In a developing world awash with suffering, Jeffrey Wilkinson ’89, interdisciplinary studies, has used his medical skills to focus on a very specific problem for African women: a hugely debilitating condition known as obstetric fistula.

Obstetric fistula occurs in women who undergo a difficult childbirth or are victims of sexual violence. The fistula is a hole that appears between the rectum and vagina or between the bladder and the vagina. It often develops after prolonged labor, and the condition causes incontinence and infections, as patients cannot hold in their urine or fecal matter.

The United Nations Population Fund estimates that two million women remain untreated for obstetric fistula in developing countries – and at least 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occur each year. Treatment requires a relatively simple and low-cost form of reconstructive surgery, but most fistula patients can’t afford the $300 that pays for the surgery and post-surgical care.

That is where Wilkinson – a physician with the Duke University Center for Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery – enters the picture. He moved to Tanzania in 2008 to perform fistula surgeries at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC), a Duke partner facility, in the town of Moshi, near Mount Kilimanjaro.

Wilkinson received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. As a urogynecologist (a subspecialty of obstetrics and gynecology that deals with incontinence), he has helped many patients that he says are “the most underrepresented and vulnerable group of patients you can possibly think of…without power, money or voice.”

The surgeries at KCMC are covered by the center’s own budget, government grants, the African Medical and Research Foundation, and other donations. Wilkinson and the OB-GYN team at the center are also teaching Tanzanian health workers how to do emergency obstetrics as a preventative measure to avoid maternal mortality and fistulas.

Wilkinson’s colleagues say he has made a big difference in the countries where he has worked. His efforts featured prominently in a recent article in the New York Times, which highlighted the work done by Wilkinson and his Tanzanian colleague Gileard Masenga at KCMC.

“The work he is doing on behalf of women in the developing world and as a representative of our Duke faculty set him apart from the average physician,” said Haywood Brown, chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University Medical Center.

Masenga, a senior obstetrician and gynecologist and one of Tanzania’s leading experts on fistula surgery, agrees. “The KCMC obstetric and gynecology department has improved and benefited from his presence in term of improved patient care, teaching and clinical oriented research,” he says.

Wilkinson took several short trips to Niger between 2004 and 2008 where he treated fistula patients and grew increasingly interested in working full-time in Africa. When he moved to Tanzania last year, he traveled with his wife, a family physician, and their two young children.

Wilkinson says the most common reason for maternal mortality and prevalence of fistulas in a country like Tanzania are delays in seeking and receiving obstetric care during childbirth.

“There are insurmountable odds against women,” he says. “It’s fortunate that most labors can occur without major problems on their own, or else this would be a much more widespread problem.” Looking back on his days at UMBC, Wilkinson says that his interdisciplinary studies have helped him manage the different issues and fields he grapples with in his current job.

“Our work isn’t just doing a surgical fix to a patient’s problem. We also address the psychological and social aspects of condition, as well as the financial and economic issues, the science behind it, the statistics, and the epidemiology,” he said. “The [interdisciplinary program]… has helped me a lot in understanding the problem of obstetric fistula and maternal mortality.”

— Eliza Barclay

After 9 a.m. – and until the last classes of the day – UMBC is a busy place.

The Commons and Quad and Academic Walk bustle with students and faculty and staff going busily about the business of learning. Classrooms and labs are filled with the sounds of lectures and discussions – or the concentrated silence of experiments and exams. The parking lots are full – and parking services employees write tickets to the scofflaws.

But there is also a great deal going on at UMBC and in its vicinity before most people turn their cars onto the Loop or exit a bus each morning. So we asked writers and photographers to set their alarms and capture some of the morning sights and sounds of the campus waking up. These early birds found not only their worms – but much more.

5:15 Crew Club Practice—Baltimore Rowing Club Cherry Hill

It’s April, and it’s snowing. A high school crew team has already turned tail and canceled practice. A few UMBC rowers look expectantly to Renee Foard ’00, chemistry. “You can row in the snow,” she says, in perfect coach deadpan.

Minutes later, they ease their yellow eight-seater into water that is several degrees warmer than the air surrounding them at this hour. The coxswain, Allison Tullier ’12, shouts drills from the stern. In the dark, with the city lights twinkling, the boats resemble airplanes on a runway.

The sun rises slowly behind the team as they cut through the wake of nearby shipping crafts, rounding a buoy just off the coast of Fort McHenry. The red in their cheeks is not sunburn.

“People think we’re crazy,” says Foard. “But I love it. There’s a lot of grace to this sport.”

— Jenny O’Grady

6:00 Early Reveille—Retriever Activities Center

“One one thousand! Two one thousand!”

UMBC’s ROTC cadets are powering through a regimen of calisthenics and three grueling rounds of push-ups. As much as the routine tones the bodies of future Army officers, it also creates camaraderie.

“Really a tight-knit group,” observes Staff Sergeant Michael Bishop. “They go to breakfast after training, those that don’t have class, and attend a lot of events together.”

At 6:32 a.m., the group assembles outside the Retriever Activites Center to begin a two-mile run along the inner-circle of the loop. The first runners appear in the distance 15 minutes later.

One female cadet reaches the finish line at 6:50 a.m. and asks: “We’re not the last, are we?”

After the run, the cadets gather in a circle and reflect upon their morning session.

One sweaty cadet quips: “Should we do caterpillar pushups?” He’s greeted with a collective and exhausted reply in the negative.

— Matthew Morgal ’09

6:20 Leggo My Breakfast—UMBC Campus

They say that the early bird gets the worm, but the truth of the matter is this: On most any university campus, the mealtime options available to willing and waiting wildlife are more like a Vegas all-you-can eat buffet.

On a recent morning, amongst a random assortment of discarded peanuts, popcorn, puffed rice particles and – Mmmm! – red-flavored gum, one lucky squirrel finds the ultimate prize: a lightly toasted blueberry Eggo waffle.

Dash the physics of it all, it must be thinking. Hunger triumphs over mass as this tenacious grey squirrel

darts from beneath the bushes to pick up the waffle. It takes a guarded bite, and carries its windfall back to its secret lair. No syrup necessary.

— Jenny O’Grady

6:45 Open and Quiet—Albin O. Kuhn Library Atrium

Either physics lecturer Eric Anderson’s class is tough, or his students are very motivated. Or maybe both.

By 7 a.m., five people in the Albin O. Kuhn Library Atrium are studying for Anderson’s physics test at 8 a.m. Three of them have been there since 6 a.m. No one is dozing off.

Compared to the atmosphere in the open-all-night Atrium during finals week, Porter observes that 6:30 a.m. isn’t all that early – or late, depending on your perspective.The Atrium is also preferable to a steering wheel. Commuter Aimee Porter ’11 is prepping for the same exam. “We come to the library because we don’t like studying in the car,” she says.
“Studying here keeps us awake because we’re not in our dorm rooms,” says Rose Wilson ’10.

“You should see this place around 3 a.m. There are sleeping bags all over the place,” says Porter.

— B. Rose Huber

7:00 UMBC Campus

I have always been a morning person. The drive to work is easier – and with less traffic and stopping, it’s also more environmentally friendly. Sometimes the world gives you a treat, and the gate to the parking lot is open, and you drive right through. You have your choice of parking spaces.

Then there’s the view. As one walks down the hill from Lot 16 on a bright sunny morning, one sees UMBC’s campus in its quiet beauty.

