Michelle Scott reminisces about her grandmother’s tradition to call her grandchildren when they turned 18. “She’d call, wish us a happy birthday, and then ask if we had registered to vote.” If they hadn’t, they were asked to call back after registering.
“My grandmother knew the power of the vote,” remembers Scott, associate professor of history, and affiliate in the departments of Africana Studies and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies. “She understood voting was not just about having the privilege to vote for the president but also about voting on local issues.”
“Not the beginning or the end”
The Alpha Suffrage Club sent Wells-Barnett to the national suffrage parade in DC in 1913. Image from the Chicago Daily Tribune.
The year 2020 marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment which enfranchised women. “It’s important to remember that suffrage was a push for that more perfect equality for women; it wasn’t the beginning or the end,” explains Amy Froide, professor and chair of UMBC’s history department.
Voting was almost not included in the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, the nation’s first women’s rights conference, explains Froide. Most salient to women were the right to access higher education, hold property, manage their own wages, and be able to get a divorce, and retain custody of their children. “It wasn’t until the late 1800s that women realized the vote would help them attain these rights,” says Froide.
Another thing not included at the convention were the voices of Black women. With the exception of Frederick Douglass, only white people were invited. Scott, an expert in Black women’s history; Froide, an expert in British history and European women’s history; and Susan Sterett, professor of public policy, acknowledge how systemic racism plagued the women’s rights movement from its inauguration.
Sharing lived experiences
“Even today, celebrations about the 19th Amendment disregard the Black women who contributed to enfranchisement,” explains Scott. “Ida B. Wells-Barnett,” says Scott, who researches her anti-lynching work, “founded the Alpha Suffrage Club for African-American women in 1913.” Some of the other Black women are Frances Ellen Watkins Harper whose speech “We Are All Bound Up Together” was delivered at the Eleventh National Women’s Rights Convention of 1866. And Mary Church Terrell delivered her address “The Progress of Colored Women” at the 1898 National American Woman Suffrage Association.
To help students gain a greater perspective of what these women were up against Scott uses storytelling as a strategy. “My grandmother was an excellent storyteller,” shares Scott. “I learned a lot about her life through her stories.” Her grandmother, Marion Vincent, was born in Baton Rouge in 1919. When she was of legal age to vote Vincent was prevented from voting due to voter suppression tactics. She moved to California where she was eventually able to vote, almost 70 years after the 19th amendment was ratified.
“There was massive disenfranchisement of African Americans before the 1965 Voting Rights Act,” explains Sterett. Sharing lived experiences like Scott’s grandmother’s helps students understand the complexity of implementing constitutional law.
All three see a great need for scholarship on the contributions of Black, brown, and indigenous women leaders in the suffrage movement. The centennial can be an opportunity for this work.
Shaping the future
Maureen Evans Arthurs ’13, gender and women’s studies, agrees. Recounting her matriarchal lineage, Evans Arthurs names her family members that laid the foundation for her unique position today. Her great-grandmother, Pearl Johnson, was born to sharecroppers in 1887. Her grandmother, Irene Shepard, was born in 1918. Evans Arthurs’ mom, Renee Smith Guelce, was born in 1956. “I was born in 1986. My sister was born in 1982. We are the first people in my family to grow up with the birth right to vote.”
Evans Arthurs poses with her mom Renee Smith Guelce on the day of her UMBC graduation. Photo courtesy of Evans Arthurs.
Evans Arthurs voted for the first time in 2004, 84 years after the 19th Amendment was ratified. Today, she is the director of government affairs for Howard County Government, helping shape the future for the next generation.
*****
Header image: Five women officers of the Women’s League in Newport, Rhode Island, c. 1899. Source: National Women’s History Museum.
Graduating seniors Anthony Cano, Renato Zanelli, and Maya Scheirer came to UMBC with pride and hunger instilled by their immigrant parents’ work ethic. They brought rich cultures, languages, and hearts full of dreams and aspirations with the goal of forging futures of their own.
At UMBC they found faculty and staff who nurtured their curiosity, and a campus committed to learning from and working with local and international communities. Most importantly, they were embraced by a community who welcomed and celebrated them wholeheartedly for who they are and who they wanted to be.
Cano, Zanelli, and Scheirer lean on their friendships and faculty mentors as they end their time at UMBC, under an unprecedented global pandemic, via a virtual commencement ceremony. Together they face a changing world, knowing that their transformative years at UMBC have given them a solid foundation to hope, dream, and achieve.
