To celebrate Earth Week, you are invited to a free, public screening of Paris to Pittsburgh this Friday, April 26 at 6:30 PM.  Please join us at the SNF Parkway Theatre (5 W. North Ave.) for this free screening presented by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Maryland Film Festival. We hope that you will join us and share the invitation with your colleagues and students.
 

The conversation about climate change, sustainability, and environmental crisis is more important than ever. You can watch the movie trailer on YouTube here.
You can register for free at EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/paris-to-pittsburgh-tickets-060596755527

Following the film, we'll hear remarks from Professor Marsha Wills-Karp, PhD, Chair of the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The three musical talents Audrey Andrist (piano), Nathan Williams (clarinet) and James Stern (violin), who have been playing together for 25 years under the name Strata, performed selected pieces of “New American Music” at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Earl & Darielle Linehan Concert Hall on Thursday night.

Strata performed five selections of music, one of them specifically written for the ensemble by Jonathan Leshnoff in 2003 titled, “Seven Glances at a Mirage.” The movements flowed through each other without pauses, creating impressionist harmonies and tone colors.

Before each piece, one ensemble member would describe what to look for in the music as well as some history on the composer and his/her inspirations for writing the piece. The opening piece titled, “A Thousand Whirling Dreams,” written by Dana Wilson in 2014, employs various jazz techniques and changes in tempo.

The piece was inspired by the Langston Hughes poem “As I Grew Older,” focusing on the expressive and poetic lines “to smash the night / to break this shadow / into a thousand lights of sun.” As Strata performed each movement with emotive dynamics and sliding notes, or glissandos, the concert hall was left with a bittersweet feeling, described as something close to melancholy.

Strata also performed a piece titled “Slang,” by Libby Larsen. The music was highly rhythmic due to the big band, boogie and blues influence of Larsen’s background. She explores the correlation between slang in language and slang in music by incorporating new and old styles of music.

In addition to the unique works of music performed throughout the night, Strata used some unconventional techniques in the Leshnoff piece as well as in “Trio,” written by Margaret Brouwer in 2005.

In Brouwer’s piece, divided into three movements, Andrist used a squeegee to play muted strings on the piano by reaching in and physically pressing the squeegee onto the strings. It created a totally different sound that helped convey the different emotions of the movements.

Alongside this unconventional technique, Williams played his clarinet into the open hood of the piano in Leshnoff’s “Seven Glances at a Mirage,” creating an echoing and deeper sound to his playing.

The closing piece of the night was another Trio, this time composed by Paul Schoenfield. Based on traditional Eastern European Hasidic melodies, the four movements were what Stern called an “exuberant expression of joy as a religious duty.” A dance, a march, a slow introspection and a Kazakh dance created a truly unique performance.

After a round of applause, Strata gave the audience “some dessert” and played a well known piece titled “Easy Winners” by Scott Joplin. Thursday night’s performance was met with smiling faces and tapping toes, but Friday night’s performance was another special night dedicated to the music of UMBC.

Strata performed all original pieces of music written by UMBC music students Friday night, staying true to their dedication to “New American Music.” Keep up to date with more upcoming music performances at UMBC at music.umbc.edu/events.

This is a work of satire.

The highly anticipated Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building, first scheduled to be opened in the Spring of 1988, had to be pushed back over and over again. There were a variety of reasons for the delay, ranging from unforeseen construction issues, to employee strikes all the way to orange and yellow construction pixies who have been causing bricks to disappear and dried cement to liquefy.

To add salt to the wound, many students have decided the best coping mechanism for all of the construction and waiting comes in the form of sarcastic comments. “At this point, they might as well just tear it down,” said one student, who felt particularly bamboozled by the copious amounts of time the construction has taken.

Despite the upset, there is an amount of what one could tentatively call excitement. “I guess it will be cool to see the inside of a building,” one freshman said. When asked if they’re excited for the construction to end, they shrugged. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”

The seniors, however, have a different perspective. Before the construction began, students used to play frisbee and soccer on the patch of grass that is no longer visible. Thus, one of the seniors, when asked about the new building, said, “I hope there will be room inside to play frisbee,” said one student. “Not that it really matters,” they concluded. “I’ll be out of here by the time it’s finished. If it’s ever finished.”

