--ICE-- a Success

Last night I had the opportunity to attend --ICE--, an event sponsored by the SGA's Office of Diversity Affairs. The event focused on celebrating the various cultures comprising the UMBC community through a fashion show of various styles and some unique performances.

From colorful outfits to exciting dances (and even an intense display of weaponry) the event showcased the people who make our campus so unique - and such a wonderful place to learn, not only academically but about our world.

Several other upcoming cultural events include ASIA and Norouz. ASIA is by far the largest Asian cultural event of the year and is being held this Friday night. Norouz is hosted by the Persian Students Association. I had the opportunity to attend it last year and had a wonderful time. This year tickets for students to both events are free, so if you're looking for something to do on campus this weekend, stop by the Commons info desk and pick up yours.

Elani Odeyale Addresses Prove It Winner Selection

Today, Green Space was announced as the 2008 Prove It! Winning Proposal. A well-developed proposal, the space will be both practical and aesthetically pleasing, using a well-trafficked but underutilized space. This project is realistically achievable within the upcoming months, and the campus community will be invited to share in the creation of this project. Green Space serves as symbol of Prove It!, demonstrating the significant potential of academic innovation and student ingenuity. Especially given the monetary and time constraints of the intiative, we believe this proposal best represents the ideals of Prove It!. Congratulations, once again, to Michelle, David and Thomas.

As the chair of the Selection Committee, it is imperative that I express how impressed we were by these final proposals. Each of the Final Five projects presented a worthy addition to our campus. It's equally important to consider the combination of factors that impacted our decision. As I stated in this afternoon's ceremony, Prove It! challenged the entire campus community and reflected the realities of creating change on such a large scale. We are currently coordinating a meeting with the finalists to share recommendations for important modifications as well as the next steps for each of the finalists. I am excited to say that this will not be the last we hear of the final proposals.

Thank you to all who were involved with Prove It!--from the students who accepted the challenge to submit their ideas to the staff members who worked tirelessly on advertising efforts--you are greatly appreciated and should take pride in your role in such a ground-breaking initiative.

Sincerely,

Elani

Elani Odeyale
Vice President, SGA
Prove It! Selection Committee Chair

Interested in contributing to Zwybak? Send an email to com2@umbc.edu

SGA Presidential Candiates

There are three tickets vying for SGA's Presidential office this year. All three have created websites with information on their platforms for students interested in getting more information.

Michael “SteelWolf” Comberiate (running mate = Sonia Siddiqui): steelwolfforchange.com

Steve Gilmore (running mate = Tokunbo Elegbe): http://gilmore.umbcsga.org/

Elani Odeyale (running mate = David A. Indek): http://umbcnow.com/

Remember, voting will be held from April 21-April 23 via Blackboard.

Prove It Announcement Ceremony

Prove It is gearing up to announce the winning proposal this Wednesday, March 26th in the UC Plaza.

From the invitation:

Come celebrate student ingenuity and its contribution to the UMBC community at the unveiling of the winning Prove It! proposal.

The "Final Five" proposals are...

• Student Creative Center
• Transforming the Study Place
• Revamping the UMBC Pond
• Green Space
• Ropes and Challenge Course

As always, more information is available on the official Prove It website, including short videos detailing each of the proposals.

Tales from the America East Championship Game

UM-BC UM-BC UM-BC 1-2-3 GO BIG DAWGS! WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF! So as most of you know, the UMBC Retrievers clinched the America East Conference championship this past Saturday with an 82-65 win over the Hartford Hawks. It was a sold out game, televised on ESPN2. The RAC was packed full of cheering fans, all waiting to see their Dawgs/Dogs make it to the Big Dance...the NCAA tournament. THEY DID IT!!! What an amazing game.

My day started bright and early. After getting two hours of sleep, I headed over to the RAC at 7am to hang with the pep band as they did two morning news spots courtesy of channel 13 at 7:15 and 7:45. I heard about this news spot via UMBC Underground, which had encouraged people to show up and cheer with the pep band. I showed up, as did five others, including Spirit Czar and True Grit. It was a tad chilly, but it was fun. After those festivities were over, I went to breakfast with some of the pep band (kudos to Jon for inviting me). Have any of you ever ridden in a car with someone who is just learning to drive stick? Thank God for seatbelts! Actually Jon did a pretty good job all things considered. Upon getting back to campus, I quickly consumed my eggs and pancakes, picked my seat (the good thing about getting there early...you get the seat you want), and helped spread Growl Towels throughout the student sections. By this time it's around 930...facepaint time!! A black paw on my left cheek and UMBC in alternating black and gold letters on the right. Props to the girls who were helping me with this...not sure who they are but after a couple of attempts, we got the UMBC worked out.