Global citizen
Anthony Cano fondly recalls walking with his mom to school in the mornings. “We would part ways at the bus stop as she headed to work as a janitor,” a job she had to take after the market crash of 2008. “I would continue walking to my school,” shares Cano.
He watched his family lose everything and then rebuild their lives by working seven days a week. “They learned everything and anything to make ends meet,” explains Cano. “That work ethic—that unbreakable faith—is my moral structure. I connect it to everything I do.”
Cano wants to make sure everyone knows the real story behind his success. “My story does not begin with what I have achieved or my research,” he shares. “When I tell my story I want it to start and end by honoring my struggle as a student and as an immigrant. It is what made and continues to make my success happen.”
Mapping an interdisciplinary future
As a first-generation college student, Cano did not take his opportunities for granted. Instead, he invested time in and out of class to explore his wide interests in journalism, photography, and business. He also found ways to help his community, which he defines as global. “I think everything is connected,” shares Cano. “I identify as a global citizen more than any other identity.”
Cano eating a typical Cartagenian dish. Photo courtesy of Cano.
Eager to learn, Cano transferred to UMBC immediately after earning an associate’s degree in broadcast and media production from Montgomery Community College. He planned to add a bachelor’s in computer science to facilitate his pathway to entrepreneurship. Cano began his general computer science courses while also enrolling in political science and human geography classes.
After learning about global political systems and internally displaced people (IDP), Cano immediately felt a sense of responsibility. He wanted to bring awareness to the political and social forces that displace people from their homes into dangerous and precarious living conditions.
“In some ways, my life was like a bubble,” explains Cano. These classes introduced him to the complexities of migration. “I have people in my social network that have experienced similar situations, but not to the extent that I learned about,” he shares. He decided to follow his interests and declared a double major in media and communications studies and political science.
Cano in Cartagena. Photo courtesy of Cano.
Afro-Colombian stories
Felipe Filomeno, associate professor of political science, became his mentor and advisor. With his support, Cano developed strong skills in mixed research methods. He used social science, humanities, and visual research methods to continue to understand IDP.
“Tony is a unique and truly interdisciplinary student,” says Filomeno. “I advised his research on internally displaced people and urban development in Cartagena, Colombia. It combined oral history and visual research methods.”
Cano received a 2019-2020 Undergraduate Research Award to conduct field research in South America. His project focused on the relationship between internally displaced people as a result of violence and urban development in Cartagena.
Cano drew on his background in journalism and his fluent Spanish language skills to better understand the experiences of Afro-Colombians in a neighborhood named after Nelson Mandela. It’s located only a few minutes from a walled-in, tourism-focused urban center.
Nelson Mandela neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Cano.
“Tony wanted his project to result not only in an academic paper. He also wanted to create a short virtual reality film to document the living conditions in Nelson Mandela,” shares Filomeno. Cano was careful and curious while analyzing data. Filomeno advised him on how to verify different sources of data and how to ensure his work reflected the community respectfully.
Two Afro-Colombian women wearing bright long colorful skirts, shirts, and head coverings sit with two bowls of fruit next to them as they lean on the orange wall of a building.
Cano also served as a fellow in the Partnerships for Listening and Action by Communities (PLACE) program, an affiliate of UMBC’s Center for Democracy and Civic Life. There he received additional training in humanities methods and community organizing to support residents of Baltimore City’s Brooklyn neighborhood in building greater community cohesion and providing enriching opportunities for young people.
Cano walking in downtown Baltimore. Photo courtesy of Cano.
In January, Cano will begin working at Morgan Stanley as an operations analyst. The multinational investment bank and financial services company found his humanities background invaluable to creating a strong finance team.
“I am a learner. My family always said there is nothing wrong with constantly wanting to learn,” shares Cano. “They taught me to set goals, and that through a lot of hard work, sacrifice, deep faith, and positivity, you can achieve your goals and break barriers.”
A home away from home
Renato Zanelli remembers how hard his mother worked and how much she sacrificed when she moved to the United States from Peru. “There are times I feel like giving up because some people assume that if you are Hispanic, you cannot do something,” shares Zanelli. “I want to prove that Hispanics can do anything. I want to make sure everything my mom sacrificed was not in vain.”
