Inspiration for Father's Day was Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, who reared six children after his wife died.
**from OIA**
The UMBC Office of Institutional Advancement is seeking an Alumni Engagement Student Assistant to work 10-20 hours this summer. The position has the potential to carry into the fall semester.
If interested in learning more about this on-campus opportunity, please see posting 9308191 in UMBCworks
or
Contact plitt@umbc.edu for more information.
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Most common techniques for correlation analysis (e.g., canonical correlation analysis) require sufficiently large sample support, but in many applications only a limited number of samples are available. Correlation analysis with small sample sizes poses some unique challenges. In this talk, I will focus on the problem of determining the correlated components between two or more data sets when the number of samples from these data sets is extremely small. Applications are plentiful, and among them I will discuss the identification of weather patterns in climate science and analyzing the effects of extensive physical exercise on the autonomic nervous system.
Peter Schreier was born in Munich, Germany, in 1975. He received a Master of Science from the University of Notre Dame, IN, USA, in 1999, and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder, CO, USA, in 2003, both in electrical engineering. From 2004 until 2011, he was on the faculty of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Since 2011, he has been Chaired Professor of Signal and System Theory at Paderborn University, Germany. He has spent sabbatical semesters at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, and Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO.
From 2008 until 2012, he was an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, from 2010 until 2014 a Senior Area Editor for the same Transactions, and from 2015 to 2018 an Associate Editor for the IEEE Signal Processing Letters. From 2009 until 2014, he was a member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Machine Learning for Signal Processing, and he currently serves on the IEEE Technical Committee on Signal Processing Theory and Methods. He is the Chair of the Steering Committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s Data Science Initiative, and he serves on the IEEE SPS Regional Committee for Region 8. He was the General Chair of the 2018 IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop in Freiburg, Germany.
The post talk: Correlation analysis with small sample sizes, 2pm Tue 6/18, UMBC appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.
]]>The Retriever sent two of its resident theatre critics to see William Finn and James Lapine’s “Falsettos” at the Kennedy Center on Thursday. Here is what they had to say.
JULIA ARBUTUS: Parents often say it takes a village to raise a child, but sometimes it takes a gay man, his lover, his ex-wife, his psychiatrist and his two lesbian neighbors. “Falsettos” is the story of the gay man, Marvin (Max von Essen), who falls in love with Whizzer (Nick Adams) even though he is married to Trina (Eden Espinosa) and has a child named Jason, played by Jonah Mussolino on Thursday night. Nonetheless, Marvin still yearns for a “tight-knit family,” even while his falls apart.
JOHANNA ALONSO: Of course, Marvin’s domestic fantasy is disrupted when his psychiatrist, Mendel (Nick Blaemire), proposes to Trina and inserts himself into their lives. Also featured are “the lesbians from next door,” Charlotte (Bryonha Marie Parham) and Cordelia (Audrey Cardwell), who support Marvin as his “teeny tiny band” experiences a myriad of ups, downs, fights and reconciliations.
ARBUTUS: This village becomes especially important to Jason’s upbringing in Act Two, when Charlotte diagnoses Whizzer with a disease that is never named throughout the musical. While there are many Broadway shows that address the AIDS crisis, “Falsettos” does so with both tact and humanity, and this Pride month production ensured no one left with dry eyes.
ALONSO: That humanity largely comes from William Finn’s, shall we say, eccentric cast of characters. Who did you feel gave the most stand-out performance of the night?
ARBUTUS: Max von Essen. He was absolutely born to play Marvin. I feel like he brought a softer side to Marvin than I’ve never seen in other productions of “Falsettos.” You could feel that he actually connected with the role, as a gay man, and that connection allowed Marvin to remain relatively sympathetic even as he makes a number of questionable decisions.
ALONSO: That’s huge because when Marvin is an irredeemable (expletive) in Act One, Act Two makes no sense; we’re supposed to believe all of his character development happens off-stage between acts, and that can be pretty hard to do. However von Essen pulls it off exceptionally well, especially with his tearful interpretation of the Act One finale, “Father to Son” — a song that usually feels unearned.
ARBUTUS: He plays Marvin as a father, which is incredibly important because it is extremely easy to forget that aspect of his identity and only look at him in terms of his relationship with Whizzer. Von Essen makes sure to tap into all aspects of Marvin’s character and portray him exceptionally three-dimensionally.
