Starting a new term with the best of intentions and a high level of motivation, we might be looking forward to teaching a new class--or seeing whether the changes we've made in a class we've taught frequently work to our satisfaction. Despite our initial enthusiasms, though, our motivation to keep things fresh and challenging sometimes begins to fade as the semester unfolds, accompanied by a notable drop in students' attention, especially as warmer weather beckons.

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One of the new initiatives designed to support faculty through The Shriver Center is our Grants Development in Service-Learning Project. The Shriver Center provides support to faculty in the preparation of grants in accordance with various funding agency requirements to provide an education component to their project.

The semester is not yet half over, though for many faculty the hectic pace may make it feel as if the end of the semester is rushing forward to meet us at breakneck speed. this is the perfect time to take time to stop to review what's happening, check in with students and track our progress on professional and teaching goals.

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Effectively managing time and stress during the end of a term (instead of wearing ourselves out) can help faculty enjoy these weeks, conclude with a sense of satisfaction, and be primed--after a brief rest--to begin summer projects.

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For most of us, the university is more than a familiar environment--it's the community and context in which we've learned, worked and prospered for years if not decades. Our comfort as experienced academics allows us to forget that students, especially new students, need to be acclimated to this environment if they too are to prosper and succeed--and by 'this environment' I mean not only UMBC in particular, but the purposes and values of institutions of higher education. To motivate students and help them succeed, it's important to articulate our assumptions about their participation in academic life, and make explicit what we too often leave implicit in our courses.

As graduation nears, you're probably looking forward to many things. Of course, a paycheck probably tops the list! But while there's much to look forward to, there are a few things from the student lifestyle you may miss. Since the work world is likely to be a very different place then the campus you've called home for the past few years, we're offering a few tips to help you successfully navigate the transition from college student to career professional.

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In the coming months, faculty who have not already heard the phrase 'the assessment of student learning outcomes" will probably encounter it (or something similar) in one or more settings on campus.

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Do you have some free time over winter break? Are you wondering what to do with this time? Not only is winter break a great opportunity for you to take a load off from classes, but you can also take advantage of this time to explore your career interests. The Career Development Center (CDC) has some ideas to help you occupy your time while preparing you for life after UMBC.

The final weeks of the semester can be a satisfying time, as material in courses begins to come together for professors and students alike. Connections among a variety of topics or concepts can be made, details fit into place, and major ideas consolidated. On the other hand, the end of the semester can also be a time of extreme frustration and stress for everyone, as demands pile up, deadlines loom, and unexpected problems test our composure. To avoid the latter of these two extremes, we have the opportunity, now, to step back and consider what the next few weeks might look like.

Part of any effective job search includes preparing for that all-important interview, but are your interviewing skills up-to-date? What were considered correct responses in the 1990s could actually prevent you from getting a job these days. Why? Because the job climate has shifted and employers have different expectations of a prospective employee than they did even five years ago. So how do you demonstrate that you're in touch with the business needs of today?

On Saturday, October 25, in coordination with Homecoming activities, many students will start their day by literally heading out Into the Streets to participate one of UMBC's growing number of annual community service events.

How can we guarantee that lectures serve our students well, promoting learning and helping to develop crucial thinking skills?

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.

"Having taught a course several times, faculty members often feel confident in waiting until just before a semester begins to review notes, update a syllabus, and check on books and materials. Yet curricular changes, budgetary demands, student interests, or restructured departmental offerings can alter the nature of the course one had planned on teaching," says Jack Prostko, director of the Faculty Development Center. Prostko discusses resources for effective evaluations of student performance.

Being a student at UMBC can put you ahead of many other employment seekers in the area; however, you must be sold on your abilities and for your growth and development, able to identify your career alternatives.

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This year, UMBC is happy to create and observe it own "Volunteer Week" to celebrate the commitment to the community that is so evident at our campus. In such challenging times it is often necessary to remember how much we have here at UMBC and how important it is to share our resources with others.

In any job market, but especially in a tight economy such as we're currently experiencing, it's important to understand exactly what employers are looking for in an ideal candidate.

As various reports have shown (confirming what most of us already know),"the average student's attention span is between 10 and 20minutes." Lecturing for long periods of time allows us to cover a lotof material, but may be less effective in helping students learn thandividing the class period into segments of lecture followed by briefclassroom activities.

Students in Taryn Bayles' Introductory Engineering Science course testtheir hot air balloon and heat transfer theories in the atrium of the Engineering Computer Science Building.

Joseph N. Tatarewicz, associate professor of history, reflects on the space shuttle Columbia disaster.

Do you have some free time over winter break? Are you wondering what to do with this time? Not only is winter break a great opportunity for you to take a load off from classes, but you can also take advantage of this time to explore your career interests. The Career Development Center (CDC) has some ideas to help you occupy your time while preparing you for life after UMBC.

Several trends are emerging in the world of service and civic participation.

