This is
the time of year when we come together as a community to focus on the University’s
progress – highlighting our accomplishments, goals, and challenges for
the year. I have been enjoying hearing about colleagues’ and students’ summer
enrichment and recreational activities as we prepare for the fall semester.
This past
year has been one of transition in many ways, which has allowed us to reflect
again on who we are and where we are going as an institution. For the
past two days, a number of campus leaders have been involved in our annual
retreat, focusing the attention of campus leaders on our vision as a public
research and honors university. The retreat was especially helpful as
we thought about our future in relationship to both demographic and economic
opportunities and challenges. We listened to panels addressing distinctive
learning experiences, engaged scholarship and discovery, and civic engagement
and social responsibility on campus and beyond. As might be expected,
we took time to look at population trends and enrollment planning as we continue
to highlight the importance of student retention and success. Small groups
discussed a variety of critical questions, for example, “What are we
doing that is already working well?” “How do we build on
our success?” and “What key ideas and issues are important to consider
this year to inform our future development?” My sense is that colleagues
and students left the retreat determined to focus on execution as we think
about the next steps in reaching our objectives.
In talking
about transitions, let me begin by welcoming our new Provost, Elliot Hirshman,
who worked with many of us throughout the past semester and officially began
his full-time service here in July. He and Provost Emeritus Johnson worked
carefully with other Vice Presidents, Deans, and faculty leaders in making
this transition a smooth one. Most of you by now know that Elliot comes
to us from George Washington University, where he was Chief Research Officer,
having previously held faculty and administrative posts at the University of
Colorado Health Sciences Center and the University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill. His degrees are from Yale (B.A., economics and mathematics) and
UCLA (M.A. and Ph.D., psychology).
The new
academic year is marked by leadership transitions in other areas too, with
several long-standing members of the campus community assuming new roles. With
Scott Bass’s recent departure to become Provost at American University,
and following internal searches, Provost Hirshman has made interim appointments
in both research and graduate education. We will build on Scott’s
successful efforts over the past 12 years, which focused especially on multidisciplinary
collaboration, creative partnerships with external agencies, and both greater
inclusiveness and higher completion rates in doctoral studies. Geoff
Summers, Dean of the College of Natural & Mathematical Sciences and former
Physics Department Chair, is serving as our Interim Vice President for Research. Geoff
has been instrumental in initiating several campus research initiatives resulting
in, among other achievements, our now ranking second among U.S. universities
in research funding from NASA. Janet Rutledge, Senior Associate Dean
of the Graduate School the past three years, is now Interim Vice Provost for
Graduate Education. As Provost Hirshman noted in his recent campus announcement,
she “has helped to champion initiatives to ensure that graduate students
from all backgrounds succeed” – efforts for which she has been
recognized by the Council of Graduate Schools’ Peterson’s Award
for Innovation in Promoting an Inclusive Graduate Community. Also,
Psychology Professor Robert Deluty, a former Presidential Teaching Professor and
recipient of the Board of Regents’ Faculty Award for Mentoring,
is now serving as Associate Dean of the Graduate School.
In Student Affairs, Nancy Young became Vice President on July 1st,
after serving this past year as Interim Vice President. Since
coming to UMBC in 1986, Nancy has been instrumental in our becoming
an increasingly residential campus, and she is passionate about ensuring
that students are fully engaged in learning, whether in the residence
halls, classrooms, or student activities on campus.
In Institutional Advancement, Greg Simmons was named Interim Vice President
on August 1st, replacing Sheldon Caplis, who, after 15 years as Vice
President, recently became Citibank’s Community Relations Vice
President for the Maryland-Virginia-Washington, D.C. region. With
Citibank, Sheldon has reversed roles and is now making grants rather
than raising money, which he did effectively here. He also helped
us build multi-level partnerships with companies, foundations, and
donors that produce scholarship support, internships and employment
for students, and research opportunities for faculty. Greg, who
began working at UMBC 15 years ago in the Shriver Center and served
most recently as Associate Vice President for Corporate Relations,
has a stellar reputation for working effectively with faculty and campus
leaders and with many of the region’s companies and foundations. In
addition, I’ve asked Lisa Akchin, Associate Vice President for
Marketing & Public Relations, to take on the added role as Assistant
to the President, focusing on organizational communications and government
and community relations. In addition to carrying out her regular
responsibilities as Associate Vice President, Lisa did a remarkable
job in Annapolis this past year.