ALONSO: On the topic of three-dimensional portrayals, Nick Adams’s Whizzer was not that. Everything Adams did on stage felt far too perfect and choreographed, rather than real, subtle and spontaneous. That is a big detriment to a character who, like Whizzer, is not given a lot of characterization in the text of the script itself. It requires an actor who is willing to make big choices for the character and to show his imperfections. Adams did not do that. He looks like someone who played Fiyero once and never stopped.
ARBUTUS: In my opinion, there were two moments in Act Two where Adams did achieve a three-dimensional Whizzer, but those moments were when he played a secondary role to another character, once with Marvin and the other time with Jason.
ALONSO: Not that Mussolino really needed any support whatsoever. Honestly, he was the highlight of almost every scene he was in. He gave such a nuanced, complex performance for such a young kid; I believed every moment. Considering Jason is sort of the glue that holds the family — and, therefore, the whole show — together, that is saying something.
ARBUTUS: His stage-mother, Espinosa, however, fell a bit flat for me. From her opening call of “slavery” in “Four Jews in a Room Bitching,” I was doubtful. Throughout the show, I kept comparing her performance to Stephanie J. Block’s performance in the 2016 revival, which is difficult to beat.
ALONSO: Even without making that comparison — which I am equally guilty of doing — her voice was just incredibly harsh. She also had some really weird vocal tics, like using a lot of straight-tone in seemingly arbitrary spots. This made her sound even more strained. Perhaps her only redeeming quality was the excellent chemistry between her and her stage husband (Nick Blaemire).
ARBUTUS: HIS NAME IS MENDELLLLLLLLLL. We both know Mendel is my absolute favorite character in probably all of musical theatre, so my standards were high for Blaemire. And he delivered. He brought a new sense of purpose and personality to the character that I adore, and he physically jumped pretty high in this show. I was just really impressed all around.
ALONSO: Not to get all musical-theatre-historian on you, but I actually felt like his interpretation was really inspired by Chip Zien’s origination of the role — in the best way possible. I feel like it has been a long time since Broadway has seen a performer with that same sort of goofy, manic energy. I loved it.
ARBUTUS: I could talk about Blaemire’s performance for literal days, but our favorite lesbians next door deserve a mention. Though only in Act Two, Parham and Cardwell seamlessly fit into the cast as the “spiky lesbians.” They played the role of a supportive couple perfectly, and while Cardwell never rose beyond comic relief, Parham’s portrayal of Charlotte allowed for greater emotional moments, especially in “Something Bad is Happening.”
ALONSO: We would be remiss to end this review without mentioning the set. The show begins with a great big grey block alone on stage, and the block ends up being taken apart and turned into various set pieces. However in Act Two, after Whizzer is admitted to the hospital, the cartoonish building blocks are replaced with realistic hospital room furniture as the characters’ petty, childish complaints are replaced by real, life-altering challenges. Not to mention that just before the final song, I witnessed, for the first time in my life, a set change that elicited a full-on gasp from the audience.
ARBUTUS: I was one of those audience members, and let me say, I have never felt so many emotions from such a small detail. And that is the beauty of “Falsettos” — it is a show about small details. Every time you watch it, you notice a new line or note that adds something even more deep and meaningful to an already deep and meaningful show that feels timeless and brand new even 30 years after its original debut.
“Falsettos” will play at the Kennedy Center until June 23. Tickets are available online.
Johanna Alonso contributed to this article.
Photo Credit: Max von Essen and Nick Adams, from the First National Tour of FALSETTOS. Photo by Joan Marcus.
]]>On the 1100 block on Fremont Ave. in Baltimore, there is a stable of horses. Around 11 a.m. a group of men load produce onto three horse-drawn carts and one truck. One of them, named Tony, makes a sale before he is even finished hooking his horse, also named Tony, up to the pushcart. The customer buys bananas, and Tony-the-horse’s harness bells jingle in appreciation.
Tony’s route has begun.
Tony-the-man is an Arabber, or a person who sells goods from a horse-drawn wagon or pushcart. Monyet Boice, whose family has been involved with Arabbing for several generations, describes the practice best as: “people who have horses who serve our community.”
