Who Will Get Your Vote?

The Retriever Weekly is running an informal poll on their website - head over there and vote for your favorite SGA Presidential candidate! Results will be published in an upcoming issue of the newspaper.

Debates Online

UMBCtv has posted a recording of the live video stream from the debates. If you were unable to attend or just want to refresh yourself about what was said I highly recommend watching it.

Check it out here. Comments can be left on the UMBCUnderground post.

After 90 days in Annapolis...

Each year, the Maryland General Assembly meets for 90 days from January to April. Last night, the 2008 Session ended. Here is a brief list of highlights from the session:

- no textbook-sale regulation was passed because the Senate and the House of Delegates could not come to agreement on minor details
- USM state funding increased 9% from last year
- UMBC state funding increased 8%
- with such funding, it seems as though Chancellor Kirwan is ready to propose a tuition freeze to the Board of Regents
- with a tuition freeze with the third straight year, Maryland public institutions will drop in cost from 6th in the nation (2005) to 16th (2008)

Governor O'Malley has worked hard over the past months with the legislature to maintain funding for higher education in order to keep tuition down. Even though the State is struggling economically, the Governor and the Legislature made higher education a priority by minimizing cuts from the Governor's proposed budget.

So where from here? In the coming weeks, I will be working with campus-based administrators, students, and faculty to see if we can address some of the issues related to textbook sales for the coming fall semester that were not addressed this session. These issues will include:
- publishing ISBN numbers, textbook editions, and other details on the selection of textbooks
- publishing this information well in advance of the start of the semester
- working with professors to submit textbook selections well in advance of the semester to give the bookstore ample time to place orders
- ensuring that professors are made aware of and consider the cost of potential textbook selections

Have questions, thoughts, or concerns? Contact me: (410) 294-8581 or joshmichael@umbc.edu

SGA Presidential Candidate Debates

The Election Board will be hosting a debate between the three President/Vice President tickets this week. Be sure to attend or submit questions beforehand to him via email (jmccaul1@umbc.edu). UMBCtv will be filming the debates, so they should be viewable after the fact via the UMBCtv website.

When: This Wednesday at 7:00 PM.

Where: Student Organizations Space, 2nd floor of the Commons building (between Flat Tuesdays and the Gameroom)

Teacher Ratings Update

Well everyone, after much time, energy, and threats of physical violence, the compilation of the teacher ratings are very nearly complete. All we need to do now is get them up on the web and it will be over. Until that time though, I thought I would give you all a sneak peek of stats I thought were most interesting, the individual department rankings.

As you may know, the data that was used in these ratings were taken from the SCEQ bubble sheets that we all fill out at the end of each semester. The criteria I used in the judging were whether new insights/skills were learned, preparedness of the lectures, instructor interest in the subject, clarity of lecture material, and the overall effectiveness of the instructor. Each of these criteria were weighted differently also- insights, preparedness, and clarity were each 10%, instructor interest was 15%, and overall effectiveness was 55%. Everything is based on a 5 point scale with 5 being the best. The ratings are taken from the results for fall '07.

So, with that explanation out of the way, the top five departments were:

1. Archaeology 4.74/5
2. Greek 4.73/5
3. Admin Studies- Accounting 4.64/5
4. Music 4.63/5
5. EHS 4.56/5
5. Latin 4.56/5

Congratulations to those professors for outstanding work. Now for the bottom five:

46. Computer Science 4.10/5
47. Physical Education 4.05/5
48. Chemistry 3.91/5
49. Science 3.88/5
50. Mech. Engineering 3.87/5

Better luck to those departments. Hopefully they are enjoying a stronger spring semester.

I hope everyone stays tuned for when the site goes up with not only the rest of the department power rankings, but the rankings for the individual teachers as well.