Let me mention a few other key administrative changes. In Administration & Finance,
Terry Cook joined us in February as Associate Vice President for Administrative
Services, having served in a similar capacity at UMUC and earlier at
UMB, and Ben Lowenthal just became Associate Vice President for Financial
Services, after serving most recently as Comptroller at UMUC and before
that in senior finance positions at UMB and the University of Baltimore. In
Student Affairs, Katie Boone has become Director of Residential Life,
having worked previously at College Park, Catholic University, and
the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
What is especially encouraging is that colleges and universities across
the country are admiring our progress. As a result, not only
are people interested in coming to work here, but also other institutions
are interested in attracting our colleagues. In recent years,
several have accepted senior administrative positions or outstanding
faculty appointments at major public and private institutions in a
number of states. At the same time, we have been successful in
recent years in attracting colleagues from some of the nation’s
best universities to faculty and administrative positions. We
have every reason to be encouraged.
I’m delighted to report to you now on the state of the University,
beginning with our budget. Our total operating budget of $345
million – more than a third of a billion dollars, with revenues
from State, Federal, and other sources – includes $190 million
in State support (50 percent State appropriation, 40 percent tuition,
10 percent other), including nearly $10 million more than a year ago. More
than $4 million of this increase covers cost-of-living and merit salary
increases and benefits for faculty and staff. We also have allocated
funds to increase our pool of need-based financial aid and cover inflation
costs on library subscriptions, higher utilities costs, debt payment
obligations, and critical facilities renewal projects. We will
receive $450,000 from the State’s new Higher Education Investment
Fund to advance our core research facility in microscopy, and $865,000
to support our targeted enrollment growth of nearly 100 additional
FTEs this academic year. Increased State support also means that
undergraduate tuition remains frozen for the third straight year because
of the Governor’s commitment to affordability.
This year’s State budget is based on reasonable assumptions about
revenues and expenditures and, bottom line, our ability to meet our
enrollment projections. Therefore, we will continue to support
recruitment and retention, including marketing with support from Institutional
Advancement. We also are building a number of new academic programs
approved by the Maryland Higher Education Commission over the past
year-and-a-half. These include bachelor’s programs in Media
and Communication Studies, Physics Education, Chemistry Education,
and Gender & Women’s Studies; a master’s program in
Management of Aging Services; undergraduate tracks in Game Development
(Computer Science), Animation & Interactive Media (Visual Arts),
Public Health (Health Administration & Policy), E-Learning & Instructional
Systems Design (Information Systems), Auditing for Information Systems
(IS), and Project Management for Information Technology (IS). Our
Continuing & Professional Studies division also continues to play
a vital role. Working closely with the Deans and Department Chairs,
the division is attracting growing numbers of students in professional
master’s programs and post-baccalaureate certificate programs,
introduced over the past two years, that generate new revenues and
respond to regional workforce needs. The division also leads
our successful undergraduate and graduate initiatives at the Universities
at Shady Grove, enrolling nearly 200 transfer students there. Our
new programs in Biotechnology Management, Engineering Management, and
Systems Engineering are off to very strong starts and have already
exceeded their enrollment projections. This fall, new professional
master’s programs in Geographic Information Systems and Industrial & Organizational
Psychology will begin at our campus at Shady Grove, together with a
new undergraduate program in History. The division also operates
UMBC Training Centers, extending the campus’s reach and generating
revenues through corporate and online training.
The past fiscal year’s capital budget appropriation of $2.7 million
has enabled us to continue planning and design of the new Performing
Arts and Humanities Facility, our number-one capital priority. Faculty,
staff, and students have been contributing substantially to the design
process, and we expect construction to begin in summer 2010. The
facility will be another major milestone in the campus’s physical
transformation, which, over the past 15 years, has included adding
new buildings in engineering and information technology, physics, and
public policy; renovating our biology and chemistry facilities; adding
more than three-quarters of a million square feet of new space for
student apartments, the Commons, an addition to the Retriever Activities
Center, and new athletic field and stadium facilities. Let me
commend our Physical Plant staff on the overall appearance of the campus
and the great job they do maintaining our facilities.