Freshly waxed and buffed floors greet you with a shiny smile. Mostly I look at my calendar and prepare for the day—or catch up on emails. Department chairs can’t plan for the day. Everyone else does it for you. The most you can do is be ready for what may come.

If I have the time, I’ll walk the building, greet others who started the day early, and appreciate the wonderful life with which I have been blessed. 

— William R. LaCourse Chair & Professor of Analytical Chemistry Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

7:20 Breakfast Is Served—UMBC Dining Hall

The building shines like a beacon through the rain and gray dawn sky. There is warmth inside. And food.

There are no lines in the dining hall at opening time. No fight for a table big enough to fit the group. At this hour, most students are alone, moving silently with trays and textbooks balanced precariously. Only two people – both studying – sit in the half-darkness near the salad bar.

The low murmur of workers preparing food and the distant clang of dishes punctuate the silence. The steam from empty warming trays curls upward to the red and yellow mottled lamps above.

Crew team members and ROTC cadets arrive. The hall gets more boisterous. One girl from the crew team is on a mission for fruit. She drafts team members and they return bearing an armload of apples and a single orange.

The main fruit gatherer is barefoot the entire time. But don’t tell the dining hall staff. It’s probably against the rules.

— Kaitlin Taylor ’09

8:00 Fine Arts Building

Senior music major Danielle Spaeth ’09 is used to keeping odd hours. A flute player since fourth grade, she regularly practices 10 hours a week, most of them in the early morning. Only 10 days away from her senior recital performance of a Bach sonata, Spaeth was up till 3 a.m. the night before, talking with her husband, Brandon, who is a senior airman with the U.S. Air Force’s military police in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

“He’ll sometimes end up calling me during practice,” she says. “Whenever he gets to call is completely random.”

They were married in November, 2008. Brandon is scheduled to return home this fall. Until then, she waits, and practices, her wedding ring gleaming as her fingers dance delicately on the keys.

— Chip Rose

8:30 Choosing to Make a Difference—Choice Program Office

At an early meeting, Chase York [YEAR] and other workers in the Shriver Center’s Choice Program huddle in a meeting room to talk about what’s happening with the at-risk high school students for whom they serve as counselors and monitors. Workers tend to pull 50 or 60 hours a week, supporting the students whom they have been assigned.

York heads out to visit her assigned students at schools after the meeting. At Catonsville Middle School, the conversation with her student ranges from bowling to disgust about the school’s gym uniforms.

At the Catonsville Center for Alternative Studies, York’s student has refused to complete an art assignment: Draw an elephant with seven legs. Her concern over attendance issues and poor grades is met with apathy.

So York dangles the promise of a trip to McDonald’s in return for renewed focus on schoolwork. The prospect of fast food seems to do the trick.

— Matthew Morgal ’09

Watch our feature coverage here.

Donna Lewis ’86, English, leads a double life. She earned her law degree at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore and is currently an attorney with the Department of Homeland Security after 12 years in private sector litigation.

But away from the office, Lewis is a humorist who draws cartoons, writes and performs stand-up comedy. (In 2007, she competed in the Washington Post’s “Funniest Fed” stand-up competition.)

UMBC Magazine asked Lewis how she squared the law and the laugh. She argues that they are more intertwined than you might think:

When people find out you’re a lawyer who dabbles in the funny side of life, they respond in one of two ways. Half of the people make the typical lawyer jokes. (I don’t do lawyer jokes.) The other 50 percent find it impossible that a lawyer knows anything about what’s funny. (Much less that a lawyer could be funny.)

Lawyers and laughing? Please.

But then the questions begin. And this is how I answer the ones they ask – and the ones I wish they’d ask.

When did you get funny?

I didn’t realize the value of humor while I was in college or law school. I certainly appreciated good humor, but I firmly subscribed to a clear dichotomy between work and play. For any “serious” endeavor like school or work, I would flip on my somber switch very quickly.

The funny business came from a very practical professional need. After a few difficult years in litigation, I began to notice the weight and burden of my clients’ pain. Individuals would come into the office with fears and stress that distorted their perspectives to the point that they were not thinking rationally.

So I began to use the humor that I had always saved for after hours. My clients became more relaxed as a result. And when I began using humor with other lawyers and with judges, I became a more effective professional.

So you’re a funny lawyer? Does that harm your credibility?

There’s a big difference between being a class clown and a funny lawyer. Class clowns just want attention. They often can’t distinguish between a good joke and a bad joke, or between positive attention and negative attention.

Being a funny lawyer is about strategy. It’s about the bigger goal of getting your audience on board in a fun and positive way. In fact, it’s all about the audience. When you’re dealing with people, you’re dealing with conflict. And in the law, conflict is the name of the game. The entire goal is to resolve the conflict. The key in utilizing humor as a tool in that process is to maintain a seriousness and depth in addressing the subject matter while also balancing a healthy respect for the fact that you’re dealing with humans and not robots.

What’s harder, litigation or standup?

Standup is, without a doubt, the hardest. Making people laugh and laugh and laugh is ridiculously tough. Litigation is easy by comparison. In litigation, you know exactly what you’ve got and you deal with it. You’ve got the law on your side or the facts on your side. Sometimes, you’ve got nothing on your side but a losing case.

In standup, though, all you have going for you or against you is you. A bad night of standup is just truly awful. It just makes you want to cry and disappear off of the face of the earth. Unfortunately, all it takes is one good night of standup to make you keep coming back for the humiliation.

What did comedy teach you about practicing law?

My theory is that if everyone took an improvisation class, there would be a lot less conflict in relationships and in the world. My theory rests on a major concept in improv, commonly called “Yes, and…” It works like this: One character speaks and/or acts and then the next character in the exercise must somehow indicate agreement by continuing the chain of action or conversation. “Yes, and…” keeps the improv scene moving and keeps it from ending.

This exercise is the opposite of a conversation habit that most of us are used to: “Yes, but…” If you listen at home and at work, you’ll notice that many people respond with “Yes, but…” or some similar variation. In litigation, especially, I had gotten so used to the notion of debating and arguing that I would always automatically disagree with the other side.

What I’ve learned as I have matured professionally is that two sides – even opposing sides – usually have more in common than they think. If they start from a point of agreement, they can iron out their differences much faster. “Yes, and…” will get you to a more efficient and painless resolution than “Yes, but…”

With an audience, the goal is always to keep them laughing. In law, keep them agreeing. At home, keep them doing both.

What should you never do in law or in comedy?

The same rules work in both environments. Don’t say things that make people groan. If you don’t have a good joke, why make one? Don’t take cheap shots. You don’t need them and they’re not effective. Say less, not more. Some of the funniest people I know, both on stage and in the courtroom, are the quietest. But when they’re funny, they’re really funny. And finally, don’t use foul language. There’s no need for vulgarity. Sure, you can get away with it in today’s culture. But that’s not a good reason to do it. Rely on your material, your timing, your strategic use of silence and just enough good manners and appeal to keep your audience on your side.

Advice for someone who thinks they’re funny?

Take an improv class. Then take a stand up class. Write a funny article. Draw a cartoon. Do something funny. If you feel funny or if people think you’re funny, you may just be funny. So go be funny!

Shakespeare: Page to Stage

Michele Osherow is one of UMBC’s rising stars in the humanities. An assistant professor of English, she serves as director of the Humanities Scholars Program and as the associate director of the Dresher Center for the Humanities. Osherow also runs a monthly Shakespeare reading group and organizes events such as an April marathon reading of Shakespeare’s sonnets – put together with UMBC associate professor of theatre Alan Kreizenbeck.

