he phrase “the new normal” has been thrown around since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and as America struggles to define—and design—what that is exactly, colleges are paving the way for what it might look like.

After the chaos and uncertainty of 2020, colleges and universities throughout the Baltimore region began to find their groove as they moved into the 2021-2022 school year. Coronavirus safety committees had been erected, new mandates put in place, safety protocols implemented—everything from vaccine requirements to temperature checks to quarantine procedures and wastewater testing that can pinpoint a COVID infection before anyone is symptomatic.

By some counts, colleges may very well be the safest places to live and work.

“Just following simple rules of wearing face masks and social distancing, using wastewater management and testing when we need to, we have, in many ways, been able to return to normal life,” says Goucher College President Kent Devereaux. “Full athletics, student clubs, dining in the dining hall, use of the library—everything that you’d normally have, we’ve been able to return to.”

Despite the challenges and anxieties faced by students, staff, and faculty alike, some unexpected silver linings have emerged.

“It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

The widespread adoption of technology across college campuses has proven to provide more flexibility, efficiency, and innovation—and even accessibility, in some cases. Counseling sessions, for example, began to be conducted remotely during the pandemic and many students found that they preferred it to in-person sessions. Students who cannot, for whatever reason, make it to an in-person class can now study from anywhere.

Challenging times, combined with advances in technology and the general acceptance of it, have also brought more cooperation and collaboration among schools. It’s becoming more common, for example, for schools that offer complementary programs to partner with one another to offer students an educational pathway to continue studies in their chosen areas. That may mean a discounted tuition rate, a transfer of class credits, or an internship through a partner school.

Maybe most importantly though, schools, at their best, foster an environment where students are supported, expand who they are, and connect with like-minded people. At a time when gathering together is not always safe, being in a community has become even more precious, and students have found new ways to connect.

OCA Mocha, a coffeehouse in Arbutus founded by University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) students, is one example of how effective a gathering place can be at a time when people are craving human connection. What started as a class assignment—to design a community center of some sort—has become a gathering place not just for UMBC students and alumni, but the Arbutus community at large.

“We’ve heard a lot of stories from people who are extremely grateful to have this space,” says Michael Berardi, UMBC class of 2019 and co-founder and general manager of OCA Mocha, which stands for Opportunities for Community Alliances. The coffee shop includes a stage, a community room, and an art gallery, employs UMBC students and alumni, and provides internship opportunities for current UMBC students.

“We have local groups and organizations that meet regularly in our community space and are grateful to not have to meet in someone’s living room or church basement,” says Berardi. “We see a lot of connections being made. It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

We checked in with colleges and universities throughout the region to find out what’s new and what campus life and classes look like, two years into the pandemic.

COPPIN STATE UNIVERSITY
A historically Black institution founded in 1900, Coppin State University is situated in the heart of Baltimore City in the Mondawmin neighborhood. Part of the University System of Maryland in Baltimore, the school offers 32 undergraduate and 11 graduate degrees, along with nine certificate programs and one doctorate degree. It’s been rated No. 4 Best HBCU in the Nation (College Consensus), the Top 5 Best Value Online Program (Online School Center), and No. 17 Best Value in the Nation (College Consensus).

In the summer of 2021, CSU announced its Student Debt Relief Initiative, which clears roughly $1 million in student balances and provided a $1,200 credit to every student enrolled in the fall 2021 semester. CSU also created the Freddie Gray Student Success Scholarship, which is available to graduates of Carver Vocational-Technical High School, where Gray was a student.

Coppin also takes esports (competitive video gaming) seriously. In the fall of 2021, Coppin became the first HBCU to open a building on campus exclusively devoted to esports. The Premier Esports Lab opened in September with a guest appearance from Grammy-nominated artist Cordae.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,383 undergraduates, 341 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $6,809 in-state, $13,334 out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 40%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Business, Biology, Education, and Criminal Justice, Rehabilitation Counseling

DICKINSON COLLEGE
Founded in 1783, Dickinson College is a liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with a suburban campus that spans 144 acres. The school offers 41 undergraduate degrees within 17 fields of study.