This coming February, we also will complete construction of another
new building in the research park to house Erickson Corporation’s
IT operations and new Retirement Living TV network. The new facility
will be the last of five buildings located in the park, including two
completed this year – the U.S. Geological Survey’s Maryland-Delaware-District
of Columbia Water Science Center and the just-completed, multi-tenant
facility that will house engineering, IT, and life-science firms. Our
research park tenants will continue to offer excellent work opportunities
for students and collaborations for faculty. The park is part
of bwtech@UMBC Research & Technology Park, which also includes
our South Campus facilities. In total, bwtech@UMBC houses approximately
50 companies in different stages of development and employing about
975 employees and 125 students.
While we’ve been sensitive over the years to the impact of all
these developments on the campus landscape, our efforts the past couple
of years have been more focused, involving growing numbers of people
and building on our strengths. This past year, I joined more
than 300 college presidents in signing the American College and
University Presidents Climate Commitment to express our concern
about global warming. I also appointed our new Climate Change
Task Force, co-chaired by Economics Professor Virginia McConnell and
Administration & Finance Vice President Lynne Schaefer. The
Task Force is spearheading our efforts to develop campus plans to achieve
climate neutrality and to take steps to reduce greenhouse gases. The
Task Force has been busy this year, and we can expect to see significant
progress this coming year, including completing an inventory of the
campus’s greenhouse gas emissions early in the fall, completing
our initial action plan, and launching a sustainability website. Also,
as we continue designing our new Performing Arts & Humanities Facility,
we will pursue LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design)
certification, which involves meeting rigorous standards for environmentally
sustainable construction. We are especially fortunate to have
so many faculty in wide-ranging fields with expertise in environmental
and earth sciences research and education, many of whom serve on the
Environmental Council, an ad-hoc group of faculty experts led by Economics
Professor Scott Farrow.
Regarding this year’s student body, we will enroll more than
12,000 students, including approximately 1,575 new freshmen – almost
10 percent more than a year ago – constituting one of our largest
freshman classes ever. The class includes National Merit and National
Achievement Scholars, Regents and Maryland Distinguished
Scholars, and a number of valedictorians. Overall, we have
students from every state and nearly 150 countries, and we are sending
many abroad to study throughout the world. We’re also enrolling
roughly 1,050 new transfers and approximately 2,700 graduate students,
up nearly five percent over a year ago, including about 900 new graduate
students and larger numbers of domestic students, women, and international
students (reversing a five-year decline among this group). It’s
especially significant that graduate enrollment has grown by more than
80 percent over the past decade and is approaching a quarter of our
total enrollment. Our new students exhibit great promise, and
we’re committed to helping them succeed.
Our 2008 graduates were an impressive group, winning major awards and
going on to top graduate schools and promising professional careers. They
included three of the world’s 100 Gates Cambridge Scholars this
year. (In fact, we have five graduates studying this fall at
Cambridge in fields ranging from modern languages to gravitational
physics and chemical engineering.) Recent graduates also received
a variety of national awards, e.g., Fulbright, NSF Graduate
Research Fellowship, and Goldwater Scholarships. Many
are beginning graduate programs at top schools across the nation – from
Duke in ecology, Cornell in math, Columbia in biology, and Brown, Stanford,
and Cal-Berkeley in chemical engineering, to UC-Santa Barbara in English
literature, Georgetown and the University of Chicago in international
relations, and the University of Michigan in health services administration. Other
graduates are launching careers with a variety of public school systems
in Maryland and beyond and with major companies, agencies, and foundations – from
ExxonMobil, T. Rowe Price, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin to
the National Institutes of Health and Social Security Administration.
