The 2018 CityLit Festival, featuring globally recognized authors, publishers, editors and more in a day-long celebration of literature, will take place at the University of Baltimore on Saturday, April 14, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the William H. Thumel Sr. Business Center, 11 W. Mt. Royal Ave. This partnership with UB’s Klein Family School of Communications Design will feature more than 75 writers in 20 sessions, all free and open to the public.

MASTER CLASS: FIVE FREE SPOTS FOR QUEER WRITERS OF COLOR
Thanks to a generous donor, the festival organizers are offering five FREE spots for the Master Class with celebrated poet Yrsa Daley-Ward from 2-3:30pm for queer writers of color. If you’re interested, all you need to do is email info@citylitproject.org with “YRSA” in the subject line, and provide your name and your email address. These free slots will be filled on a first come, first served basis.

SLOTS STILL AVAILABLE FOR 30-MINUTE ONE-ON-ONE EDITORIAL CRITIQUE SESSIONS
There are still tons of slots available for the 30-minute one-on-one editorial critique sessions. If you’re an aspiring writer, this is an incredible opportunity to sit down with a professional editor and get an in-depth critique of your work. These sessions are only $10! Learn more and sign up at http://citylitproject.org/index.cfm?page=news&newsid=207.

For the complete 2018 CityLit Festival schedule, visit www.citylitproject.org.

You’ve probably heard the term ‘experiential learning’ and thought, “What does that mean exactly?” Experiential learning is essentially learning by doing. It means, you get out of the classroom and into the real world to put your knowledge into practice through hands-on experiences. And this semester’s Arts 304 course, co-taught by Assistant Professor Ian Power and Assistant Professor Rachael Zeleny, is doing just that.

Arts 304—better known as ‘Arts and Ideas’—is described as an interdisciplinary study of enduring works of imagination and intellect that have contributed to the making of contemporary civilization. The course uses examples of art, architecture and music to illuminate central themes in literature, philosophy and history, and the cultural resources of the Baltimore area are utilized wherever appropriate.

For their spring course, Professors Power and Zeleny are having their students visit some of the city’s most amazing and well-known arts and culture institutions, including the Walters Art Gallery, the Peabody Institute, the American Visionary Art Museum, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum. The students also went on a historic ghost tour in the city. Sixty percent of the class time is spent outside of the classroom. The course also brings an array of guest artists, musicians, and poets into the classroom to not only perform for the students but also explain the context and purpose for their work.

Each week, a different student serves as the designated class photographer/blogger, and he or she is responsible for documenting that week’s guest speaker or out-of-class adventure as a blog post featured on Prof. Zeleny’s website. And for their final project, the students will curate an “art tour” that looks at Baltimore through a specific lens. For example, they might choose a jazz tour of Baltimore that could include a restaurant like Sotto Sopra, an outdoor concert, an exhibit at the Peabody, and the home of Billie Holiday.

“UB sits in the heart of Baltimore’s culture and history but so many of our students have only been inside the classroom,” said Prof. Zeleny. “This class is trying to change that, to encourage our students to pause before walking past a building or a piece of art, to feel that they deserve to ask the question, ‘why is this important?’ I want them to feel empowered to say they are a part of this city and not just passing through.”

By the end of the semester, Profs. Power and Zeleny hope that as a result of their experiences both in and out of the classroom, the students will have greater empathy for the various experiences of those who lived before us and for our unique and diverse student body.

To read more about Arts 304, check out “If a Tour Guide, a Slam Poet and a Curator walked into the Owl Bar: Baltimore’s Classroom” written by Prof. Zeleny for the April 2018 issue of the UB Post (available now at newsstands all around campus).

Check out the latest news and updates from the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences…

On Monday, Feb. 5, the spring 2018 special topics course commemorating the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign kicks off its public lecture series with guest speaker, Gordon K. Mantler. Mantler is a professor of history and of writing at George Washington University, and author of Power to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice, 1960-1974. Mantler’s talk will take place beginning at 5:30 p.m. in UB’s Town Hall, located in the H. Mebane Turner Learning Commons. The event is FREE and open to the public.

Learn more about the course: http://blogs.ubalt.edu/poorpeoplescampaign/

On Saturday, Feb. 3 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., the University of Baltimore’s Hoffberger Center for Professional Ethics will host the 2018 Maryland High School Ethics Bowl competition on campus in the Thumel Business Center. Ten teams from six Maryland high schools will be competing this year, including Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, Gerstell Academy, Liberty High School, Long Reach High School, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, and Sparrows Point High School. The winning team will go on to compete at the National High School Ethics Bowl competition, hosted by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in April.