While there has been a long history since slavery of African-Americans taking care of horses, the Arabbers formed as many African Americans were migrating north and came to Baltimore during the late 1800s, according to Monyet. Baltimore was home to 25 Arabber stables in the 1960s. Today, there are three main Arabber stables that are still in use.
Arabbers began connecting with people at the ports to bring fruit, vegetables, coal and other items into neighborhoods – Boice described it as a “market on wheels.” Arabbers filled a niche, as historically there were not many markets that African-Americans could access. Today, Arabbers provide fresh items to older adults, people without access to supermarkets and those who cannot easily venture out of their houses.
Tony and Tony
Tony grew up in East and West Baltimore and has five grown children. He has customers – many senior citizens – who depend on him, so he has to make sure he gets to them on his route. But Tony also notes that the “farther I go, the more I sell.” His favorite part about Arabbing is the people, as he puts it: “you never know who you might meet.”
At the beginning of his route, Tony walks alongside the horse and cart and yells out a very distinctive cry to get customers’ attention. On a side street, Tony invites a potential customer to taste a grape before the man buys a few apples and grapes. Then, Tony – the horse – continues onwards, passing by a schoolyard where kids at recess rush towards the horse before being called back.
Soon, the Tonys arrive at the Linden Park Apartments in Bolton Hill. Several seniors appear, coming close to pet the horse and inspect the produce. One older woman remarks that this is the “first time I ever seen a horse this close.”
Tony started Arabbing 20 years ago, which is, according to him, “long enough.” During his route, one man asks when he’s going to retire.
Later, the mobile operation pauses at Nori on West 36th St. in Hampden. This restaurant is a “water hole” – where Tony goes inside to fill up a yellow bucket that rests at the back of the cart. As the horse laps up the water inside of the bucket, a man and woman come out of Nori and converse with Tony. A teen comes by and eagerly pets the horse.
The Community
The Fremont Avenue stable is not the only Arabber stable in Baltimore. The Arabber mosaic on the side of Hollins Market in Southwest Baltimore reveals that you are near the Carleton Street stable. After walking down a side street, you arrive at the stable in Southwest Baltimore. Directly across the street is a pen with six horses in it: Diamond, Molly, Pimp, Savage, Kitty and Bae.
Curtis and Levar stand and talk inside the pen on a cloudy morning in late April. Curtis works nearby, as the Events and Marketing Manager at the Southwest Partnership. He is the grandson of a former Arabber, and has fond childhood memories of caring for the horses at the stables. Levar’s family also has long-standing roots in Arabbing. He is a current Arabber and the stable manager. The sounds of the horses chasing each other, the distant railroad and chirping birds provide a soundtrack to their conversation.
The Arabbing community is very tight and the tradition is often kept in the family. Levar remembers when his grandfather bought him his first team. He started as a helper, but vividly recalls the first time he had his own route. He was free to dictate where he wanted to go, hold money and drive the horse. When Levar’s 20-year-old son was recently killed, the Arabbers did a horse and carriage funeral.
Monyet and Levar talk about how there are fewer Arabbers as the years go on. People don’t carry as much cash on them, which limits how much money Arabbers can make. Traffic and busier streets also make things harder.
Betsey Waters shares this concern. “I worry for the horses, cause people drive like crazy.” She has lived on Arlington Avenue, close to the Carleton Street stable, for 38 years. The Arabbers watched out for her kids in the neighborhood: “they couldn’t get away with anything, because somebody would always be letting us know what they were up to.”
Betsey has seen many Arabbers retire, and worries that not enough younger people are entering the profession. Waters muses that maybe the Arabbers could take on an even larger role in the community, similar to how barbershops are used today. She reflects: “It would be great to see them, to come back again, but I don’t know if we can ever go backwards.”
Betsey reminisces about the times when there was more activity at the Carleton Street stable: “I miss, I miss the sound of the horses returning to the stable every night. You hear the clop, clop, clop – ding a ding a ding.”
Written by Madeline Ross, Political Science Major, Class of 2020
Photo Credit: Curtis Eaddy II.
]]>Hi Guys,
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When Bill LaCourse became dean of UMBC’s College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences (CNMS) in 2012, he had three top priorities in mind: innovate undergraduate science education to boost learning outcomes, forge new partnerships, and develop and support a diverse group of faculty. This year, the college took several steps forward in realizing this vision.
