Please send a letter of introduction and a resume to Dr. Patricia Young, Associate Professor, UMBC Department of Education (pyoung@umbc.edu), and Lisa Harris, Administrative Assistant (lisah@umbc.edu), as soon as possible. 

Please direct any questions to Dr. Young. 

The group will meet on Thursdays from 3:30 to 5:00 pm at the Counseling Center located in the Student Success and Development Center near the dormitories.

Please contact Emilie Stuber-Lawson (410-455-2472 or estuber@umbc.edu) with questions or to express interest.

Dr. Renetta Tull receives the Claire L. Felbinger Award for Diversity at the ABET Awards Gala in Baltimore, MD on October 28, 2016.  Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Renetta Tull’s wordpress website

The application for UMBC's STRiVE leadership retreat is now available. There will be two STRiVE sessions in 2017: one during winter break (January 9-13) and one during spring break (March 20-24). The same application works for both sessions.

Calling STRiVE a "leadership retreat" is like calling your favorite meal "food." It's not inaccurate, but it doesn't fully capture the warmth, intensity and magic! Students returning from STRiVE often describe it as a truly transforming, and even years later will identify STRiVE as their most important UMBC learning experience, and as the moment UMBC became a true home for them. 

Well over 99.5% of all students ever to participate in STRiVE have said they would recommend STRiVE to a friend.

The two of us will be among the STRiVE coaches, so this is also your chance to spend five days with us (and roughly 55 other UMBC students and five staff members)! We love participating in STRiVE because of the opportunity to connect with and learn from the participants. No two STRiVEs are alike, but they're all powerful and amazing.

So complete the application by the November 6th deadline, and tell a friend! This is your chance to truly make UMBC your own.

On November 16, 2016, PROMISE AGEP will be providing an in-person “Learning Community” for CIRTL’s “Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Reaching and Teaching Diverse Learners” workshop. Light refreshments will be served, This event is open to all USM campuses. All participants need to RSVP on this website AND register on the CIRTL website. 

Registration: Click the “I Can Attend” button AND register on the CIRTL website: (Note: Registration on CIRTL website is October 24, 2016 – November 7, 2016),

2:00 PM – 4:00 PM: In-person viewing of the “Universal Design for Learning” workshop

Why does Universal Design matter? Course design based on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles provides a framework and strategies that recognize the unique backgrounds, experiences, and abilities of our students and helps us design courses that are inclusive and accessible to our diverse learners. Originating from the field of architecture, UDL made the physical world accessible to people with disabilities, but also demonstrated how everyone can benefit from these principles.

What will the workshop cover? This workshop will assist participants in preparing to teach new courses and/or revise existing courses using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and practices. Participants will have the opportunity to clarify student learning outcomes, learn about teaching methods that can reach a broader range of learners, and consider ways to apply UDL principles to reduce barriers to learning in their courses.

Facilitators: Dr. Carolyn L. Sandoval, Instructional Consultant, Texas A&M University; Vernee Butterfield, Texas A&M University.

Who’s invited? Anyone can register for our workshop, though students from CIRTL institutions will be given preference. Registration will be open Monday, October 24 through Monday, November 7.

What’s required of me before and after the workshop? Prior to the workshop, participants will be provided with a sample course syllabus and will be asked to review and document initial impressions related to course design. Following the workshop, participants will be asked to incorporate concepts learned into a revised syllabus and upload the revisions into Moodle for peer review. Instructors estimate these pre- and post-workshop tasks will take about 2 hours.

Where will the workshop take place? We’ll use Moodle to host assignments and discussion boards before and after the workshop; you’ll automatically receive a Moodle account once you’re enrolled in the workshop. The live session on the 16th, which everyone is required to attend, will take place in Blackboard Collaborate. To participate in the Blackboard Collaborate sessions, you will need to download the necessary software and have access to headphones and a computer with a microphone and camera.

Accessibility: We want to make this workshop accessible to as many people as possible. If you have questions about the workshop content, how to register, or how to use the required technology, contact kdiamond3 AT wisc.edu.

https://sites.google.com/a/wisc.edu/cirtl/workshops/universal-design-for-learning-reaching-and-teaching-diverse-learners

by David Hoffman and Craig Berger

As UMBC has celebrated its 50th anniversary by looking back on its earliest years, the names of the original buildings have been invoked repeatedly. The original academic building (now part of Biological Sciences) once was called Academic I. The original student gathering space, with a gym and a cafeteria, was called Gym I. And the classroom between them was Lecture Hall 1.

Except ... that's not what any of those buildings were called in 1966-1967! All of those names betray a knowledge of events (specifically, the construction of newer facilities) that were, in 1966-1967, still in the future. You don't call something "1" until there's a "2" (see, e.g., World Wars, Super Bowls, movies with sequels, etc.). On opening day, the original buildings were simply the Academic Building, the Lecture Hall, and the Multi-Purpose Building.

You can see those original facilities (left to right) in the 1967 photo below. Compare that image with the photo below it, taken from the same spot in 2016.

1967 (Source: Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery Digital Collections).

2016

Please take note of the new Senators and officers for LLC's Graduate Student Organization on campus:

Mary Laurents (mfeldm1@umbc.edu)

Mary Gallagher (maryg2@umbc.edu)

Senators attend the monthly senate meetings, which usually occur from 5-7 p.m. on the first Monday of the month during the fall & spring semesters.

Thanks to our senators’s service, LLC students are elegible to receive up to $2,500 in research support during the course of their degree program.

Let’s also remember that Deanna Cerquetti is the current GSA president.

President: Shawntay Stocks (sstocks1@umbc.edu)

Vice President: Tissa Thomas (tissa1@umbc.edu)

Treasurer: Sherella Cupid (cupids1@umbc.edu) 

Herstorian: Siobhan Quin (siobhan1@umbc.edu)

The GSO is instrumental in organizing fun events for LLC students like outings (picnics, bowling nights) and professional development events (such as our LLC Graduate Student Conference).

Thank you for stepping up to the plate!

May Chung (Cohort '17) has just published a book review on the journal Language and Education. Her review is titled "Authenticity, language and interaction in second language contexts, edited by R.A. van Compernolle and J. McGregor."

You can read a part of the article here

Congratulations, May.