IMPORTANT UPDATE 5/6/16: DUE TO WEATHER CONDITIONS, THE COOKOUT WILL BE HELD TOMORROW, SATURDAY, MAY 7, AT THE UMBC CAMPUS, COMMONS BUILDING, 2ND FLOOR, GAME ROOM.

You are invited to come, bring your friends, family, and anyone who supports your journey through graduate school. This event is free. Graduate students from all schools within the University System of Maryland (USM) are invited!

Here is a list, if your school is listed, you are invited! http://www.usmd.edu/institutions/

Alumni, faculty, and staff are invited.

Friends and family members of students who have participated in PROMISE are invited. 

If you are from another school, e.g., Howard, Hopkins, GW, and have come to a PROMISE event in the past such as SSI, you are also invited to participate.

Please register below.

Register for the PROMISE Friends and Family Cookout and Celebration of Graduates:

If you are graduating from a USM institution with an M.S. or Ph.D., please send an email to promisestaff@gmail.com with your name, school, department, and degree, by 9 AM, Friday, April 29, 2016, so that we can recognize you at the event.

Date & Time: 

• Saturday, May 7, 2016
• 1:00 – 4:00 PM (Honoring Graduates at 3 PM)

Location UPDATE 5/6/16:

UMBC Campus

1000 Hilltop Circle

Baltimore, MD 21250

Commons Building, 2nd Floor

Game Room

Directions:

PDF | Google Maps

Parking:

Parking is free on weekends. The permits are not enforced. The nearest parking lot is the Commons Drive Garage. PDF | Google Maps

This event provides food, fun, connections, and networking. Come join the PROMISE Cookout!

YM

Beginning with Payroll 2016021 the Office of Contract and Grant Accounting (OCGA) will implement a Retro Review Procedure to ensure compliance with the UMBC ​Policy on ​​Cost Transfer​s and the UMBC Cost Transfer Procedures (both are attached). The review procedure will be performed on an after-the-fact basis and therefore will not affect the current payroll processing schedule. Please note that all Retro’s will be included in the review process and a member of the OCGA department will communicate with the project department administrator to obtain copies of required supporting documentation where necessary. The procedure will include the review of the following items:

1. The PI or Department Administrator’s authorization/approval of the Retro;

2. The completeness of the “Reason” explanation for the Retro - it should describe in detail the need for revising the original charge, i.e., explain why the error occurred and how the expense is appropriate to the project to which it is being moved;

3. If the Retro is submitted over 90 days from the date of the original charge,  an additional explanation as to why the error was not discovered and corrected within the 90 day timeframe is required.

Please contact Tammy Ray if you have any questions regarding the Retro review process at tross@umbc.edu or ​at ​extension 51503.

Thank you in advance for your assistance with this process.  

410-455-1489 Office

410-455-1916 Fax

All Time Low, a pop punk band from Towson, finally broke their musical silence this past week by premiering a new music video for their song “Missing You.” The song was featured on their most recent album, “Future Hearts,” which was released in April of 2015.

Alex Gaskarth (lead vocals and guitar), Jack Barakat (guitar), Zack Merrick (bass) and Rian Dawson (drums), formed the band in 2003 and have consistently toured and released new material for the better part of 12 years. Six studio albums, televised performances such as the 2015 MTV Fandom Awards, and countless tours and headlining shows later, their silence is more so an assurance than unsettling for their fans.

The “Missing You” video itself shows the band skyping fans all over the world in February, thanking them for supporting their music. What makes this video unlike most these days is that the fans have the chance to tell the band how much their music means to them in return. This video and the lyrics themselves holds a greater message that All Time Low is always there for their fans, even through the occasional hiatus.

In a statement accompanying their video on their Facebook page, the band told fans that they “made the ‘Missing You’ video as a way to connect” with them; “to emphasize just how powerful music can be in bringing people together. It exists to let everyone know that they are never alone.” Music isn’t just about the music, and that in itself is something All Time Low understands best.

They’re great communicating with their fans, which is seen through their interactions on Twitter and their creation of an exclusive merchandise membership called the “Hustler Club.” They mentioned to them directly that this video and song “at its core, is about connection, and the community we’ve built around this band. It’s a call to everyone feeling a little messed up or singled out. This video shows that we’re all in it for the same reasons, because with music, and this amazing community, we don’t ever have to feel alone.”

All Time Low is always more than ready to share their hometown pride with fans and has frequently made a point to end their tours in the city that helped make them into the band they are; they even wrote a song titled “For Baltimore” on their 2012 album, “Don’t Panic.” They began performing some of their very first shows in a former Towson venue called “The Recher,” and were the closing act of the very last show held at the venue in March 2013.

The band’s next scheduled concert date is May 21 at the Baltimore Preakness InfieldFest with The Chainsmokers, Fetty Wap and a few other artists. Other than a hometown show, their upcoming tour dates are scarce to none with only one other U.S and two European shows.

They spent the majority of 2015 touring for the Future Hearts Tour and the Back to the Future Hearts Tour, so it is only fair that they take time for themselves. A similar hiatus was seen in 2014, which led to their new album “Future Hearts,” which does anything but disappoint.

