Welcome to UMBC

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:25:00 -0400
campus-culture

The final preparations are complete, and the great re-gathering has begun. The campus paths and corridors soon will vibrate to the steps of thirty thousand feet. It's Welcome Week, power has been restored, and our doors are open.

If you’re just starting here, the first thing to know about UMBC is that it is neither a collection of buildings nor a catalog of courses, but a confluence of stories. Each of us has one: we started somewhere else; we lived, and we learned. We all arrive at UMBC with something to offer. UMBC’s tremendous diversity signifies many things to us, not least that each one of us—student, faculty or staff member—has something that we can, and must, contribute to make this community whole. Each of us can be and become our best selves here; each of us belongs.

For newcomers, a part of what this means is that you are inheriting a collective story—our history in progress—to which your story is now joined. UMBC came into being a little less than 45 years ago, and its founding era lives in the memory of people still on campus every day. We are a community of pioneers. Our founding faculty members were brilliant, young and energetic. Our culture was inclusive and democratic: UMBC didn’t even lay sidewalks until campus planners observed where and how people wanted to walk. We started in the shadow of College Park, but have developed a distinctive identity of our own: an honors university, a hub of innovation, a mosaic, nimble, up-and-coming, a caring community constantly being created by its members. By you.

You’ve arrived at an auspicious moment: a time of growth and change. We’re a year away from opening the new Performing Arts and Humanities Building (which will be the largest on campus), and are looking ahead to expanding our science facilities. Plans are taking shape for a wave of new opportunities to make a difference on campus and beyond. In your time we will be asking ourselves: What do we want to be, and what shall we commit ourselves to accomplishing together, by the time of UMBC’s 50th anniversary? That future is your future too.

So welcome! I’m glad you’re here at last, and I’m looking forward to all that you have to share.

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