Last month, as part of the winterim 2018 Organizational Theory & Development course—where students study virtually and abroad—students from the graduate I-O psychology program traveled to Spain for 10 days to study and collaborate with their counterparts from the University of Barcelona. Here are some pics of their meet and greet dinner on day one, and a group shot atop Montjuic Hill on their last day…

Learn more about the I-O psychology program’s study abroad opportunities.

Value Colleges, a website devoted to finding the country’s best values for college majors, has ranked UB’s M.S. in Interaction Design and Information Architecture at #33 nationally. “The University of Baltimore Master’s in Interaction Design and Information Architecture is one of the university’s most in-demand programs, with strong showing on the job market,” the website says. “The program combines computer science with the insights that the humanities bring to life, preparing students to use their knowledge to meet needs and solve problems. This 36-credit program can be completed entirely online, or in evening and weekend classes, to provide working adults with flexibility. The University of Baltimore has been meeting students’ needs for nearly a century, and has more than proven its value.”

View Value Colleges’ “Top 50 Best Value Interaction Design/UX/HCI Graduate Degrees for 2018.”

In a recent Atlas Obscura article that explores the history of Baltimore’s Laurel Cemetery—the city’s first nonsectarian graveyard for black residents— Interim Assistant Dean and Archaeologist Ronald Costanza discusses the work that he and some of his students have done to help preserve the historic site, which was razed by developers in the 1960s and ultimately replaced with a parking lot and discount stores.

Read “The Grim History Hidden Under a Baltimore Parking Lot.”

Division of Applied Behavioral Sciences Associate Professor Sally Farley is organizing the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s (SPSP) Nonverbal Preconference, to be held on Thursday, March 1 in Atlanta, GA. Preconferences are one-day mini-conferences that take place on the first day of the SPSP Annual Convention, giving attendees the unique opportunity to gather with colleagues who share their specific academic and research interests. There are preconferences on topics ranging from gender to political psychology to psychology of religion and spirituality. This will be Prof. Farley’s seventh year in a row organizing the Nonverbal Preconference.

Prof. Farley was also recently named associate editor of special issues for the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior.

Adjunct faculty member Bonnie Jones, who currently teaches Arts 202 Technology and the Arts, was recently awarded a $40,000 grant for music/sound by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA). Jones is an improvising musician, poet, and educator working primarily with electronic sound and text.

Learn more about the FCA’s 2018 Grants to Artists Recipients.

Division of Science, Information Arts and Technologies Assistant Professor Elka Porter recently had two papers published: one in Marine Ecology Progress Series and the other in Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, both leading journals in the field of marine ecology. Both papers explore Prof. Porter’s research using the Shear Turbulence Resuspension Mesocosm (STURM) facility located at Patuxent Environmental & Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL) near the Patuxent River in St. Leonard, Maryland. Prof. Porter has been a visiting researcher at PEARL every summer since 2015, working with undergraduate students to study the effects of sediment-water interactions on organisms like oysters and clams in the Chesapeake Bay.

(a) STURM facility (b) student Heather Franz measuring light levels

Learn more about the work of Prof. Porter and her students in “Hands-On Learning: The World Is Their Oyster” in the spring 2016 issue of the UB Magazine.

Graduate counseling psychology student Joey Salvatore has been granted a 2017-18 Turner Research and Travel Award, which will enable him to travel to Italy to conduct qualitative research on the intersectionality of religion and gay men’s life experiences in Rome. Turner Awards provide funds to support student travel and research related to academic work at UB.

Check out the latest news and updates from our talented students, renowned faculty and ambitious alumni…

Asst. Prof. Joshua Davis

Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies Assistant Professor Joshua Davis had his book, From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs, published with Columbia University Press in August. Time magazine and the Chronicle of Higher Education have featured the book, and Davis published articles drawing from it in Slate and the Washington Post this summer.

photo c/o Medium.com

M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts student and Baltimore writer Kondwani Fidel has been making headlines—including the cover of Baltimore’s City Paper—with his latest piece, “How a young boy has been decaying in Baltimore since age 10: A Death Note.” The viral essay, featured on the self-publishing platform Medium, takes a raw look at the hardships Fidel faced growing up in East Baltimore.

On the heels of this summer’s highly successful inaugural Philosophy Camp for Teens hosted by the Hoffberger Center for Professional Ethics, center director Fred Guy has been busy talking and writing about the importance of ethical decision-making and using philosophy to examine our moral code. He even considers the potential benefits of a philosophy camp for adults. Check out these stories to get more on Prof. Guy’s perspective:

• 4 Tips to Help You Make Better, More Ethical Decisions
  Oct. 21, 2017, bigthink.com
• Why We Need Philosophy Camp for Adults
  Oct. 5, 2017, bigthink.com
• What the world needs now: philosophy camp for grownups
  Aug. 31, 2017, The Baltimore Sun

Hoffberger Center for Professional Ethics director Assoc. Prof. Fred Guy (center)

Asst. Prof. Steven Leyva

The 2016 “Myth” issue of Little Patuxent Review—which is edited by Klein Family School of Communications Design Assistant Professor Steven Leyva—has been listed as a “Notable Special Issue of 2016” in the The Best American Essays 2017.

