Engineering and Information Technology:
Dr. Vince Calhoun, Ph.D. ’02, Electrical Engineering
Executive Science Officer and Director, Image Analysis and MR Research; Professor of Translational Neuroscience, The Mind Research Network

Distinguished Professor, Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biology, Computer Science, Neurosciences, and Psychiatry, The University of New Mexico

Humanities:
Dr. Ian Ralby ’02, Modern Languages and Linguistics, and M.A. ’02, Intercultural Communication
Founder and CEO, I.R. Consilium

Natural and Mathematical Sciences:
Dr. Henry Baker ’78, Ph.D. ’84, Biological Sciences
Hazel Kitzman Professor of Genetics; Professor of Surgery; Chair, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, University of Florida College of Medicine

Associate Director, University of Florida Genetics Institute

Social and Behavioral Sciences:
Ruby Lu ’94, Economics
Managing Partner, H Capital

Social Work:
Joseph Jones, Jr. ’06, Social Work
Founder and CEO, Center for Urban Families

Visual and Performing Arts:
Dr. Tiffany Holmes, M.F.A. ’99, Imaging and Digital Arts
Dean of Undergraduate Studies, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Distinguished Service:
Thomas Sadowski ’89, Political Science
Vice Chancellor for Economic Development, University System of Maryland

Rising Star:
Galina Madjaroff ’08, Psychology, and M.A. ’11, Aging Studies
Undergraduate Program Director and Clinical Assistant Professor, The Erickson School at UMBC

Outstanding Faculty:
Dr. Kimberly Moffitt
Associate Professor of American Studies

Affiliate Assistant Professor, Departments of Africana Studies and Language, Literacy, and Culture

Join us for the Alumni Awards Ceremony on Thursday, October 6!

“i have the word home tattooed on my breastbone, and friends remind me why I got it. the truth of it, that home is there. but this is also about land and gentrification, colonialism that has blown and continues to blow me and my family all over the planet and puts me on someone else’s land where they did not ask me to be, race and class, banks and profit, the desire to stay in a magic queer brown city and the reality of push-out when our narrow slices of survival.  it is about all the ways as disabled and chronically ill folks, as black and brown and broke folks, we find to try and find some stable sweet place to live where we can just live.” – Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (homeplace)

There’s no place like home. Home is where the heart is. You can never go home again.

Home can be a place, a feeling, a concept. It can be comfortable or contentious, nurturing or toxic, constant or nonexistent. It can be somewhere we belong or somewhere we don’t.

As a global community, we see the connection between social justice and home during this critical time when issues of migration, nationalism, and xenophobia dominate the news cycle.  In Baltimore city, the legacy of redlining and racial inequity has created divergent realities for its citizens depending upon whether one makes their home in the “White L” or the “Black Butterfly.” As we consider what it means to be at home in our communities, our identities, and even our own bodies, we reflect on the familiar feminist slogan “the personal is political” and we’re reminded that social justice calls for us to look beyond solely what’s happening “out there.”

In honor of UMBC’s 50th Anniversary, this year’s CSJ theme of Home recognizes UMBC as a home to many of us.  As we celebrate and contemplate UMBC as a home for learning, activism, and social change, we embrace the opportunity to invest ourselves in creating meaningful change here on campus in addition to taking our newly gained insights and knowledge with us back home, wherever that may be.

It is in this spirit that the fourth annual Critical Social Justice aims to create space and learning opportunities to consider the ways we can challenge, explore, and redefine the concept of home based upon our individual and collective histories as well as our intersecting identities.

CSJ: Home keynote speaker Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.

We’re excited to announce that our keynote speaker will be Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, a queer disabled femme of color writer and performance artist whose work on disability, survivorhood, and transformative justice speaks to the many complexities inherent in navigating our way home. The keynote lecture and reception will be held on Tuesday, October 25th at 6pm in the UC Ballroom.

Critical Social Justice: Home will be held on October 24th through 28th, 2016. Follow theCSJ blog, Facebook, and Twitter for updates on scheduled events and other news. For more information about the Critical Social Justice initiative, or if you’re organizing a related event that week that might be included on the CSJ calendar, please email womens.center@umbc.edu.

Remember the discussions of “optics” and trying to manufacture the perception of support for Hillary Clinton?   It’s all a pretense; a fraud; a corporate media ruse.

Well, a great example comes today from “The Hill”, an on-line media outlet promoting the speech of candidate Clinton.  Notice anything, well, ‘odd’ about the picture:

It’s a 100% photoshopped image (link) assembling multiple rally crowd pictures to give the impression of Hillary Clinton in St. Petersburg.

Hillary is holding a rally at the St. Pete Colliseum in down town St. Petersburg. Located at 353 4th Ave North, the Coliseum venue holds approximately 4,000 people.  Hillary Clinton didn’t come close to filling it:

A couple of hundred people showed up [door count puts the number at 171] within a St. Petersburg venue capable of holding in excess of 4,000 without seating (link).

But the media,… well, in the land of make believe, they just can’t help but manufacture the optics because the same media are selling an entirely different story with their polling:

At this point, the action of the media is beyond ridiculous.  Some in the media even note their own embarrassing behavior:

[…] Polls shows that journalism is one of the least respected professions in the country, and with Trump calling out media organizations for their bias, widespread slanted reporting is bound to reinforce this point — and to backfire.

Trump’s campaign is throwing down the gauntlet to the political class. If journalists are seen as the mouthpiece of that class, they may soon find themselves covering Trump’s inauguration.  (link)

As if on a very predictable cue, pollster Patrick Murray strolls in to deliver his narrative.

With ABC (Disney) dropping their media poll on Saturday night, and with Monmouth today having joined the collective, the circle of wagons has closed and our prior prediction stands affirmed.