Welcome to your 2026 Thrive journey! Throughout 2026, the Wellness Program will support you with inspiring webinars, fun challenges, and practical resources so you can stay informed, engaged, and thriving. You can jumpstart 2026 with their new challenge:  

Start your year with energy, fun, and a chance for a (virtual) fortune! Watch this video to learn more.

Join Feel Like a Million and get daily, easy-to-do activities designed to boost your energy and mood. Each activity brings you closer to a virtual million dollar prize - and bragging rights as a (virtual) millionaire! Hit the million mark and you'll be entered to win real $25 gift cards in our raffle drawings! It’s a fun, motivating way to launch into the new year with healthy fun and positivity! Register here

Mindful Mondays: Happy Habits Series

Healthy U Wednesdays

Thrive Thursdays

New Year Guided Meditations

Friday, January 23, 11:30 am - 11:45 am: Healthier Weight

Discover the basics of weight management and how losing just 5% of your body weight can make a big difference in your health.

Register for 1/23 Healthier Weight

Friday, January 30, 11:30 am - 11:45 am: Maintaining a Healthier Immune System

Colds and flu can strike at any time. Learn how your immune system works and simple strategies to keep it strong year-round, especially during the winter months. 

Register for 1/30 Maintaining a Healthier Immune System

The Dialogue Symposium: Bringing College and Communities Together 
January 29 | 8:30 am - 4:30 pm | UC Ballroom | In-Person

This year's symposium creates a powerful space to explore how dialogue deepens connection, fosters inclusion, and transforms collaboration across campuses and communities. Expect interactive sessions, hands-on workshops, peer-led exchanges, and an opening keynote fishbowl conversation that promises to set the tone for everything to come.

Featuring:

• Bridget Turner Kelly, PhD, Associate Professor in Student Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park.
• Rhonda Fitzgerald, Executive Director of the Sustained Dialogue Institute.
• Felipe Filomeno, PhD, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Global Studies Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
• Brighid Dwyer, PhD, Vice Dean for Academic Excellence & Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts & Sciences and Vice Chair of the Difficult Dialogues National Resource Center Board.

Register here: https://umbc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3qT4mFIw7bWNZFY

Mandatory Annual Title IX Student Training

UMBC is dedicated to fostering an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of the campus community and is committed to maintaining a campus environment that is free from sex discrimination, including both sexual and gender-based harassment and violence. To help meet these goals, UMBC requires all students to complete an online educational program on topics including consent, bystander intervention, sexual assault, sexual harassment, dating violence, stalking, and related topics. All students are required to complete this training at the start of each academic year. The online training can be accessed at UMBC's Vector Solutions login page. For questions, please see the Student Training FAQ page or email ecrtraining@umbc.edu.

Note: All programs, events, and opportunities are open to full participation by all individuals, regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal, state, and University nondiscrimination policies.

In January, UMBC faculty and students will experience a redesigned course navigation in Ultra that makes key areas easier to access and understand. The updated layout brings a full-width header with clearer course branding and improved use of screen space on desktop and mobile. 

The new course navigation provides an update header, modernized banner layout, and Home button that returns users to the Blackboard landing page (rather than the courses page). You'll still have access to your Courses by using the snazzy Course Switcher, which provides shortcuts to the four most recently accessed courses, or you can choose View All to return to the Courses page again. Learn more about these improvements in our overview article. 

Image 1: The refreshed user interface in courses includes full-screen course pages and improvements to enhance the amount of screen space for users to engage with their course.

Image 3: True/false questions now include additional options.

Additional updates for January include:

• The default number of multiple choice answer options is now four (instead of three), helping speed up question creation.
• Instructors can now limit how many answer choices students can select for a multiple choice question, ideal for “select all that apply” formats.
• Ultra has significantly improved test loading times. For example, a 200-question test now loads in about 5 seconds (down from ~25), making large-format assessments more manageable.
• Instructors now have access to an automation activity log, which tracks when each automation was triggered, which student it applied to, and which content item was involved, providing transparency and accountability for automated course messaging.