On Oct. 15, Prof. Leyva gave the keynote address at The Inaugural Ron Kuka Prize for Urban Short Fiction. The contest—named in honor of fiction writer Ron Kuka—encourages Baltimore’s young writers to continue creating throughout their lives. The October event featured readings by students from Baltimore’s Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Art, and Prof. Leyva said, “I was able to encourage many of these young writers to apply to UB as a way to continue pursuing their craft.”

Students from Baltimore’s Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Art read their original works at The Ron Kuka Prize for Urban Short Fiction event.

Asst. Prof. T.J. O’Donnell

GEOLOOM co>map, a project designed by Klein Family School of Communications Design Assistant Professor T.J. O’Donnell in partnership with Merrick School of Business’s Jacob France Institute—was selected as “Map of the Month” by Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

Congratulations to Counseling Psychology graduate student Stephen Shaul, whose presentation won recognition as one of two best posters at the annual convention for the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (MAC-ACBS), held October 13-14 in Arlington, VA.

graduate student Stephen Shaul

Prof. Julie Simon

Beginning Friday, Nov. 10, Klein Family School of Communications Design Professor Julie Simon will have her digital photography on display at The Art Gallery at the Historic Greenbelt Community Center. The exhibit will be up through Jan. 3, 2018. For more information, visit www.greenbeltmd.gov/arts.

Assoc. Prof. Marion Winik

Klein Family School of Communications Design Associate Professor Marion Winik, who writes the “Bohemian Rhapsody” column for Baltimore Fishbowl, recently wrote a piece for the site about the debut works from four graduates of the M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts program. Read about the new books from Liz Bamford, M.F.A. ’13, Christopher K. Doyle, M.F.A. ’09, Anthony Moll, M.F.A. ’14, and Timmy Reed, M.F.A. ’13, in Baltimore Writers Club #8: Four UB Alums Take Flight.

During the week of July 10-14, the Hoffberger Center for Professional Ethics held its first-ever Philosophy Camp for Teens here at UB. Twenty-two Baltimore-area high school students attended.

Fred Guy, director of the Hoffberger Center, and his staff designed each day of camp to demonstrate to the students that philosophical thinking is relevant and valuable to them in their daily lives. Topics and activities included social media bullying, shaming, and texting obsession; police brutality; moot court cases on ethical dilemmas; robots and A. I. (from The Matrix and more); ethics bowl competitions; and role playing as mayor of an ideal city.

During the closing exercises, the students spontaneously went up to the mic and said how much they had benefited from the camp and how many new friends they had. All said they couldn’t wait until camp next summer!

students and staff from the Hoffberger Center’s inaugural Philosophy Camp

In a recent piece for The Huffington Post, Klein Family School of Communications Design lecturer Betsy Boyd writes about how the current trend toward studying an author’s previously unreleased or posthumously published works may prove to be a scholarly dead end.

Read Boyd’s article in The Huffington Post.
Learn more about Betsy Boyd.

The latest book from Division of Legal, Ethical and Historical Studies Assistant Professor Joshua Clark Davis— From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs —was recently featured in Time magazine.

Read the review of Clark’s book in Time.
Learn more about Prof. Joshua Clark Davis.

Simulation and Digital Entertainment (recently renamed Simulation and Game Design) graduates and brothers Matthew Leonard, B.S. ’16 and Michael Leonard, B.S. ’14, have started their own game design company, Leonard Brothers Game Studio. They’ve also released their first video game called Entropy, which is now available for free on Google Play.

Learn more about Matthew and Michael Leonard.

Christopher Tom, B.S. ’12, has been named an associate with Cho Benn Holback, a Quinn Evans Company. Cho Benn Holback serves as the Baltimore office of Quinn Evans Architects, an award-winning architectural and planning firm.

In addition to a Bachelor of Science in Simulation and Digital Entertainment from UB, Tom also holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Syracuse University. An architect with expertise in educational facilities, museum environments, and multifamily residential projects, Tom is currently working on two of Baltimore’s Rental Assistance Demonstration projects: Chase House and Monument East. Tom is also on the design teams for Smithsonian Institution projects at the National Museum of the American Indian Cultural Resource Center and the National Air and Space Museum Udvar Hazy Center.

On July 17, Assistant Professor Greg Walsh joined the Fjord Fika podcast to talk about the growing power of co-design—the idea that an effective design of literally anything is reliant on input from users, even young children.

