Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID MAGAZINE Watkins Printing Co. Summer 2010 UMBC MAGAZINE University of Maryland, Baltimore County 1000 Hilltop Circle Baltimore, MD 21250 AUGUST UMBC Night at Ripken Stadium Saturday, August 28 Bullpen Party 6 p.m., Game 7:05 p.m. ALUMNI EVENTS Ripken Stadium, Aberdeen Bring the whole family to a night of minor league ball featuring the Aberdeen JUNE Retriever Club Golf Classic IronBirds versus the Vermont Lake Monday, June 14 UMBC Night at Camden Yards Monsters. Fireworks after the game. $ Saturday, June 12 10 a.m., Rolling Road Golf Club, Catonsville retrievernet.umbc.edu/ironbirds Enjoy a round of golf and support UMBC Bullpen Party 5:35 p.m., Game 7:05 p.m. Athletics. Sponsorships available to SAVE THE DATE Camden Yards, Baltimore support student athlete scholarships. $ Join the UMBC Alumni Association for a retrievernet.umbc.edu/golfclassic Retriever Fever – UMBC night of baseball as the Orioles take on the Homecoming 2010 New York Mets. Space is limited, so please register early. O’s promotional giveaway. $ October 14-16 retrievernet.umbc.edu/baseball Times vary, UMBC Campus UMBC Homecoming 2009 - 5K “Dawg Chase” Do you have the fever? This year’s homecoming promises to be better than ever, with sports, culture – and plenty of food! www.umbc.edu/homecoming Waging War on the Web Amazing Internships | Albin O. Kuhn (1916-2010) | Chasing Tales Whatever you choose to SUPPORT... The UMBC community mourns the passing of Albin O. Kuhn (left), Your academic the university’s founding department chancellor. A single deserving student Courtesy of University Archives, 07 UMBC Your favorite sports team …makes a big difference to UMBC! When you were a student at UMBC, you probably didn’t spend much time thinking about annual giving. More likely, you spent your hours studying, working, and thinking about your future. Like most students, you were concentrating on the days and months before you – not leaving a legacy. With hindsight, however, your perceptions have likely broadened. You know now how an education at UMBC made your life better over the years. You also understand that not only is it easy to make a lasting mark on your alma mater – it is vital to the future of UMBC. Alumni donations to the Annual Fund directly support initiatives that make the university stronger. Whether you make a gift to your department, student scholarships, an athletics team – or to the university as a whole – your gift matters to UMBC. www.umbc.edu/exceptional Don’t forget to make your gift by June 30th to be included in the next Donor Honor Roll! www.umbc.edu/magazine CONTENTS Internships are a key part of a UMBC education. And departments sometimes, a challenging and timely internship can change a career trajectory. We talk with four UMBC To You 2 alumni whose internships helped rocket them to From You 3 success. By Meredith Purvis, Derek Roper ’11 and Erika Shernoff Up on the Roof 4 14 Campus Treasure 5 Turn to Earn The News 6 At Play 8 As a journalist and an author, UMBC English professor Christopher Discovery 10 Corbett has a knack for finding marvelous and How To 36 mislaid stories past and present – from the Pony Express to the Poker Bride Class Notes 38 to Polock Johnny. By Rafael Alvarez Then & Now 46 22 Over Coffee 48 Chasing Tales How UMBC is pushing the frontiers of research and training in cyber security – and keeping its own networks safe from attacks. By Joab Jackson ’90 on the cover 30 Mouse grenade photo illustration by Aaron Goodman. Battlefield of Bits and Bytes Visit UMBC Magazine online at www.umbc.edu/magazine for plenty of web extras! Thoughts, complaints, suggestions about UMBC Magazine? Get in touch at [email protected]. UMBC MAGAZINE | SUMMER 2010 2 TO YOU It’s no secret that these are tough economic times. So what advantages do UMBC students have in the struggle to find and secure a career? o u r s t a f f The great education that they receive at UMBC is one Editor asset. But the strength of the university’s commitment to Richard Byrne ’86 securing internship opportunities is another head start that Associate Editor UMBC students have in the job hunt. Jenny O’Grady As UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, points out in our “Up on the Roof ” feature (Page 4), the university works hard to nurture Design Director Jim Lord ’99 relationships with potential employers in the Baltimore-Washington corridor. He also emphasizes the number of opportunities that UMBC has created on campus, observing Designers that over 2,000 students gain work experience on the campus itself each year. Michelle Jordan ’93 Erin Ouslander ’03 In this issue, we’re spotlighting the power of internships to shape and even transform Melissa Van der Kaay one’s career aspirations and trajectory. In “Turn to Earn” (Page 14), we feature the stories of four UMBC alumni whose internships took them