10am...students are lined up outside the entrance to the court, cheers of "UM-BC!" can be heard, growing ever more enthusiastic as the Retriever fever builds. Once they're let in, the students swarmed the seating areas, everybody figuring out where the different seating sections were, and trying to find their friends. It appeared as though the first 1000 maybe 1500 people in got free tshirts. Let the school spirit commence! Growl Towels and "Go Retrievers" foam sticks were provided. Face paint and body paint abounded, and there was plenty on hand for those who didn't show up painted. I caught up with my friend Caitlyn, painted her face (half gold and half black, with the opposite paw color on each cheek) then we proceeded to paint most of the people around us. It started small, coercing a few people into getting facepaint, but soon people were lining up, all with different requests for painting. I lost track of how many people we painted.

As the seats began to fill up, and people were hesitant to leave their seats for fear of losing them, we moved throughout the bleachers on our side of the room, painting faces, arms, hands, etc. Armed with black and gold paint andGrowl Towels for wiping our hands between colors, we spread school spirit. The paws were the most popular, then half and half faces. It was easy to tell the people who hadn't done facepaint before...they were nervous but eager, asking for just something small. Many times they did it because their friends told them to, even though they were hesitant. We reassured them that it would easily wash off with soap and water.

Some students were willing to go all out and paint their whole face to show support for their retrievers, people like Brian D, Caitlyn, and others who came looking for facepaint. Others like myself and Michelle were a bit more conservative, but still joining the fun. Some people asked to get their arms or hands painted, generally under the excuse "I have to go somewhere after this" or "I have to go out tonight". Then there were those who, although sitting in student sections, had the audacity to show up displaying very little school spirit. *cough Brian O, Eric cough* These folks soon they weren't going to get away with that. I quickly demanded they submit themselves to my wonderful facepainting skills, and they wisely acquiesced. The most interesting part of facepainting was when an older gentleman asked me to paint a paw on top of his bald head. It made me laugh when one kid asked us if we were facepainting for free, and then almost kissed me on the cheek when I was done painting him, he was so excited. (The kiss was a cultural thing, I'm familiar with it from visiting my friends in Mexico).

Let the games begin! The players were introduced, we cheered for our starting lineup, and the ref tossed the ball. Hartford got possession after tipoff, and made the first shot. We quickly answered with a three pointer, Hartford made another two, and that was the last time they would see themselves in the lead. After the first five minutes, it was clear that UMBC was there to show Hartford how the Retrievers play basketball. For the rest of the game, UMBC's lead never went below nine points. The fans were incredibly excited, cheering our hearts out and killing our voices in support of our Dawgs/Dogs. By the last six minutes of the game, we were shouting "NCAA!" , "Warm up the bus!" and singing "Na-Na-Goodbye" to the Hartford fans. They had been less then enthusiastic throughout most of the game, but I guess when your team is down by an avg of 13 points for most of the game, it's kindof hard to cheer with any real hope.

Around the three minute mark, fans in the bleachers started moving down onto the track and into the lower student section in preparation for rushing the court at game's end. It was obvious that the game was ours, and we were simply playing for kicks and giggles at that point. As the game was ending, and the clock was expiring, the fans started running out onto the court...but wait! There's 0.7 seconds left! Get off the court! I wonder if they did it on purpose...Once the clock officially ran out, we rushed the court and the excitement was uncontainable. They played "Alma Matter" but of course noone knew most of the words, and for some reason they didn't put the lyrics up on the information board. The cheers of the fans so were loud they barely heard the announcer say "Please clear the court" so they could do closing ceremonies. I joined with some of the Mama's Boys in singing "We are the Champions" and spreading it through the crowd. Back up on the track, we watched the Retrievers cut down the net, and cheered as our boys were named allstars.

After the game, I caught up with Ryan and Elise and we talked about how exciting it was that UMBC was going to the NCAA and Maryland wasn't, also what an exciting opportunity it was for the seniors on the team. As everyone cleared out, I grabbed my bags and went outside to soak up the sun. Hey look, the pep band has CD's on sale. I'd been meaning to get one for a while, but wait, I don't have any $ on me. Time to run down to the commons and hit up the ATM. After asking a nice older lady with a Hartford shirt on to watch my stuff, I went down to the commons and flashed a cute smile to gain entrance (only VIPs for the reception were supposed to be going in and out). I let a couple other kids in behind me who were looking to get into the bookstore, ran up to the ATM, then went back over to the RAC and picked up my copy of the Down and Dirty Dawg Band's first CD, then thanked the Hartford lady for watching my bags. I put the CD away, called my dad to tell him where he would find me when he picked me up, and then draped myself across my bags. Towel over my eyes, I relaxed and dozed in the sun until it was time to go home.