When you can expect the update

Faculty should see the latest updates in their Ultra courses around January 8-9, 2026. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on January 13, 2026. 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. Join our What's New in Ultra for Teaching & Learning on January 13, 2026, to catch up on the latest updates.

Welcome to your 2026 Thrive journey! Throughout 2026, the Wellness Program will support you with inspiring webinars, fun challenges, and practical resources so you can stay informed, engaged, and thriving. You can jumpstart 2026 with their new challenge:  

Start your year with energy, fun, and a chance for a (virtual) fortune! Watch this video to learn more.

Join Feel Like a Million and get daily, easy-to-do activities designed to boost your energy and mood. Each activity brings you closer to a virtual million dollar prize - and bragging rights as a (virtual) millionaire! Hit the million mark and you'll be entered to win real $25 gift cards in our raffle drawings! It’s a fun, motivating way to launch into the new year with healthy fun and positivity! Register here

Mindful Mondays: Happy Habits Series

Healthy U Wednesdays

Thrive Thursdays

New Year Guided Meditations

Friday, January 9, 11:30 am - 11:45 am: Know Your Health Numbers

Start the new year by understanding the numbers that matter most - such as blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, and more.  

Register for 1/9 Know Your Health Numbers

Friday, January 16, 11:30 am - 11:45 am: Understanding Preventive Care

Prevention is powerful! Learn how to create your personalized preventive care checklist to stay ahead of potential health issues.  

Register for 1/16 Understanding Preventive Care

Additional Support:
We also encourage you to follow Sites@UMBC for drop-in clinics on accessibility for sites, and Instructional Technology for digital accessibility workshops happening throughout the semester.

To view the original post click this link:

 https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/accessibility/posts/155386

Blackboard will roll out a refreshed interface in early January, introducing a cleaner, more intuitive design that aims to make everyday teaching tasks faster and more efficient. One change is significant enough that faculty should be aware of it now: the navigation and course layout will look noticeably different in January for winter and spring courses in four ways.

Image 1: The refreshed user interface in courses includes full-screen course pages to enhance the amount of screen space for users to engage with their course.

What's Different About the Course Design

1. Faculty will see several improvements within the course view itself. The header now displays both the courseID and course title, offering immediate orientation, which may be especially helpful when juggling multiple sections or cross-listed courses. In a future update, we will also see a breadcrumb navigation to further streamline movement through nested content areas. 

2. If you use a course banner, it will now stretch across the full width of the screen and sit behind the course ID and title on a darker background. This change modernizes the appearance, increases readability for all users, and improves overall accessibility. Since the course name will now display in close proximity to the banner, we recommend using an image that does not include text.

3. To support more consistent wayfinding, Blackboard replaced the small "X" used to exit a course in the upper left. In its place, a new Home button appears in the course header. The Home button will return users to the Blackboard Institution page, not the course home page or the Courses page. To return to the course home page, click the Content tab. The familiar "X" will still appear for closing lower-level panels such as learning modules, but the main path out of a course is now clearer and less prone to mis-clicks.

4. A new Course Switcher in the header allows instructors to jump quickly to their four most recently accessed courses. This addition supports a smoother teaching workflow, particularly during busy periods when faculty frequently toggle between multiple sections. Selecting "View All" will allow users to access Blackboard courses not in the Recent Courses list. We anticipate that the February release will include additional options in the Course Switcher menu. 

Image 2: The new course switcher lets users move between the four most recent courses. 

Although the core functionality within courses remains unchanged, the interface updates will alter how the environment looks and how instructors navigate through it. Most users should find the transition straightforward, but the shift away from the "X" exit button and the new placement of key course information may take a brief moment of adjustment. Blackboard focused on reducing clutter and helping users move through their materials with fewer clicks and navigation errors based on feedback from instructors, students, and system administrators across the global community. Performance improvements, such as faster load times and smoother transitions, are also part of this redesign.  

These changes are expected in the winter release, which will be installed on our Blackboard site around January 8-9, 2025. This date was selected by Blackboard to minimize impact on the traditional start of term (spring or fall) when more students are using the learning management system.