in a much different direction than they UMBC News Staff may have planned for themselves at the outset of their time at UMBC. B. Rose Huber Kavan Peterson It’s no accident that three of the four alumni we profile obtained their internships from UMBC’s Shriver Center. The center is a powerhouse for applied learning on campus, Contributing Writers placing 1,300 students into internships each year and winning high marks from students Rafael Alvarez and employers for its efforts. (Can you help The Shriver Center place a student? You can David Driver Joab Jackson ’90 contact the center at [email protected] or 410-455-2493.) Sharon Knecht ’99, ’03 M.A. The mentoring efforts of UMBC faculty also play a huge role in giving students a leg Meredith Purvis up on internships and other networking opportunities. Jeff Seidel ’85 Christopher Corbett, author and professor of the practice in the English department, Erika Shernoff is just such a mentor for his students and the college journalists at UMBC. Noted author Joel N. Shurkin and screenwriter Rafael Alvarez (The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street) profiles Corbett Editorial Intern in this issue of UMBC Magazine (Page 26), and his piece traces Corbett’s path to success Derek Roper ’11 working at local newspapers in Maine and at the Associated Press in Baltimore. Contributing Photographers These days, Corbett is imparting the lessons of those years in the journalism trenches Tracey Brown to a new generation of students – through his classes and his job as faculty advisor to The Aaron Goodman Retriever Weekly. And it is Corbett who has helped many of his charges – including Jamie Howard Korn Smith-Hopkins ’98 of The Baltimore Sun, who is also profiled in our piece on life-changing Jim Lord ’99 Melissa Van der Kaay internships – get their foot in the door at media outlets with a timely call to an editor. “My experience has been that work begets work,” Corbett tells me. “Which I think Administration is a truism of the trade. I’m sure you’ve known people who’ve had an internship and then Greg Simmons ’04, M.P.P. somebody got drunk or ran off with the donut shop waitress, and then somebody got a Vice President, Institutional Advancement job because they were there and these things happen.” Miriam Tillman Corbett adds that “my philosophy about internships is that I only send out someone Assistant Vice President, Marketing & when they’re road-tested…. This isn’t complicated. And, historically, it’s led to people Creative Services finding jobs.” Sandra Dzija Director, Alumni Relations & Annual Giving The UMBC community is also mourning the passing of the university’s founding chancellor, Albin Owings Kuhn, on March 24. Our feature on Chancellor Kuhn’s legacy can be found in the “News” For information on the Alumni Association, section on Page 7. A memorial service for Chancellor Kuhn will be held on Sunday, May 23 at 2 p.m. in please visit http://retrievernet.umbc.edu or the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery. A reception will follow. call 410-455-ALUM. — Richard Byrne ’86 For information on giving to UMBC, please contact the Annual Fund at 410-455-2210 or visit www.umbc.edu/exceptional. www.umbc.edu/magazine FROM YOU 3 UMBC Magazine welcomes your letters I really like the physical texture – I suppose autism, without condescending to “explain” to the editor on any issue related to the you could say – of the magazine as well. I Ne’eman to the reader, and without content of the magazine. Readers can e-mail am relocating to Virginia, just across the inserting conciliatory language to smooth comments to [email protected]. Faxed Potomac, soon, and now I want to go back over Ne’eman’s experience, beliefs, and comments are accepted at 410-455-1889. and visit the UMBC area, and try the passionate advocacy for autistic people and Readers can also send letters to “Letters to Indian Delight restaurant! all people with disabilities. The absence of the Editor,” UMBC Magazine, 1000 Hilltop Thank you very much for the magazine. the obligatory interview with someone who takes a position opposed to Ne’eman’s Circle, Administration Building, Baltimore, — Marian Condray Hunter ’75, German was refreshing. Kudos to Edelson, the MD 21250. magazine, and to the photographer, who has taken what I consider to be the finest MORE THAN MONEY AUDITING AUTISM photographs of Ne’eman I have seen. Editor’s Note: President Barack Obama’s — Paula C. Durbin-Westby recent nomination of Ari Ne’eman, a UMBC Board of Directors senior profiled in the Winter 2009 issue of The Autistic Self Advocacy Network UMBC Magazine to a seat on the National Council on Disability drew this letter from one of the members of the board of directors WE GET KUDOS for The Autistic Self Advocacy Network – an I just wanted to commend you on the first organization founded by Ne’eman in 2007: few issues of UMBC Magazine.