NSSE: Let Your Voice be Heard!

UMBC students, get ready to have a say about the quality of campus life and the kinds of changes you’d like to see! Some freshmen and seniors have an opportunity to provide feedback in a forum that is taken very seriously by campus leaders. Freshmen and seniors are being invited at random by e-mail to participate in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) between now and the end of May. The NSSE is a yearly survey administered by UMBC and other private and public institutions across the U.S. UMBC’s Office of Institutional Research explains that NSSE

“gauges the extent to which colleges are providing experiences associated with a quality undergraduate education and the extent to which students are engaging in those educationally meaningful activities.”

Campus leaders have used the results with other information to make changes to curriculum, programs, and resources. In response to initial results, senior administration at UMBC implemented a number of initiatives designed to increase student engagement and success. Some examples include: first-year seminars, Introduction to an Honors University seminars, living learning communities, the new student book experience, and the faculty mentor program.

If you are one of the lucky invitees, please take the opportunity to tell UMBC’s leaders about your experiences. Students who complete the survey by May 1, 2009, will be eligible for one of four $100 Amazon.com gift certificates.

Moving on From Here...

At Monday's Senate meeting, I was sworn in as the SGA President for
the remainder of the year. Also at the meeting, my two choices for the
vacant VP positions were confirmed. Dave Indek will be the new Executive
Vice President and James McCauley will be the new VP for Student Orgs. In
addition to this, Rahilla Tarfa was selected by the Senate to be the new
Speaker, while Jen Kent retained her post as Assistant Speaker.

First off, I want to commend Steve for the courage and resolve he showed
in handling the situation tonight. After all that's gone on, it was
fitting that he left the room to a round of applause from those present. I
hope everyone looks back on his time in the SGA and sees all the good he
did for students, not what happened over the past week.

That said, I think everyone is ready to put all the unpleasantness of the
past week behind us and move on to our plans for the spring semester. I
know there will be a bit of a learning curve for those of us who have been
put into new positions as we get used to our new responsibilities, and I
ask that you have patience with us while we get adjusted to our new roles.
However, that will not stop us from continuing to work for students, and I
expect everyone in the SGA to continue to work on their projects and
initiatives. I've held the Senate to a high standard in my time as
Speaker, and as President I will hold the entire SGA to a high standard,
because I know you are all good enough to be held to a higher standard
than the average SGA. We have a lot of projects that are ongoing right
now, and it needs to be our priority to finish those projects in the
remaining three months of our terms.

I want to ensure everyone that the SGA is not going to go downhill from
here. I won't let it. I sure as hell ain't going to coast for the rest of
the year. Too many students have placed their faith in us that we will
serve them and make this university the best that it can possibly be, and
I would not be able to live with myself if I disappointed them by not
doing the best job I can. We have a lot of talented and passionate people
in this organization that are ready with ideas to serve students. We can
show the people that have doubted the strength of the SGA over the past
few days that we can rise above any pitfall that we come across and come
out the other side stronger than ever.

The excitement from the retreat just two weeks ago gave me a huge burst of
energy to finish out my time in the SGA at full blast. I hope everyone can
channel that energy and make the spring semester one to remember. The
folks at the Senate meeting tonight were very excited about the
possibilities that await us in the upcoming weeks, and I hope all of you
can feel that way too.

Change has obviously come to the SGA, but I hope we can move forward from
here and continue to do our jobs for the students of UMBC and make for the
best undergraduate experience possible. I am excited to work with all of
you.

-Gabe Rettaliata

Should the library be open longer than 12 AM?

So some SGA Senators have been discussing the current operating hours of the AOK Library. UMBC seriously lacks a study place where students can study, what is considered, "after hours." Although the atrium is open 24/7, the library closes at 12 on school nights and earlier over the weekends except Sunday. Personally, I've always found the atrium space not big enough for all the students that head down there once the semester really starts back up. There aren't enough tables, and there surely don't seem to be enough outlets. Compared to our peer institutions as well, like U of Alabama or U of Arkansas and others, our library closes down 2-3 hours earlier every school night.

In an attempt to understand the situation better, we contacted Larry Wilt, Director of the Library and spoke to him about this issue. We talked about possibly only having one or two floors of the library open for an extended period of time - 2 to 3 hours every night. While the library understood the need to extend hours, he told us that the current budget could not possibly support such a venture. With this economy and the budget cuts, finding money to fund another 2 hours of running the library becomes much harder as well. According to Larry Wilt, Director fo the AOK library, research was done in 2003 to come up with estimated costs of extending the library hours by 2 hours every night of the week. For Fiscal Year 2003, costs came up to about $35,000. We can add inflation costs to that and come up with a rough idea for costs for now.

So here is our question:

1. Would longer library hours help us? Would you want to see the AOK library hours extended?

Public Transcript Fee Discussion

Tonight, the SGA Senate hosted an open discussion with Yvette Mozie-Ross (Vice Provost for Enrollment Management) and Dr. Steve Robinson (Registrar) about the $8 per transcript fee that students are being charged. This is a discussion that has been going on with administrators and SGA members for some time, but tonight involved both SGA members and about forty other concerned students.

I was very excited to see so many students take the time out of their evening to attend this meeting. Their commentary was both insightful and respectful, and those present demonstrated a willingness to work towards some kind of a compromise that would help alleviate the current burden on the student body. At this time, the sentiment of compromise was not reflected in the responses by Mozie-Ross and Robinson.

Because Credentials, Inc. charges only $2 for their transcript processing, many questions were raised by students about where the additional $6 was going. While no budgetary figures were presented by Mozie-Ross and Robinson, one area where money was described as going toward was the development of digital transcripts in a secure .pdf format, that would expire after a certain amount of time.