This also was an extraordinary year for our intercollegiate athletics
program and student-athletes, who’ve made all of us “Retriever
Believers.” Athletic Director Charlie Brown and his staff
have every reason to be very proud. The men’s basketball
team won the 2008 America East championship, advancing to the first
round of the “Big Dance” – the NCAA national tournament – where
they faced the nationally ranked Georgetown team in Raleigh, N.C. Hundreds
of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends traveled to Raleigh
for the game – UMBC’s first appearance in the national
tournament in our 22-year Division-I history. It was an exhilarating
experience for the team and the entire campus. Coach Randy Monroe
was named the America East men’s basketball Coach of the
Year.
Similarly, men’s lacrosse coach Don Zimmerman was named conference Coach
of the Year for his leadership and the conference championship
performance of this year’s team, which advanced to the first
round of the NCAA tournament before falling to the no.2-seeded University
of Virginia team in a 10-9 loss. The men’s and women’s
swimming and diving teams, coached by UMBC graduate Chad Cradock, also
won 2008 America East championships. In addition, veteran baseball
coach John Jancuska received conference Coach of the Year honors,
while tennis coach Keith Puryear was named Mid-Atlantic College
Coach of the Year by the U.S. Professional Tennis Association.
Our student-athletes also distinguished themselves academically, with
more than half earning gpas of 3.0 or higher. Recent graduate
Jessica Young epitomizes our scholar-athletes: a Sondheim Public
Affairs Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa inductee, and all-conference performer
on the women’s soccer team, Jessica completed internships at
Princeton and in the U.S. Congress and was one of two finalists for
this year’s Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar of the Year and
is beginning her graduate studies at American University.
Our faculty also have distinguished themselves this year. In
the spring, for example, we recognized Presidential Teaching and Research
Professors Tim Topoleski, in Mechanical Engineering, and Thomas
Mathew, in Mathematics & Statistics, who reflect the faculty’s
commitment to students in the classroom, through research, and by mentoring. Chris
Corbett, in English, received the Regents’ Faculty Award
for Excellence in Mentoring for his outstanding work with students,
particularly those interested in journalism careers, and David Yager,
in Visual Arts, received the University System’s endowed Wilson
H. Elkins Professorship. Other faculty receiving prestigious
awards include Carolyn Tice, Associate Dean and program Chair in Social
Work, who received a Fulbright award; Ray Hoff, who leads
our Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) and Goddard Earth
Sciences & Technology Center (GEST), who was named an American
Meteorological Society Fellow; both Julia Ross, Chair of Chemical & Biochemical
Engineering, and Tulay Adali, in Computer Science & Electrical
Engineering, were elected American Institute for Medical & Biological
Engineering Fellows; Govind Rao, also in Chemical & Biochemical
Engineering, was elected an American Association for the Advancement
of Science Fellow; Marie-Christine Daniel, in Chemistry & Biochemistry,
received the American Association for Cancer Research-Pancreatic Cancer
Action Network’s Career Development Award; Kate Brown,
in History, received the Kennan Institute Research Scholarship from
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Brian Grodsky,
in Political Science, received an East European Studies Center
Award from the Woodrow Wilson Center; and Zena Hitz, in Philosophy,
received a Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies Fellowship. The
list of other faculty receiving awards and fellowships across the full
spectrum of disciplines is too long to include in my remarks; immediately
attached are additional examples.
Several staff members also were recognized for their work this year. The
Regents recognized Cathy Bielawski, in the College of Engineering & Information
Technology, with the Regents’ Staff Award for Outstanding
Service to Students; Earnestine Baker, Executive Director of the
Meyerhoff Program, and Karen Sweeney-Jett, in Institutional Advancement,
with the Regents’ Staff Award for Extraordinary Public Service to
the campus; and Patti Martin, in Student Support Services, and Dennis
Cuddy, in Chemistry & Biochemistry, with the Regents’ Staff
Award for Exceptional Contribution to the Mission of the campus. Our
own Presidential Distinguished Staff Award winners this year
include Danita Eichenlaub, in GEST and JCET, and Ethel Haskins-Cotton,
in University Health Services. Lynne Schaefer was selected as
one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women by The Daily Record,
and The Chronicle of Higher Education identified Dale Bittinger,
Director of Undergraduate Admissions, as one of “10 Admissions
Deans Who Are Shaping Their Field.” Kudos to all of
our award-winning faculty and staff.
