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

Elver Alarcón: Todo sobre mi familia
Cristina Dalton: ¿Qué soy yo?
Ana Torres: Hacia los Estados Unidos
Claudia Zuniga: Mi mamá, mi héroe

Students in this graduate seminar explored the intersections of communication and culture within a framework of global digital exchanges and new media. We investigated the unique challenges and opportunities in the public sphere of the internet for global and intercultural communication, collaborative knowledge production, political and personal stories and narratives, and participatory media. Two students made place-based digital stories that are described and linked here.

Negotiating the Ameristani Kitchen by Autumn Reed This story takes place in my and Amar's kitchen in Millersville, a suburb south of Baltimore in Maryland, USA. In appearance the kitchen is typical of what one would expect to find in the United States, but the food cooked within is anything but typical. Food is not the only thing made in this space, but also cross-cultural and cross-gender connections. The multiethnic foods prepared in this space serve as a mediator both linking and mixing the East with the West and the male with the female. This kitchen is a borderland; a place where barriers are broken down and stereotypes transcended and not only those of an American female but also those of a Pakistani male, for culture flows in both directions. Therefore, at one level, this story is about two individuals working out their differences in the kitchen, but at another level, it serves as an example of the potential that we have, as cultural beings, to learn from one another.

The Secret by Lori Edmonds I had been wanting to make a video about raising "my" children for some time. Partly, I wanted to do this because I wanted to document that very rewarding and crazy time of my life and partly I wanted to do it because I had a very unique family and I thought others would find the story interesting. I was nearly finished writing it when a horrible event occurred with one of my children that I had not expected. I decided not to tell my original story after all but with encouragement returned to my original plan because it would also help me to emotionally deal with it. The result is one story that, in some ways, tells many stories. Yet, it is a simple story of life with its twists, turns, predicaments, and secrets. Thank you for being part of my audience. This story was made for you. If you are one of my children, I hope this reminds you of the experiences we have had together and the power of our relationship because of the experiences we have shared. If you are watching this as a native of the Westside, I hope you enjoy seeing your city through my eyes. If you have not lived in this city (or another like it) I hope you are intrigued by the power of this place. When I speak of power, I'm referring to the unlikely way that the previous history of this space spilled over into our lives. I am also talking about the ability this space had to knit together the lives of four people and their four different stories. I hope that you are moved as your unique experiences interact with this story. In that way, the power of that place will continue to live.

During the summer of 2009, UMBC’s New Media Studio teamed with the Center for History Education to offer a two-week workshop for Baltimore County K-12 teachers exploring the intersections of oral history and digital storytelling. The workshop was the culminating activity in CHE’s two-year “Making Master Teachers” program. Year One of the program focused on reading and research, while Year Two focused on incorporating primary sources in the classroom. The program was funded through the U.S. Department of Education's Teaching American History Grant Program. Teachers had an opportunity to learn classroom skills for creating their own work and developing student projects.

Projects from the workshop included "Hampton: A Revolutionary Place" .

Information for attendees : This summer workshop provides you with the opportunity to learn skills of digital storytelling that you will be able to use in your classrooms, both in delivering your own content and as a project option for your students' original work. In addition it will allow you to disseminate the work you did on Baltimore '68 and will provide UB with an innovative addition to its Baltimore '68 website. Since we are working under time constraints, we hope to come to the June sessions with a good idea of the form of the project, although the content can evolve over the course of the workshop. I propose that the Baltimore County high school group break into two teams and produce two digital stories about the uprising of April 1968 in Baltimore. I would suggest that each team takes a section of the UB Baltimore '68 driving tour (voted "Best Driving Tour for Visiting In-Laws" by City Paper and available at http://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/timeline/index.html) and flesh it out with primary documents, excerpts from oral histories, music, images and anything else that would be illuminating. Before and after shots would be particularly effective in telling the story of the events. The finished products could find a home on the UB and CHE websites. This project would build on research you have already begun, could draw on the resources we have collected on the website, and would contribute greatly to UB's effort to make this time period understandable to the public. I hope you will consider it.

Recommended readings We recommend reviewing these first articles during the initial week and guide the discussion around the question: What makes an effective digital story? Other questions could be: What is a digital story? and How might I use digital storytelling in the classroom? The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling The Art of Digital Storytelling These next two articles will be discussed in the second week. The discussion could may on: What are the barriers to implementing digital storytelling in the classroom? As an advocate, how could I overcome these hurdles? Implementation of Digital Storytelling in the Classroom Digital Storytelling: Moving from Promise to Practice ALSO, here is a link to the introductory chapters of the Digital Storytelling Cookbook: http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf