GRRL PARTS

In 2006, Susan McCully, a dramaturg and lecturer in UMBC’s Department of Theatre, decided to take action against a problem that seemed to crop every with every production: “In faculty meeting after faculty meeting, we would say ‘We have ten women in our scene class, and there just isn’t a decent play with substantial roles for even four women.’ And every theatre department has the same problem–I had this experience when I was in college.” Her solution was to inaugurate the annual “IN 10” festival, which commissioned short plays (most about ten minutes in length) with roles for female actors.

Now known as the GRRL PARTS festival, the tradition continues this year from March 2 through 6 at the UMBC Theatre with a presentation of three plays–two world premieres and one U.S. premiere–all directed by Eve Muson, an assistant professor in UMBC’s Department of Theatre. The commissioned works include Runaways by Ellen McLaughlin, whose plays have been staged throughout the U.S.; Snip, by Karen Hartman, whose multiple awards have included grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts; and What Is the Custom of Your Grief? by Timberlake Wertenbaker, a renowned British playwright who is a recipient of the New York Drama Critics Award.

McCully comments, “This is very engaging literature, and it’s the first time the plays as a group have had a global perspective. The three plays share a theme of young women–sisters, wives, mothers and lovers–bound together by desires and destinies beyond their control.”

Over the past seven years, GRRL PARTS has commissioned new plays by Heather McDonald (The Two Marys), Tina Howe (Milk and Water), Naomi Wallace (Duet for Water), Lee Blessing (Into You), Caridad Svich (Stepping on Water), Kia Corthron (Trickle), Phyllis Nagy (The One, The Other) and Naomi Iizuka (This Girl I Used to Know).

McCully plans to eventually publish all the commissioned works as an anthology. “The value of the anthology is that people will be able to pull from it according to their needs–these will be used by colleges and universities throughout the country.”

More information about the GRRL PARTS festival is available at http://www.umbc.edu/arts.

Dept of Theatre
Susan McCully
Eve Muson

(2/25/11)

Practical Idealism

On March 1, 1961, President Kennedy established the Peace Corps by executive order, initiating a program that has sent over 200,000 volunteers to promote global peace through service in 139 countries. The Shriver Peaceworker Program has been a natural extension of the Peace Corps since 1985, when the Shriver family created it to forge a pathway for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RCPVs) to become public service leaders.

The Shrivers later expanded and refined the Peaceworker Program, making it an integral part of the UMBC Shriver Center, where RCPVs now pursue graduate study while continuing their service work locally. More than 125 RCPVs have received advanced degrees through the UMBC program and over the last five years although just 15% of UMBC Peaceworkers have come from Maryland, 90% have chosen to stay and serve the Baltimore-DC region after completing the program.

The Peaceworker Program supports the Shriver Center’s mission to “address the need for remedies to the problems of our central cities,” extending beyond the primarily international mandate of the Peace Corps to tackle the challenges urban America is facing today. After all, reflected professor emeritus and former Peace Corps Member Ed Orser at a recent Peaceworker event, “Baltimore is a hard city to love, but at the same time, it’s a city that’s in so much need of love and so much need of understanding.”

No one understood this challenge better than Sargent Shriver, who served as first director of the Peace Corps and helped craft the Shriver Center’s mission statement. UMBC joined the Shriver family and the nation in mourning Shriver’s passing last month. Today, the campus community is committed to carrying on Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Sargent Shriver’s extraordinary legacy of public service.

At UMBC, the Peaceworker Program seeks “to educate and train a new generation of citizen leaders who are able to critically, creatively and responsibly address…complex economic, social and cultural problems.” Program alumnus and Practical Idealist Award recipient Richard Kimball ’10, Ph.D., health policy, used his period of service to redesign the Baltimore Homeless Census. Now affiliated with Johns Hopkins, he focuses on caregiving for people with long-term degenerative diseases.

UMBC Peaceworkers combine graduate study, intensive community service with Greater Baltimore community partners and ethical reflection to “intellectually and personally…integrate the practical, theoretical and moral dimensions of their experience.” Sally Scott (Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers) recognizes, “It’s very hard just on your own to go show up on some city street and say, ‘Hey, I’m here to help.’” The goal is that alumni, like Kimball, develop the knowledge, skills and community connections to identify and implement solutions to deep-rooted social problems.

Even at this time of fiscal challenges, there is broad recognition that service has the potential to profoundly impact society. President Obama signed into law the largest Peace Corps appropriation to-date for FY 2010: $400 million.

UMBC will celebrate the Peace Corps turning 50 – a tremendous milestone in service history – at “Bringing the World Home: Stories from 50 Years of the Peace Corps” on March 1 at Baltimore’s Creative Alliance. For more information on service opportunities and the Peaceworker Program, see the Shriver Center website or contact program Director Joby Taylor or Deputy Director Jennifer Arndt Robinson.

(2/25/11)

Value Judgments

On March 3, four philosophy students will become UMBC’s first Ethics Bowl team to compete in the national Ethics Bowl tournament. The National Ethics Bowl will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio as part of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics’ 20th anniversary meeting.

