Greetings Residential Retrievers--

We can hardly believe that October is here!  As we enter a new month, we want to provide you with some important residential updates. 

Important Dates

• October 1, 2022 | Spring Student Success Scholarship Opens on Scholarship Retriever
• October 6, 2022 | True Grits Festi-Fall Celebration
• Week of October 2, 2022 | Health & Safety Inspections (see below)
• October 7-16, 2022 | Homecoming & Family Weekend
• October 12, 2022 | Sign Up for the Pesto Teaching Kitchen
• October 23, 2022 | Spring Student Success Scholarship Deadline

Health & Safety Inspections

Residential Life values the co-creation of a safe environment in every residential community. It is the responsibility of every resident to ensure that they are contributing to a safe and healthy environment in their residence by:

• committing to community standards set at the beginning of each year with their floor
• reviewing and adhering to the Residential Life Rights and Responsibilities Guide, 
• submitting requests for facility maintenance 

It is the responsibility of Residential Life staff to educate residents through positive, personal contact,  maintain the residential facilities and conduct health and safety checks in residential rooms intermittently throughout the semester to identify health and safety issues in a timely way. These issues could include facility issues, fire safety, and the presence of prohibited items. 

This semester, Residential Life staff will be conducting these health and safety inspections on the week of October 2, 2022. Residents are not expected to be present during the inspection, but if you would like to be please contact your RA to schedule a time.

If concerns or issues are found in your room, you will receive notification via email. Please review the email and follow the instructions for correcting the issues in advance of a reinspection. Failure to correct the issues by the reinspection date, outlined in the email, may result in Student Conduct Action. 

If you have questions about these inspections, please contact your Resident Assistant or Community Director. 

Mail & Package Reminders 

Residential students are encouraged to have mail and standard packages delivered directly to their residential community during. All residents are assigned a mailbox and combination that they will share with their roommate(s). If you have misplaced your combination you can ask the Community Desk for assistance. 

Students commonly report that they have received notice from the shipper that their package has been delivered, but it is not immediately available for in-community pick up. This is most often due to misdelivery of packages by third-party carriers. For this reason, we highly encourage students to include the name of their residential community desk in the shipping address (ex. Apartment Community Center or Harbor Community Desk) to ensure packages are directed to their communities rather than Central Receiving or another UMBC building. Mail should be addressed like the example below to avoid delays or loss:

Your Name
Community Desk Name
Room/Apartment # Number
UMBC, 1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, Maryland 21250

Mail and packages that are not addressed for a current residential student and/or a residential facility may be refused by staff at Campus Card & Mail Services, Central Receiving, or Residential Life community desks.

When items are misdelivered by carriers, we ask for student's patience as Campus Card & Mail Services, Central Receiving, and Residential Life staff work to redirect, deliver, and log packages appropriately. This can take up to 3 business days.

For more information about mail and package procedures please visit https://reslife.umbc.edu/rlexperience/procedures/

Residential Hall Community Kitchen Updates 

We are excited to share that we will begin reintroducing communal cookware into our residence hall ground floor community kitchens in Chesapeake, Susquehanna, Patapsco and Potomac Halls.  During the pandemic items were removed from these kitchens to help minimize the spread of COVID-19 and had to be checked out at Community Desks.

With the reintroduction of items like pots, pans, and other cookware we wanted to remind students of expectations for using these items:

• Clean and sanitize items after use. Dish soap will be provided to ensure you are able to clean the items.
• Return dried items to the location in which you found them. 
• Ensure that any spills or any other mess is cleaned.
• Lost, stolen, or damaged items will not be replaced during the academic year.

Again, please keep in mind that this addition to the communal kitchens is a privilege.  Reports of misuse of the items and/or the space may result in the revocation of these items.

Student Success Scholarship

The purpose of the Student Success Scholarship is to assist current residential life students who demonstrate significant financial need to remain on-campus residents, who may otherwise be unable to afford housing during the academic year. The scholarship is supported by Residential Life. Award funds are for the following semester. If you are applying in fall, the funds would be applied for the spring semester housing balance. Several scholarships may be awarded each semester. Funds will vary based on eligibility and will range from full semester housing costs to partial semester housing costs, not to exceed the cost of a double room.

The application is open on Scholarship Retriever from October 1-23 for Spring Awards.

For questions or concerns please contact your Resident Assistant or Community Director. We hope you have a wonderful day!

Residential Life Staff

Pop-Up: Beverage Bar

September 15th to October 15th is National Hispanic Heritage Month. Throughout this time, i3b, UMBC and country celebrates the important contributions, heritage, and culture of all Hispanic and Latinos in the United States. 

Honoring our Hispanic/Latin(e/x) community and their influence on our country, we recognize culture and traditions that have shaped all of our communities. Hispanic Heritage Month further celebrates the traditions, cultures, families, love, and service all Hispanic and Latin(e/x) folks. 

History of Hispanic Heritage Month

Beginning on September 15th, Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the anniversary of independence of the Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, dating back to 1968. Additionally, Mexico, Chile, and Belize also celebrate their independence days during this period with Día de la Raza on October 12th.

The term Hispanic, referring to the racial and ethnic groups of folks from hisphanophone (Spanish Speaking) countries, that were historically colonized by Spain. This term is inclusive to those of Spanish origin. The term Latino, excludes Spain, but includes non-Spanish speaking Latin American countries such as Belize, Brazil, Guyana, and Haiti. Some folks may have ethnic roots from Latin America, and may use either, neither, or both Hispanic and/or Latino.

Want to learn more about Latine and Latinx? Click here.

Interested in learning more history? Click here.

For more information on Mosaic Hispanic/Latin(e/x) resources and other cultural diversity based resources, please email Angelina Jenkins, Assistant Director of The Mosaic, Center for Cultural Diversity at arjenkins@umbc.edu. 

Dear Faculty and Staff,

UMBC is fortunate to have so many talented and dedicated Exempt and Non-Exempt staff working to support our mission. Over the past few years, our staff have worked tirelessly to ensure that our students, faculty, and staff had the tools they needed to be successful in a challenging time, were working or learning in a safe environment, and that the necessary groundwork was laid to return to our physical campus.

We ask that you reflect on the work within your units and across the campus and nominate a colleague. This process gives us the opportunity to recognize exemplary work at both the campus level and across the entire University System of Maryland. We are eager to honor our colleagues and need your help to do so.

We encourage administrators, faculty, and staff to nominate staff members for one of these prestigious awards:

• UMBC Presidential Distinguished Staff Awards
• University System of Maryland Board of Regents Staff Awards
• Jakubik Family Endowment Staff Award
• Karen L. Wensch Endowment Award for Outstanding Non-Exempt Staff
• Teresa Lupinek Endowment Award for Exempt or Non-Exempt Staff

Descriptions of the individual awards and the eligibility requirements for each, as well as the nomination form, can be found at 2022-23 Staff Awards. Each nomination should include the nomination form, a single letter of recommendation, and the nominee’s resume or job history form. Please send nominations to Colleen Rebeiro in the Office of the Provost at colleenr@umbc.edu by October 31, 2022.

We hope the entire UMBC community will engage in this process. If you have questions about the staff awards, please contact Martina Buckley, Associate Provost for Financial Management and Chief of Staff, at mbuckley@umbc.edu.

President Valerie Sheares Ashby
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Philip Rous