Kimberly R. Moffitt, dean of UMBC’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, speaks about the inspiration for and journey of her career in an interview with mastersincommunication.com, which offers research-based data on graduate programs in media and communication studies nationwide along with insights from leaders in the field. Continue Reading Dean Moffitt interviewed about media and Black hair and body politics
“This achievement is a testament to your institution’s deep commitment to international exchange,” wrote Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a letter to President Valerie Sheares Ashby, congratulating her on UMBC’s Fulbright Top Producer designation, “and to building lasting connections between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” Continue Reading For the third time in five years, UMBC is named a Fulbright Top Producing Institution
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) has chosen UMBC’s Interdisciplinary CoLab for its “Undergraduate Spotlight” series. ACLS writes, “Unlike traditional group work in a college classroom, wherein majors from the same discipline are all trying to master the same material, UMBC’s CoLab projects require students to use their own skills and appreciate the skills of others.” Continue Reading American Council of Learned Societies spotlights UMBC’s CoLab as an interdisciplinary leader
Noor Zaidi, assistant professor of history at UMBC, receives a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship to research and write Translations of Zaynab: Gender, Sectarianism, and Citizenship in Shi’a Islam. The book will analyze how the seventh-century figure, Zaynab bint Ali, granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammed, has been used in 20th-century political contexts. Continue Reading Noor Zaidi, history, receives prestigious NEH faculty fellowship to complete book project
A nine-year-old stands at the mouth of a coal mine covered in coal dust, wearing a small headlamp. A woman holds her baby on her lap as she packs boxes in a warehouse along with her 5-, 8-, and 12-year-olds. These are just two of thousands of evocative black-and white historical photographs handled by Special Collections interns Meredith Power ’21, history, a public history graduate student, and Gabe Morrison ’23, anthropology. Along with library staff members, these two worked diligently to ensure that the images of the families and children who lived through these harrowing work conditions are accessible to… Continue Reading Handle with care—students help digitize and rehouse thousands of historical photos
Sonya Squires-Caesar, a doctoral candidate in UMBC’s language, literacy, and culture program, has been interviewing communities who use susus to save money for big-ticket items like homes, farms, or everyday needs like transportation and bills. Susu, a word thought to come linguistically from West African languages, is an informal structure of communal savings where individuals agree to give an equal amount of money to one pool. Members then decide the frequency of when someone receives the entire amount. “I remember my mother planning her spending around when she would get her payment,” says Squires-Caesar, whose family is from Barbados. Squires-Caesar… Continue Reading Finding one’s face and building financially resilient spaces through ‘susus’
Christine A. Mair, associate professor of sociology and gerontology and director of UMBC’s Center for Health, Equity, and Aging, examines the presence or absence of family and non-family ties in the Academic Minute. Continue Reading The Academic Minute: Caring for kinless older adults
In The Academic Minute, Mejdulene Bernard Shomali, a queer Palestinian poet and associate professor in the department of gender, women’s, and sexuality studies discusses her first boo. “My research looks at how Arab people experience and narrate their queerness in unexpected ways. For example, Arabs may be in same-sex relationships but might not claim gay or lesbian identities.” Continue Reading The Academic Minute: Challenging misconceptions about queer sexualities in Arab cultures
UMBC’s Renée Lambert-Brétière, associate professor of modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication, is working on a collaborative and community-engaged research project with Innu-speaking communities in Quebec, Canada, that seeks to democratize access to digital tools involved in the documentation of their language. “Mobilizing methodologies of linguistics, digital and public humanities, this research makes an important contribution to current developments in language documentation research and constitutes a major step in broadening the tools for language preservation within the Innu speech communities,” says Lambert-Brétière in the Academic Minute. Continue Reading The Academic Minute: Democratizing access to digital tools in the documentation of the Innu language
UMBC’s Amy Froide, professor of history, discusses the Charitable Corporation’s financial disaster of 1732. “The Charitable Corporation was notable in having a high proportion of female investors—35 percent of the funders in the 1700s were women,” Froide explains. “When the financial scandal came to light, it was these women who led activist shareholders to call for government compensation.” Continue Reading The Academic Minute: The Long History of Financial Fraud