The minutes from this meeting will be posted as usual on SGA's announcements blog. I'm interested in hearing any further reactions to the meeting from students who had to leave early or were unable to attend.

Finally, it was stated by Mozie-Ross that when the transcript fee was still in the planning stages, she and Robinson consulted with then-SGA president, Jay Lagorio, along with the president of the Graduate Student Association. She said that a $10 fee was proposed to Jay, and after objections were voiced a "compromise" of $8 per transcript was reached.

I took the liberty of contacting Jay myself, and he said he was initially approached about a low per transcript fee that would be under $5. He raised objections to something that high, but agreed that $1-2 would be reasonable to pay for better transcript services (incidentially, $2/transcript is what Credentials charges). Jay also supported the development of a secure .pdf transcript format because that way, graduating students could get a single transcript and use it again and again, since there is no envelope to unseal and a digital signature would verify that the document had not been altered. Clearly, a .pdf with an "expiration date" runs contrary to this idea.

Hopefully this information will resolve any confusion in the minds of students about the role of last year's SGA administration in this process. Contact information for people involved is as follows:

Jay Lagorio: lagorio1@umbc.edu
Yvette Mozie-Ross: mozie@umbc.edu
Dr. Steve Robinson: robinsos@umbc.edu
Gabe Rettaliata (current Speaker of the SGA Senate): gabriel2@umbc.edu
Myself: michael.c@umbc.edu

Walter Snowheim Update

From Zwybak!

Several of Zwybak's loyal readers sent in pictures of UMBC's Walter Sondheim having fun in the snow - including the awesome students who did it. Jordan, Mariah, Ian, and Ian's pals are welcome to come by the SGA office this week and collect your rewards.

I've added the pictures to the Zwybak gallery, so they should be showing up in "recent pictures" soon. Or, just click the link to go there now.

Walter Snowheim

It looks like one of UMBC's patrons, Walter Sondheim, had some fun in the snow last night. He's been decked out in a crazy new outfit. If anybody reads this before the snow melts and sends me a picture I can put up here ( silversteelwolf@gmail.com ), come up to the SGA office in the Commons and I'll give you a prize.

Disclaimer: the prize is a five-pronged massager. That's two more prongs than your typical massager!

Higher Education Rally in Annapolis, October 2007

I just posted a follow-up to legislative lobbying that many of us participated in during the fall of 2007 over at USMstudents.  I thought you might might enjoy a few photos...







(Never thought I would see Steelwolf so happy in the presence of the Governor...)

Victory (Tastes Like Chicken)

Despite some of the rough patches we've had with the food services transition, I admit I felt pretty darn good walking into the UC a few minutes ago and seeing the newly opened Chick-fil-a. After signing up for a 10-meal plan, I walked through the Commons to kill time while I waited for the "system to come back" so they could actually activate my meal plan - and saw the new pizza place with delicious-looking food.

I think we continue to make progress on food services, although we are still shackled to the archaic idea of meal zoning. Please continue to make both SGA and Food Services aware of ongoing issues, and remember that Chartwell's can be contacted directly via their feedback form.

Attention: UMBC Downtown Line Riders

As many students who use the Downtown Line to get into Baltimore already know, the service has experienced some upheaval over the past semester. In the past, the line has been operated as a partnership between UMBC and UMB, with a large percentage of the ridership being UMB personnel traveling to and from the 195 park and ride.

This fall, UMB opted to discontinue financial support for the line. Thanks to the combined efforts of UMBC undergraduate and graduate students, the line continues to operate (albeit on a reduced schedule).

A problem that has existed before this trouble started is the limited number of seats on the buses. Rather than allow riders to stand, presumably for safety reasons, the buses frequently leave passengers behind. When combined with the new limited schedule, these abandoned riders must wait at least a full hour for the next bus.

From my perspective, I feel that since UMBC has opted to abosrb the cost of maintaining this service, UMBC undergraduate and graduate students should be given priority when passengers are being seated. We are charged transit fees every semester to pay for this transit line, so it seems especially unfair for us to be left behind.

I'm interested to hear your comments about this issue, especially if you use this or any of the other UMBC Transit bus lines. I've also sent this post directly to UMBC Transit; they can be reached at transit@umbc.edu.

Meal Zoning - An Antiquated Model

Every UMBC student with a meal plan has encountered "meal zoning." That's the little system that prevents you from using your meal at lunchtime if you had breakfast too late. Why does this policy exist? Is there any real reason for it? Why, if a student buys, say, a ten-meal plan, can't they choose when to use them?

The answer to this question is clouded by myths, two of which I would like to address here.

Myth #1: Meal plans are priced assuming that students will not use all of their purchased meals, and the meal zones are designed to facilitate missed meals.

Fact: This is not the case. Meal plans are priced according to how many meals could potentially be used. When you buy a ten meal plan, you are paying for ten meals whether you use them or not.


Myth #2: Meal zoning is specified in the food services contract, and therefore cannot be eliminated.

Fact: The food services contract specifies a list of "minimum requirements" that the contractor must meet. At the very least they must provide meals during the kinds of zoning rules UMBC has always had. There is nothing to say that these rules could not be superseded by a superior system.


I see no reason for UMBC to cling to an outmoded system that most other schools have long since abandoned. Some progress has been made with the so-called "unlimited" meal plan, but why not go all the way and allow students to use meals whenever and wherever is most convenient?

I propose that students be able to use their meals at any time of the day, dining hall or Commons, restricted only by the number of meals they are allotted each week. A student with a ten meal plan could use five meals on Monday, one meal each on Tuesday, Wednesday,and Thursday, and two on Friday.

The infrastructure is already in place; all that would have to be done is to lift the frustrating time restrictions. There is really no strong reason not to - it's time UMBC's food services moved into the modern era.