Building upon the inaugural idea of Dr. Shanna Smith (Visiting Professor of English at Jackson State University, former GA for the PROMISE AGEP and PROMISE Peer Mentor at College Park), and the book “Sisters in the Dissertation House” by Dr. Jennifer Bacon, we are happy to present our 2016 event: “Sisters in the Dissertation House – Dessert Discussion 2016.” This event will be held at the Hotel at Arundel Preserve, from 8:30 PM – 10 PM on Friday, August 19, 2016.  This event is part of the larger 2016 PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI).  (Details and registration for the SSI:  http://bit.ly/PROMISESSI2016)

This year’s discussants are both featured in the book, and they have been friends since they were graduate students together in the PROMISE Dissertation House: Dr. Alexis Williams (Teaching and Learning Transformation Center – TLTC, University of Maryland College Park, Alumna: College Park), and Dr. Patricia Ordóñez (Faculty, Computer Science, University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras).

The discussion will be held in a hotel suite at the Hotel at Arundel Preserve, and will not be shared publicly. If you are interested in attending, please send email to PROMISEstaff@gmail.com with the subject line: “Sisters in the Dissertation House 2016.” You will receive an email with the room number closer to the date.

You may purchase the book from Amazon here:  https://www.amazon.com/Sisters-Dissertation-House-Narrative/dp/1581072686.

UMBC began with 750 students walking to class on paths of wooden planks connecting three buildings. There were no dorms. Most of the professors were fresh out of graduate school, and, like their students, brimming with enthusiasm and potential. The Commons, the telescope, green roofs, and the Performing Arts & Humanities Building hadn’t yet been envisioned.

A new article by The Daily Record’s Dan Leaderman traces the history of UMBC, from its roots as a university community defying definition to a “research powerhouse” known as a national leader in teaching and innovation.

“In the life of universities, 50 years is not that long, but UMBC has done a remarkable job emerging as a first-class research university,” USM Chancellor Robert Caret told the The Daily Record, noting that today UMBC is also a major player in the region’s economic development.

Drawing comparisons with a young MIT, the article dives into success of the bwtech@UMBC Research and Technology park and of UMBC alumni becoming academic and research leaders worldwide, including as faculty at Harvard and director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

A companion interview with UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski also highlights UMBC as a hub for teaching and research in emerging fields, like cybersecurity; a dedicated partner to institutions like the University of Maryland, Baltimore; and a community committed to student success. This includes asking tough questions and testing novel approaches to see what will yield the best results for students.

“At UMBC,” Hrabowski said, “we have been rethinking the teaching and learning process across disciplines, from science and engineering to the arts and humanities and social sciences.”

Michael Summers, Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in Research and Mentoring and University Distinguished Professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and member of the National Academy of Sciences, told The Daily Record that it goes back to the passion and dedication of UMBC students.

“I’ve come back [after] the university was shut down for snow storms and gotten in to work and the undergraduates had their sleeping bags here because they didn’t want to get trapped away from their experiments,” he shared.

As those students move on to promising careers, UMBC is preparing to welcome in a new class of Retrievers who have only known the university as the “powerhouse” of today.

Read “At age 50, UMBC just getting started” and the “Newsmakers” interview with President Hrabowski in The Daily Record [subscription required].

Images (top-bottom): (1) UMBC campus; (2) UMBC student during an Engineer’s Week event in the Commons; (3) UMBC Sherman Scholars working with students at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School; (4) Prof. Michael Summers (at left) with his students. Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Shannon Carney for TRW

• BY SHANNON CARNEY
 
• •   MAY 3, 2016

Courtesy of Tanvi Gadhia

• BY RICHARD WILLIAMS
 
• •   APRIL 21, 2016

The Baltimore Police Department routinely violates the civil rights of the citizens they have sworn to protect, often engaging in unconstitutional arrests, searches, and seizures. Who knew? Oh yeah, everybody...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/08/09/justice-department-baltimore-police-regularly-violated-constitutional-rights/88489196/

From the Miami Herald’s reporter Leonard Pitts, Jr. comes this revelation:

“As it turns out, our deeply racialized view of poverty bears no resemblance to reality. Though it’s true that African Americans are disproportionately likely to live below the poverty line, it is also true that the vast majority of those in poverty are white: 29.8 million people. In fact, there are more white poor than all other poor combined.

