Wow, what an electrifying evening! GEARS Trivia Night was a whirlwind of excitement with three heart-pounding rounds that had everyone on the edge of their seats. The close eliminations kept the crowd buzzing with anticipation, while the hard-fought finale was a true clash of trivia titans.

Cheers to all the participants for making it a night to remember! Special congratulations to our winners!

First Prize: $100 each! Team Kanyarasi

Second Prize: $75 each! Team Nsync

Third Prize: $50 each! Team INT

Keep your gears turning, folks—we’ll see you at the next trivia showdown! 

This Center for Democracy and Civic Life's series is designed to help students develop valuable professional connections, an opportunity that is particularly important for graduate students as they navigate both academic and career paths. 

The upcoming sessions will focus on critical skills like effective networking, communication strategies, and building long-lasting professional relationships—skills that can have a significant impact on graduate students as they prepare for future careers in academia, industry, or beyond.

Upcoming Session Details:

Session 2: Effective Communication Strategies
Date: November 13, 2023, 6:00 - 7:30 PM
Location: Commons 329
Objective: Develop skills for initiating and maintaining professional conversations.

Session 3: Building and Sustaining Relationships
Date: November 18, 2023, 12:30 - 2:00 PM
Location: Commons 318
Objective: Learn strategies for nurturing long-term professional relationships.

Here are the links to the myUMBC posts for each session:

This dialogue series is open to faculty, staff and students and does not require reservations. 

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you need any additional information.

Welcome home to our campus community! We hope your semester is progressing well. 

We are writing to invite you to join us in a new initiative called UMBC Talks, which aims to enhance the sense of community, vibrancy, and well-being at UMBC. Over the summer, we worked with the UMBC Talks core team to prepare to guide group conversations about our experiences of inclusion and exclusion at UMBC. The hope is that by talking about our experiences, campus community members can reaffirm and deepen our collective commitment to UMBC’s core value of inclusive excellence. 

We would love you to participate in a series of two conversations we will co-facilitate. The conversations will take place on November 20 from 2:00 PM to 03:30 PM location to be determined (In-person), and on November 25 from 2 PM to 3 PM in location to be communicated later (In-person). All that will be expected of you is bringing your own stories and perspectives (as well as a pen or pencil and a notebook or paper) and engaging in what we hope will be an enjoyable and informative conversation. The learning we do together will likely inform the strategic planning process UMBC will launch later this year.

Please let us know if you can participate by signing on the Google form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YmsOuuCElX58Z3wYUKFs1ZjBAu21fSLbul6Ico2954UBecause the second conversation will build on the first; it is important that you be able to participate in the entirety of each of the two conversations.

Please note that we have a limited slot for about ten students; we would appreciate it if you only sign up when you are sure to attend.

Reach out to the undersigned if you have any questions.

Chinonso Ezeobi | ug86132@umbc.edu

Jake Weissmann | yweissm1@umbc.edu ’