Q & a With President Hrabowski
UMBC Eats sat down with President Hrabowski to discuss food, healthy choices, and his experiences as a leader.
How is the University encouraging the campus to lead healthy lifestyles?
We are always encouraging the students, faculty, and staff to exercise and make healthy food choices. There are a number of efforts to discourage smoking and inappropriate drinking.
Because all of us are under a great deal of stress, there are a number of workshops on how to manage and reduce stress. It is also important to exercise, and it helps with stress. I am always encouraged by the Midnight Madness activity at the end of the semester and when I get a chance to go over there and see people laughing. Laughter is really great, to be able to not take things too seriously and encouraging community, encouraging people to help each other.
In the past few years, there has been a lot of media attention around food issues with the book Fast Food Nation, Food Inc, and others. Do you think the media is exaggerating the problem?
We should be very concerned about obesity and bad eating habits. Large numbers of Americans are overweight and we see that children are making unhealthy choices often because they are given the wrong choices in schools. School systems have been working to become healthier in their options for children. I would say we can never talk too much about these problems.
Students at UMBC are encouraged to develop leadership skills and prepare to become future leaders in their field. Was it a conscious decision that you made to become a leader?
I was a child leader in the civil rights movement and I became involved because I wanted to see a change in the way children were treated. I was very fortunate to observe leaders that were compassionate, smart, hard working with strong values focused on making a difference in the lives of other people.True leadership is not about one person, but about groups of people that with a vision of what they want the world to become. Later on, as I became increasingly excited about education I thought about becoming a leader in the academic world.
I am very impressed by the leadership opportunities students have on campus. These opportunities give students, who will be leaders in their fields, a chance to think about what it means to lead. Students in college are preparing for professional careers and the best way to become a leader is to get a chance to do it while in college.
What valuable lessons have you learned about being a leader?
In a campus that is healthy, the term we use is ‘shared governance’. It means that leadership is spread among a lot of people. Faculty, staff, and students all serve as leaders. We learn to listen carefully to the voices of people affected by the decisions of leaders. Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned is that the quality of the decision making will depend upon the trust among the people making the decision and the willingness of the people called leaders to listen to the voices of others.
Special thanks to President Hrabowski for meeting with Food Blogger Alison to discuss these issues.
- Alison
Hey all,
After some recent questions regarding Daedalus’ recent post on the new athletics logo, I asked around and was put in touch with Miriam Tillman, Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Creative Services for UMBC. Ms. Tillman took the time to answer a few questions I sent her via email. Here are my questions followed by her answers.
1) When did your office and Athletics decide to implement a new logo, and what led to this decision? Why change it now, as opposed to last year, or next year, or some other time?
The germ for this started back in April 08 when Jim Lord, UMBC’s Creative Services design director (and a UMBC Visual Arts alum), was watching the NCAA game and was bothered by how our mascot logo looked on the scoreboard next to Georgetown’s. He began sketching some new ideas and looking into what other schools–both in our division and in our region–were doing with their logos. He found that the style had changed a lot (see his paragraph about mascot logo design trends), and as our teams were getting more attention, he wanted the logo to look as good as it could. (He’d actually done the final design on the current mascot logo a number of years back, but since he’d inherited the design from someone else at the end of the process, he wasn’t able to give it the attention he’d wanted.) Last spring Jim approached Athletics to see if they’d be interested in a new mascot logo, and they were. With regard to your question, the only timing consideration was to start soon enough to have one ready for the bookstore’s annual order in January (see #3).
2) Students were able to vote on one of three choices listed on myumbc. Where did these choices originate? Were they finalists among a bigger sample, or were they the only choices from the beginning?
The choices came from a series that evolved over time as Jim spent the summer testing a number of variations with student athletes, coaches and Athletics staff, and adapting them as he got feedback. He also displayed some options in The Commons at Homecoming, where students, faculty, staff and alums voted on their favorites and gave him direct feedback. During the course of all these meetings and conversations, some folks were interested in a realistic dog, others in something more cartoon-like. Some wanted a fierce dog, others wanted one that evoked loyalty. So he created options that responded to the range of perspectives.
3) Where did the funding for this project come from? Strictly Athletics’ budget, or more out of general marketing for UMBC as a whole?
There’s no extra funding involved, since we’re phasing this in. We deliberately timed the process to coincide with the annual order that the bookstore places in January for the next fall. In other words, this will give the bookstore designs for their vendors but not create any new expense. As Athletics buys new uniforms or orders letterhead, they’ll roll this in, but not expend additional resources any time soon.
4) Is there an expectation of the revenue generated from sales incorporating the new mascot to negate the initial cost?
Not an issue, since there’s no additional expense.
5) What affect did/does this have on student fees or athletic fees?
Ditto.
tl;dr: Jim Lord, the UMBC Creative Services guy behind this, wanted our mascot to look good since we’ve been getting more national attention. Initial options were displayed and voted on during homecoming. No additional cost because the new design will be implemented with the bookstore’s scheduled merchandise order.
Thanks again to Miriam Tillman for providing this information.
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Hey all, After some recent questions regarding Daedalus’ recent post on the new athletics logo, I asked around and was put in touch with Miriam Tillman, Assistant Vice President of Marketing and...
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Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:35:47 -0500
Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:35:47 -0500
UMBC BookScrooge Updates
The BookScrooge staff sent in a little end-of-semester update today…
Hope everyone had a good semester. Here are a few quick updates:
1) Our student orgs fundraiser kicked off today. If you are part of a student org and want to get in on the action email bookscrooge AT gmail DOT com for more info.
2) We made a bunch of fliers that can be found in the photos section, see if you can find all of them posted around campus. Two of them we opted not to post. Despite the overwhelming positive feedback, we received a lot of negative feedback too. They are posted in the photos section, however, for you to view if you feel so inclined.
3) We’re finishing software for the new book system as soon as exams are over! Keep following us, we’ll let you know as soon as we finish!
4) We will put out an update when the site relaunches, be sure to invite your UMBC friends to the fan page so they get the word too.
Good luck on exams and have a happy holiday and break.
As always, we strive to keep your inbox as free from clutter as possible by limiting the number of updates we send out.
In the Fall of 2009, Susanne Sutton, lecturer of German with the Modern Languages, Linguistics and Intercultural Communication Department (MLLI) taught an Advanced German 303 topics course, "German Immigration into the US". 