Writing helps us see how students are grappling with the ideas and content of a class, usually forcing them to engage in higher levels of thinking about a subject. For professors interested in exploring ways of experimenting with the use of writing in their courses, several excellent resources exist.

"Halcyon Days" by G. Rickey Welch, Dean of Arts and Sciences

Do you know how to conduct a job search? The thought of graduating and entering the world of work can be very overwhelming, especially in today's uncertain job market. Your job search strategies will need to be very aggressive and thorough.

Many faculty at UMBC are currently teaching very innovative and effective service-learning and engagement courses.

Early in the fall semester, professors have the perfect opportunity to get more specific or comprehensive information about what's going on in the classroom. Doing so helps avoid surprises in end-of-semester evaluations or complaints when students find themselves lost before finals. More importantly, instructors can often make small but potentially crucial changes in a course that may make it a more satisfying learning experience for everyone.

UMBC's largest annual job fair, Career Fair 2002, is scheduled for October 10 from 12 noon to 3:30 p.m. in the RAC arena. If you want to get more out of the fair than just the free giveaways, follow these tips.

Each month this new Insights column by Mark Terranova of The Shriver Center will highlight community service and civic engagement here at UMBC.

As the semester progresses and coursework settles into a demanding routine, students' interest sometimes begins to wane. For many students, meeting academic goals can start to seem less certain as complexity and ambiguity set in. Are there ways to ensure that motivation will remain high throughout the semester and that students will continue to be engaged in a course?

UMBC students, faculty and staff discuss their favorite summer reads.

Maybe you're curious about UMBC's latest national news coverage, or you log into myUMBC to add money to your campus ID card or just have your browser's "Home" button set to www.umbc.edu. However you arrive, if you do so on a Friday afternoon, you're likely to witness a metamorphosis quite rare in higher education: a completely different looking home page each week.

Edward Orser, professor of American studies, discusses one family's impact on Baltimore's West-side parks.

Spring semester is almost over and now is the perfect time to start planning for your summer job search. Impress employers by your initiative in seeking the best job to prepare you for future career opportunities. Even if you don't need the extra money, look into volunteering your skills to help build your resume! Keep in mind that most job seekers will have a degree and many will have experience, you don't wan to be left out. In addition to being a great resume builder, a career-related summer job helps you make contacts, can lead to a full-time job, and enables you to put what you learn in the classroom to the test.

During the more hectic times of the academic year, it's difficult for faculty to step back and assess the successes (or problems) that occur in the classroom. But as spring semester ends, now is the time to pause and reflect on a year's worth of teaching, and organize thoughts and materials in a way that identifies major issues and accomplishments. In short, it's time to develop or revisit your teaching portfolio.

Does your idea of taking work home involve emailing cumbersome attachments to yourself or stuffing a briefcase full of floppies? Fortunately, there's an easier and more elegant solution.

Most students dislike preparing for and taking tests and most instructors are less than fond of constructing and grading them. Yet while they can create anxiety and distress, tests, as we know, serve several crucial educational functions. They not only allow us to see how much students have learned, but good tests reinforce learning by focusing on the central issues or concepts in a course.

So the time has arrived for you to start your job search. Looking for a job, be it part-time, internship, or your first professional position, is all about sales. To make the analogy bluntly, you are the "product" and you need to convince an employer to "buy" you. And just like a salesperson selling any product, you need to develop a marketing plan.

With more than 10,000 distinct campus users, Blackboard has become a popular tool for academic AND general campus needs. If you're teaching a class or managing an organization with Blackboard, here are a few tips that will make life easier for your users.

You use it for everything, but how well do you understand your email program when it comes to security and virus protection?

Getting students to participate in a productive discussion can be a challenge, even for seasoned professors. But discussions, while less useful as ways of communicating quantities of information, highlight student learning--whether students are able to understand information, apply it, analyze or evaluate it. Participating in discussion forces students to think critically and recognize the complexity of issues and ideas.

Shlomo Carmi, dean of the College of Engineering and vice president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' (ASME) International Board on Engineering Education, spoke at the State of Technology in Maryland 2002 Summit on February 4.

Only two more months until graduation. The semester is going by much quicker than you expected and pretty soon--if you haven't begun already--you will be actively interviewing for employment. As you focus on securing an outstanding academic record, here are a few tips to make your interview successful.

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Patrick Merryman, human resources associate in the Department of HumanResources, recounts his recent stay in Shanghai while completing an internship with the Maryland Business Center, China.

The Web has opened up a whole new realm to complement or supplement what can take place in the classroom, and at the Teaching, Learning and Technology Fair held in January, several UMBC faculty members displayed their latest web-based course innovations.

Okay, so you've mastered how to send or receive email attachments-a great way to share documents and files with anyone. But if you want to keep the collaboration going, learn how to add comments or revisions to the files you attach.

What can you do to make sure that you are in demand to employers when you graduate? Here are a few steps you can take as you go through college that will significantly increase your chances of being amongst the first hired.

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