NEWS
July 30, 2014
The University of Maryland University College has long been at the forefront of online continuing education and job training for its mostly adult student body, so a recent proposal by UMUC President Javier Miyares to tie the school's future more closely to the private sector and adopt a learning model that lets students progress at their own pace seems like a natural evolution of the institution's history of innovation. The plan is still in the preliminary stages, with many details left to be worked out. But overall it could represent a way forward for an institution with a worldwide student body that has experienced declining enrollments, staff cuts and increased competition from for-profit schools in recent years.
NEWS
Robert L. Ehrlich Jr | July 20, 2014
On February 19, 2008, Sen. Barack Obama promised to "fundamentally transform America. " This was no mere rhetoric from the telegenic man who would go on to best Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Rather, it was an audacious (to borrow a term) pledge to transform America's economy, culture and standing in the world. Some on the right responded with unfounded allegations against candidate Obama, claiming he was a socialist, closet Muslim or racist. All were off base, but lodged often enough to allow the mainstream press to paint anti-Obama-ites with a broad brush - often laced with its own hint of racist innuendo (This defense mechanism continues to act as sword and shield for the president and Democratic leaders in Congress.
FEATURES
By Liz Atwood, For The Baltimore Sun | July 18, 2014
Amelia and Thorpe Staylor's suburban garden began about 15 years ago when the former bankers downsized from a 12½-acre property in Havre de Grace to a quarter-acre lot in Abingdon. The smaller space gave them new opportunities to focus on garden design, Amelia Staylor says. But first, they had to solve the problems of a steeply sloping backyard that was susceptible to erosion. Their solution was to create three outdoor rooms and position higher plants on the downward slope. They also "borrowed" the landscape of a wooded common area to provide a backdrop to their design.
NEWS
By Danae King, The Baltimore Sun | July 8, 2014
At 90 years old, Betty Williams' clearest memory of her days at Colored School 115 is running through an alley the schoolchildren thought was haunted. "It was a game to run through and not get caught," she said, describing the lane between two of the old school's buildings. Williams attended grades one through six at the school, built in 1888 in Baltimore's Waverly neighborhood, from 1929 to 1935. It was declared unfit for children in the 1920s but continued in use because of "the feeling that black children weren't deserving of anything better," said historian JoAnn Robinson.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Mary Carole McCauley, The Baltimore Sun | July 1, 2014
Five community art projects, including a sculptural weather station featuring a giant pig, a children's garden full of upward-growing, kinetic "sculptures" and Baltimore's tallest mural, will begin transforming some of Baltimore's underused public spaces later this year. The Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts has announced the winners of the annual Transformative Arts Prize. This year, PNC Bank will donate more than $100,000 to enable artists working with neighborhood residents to permanently reinvent vacant lots, parks and streetscapes.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Mary Carole McCauley, The Baltimore Sun | June 28, 2014
When M.P. Mariappan was born 95 years ago, England's King George V was emperor of India. Mahatma Gandhi hadn't yet taken up India's struggle for independence. Most Indians lived in small, scattered villages instead of in cities. Mariappan survived plague, the Great Depression, World War II and a 1,700-mile death trek from Burma, where he was living at the time, to his homeland. He became a respected fruit merchant who struggled to educate his eight children, boosting the family decisively from their lowly caste and into the middle class.