Aligning Experience Interests and Goals: Graduate Programs Connect Students’ Past Experiences with Future Goals “What do you do with a group of smart people with diverse cultural experiences who are committed to making a positive impact in their communities?” Balt Sun Oct 2023
What is a “just transition,” anyway? Bill McKibben asks (Peaceworker Alum) Jacqueline Patterson, the director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program.
“Usually by the time I finish describing the problem side of my presentations, most people are properly depressed, but when I get on the transformation side, I start to talk about how these systems are predicated on exploitation of natural resources and of human resources. Or humans, period. How these systems are so deeply flawed—instead of commons, we have sacrifice zones. And how climate change is really a byproduct of this systematic world of winners and losers. And then we talk about the ways we really need to flip this on its head.”
Shriver Peaceworker Alum, Lane Victorson Featured: Social Workers Now Offering Services at Enoch Pratt Library Branches
Social workers now available at four branches of the Enoch Pratt Free Library will offer some counseling services and help patrons with other tasks such as filling out forms for disability benefits.
Peaceworker Partner Site, Lakeland STEAM Center Featured on WYPR
One-on-one coaching, identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses, providing extra time to review skills. These are some of the tactics that Lakeland Elementary Middle School is employing, with help from University of Maryland-Baltimore County, to boost students’ math skills. We hear about this partnership from Lakeland Principal Najib Jammal, math teacher Katie Poist, and the assistant director of the UMBC Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars, Joshua Michael.
Peaceworker, Bridget Patton, Add Her Remarks to the Annual State of the University Address by Freeman Hrabowski
Maria Packard, incoming freshman in mathematics and Sherman STEM Teacher Scholarl; Sean Radaskiewicz, incoming transfer student in visual arts; and Bridget Patton, incoming master’s student in public policy and a Shriver Peaceworker Fellow, shared their personal stories, academic interests, and what attracted them to UMBC.“Even though I have only been here for a couple of weeks, I am confident that I have made the right decision,” Patton said. “I am eager to take advantage of all that UMBC has to offer and make my own contributions.”
Peaceworker Alumn, Ross Dionne, Joins “How We Rebuild” UMBC Planning Panel
Joe Jones remembers the day vividly. After attending Freddie Gray’s funeral at New Shiloh Baptist Church on April 27, 2015, he walked to his office across the street at the Center for Urban Families (CFUF) and found his staff gathered around a television watching CNN footage of unrest just blocks away. As he shared that experience with a crowd of UMBC faculty, staff, and student leaders four months later, he emphasized that two words came to mind as CFUF planned how to move forward with community-building in Baltimore: respect and trust.
Peaceworker Alumn, Robert Dietzen, Pens Op-Ed on PARCC Testing
While a modest reduction in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) testing hours, announced last week, is a step in the right direction, it does not go far enough to address the many problems of the new online, high-stakes standardized assessment.
Mark Zachar at Arbutus Middle School
Mark Zachar is working to complete his Masters in the Art of Teaching by student teaching at Arbutus Middle School, part of the Baltimore County Public School (BCPS) system and a partner school with UMBC. This brief video by the BCPS highlights some of Mark’s contributions to Arbutus Middle School.
Returning Peace Corps volunteers assist at Lakeland School
If Greg Couturier were channeling John F. Kennedy in speaking about the value of the Peace Corps, he probably didn’t realize it because his love of the organization, what it represents and what it has been able to accomplish, naturally comes to the fore in any conversation with him.