Another top priority this year, and in the future, is to continue building
our research portfolio and increasing our sponsored programs, which
totaled approximately $87 million this past fiscal year. Faculty
and staff have built strong relationships with external partners – from
NASA, NSF, and NIH to the U.S. Department of Education, Howard Hughes
Medical Institute, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and other research universities. These
partnerships not only produce funding and major research-and-training
opportunities for faculty and students, but also contribute to our
rising national reputation. In Federal funding, NASA remains
our largest source, and NSF and NIH are our next two heaviest supporters.
In one particularly exciting development this year, UMBC researchers
are leading a six-university team on a $7.5 million, five-year Multi-Disciplinary
University Research Initiative (MURI) grant from the
U.S. Department of Defense. The UMBC group, collaborating with
colleagues from Purdue, the University of Illinois, University of Michigan,
and University of Texas at Dallas and San Antonio, is working to translate
recommendations by the 9-11 Commission for more effectively sharing
classified information into a technology network that both works and
is secure.
Our research success depends increasingly on multi-disciplinary approaches
and the work of our centers, including the Center for Research & Exploration
in Space Science & Technology (CRESST), the Center for Advanced
Studies in Photonics Research (CASPR), GEST, JCET, the Center for Urban
Environmental Research & Education (CUERE), our HHMI lab, the Joint
Center for Astrophysics, and our NSF Engineering Research Center with
Princeton, Hopkins, Rice, and others. One indication of our emergence
as a leader in environmental sciences is that Science Watch,
which monitors worldwide trends and performance in basic research,
ranks our faculty third in the number of geosciences publications and
citations. Also, responding to growing demand by Federal and
company labs for access to advanced scientific equipment, we’ve
been successful in creating core research facilities in proteomics,
scientific imaging, high-performance computing (Multicore Computational
Center, MC2, in partnership with IBM), and photonics that can be shared
by scientists and engineers. Other significant funding and partnering
success stories include a variety of initiatives ranging from K-16
math-science education to history and the arts; these initiatives involve
our Imaging Research Center, Center for History Education, Center for
Art, Design & Visual Culture, the Hilltop Institute (formerly the
Center for Health Program Development & Management), the Maryland
Institute for Policy Analysis & Research, and the Choice Program
and other Shriver Center activities.
In terms of diversity, the retreat participants highlighted the importance
of celebrating our strengths while working to understand the broad
challenges we face. We continue to receive national visibility
for our successful initiatives focused on women and minorities in science
and engineering – from WISE (our Women in Science & Engineering
program), ADVANCE (our NSF program for recruiting and advancing women
faculty), and CWIT (our Center for Women & Information Technology,
now headed by Professor and Interim Director Penny Rheingans, in Computer
Science & Electrical Engineering), to the McNair and undergraduate
and graduate Meyerhoff Scholars Programs for preparing minority researchers,
and our PROMISE and AGEP (Alliance for Graduate Education & the
Professoriate) programs to increase the numbers of minority graduate
students in STEM fields. We are one of the nation’s campuses
where women hold the majority of tenure-track positions in chemical
and biochemical engineering. More generally, since 2000, when
WISE was launched, the number of women faculty in STEM departments
has more than doubled – from 20 to 44 – with at least a
doubling in all ranks. In addition, we have all been encouraged
by the growing number of students selecting the new major in Gender & Women’s
Studies.
The campus also continues to attract national attention as a model
for producing minority science-and-engineering graduates. Because
of our success in this area, which we addressed in a major symposium
in April marking the Meyerhoff Program’s 20th anniversary, I’ve
had the honor this year both of testifying before the Congressional
Subcommittee on Research & Science Education and of now chairing
the National Academies’ Committee on Underrepresented Groups
and the Expansion of the Science & Engineering Workforce Pipeline. What’s
particularly significant about UMBC’s work in these areas is
that the lessons we’ve learned are benefiting all of our students
and are being replicated nationwide. Moreover, our success in
both attracting outstanding students from all backgrounds and helping
them succeed academically is why The Princeton Review, in
its newly released rankings of U.S. colleges, The Best 368 Colleges:
2009 Edition, ranked UMBC second among the nation’s “Most
Diverse Student Populations,” taking into account not only
the statistical diversity of our student body (37 percent), but also
survey responses from students and administrators. Yet, we recognize
the need as a community to be even more inclusive as we think about
representation of different groups among the faculty, staff, and students. For
example, we have instituted special efforts to increase the number
of Latino students, and the results have been positive (e.g., a 20-percent
increase in the number of Latino freshmen this fall). In addition,
I had the opportunity to work with the Executive Committee of the Freedom
Alliance this past spring and was very impressed by their ideas about
how we can become more supportive as a campus.
