07-30-2023 EDU - Flipbook - Page 1
The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, July 30, 2023
EDUCATION
A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION OF BALTIMORE SUN MEDIA • SUNDAY, JULY 30, 2023
INSIDE:
2 Fulfilling a need
University partnerships
with businesses
benefits all
2 Experiential learning
Gaining valuable skills,
while making a
difference
3 Looking forward
Salisbury University
4 High-tech labs
Hands-on learning
4 Ever-changing
workforce
New job opportunities
Bradley Hudson, M.F.A., professor and sequential arts coordinator at UMES (middle) created the major for artists who loved comics.
Technology and the liberal arts team up
From art to medieval texts, students embrace new
opportunities to learn
By E. Rose Scarff, Contributing Writer
A
foundation in liberal arts is the basis
for the sequential arts concentration in the fine arts department of
the University of Maryland Eastern
Shore (UMES). Bradley Hudson,
M.F.A., professor and sequential arts coordinator, created this major to include everything he
wished had been available when he was a college art student. There was no place at that time
for artists who loved comics and telling stories
with pictures to study except at very expensive
private schools.
As an instructor at UMES, Hudson began
by nurturing students with that interest in
his classes and eventually created the current
major. While taking their general education
courses in English, math and other subjects,
students are also taking foundation art courses
in drawing, painting, computer graphics, photography, printmaking, and getting exposure
and experience in many avenues of expression.
The sequential arts concentration is one of
several that students can choose from for their
junior and senior years.
Since UMES is a small school, Hudson is
able to take students to three or four conventions each year. “When we go to conventions,
students have a table just like they're a professional,” says Hudson. “They sell their work,
they show their work, they network with other
artists, writers, editors, art directors.” This valuable experience is at no cost to the students. In
addition, Hudson is able to bring professional
artists to class for talks or do portfolio reviews
with students.
Besides trips to conventions, students also
do field trips to museums to see art in the
original. Rising junior Torrence Coffin had not
anticipated how seeing original art would influence her own work. She enjoys learning with
and from her fellow students. “The help from
my professors has really made my art closer to
what I want it to be,” says Coffin. She has an
idea for a comic that she and a friend plan to
bring to reality after graduating.
Along with the quality of the education
the students receive in this program, Hudson
also emphasizes the low cost and small classes.
Students who complete the program will have
honed their artistic skills and gained valuable
experience for success in their chosen medium.
There are applications for computer science
and information technology in the humanities,
but it's not always obvious. At Loyola University
Maryland, students are learning to use artificial
intelligence to make researching medieval texts
less cumbersome. As Jeffrey C. Witt, Ph.D.,
chair of the philosophy department and associate professor explains it, currently researchers
wanting to compare texts must have access to
many volumes that are physically housed in
many places in the world. As more and more
of these medieval manuscripts are scanned, it
has become possible to use AI to search for and
compare passages.
This summer Witt and his student interns
are working with a copy of a commentary that
is a 15th century printed edition owned by the
Munich National Library. It has been scanned
and is already online. They will make a model
of it, get coordinates of all the lines and extract
text from it. “Then we will make another copy
of the manuscript of the same text that's owned
by the Walters here in Baltimore,” says Witt,
“and then we'll capture all the line coordinates
of the text in the Walters volume as well.” They
will then be able to use AI to locate a passage in
the Munich text and the exact same spot in the
Walters manuscript.
All this is to streamline research into how
ideas change over time. By conventional methods when editions of these texts are created,
they are published by different publishers. To
compare references, a researcher would have to
collect all the various volumes from different
libraries and then find the right page.
What Witt and his team want to create is
metadata that describes all the different features of all these texts. You could read the text
as usual, but you could also search for all the
Technology and liberal arts,
continued on page 7
STEM education for tomorrow’s jobs
From emerging technologies to closing diversity gaps, colleges
are creating a pipeline of new talent in STEM
chronicling the experiences of female scientists.
“I think most young women who decide to
go into STEM know that it’s not easy and know
what kinds of issues we often face – especially
Black women,” she says. “As discouraging as it
can be to think about, it puts a battery in my
back at the same time. Every time I doubt my
abilities, I quickly remind myself that I’m qualified, that I am doing this to increase the amount
of Black female representation in the forensic
field. Although my journey may be hard, I'm
doing this for more than just myself.”
CCBC offers one of the only helicopter pilot training programs at a college on the east coast.
By Katie Turner, Contributing Writer
Women in STEM: Towson University's
Hill-Lopes Scholars
Jordan Brooks, a 2023 graduate of Towson
University with a bachelor’s degree in forensic chemistry, says she joined the Hill-Lopes
Scholars program because of the opportunity
to connect with other women pursuing degrees
in STEM.