The administration, however, have decided no more. “Those punks will learn their lesson,” said President Hrabowski, who has had enough of the snide and sarcastic remarks everyone has been spewing about the lengthy process. “These ingrates think they’re so clever with their quips and jokes.”

Hrabowski was not the only one who was fed up with all of the sarcasm. The vote to tear down the building was unanimous amongst the administration, and will begin in approximately one week from today. “We’re tired of all the complaining,” one administrator said. “And the only way they can really and truly understand that is by punishment. Harsh punishment.”

Another administrator was reported to be seen stomping on the plastic model of the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building, laughing maniacally as he said, “so much for your precious green building now.”

Upon release of this news, the student populace broke into celebration for the return of the quad which, as one student so eloquently put, “was a better use of the space, anyway.”

GSA is hiring for the Communications Manager Position. This is a Graduate Assistant position - The student is required to commit for AY 2019-2020.

*The successful candidate MUST be eligible for Federal Work Study, determined by the student’s FAFSA (must be a U.S. citizen or a Permanent Resident).*

To apply you will need the following documents :

• Your Resume in PDF

• Your unofficial UMBC transcripts if already an enrolled UMBC graduate student OR official transcripts of other universities attended if a newly admitted UMBC graduate student

• Cover Letter in PDF

• Contact information for faculty reference (Name, Title, Address, Email, Phone)

*Please follow application instructions carefully. Your application will not be reviewed unless all of the following materials are submitted electronically*

What can be improved in SGA and how do you plan to fix it?

“I think the most fundamental problem with SGA right now is there’s a culture within it that you either have to run for office or be active with SGA, and if you’re not then you don’t get to say what’s wrong with it, and I think that’s really wrong … when you [officers] get caught up in the day-to-day stuff I think you lose sight of the fact that you are doing it to be representative of a really broad range of people, so my plan to fix that situation is to take these issues from ‘here’s what I’m going to do to fix it’ to ‘what are we, as a student body, going to do to fix it?'” — Vrinda Deshpande, incoming President

“I think we need to establish some kind of structure that will allow SGA to improve on a concise and prompt manner and ensuring that it’s not taking two semesters for this change to occur, but weeks.” — Frances Watson, incoming Executive Vice President

“What I want to focus on specifically is making senators more accessible. I want to create an email ticket system … people would email us and then we would have to respond to those tickets and mark them as closed, and it would all be public so people could see how we responded.” — Rees Draminski, incoming Senator

“We need to improve transparency and make sure that the actions the SGA is doing and what each of the officers are working on is very clear and readily available to the student body so that if they see something that they’re passionate about or interested in, they can get involved with it.” — Zane Poffenberger, incoming Vice President of Student Organizations

“What can be most improved upon is just getting people to understand what SGA does … by making short videos about what SGA does on the TVs around campus.” — Wangui Nganga, incoming Senator

How can the relationship between the student body and UMBC administration be improved and how do you plan to do so?

“It’s really important to maintain a working relationship with the administrators because at the end of the day, there are certain things that we can’t control about the university … at the same time, there’s a lot of problems, so having that force of 11,000 people behind us and being the majority of people on campus, we have to strike a balance.” — Vrinda Deshpande, incoming President

“We need more information. I think that the information may be out there but it may not be the easiest to access … providing the information to access administrators is something that SGA can do.” — Frances Watson, incoming Executive Vice President

“It’s great that they [Senators] have connections with the staff, but if they don’t use their connections to keep the student body aware of what’s happening on campus then what’s the point? I personally haven’t received an email from a senator or finance board member about anything this semester or last semester, so it’s just been confusing.” — Mehrshad Fahim Devin, incoming Senator

How have you been staying current with what UMBC students want prior to your candidacy?

“I do a lot of service and go to a lot of service sites which is a cool way to meet people of different majors and different years who come together to do one service project, so I think the most diverse group of people I know is from the places that I go to do community service.” — Vrinda Deshpande, incoming President

“I’ve had tables in the breezeway a couple of times and I’ve asked students what they want, and there’s a variety of different things students want because the student body is so diverse.” — Mehrshad Fahim Devin, incoming Senator

“On the subreddit, meme page … there are similar themes of discourse, so I take that to heart and think about what I can do to change those kinds of things.” — Rees Draminski, incoming Senator

How will you be reaching out to the student body and maintaining a presence on campus among your fellow students?

