-on engineering experience that would have been tough to get inside a classroom.

Building the gear box was just one of many challenges for the Baja team. They earned their number one spot with some innovative thinking after being faced with a tight budget and the struggle to find people interested enough to dedicate early mornings and late nights to developing the vehicles.

As team members graduate or get tied up by other obligations, the team worries who will keep UMBC Baja speeding along. Not only is it difficult to keep new undergraduates who show up to meetings interested in the program, but it’s also tricky generating attention for the team.

“The win this year will help generate interest. But getting someone to a race, that will hook them. It’s addicting,” says Storck. “You don’t need to know anything about vehicle design to be a part of the team — the demands of Baja competition cut across majors from mechanical engineering to business to art. But getting people to that first race, that’s the challenge.”

Team members Caroline Scheck, Steve Storck, Chuck Herbert, Sal Nimer, Dave Outen, Rich Glendening, Eric Meyer, Justin Jones, Pete Mech, James Clerkin and Sam Markkula are enjoying their title and look forward to events for 2011, and redesigning and improving the car.

(8/20/10)