It’s been rated as one of the best schools in the country for its sustainability efforts, which include an 80-acre, USDA-certified organic farm. Princeton Review rated it No. 2 in the Top 50 Green Colleges, and it was rated No. 2 in Overall Top Performers among baccalaureate institutions in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s “Sustainable Campus Index” in 2019 and 2020.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,345
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $58,708
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 52%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: International Business, Economics, Political Science & Government, International Relations & National Security, General Psychology

GETTYSBURG COLLEGE
Gettysburg College, a private, liberal arts school, sits on 225 acres adjacent to the historical Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Many of the buildings on campus are historically significant, so it’s no wonder that it draws students interested in studying history.

The school offers 65 academic programs, more than 120 campus clubs and organizations, and 800 events on campus each year, plus more than 100 study-abroad opportunities open to students.

Its Majestic Theater serves as a venue for the greater Gettysburg community, hosting national acts as well as performances by the school’s Sunderman Conservatory of Music students.

It’s ranked No. 12 for “students who study the most” by the Princeton Review, which also ranked Gettysburg College’s dining hall No. 9 in the country for best campus food.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,600
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 10:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $59,960
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 56%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Political Science, Economics, Health Sciences, Organization and Management Studies, History, Psychology

GOUCHER COLLEGE
A private, liberal arts college in Towson, Goucher College prides itself on its close-knit community.

Goucher was extremely proactive when it came to COVID-19 precautions, being the first in the state to implement wastewater testing, which is able to isolate COVID infections by dorm.

Also of note: The college recently opened two new residence halls as part of the school’s First-Year Village. One hundred percent of Goucher students study abroad, and the school is committed to sustainability.

Most recently, Goucher has begun exciting partnerships with other schools, such as Johns Hopkins University, Loyola University, and more to come, to provide a pathway for students to continue their education beyond Goucher. For instance, their 4+1 MBA Program allows students to earn an advanced business degree through Loyola via a “Fast Track” admission process, and at a 15% discount on tuition.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,100
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $48,000
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 79%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Psychology, International Relations, Economics, Political Science, Business Administration

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) offers nine academic divisions and hundreds of courses of study, with campuses spread throughout Baltimore, including the Peabody Institute, a music and dance conservatory in Mount Vernon. Its main Homewood campus is located on North Charles Street.

The prestigious, world-renowned university has a strong reputation for its public health and medical studies and has been compared to Ivy League schools.

One of its points of pride is its financial aid program, which covers 100% of calculated need for every admitted student, without loans. This means JHU works with families to calculate what they can afford to contribute toward the total cost of attendance—including meals, books, travel, and other expenses—and JHU covers the rest with grants that don’t need to be repaid.

This school year, JHU added two new minors: Latin American Studies and Writing Seminars.

It also announced new efforts this year to move toward a broader, more flexible undergraduate educational experience that will include a required first-year seminar and the streamlining of major requirements to allow for greater intellectual exploration.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,333 undergraduates, 22,559 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 6:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $56,313 for Peabody Institute, $58,720 for the School of Engineering and the School of Arts and Sciences
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 9%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer Science, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Neuroscience, Economics, Public Health Studies, International Studies

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
This private, Jesuit institution offers undergraduate and graduate programs on a beautiful urban campus in northern Baltimore City. Education at Loyola is based in the Jesuit tradition of scholarship cura personalis, or care for the whole person. Loyola is known for its academic rigor while helping students lead purposeful lives. Seventy percent of students study abroad. It currently ranks fourth in best universities in the North region according to U.S. News & World Report.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 3,787 undergraduates, 1,353 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 12:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $53,430
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 80%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business, Management, Marketing, Journalism, Social Sciences, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Psychology, English Language and Literature, Engineering and Education.

