Director, UMBC Center for Women & Information Technology

“Joan Korenman is a wired woman”
  

Joan Korenman, Director of UMBC�s Center for Women & Information Technology (CWIT), has been named one of the “Top 25 Women on the Web” by San Francisco Women on the Web, a non-profit development organization for women involved with the Internet, new media, and web technology.

The award highlights the accomplishments of 25 women around the globe who have inspired people with their efforts to advance technology, contribute to the community, and demonstrate the success of businesswomen in the Internet and new media industries. It also emphasizes the community-based network of women helping each other in technology-related fields.

Korenman founded UMBC�s Center for Women & Information Technology in 1998 to address and rectify women’s under-representation in IT and enhance understanding of the relationship between gender and IT. In 1991, Korenman established WMST-L, an electronic forum for Women’s Studies teaching, research, and program administration. With more than 4000 subscribers in 47 countries, WMST-L is the largest women-related academic email forum in the world. Korenman is the author of Internet Resources for Women: Using Electronic Media in Curriculum Transformation (1997).

 
Karen Johnson, Secretary of Higher Education, Maryland Higher Education Commission

“Outstanding Alumna”
  

Karen Johnson, political science ’85 and the recipient of this year’s UMBC Outstanding Alumna Award, is Secretary of Higher Education for the Maryland Higher Education Commission.

As one of the youngest members of Governor Parris Glendening’s cabinet, Johnson is a key figure in ongoing efforts to preserve the quality of higher education in Maryland, overseeing more than 30 public and private colleges and universities, 20 community colleges and 100 private career schools in the state.

For Johnson, one of UMBC’s strengths was its size. “It’s not too big and not too small,” she says. “The faculty here are very connected to the students and really take an interest in their development. Students should take advantage of the faculty and everything campus has to offer and try to build relationships for the future,” she says. “When I was at UMBC, I learned from other students as much as I did from sitting in a lecture hall.”