A new policy for proposal submission is being implemented by UMBC’s Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP).

As of August 1, 2019, OSP will require that proposals be received, in a ready-to-submit state, 3 days in advance of the proposal submission deadline. 

In addition, on each day at 8am, OSP will review all proposals that are due that day.  If a proposal is not in a ready-to-submit state by 8am on the day it is due, OSP will not send it forward.

Please make note that there is no grace period, and no exceptions will be made.  

The Maryland Institute for Policy, Analysis, and Research (MIPAR) supports UMBC social science faculty and graduate students by providing researchers with pre-award and post-grant management assistance. 

In order to meet the requirements of this new policy, MIPAR must have a PI’s fully completed proposal no later than five days prior to the submission deadline. This includes any documents needed for subawards. More time may be required if the proposal is large or complex.  

Please contact MIPAR as soon as you begin to consider preparing a proposal, so that MIPAR staff can help you establish and meet a feasible timeline.   

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact MIPAR:

Deb Geare, Associate Director

geare@umbc.edu

410-455-1081

Carolyn Flowers, Business Manager

cflowers@umbc.edu

410-455-1084

A new policy for proposal submission is being implemented by UMBC’s Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP).

As of August 1, 2019, OSP will require that proposals be received, in a ready-to-submit state, 3 days in advance of the proposal submission deadline. 

In addition, on each day at 8am, OSP will review all proposals that are due that day.  If a proposal is not in a ready-to-submit state by 8am on the day it is due, OSP will not send it forward.

Please make note that there is no grace period, and no exceptions will be made.  

The Maryland Institute for Policy, Analysis, and Research (MIPAR) supports UMBC social science faculty and graduate students by providing researchers with pre-award and post-grant management assistance. 

In order to meet the requirements of this new policy, MIPAR must have a PI’s fully completed proposal no later than five days prior to the submission deadline. This includes any documents needed for subawards. More time may be required if the proposal is large or complex.  

Please contact MIPAR as soon as you begin to consider preparing a proposal, so that MIPAR staff can help you establish and meet a feasible timeline.   

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact MIPAR:

Deb Geare, Associate Director

geare@umbc.edu

410-455-1081

Carolyn Flowers, Business Manager

cflowers@umbc.edu

It is no secret that children learn by watching the world around them. They pick up on everything and soak in all of the information they have gathered from watching their prominent adult figures. “Queens Girl in the World,” written by Caleen Sinnette Jennings and directed by Paige Hernandez, is a play told through the voice of a child. The child speaks about the influences of those around her that are evidently impactful and, if not, sometimes comical when she displays them.

Performed at Everyman Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, this socially relevant play is extremely important for everyone to see. This one-woman show was incredible, paying particular attention to the childlike eyes Jacqueline Marie Butler used to view the world. The audience was taken back to the days of their childhoods when they did not quite understand everything for what it truly was yet. A millennial might even compare the voice of Jacqueline to that of Junie B. Jones due to her childish inflection and sheltered sense of rebellion.

Dawn Ursula dominated this one-woman role down to its very core; not only acting as Jacqueline but also as her mother, father, friends and neighbors. Ursula engulfed the world and displayed it to the audience through the fresh, bright eyes of a young dark skinned child. Each character she played even had their own different way of walking, speaking and holding themselves.

Though Jacqueline led the protected and overly sheltered life of a middle class girl from a family living in Queens, her life in the late 1950s was far from perfect. She, giving some historical context, proudly mentioned that her father was the first black man to buy a house on their row, showing the audience that even though she might not know exactly why this was fantastic, Jacqueline was aware of some animosity surrounding this fact. She struggled to fit in with her neighbor Persephone, a lingo loving girl that called her “Jack,” and later with a schoolmate from her progressive school, where she was one of the only four black students.

Though entertaining and spectacularly well done, this performance subtly shifts from the innocent thoughts and experiences Jacqueline lived to more serious topics, like the racial divide in the 1950s. Beginning with the death of Malcom X, “Queens Girl in the World” displayed Jacqueline in the situation of knowing that this made her father sad while also showing a change in the stasis of the world she had built around herself.

Just as every young girl must go through changes, so must Jackie as she not only experiences physical changes, but also emotional and social ones. As the play progressed, the audience witnessed the growing up of a girl they had all come to feel attached to and invested in. More than anything, this upheaving performance showed the growth of a sweet girl exposed to the evils of the world far faster than she should have.

Tickets for future performances can be purchased at http://everymantheatre.org/queens-girl-repertory.

Dawn Ursula performing as Jacqueline Marie Butler. Photo by Teresa Castracane Photography.

This article has been updated.

