BreakingGround Digest #4

BreakingGround celebrates and extends innovative social change work by UMBC's students, faculty, staff, alumni and community partners.  Here are some highlights from the past week.

• The Green Dot program launched last Friday.

• The BreakingGround Community Program Grant application is due September 30th (i.e., this Sunday), so apply now.

• A UMBC team including professor Bev Bickel, Shirver Center director Michele Wolff, former SGA President Yasmin Karimian, alumna Helen Atkinson and I shared some of BreakingGround's features and assessment strategy at the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement's annual conference (see pages 47-48 of the conference program).

From the BreakingGround website:

• UMBC senior Collin Wojciechowski spent a year as the only student member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents. He reflects on the experience.
• The campus celebrated the opening of the new Performing Arts and Humanities Building on the 46th anniversary of UMBC's founding. UMBC Office of Institutional Advancement communications manager Dinah Winnick shares insights (and audio) from cultural innovators who participated in the "New Space" panel discussion.
• I describe the early history of UMBC's First Year Council (featuring a giant water gun fight on the Quad), and invite student organizations to nominate the next generation of first-year student leaders.
• Vivian Armor, Director of UMBC's Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, and professor Amy Froide explore some of UMBC's supports for budding social entrepreneurs, including the new Entrepreneurship Minor.
• One of the best-kept secrets of the past 6 years at UMBC has been revealed: the inside story of UMBC Underground, the anonymously-authored publication that generated a lot of buzz on campus before the MyUMBC forums existed.  "Treeveins" (alum and UMBC Underground founder Andrew Gordon) provides the scoop.

• More Information about BreakingGround Digest #4