• Student Success and Retention: Projects exploring relationships between activities or learning in one course and outcomes in other courses, particularly critical progression points, low-success courses, or foundational skills.
• Faculty Development and Support: Proposals that leverage institutional data (via REX and Tableau) to inform instructional practices, contributing insights to the LA Community of Practice.

• Engage actively with the UMBC Learning Analytics Community of Practice (LA CoP).
• Produce and present a final report or scholarly product (conference presentation, external grant proposal, or publication).
• Consider leveraging results to apply for the prestigious Hrabowski Innovation Fund award.

• Brief Abstract: Suitable for publication on UMBC’s website (maximum 200 words).
• Research Project Proposal: Clearly outlining objectives, methodology, expected outcomes, and relevance (maximum 3 pages).
• Signed acknowledgement of support: Department Chair (through DocuSign)

• Proposal Deadline: Friday, June 6, 2025
• Notification of Awards: Early July 2025
• Grant Period: July 2025 – June 2026

• REX Data Warehouse (available to all faculty)
• Tableau training and support provided by DoIT’s Analytics & Instructional Technology group
• Access to prior workshops and resources to inform proposal development.

Updated application details: 

To be considered, please use THIS FORM to provide the personal information and your statement of interest by May 30, 2025. Additionally, your immediate supervisor must complete and submit the Supervisor Support Form, indicating their endorsement of your participation and commitment to supporting your proposed Culture Builders initiative by May 30, 2025.

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Call for Culture Builders

We are excited to invite you to partner with the Division of Institutional Equity in an ongoing, community-wide effort to foster a more loving, inclusive, and just campus: Culture Builders.

Culture building is the intentional practice of developing shared values, beliefs, and behaviors that shape how we live, learn, and lead together. In a time marked by polarization and a loss of shared humanity, creating an inclusive culture requires all of us. Each of us has a role to play.

More than a semesterly speaker series, Culture Builders is a call to action. It’s a space where faculty and staff can deepen their commitment to inclusive excellence by:

• Engaging in critical conversations about identity, community, and belonging

• Centering shared values that draw us closer across lines of difference

• Exploring practices and programs that support inclusive engagement, teaching, service, leadership, and scholarship

• Co-creating a campus culture where everyone feels seen, valued, and supported

We invite you to join the fall '25 Culture Builders Cohort as a thought partner, co-sponsor, and co-facilitator. This fall’s shared text will be Critical Hope by Dr. Kari Grain—a powerful exploration of how we can lead with clarity, complexity, and care in the pursuit of justice. 

Drawing from the book’s key themes—including the importance of grounded action over naïve optimism, leading with imagination, and cultivating hope through reflection and radical relationships—our fall cohort will focus on how these practices can shape UMBC’s culture of inclusive excellence. Explore the fall themes HERE.

What to Expect:

• Small cohort experience: Only 8 Culture Builders will be selected per semester. Culture builders will represent their office/department.

• Shared learning: Culture Builders will participate in three virtual dialogues (July, August, and September) to explore the book and identify themes and values that can inform institutional change. We will provide each participant with a free copy of Critical Hope.

• Campus engagement: Each Culture Builder will host a fall event, program, or learning opportunity connected to cohort themes. We will provide up to $500 in funding per event.

• Community connection: All Culture Builders will promote and attend the fall Culture Builders keynote event in November. We will host and fully fund this event and provide 20 free copies of Critical Hope to audience members.

To explore the ideas behind the book, you can listen to the following podcast interviews with Dr. Kari Grain: Critical Hope for Educators: Equity Analysis, Possibility, and Responsibility. You might also read The Social Justice Turn: Cultivating "Critical Hope" in an Age of Despair by Kari M. Grain and Darren E. Lund.

If you’re already leading equity-centered work or seeking a way to begin, this is your invitation! Become a Culture Builder and help shape the culture we want to see at UMBC.

The May 2025 Ultra release delivers several meaningful updates that improve how faculty assess student work, support engagement, and manage course tools. From expanded rubric options to accessible grading workflows, these changes are designed to align with effective teaching practices and support a more inclusive, student-centered experience.

Qualitative, No-Points Rubrics

Instructors can now create and use no-points rubrics in Ultra, a powerful option for qualitative evaluation. These rubrics allow instructors to provide rich, criterion-based feedback without assigning numerical values -- perfect for assignments focused on reflection, creativity, process, or formative assessment. In addition, faculty can leverage the AI assistant to generate descriptive evaluation criteria for no-points rubrics.

Image 1: Example of no-points rubric creation screen

Text-Based Columns in the Gradebook

A new Gradebook feature allows instructors to create text-based columns (up to 32 characters). These flexible columns are not restricted to text-only input and can include a description for context. Instructors can control student visibility, sort values in Grid view, and download the data. This update is especially useful for organizing students, tracking informal feedback, or adding flexibility to the Gradebook without tying everything to a numeric score.

Image 2: Inserting a text-based column in the gradable items tab

Test Submission Review – View Once

A new test setting, “View submission one time,” allows students to review their test responses and feedback just once after submission. Instructors must first enable the “Allow students to view their submission” setting, after which this option becomes available. This strikes a balance between transparency and academic integrity, offering students a chance to learn from their errors while reducing the risk of content sharing.

Image 3: Selecting the one-time view submission assessment setting

Enhanced AI Conversation Tool

The AI Conversation tool has been upgraded to optionally generate three key elements: a conversation title, a persona, and a reflection question. Instructors can further refine the suggestions by adjusting complexity, providing additional context, or pulling from course materials. This makes it easier to create rich dialogue prompts that encourage critical thinking and metacognition.

Gradebook Accessibility Enhancements

The Gradable Items view in the Gradebook has been redesigned to improve accessibility and navigation for users relying on screen readers or keyboard-only navigation. The new table-based layout provides more intuitive movement across cells using arrow keys and includes proper header and row announcements. These enhancements help ensure all instructors and teaching assistants, regardless of ability, can manage course grading with greater ease.

Discussion Board Improvements

Several updates make Ultra Discussions more intuitive and user-friendly. Terminology has been streamlined, replacing “responses” with “posts” for clarity, and the input field now prompts users to “Post a response to the discussion.” Instructor posts are clearly labeled, reply boxes are directly below the topic for better flow, and unnecessary interface elements, such as avatars and large banners, have been removed or simplified. These changes reduce cognitive load, improve mobile usability, and create a smoother, more accessible discussion experience for both students and faculty.

When you can expect the update

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around May 1-2 2025. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on May 6, 2025; release notes are posted to the What's New in Ultra that same week. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please watch the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra.

Curious about the all latest features in Ultra? Join our What's New in Ultra Courses for Teaching & Learning SU2025 webinar on May 12, 2025.

These financial webinars are open to all Faculty and Staff, regardless of your retirement plan or vendor.