Halfway through her senior year at UMBC, Naomi Mburu M26, ’18, chemical engineering, was named the very first Rhodes Scholar in university history. So, following Commencement, she packed her bags and—after squeezing in a summer trip to Kenya—headed for jolly old England to make her mark on Oxford, the oldest English-speaking university in the world. Today, more than 3,500 miles from home in her pursuit of a doctorate in nuclear fusion, Mburu writes to share her thoughts on her first year at Oxford, and the ways she’s making herself right at home.

Roughly a year and a half ago, I received one of the biggest surprises I have ever received: the opportunity to attend the University of Oxford in England. As someone who has lived and attended elementary, middle, and high school all within 15 minutes of UMBC, I was itching to see the broader world and what it had to offer. Now, I have been living in Oxford for a little over six months and wanted to share some experiences and observations with my UMBC community.

There have been several wonderful and difficult moments woven throughout my experience thus far. Meeting hundreds of other Rhodes Scholars has been one of the most wonderful aspects of this experience, as the scholars come from many corners of the world and each have such interesting experiences and perspectives on life. Some of the moments I most enjoy at Oxford involve exchanging life stories with my fellow “Rhodies” and hearing my classmates passionately talk about topics that are close to their hearts.

Having the Rhodes community around me has definitely helped ease my adjustment to English life, but there have still been many times when I felt the loneliness of leaving home and starting off alone in a new country. I found that close community and friendship can sometime take quite a bit of time, patience, and effort to create, and maintaining old friendships across time zones can be a difficult thing to juggle. Luckily, there is so much fantastic technology like WhatsApp and FaceTime that allow me to easily connect with family and friends back home, and my family was able to visit me in April. There have also been some unexpected differences that I am learning to adjust to, the main being the weather and the sun setting at 3 p.m. in the winter.  

One of the biggest surprises of Oxford has been the structure of the Ph.D. compared to universities in America. For starters, here the Ph.D. is instead called the D.Phil., and in my department the D.Phil. process solely consists of an in-depth research project conducted over 3-4 years. There are no class or teaching requirements; the only responsibility is conducting research. This was quite a shift from my time at UMBC where I found myself balancing a full, pre-determined chemical engineering course load along with extracurriculars, teaching, and research. This has given me the chance to spend my first few months at Oxford really diving into my new field of nuclear fusion and thinking critically about what I want to get out of my Ph.D.

The increased freedom does come with added responsibility, however—students must decide for themselves what they want their D.Phil. experience to look like and proactively seek out those opportunities. Coming from a more structured undergraduate experience, this freedom was initially quite intimidating. However, I have seen how the flexibility of this new schedule has afforded me lots of time to try new things, travel, ponder, and simply do things that make me happy. Oxford has lots of great spots where I go to relax, read, or think, such as Christ Church Meadow, a beautiful field complete with cows which runs along the Thames River, or any of the beautiful college gardens.

Oxford and the Rhodes community are bursting with opportunities for students to “choose their own adventure.” The Rhodes House has been a central part of my experience thus far, as it serves as a meeting place for scholars past and present to plan events, study, and hang out. I have attended many scholar-led talks, musical performances, and even a mindfulness course there. The house also serves as the location for the annual Rhodes Retreat, which is a unique chance to spend a few days reflecting and discussing deep issues of life and purpose with your cohort.

In November, I helped organize an American Thanksgiving dinner for 130 people in the Rhodes House with a diverse team of people, some of whom had never experienced this type of holiday celebration. We had mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, homemade bread, turkey, a vegan option prepared by a scholar from Israel, and one of the Jamaican scholars even made jerk sauce for the turkey! Every year, the Rhodes House also sponsors scholar trips to places like Israel, China, Palestine, and Chile. I attended the Chile trip in March, where I joined a group of 11 other scholars on a nine-day backpacking expedition through Patagonia National Park.

Outside of the Rhodes House, I have attended talks at Oxford ranging from brain surgery to the evolution of language, tried new sports like rowing, and engaged in ancient traditions such as attending formal hall in the Harry Potter-style dining halls where we wear a mandatory black gown and stand for a formal Latin grace before the meal. And in March, the university supported me to attend a fusion-focused, week-long program that involved operating the world’s oldest functioning nuclear fusion reactor, located in Prague, Czech Republic, which was a great chance to meet other students in Europe interested in fusion and gain some hands-on experience with a fusion reactor.

Overall, my time at Oxford has been full of experiences that are continuing to shape the way I view the world and use my time. I look forward to all of the adventures the next year has in store!

–Naomi Mburu ’18

*****

Header image: Mburu finds the end of the rainbow during a Rhodes trip to Chile, which included a backpacking expedition through Patagonia National Park. All images courtesy of the author.

Job Title: Lantern Workshop Coordinator
Grade Levels: K-8th grade
Classification: Part-Time, Non-Exempt, Temporary Employee or Contractual
Reports to: Education Director
Compensation: $3600; $15/hour for 240 hours
Dates: June 17 to November 8, 2019

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