Here in the Office of Institutional Advancement, we are always working hard to support the university and connect our donors with causes they care most about. We would like to introduce our donors — to whom we are so grateful — to the people who help make those things happen. Today, we’ll be hearing from Leanna Powell ’08, English, who has just returned to UMBC as our Assistant Director of Annual Giving. 

Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.

Name: Leanna Powell

Job Title: Assistant Director of Annual Giving

Focus Area: Student philanthropy, crowdfunding, direct mail

Years at UMBC: .5 as staff, 4 as a student

Grad Year: 2008

Where are you from originally? I grew up in southern Maryland near D.C., but I consider myself a Baltimore gal now after 10+ years in the city.

What do you love most about UMBC? In a city so packed with higher ed institutions, UMBC feels like a well-kept secret. The campus is serene, the people are sweet and low-key, and yet you see student and alumni achievements popping up all over the state in the arts, research sciences, and public policy. Light City is a great example — I’m excited to get to rep for my college at the Inner Harbor.

What’s your favorite thing about your job? I majored in writing, but immediately got swept up by nonprofit work, so I’m glad to have the chance to put all of my professors’ hard work to good use (shoutouts to Chris Corbett, Jody Shipka and Orianne Smith!). I have also spent a lot of time working with student philanthropy on the nonprofit beneficiary side, so I’m glad to get the chance to apply that experience in helping Retrievers fundraise for their own amazing projects through our campus crowdfunding site.

Who do you admire and why? Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are two of my biggest idols. To me, they represent a generation of women who are comfortable being smart, funny, and supportive of one another — and aren’t afraid to speak up or to take criticism.

Have you ever done anything crazy or out of the ordinary? Now that we’re in short-sleeves weather, some of the first things people notice about me are my tattoos. Most of them have a lot of personal significance, but I did get one on impulse one afternoon with a friend — matching dinosaurs, to remind us not to take ourselves too seriously.

Tell us what you loved most about UMBC on Retriever Stories!

[April 11, 2016 on Hrabowski Fund for Innovation website]

UMBC is proud to announce the projects awarded grants in the fall 2015 round of the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation competition.

IMPLEMENTATION AND RESEARCH GRANTS

Virtual Reality Design for Science: Integrating Research, Communication, and Learning for Interdisciplinary Training – A team led by Jian Chen, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, will harness the growing interest and popularity of virtual reality through the creation of a new course designed to challenge graduate and senior undergraduate students to collaboratively write, review, and critique research proposals. The project-oriented class will introduce students to the use of hybrid reality displays, 3D modeling, visualization, and fabrication to conduct and analyze scientific research. The new course embraces the university's goal of advancing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research activity.

Designing and Developing Effective Mobile Applications – A team led by Viviana Cordova, Assistant Professor of Visual Arts, and Nilanjan Banerjee, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, will create a new interdisciplinary project that teaches both designers and developers the life cycle and project management of mobile application development. Working with professional clients, visual arts and computer science students will use teamwork to tackle real-world projects with deadlines, milestones, and budget constraints. Throughout the semester, students from the Advanced Interface Design and Mobile Programming classes will collaborate to apply their design and programming experience to develop smartphone applications for clients.

Winners from the spring 2016 submission will be notified sometime in May. Proposals for the next round of Innovation Fund grants are due by October 14, 2016. Please consider submitting an application. For more information about the fund, visit innovationfund.umbc.edu.

The Hrabowski Fund for Innovation, developed with support of major grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Heinz Awards, is a testament to our strong track record of finding novel approaches to teaching and scholarship. The Fund exemplifies our commitment to being a leading public university through investing in faculty initiatives that fuel creativity and enterprise and challenging students to take an active role in their education.

UMBC is truly inspired by the creative ideas heard each day and are delighted to be able to support more of them through this fund.

UMBC is excited to offer a variety of fun and stimulating academic programs this summer for middle school and high school students. The Summer Enrichment Experience (SEE) will bring the college experience to these students by offering a variety of opportunities in science, engineering, technology, the arts and humanities led by UMBC faculty, industry professionals and undergraduate students. These experiences are designed to spark participants’ passions and interests in these fields and tap into their creative talents, expand technical skills and hone their academic skills.

Please review the SEE Descriptions to learn more about each of the academic experiences. All the Information on the length of each experience, the dates, the instructors, program details and directions to our campus, as well as information on parking and mass transit transportation is included in their website.

The upcoming workshop scheduled for April 15 has been unfortunately cancelled as Edmund Pendleton, the speaker, has been called out of town on business.

Validating your Business Model will be rescheduled for Fall 2016, so be sure to keep checking for event dates. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

As the semester comes to a close, our events are as well. Our last Workshop of the semester will be held in entreSpace on April 25 during free hour.

The biannual Entrepreneurship Panel will also be coming up, as will the Cangialosi Business Competition, both on April 20th.

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience but we hope to see you at one of our other events!

Grading & The Blackboard Grade Center