2-5-2023 EDU - Flipbook - Page 2
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The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, February 5, 2023
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Colleges and universities develop new academic initiatives
Diversity and college affordability are addressed
By Carol Sorgen, Contributing Write
A
s students’ needs and interests evolve, so too
do the programs at Maryland’s institutions of
higher education.
CCBC Launches Program for Students to
Pursue Four-Year Degree
Community College of Baltimore County’s
new Degrees to Succeed dual admissions program
has been designed to remove the barriers that
might keep its students from pursuing a four-year
degree. The program, which just launched last
fall after extensive research and planning, offers
students a way to enroll at CCBC and secure
admission to a four-year university at the same
time. These partner schools include American
Public University System, Coppin State University,
Southern New Hampshire University, Towson
University, University of Baltimore, University of
Maryland, Baltimore County, and University of
Maryland Global Campus.
CCBC’s Director of Transfers Ann Gamble
explains that students who are admitted to both
CCBC and one of the transfer partners will receive
guaranteed admission to both schools, access
to the partner campus’s resources and student
experiences, including academic advising, financial incentives and/or scholarship opportunities,
junior status after receiving their associate degree
at CCBC, and guaranteed acceptance of all their
transfer credits for either an Associate of Arts or
Associate of Science degree.
“By being dually admitted to both CCBC and
one of our four-year transfer partners, Degrees to
Succeed students can save money and fast track
their educational and career goals, while getting
support from both schools,” says Gamble.
“We want to make this a seamless experience
for students who wish to continue their education
at a four-year university,” says Gamble, observing
that the program helps students think ahead and
prepare for the next phase of their education, in
addition to helping them build a sense of community both with other students in the Degrees to
Succeed program and students, faculty, and staff
at their chosen university. “This program gives
students the opportunity to engage early and often
with the school of their choice to give them the
confidence that they have made the right decision,” Gamble continues.
With education costs so high, Gamble
observes that another advantage of starting out at
CCBC is the opportunity to save tuition costs for
those two years as well as take advantage of the
many scholarship programs CCBC offers.
Gamble, herself an alumna of CCBC, is passionate about the benefits of the new program and
the opportunities it will offer students. “This place
changed my life,” she says. “We want to wrap our
arms around our students and help them achieve
their goals.”
Coppin State Partners with AIG To Provide
Career Pathways
The job outlook for inspectors general – those
professionals who conduct independent and
objective audits for federal, state and local governments and their agencies – is bright, but historically it has not been a career that has been particularly diverse. A collaborative partnership between
Coppin State University and the Association of
Inspectors General is working to change that.
“Our aim is to increase representation and
diversity in the field via mentoring and other
activities for HBCU (historically black colleges
and universities) students,” says Johnny Rice,
Ph.D., chairperson and assistant professor of
criminal justice at Coppin.
The partnership began last year, and since that
time Coppin and AIG have worked together to
identify and create a range of activities that would
create a professional pathway to the field. During
the past year a career professional from AIG spoke
to Coppin students during National Criminal
Justice Week. Several Coppin alumni have also
met with students to discuss their journey into
the investigative field, and a summer enrichment
course on campus was held for students to learn
about the unique aspects of the job. Two Coppin
students were also given the opportunity to attend
the national AIG conference to explore career
opportunities.
“From our standpoint at Coppin, we wanted
to develop opportunities to increase students’
knowledge of the career and to develop a pipeline
for internships,” says Rice, adding that it’s also
important for AIG to increase diversity in the field
as set out by its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Committee, whose vision is “to ensure that all
AIG activities intuitively reflect diversity, equity,
and inclusion.”
Rice observes that Coppin’s geographic location in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, with
its many government agencies, makes it particularly well-suited to be at the center of this initiative. There also is a growing need for inspectors
with a variety of skills and areas of interest, such as
finance, computer science, and business, among
others.
“Our goal is to provide a curriculum and
training for those who are interested to go into a
field that needs them,” says Rice.
Advancing the ecosystem
Graduate programs promote environmental justice
UMBC's Chris Blume studies urban bats and how heavy metal pollution affects them.