“Having a community of women who
encourage you to continue pursuing your
dreams when you start to doubt yourself is
necessary,” she says.
Founded in 2019, the Hill-Lopes Scholars
program is named for donors Barbara Hill
and Ancelmo Lopes, both scientists who are
passionate about supporting and increasing
women in STEM.
Kristen Pinkowski, program coordinator
for Hill-Lopes, explains “Historically there has
been a leaky pipeline where women will enter
Photo by Dwayne Allen
the STEM workforce or academia and then
might not excel because of different barriers.”
The Hill-Lopes Scholars program works to
prevent this drop-off by helping women build
a personal and professional support network to
carry them throughout their careers. Students
are eligible to join as sophomores, and the
program helps them build a community among
STEM learners, teachers and employers.
Mentorship is a big part of the program, and
right from the start students are assigned a faculty mentor who helps them connect with others in STEM fields. By the final year, students
have established relationships in their field of
interest, and many students return to mentor
newer Hill-Lopes Scholars.
The program also offers numerous opportunities for students to engage outside the
classroom, from events to speakers. Brooks
found these opportunities to be among the
most inspiring, recalling a screening of the
movie “Picture a Scientist,” a 2020 documentary
Careers in Flight: CCBC’s Helicopter
Pilot Training
For aspiring professional pilots, there are
typically two choices for education: flight school
or the military. But for Marylanders, there is
another choice – the Community College of
Baltimore County (CCBC).
CCBC offers one of the only helicopter pilot
training programs at a college on the east coast,
and it can be much more affordable than a traditional flight school, as CCBC students are able
to earn scholarships or use financial aid to pay
for the program.
Students graduate with 300 hours of flight
time and an associate of applied science degree.
CCBC trains approximately 100 new pilots for
helicopters and planes each year. Many of them
go on to work for local employers, including
positions at news stations or commercial airlines.
A state-of-the art helicopter flight simulator
allows pilots to train in a variety of conditions
that cannot, or would not, be replicated in a live
flying environment, explains Doug Williams,
aviation program director at CCBC. The simulator also represents a huge cost savings, as a
live helicopter costs as much as $500 per hour
to operate.
“We can replicate a lot of weather conditions
or emergencies, bird strikes, and more that you
wouldn't be able to do in a real aircraft, or you
wouldn’t want to do,” he says. “It offers 180
degrees of views, what you would actually see
looking from the windows as a pilot.”
Careers in aviation go beyond just flying. Students can also pursue education as
STEM,
continued on page 7
5 Cutting-edge
technology training
Courses in security
and terrorism, artificial
intelligence and
cybersecurity
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Above: Mary Ann Scully
See article on page 2.
Ask Margit
By Margit B. Weisgal, Contributing Writer
mbweisgal@gmail.com
Forewarned
The U.S. Surgeon General’s
Advisory on Social Media
and Youth Mental Health
On May 23, 2023, the U.S. Surgeon
General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued a new
advisory: Social Media and Youth Mental
Health. Along with an advisory issued earlier
in May titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness
and Isolation, every adult should educate
themselves on the dangers facing youth and
adolescents.
Shala Vaziri has three children, an
8-year-old daughter and fraternal twins, a
boy and girl, age 12. “How are you managing
your children’s social media use?” I asked out
of curiosity.
“I think I have a good relationship with
them, and they usually tell me what’s going
on in their lives,” she responded.
“How sure are you about that?”
“Pretty sure,” Vaziri answered, though
she furrowed her brow, thinking about their
interactions. “The problem we face is trying
to find one-on-one time with each of them.
Between my husband’s and my work schedules and their activities, it feels like we are
never in the same place at the same time.”
She is only echoing what every parent feels
in today’s world.
This latest advisory – warning, actually – from the U.S. Surgeon General about
young people’s use of social media combined
with the report on the epidemic of loneliness
and isolation that focuses on mental health
concerns need to be taken seriously by anyone who interacts with young people. We
should have alarms resounding in our heads
constantly.
Here are the U.S. Surgeon Generals advisories:
“There are increasing concerns among researchers, parents
and caregivers, young people,
healthcare experts, and others
about the impact of social media
on youth mental health. The current body of evidence indicates
that while social media may have
benefits for some children and
adolescents, there are ample indicators that social media can also
have a profound risk of harm to
the mental health and well-being
of children and adolescents,"
according to "Social Media and
Youth Mental Health."
“Loneliness is more wideAsk Margit, continued on page 7
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