“The college has laid the foundation, and now is really in a strong position for growth,” LaCourse says. “It’s all about paying attention to the people and their needs,” he explains, so faculty, staff, and students can do their best work and create a thriving community together.
Student success at the center
This year, CNMS received a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation for Improving Undergraduate Science Education. Faculty at UMBC and community college partners will use the funding to improve the undergraduate experience in biology—the major of one in six UMBC students. This includes focus areas like enhancing the alignment of curriculum across institutions and making sure advising meets the needs of transfer students, both before and after they come to UMBC.
The CNMS Active Science Teaching and Learning Environment (CASTLE) is a classroom designed for team-based instruction. It has tables to facilitate group work, devices set up for screen sharing with large screens at the front and back of the room, and walls covered with whiteboards.“We’re building community, trust, and relationships with the community colleges,” LaCourse says, and that has huge benefits for students.
The Active Learning Inquiry Teaching (ALIT) certificate offered to UMBC STEM faculty is another growing partnership focused on supporting students. It includes CNMS, the College of Engineering and Information Technology, the Faculty Development Center, and CNMS’s Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) program. To earn the ALIT certificate, faculty attend a series of workshops on teaching in an active learning style, which has been shown to more effectively engage students and boost performance. They also participate in a teaching observation and other activities.
Initiatives like the Science and Mathematics Advising Resource Team (SMART) are also coming into full swing now. “The program formalizes the relationship between pre-professional advisors, CNMS advisors, and faculty advisors,” explains SMART director Michelle Bulger. “Everyone knows a little about everything,” so no matter which resource they start with, students get the support they need to find their best path through UMBC and into a career.
Celebrating student pioneers
The UMBC STEM BUILD program reached an exciting milestone this academic year: graduating its first program participant, Alexis Waller, in December 2018. Additional BUILD students earned their degrees in May 2019.
BUILD Trainees Ashley Majekodunmi ’21 (center left) and Avantika Krishna ’21 (center right) work in the lab with their faculty mentor, Weihong Lin (right).BUILD is a CNMS initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health. It is designed to help UMBC learn best practices for engaging large numbers of students in mentored research and other practices that support student success in STEM. At some institutions, mentored research experiences are reserved for a select few, often in scholars programs. At UMBC, faculty and staff are actively working to make research accessible to all students.
Three students just became the first to complete another new path through UMBC. Just one day after graduating from UMBC, they were commissioned as officers in the U.S. military. CNMS administers UMBC’s Naval science department, which supports the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) program. UMBC’s NROTC program was the first of its kind in Maryland when it was launched in 2015.
This spring, ENS Ghazi Nazzal ’19, business technology administration, and ENS Ryan Simpson ’19, environmental science, were commissioned as officers in the U.S. Navy. 2nd Lt Benjamin Dunlap, modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication, was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.
“We’re proud to have them on campus,” says LaCourse, who has a family history of Navy service.
Ghazi Nazzal ’19 (right) assists another midshipman in using UMBC’s state-of-the-art virtual reality naval training system.Connecting every angle
One of the most exciting CNMS partnerships emerging this year—with the potential to significantly impact students and employers in the region—has a complex name: the Translational Life Science Technology (TLST) program. The program focuses on preparing UMBC students at the Universities at Shady Grove for careers in Montgomery County’s rapidly growing biotech industry. TLST is UMBC’s first undergraduate STEM program at Shady Grove, and this year welcomed its first students.
“With this program as well as the professional master’s degree in biotechnology, CNMS is pioneering UMBC’s expansion at the Shady Grove campus to serve the over one million people in Montgomery County,” says Annica Wayman ’99, M6, mechanical engineering, the new associate dean for Shady Grove affairs for CNMS.
Dean Bill LaCourse (left), Annica Wayman ’99 (right), and some of the first students in the TLST program.LaCourse sees the new program as the beginning of “a new way of working with Shady Grove.” He shares, “It puts us in a position to bring applied STEM programs to the doorstep of businesses in Montgomery County.”
Constructing collaboration
Perhaps the most visible representation of the college’s commitment to forging partnerships is the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building (ILSB), now in the final phases of construction. It will open for classes in fall 2019.