McDANIEL COLLEGE
McDaniel College sits in a bucolic setting near Westminster in Carroll County. The private, four-year liberal arts college offers more than 70 undergraduate programs of study and more than 20 graduate programs. McDaniel’s most recent addition to its curriculum is a National Security Fellows Program that provides students with knowledge, skills, and experience in national security as well as the ability to specialize in an area of interest, such as interstate conflict, intrastate political violence, cybersecurity, ethics, and human rights.

Also new this year, McDaniel appointed an inaugural associate provost for equity and belonging who provides vision and leadership to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and works in collaboration with the provost to co-lead the college’s diversity, equity, and inclusion administrative committee, and guides the Bias Education Response Support Team.

The school also launched a new STEM Center to serve as a physical hub to support students studying the sciences. It hosts workshops and other events while also supplying online and hybrid support.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,757 undergraduates, 1,324 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $46,336
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Kinesiology, Business Administration, Psychology, Biology, Political Science, International Studies

MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
The largest of Maryland’s HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), Morgan is a public institution founded in 1867. It is situated in northeast Baltimore. As a Carnegie-classified high research (R2) institution, Morgan provides instruction to a multiethnic, multiracial, multinational student body and offers more than 140 academic programs at undergraduate and graduate levels. As Maryland’s Preeminent Public Urban Research University, Morgan fulfills its mission to address the needs and challenges of the modern urban environment through intense community level study and pioneering solutions.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,270 undergraduates, 1,364 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 15:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $8,008 for in-state and $18,480 for out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 73%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Civil Engineering, Communications Engineering, Business Administration and Management, Social Work, Biology/Biological Sciences, Architecture, Finance, Psychology, Sociology

NOTRE DAME OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY
A private, Catholic liberal arts university in northern Baltimore, Notre Dame of Maryland University offers programs from undergraduate through PhD, as well as Maryland’s only women’s college. It recently launched the first master’s of art degree in Art Therapy program in the state.
The beautiful, wooded campus is just steps from the bustling downtown Baltimore culture. With values rooted in Catholicism, the school focuses on service to others and social responsibility.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 783
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 7:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $39,675
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 88%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Education, Biology, Art Therapy, Pharmacy

TOWSON UNIVERSITY
One of the largest public universities in the state, Towson University offers more than 60 undergraduate majors and continues to draw students from other states, though it remains part of the University System of Maryland.

Its campus continues to expand, with a huge new dining hall, a 23,000-foot recreation and fitness facility with an indoor swimming pool, and its 5,200-seat arena for sporting events and concerts. In 2021, it opened its new Science Complex, the largest academic building on campus at 320,000 square feet.

In September, Towson opened its StarTUp at the Armory, a space for startups and new businesses to engage with the broader community and larger businesses. It serves as a home to Towson’s entrepreneurship programs, as well as student competitions and events.

While Towson remains the largest supplier of medical professionals and educators in the state, the university has also built a strong reputation for its College of Fine Arts and Communication, as well as its Asian Arts & Culture Center, both of which bring students into the wider community and the Baltimore community to Towson for enriching performing arts, music, and visual art programs.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 17,907 undergraduates, 2,949 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 16:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $7,100 in-state, $22,152 out-of-state
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business Administration, Education, Nursing, Exercise Science, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, Biology, Computer Science, Information Technology

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE
University of Maryland, Baltimore is Maryland’s only public health, law, and human services university. Located in downtown Baltimore, it offers 86 degree and certificate programs through its six nationally ranked professional schools—dentistry, law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and social work—and an interdisciplinary graduate school.

The school’s 14-acre BioPark is Baltimore’s biggest biotechnology cluster, employing 1,000 people, and remains on the cutting edge of new drugs, treatments, and medical devices.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 7,244
• ANNUAL TUITION: Varies by school
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Medicine, Law, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, Social Work

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY
University of Maryland, Baltimore County educates a campus of more than 10,000 students in programs spanning the arts, engineering, information technology, humanities, sciences, preprofessional studies, and social sciences. Located on the edge of Baltimore County, it allows easy access into the city and all the conveniences of suburban life and housing. It also offers plenty of opportunities for study abroad.

