Recently, I’ve been buoying myself in this onslaught of political shitstorming by listening to a self-care playlist. The playlist is chock full of all of the songs that help me get by when it’s hard to navigate the world and ones that I can sing very loudly.

One song that I gravitate towards lately is the Talking Heads’s “This Must Be The Place.”

Click here for text version of This Must Be The Place lyrics.

This song has a lot of meaning for me. It’s the song that my dad serenaded my mother with at their wedding. “This Must Be The Place” is the crucible of my parents’ love, so it’s sort of the thing that formed me. It’s a song I sing to myself when I want to cry and when I want to smile and when I want to scream. I sang it with my dad through a vocal harmonizer as we welcomed 2017 (and threw 2016 into the fire pit). I think my mom cried a bit, but I couldn’t see because I was crying.

Coming back to work at the Women’s Center, I am, yet again, thinking about this song’s resonance and its meaning and its magic.

The Women’s Center is home for me. It is a beacon when trauma strikes and when justice is sought. The Women’s Center simultaneously grounds us and lifts us up—like any good home does. It is a place of love, warmth, truth, and hope. A place so rare and crucial right now.

It would be an understatement to say I am happy to be back at UMBC and at the Women’s Center. I am elated, I am at peace, I am confident. This space, this place—the Women’s Center—fulfills the promises of feminist, queer, radical social justice theories by providing a home for me and all the other community members who occupy its world.

As the Special Projects Coordinator (a title Jess lovingly made for me), I am diving back into the constantly evolving environment of the Women’s Center. Over the semester I will be collaborating alongside staff and interns to enhance programming, expand social media outreach efforts, and design marketing initiatives. In short, doing everything I love to do for an organization I love.

I am so thankful to be back home at the Women’s Center and at UMBC. I am beyond ecstatic to join a team that inspires me everyday, and that I care about so deeply. I am enlivened by the opportunity to continue working with a mission centered on intersectional feminism and critical social justice.

Home, is where I want to be

But I guess I’m already there

I come home, she lifted up her wings

I guess that this must be the place.

The Women's Center is excited to announce that the Returning Women Students Scholarships Application for 2017-2018 is now available. The deadline for submission is Friday, March 31, 2017.

This common application enables eligible students to apply for more than one of the Returning Women Students Scholarships using the same application. The four available scholarships are:

• Charlotte W. Newcombe Scholarship & The UMBC Scholarship for Mature Students
• AEGON Scholarship
• The Richard & Roselyn Bryson Neville Memorial Fund for Returning Women Scholarship
• The Rosalie Tydings Business and Professional Women’s Scholarship

All undergraduate students over the age of 25 and with at least 60 credits may be eligible. You must be completing your first undergraduate degree. Each scholarship has additional eligibility requirements which can be found on the common application instructions. 

The application is attached to this announcement. Please be sure to read over the eligibility requirements before applying. 

If you have any questions concerning the application process or the scholars program requirements, please contact the Women's Center director, Jess Myers, at womens.center@umbc.edu. 

We will also be hosting 2 information sessions related to the application process and scholars program requirements. The information sessions will be held in the Women's Center on Wednesday, February 22nd from 12-12:45pm OR Thursday, March 16th from 4-4:45pm. Each year, applicants submit applications with errors that often impact their consideration for a scholarship. We highly encourage all applicants to attend an info session before submitting their application. 

Applications are due Friday, March 31, 2017

Cardiovascular Research: Engineering a Translational Experience (CREATE)
May 30, 2017 - August 4, 2017

The Penn State Department of Biomedical Engineering's Research Experience for Undergraduates Students (REU) program, "Cardiovascular Research: Engineering a Translational Experience (CREATE)," runs May 30 - August 4, 2017 and is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. 

The program provides a variety of research opportunities for undergraduate students in cardiovascular analysis.

Students will have an opportunity to join a number of cutting-edge research teams that focus on furthering the understanding of cardiovascular diseases and developing medical interventions to treat related conditions. Research projects will emphasize the development of implantable devices, artificial gene therapy and drug delivery systems.

Students participating in the program will engage in a wide range of biomedical engineering research and participate in weekly group activities. These actives provide an overview of current technologies and expose students to the research challenges in each area.

Students will be challenged to utilize a creative skill set to innovate new solutions for the betterment of human health and society.

Applications for the Penn State Department of Biomedical Engineering CREATE REU program are currently being accepted. We welcome applications from current Penn State undergraduate students as well as undergraduate students from outside institutions, particularly those enrolled in science and engineering programs and those maintaining a strong interest in cardiovascular research. Travel assistance and a research stipend are provided to eligible students.

Meet Kristofer,

He is a Psychology major and an URA Scholar. His future goal is to receive his PhD in either Clinical-Community Psychology or Community Psychology. From there, he wants to bring his skill set to his family home of Hawaii. He plans on working with the indigenous population to develop programs to rebuild and increase empowerment within the community in the hopes of halting the damage being caused by being a trans-colonial state.

Kristofer's research will explore the fastest-growing racial group in the United States: Asian immigrants. Asian immigrants experience a large amount of racial discrimination that includes the behavioral practices or social structures used to denigrate individuals of a group based on ethnic identity or skin color. Racial discrimination in Asian Americans has been shown to decrease the psychological well-being of those that perceive it. His research aims to examine: (1) the association between first-generation Asian immigrant mothers’ perceptions of racial discrimination they experience in the U.S. and their psychological well-being, and (2) the moderating role of maternal perceptions of economic opportunity and social standing in the U.S. in the association between maternal perceptions of racial discrimination and maternal psychological well-being.

Read more about his path to research here…