But Osherow’s Bard-ic efforts don’t stop at the edge of Hilltop Circle. In addition to having won multiple awards as an actress, she is also the resident dramaturg at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C. It’s a job in which Osherow uses scholarship and a love of theater to aid in getting Shakespeare plays such as The Winter’s Tale – produced by the Folger, appropriately enough, last winter – from the page to the stage.

“The role of the dramaturg is essentially the scholar in the rehearsal room,” Osherow says. But the job starts long before the actors turn up for the first read-through of lines.

“The majority of my work is done actually before the rehearsals start,” she says. “I will work with the director on concept. Why are we attracted to this play? Actually, I carry it around in my pocket for awhile. What’s the story that we want to tell? And how are we how are we going to make that classical – that 400-year-old – story accessible to a modern audience? There’s a lot of discussion, and a lot of arguing, and a lot of reading that goes on.”

Dramaturgs also tackle the daunting task of cutting Shakespearean texts down to a playable length. What’s editing the Bard like?

“It’s actually kind of fun,” says Osherow. “And it’s often a case where I make more cuts than a director does.” But she adds that the point of the cutting is to clarify language and plot points and, of course, make sure that Shakespeare’s wit and humor land with the intended effect.

Dramaturgs add as well as subtract, observes Osherow. “I will suggest some scholarly work [to the director],” she says, “because the idea is to infuse the production with a kind of scholarly energy that can be helpful, as opposed to getting in the way of a story.”

The dramaturg also answers actors’ questions about context. Osherow says that in her experience, such context is “particularly helpful for women. Shakespeare gives us some very strong women, but those women were unusual – especially considering the constraints placed on women.

“Women were supposed to be chaste, silent and obedient,” Osherow continues. “Silence was equated with chastity. A woman who spoke a lot was called a ‘whore.’” In a play like The Winter’s Tale, where Queen Hermione remains dignified and even silent under the mistaken assault leveled on her virtue by her husband, Osherow argues that knowing that context is key for actors and for the audience.

“Hermione’s refusal to speak in certain situations is not because of fear,” Osherow says, “but because she is a true gentlewoman.”

— Richard Byrne ’86

No NO = No Migraines

Pain relievers can often “take away” a headache. But those who suffer migraines often find it much harder to obtain relief. Elsa Garcin, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is investigating ways that might someday directly attack the migraine at its creation.

Her migraine work builds on research she has already done on immune systems problems like arthritis and inflammation. In the human body, nitric oxide (also known as NO) plays many roles. It is the molecule that regulates blood pressure and transmits signals between nerve cells. As part of the body’s immune response, NO also attacks bacteria, viruses, and tumors. But a problem can arise: If the immune system makes too much NO, says Garcin, “it also attacks your own molecules.”

Trying to lower NO levels in just one part of the body is a tricky problem. The three respective enzymes that produce the molecule to regulate blood pressure, carry nerve signals and perform immune work are almost identical. Block one enzyme to reduce the overall presence of NO in the body and you can get awful side effects from having also interfered with the other two.

Garcin has found a way to be more choosy, she and 20 colleagues reported last fall in the journal Nature Chemical Biology. She solved the targeting problem by making a drug molecule that binds most strongly to the immune version of the enzyme.

Designing this discerning drug molecule proved tricky, since the three enzymes are identical in shape at the place where they produce nitric oxide. Finding the right enzyme is also crucial because that specific target is also the place where a drug would bind in order to block the enzyme.

Using a technique called x-ray crystallography to look at the 3-D structure of the three NO-producing enzymes, Garcin discovered that the immune-system enzyme has what she calls a “sweet spot” – located far from the spot where the enzyme makes nitric oxide. That distance allowed her to design a drug molecule that not only blocks the NO-producing site but also possesses an extension that reaches around to bind specifically with the immune enzyme at its sweet spot.

The extension on the experimental drug molecule allows the immune version of the enzyme and the drug molecule to become inseparable, thus shutting down overproduction of NO. The extension, she says, makes the drug molecule bind 3,000 times more strongly to the immune enzyme than to the other two.

Garcin is now looking for ways to interfere with the brain version of the enzyme that produces NO, while leaving the other two enzymes unperturbed. Finding a way to do so might eliminate a key trigger for migraines. “If you target this one but do not target the one in blood pressure,” she says, “there’s a potential for migraine treatment.”

— Lila Guterman

Research Rewarded

As the Spring 2009 semester ended, three UMBC faculty members received prestigious awards that will allow them to travel and continue research in history, emergency health services and biology.

• Kate Brown, associate professor of history, was named a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow for 2009. She is working on a tandem history of two cities (Hanford, Washington and Maiak, Russia) that were located near the world’s first two plutonium plants.

• Brian Maguire, clinical associate professor of emergency health services, has won a 2009 Fulbright Scholarship. He will travel to Australia to pursue research on the occupational risks among ambulance personnel.

• Stephen Miller, associate professor of biological sciences, has won a 2009 Fulbright Scholarship. He will travel to Germany to continue his work on the origins of multicellularity – the ability of higher plants and animals to create many different kinds of cells.

The Good Stuff

Theresa Good has a knack for forging the demands of a career in science into tangible rewards: cutting-edge research in Alzheimer’s disease, prestigious awards for her research and mentoring, and intense camaraderie with colleagues. As a professor of chemical and biological engineering, Good excels in motivating and training her students to untangle thorny research problems, all the while creating lifelong collaborations with them and with other colleagues.

In February, Good was named a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers, a distinction bestowed upon the top two percent of the field. And in 2007, she won UMBC’s Donald Creighton Memorial Faculty Award for Graduate Student Mentoring.

The accolades come as no surprise to current and former graduate students. “She’ll give you the freedom you need as a researcher to make the project your own and to pursue ideas that others may not,” says James Henry, a former graduate student who is now an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Louisiana State University.

Good’s research explores why the brain’s nerve cells die in Alzheimer’s disease. “Most of the questions we ask are trying to understand the relationship between the structure of the [Alzheimer’s] protein and how it interacts with cells,” she explains. To do the work, she and her students develop new tools and techniques, including new spectroscopy methods. Some of the findings, such as the ability of certain polymers to lessen the toxicity of Alzheimer’s proteins, could even lead to treatments for the disease.

Though her methods and discoveries have influenced other scientists, none of her attempts to stop Alzheimer’s disease has yet reached the clinics where doctors are grappling with the disease. “I’m not going to become rich anytime soon,” she laughs. “But it’s probably contributed to the way that people think about targets for disease and some of the approaches we can use.”

Good grew up near Rochester, N.Y., and taught science in the Peace Corps in the Democratic Republic of Congo before getting a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She then taught at Texas A&M University before joining the faculty at UMBC in 2002. To celebrate her promotion to full professor in 2007, she bought herself a 26-foot sailboat, in which she often sails with her students on the Chesapeake Bay.

Good also encourages students to run the Annapolis Ten Mile Run alongside her each year. In the first few years, Good jokes, “I told them that if they didn’t allow me to beat them, I wouldn’t sign their forms to graduate.” Now, she says, “they don’t have to pretend to go slower than me.”

While the honor from the engineering institute is flattering, Good says, she was even more touched by the mentoring award since she was nominated by her own students. “I think I do some good research,” she says, “but what I really produce is people.”