Owsley County (Booneville is the county seat) is the epicenter of that poverty. Median income here is less than $20,000. The obesity rate is 50 percent. Life expectancy: 71.4 years, more than seven years below the national average. With 36 percent of its citizens living below the poverty line and 98.5 percent of its population identifying as white, it is the poorest — and one of the whitest — places in America.”

Leonard Pitts is black and so his commentary on poor whites is even more fascinating as it reveals an honest reflection on the issue and a coming to grips with the falseness of the national narrative on poverty. There is a recognition that the dynamic of the conversations about poverty must change, while still acknowledging challenges of race in America.

“There is a remarkable consistency to the way citizens of the poor, white mountain South have been portrayed in popular culture and scholarship. In entertainment, they are narrowly defined as naifs whose very innocence and trusting nature insulates them from the conniving machinations of city folk (think Jed Clampett), as lazy sluggards (think Snuffy Smith), as big, dumb rubes (think JethroBodine) or as the personification of perverse evil (think Deliverance). Women’s roles are even more constrained: they tend to be either ancient, sexless crones (think Mammy Yokum) or hyper-sexualized young women (think Daisy Duke).

Get past John-Boy and the rest of The Waltons, and it is difficult to recall a sympathetic portrait of white Southern poverty in mass media. To the contrary, America has always bred a special contempt for the white poor. As far back as 1866, a Boston Daily Advertiser writer opined that ‘time and effort will lead the negro up to intelligent manhood, but I almost doubt if it will be possible to ever lift this “white trash” into respectability.’

In 1957, the Chicago Tribune described an influx of ‘savage,’ ‘vicious,’ ‘depraved’ newcomers from the poor white South under the lurid headline: ‘Girl Reporter Visits Jungles of Hillbillies.’

In 1963, Harry M. Caudill published what is still regarded as a landmark in the study of the poor white South, Night Comes To The Cumberlands. Yet even that book, which takes pains to document how poverty was imposed upon Appalachia by its isolation and the predatory practices of lumbermen and coal magnates, also indicts what the author seems to feel is the native inferiority of the people. Appalachia, writes this ‘defender’ of the region, was settled by the dregs of England, ‘human refuse dumped on a strange shore.’

The thinking goes that the white South — and in particular, the poor white mountain South — is a land of primitives, a land of people who never quite evolved. ‘Our contemporary ancestors,’ one author dubbed them. Another called them ‘yesterday’s people.’

Nor is the image of ‘yesterday’s people’ solely yesterday’s concern. Consider the Hillbilly to English Translation Dictionary. Its cover depicts a woman with pigtails and a missing front tooth, clutching a scraggly bouquet. She is wearing a dingy white wedding dress. She is barefoot and pregnant. This was published in 2010.

There is no national advocacy group to defend the white poor against such libels as this, no analogue of the NAACP or the National Organization for Women to assert their dignity. You may malign them without a whisper of complaint.

The invisibility of white poverty, says Edmund Shelby, editor of the Beattyville Enterprise, is part of the problem. ‘Those of us who are aware of the issues facing Appalachians and those of us who speak out about those issues see that as one [thing] that has kept us in the position that we are in for so long. I think that can be said for a lot of poor populations, because if you can say things about people that dehumanize them, then there’s no need to help them raise themselves up in any way because, after all, using that stereotype, they are incapable.’

That invisibility is ironic. Although the War on Poverty is generally remembered for what it did and did not do for black people in the cities, it was actually Appalachia Lyndon Johnson had in mind when he launched it.”

Leonard Pitts was good to shine some journalistic light on the topic of poor whites. Perhaps now Bernie Sanders will want to walk back his infamous statement at the March 6 Democratic debate.

“When you’re white … you don’t know what it’s like to be poor.”

While whites may not understand what it means to be black in America, many millions of them deeply understand grinding poverty.

Great Kids Farm Manager Brooks Binau (an Alum with The Shriver Peaceworker Fellows Program) is seeking an AmeriCorps position at the Great Kids Farm to work as his assistant for the next year starting in September (a year-long opportunity).  This could be a great fit for someone interested in a service year learning sustainable farming, volunteer coordination and more…   

Great Kids Farm continues to be a Service-Learning Site through which UMBC students have had great experiences.  

If you know anyone that is interested or another network that might have someone interested please pass this opportunity along. If you have any questions, Brooks' contact info is below:

John Brooks Binau

Farm Manager, Great Kids Farm

Baltimore City Public Schools

6601 Baltimore National Pike

Catonsville, MD 21228

Phone: 410.736.1681

jbbinau@bcps.k12.md.us