Back home I said hi to the family, got cleaned up (I looked like hell by this point, having barely slept all week, much less the night before) and flopped down on my queen sized bed for a much needed nap. I finished out the evening by going out for dinner and a movie with my brother who I hadn't seen or talked to in about a month. We bumped into a friend of mine who goes to Maryland and quickly exercised bragging rights. After getting home and falling into bed exhausted from all the adventures of the day ( I was running on adrenaline all day), I woke up the next morning very pleased to discover my parents had opted to go to the later service at church, partially for my sake.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!! Watch for us Friday as we play Georgetown University in round one of the NCAA at 230pm EST. LET'S GO RETRIEVERS!!!

Many thanks to Zwybak reader pyrodancer for their contribution. Interested in seeing your post in this space? Send an email to com2@umbc.edu.

Men's Basketball Makes UMBC History

This afternoon the UMBC Retrievers made university history by soundly defeating Hartford 82-65 in the America East Conference championship game. Held for the first time on our home turf in a sold-out RAC, the win has given us our first-ever ticket to the NCAA Tournament. Notably absent from this tournament are the College Park Terrapins, giving us a unique opportunity to represent our state while thumbing our noses at our local rivals. Read the official press release here.

Congratulations UMBC!

Last Day to Apply for SGA

If you haven't already, you should definitely consider applying to run the SGA elections. It's an excellent way to get involved in the campus community and help to change it for the betterment of your fellow students.

Check out the application and other details on the election website. Even if you're deciding not to run, keep on the lookout for information on the various candidates so you can make informed voting decisions.

Best of luck to everybody who applies!

UMBC Takes Student Regent Position

The University System of Maryland (which includes schools like UMBC and College Park) is governed by a 17-member Board of Regents, one of which must be a full-time student from one of the USM schools.

This year, the position of Student Regent is being filled by a representative of UMBC - Joshua Michael, Director of Community and Governmental Affairs for SGA and a frequent Zwybak contributor.

Congratulations to Josh on being selected for this position and to UMBC for continuing to assert itself as one of the premier institutions of higher education in our state.

Prove IT! Videos are up

Just to let you know the Prove It! Finalist video blogs are posted and are available here:

http://sga.umbc.edu/proveit/studentresponse

feel free to take a peek and leave comments.

Experience vs. Innovation

I have had the opportunity to work closely with a number of administrators on a variety of issues this year. Many of these administrators have been involved with the university for decades and have been present for a number of changes and their long-term results. often this is in stark contrast to myself, a student who has only been here two years, will leave after four and obtains institutional knowledge only through personal experience and the accounts of others.

I have noticed that they significant experience amassed by many administrators has left them jaded in a way. For nearly every given situation they can regurgitate a comparable one in the university's history, complete with outcomes. Students such as myself, on the other hand, tend to believe that lasting solution can be found to a current problem if the right decisions are made.

This brings about a conflict of perspectives that I have yet to determine how to resolve. Am I naive to believe that the same problems experienced in the university's past need not recur? Does the wealth of knowledge held by many administrators help them make better decisions now, or does it make them less likely to try something innovative to resolve an old issue?

It may be a product of my youth, but I believe that there are solutions to problems. Because something similar didn't work in the past in the past is not a reason to try a tweaked version in the future. Perhaps the timing was off or a small detail was missing - but so long as no superior solutions has been found, it is worth trying. Maybe my views on how the university could improve are similar a product of my position in the opinion cycle. I like to think I am being innovative and finding creative solutions to our problems.

Call me arrogant, but I think my perspective (and those of others in my generation) is the one that is poised to inherit the future. We do not fall into the trap of believing that because something happened in the past, it will happen in the future. Experience is valuable and we need to learn all we can from our mistakes, but if we let our pasts cloud our ability to be visionary we cease to be effective.

I challenge my colleagues in the administration to try and view the university as organic. As it grows and develops we must be open to different ideas if we want to adapt and remain relevant. It is the institutions (both academic and otherwise) with the ability to change that will thrive - the others will flounder, realizing their fate only when the window of opportunity has long since closed.