— Lila Guterman

Nine Digit Histories

From behind his large, tidy wooden desk at the Social Security Administration’s headquarters in Woodlawn, Larry DeWitt, ’04 M.A., history, will happily discuss the philosophical underpinnings of social insurance and the importance of knowing the past when making future decisions about the nation’s economic safety net.

But DeWitt, the historian at this vast federal agency and the lead editor of weighty new tome of primary source material about the agency, Social Security: A Documentary History (CQ Press) can’t conceal the plain truth. He is just itching to get out of his seat and show off his collection.

It doesn’t take long to see why. The adjoining office is crammed with pamphlets, placards, books – and even old agency telephone directories. A wartime poster reminds why it’s important to hold on to Social Security cards: “Replacing 1.8 million cards last year cost Uncle Sam the price of 550 jeeps.”

Dig deeper into one file, and there’s a shopworn report from 1952 about problems with account numbers. In another, a 33 1/3 rpm record with comedy bits from Woody Allen, Bill Cosby and Bob Newhart – each introduced by a 30-second pitch for Social Security from Nipsey Russell.

Suddenly, DeWitt scampers up a small ladder. “Ooh, let’s see if I can find…” he says, eventually retrieving another public service announcement, this one recorded by Johnny Mathis.

The Social Security history tour continues in a small museum just a few steps down the hall. DeWitt points out a 1795 pamphlet by Thomas Paine calling for creation of an old-age insurance scheme, the earliest US proposal for social insurance he has found. (He adds, with a laugh, that back then, 50 was considered old age.) There is a pen used by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to sign the 1935 law establishing Social Security is on display, as well as the agency’s first PC – purchased for $9,600 in 1983 and reliant on two floppy disks. Still more artifacts and documents fill a musty overflow storage room upstairs, but DeWitt hopes a new museum and archives set to open in August will have room for it all.

The attention to its past is a bit surprising for an agency best known to many for doling out nine-digit numbers. But while most government offices don’t share such a commitment to their history, DeWitt points to others, like the military branches, which do share it.

“An institution this large and this important in American life has to have a sense of its history,” he explains, pointing out that Social Security is the largest single category in the federal budget. Nearly 51 million Americans – retired and disabled workers and their dependents, and survivors of deceased workers – will receive $650 billion in benefits.

DeWitt began his working life as a Social Security claims representative in Los Angeles 31 years ago, and has been the historian here since 1995. In addition to setting up exhibits and giving tours of the museum, he also manages the archive, helping those inside and outside the agency with research, and does his own writing and research on the institution and the program’s legislative history.

Attracted to UMBC because of its welcoming approach to mid-career professionals and part-time students, DeWitt completed his master’s in historical studies in 2004, writing his thesis on a little-known program run by the Social Security Administration that provided assistance to the families of Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II and helped internees with relocation and job placement when they were released.

DeWitt is now working on a Ph.D. in public policy, and plans to write his dissertation about the tenure of Arthur Altmeyer, a high-ranking executive during the first two decades of Social Security who oversaw the program’s founding, as well as its first major expansion, to include dependents and survivors. Somehow, he also maintains a personal website, www.larrydewitt.net, which touches on history, philosophy, public policy, and poetry.

After he retires from his historian’s post, DeWitt hopes to teach at a university. But his documentary history of the agency’s past is already providing a new tool for those who teach about America’s social contract. Social Security: A Documentary History was intended for university libraries, and it relies on primary documents, such as speeches, committee reports, congressional testimony, and letters – many drawn from the agency’s archive – to trace the legislative development of the program.

It’s weedy stuff for the general reader. But for students of the program, such a complete overview in a single spot, with detailed treatment of expanding benefits to new categories of workers, indexing payments to the inflation rate, and other issues is invaluable. It is also clear evidence that today’s debates about privatization and solvency really aren’t new. Not convinced? Check out the debate over 1939 amendments, designed to shrink the size of the program’s projected surplus – deemed too tempting while the federal budget was in constant deficit – or a 1983 report from the Cato Institute that pushes for private accounts.

DeWitt doesn’t like to weigh in on current arguments. But he insists that those who do should know their stuff. “We historians believe that in order to understand contemporary policy debates correctly, you need to have a historical context for them. And that’s what we try to provide,” he says. “We don’t take positions. We try to show how we got to where we are.”

For all his Social Security knowledge, there is one historical detail that eludes DeWitt. In that familiar photograph of Roosevelt signing the program into law, surrounded by dignitaries such as Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, who is the bow-tied man standing at the back? “If I could solve this, I could retire.”

— Holly Yeager

Monkee Business

In a crowded basement bar in Silver Spring in late winter, the Stepping Stones are bashing out a version of the Monkees’ “Mary, Mary.” As the song veers out of its chorus, UMBC professor of public policy and economics Timothy J. Brennan unleashes a dirty and riveting guitar solo that has the crowd buzzing with approval.

By day, Brennan is a researcher whose work tackles the intersection of markets and government regulations – antitrust laws, utilities, and copyright. But in his free time, you might find him playing jazz guitar, working over a blues song with friends, or in a Monkees cover band like the Stepping Stones – which he formed last year with Washington Post Metro columnist John Kelly.

The Stepping Stones are a “cover” band – and not a tribute band with costumes and moptops. “There are 25 to 30 Monkees songs that are palatable,” Brennan wisecracks. “And there’s not a lot of issue among the band as to which ones are palatable.”

Brennan is also a self-admitted guitar aficionado who has 17 guitars in his collection, including a Rickenbacker, a Gibson SG and a classic Gretsch Country Gentleman (made famous by Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins and Monkees guitarist Mike Nesmith) that he says “might be the finest guitar I own.”

— Richard Byrne ‘86

Saddle Up

UMBC’s Equestrian Club isn’t all well-pressed riding jackets and spit-shined boots. There are arguments about pizza toppings and recollections about a member who was nearly trampled filming a riding lesson.

And, of course, there are horses. The club practices once a week at the Patapsco Horse Center, and its members have competed in ten intercollegiate shows this year. (They have the ribbons to prove it.)

The club was formed in 2003 by students Amanda McClaskey and Heidi Brueckner ’06, interdisciplinary studies, who brought the idea to C. Jill Randles, assistant vice provost for undergraduate education, who serves as the club’s advisor.

The competitive aspect of the group has caused perplexity: is it a club or a team? Members are required to take lessons, and the group may hold tryouts next year. Still, says club president Emily Plitt ’11, “we are more concerned about riders’ commitment than their actual skill.”

Funding is also a bit of a puzzle: As a club, the group gets no money from UMBC Athletics, but the Student Government Association does not fund competitive teams. The solution? The SGA funds field trips, but team members must pay for their own entry fees and transportation at competitions.

“The club’s initial goal was to pull a group of students together who love horses, rid[ing], and want to learn more and share experiences,” says Randles. “The creation of a team that would compete as part of the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association was a longer-term goal.”

— Kaitlin Taylor ’09

Fun & GAIM

All-nighters. Advanced skills in video gaming. Both factored into the Global Game Jam, an annual weekend-long sprint of gaming creativity held in late winter all over the world.

UMBC hosted one of the regional pods in the competition, an event brought to the school by the two faculty members behind the university’s Games, Animation and Interactive Media (GAIM) Program – Neal McDonald from visual arts and Marc Olano of computer science.

“It was 48 hours of frantic activity,” said Olano. “It was exciting to be part of something that involved 53 sites in over 20 countries, with more than 1,600 participants creating over 300 games.”

Five teams made up of 15 UMBC students and eight guest participants worked through the weekend to create original games of five minutes in length with titles such as “Q-Tip Nightmare” and “Feather Tether.”