Although UMBC has previously participated in mock ethics bowls, this is the first year that the university has supported a registered team. The team placed third out of 16 in the Mid-Atlantic regional tournament, which was held on November 20.

An ethics bowl is structured similarly to a debate tournament. However, rather than being judged on whether their position is convincing, teams are judged on their ability to think through the moral implications of their possible decisions. The 40 teams invited to the National Ethics Bowl, who represent the top four teams from each of the 10 regional ethics bowls, were given 15 ethical issues to research. They will not know the specific question they have to answer until the day of the tournament.

“There’s excitement in having to think on your feet and find that loophole in your opponent’s argument. By the end you learn so much critical thinking-wise,” said Kayla Smith ’12, biological sciences and philosophy.

The ethics bowl team has met with Greg Ealick ’89, philosophy, and adjunct professor of philosophy, twice a week since the beginning of the semester to discuss the issues. The group has discussed moral dilemmas ranging from advertisements targeted towards children to alcoholic drinks enhanced with caffeine, from “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to hybrid animals.

In order to prepare, the group learned to look at the issues from all sides and consider the repercussions of potential decisions. For example, for a case on punishments for violating a school’s academic integrity policy, the students thought about how their possible position might affect the student, their classmates, their professor, the university and their future employers.

“The first time you see a case you see it from a certain perspective, but when you take the time to discuss it you start to see things about it that you didn’t see before,” said Nana Owusu-Boaitey ’11, philosophy and biological sciences.

Danielle Albrecht ’13, philosophy and political science, agrees. “It’s only when we come here and discuss the problems as a group that all these different ideas start to come out and we see all these different possibilities. That’s part of what makes it so exciting, and what makes it really relevant,” she said.

The ethics bowl team members agreed that what they’ve learned preparing for the ethics bowl is applicable to their life outside the tournament as well. They cite the fact that they’ve learned to look at a problem from multiple angles and think quickly on their feet. “It helps you communicate with people who might disagree with you and it helps you to get your point across,” said Smith.

It’s also, the team said, made them trust their own thoughtful opinions. “It’s pretty confidence-boosting to present a viewpoint and know that you had some great arguments and made some great points,” said Michael Iafolla ’11, philosophy and English.

Still not sure what the ethics bowl team does?  Watch this video of the team practicing.

(2/25/11)

What do you countries think? US meets with Italy, France, and the U.K. to decide how to deal with Libya.

Now are you happy? Boeing wins hotly contested Air Force fuel tanker contract.

Psy-Ops drop pro-US leaflets.

In war, especially Afghanistan, it can be hard to identify who the enemy is.

It seems that the fog of war may have gotten so thick that a US general thought his foes included members of Congress.

Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stones reporter who ended Gen. Charlie McChrystal’s role in Afghanistan, dropped another bombshell report stating that Lt. Gen. William Caldwell wanted to

secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge.

How was this task to be done? Quite simply, the Army has people whose job it is to just this TO ENEMIES. As noted by the US Army (bold added):

The role of Psychological Operations is to alter the behavior of foreign populations in a manner consistent with United States diplomatic, national security and foreign policy objectives.

In fact, as the Rolling Stones article notes

Federal law forbids the military from practicing psy-ops [Psychological Operations] on Americans, and each defense authorization bill comes with a “propaganda rider” that also prohibits such manipulation.

Of course there is a chance that we’re not getting the whole story. Aides to the General have argued that the psy-ops officers were acting just as staff officers. However Danger Room’s Spencer Ackerman and Noah Schachtman provide evidence that this most likely is not true.

So why did a General act against a long standing law? Did Caldwell just go power hungry? Is this part of some evil scheme to mind control Washington? More likely M.S. at Democracy in America thinks

the army is pretty desperate to convince people the war in Afghanistan is going swimmingly.

What ever the reasons or justifications it looks like another mans career will end in Afghanistan.

Kidney Transplant and his Uncertain Path

It is probably safe to say that you haven’t thought about your kidney today… correct?

Maybe you should, your kidney is a pretty valuable thing… both in AND OUT of your body. That is because kidneys are the most sought after organ for transplants.

Right now more than 87,000 Americans are in need of a kidney transplant, 17,000 will likely receive a new kidney while 4600 will die because they did not get one in time.

The rarity of kidneys has got medical folks looking for answers.

The National Kidney Registry is trying educate people about kidney donor-ship (the living can make donations, not just the dead).

But there is unsettling news in the world of the kidney.

A new system for choosing potential kidney recipients is causing controversy.

The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is considering altering the kidney transplant list. They are proposing to give priority for the healthiest kidneys to the younger and healthier patients.

Currently the system runs on a traditional waiting list format.

UNOS insists that “It’s an effort to get the most out of a scarce resource.”

But critics are shouting cries of age discrimination.

While UNOS hopes new kidneys in younger patients will give the valuable organs more mileage, critics fear the controversy might turn potential donors off.

Should you or a loved one be in need of a new kidney… where would you stand in this “waiting list” debate?