In the fall of 2021, UMBC opened the Center for Well-Being, a new two-story complex that houses Retriever Integrated Health, Student Conduct and Community Standards, and i3b’s Gathering Space for Spiritual Well-Being. UMBC’s already significant NASA partnerships have continued to grow. In October, NASA announced a major award of $72 million over three years for the new Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research II center. UMBC is leading the national consortium and will receive over $38 million. The GESTAR II consortium will support over 120 researchers, creating extensive opportunities for breakthroughs in Earth and atmospheric science research, and providing major opportunities for students to conduct research and be mentored by NASA scientists and engineers.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 13,638
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 17:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $12,280 in-state, $28,470 out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Social Sciences, Psychology, Visual and Performing Arts

Cited tuition costs exclude room and board and books.

If you’ve driven in Southeast Baltimore these past few weeks, you may have noticed a glowing, red heart has been added to the skyline. That beaming symbol belongs to the much-anticipated Ronald McDonald House Charities Maryland (RMHC), which will open its brand new location in the historic Jonestown neighborhood on May 14.

The $30 million, 60,000-square-foot project will allow the nonprofit to expand its purpose of providing a home-away-from-home to families with seriously ill or injured children by accommodating 2,200 families annually, more than doubling the occupancy of the current house. Ahead of its opening, we talked with the facility’s president and CEO Sandy Pagnotti to learn more about the new house.

What inspired the decision to construct the new Ronald McDonald House Charities Maryland?
We’ve been over on West Lexington Street for 36 years. We can currently house 32 families, but over the past 10 years we’ve had an ongoing waiting list. We were turning away as many as 30 families per night and over 600 families per year because we didn’t have room. So six or seven years ago, we decided to start thinking about building a new house. Our old house is a wonderful place, but our families deserve the absolute best.

Why 1 Aisquieth Street?
We wanted to be close to our partner hospitals, about equal distance. The new house is more central to our kids at Johns Hopkins, Kennedy Kreiger, the University of Maryland Hospitals, and Sinai Hospital. This also gave us the opportunity to come into an underserved community and really try to become an anchor of change. We hope that we become a catalyst for more good things to come into this community. There’s so many wonderful people and programs here already and we’re excited to add to it.

How will RMHC interact with the Jonestown community?
We’ve been working with Baltimore City Recreation and Parks to build a new city park with a basketball court and a playground. That’s part of our auxiliary project so that when our doors open we’ll also have helped make a new city park. That way local kids and our kids can all play together. That’s the vision: Our mission goes beyond our own bricks and mortar. It is bigger than what happens inside the walls—we’re also helping to spread love outside.

Tell us about some of the new features and amenities in the new house.
Our team has a philosophy that our house is the Ritz meets Disney meets Grandma’s. The accommodations are five star, it’s family-focused and child-friendly, and our families feel feel warm, nurtured, and taken care of here. New to the house is a serenity room, a teen and young adult room, student classroom space, a business center, fitness center, our first-ever kosher pantry, a board and community room that can be rented out by community groups or businesses, and more. There’s also a special Magic Room for when the kids get surprise visits, presents, or anything special. We have been collecting ideas for years, and now we’re excited to implement as many as we can.

What is the All You Need is Love project and how will it be utilized in the new house?
About seven or eight months ago, we put a call out to artists saying that we wanted to adorn the walls of the new house with art that’s loving and happy and brings joy to families. Now we have more than 250 pieces of art that were donated. We asked for as many of them, if they could, to put hearts somewhere in the work. And then eventually, we’ll make a heart-art scavenger hunt for the kids. When planning, we tried to think, “What’s going to make this feel like more than just a hotel? What are the pieces that are going to make it feel like home?” So we really put a focus on art and infusing the community into everything we do.