In addition to teaching and directing several programs in the college’s Division of Science, Information Arts and Technologies, Walsh leads UB’s intergenerational design team, KidsteamUB, through which children and adults work as partners to design new technologies for children.

Listen to the Fjord Fika podcast.
Learn more about Prof. Greg Walsh.

Congratulations to Anthony Moll, M.F.A. ’14, adjunct faculty in UB’s undergraduate writing program, on winning the 2017 Non/Fiction Collection Prize from literary magazine The Journal. The Non/Fiction Collection Prize is awarded annually to a book-length collection of short stories, essays, or a combination of the two, and carries a cash award of $1500 and publication with The Ohio State University Press.

The book is now under contract and is scheduled for a fall 2018 release from OSU Press. Moll said that a portion of the manuscript was developed while he was a student in UB’s M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts program, under the mentorship of Klein Family School of Communications Design Professor Marion Winik.

photo courtesy of The Journal

Learn more about the Non/Fiction Collection Prize.

Our psychology faculty and students were busy this year! Check it out…

Sam Singh, B.A. ’17, at the 29th APS Annual Convention

Last week, recent psychology graduate Santokh (Sam) Singh, B.A. ’17, attended the 29^th Association for Psychological Science (APS) Annual Convention, held in Boston, MA, presenting his senior thesis work, “Narcissistic Behaviors and Social Media Usage.” Sam also presented this same poster and won the research prize at this year’s Inspired Discoveries, an annual UB symposium focused on undergraduate research and other academic achievements. Psychology students represented almost half of the presentations at this year’s symposium.

psychology students at the 2017 Inspired Discoveries

In March, Sam and fellow UB graduates Charles Thornton, B.A. ’16 (now a student in the Industrial and Organizational Psychology graduate program), Jennifer Kelly, B.S. ’16 (psychology minor) and Taylor Young, B.A. ’17 (psychology major), presented their research poster, “Free to Say No: Evoking Freedom Increased Compliance in Two Field Experiments,” at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association (EPA), also held in Boston. Their research was based on a project they completed in their Research Methods and Statistics II course with undergraduate psychology program director Associate Professor Sally Farley.

Pictured l. to r.: Assoc. Prof. Sally Farley, Sam Singh, Charles Thornton, Jennifer Kelly and Taylor Young at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association

Earlier this year, Assistant Professor Michael Frederick presented posters at two conferences: “Assessing Life History Variation Using a Brief Stability Questionnaire” at the Southeastern Evolutionary Perspectives Society Conference in Tuscaloosa, AL, and “Enhancing Evolution Literacy in College Students Requires Intentional Instruction” at the 40th Annual National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology in St. Petersburg, FL.

Graduate counseling psychology program director Associate Professor Courtney Gasser also presented a research poster at the EPA Annual Meeting in Boston along with psychology students Chris Ceary and Devon Washington. Their poster was titled “The Effect of a Career Workshop on Attitudes Toward Career Counseling.”

Division of Applied Behavioral Sciences Chair and Professor Sharon Glazer had the monograph that she co-authored with Catherine T. Kwantes—Culture, Organizations, and Work; Clarifying Concepts—published by Springer, a leading global scientific, technical and medical publisher. An e-copy of the book can be purchased at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-47662-9.

Last month, Clinical Associate Professor Elaine Johnson testified at a public hearing with the Virginia Board of Professional Counselors, speaking against a proposed regulatory change to require graduation from a CACREP (Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs) program for Virginia licensure.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology program director Associate Professor Thomas Mitchell (front row, center) and many of his students attended the 2017 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Conference in Orlando, FL in April.

On Saturday, May 6, the 2017 graduates of the M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts program hosted the program’s annual Graduate Reading, Book Fair and Reception. This event celebrates the culminating works of the graduating M.F.A. students, books they wrote, designed and produced themselves. Below are some photos from the event…

Egypt Kosloski, M.F.A. ’17 was the winner of the 2017 Plork Award, which honors a graduate student whose work best exemplifies the spirit of the M.F.A. program, exhibiting extraordinary creativity, originality and imagination in the integration of creative writing and book design. The award carries with it a $500 prize granted by the Carol Peirce Fund.

On Friday, April 7, Philosophy, Society and Applied Ethics majors Jordan Cook (left) and Candice Miller (right) placed third at the 2017 Mid-Atlantic Regional Ethics Case Competition held at Mt. St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, MD. The competition—hosted by Mt. St. Mary’s Richard J. Bolte, Sr. School of Business—brings together teams of students from other colleges and universities to participate in case discussions and debates involving free enterprise and business ethics. Jordan and Candice were the only two-person team to participate (all other teams had five students competing) and they went first in the competition, wowing the judges and the audience with their poise, preparation and presentation.

Congratulations to Jordan and Candice on their third-place win and for representing UB so well in this important educational event!