The Dresher Center for the Humanities invites applications for two Residential Faculty Research Fellowships for spring 2016. Funding is intended to support and promote significant humanities research at UMBC. The Dresher Center welcomes proposals from all full-time, tenured and tenure-track faculty members pursuing humanities research in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.  Applications are especially encouraged from, but not limited to, full-time faculty with appointments in departments and programs with a humanities focus. Two fellowships are available. Proposals will be reviewed by the Dresher Center Advisory Board, with decisions by mid-July 2014.

Dresher Center Residential Research Fellows will receive release from teaching (up to two course releases) in order to work on a significant humanities research project or the training necessary to embark on such a project. Faculty wishing to develop expertise in a new field or discipline towards a future project are also encouraged to apply. Each fellow will have the use of a private office in the Dresher Center and will be awarded $500 to hire an undergraduate research assistant (junior or senior) for the semester. 

During spring 2016, fellows will reside at least one day per week in the Center, conduct two works-in-progress talks (CURRENTS and Fellows and Others), and participate actively in Dresher Center programs. Upon completion of their fellowship, fellows will serve a two-year term on the Dresher Center advisory board.

For information and an application: http://dreshercenter.umbc.edu/scholarly-resources/internal-residential-fellowship-program/ 

Contact Jessica Berman, Director, with any questions: jberman@umbc.edu 

The Sports Zone was packed Wednesday night, November 12, for the 5^th  annual UMBC Idea Competition. Nine ideas were pitched to a standing room only crowd and a panel of three judges.  Stakes were high – awards ranged from $250 to $750 and the ideas were original and very broad.

For the first time in competition history there was a tie for 1^st place.  Patrick Wheltle’s idea for ‘Electronic Triage Tags’ and Andres Camacho’s idea, ‘True Greens,’ both took home first place and $750 in cash prizes. Wheltle also won the competition’s Best Pitch, earning him an additional $250 in cash.

Wheltle’s idea attempts to revolutionize the current paper tagging method of triage identification, which hasn’t changed in 40 years. His idea, Electronic Triage Tags, would help to identify injured people during a mass casualty such as a terrorist attack or natural disaster when there is a high need to find people, identify them, and to get them to the hospital as quickly and efficiently as possible. The electronic tags are reusable, and transmit a minimal amount of information about the patient (gender, approximate age, treatment level, etc.) about 30 feet. Each tag would operate on a mesh network, strengthening each tag's power and distance based on the number used. 

Upon winning, Wheltle stated, “It feels really good to have won. But it isn’t the winning that felt the best. It is the vote of confidence from the judges and the facilitator saying that this idea might actually have a chance of success.”  Wheltle plans to utilize his $1,000 in winnings to “assemble a team, buy the necessary parts and try to build a basic prototype” so he can feel as confident going into the Cangialosi Business Innovation Competition in the spring as he did for this competition.

Camacho, who jumped on stage armed with a head of lettuce and two flats of micro salad greens, explained his idea was to install hoop houses, a type of greenhouse, on campus or nearby. True Greens idea is a group effort that included members of The Garden project including Sarah Miller, Tom Eliason, Samual Buettner, and Jack Neumeir. The idea is a student focused group that looks to bring in different groups and majors in a very interdisciplinary approach, e.g. engineering students could help to build the houses, environmental scientists could help with soil testing, etc. He wants True Greens to be able to supply True Grits with nutritious vegetables that “we can slather in ranch dressing.” The micro greens could also be sold in a farmer’s market fashion, or a CSA model, to students and faculty/staff. 

True Greens plans to use the team’s winnings as “seed funding…literally, we’re buying seeds.” They also plan to buy soil and an automatic watering system for their space in the greenhouse. This coming spring the True Greens project will be part of the INDS 430 course curriculum and students in the class will help them grow micro greens and interface with Chartwells.

The third place spot went to Nitin Sampathi for his mobile application idea called Indi– Exploration and Exercise. The app looks to combine a person’s interests with exercise. ”You tell the system some things you love doing. It searches your area for that pizza shop and bookstore you want to find and spits out a map for you to do a 1, 3, 5…mile walk or bike ride with two stops along the way” says Sampathi. The app would also locate bike sharing sites close by and tell you where to drop it off if it’s a one way trip. He won $250 to put toward his idea which he says he will continue to develop.

Winners were chosen by a combination of scores from the voting audience and the judging panel consisting of three entrepreneurial alums: Mike Adelstein, President and CEO, Potomac Photonics, Lily Bengfort, serial entrepreneur and President, UAS Safeflight, and Peter Parker, Director of Business Development, Early Charm Ventures, LLC.

Jon Spelman and Theatre Project are seeking Administrative and/or Artistic Intern Assistance for the upcoming production of "THE PROSTATE DIALOGUES AND TALES OF THE TELLYWACKER"

The BSO public relations department is responsible for the organization's public image and for strategic media relations surrounding all Orchestra programming, special events, presentations, major announcements and more. This internship is an excellent opportunity for those interested in learning about media relations, or the workings of a major symphony orchestra or a nonprofit organization.

The BSO’s marketing department promotes the many aspects of the world-class Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The BSO presents nearly 130 concerts throughout the season across a diverse range of programming including Off the Cuff, Classical Series, SuperPops and mid-week education concerts serving public, private schools and home-school students in Baltimore, Baltimore City, Montgomery, Prince George’s and Howard counties.

Museum Summary:

The mission of Port Discovery Children’s Museum, one of the nation’s top 5 children’s museums, is to connect purposeful play and learning. Our goal is to make a positive impact on the lives of children and their families by providing innovative public exhibits and activities, offering programs that respond to community needs and serving as an alternative educational resource for schools, teachers, and families. Port Discovery is a safe, invigorating, and nurturing place where children and families learn together through play.

Young Audiences/Arts for Learning, founded in Baltimore in 1950, is the country’s foremost arts-in-education network. The Maryland chapter of Young Audiences (YAMD) provides over 5,000 arts education opportunities for students, artists, and educators throughout the state each year. Our vision is that one day all students will have the opportunity to imagine, create and realize their full potential through the arts.

The Program Assistant provides assistance to the Program Officer responsible for a set of programs in order to provide program support and general administrative support. Program areas for this position fall under the umbrella of the Maryland Center for the Book and include One Maryland One Book, Letters About Literature, Literary Walking Tours, Book Festivals, and reading and discussion programs.

Portrait Garden is a series of audio and photographic portraits of eleven women incarcerated at Maryland Correctional Institute for Women in Jessup, MD, culminating a 1-1/2 year long collaboration between Ruby Award winning artist and Associate Professor of Visual Arts Lynn Cazabon. In the collaboration the inmates created perennial gardens on the prison grounds consisting of plants chosen to represent each woman, and Professor Cazabon recorded interviews with each about the selected plants and her past and present experiences with gardening. The completed portraits are photographs of the selected plants that were planted and cultivated over the course of a year, displayed with a short textual excerpt from the audio interviews and QR codes, which when scanned with a mobile device, play the full interview with each woman. The complete set of images and audio interviews are available through the project website: http://portraitgarden.org

For the month of December, Portrait Garden will be displayed as a series of 100 posters in trains within the Baltimore Light Rail system. This public dissemination is conceived as a moving gallery designed to bring the women metaphorically into the community of Baltimore City.