The GAIM program brings together UMBC students in visual arts and computer science to work on projects that can lead not only to careers in gaming, but are also applicable to aerospace, architecture, healthcare and other fields.

“It’s good energy, lots of laughing, but more importantly, learning to do things just like they’re done in the industry,” says McDonald.

For more information on the Games, Animation and Interactive Media Program, please visit gaim.umbc.edu/news

— Chip Rose

Catonsville 1, Chapel Hill 0

Late last spring, the University of North Carolina began courting long-time UMBC men’s lacrosse coach Don Zimmerman. And when the Tar Heels go after something, they go hard.

Word leaked quickly that Zimmerman and North Carolina were talking. The rumor mill, turning more quickly than ever in the Internet age, thrust the coach’s dilemma into the spotlight. Would he stay or would he go?

Many assumed he would take the job at the bigger school. But Zimmerman decided that he would skip a chance to coach lacrosse at one of the most prominent schools in college athletics to remain at UMBC.

His family was a big factor in helping the coach decided that staying where he had been for 16 years was the right call. “I just realized this was the place for me,” Zimmerman said.

A Baltimore native, Zimmerman coached Johns Hopkins to three national titles during his seven years there before leaving the school after the 1990 season. Earlier in his career, he also was an assistant coach on two North Carolina national championship teams, which was another reason many felt he would make the jump to Chapel Hill.

The entire saga only took about a week. Zimmerman spoke with UMBC president Freeman A. Hrabowski III and the university’s athletic director, Charles Brown after being contacted by North Carolina, and promised a quick decision.

During the decision process, Zimmerman attended the NCAA Final Four men’s lacrosse championships in Massachusetts, where curiosity about his status meant his phone literally wouldn’t stop ringing. The exasperated coach even skipped the national championship game just to escape the questions.

Zimmerman’s family told him they thought that staying UMBC was the best decision for him. In the end, the coach never even visited North Carolina before giving Brown the happy news that he would stay. UMBC promptly rewarded Zimmerman with a new six-year contract.

“The reason I decided to stay is I’ve fallen in love with UMBC,” Zimmerman said. “This has been my home for 16 years…and I just couldn’t see turning my back on all those people who have made the commitment as I did to develop this program to where it is today. To me, that’s not the right thing.”

Zimmerman now has his sights set on even great success in Catonsville. UMBC has made the NCAA men’s lacrosse tournament in each of the three years. The team also started the 2009 campaign ranked highly in the national top 10.

“The fact that he stayed showed a great deal of confidence in us,” says Alex Hopmann, a team captain. “There was a great deal of worry, [but] when he came back, we felt complete.”

Brown agrees that Zimmerman’s decision will keep the university’s rebuilding process in men’s lacrosse on track. UMBC has given Zimmerman many of the resources that he felt the school needed to be a top-level program: a new field, new locker room facilities, multiple assistant coaches and an improved schedule.

“We have the right coach for the right situation,” Brown says. “For us to be able to retain him here is a big feather in our cap.”

— Jeff Seidel ’85

Making a Splash

Wondering how the Retrievers’ men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams have sustained their tournament excellence over the past few years? A weeklong dose of sea and sand during winter break is part of the equation for success.

Each year, coach Chad Cradock ’97, psychology, takes his teams to Florida, where they stay in a hotel by the water in Boca Raton and enjoy life on the beach for their midseason training camp. The warm weather is a nice backdrop for some intensive training, however.

“We really focus on developing them and getting stronger,” said Cradock, who took the same trip as a UMBC swimmer from 1993 to 1997. “It’s also probably the best time for our team to do some real bonding and get closer as a family.”

Daily two-hour workouts at 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. are the main events of the day – with an occasional extra hour for non-swimming workouts.

The trip is part of the teams’ annual budget, but team members also do a healthy amount of fundraising to help pay for the trip. NCAA regulations require that teams compete if they make such a journey, so UMBC swam an exhibition meet against North Carolina State.

The Retrievers’ men have won six consecutive America East titles, while the women have taken two of the last three titles.

The trip did have its relaxing moments, including a day off from practice on New Year’s Eve spent at a dinner hosted by the director of the International Swimming Hall of Fame and a bowling excursion.

— Jeff Seidel ’85

Jams and Jets

Pro basketball has put a lot of stamps in the passport of Andrew Feeley ’05, sociology. The former Retriever standout has had success with teams in Mexico, Japan, Slovenia and France since his graduation, including being named by hoops Web site Asia-Basket.com in 2009 as “Center of the Year” and “Import Player of the Year” in Japan.

Feeley also helped his Slovenian team advance to that country’s Super Cup finals before a move in January 2010 to the French professional club Antibes.

As a 6-foot-9 center, Feeley finds that playing the game is the easy part of the international hoops experience. “Basketball is basketball wherever you go,” he says. “Many English basketball terms are used all over the world: shoot, pass, pick and roll, rebound.”

There are some key rule differences. On the plus side for a big man, a ball can be touched in the basket in the

international game and not be considered goaltending. However, American players do have to learn to avoid a traveling violation by dribbling once before picking up their pivot foot.

“The biggest adjustment is the language barrier,” Feeley says. “It’s so hard, and funny, to be trying to talk to someone, looking at them right in the eye, and have no idea what they are saying. Most people in the world can speak a little English, but I have realized that they are uncomfortable trying to use it in public.”

Feeley’s solution? Combining foreign words he picks up along the way with some English in the same sentence. “It seems to work pretty well,” he says.

— David Driver

Reel is Real

In the music video for Ian Carey’s “Get Shaky,” the song’s throbbing beat impels students at a sleepy Montgomery County school to erupt into dance. Flashes of light and the funky sound punctuate an impromptu dance-off.

The video was edited by Michael Zemrose ’06, visual arts, whose efforts helped the clip win an Australian MTV Video Music Award. Ian Carey kept the statuette, but Zemrose did have his picture taken with the trophy.

“They let me spend some quality time with it,” he chuckles.

Carey asked him back to make the video for his song, “S.O.S.” – which was shot last July in the Florida Keys. That video has garnered over 418,000 views thus far.

The award and exposure have helped Zemrose win attention for his own video work. “People have definitely noticed it,” he says.

Zemrose teaches at Frederick Community College, and spends the balance of his time on videos. “I’ve been working with the Science Applications International Corporation doing military videos for the Army,” he observes. He is also pondering a return to UMBC to take an M.F.A. in imaging and digital arts.

In March, Zemrose caught the attention of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs, who brought him aboard to work on a short film called Sisters.

While making films and videos sounds fun, it can also be grueling. “Especially on production days where I have to get up at the crack of dawn and work a 12 to 14 hour day with little chance to eat,” he says.

— Derek Roper ’11

Watch the video.

The Right Moves

When Harvard hosted the Pan-Am Intercollegiate Chess Tournament in 1990 in Cambridge, UMBC’s chess team placed 26th out of 27 teams that entered the competition.

Over the past two decades, however, UMBC’s chess teams have become a national power – and a symbol of UMBC’s drive to become “An Honors University in Maryland.”

In April, the team took home its sixth title in the annual President’s Cup tournament, dubbed “the Final Four of College Chess.” UMBC Chess Director Alan Sherman says that the victory came “against the strongest field of chess teams ever assembled at any Final Four.”

Since 1996, the team has won or shared first place in the Pan-Am Tournament – which determines the finalists for the President’s Cup – a record nine times, including a five-year streak between 1998 and 2002.