The building includes spacious and bright teaching labs, open faculty laboratory space that promotes collaboration, and classrooms designed for active teaching and learning. Unlike other buildings on campus, faculty who wish to conduct research in the ILSB must propose interdisciplinary projects to be completed there, and the lab spaces are designed to facilitate a variety of kinds of work equally well, from genetics to environmental engineering.
An artist’s rendering of the completed Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building.The new building will also house UMBC’s second Maryland Public Art installation: a colorful sculpture that emerges from a large wall and features abstractions of elements found in UMBC research, from bird flight to microscope images of individual cells.
The ILSB is open for use by any department on campus, and is administered by CNMS. “It’s exciting for me to be involved in the operations of the ILSB,” says building manager Dennis Cuddy. “It will be a transformative facility and allow UMBC scientists and students to do important work and cutting edge research in a flexible, state-of-the-art facility.”
Josh Wilhide, manager of UMBC’s Molecular Characterization and Analysis Complex, is particularly excited about new research equipment in the ILSB. One instrument will streamline the process of generating information about the proteins in a sample. It will be “used for drug discovery and genetic exploration for researchers ranging in fields from chemistry to biology to engineering,” Wilhide says. “The ILSB truly is a building designed to drive multi-discipline research.”
Faculty forward
CNMS has also made significant structural changes in the last year to better recruit and support a diverse faculty, and to enhance advancement opportunities and research support for faculty at every level. In addition to Wayman’s new role as associate dean, Kathleen Hoffman, professor of mathematics, now also serves as the CNMS associate dean for faculty advancement. Chuck Bieberich, professor of biological sciences, serves as the associate dean for research.
CNMS Associate Dean for Research Chuck Bieberich“Our college has a strong history of performing cutting-edge research. However, in recent years, the federal funding climate has created new challenges for even the most seasoned researchers,” Bieberich says. “So one dimension of my role as associate dean is to connect our faculty, both newly hired and long-serving, with resources that can increase the likelihood of funding success.”
Hoffman has been supporting faculty advancement, particularly for women in science, for years. She was a key player in developing UMBC’s ADVANCE program, an initiative funded by an NSF Institutional Transformation Grant in 2003 that has led to a 60 percent increase in the number of women faculty in STEM. At a more granular level, ADVANCE has led to a 75 percent increase in women at the associate professor level and a 140 percent increase at full professor.
CNMS Associate Dean for Faculty Advancement Kathleen HoffmanAs of fall 2018, 24 percent of faculty in STEM at UMBC are women, which shows both how much progress has been made and how much growth is still needed.
“In this position, I will support CNMS faculty through college-wide workshops and initiatives focused on faculty success,” Hoffman says. She adds that she and Bieberich “will ensure that CNMS faculty have the support they need to fulfill their potential as faculty members in their departments, in the college, and as members of the university community.”
Diversity drives success
This year, CNMS hired two more pre-professoriate fellows. The fellows program is designed to enhance the diversity of CNMS faculty to better reflect the college’s diverse student body and actively welcome faculty who prioritize the value of diversity. Adriana Lima will join physics, and Joseph Bennett will join chemistry and biochemistry.
The biological sciences department led the way with this program, having previously hired Fernando Vonhoff and assistant professor Mercedes Burns. Mathematics and statistics followed with the hire of Yehenew Kifle, who had previously spent a year at UMBC as a visiting professor. Vonhoff and Kifle will successfully convert to assistant professors in August 2019.
Arachnologist and evolutionary biologist Mercedes Burns (right) and her postdoc, Sarah Stellwagen, transfer a harvestman (commonly known as daddy-long-legs) between them.“We want to make sure that UMBC can be a good home for faculty from all backgrounds,” says LaCourse. The pre-professoriate program offers incoming faculty two-year appointments as research assistant professors, with structured mentoring and other scaffolds for success. There is the option to convert the fellowship to an assistant professor position.
This year UMBC also partnered in the launch of the PROMISE Academy. This new initiative will draw on the expertise of universities around the nation and evidence-based best practices to recruit and retain a diverse group of faculty members in STEM fields.
With the 15th anniversary of its formation just one year away, “CNMS is coming into its own,” LaCourse says. “We’re ready to move to the next level.”
Banner image: CNMS pre-professoriate fellow Fernando Vonhoff works in the lab with Abby Cruz ’18.
All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC unless otherwise noted.
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