For fans, this silence may seem uncharacteristic, but it is definitely not a bad thing. It can only mean that their next album and tour will be well worth the wait.

The post “All Time Low” building up to an all time high? appeared first on The Retriever.

It’s been twelve years since she has released an album and six years since she has gone on tour. Recently, Janet Jackson announced to fans that she was canceling her tour to start a family with her now-husband Wissam al-Mana. Janet Jackson had scheduled over 50 shows all across America and managed to sell out at every show, only to cancel all of them to say she wants to have a baby.

To fans it was quite surprising that Janet Jackson decided to cancel her tour. Creatively, “Unbreakable” is probably one of her best albums. Jackson was honest and truthful, and the evolution of her art was beautiful and unique, which made it one of her most successful albums to date. Many were looking forward to seeing Janet Jackson back on stage with new dance routines, and costumes, singing her new singles along with classics like “That’s the way love goes” and “Together Again.” Fans paid up to $1000 to have front row seats and have the opportunity to meet the songstress, only for it to be canceled. Probably the worst part of this entire situation is that Jackson is not planning on giving any refunds.

For many years the Jackson family has been crumbling, since the death of the family’s most prominent member, Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson’s physician Dr. Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter of Michael Jackson, Paris Jackson attempted to commit suicide, and Jermaine Jackson has had martial problems that were very much in the public light. In the past seven years, the Jackson family has been through a traumatizing time, for all members of their family. During that time, Janet Jackson fell out of the public eye to handle her family’s issues, which is completely understandable. Yet the Jackson family has continued to stay strong and fight against public degradation.

But in the past two years, it could have been assumed that the family was finally getting on the right path, Janet Jackson included. When Janet Jackson recently got married and released her album, she had full-fledged support from her family including her new husband. Her upcoming tour was supposed to launch her into a new chapter of her career. Whether Janet Jackson once again has immediate family or marriage issues,  I hope Jackson will resolve these issues so she can get back on the road, so she can still have fans, and listeners.

The post Janet Jackson starts a family, but hurts her fans appeared first on The Retriever.

From the outside, the Old Theatre located next to The Commons appears to be entirely normal, but within an evening of ghoulish entertainment is in store. Presented by UMBC’s Musical Theatre Club, “The Addams Family” musical brings a peculiar life to the theater, despite the decorative gravestones that litter the stage and spout standard phrases such as “RIP” and “Here Lies Good Old Fred.” A gnarled tree devoid of leaves and color looms over the entire performance, with an ornate door at the center. Other decorations – walls, chairs, tables and more doors – are rolled on and off the stage throughout the entire production.

It’s a sold-out performance, with a diverse audience filled with students and the general public – all of whom erupt with giddy applause as the lights dim and a pale, shaking hand emerges from behind the door in the twisted tree and begins the trademark “Addams Family” Ba-Da-Da-Dum (Snap Snap).

It is this nostalgic mentality that carries most of the musical, which is mostly lacking in plot. Almost every joke relies heavily on the audience being familiar with the original “Addams Family” and while this could have easily worked in the play’s favor – it is a rare American that is not familiar with the morbid little clan – it begins to come across as  too cartoonish and distracts from the glaring imperfections in writing.

The story seemed to want to pay tribute to the source material, yet for all of the reference and elbow-nudges towards to audience, there were plenty of changes made that made no real contribution to the narrative. The Addams family homestead is located in the middle of Central Park – perhaps as a commentary of the strangeness of the New York lifestyle to outsiders? – and for all of the family’s criticism of lovey-dovey rhyming and romantic tropes, there is a great deal of rhyming and flower-giving and ukulele-playing done by the unwholesome family themselves. Every convention that would have been loathed by the titular family makes an appearance during this performance, from twittering birds to pastel dresses.

Wednesday Addams (Grace Chandler) has fallen in love with a boy from Ohio – “The sweet state?!” exclaims Gomez Addams in horror, cartoonishly slamming his hand to his forehead. It’s a classic case of proper-boy-meets-girl-from-crazy-family and when his all-American, wholesome family meets to decidedly eccentric Addams family, nothing else but hi-jinks could ensue. But could this generic middle-American boy be right for Wednesday Addams in all of her ambivalent glory? In the words of Gomez, “Were the 80s right for the drum machine?”

It’s a blandly over-done story that could have happened to any family, but for some reason needed to happen to the Addams Family. The cast gave it their all, belting out incredible numbers and darting across the stage with the greatest of ease, and the audience seemed to appreciate every nod-of-the-head to the classic television show. Mason Catharini seems born to portray Gomez Addams in all his macabre charm, but perhaps the most shining performance came from Alyssa Wellman-Houde as the poem-spouting, pastel-wearing, middle-class American housewife with a suppressed darkness that comes boiling to the surface.

However, for all of the play’s short-comings, it was a genuine and fun to watch. The audience snapped along to the theme song, giggled at all of the winks to the classic TV show, applauded throughout the surprisingly understated tango scene between Gomez and Morticia, and gave a standing ovation as the curtains closed. There was an energy running amongst the people in the packed theater throughout the entire show, and a liveliness to every performance that made the ghoulish family even more charming than ever before.

The post The Addams Family delights, but suffers from monstrous plot appeared first on The Retriever.