UMBC’s chess players at all levels are not resting on their laurels, says Richard Selzler, president of UMBC’s Chess Club. He says the umbrella group for the university’s chess activities is seeking to increase its funding and its membership.

One thing that hasn’t changed since 1990 is the need for funding. At that first Pan-Am tournament, a player’s father drove the team to Boston. “Fees have kept the club from going to tournaments,” Selzler observes. “Entry fees, hotel costs, and travel costs are expensive.”

Chess scholarships for its best players are part of the recipe for UMBC’s success. But the club itself welcomes all players, and is actively seeking to replace members who have graduated. “Hopefully we can recruit new members of all levels,” Selzler concludes.

— Derek Roper ’11

The Doctors Are In

It’s Career Week at UMBC – an annual event focused on helping students and recent alumni select and secure jobs. Justin Alexander ’09, ancient studies, is looking for work this spring. He clutches a copy of his resume as he enters the University Center Ballroom.

He’s come to the right place. This is the Resume ER, a clinic staffed by a rotating team of employers and alumni dedicated to triage and surgery on clutter and disorganization in the gateway document for all jobseekers.

Two staffers from UMBC’s Career Services Center – Lori Logan-Bennett, associate director of recruitment and marketing, and Sue Plitt, coordinator of employer relations and job development – are on hand to help direct those seeking to make their c.v. just right.

Since the event’s inception in 2009, volunteers have pointed out flaws that may trip up jobseekers at the very first step. After all, the resume is usually the first impression a potential employer glimpses.

“Typographical errors and students underestimating their abilities are two of the biggest problems we see,” says Plitt.

“They don’t think critically about what they can offer an employer,” adds Logan-Bennett. “Sometimes, they follow a template.”

Plitt and Logan agree that resumes should be refreshed for each job opportunity. Including words from the employer’s job description is key.

Alexander says he got just what he was looking for at the clinic: “I had formatting issues and realized that I needed to make my words jump off the page.”

— Derek Roper ’11

Page Turners

Each fall, UMBC’s New Student Book Experience provides an opportunity for freshmen and transfer students to connect with the university community through a shared conversation about a single book. Faculty and staff moderate small-group discussions about the book during orientation, and new students can even enter a writing contest.

In 2010, the book is The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari – a memoir that views the genocide in the Western Sudan through the eyes of a native who translates for foreign journalists.

But how does a book get selected? The process is a mirror of the experience itself: A committee comprised of faculty, students and staff gets together and reads.

Anyone in the UMBC community can nominate a book. But it is the committee – led by Michelle Scott, associate professor of history, and Janet McGlynn, director of communication and outreach in the Office of Undergraduate Education – that sifts through the nominations and finally settles on three books that go to President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, and Provost Elliot Hirshman for a final decision.

Committee meetings are often the scene of passionate debate on the merits or flaws of particular books. The group must select books that are of a high quality and broad enough in appeal to take in the diversity of the university. The books must also be widely available for purchase, so that students can read them before arriving for the fall semester. Opinions fly fast and furious.

In the end, however, a consensus forms. And the winning book becomes an integral part of the university’s conversation.

— Richard Byrne ’86

A Legacy of Leadership

The UMBC community mourns the passing of Albin Owings Kuhn, the university’s first chancellor, at the age of 94. Kuhn died on March 24 at his home in Carroll County.

Kuhn’s oversight of UMBC’s initial planning, development and construction laid the foundation for the university’s continued growth and success as an institution of higher education.

Kuhn earned three degrees from the University of Maryland, College Park (B.S., M.S., Ph.D.). He taught there early in his career as a professor of agronomy (1941-1955) and as chair of the Agronomy Department (1948-1955). He then shifted his career in academic leadership, serving as assistant to the president (1955-1958) and then as executive vice president (1958-1965) of the University System of Maryland, which at that time included the College Park, Baltimore City and Eastern Shore campuses.

In 1965, Kuhn was selected as the chancellor of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) – the oldest campus in the system. At the same time, he was handed the task of developing a new campus for the University System of Maryland on rolling farmland in Catonsville.

At UMBC’s debut in 1966, Kuhn was proud of the fact that the university opened on schedule.”It worked,” he told The Maryland Magazine at that time. “We opened on the day we were supposed to, right on schedule. Buildings were ready to be occupied; sidewalks were installed; the faculty was here. There were blackboards and even chalk.”

Kuhn’s commitment to making it work was intensely personal. UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, observes that “[Kuhn] and his family moved into one of the original farmhouses on the campus grounds – a small gray house that became his family’s residence, his office, and a welcoming place frequented by UMBC students and faculty members. Its porch became the catalog center for the library’s nascent 20,000-volume collection. That farmhouse is gone today, replaced by our library, which was named to honor Dr. Kuhn.”

Kuhn held both chancellorships until UMBC’s second commencement in 1971, when he gave up his leadership position at UMBC. He served as UMB’s chancellor until 1980.

Hrabowski notes that he continues to offer these thoughts – which Kuhn gave to the university’s first graduating class in 1970 – at each UMBC commencement: “If you bring to the future the same personal qualities and personal commitment you have brought to this campus as students, good and important things will happen to each of you, as well as to those around you… and the university community will be proud to have played a part in your life.”

— Richard Byrne ’86

Shovel Ready

As UMBC Magazine went to press, the university learned that the Maryland General Assembly approved $37.4 million for the first year of construction of a Performing Arts and Humanities Building.

Ground will be broken in June for the $170 million project. The first phase will include classrooms, class and open laboratories, multimedia study and collaboration spaces, a 275-seat main theater, a 100-seat black box theater, and support spaces.

John Jeffries, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, was delighted by the news. “At long last,” he observes, “our theatre department – and in the second phase, our music and dance departments – will have facilities worthy of their students and their talent.”

The presence of the humanities is also a big part of the equation, Jeffries adds. “The prominent position of the Dresher Center in the building,” he says, “and the presence of English and other humanities departments, will also substantially advance research, teaching and learning in the humanities at UMBC.”

Jeffries concludes by noting that “it will be a signature building on campus that will make it plain how important the arts and humanities are to UMBC and the state of Maryland.” The second phase of construction, which is planned for 2012, will include new dance and concert halls, and a new home for the departments of music, dance, philosophy and ancient studies.

— Richard Byrne ’86

It’s no secret that these are tough economic times. So what advantages do UMBC students have in the struggle to find and secure a career? The great education that they receive at UMBC is one asset. But the strength of the university’s commitment to securing internship opportunities is another head start that UMBC students have in the job hunt.

As UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, points out in our “Up on the Roof” feature, the university works hard to nurture relationships with potential employers in the Baltimore-Washington corridor. He also emphasizes the number of opportunities that UMBC has created on campus, observing that over 2,000 students gain work experience on the campus itself each year.

In this issue, we’re spotlighting the power of internships to shape and even transform one’s career aspirations and trajectory. In “Turn to Earn,” we feature the stories of four UMBC alumni whose internships took them in a much different direction than they may have planned for themselves at the outset of their time at UMBC.

It’s no accident that three of the four alumni we profile obtained their internships from UMBC’s Shriver Center. The center is a powerhouse for applied learning on campus, placing 1,300 students into internships each year and winning high marks from students and employers for its efforts. (Can you help The Shriver Center place a student? You can contact the center at shrivercenter@umbc.edu or 410-455-2493.)

