UMBC has once again been recognized as one of the top universities in the nation through Princeton Review’s popular undergraduate guide, The Best 384 Colleges.

UMBC’s Princeton Review profile speaks directly to the dedication and commitment of the university’s faculty and staff. One student reflects that UMBC is “a university where teaching comes first.” Another says, “UMBC wants to see every student succeed—they provide you with the tools, people, and resources to make sure you get where you want to go in life.”

Katharine H. Cole, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs, agrees. Reflecting on the qualities highlighted by Princeton Review, she says:

UMBC provides a welcoming, enriching environment in which all undergraduate students learn to collaborate, study effectively, and engage in high impact, meaningful experiences that promote academic success. The strength and diversity of our curricular and undergraduate research experiences coupled with the dedication of our faculty as instructors and mentors, creates a culture of innovation and excellence and provides students with a distinctive undergraduate experience.

The profile also notes UMBC’s location between Baltimore and Washington, DC, as a major advantage, giving student access to arts and culture, and a broad range of learning and career opportunities. As one undergrad says, “The location of UMBC is true brilliance.”

New to the profile this year is a mention of UMBC’s rank as third nationally in invitations for theatre students to perform at the prestigious Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Earlier this summer, choreographer Maia Schechter ‘18, dance, was invited to showcase her original piece Now Elsewhere at the Kennedy Center.

Princeton Review also spotlights the importance of diversity, inclusion, and supportive community at UMBC. UMBC’s profile notes that students feel diversity “enriches our school and everyone gets to know everyone” across racial, ethnic, and cultural identities.

Princeton Review profiles for The Best 384 Colleges are based on surveys of 138,000 students nationwide.

Earlier this year, the Center for World University Rankings placed UMBC in the top 3.5 percent of universities worldwide and a new U.S. News & World Report ranking heralded UMBC as one of the best universities for international students.

Header image: UMBC students walk across campus, 2017. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Indigenous peoples have a deep and unique connection to the lands they inhabit. This connection has persisted throughout the world, despite centuries of colonisation, displacement and suppression of their cultural identities.

What has never been appreciated is the contemporary spatial extent of Indigenous influence – just how much of Earth’s surface do Indigenous peoples still own or manage?

Given that Indigenous peoples now make up less than 5% of the global population, you might imagine the answer to be “very little”. But you would be wrong.

In our new research, published in Nature Sustainability, we mapped Indigenous lands throughout the world, country by country. We found that these covered 38 million square kilometres – about a quarter of all land outside Antarctica.

Read more in The Conversation. 

White House special counsel Robert Mueller recently issued 12 indictments alleging that Russian intelligence agents sought to tilt the vote in Donald Trump’s favor by hacking prominent Democrats during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

The Trump-Russia investigation has exposed flaws in the American democratic system – so much so that, according to many pundits, people now doubt not just the legitimacy of the Trump administration but the very foundations of the country’s political institutions.

According to a July 2018 Brown University opinion poll, only 16 percent of Americans truly believe their vote matters. Just 4 percent think the government listens to their opinion.

News of Russia’s meddling may have inflamed anti-government sentiment, but skepticism about U.S. democracy is not a new phenomenon.

Read more in The Conversation. 

Shaun Cunningham, a rising senior at Catonsville High School, said he might be interested in pursuing a career in law.

That’s why the Catonsville resident is in a moot court class at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Cunningham is one of 11 students in the class.

A moot court is similar to a mock trial, but on a different level. In a mock trial, participants present evidence and make a case, trying to convince a judge or jury to see their point of view.

In a moot court, the trial has already happened, and participants are arguing the legal validity of a case — the moot court is the appellate court version of a mock trial.