What’s the idea behind the giant red heart on top of the building?
Our heart is 26 feet tall and, at night, it lights up the sky. We just kept thinking, “How great would it be to have an iconic part of the skyline?” I say that the biggest hearts in Baltimore have always been inside [the RMHC], but now it’s outside, too. And now we can shine that love all over Baltimore.

Carol Ott had enough. “Maybe I woke up on the wrong side of bed that morning,” she says. “I don’t know exactly what pushed me over the edge.”

For years, the feisty, 5-foot-1, mother of two dutifully attended Pigtown neighborhood meetings. Each time, the same topic—the shuttered shopping center at the intersection of Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevards—came up. It was bad enough that the community’s grocery store had departed. Now, across the street from the “Welcome to Pigtown” mural at the Southwest Baltimore neighborhood’s gateway, the abandoned shopping center had degenerated into an open-air drug market and the portico alongside the long-gone Save-a-Lot, for all intents and purposes, had become a homeless camp.

“When I moved there in 2000, the grocery store was still open, but it closed several years later and became an eyesore, garbage strewn everywhere,” Ott recalls. “Nobody was maintaining it. A doctor and his business partners, including at least one other physician, owned it, and were doing nothing to improve it. Apparently, they wanted an extraordinary amount of money for the property and, meanwhile, the drug activity kept up.”

Frustrated at another community meeting one night—“we had like five different neighborhood groups then, and I went to most of them,” she says—Ott stood up and walked out, swearing she was done with meetings. “There’s got to be a better way of dealing with this,” she recalls thinking. “It was typical of neighborhood meetings anywhere, city or suburbs, doesn’t matter. Same people, same complaints, nobody steps up. I figured I’d force the shopping center owners’ hand and make it public on the Internet. If you ‘Google’ your doctor—and I’m good at this stuff—and it comes up that they’re a slumlord, well, they probably aren’t going to like that.”

Not long after reaching her boiling point in late 2008, Ott launched her still-active, slightly infamous WordPress blog—Baltimore Slumlord Watch. The blog, which includes pictures Ott takes of abandoned properties as well as “reader-submitted” photos of abandoned homes, provides information on the legal history and housing violations of blighted properties, their impact on the surrounding neighborhood, contact information for local elected officials, and the names and addresses of negligent owners. It’s direct, data-base researched, and at times, just a bit snarky, like Ott, who typically goes vacant-house hunting in jeans and bright red Converse high tops, generally toting a cellphone camera—and box cutter, for protection. It’s not a coincidence, she notes, that vacant homes attract crime. (Until this story, Ott maintained her anonymity as the person behind Baltimore Slumlord Watch, partly for fear of retribution toward her family.)

Her initial post outed the Timonium doctor listed as the resident agent for the company that owned the then-vacant Pigtown shopping center and listed the hospital where he had surgical privileges. From there, the plan to goad one irresponsible landlord into accountability grew into a citywide housing resource. Ott regularly posts updates on Baltimore issues like lead paint and fire-department station closings, as well as vacant housing efforts in other cities.

Today, Baltimore Slumlord Watch gets 12,000-15,000 hits in an average month, and the blog possesses genuine social media clout. “Friends” and “followers” on Facebook and Twitter include City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young, Baltimore City Del. Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr., and Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, among other politicos, not to mention numerous housing advocates and journalists. Not all are necessarily fans, however; one local columnist and talk-show host, Ott says, blocked her Twitter account after describing the blog as a negative portrayal of Baltimore.

“I’ve known Carol for 10 or 12 years and rebuilding neighborhoods has always been a passion of hers,” says Baltimore City Councilman William H. Cole IV, whose district formerly included Pigtown. “We haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, and believe me, she’s someone who will let you know where she stands. But I support what she’s doing. She’s letting people know who holds ownership of the abandoned properties in their neighborhood—and this is not always easy to find out—I know, from experience. She brings the truth out in the open—whether the property is owned by a private individual, speculator, or the mayor and City Council.” Or the religiously affiliated.