The mentoring efforts of UMBC faculty also play a huge role in giving students a leg up on internships and other networking opportunities.

Christopher Corbett, author and professor of the practice in the English department, is just such a mentor for his students and the college journalists at UMBC. Noted author and screenwriter Rafael Alvarez (The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street) profiles Corbett in this issue of UMBC Magazine, and his piece traces Corbett’s path to success working at local newspapers in Maine and at the Associated Press in Baltimore.

These days, Corbett is imparting the lessons of those years in the journalism trenches to a new generation of students – through his classes and his job as faculty advisor to The Retriever Weekly. And it is Corbett who has helped many of his charges – including Jamie Smith-Hopkins ’98 of The Baltimore Sun, who is also profiled in our piece on life-changing internships – get their foot in the door at media outlets with a timely call to an editor.

“My experience has been that work begets work,” Corbett tells me. “Which I think is a truism of the trade. I’m sure you’ve known people who’ve had an internship and then somebody got drunk or ran off with the donut shop waitress, and then somebody got a job because they were there and these things happen.”

Corbett adds that “my philosophy about internships is that I only send out someone when they’re road-tested…. This isn’t complicated. And, historically, it’s led to people finding jobs.”

The UMBC community is also mourning the passing of the university’s founding chancellor, Albin Owings Kuhn, on March 24. Our feature on Chancellor Kuhn’s legacy can be found in “The News” section. A memorial service for Chancellor Kuhn will be held on Sunday, May 23 at 2 p.m. in the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery. A reception will follow.

— Richard Byrne ’86

How challenging and timely internships changed the career trajectories of four UMBC alumni.

By Meredith Purvis, Derek Roper ’11, and Erika Shernoff
Photos by Howard Korn

Mastering an academic discipline is an important step in preparing for a successful career. Yet for many UMBC students, internships have been another key element in career success.

Internships can confirm a career direction and provide some early connections in a chosen field. Sometimes, however, the right internship is more than that. It can help a student take a giant first step in his or her career, or encourage a radical change in direction.

For the four alumni we’ve chosen to spotlight here, internships have made a big difference. One alumna is forging a path in the challenging world of journalism. Another alumnus is making our highways safer. A third alumna went from returning student to coveted programming superstar. And our last alumnus finds his work is helping others play.

What do they have in common? All four alumni point to their internships – whether organized by UMBC’s Shriver Center (which helps place over 1,300 UMBC students in internships every year), or obtained through the help of a professor – as life-changing experiences.

THE RIGHT NOTES

Amy Coveyou ’07, computer science, was a stay-at-home mother of three when she decided she wanted to re-enter the workplace. Taking stock of her bachelor’s degree in music and her years out of the work force raising her family, she wondered just what she needed to do to obtain skills useful for the contemporary job market. Her solution? A new degree in computer science.

“Most people don’t have an opportunity for a do-over on their bachelor’s degree,” she says.

Coveyou knew the challenges involved in re-entering the job market. So she first took classes at Anne Arundel Community College before making the leap to UMBC’s computer science program in 2005. Her goal was a career in programming.

What is it about coding and programming that delights this former music major? Coveyou explains that there is a closer connection than simply a keyboard. “Lots of programmers are gifted musically,” she says. The attention to detail, the counting, the use of numbers, the rhythms – music and math can be both technical and beautiful.

Part of Coveyou’s plan of study at UMBC was to land hands-on experience that would help her advance in the profession. The Shriver Center helped her find one at the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) in the summer between her junior and senior years in 2006.

The experience was a success. Working full-time throughout the summer at DBED, Coveyou generated state reports and trained people on a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, a tool used to manage customer relationships, sales and marketing.

Coveyou quickly rose to a position where she was enforcing database protocols and developing policies to prevent improper entries. By the time she left in March 2007, she was reporting directly to the department head and managing all of the other interns. However, she knew exactly the career she was heading towards and needed to move on. “I didn’t want to be on the administrative track. I wanted to program,” she says.

Coveyou’s next internship proved even more invaluable. In June 2007, she found a programming internship at USinternetworking, Inc (USI) in Annapolis – a chance to show off skills in her chosen subfield. By the time she was ready to graduate in December 2007, Booz Allen Hamilton came calling with an offer that USI wanted to match – with Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Census Bureau also waiting in the wings.

Coveyou knew that Booz Allen Hamilton would be a fierce commute and long work hours, but they were offering the programming job that she dreamed about. And as a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, Coveyou now programs all day long to her heart’s content.

Looking back as an adult making a career change later in life, Coveyou acknowledges that “I thought I was in less of a bargaining position versus younger kids.” But, she adds, “employers saw the value-add of an adult with experience.”

Part of what they valued was Coveyou’s commitment to remaking her education at UMBC as an adult. To others who might be thinking about going back to school long after their babies are tying their own shoelaces, she says: “Stick to it”. She certainly did.

— Erika Shernoff

SAFETY FIRST

Many kids only think they know what they want to be when they grow up. But others are certain from a very early age – and then follow through.

Take Gamunu Wijetunge ’01, emergency health services, for instance. When he was only four years old, Wijetunge knew he would grow up to be a paramedic. “You have an immediate impact,” he explains. “Your patients are right in front of you, maybe in the worst moment of their lives. But you get to make an impact on the spot.”

Wijetunge was already well along pursuing that path as a student at Montgomery Blair High School. Already, he had become a volunteer emergency medical technician (EMT). He followed that dream to UMBC and enrolled in the university’s emergency health services program.

But Wijetunge’s path took a precipitous and unexpected turn. In his junior year, with an eye toward earning some money over the summer, he signed up for an internship with Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT). The internship included 30-day stints at both the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and the state’s Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).

Wijetunge’s summer internships taught him a lot about how each organization worked. Employees also took him under their wing. One mentor at the MVA took a special interest in his career, encouraging Wijetunge to get involved with basic research and act as a fresh set of eyes for ongoing projects.

“He took me seriously,” Wijetunge recalls, “and didn’t make any assumptions about me.”

In the fall semester, Wijetunge continued exploring the administrative path through an internship at the Maryland State Highway Administration’s Office of Traffic Safety. His inside knowledge of the MVA came in handy at OTS when Wijetunge was assigned the seemingly mundane task of sorting through old crash fatality data from the MVA.

His bosses told him a crucial chunk of data from the MVA had been missing for several years, but Wijetunge knew where to look. He drove to his former workplace and returned later that day with the missing data. His new supervisors were impressed with the initiative he’d taken, and he played an important role in completing the project.

The internships led Wijetunge to consider a career in safety administration. “My internships were short,” he says, “but they exposed me to how the government can work and all that it can do,” he says.

Today, Wijetunge works as a highway safety specialist for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Emergency Medical Services, where he focuses on issues such as disaster preparedness and emergency medical services workforce development. He builds strategic plans that make it possible for paramedics in the field to do their jobs better.

And he has not forgotten his first love. On weekends, Wijetunge leaves his suit and tie behind and volunteers as a paramedic. It’s a unique perspective that most administrators don’t get.

“I get to enjoy two dynamics,” he observes. “During the week, I’m operating at the 10,000-foot level, working on things that may take years ’til we see the impact. But working in the field, I get to see the impact of my office work. It keeps me motivated.”

— Meredith Purvis

THE REAL DEAL

When a raffle of a $1.6 million house in Baltimore County falls through or Maryland homeowners find their homes underwater, Baltimore Sun business reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins ’98, English, has the scoop.