In the light of all these positive developments, we continue to make
significant progress in our fundraising. As we begin the final
year of the Campaign for UMBC, we have raised more than $89
million toward our $100-million goal, including major gifts this past
year for the Linehan Artist Scholars Program, Erickson School, and
Meyerhoff Program. We’ve also attracted major gifts from
IBM and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which are helping the College of Natural & Mathematical
Sciences and the College of Engineering & Information Technology
increase their research efforts. Gifts from the Shattuck Family
Foundation, Wachovia, and local business leaders Greg Barnhill and
Ben Griswald are supporting our efforts to infuse entrepreneurship
throughout the curriculum. Across all of our disciplines, we
are building endowment support reflecting our campaign priorities,
including student scholarships, fellowships, and internships, faculty
development and research, and endowed chairs and professorships. Our
endowment today stands at slightly more than $60 million compared to
$43 million two years ago and just $3.5 million in 1996. I want
to thank faculty and staff who have supported the Campaign for
your generous spirit. With most major campaign gifts thus far
coming from corporations and a handful of individual donors, our challenge
is to continue encouraging even greater support from those who know
us best. In this last year of the Campaign, we will
continue working to engage alumni more fully in the life of the campus
and develop a strong foundation of alumni giving. Creating a
culture of philanthropy is critical in our development, and all of
us have a role to play.
Our achievements also continue to produce heightened visibility, including
pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall
Street Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Science,
among others. We’re also attracting to campus a steady
stream of people who want to learn about us. Over the past year,
we’ve hosted visits by leaders of national agencies, corporations,
foundations, other major universities, and school systems. And
our faculty, staff, and students have traveled extensively, speaking
not only about their own interests and experiences, but also about
the UMBC experience. More and more people are learning about
us. In fact, college presidents and provosts across the country
have rated UMBC no.5 among 20 national universities to watch – “schools
that have recently made the most promising and innovative changes in
academics, faculty, students, campus, or facilities” – in
the new U.S. News & World Report America’s Best Colleges guide
that will be on the newsstands tomorrow.
Greater attention and more investment require even greater accountability
to ensure that our image is substantive. Because of our growth
in contracts and grants, Federal and State funding agencies are routinely
conducting more audits. Given such scrutiny, we must focus even
more attention on our research infrastructure and on how well we understand
and comply with requirements and restrictions governing our sponsored
activities. Also, we expect State legislative auditors to return
to campus this year for their next major campuswide audit, and we continue
working to be sure that we’ve sufficiently addressed the recommendations
and findings from their 2006 audit. Finally, University System
auditors have been working with us this past year helping us strengthen
our compliance efforts in a variety of areas. Such regular scrutiny
reminds us of our responsibility to stay focused on quality, responsiveness,
integrity, and accountability.
We also will continue focusing over several years on three major priorities
identified by the University System and discussed on campus by Chancellor
Kirwan at the retreat yesterday: first, closing the achievement gap,
which, for UMBC, means reaching parity between the six-year graduation
rates both of African American and white transfer students and of transfer
students and full-time, first-time freshmen; second, addressing climate
change, on which our Climate Change Task Force is taking the lead;
and third, supporting Maryland’s STEM-related competitiveness,
which we are doing in numerous ways, from producing STEM graduates
(we have nearly twice the percentage of STEM bachelor’s degree
recipients as any other USM campus) to building STEM-education partnerships,
faculty research, and technology development.