By Linda L. Esterson, Contributing Writer
C
hris Blume earned an undergraduate degree from the University of
Delaware in wildlife conservation
and ecology. His interest in the
social aspect of conservation –
communities and people in an area and how
they work together for conservation – led him
to University of Maryland, Baltimore County
(UMBC) and master’s study in geography and
environmental systems.
UMBC’s Interdisciplinary Consortium for
Applied Research (ICARE) program is taking
his study a step further to include environmental justice as part of its mission to bring
inclusion and diversity into the environmental
sector, Blume says.
Students applying for master’s degree programs in areas like biological sciences, environmental engineering, geography and environmental systems as well as public policy or
marine estuarine environmental science also
may apply for acceptance into the ICARE program, which is funded through the National
Science Foundation (NSF). The first ICARE
cohort began study in 2021 and, like Blume,
will graduate this spring.
As part of ICARE, students are teamed
with a UMBC faculty mentor, a partner mentor, who is a professional scientist or engineer
who works for a government agency or nonprofit organization, and a community stakeholder, an activist or leader who represents a
constituency of Baltimore residents.
“They are part of the research in that they
are suffering environmental problems,” says
Tamra Mendelson, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences at UMBC and prime investigator
for the NSF grant that funds the ICARE program. “They ideally are helping co-create or
co-produce the research.”
Collaborating with professionals and
stakeholders enables students to expand their
networks in a way not otherwise available to
them.
“They're meeting people in academia,
they're meeting people in every part of the
environmental sector, and then they're meeting people in communities who are activists
who are trying to make a difference, that
maybe don't have direct connections with
institutions like universities, or government
agencies,” Mendelson says. “We're trying to
really make bridges between these spheres, all
of whom are affected by environmental issues
and all of whom have a stake in solving environmental problems.”
During the first year, students investigate environmental issues while undergoing professional development training and
taking coursework, including JEDI (Justice
Equity Diversity Inclusion) and Engagement,
and form research teams to plan for their
work. The summer is spent conducting the
research, and the second year includes additional coursework in writing and speaking as
they prepare for their oral presentation during
the UMBC Graduate Research Conference.
Students receive a stipend and research budget for their work.
Blume’s project is evaluating heavy metal
pollution around the city using native bats
in the city to act as bio-monitors of pollution through what they eat, insects includ-
ing moths and mosquitoes that come from
contaminated water sources or soil. Blume
collects and evaluates their waste to determine
how the contaminants move through the city.
“I'm also looking at biodiversity of bats
to see how they're faring in urban areas,” he
says. “Bats in general are struggling, their
populations seem to be on decline, but not a
whole lot is known about urban bats. I want to
know a little bit more about biodiversity and
heavy metal contamination and who's been
impacted by it.”
Blume puts acoustic monitors on structures that have bats like abandoned buildings,
old churches and bridges, and erects bat boxes
as habitats for them. He collects the waste
samples from the boxes. He has placed about
70 boxes around the city.
The ultimate goal, he says, is to institute
policy change for how heavy metals are used
by certain industries and industrial groups to
combat contamination. He hopes to further
his investigation as part of a Ph.D. program.
At Goucher College, a new master’s degree
program in environmental sustainability and
management will equip students to deal with
environmental issues that have become more
persistent, widespread and complex. These
include plastic pollution, air quality, deforestation and climate change, says Germán Mora,
Ph.D., associate provost for curriculum at
Goucher College.
Traditional methods for dealing with environmental problems are no longer as effective,
Mora notes, explaining that passing laws, regulations or ordinances in a local area to combat an issue, for example, does not solve global
problems. For instance, plastic bag charges in
Baltimore City may help in that jurisdiction,
but the Chesapeake Bay will still be harmed by
bags from areas like Baltimore County, Anne
Arundel County and other states.
To provide solutions, university leaders
took a multidisciplinary approach to develop
a program that teaches students to understand
the root cause of environmental problems
and offers tools to deal with such issues on a
larger scale. The program differs from others
in the region as it takes a more holistic view
of these issues. State approval was secured in
February 2022.
“It is important to know when to apply
those tools and the drawbacks associated with
those solutions,” Mora notes. “We hope that
our students are going to be able to have a
Advancing the ecosystem,
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