The real estate beat is an important one for any local paper. And Hopkins credits her investment in several internships as a key to building a career out of her passion for writing. Hopkins spent most of her high school years in home schooling before enrolling at Howard Community College. After submitting a comic strip to the college’s newspaper, she found herself pulled even deeper into the enterprise.

The community college newspaper also gave Hopkins a chance at her first internship, working for Patuxent Publishing Company. The pieces that she wrote for Columbia Magazine’s advertising section required leg work on her part. “They sent interns out to cover themes like camps, and you would have to go around to these summer camps and get ideas to formulate themes,” she recalls.

Once she arrived at UMBC, Hopkins found a mentor in Christopher Corbett, a professor of the practice in the university’s English Department. “Corbett is excellent at his job and promotes the importance of getting internships,” she says. Eventually, Corbett helped her land an internship at a place where she knew she wanted to work: The Baltimore Sun.

When she entered The Sun’s newsroom on her very first day, Hopkins says that it reminded her of the busy hum and clatter of the Washington Post newsroom in the film, All the President’s Men. “It was more than I expected,” she says. As an intern, she wrote news briefs and obituaries. “It is a great way to learn how to get information correctly and how to interact with people since it is a difficult time for people to be talking about the recently deceased.” She also managed to place a feature about Baltimore’s embattled Bromo Seltzer tower in the paper.

“The Sun was an excellent place to intern,” she says. “The people there are just helpful. They want people to succeed and help young reporters to be able to improve.” In December of 1998, the budding reporter graduated and landed a job at the Ames Tribune in Iowa with help from Sun’s editor, Bill Marimow. “I agonized about leaving and talked it over with friends and family.”

In the midwest, Hopkins covered the education beat. “They had us writing constantly, which was great for a writer’s experience,” she recalls. After a brief stint at the Tribune, the reporter returned to Maryland after Halloween to The Sun as a full-time employee.

These days, Hopkins is a reporter working in old media (writing stories for the paper) and new media, tackling “buying, selling and renting in the Baltimore area” on her blog: The Real Estate Wonk.

Hopkins says that practicing the craft of journalism – either on an internship or at the student paper – is a key to success. But internships, she adds, give you that feel for the profession and the give-and-take of a real newsroom. “There’s nothing better than to be edited by a good editor,” she says.

— Derek Roper ’11

GAME FOR ANYTHING

Video games are a way to play. But what if you could make that play pay off as a career?

For Elliot Pace, ’08, mathematics, it was an internship in the gaming world four years ago that eventually won him a job at a video game company.

In high school, Pace played a lot of video games. But that wasn’t the limit of his curiosity. “I was equally curious about how they worked and how they were made,” he explains. Pace pursued that interest by investigating pick-up tips and strategies for writing programming code for games. “By the end of my senior year in high school, I learned how to write software capable of drawing triangles on the computer screen.” He had also learned how to make sound effects.

At UMBC, the aspiring programmer spent what he calls an “endless” amount of time honing his programming skills, creating small 3-D games to showcase all his work. “College is the best time to learn as much as possible,” Pace observes. But that effort made him ready to seize an opportunity he saw in 2006.

As Pace walked across campus one day, his brother pointed out fliers advertising a Firaxis Games event at UMBC. The event had been set up by Casey Miller, the Shriver Center’s assistant director of internships.

Pace and 30 other students attended the gaming presentation by the staff of Firaxis Games, which was hosted by the UMBC game development club. The budding UMBC gamer even got a chance to talk one-on-one with the company’s director of technology – and an opportunity to share the video game side projects that he had spent so much time working on.

Pace exited that interview with an appointment for a formal internship interview. By spring 2007, he was working part-time as a paid intern at Firaxis on some of the company’s bigger projects – including a role as a support graphics programmer for one of the artists on the game Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution (2008). He also received an offer to return full-time after graduation, and he has worked as a graphics programmer at Firaxis ever since.

“The internship changed my life and had absolutely zero drawbacks,” Elliot said.

These days, Pace’s typical day begins at 10 a.m. with his uniform usually being a t-shirt and blue jeans. His lunch hours are unorthodox as well: he takes his lunch at noon and for an hour he plays online games with co-workers. By 6 p.m. it’s usually time to clock out.

And if he is working late on a deadline, the company usually orders up dinner from local restaurants.

Pace says he has no doubt that he would be writing software somewhere, perhaps for business or math applications. But his turn into gaming turned into a joyride.

“It would have been much less exciting, so I would have continued to try and get a job in the game industry,” says Pace. “It is where I belong.”

— Derek Roper ’11

Shari Elliker ’83, interdisciplinary studies, and Neil Beller ’83, interdisciplinary studies, spend Thursday mornings together on WBAL-AM in the glow of the “On Air” sign, with Beller as a regular weekly co-host on Elliker’s successful AM talk radio show.

Radio is a shared bond between Elliker and Beller since they shared the microphone on a popular program on WMBC in the 1980s. An active supporter of UMBC’s baseball team, Beller is also an Emmy-winning editor and the president of Kit & Kaboodle Productions. And in addition to The Shari Elliker Show (which she has hosted since 2007), Elliker is an actress and an in-demand voice for narration, commercials and other promotions in the Baltimore-Washington area and elsewhere.

Why does radio remain a vital medium?

Beller: When you express an opinion on Shari’s show, you know it’s going to spark something in a lot of people up and down the East Coast. I used to come on and say, “What ails me?” And the phones would light up. And people won’t have this conversation with you on a side street, but they will on the radio.

Elliker: Radio is an interesting medium – and especially talk radio – because it is unscripted. It is a very intimate medium. People are talking directly to you. You have one instrument: your voice. That’s what makes it so personal. In your car. I am talking to you. And it’s a big complement to be invited into people’s car, or office or home.

What was having a radio show together at UMBC in the ’80s like?

Beller: Shari and I have great chemistry. Always have, always will. Sometimes listeners will ask if we work together, have dated, or were married.

Elliker: We have that basis of resentment there. You dated my roommate. (Laughter.)

Beller: I was in the sports department at WMBC, and I had my own show on Wednesday night. The things I was doing on the radio you could not do today. It was very unpolitically correct. It wasn’t risqué…

Elliker: (Interrupts, with laughter.) Well, maybe it was a little bit…

Beller: I invited her to be on the show with me.

Elliker: And I’d come over after ballet class and do the show.

Beller: We just started coming up with bits. We had hilarious PSAs. (Laughs.) I don’t know if we’d want to mention some of them…

Elliker: (Laughing.) No. And I was the station’s general manager, so if you weren’t going to get in trouble with me, you weren’t going to get in trouble.

How formative of an experience was working at UMBC’s radio station in that era?

Elliker: The only hands-on experience I got at UMBC was at the station… As an Option II student, we didn’t have a chance to get our hands on a lot of equipment – be it camera equipment or audio equipment. The courses were a lot of theory. Being at the radio station was really the place where we could play house. Where we could pretend that we were doing what we wanted to do.

Beller: There was no one standing over your shoulder. You had to watch what you said, yes. But you could play what you wanted. And have fun and do comedy. I would tell Shari that I was going to the bathroom and then run out and call the station…

Elliker: The radio station was the single most valuable experience I had at UMBC.

Beller: It had an almost “WKRP” feel to it. There were so many characters. And when you didn’t have class, you could come hang out at the station…

Elliker: There were no fraternities, no sororities. That was something that UMBC didn’t offer at that time. You had to make your own fun.

— Richard Byrne ’86