While Ott readily admits her personality bends toward sarcastic, she generally keeps posts matter-of-fact, preferring to simply share information from the state Department of Assessments and Taxation and other government websites to expose negligent owners. “I’m just the messenger,” she says. Though, she sometimes can’t help herself, for example, posting “WWJD?” headlines above photos of several church and pastor-owned blighted properties. And “Would You Like a Vacant With That Pizza?” above a photo of a dilapidated property owned by a pizzeria owner. She headlined posts about a landlord and resident agent with familiar and lengthy legal histories, “The Adventures of Stanley and Bud” and “More Fun with Stanley and Bud.”

Although it’s difficult to directly link outing a landlord on the blog to a subsequent rehab or repair, the public revelation of the Pigtown shopping center owner proved a difference-maker. Three weeks after her first post, the blog received a reply from the owner-doctor, who complained about the police response to crime and a deal to sell the property that fell through. However, within a few months, maintenance improved and, eventually, tenants moved in, including a Dollar General store, Zips Dry Cleaners, and a busy carryout restaurant, all there today.

“Once it became known who owned the property, they suddenly became responsive,” says Cole. “When they responded online, I was happy to see they were paying attention. Shame worked. You put the first and last names of these property owners online and, suddenly, they get nervous.”

While it started with just photos and information on a few vacant houses in her neighborhood, the Slumlord Watch blog expanded from its Pigtown focus after Ott learned of a bad fire at a vacant home in West Baltimore. She tried unsuccessfully to get the address of the home from online sources, finally jumping on a bus to see for herself and take photos.

“The bus driver was a little concerned about my safety and said, ‘Are you sure you wanna get off here?,’” Ott remembers. “I had never done anything like that before.” Almost immediately after taking the blog beyond Pigtown, Ott began getting inundated with e-mails about blighted properties elsewhere. Often, readers seek advice after they’ve reported a troublesome vacant home to no avail; other times, the blog serves as an outlet for frustration. “At first, the blog was just a very spur-of-the-moment reaction to the vacant shopping center,” Ott says. “I knew there were a lot of abandoned properties in the city, but I really didn’t know the extent at that time. No idea.”

Cole and several people close to Ott knew, or guessed, that Slumlord Watch was her handiwork, but otherwise she maintained her privacy. “She wanted to keep it anonymous and asked me to protect that,” Cole says. “I understood. A lot of these landlords are not nice people.” One landlord, currently incarcerated, was referred to as a drug kingpin.

E-mails from property owners, unsurprisingly, are nasty, but typically threaten legal action, not physical harm. “I get, ‘Dear Mr. Slanderer,’ a lot, she says with a laugh. “I’m like, if you’re going to threaten me, at least get the legal term right if you want me to take you seriously. It would be libel. Then again, I’m very careful.”

Baltimore Slumlord Watch’s impact hasn’t just been limited to Charm City, either. It helped spur similar projects in Columbus, OH, and Richmond, VA. New York City’s elected public advocate, Bill de Blasio, launched a “Worst Landlords” list online in August 2010. Slumlord Watch has also received attention from the Columbia Journalism Review and the American University Center for Social Media.

Ott doesn’t view herself as a journalist, however. If pressed, she describes her blog as documentary photography and herself as a housing advocate. A photographer who has exhibited other work, Ott’s blog has garnered fans among Baltimore’s street artists, who also recognize the heartbreaking loss—and glimmer of potential—in Baltimore’s vast vacant housing stock, officially estimated at 16,000 homes. The street artists known as Gaia, who curated the recent Station North Open Walls Baltimore project, and Nether, a ubiquitous 23-year-old muralist, both reached out to Ott though Slumlord Watch. A recent collaborative project links Nether’s vacant-home murals to information about the houses on Slumlord Watch via an accompanying wheat-pasted QR code.