Of course, PeopleSoft implementation also remains an important administrative
priority. We continue to make steady progress, and our systems
are giving us increasing internal control and transparency in fiscal
and personnel management. This past year, we conducted a satisfaction
survey of those who use the HR and Finance modules, two-thirds of whom
were “satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with
the systems’ overall performance. We will spend this year
addressing issues raised by the one-third who were less than satisfied. We
also upgraded the HR system and prepared for implementing the Student
Administration (SA) system. We have been well served by the project
team, academic advisory committee, project governance structure, and
our consulting implementation partner. This year, we plan to
roll out the SA system, beginning in a few weeks with the Admissions
module, followed by the Financial Aid, Student Records, and Student
Billing modules. We plan to have our first registration using
SA in March – for the summer and fall 2009 terms. From
that point, all students and faculty will have access through the myUMBC portal
to many new and improved self-service functions, including class registration,
advisement information, transcripts, bills, financial aid information,
and other features. Our multi-year PeopleSoft initiative will
touch virtually every administrative and academic unit, and almost
every student, faculty, and staff member. Training for users
will continue to be an important priority. Again, thanks to all
who have worked so hard in recent years to implement these new systems
in your units. We continue to appreciate your commitment and
positive approach.
This past week, I had the opportunity to speak to teachers in several
public school systems – from Boston to Beaufort County, South
Carolina. I was delighted to tell the teachers in Beaufort about
a young African American women who grew there and was accepted into
the Meyerhoff Program, graduated with a 3.9 in biology and a strong
concentration in the social sciences, and is beginning the M.D./Ph.D.
program this month at Johns Hopkins University with a special interest
in health disparities. As I said to the Beaufort educators, imagine
a young African American woman who grew up in the deep South who is
on her way to becoming one of the world’s leading experts on
health disparities. We at UMBC can take great pride in Julie
Fields’s success. What her story says to all of us is that
we make a difference – our work is noble because we transform
lives.
Now in our fifth decade, we will continue to succeed by continuing
to put people first – supporting and guiding students as they
learn and grow; supporting faculty in their research and teaching;
supporting staff in their work with students and colleagues; and responding
to the needs of our growing external constituents.
Whether you’ve been here for decades or recently arrived, you
make a difference through your contributions. I’m celebrating
my 22nd year on campus this fall and my 17th as President – and
I want you to know how much I appreciate the support you have given
me throughout the years. We have become not only an Honors
University in Maryland, but a distinctive model in American higher
education – combining the traditions of the liberal arts academy,
the creative intensity of the research university, and the social responsibility
of the public university.
As I say every year at this time, it is an honor each day to serve
as President. Thank you.
Additional Examples of Prestigious Faculty
Awards & Fellowships
In Mechanical Engineering, Anne Spence received the 2008 Outstanding
Change Agent Award of Excellence from the Maryland State Department
of Education, and former Dean Shlomo Carmi received the 2008
Lifetime Achievement Award from the District of Columbia Council
of Engineering & Architectural Societies and was elected to the
Board of Governors of the American Society of Mechanical Engineering.
In Biological Sciences, Tamra Mendelson and Hua Lu received NSF
Career Advancement Awards, and Jeff Leips received Geneticist-Educator
Network of Alliances (GENA) certification from the American Society
of Human Genetics.
In Mathematics & Statistics, Andrew Rukhin received the American
Statistical Association’s W.J. Youden Award in Interlaboratory
Testing; Anindya Roy received the Outstanding Young Statistician
Award from the International Indian Statisticians Association;
and Chair Nagaraj Neerchal received the Outstanding Service Recognition
Award from the Maryland Chapter of the American Statistical Association.
Bill Thomas, in the Erickson School, received the American College
of Health Care Administrators’ Public Service Award.
In Visual Arts, John Sturgeon became UMBC’s second Lipitz
Professor of the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, and
Ellen Handler Spitz was elected to membership in the New York Institute
for the Humanities.
Amy Froide, in History, received the Huntington Library Fellowship
Award.
Bruce Walz, in Emergency Health Services, was elected President of
Advocates for EMS.
Piotr Gwiazda, in English, was the James Merrill Writer-in-Residence at
the James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut.
Isabel Galindo, in Modern Languages & Linguistics, received the
Maryland Higher Education Commission’s Henry C. Welcome Fellowship.
Marvin Mandell, in Public Policy, was elected Vice President and President-Elect
of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs & Administration.
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