“It’s really important to meet people where they’re at. If someone’s only capacity is to post online then that’s completely fair and shouldn’t be any less valid than someone actively coming into the office every day to do something, so I think channels like the meme page are fantastic and healthy and SGA shouldn’t be afraid to engage with channels like that.” — Vrinda Deshpande, incoming President

“Vrinda and I are talking about doing a weekly update with your SGA President and Vice President, and it’s just about getting you exposed to what we do on a weekly basis.” — Frances Watson, incoming Executive Vice President

“I want to do office hours in public spaces instead of just the SGA office.” — Josue Lemus, incoming Senator

“I know that Finance Board is going to have a liaison program in the coming semester, so I would definitely be more proactive in reaching out to clubs that I am a liaison of and other clubs outside of that as well.” — Nithya Prakash, incoming Finance Board Representative

In the past semester, SGA has had a few miscommunications or lack of communication with the student body, which has led to a tense relationship. How do you plan to improve or rectify the underlying issues that are stressing this crucial relationship?

“We have to be clear about what we can and can’t do as SGA and how we can work with you as students if we need to change some of the things we can’t do.” — Frances Watson, incoming Executive Vice President

“[Implementing] monthly or bimonthly reports as a Google Form for feedback on what the senators have been doing, what they have accomplished and what they plan to accomplish.” — Mehrshad Fahim Devin, incoming Senator

“Although we post the minutes [from meetings] online, a lot of students don’t know what that means … it’s the responsibility of individual senators and finance board members to go out and explain, ‘this is what we talked about and this is how it will affect you.'” — Josue Lemus, incoming Senator

“Any changes in policy of issues that come should be communicated in a timely fashion. Students shouldn’t be informed of something a week after it happened.” — Nithya Prakash, incoming Finance Board Representative

This year, the budget for student organizations seemed to disappear, and early in the second semester, it dried up completely. In 2020, our student activity fee will be $104. How will you make sure that money is used to support events that matter to UMBC students?

“The idea that finance board is getting rid of precedence and they don’t get to decide new criteria every year is a really big step in the right direction.” — Vrinda Deshpande, incoming President

“We can’t expect student organizations to request money under certain pretenses and when they get there just be like, “well, this is what we decided and we can’t give this money out” … Each semester student organizations will be submitting budgets that will have amounts that are somewhat specific to their event and what they’re estimating they will spend for the fall and the spring … it [the change] shows that we heard the feedback from the students.” — Zane Poffenberger, incoming Vice President of Student Organizations

“I was interested in sponsoring legislation in which the Senate’s pot of money for our projects would be allocated to the finance board to redistribute to the other clubs … it’s still a work in progress.” — Kai Hajos, incoming Senator

“I want to add an account tracker on the UMBC SGA website that would track how much money are in each of the pots so people have a general idea of where it’s going and making the information more accessible.” — Rees Draminski, incoming Senator

“Funding events that promote the culture of UMBC because we’re known for diversity … we need to not show favoritism towards certain clubs; we need to promote the diversity of UMBC.” — Elise Choi, incoming Finance Board Representative

In many ways, it seems as though James Baldwin was 40 years ahead of his time when he wrote “If Beale Street Could Talk.” The novel touches on many issues that today’s society is plagued with: sexual assault, the objectification of black women, police brutality, prison rights; the contemporary implications of the novel are really quite startling. So it seems quite fitting that, in 2018, director Barry Jenkins would choose to turn Baldwin’s book into a startlingly emotional film.

“If Beale Street Could Talk” follows Tish and Fonny, two African Americans living in 1970s Harlem, desperately in love. Though the couple have known each other since childhood, their love has grown and matured and, as they enter into their 20s, they become entwined in a deep and dedicated romance. Their love appears unbreakable, despite pressure from their families and the society around them.

All comes crashing down, however, when Fonny is arrested for rape by a cop with a personal vendetta against him. Tish and her family dedicate themselves to getting Fonny released from jail, to free him from the accusations of this woman whom he has never met and the cop who hates him. All only becomes more complicated when Tish discovers she is pregnant with Fonny’s child.

When reading “If Beale Street Could Talk,” it is difficult to imagine how a film adaptation would play out. The novel, while emotionally striking, seemed to lack the action and dramatic progression that a film requires. Jenkins, however, saw something that most readers missed. His adaptation brings more to the novel than even Baldwin could have expected.

