Meet Brian and Larry. They have decided to apply for a URA Award.

"There are three different awards this year," noted Brian, who was interviewed while blow drying his luxurious hair. "You've got the usual award, open to all majors and worth up to $1,500 and then you've got the Social Science award and the entrepreneurship award. Pretty amazing opportunity. And the deadline isn't until May 15th, so we've got plenty of time!"

"Really does help us with our research," added Larry, who was interviewed while combing his mustache. "And you can even apply as a group!"

URA’s provide up to $1,500 to undergraduate students to support their research or creative work with a UMBC faculty mentor on an original project. UMBC students of all years and disciplines are invited to apply, as long as they will remain enrolled at UMBC long enough to complete the proposed work.

In the absence of physical space to learn, create, and come together, the Women’s Center is taking Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) 2020 online. Each week during April, we will focus on a specific topic/theme as it relates to sexual violence awareness and prevention (see image below). Together, via out social media platforms like Facebook,Twitter, and Instagram, we can watch videos, read articles, and engage in other content for learning and skill-building.

UMBC’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month online calendar includes weekly themes to help explore important concepts related to sexual violence awareness and prevention.

But, we get it… Maybe you’re not on Facebook. Maybe you needed to take a break from social media for the day because you’re practicing self-care. Or maybe, you’re still following us on all the things and still missed a pretty cool post. That’s okay! In addition to posting on social media throughout the month, at the end of each week, we’ll provide a round-up of all the content we shared along with some action items to consider doing.

This is the last SAAM round-up with April ending last week. To conclude this year’s SAAM, we focused on bystander intervention and allyship. We teamed up with our campus partners supporting the work on UMBC’s Green Dot Program to share helpful resources about bystander intervention and shifting cultural norms that encourage looking out for one another and speaking up when others may be in danger.

A Retriever Courage poster that reads “Culture Change Takes Advocates.”

It’s important to remember that ending sexual violence isn’t a survivor’s issue or even a women’s issue…. It’s an everybody issue and we all can play a role in changing our culture.

So what did we explore? 

1. ““Don’t tell ME to Chill out”– Holding our Friends Accountable and saying NO to Rape Culture.” We shared a blog post from our archives written by former Women’s Center student staff member, Yoo-Jin. In this post,she shares an experience of sexual assault and the troubling aftermath when bystanders didn’t take it seriously. She goes on to share how later she received immense support and validation when she shared her experience online.  This is a great read to understand the various ways someone can support a survivor and the ways in which lack of support and believe can reinforce rape culture.
   

   Excerpt from “Don’t Tell Me to Chill Out” blog post. 

   2. What is a Green Dot? Green Dot is a bystander intervention program that is built on the premise that in order to measurably reduce the perpetration of power-based personal violence, including sexual violence, partner violence, or stalking, a cultural shift is necessary. In order to create a cultural shift, a critical mass of people will need to engage in a new behavior or set of behaviors that will make violence less sustainable within any given community. The “new behavior” is a green dot.
   3. The Green Dot program empowers those who are trained to do the right thing for themselves, their neighbor, classmate, teammate or friend. The Green Dot slogan is “No one has to do everything, everyone has to do something.” Through the Green Dot training at UMBC, we learn that the 3 D’s (Distract, Delegate, or Direct!) are a helpful way to understand the various ways one can intervene. Watch this video to learn more.

Image of a red dot and green dot that explains the difference between the two

To see everything posted on our accounts last week, check out the hashtag #UMBCsaam over at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Also, be sure to follow UMBC’s Green Dot program on Instagram an myUMBC. 

What We Didn’t Have Time to Discuss:

→ The root of sexual violence is power oppression and requires we take a power-conscious approach in our awareness, prevention, an response efforts. It’s important that we shift well-intended prevention efforts frequently focused on teaching potential victims how not to get raped and instead teach potential perpetrators not to rape. To develop a deeper understanding of a power-conscious framework, we recommend reading Dr. Chris Linder’s book Sexual Violence on Campus: Power-Conscious Approaches to Awareness, Prevention, and Response.

→ As we already shared, ending sexual violence is everyone’s responsibility but what is the unique role men can play in preventing sexual assault? Watch Jeffrey Bucholtz of We End Violence on Sexual Violence and Male Responsibility to learn more.

Front cover of our SAAM Zine: Survivors to the Front: A Call to Witness

And, in case you missed it, we are beyond proud to share with you all our zine for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Made by survivors and for the entirety of our community, we hope you can read and share these amazing, powerful, beautiful stories from our very own UMBC community!
You can view Survivors to the Front: A Call to Witness here. 

Follow the Women’s Center on myUMBC,  Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for SAAM updates and information throughout the month of April. You can also stay up-to-date by following #UMBCsaam 

Throughout this time of distance learning, campus staff are still here and available for support. Do not hesitate to reach out for questions, concerns, or care.

On-Campus Resources Available for Virtual Support: 

• Counseling Center

• Office of Equity and Inclusion 

• University Health Services

• Women’s Center

• After-hours Sexual Assault or Relationship Violence Support: UMBC’s After-Hours Support Line: Between the hours of 5 pm and 8.30 am, on weekends or when the university is closed please call 410-455-3230

• Visit Retriever Courage for a full list of campus resources and support to include resources for USG students, faculty, and staff 

• For up-to-date details on how to access these resources during this time of distance learning visit UMBC’s COVID-19 resources page.

To report a complaint of sexual misconduct or discrimination, please submit this online form. 

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab presents

Identifying and Addressing Concerning
Behavior in the Digital Age

Jason W. Wells
Graduate Student, Cybersecurity MPS
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

12:00–1pm Friday, 8 May 2020, webex

The United States Secret Service (USSS) is widely known as the premier law enforcement agency that is charged with protecting some of the most important political figures in the world. Some of these protectees include the President of the United States, the Vice-President, the First Family and Second Family, and Heads of State visiting the United States, to name a few. A major part of the protective mission of the USSS is focused around “protective intelligence,” where agents are trained to identify concerning and threatening behavioral indicators in others, and then to address those issues in a proactive and positive manner and ensure that the community is safe from harm. This proactive methodology has been researched and applied for decades and has a very high rate of success. Now, other law enforcement agencies throughout the country have started to apply this training to their agents and officers. Can these methodologies be used and/or modified to recognize threats in cyberspace as well?

Jason Wells is a former special agent with the United States Secret Service, where he served for nine years from 2005 – 2014. During that time, Mr. Wells was extensively trained in identifying and addressing threat-related and concerning behavioral indicators, and how to address those behaviors in a positive and proactive manner. In 2016, Mr. Wells published his first book Our Path to Safety: A U.S. Secret Service Agent’s Guide to Creating Safe Communities (ISBN-13: 978-0-9982488-0-6) on how the community can identify these behavioral conditions in the same way that federal law enforcement does every day. Mr. Wells earned his undergraduate degree from the Virginia Military Institute and his first graduate degree from Henley-Putnam University in Strategic Security and Protection Management in 2014. Additionally, Mr. Wells has published 11 editorial articles in print media on improving safety and security methodologies in schools and businesses. Currently, he is an SFS scholarship graduate student at UMBC with plans to complete his degree in spring 2020. He and his wife, Blythe, have two children and have lived in Baltimore County since 2008.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email* Support for this event was provided in part by the National Science Foundation under SFS grant DGE-1753681. The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab meets biweekly Fridays. All meetings are open to the public. Upcoming CDL Meetings: May 22, Spring SFS Meeting at UMBC, 9:30am-2pm, via WebEx.

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