“I think it’s the visual/confrontational side of the blog that attracted street artists,” Nether says. “Our idea is to use these beat-up vacants, too, which we see as beautiful houses with lots of history, make people stop and look, and maybe imagine the possibility of something different again in the neighborhood. Street art and public art is about social change, and Carol’s very passionate and interested in the same thing. She’s definitely stirred up a lot in me.”

In terms of the City of Baltimore’s efforts to deal with the long-simmering vacant housing crisis, Ott doesn’t place much faith in the much-talked about Vacants-to-Value initiative, which aims to streamline the sale of city-owned vacant properties for rehabilitation. Scale-wise, it’s not significant enough to make a dent, Ott believes, also suggesting many “V2V” homes are targeted by investors. A Republican, Ott views her work as apolitical, or at least non-partisan. “I vote, that’s about it,” she says, adding she prefers neighborhood, action-oriented solutions to politics. Which is not to say that she’s not mindful of the history, politics, and lending and real-estate practices that splintered city neighborhoods, particularly as segregation fell. Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City, by former Sun reporter Antero Pietila sits on her living room shelf. Ott, whose employment background includes working for architectural and construction firms as well as nonprofits, has read it several times and remains engrossed in local and national housing issues.

“From what I gather, she’s very much self-taught [regarding housing issues], and I do think the blog has been successful in bringing awareness to a subject that needs more people’s attention,” says Robert Strupp, executive director of Baltimore Neighborhoods, Inc. “All of us in the housing arena certainly—city government officials, elected leaders, as well as housing advocates, industry people and other stakeholders who are making decisions about these neighborhoods—benefit from looking at the real challenges. I support what she’s doing wholeheartedly.”

Matt Hill, an attorney who works on tenant rights and housing issues at Baltimore’s Public Justice Center, communicates regularly with Ott, often seeking assistance from Slumword Watch to get the word out about housing issues, hearings, and legislative initiatives. “I am amazed at the depth of her knowledge and always eager to talk to her about the issues,” Hill says, adding he’s always happy when their interests overlap. “Every time I need help at the grassroots level, I go to her to see if it’s something she supports, and use the blog to reach people.”

Ott is in favor of reviving something similar to the city’s early-1980s “dollar house” program. She also supports Habitat for Humanity’s hands-on approach. But true to her nature, she also cannot help but point out on her blog the irony in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health owning vacant homes. (It should be noted, two years after her blog post, work on the highlighted Hopkins-owned block has begun.)

Like others, she believes, Baltimore will have to raze a large share of its vacants as other cities are doing, and replace them with green space, “shrinking” the city, so to speak. However, she adds, it’s not as cheap or easy a solution as it may seem with vacant homes often scattered amongst functioning ones. She worries, too, about residents becoming isolated or displaced by redevelopment or gentrification.

Mostly though, Ott concerns herself with the give-and-take with her readers, whether encouraging them to follow-up on a complaint about a troublesome vacant home next door or helping them contact their elected officials. “I love my readers,” she says.

One of her Pigtown neighbors, Mike Bresnan, who has actually never met Ott in person, is one of Slumlord Watch’s biggest fans. Bresnan bought a house on Nanticoke Street in May 2008 and has lived next to a vacant home for more than a year and a half. Recently, he went to court and won a settlement with the landlord over water damages to his house caused by the vacant property.

Ott twice posted photos Bresnan submitted of the gutted, trash-strewn house, noting that the owner’s LLC was not in good standing with the state—meaning they haven’t filed the tax returns for their business.

“I didn’t know what else to do besides call 311. She was a huge help in tracking down information, and she was the one who told me who the owner was and advised me,” Bresnan says. “I love the blog. There’s a bunch of vacants in my neighborhood, and nobody else even seems to care or know what can be done.”