Jenkins’ adaptation brings a greater sense of clarity to the original work. The flashbacks which define the novel’s plot flow more harmoniously on the big screen. Baldwin’s incredible use of dialogue and monologue becomes even more profound on screen, performed by deeply talented actors who bring raw emotion to the interactions. Under Jenkins’ hand, “If Beale Street Could Talk” transforms into one of the most compelling movies to ever exist, proving his cinematic mastery that was hinted at in 2016’s “Moonlight.”

While every single actor in the cast is talented, Emily Rios allows the character of Victoria Rogers to shine in a way that Baldwin’s novel did not. Rogers, the woman who has labeled Fonny as her rapist, is not understood by the novel’s narrator, Tish. In the film, Rogers is given more space, and audiences can see how damaged this woman has become in the aftermath of her own tragedy.

Clearly inspired by the #MeToo movement, Rios gives Rogers a strong yet aching voice, speaking on behalf of all women who have been told that they are wrong or even cruel when they attempt to identify the man who has ruined them, when they are forced to remember the most painful day of their lives. Her shocking cries carry with the audience, reminding them that she, like Tish, is simply a woman grasping for justice.

Most powerful of all, though, are the devastating images of the violent and discriminatory acts committed against black bodies since the end of the nineteenth century scattered throughout the film. These startling images, reaching across decades, serve as a powerful reminder that police brutality is certainly nothing new to America. A rigged justice system has always been central to systematic racism. Ending on these images brings the film full circle, etching visions of discrimination deep into our minds and urging us to keep moving forward.

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author.

“If you’re Hispanic, then why are you white?”

Well, a long, long time ago, all the nations lived in some state of harmony. Then, everything changed when the Europeans attacked. Colonial influences during the seventeenth century drove European powers to “colonize” previously established nations and civilizations, bringing with them smallpox and other diseases.

When these populations were exposed to new diseases, massive swaths of the native populations were wiped out without the protections of immunities and modern vaccines. A combination of Social Darwinism, white-governed nations and the eugenics movement led to an influx in the mixed-race population. As it turns out, both the Americas welcomed plenty of immigrants starting at the turn of the century.

So, why is the same question asked over and over? The answer may lie somewhere within the U.S.’ irrational fear of immigrants. Many still believe that Latinx people are universally identifiable under any one given racial category. This is grounded in racism and stereotypical beliefs and ignores the greater breadth of racial diversity within the Latinx umbrella.

I acknowledge that as a Latinx person, my identity is intersectional. Even as a Hispanic woman, I benefit from white privilege. These identities are not mutually exclusive. The struggle of balancing identities is never the same for anyone. Living in the United States has made me confused over how I identify. The United States’ unwavering fear of immigration furthers the colorist caricature of the Latinx community.

The reinforcement of this caricature makes interactions really awkward. At best, it’s presented as bewilderment during introductions or confused glances when I mention that I wasn’t born in the States, along with questions on where I’m from. At its very worst, it’s dodging increasingly invasive questions from almost complete strangers, and having my attachment to my identity questioned, with probing questions on my legality and citizenship status.

This isn’t just an issue that affects any Latinx groups that don’t present as “racially” Latinx. It’s the systematic ignorance that fuels whitewashed beauty ideals, even within the Latinx community.

There have been occasions, when I’ve sat at a table of white colleagues and a professor, while they droned on about how the Latinx community “keeps itself down” through their cultural norms and behaviors, an argument based in stereotyping and ignorance. They had no idea I was Hispanic. I’m the butt of the joke and a fly on the wall at once, without meaning to be. I have a disturbing and often depressing window into conversations about me, being talked at or about. When I do speak out, I’m discredited, or assured “But you’re not like that,” or “But you’re not Hispanic Hispanic, right?”

Yes, I am Hispanic Hispanic. I don’t look like it, just like the people who ask “Why are you white?” don’t particularly look ignorant. It’s kind of ridiculous given the history of immigration and the history of the U.S. degrading interactions within Latin America that this conversation is still one that needs to be had. Given this history and maintaining some social awareness of the US and its characterization of the Latinx community throughout its interactions, maybe remember that, like Gretchen Weiners says, “You can’t just ask people why they’re white.”