By Mark Terranova, Associate Director, The Shriver Center

With another year at UMBC we welcome another outstanding group of students, faculty, and staff into our community. And as in past years, our community gathered at Convocation with a call to become engaged in our community.

For the third year in a row, over 50 UMBC students and staff began their first full weekend at UMBC not by heading down to the shore (I apologize - I grew up going to the Jersey shore - not "down the ocean"…), but waking up at dawn to clean a city park.

Since that first weekend, engagement activities are flourishing around campus. UMBC SERVES, an initiative of The Shriver Center, the Office or Residential Life and the Student Life Office, continues to successfully encourage hundreds of students to serve in volunteer, community service, and service-learning activities. Additionally, faculty continues to add service-learning components to courses and sponsor credit for internship opportunities. New and exciting research directly engages and serves the community.

UMBC and The Shriver Center are also participating in the American Democracy Project. This initiative aims to increase the number of undergraduate students who understand and are committed to engaging in meaningful civic actions.Designed to address decreasing rates of civic participation, the American Democracy Project focuses on increasing student involvement "in voting, in advocacy, in volunteerism in local grassroots associations, and in other forms of civic engagement that are necessary for the vitality of our democracy."

Engagement is becoming the culture at UMBC, and we invite all of you to participate in these exciting programs. Obviously, we have all had easier years; we are constantly doing more with less. However, the best way to transcend the challenges of today is to get outside of yourself and get involved helping someone else. So, whether you are new to UMBC or have been here since the start -- pick up a phone or e-mail any of these departments and become involved.

The Shriver Center: www.shrivercenter.org
The Student Life Office: www.sta.umbc.edu
The Office of Residential Life: www.umbc.edu/reslife
The American Democracy Project: www.aascu.org/programs/adp/default.htm