Like Cano, family and culture are also the founding blocks of Zanelli’s undergraduate life. He came to the United States from Peru when he was ten. He was raised in Anne Arundel County by his mom and grandparents. While he did well in school, it was at times isolating because of the lack of diversity. After a year in Anne Arundel Community College, he realized that what he was seeking the most was a community that embraced his language, culture, and interests.
Life-long friendships
Zanelli transferred to UMBC and was delighted to find a welcoming community. “One day, I saw a flyer for the Hispanic Latino Student Union. I went,” he remembers. Even though most of the people were not from Peru, he felt at home. “I was finally meeting people with similar immigration journeys and who spoke Spanish. It was amazing,” explains Zanelli. The HLSU members became his best friends.
Although most of the students he met in HSLU were years ahead of him, they guided him in understanding college life and included him in campus events. He had been worried about missing out on these experiences as a commuter, but their generous spirit made him feel like he belonged. “Instead of going straight home, I participated more in student activities,” shares Zanelli.
The HLSU also provided comfort and support when his cousin, who is like a brother, passed away and he could not travel to Peru. Later, Renato became part of the HLSU executive board, supporting the next generation of HLSU members.
Building confianza (trust)
Ana Maria Schwartz Caballero. Photo by Marlayna Demond.
Zanelli also found joy and support from UMBC’s faculty. His schedule included STEM and humanities classes, including a Spanish class for heritage Spanish speakers. The class helped him be more comfortable in a predominantly English environment and learn more about his first language. He met Ana Maria Schwartz Caballero, associate professor in modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication (MLLI), who teaches the course. Similar to his experience with HSLU, meeting professor Schwartz Caballero became one of the most important moments at UMBC.
“She advocated for me and encouraged me,” says Zanelli. Schwartz Caballero inspired him to take higher-level Spanish courses. They opened up an entirely new way to engage with his language, literature, and culture. He also began working as a Spanish language translator in the local hospitals, revealing a professional opportunity made possible with an MLLI major.
Professor Schwartz Caballero became his advisor and mentor. Regularly meeting with her created the structure and focus he needed. She also provided support on a personal level, checking how he was doing and asking about his mom and grandparents. “I have a huge amount of respect and love for her. We have a lot of confianza (trust),” explains Zanelli. “She understands who I am.”
Soccer love
Grounded in who he was and what he wanted out of his undergraduate experience, Zanelli had confidence to pursue an outside interest. He is a soccer aficionado both on the field and in the world of soccer gaming where he is better known as Renatogz05. In 2019, Zanelli became D.C. United’s first-ever official professional eEports athlete to play Electronic Arts SPORTS FIFA and compete in the 2019 Electronic MLS League Series. He came in second place in the last chance qualifier bracket at the Eastern Conference finals.
Zanelli’s experience at UMBC has been life-changing. “This isn’t just about me,” he explains. “As a first-generation college student, I can now be a role model for my younger cousins. I can help and inspire them. They will not have to do it alone.”
“100% me”
“I grew up in Kensington, Maryland, surrounded by people from all over the world,” says Maya Isabella Peiris Scheirer. “As a first-generation Sri Lankan American and a second-generation German American, I am proud of my immigrant roots.”
Her parents encouraged her to be curious about everything, she says. “They taught me to ask questions and find creative solutions when challenges arose.”
Scheirer first saw UMBC when her cousin Hashani Hettiarachchi ’14, biological sciences, invited her to campus events. When it came time to pick a college, she found UMBC an obvious fit thanks to its diversity, proximity to home, and biology program. She immediately moved onto campus and jumped into her science classes. Like Cano and Zanelli, Scheirer also chose to explore courses outside of her major.
A global state of mind
Scheirer found her global studies classes to be particularly fascinating, but fitting them into her biology-heavy course schedule proved challenging. She decided to explore new possibilities, including majors where she could use her French, Sinhala, and German language skills.
“I researched interdisciplinary majors. I attended the Career Center workshops and filled out career interest questionnaires,” remembers Scheirer. While searching for a different academic path, she gained insight into the skills and interests she had been developing most of her life. She was an avid reader, making her a strong writer, and she loved multilingual and multicultural communities.
“When I found global studies, it seemed 100% me,” shares Scheirer. “The study abroad requirement as well as the writing component and interdisciplinary research were what I had been looking for.”
Opening doors
In the spring of 2020, Scheirer traveled to Germany to study German at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. The language study program also gave her a deeper understanding of her father’s German culture. Unfortunately, like many students studying abroad this spring, Scheirer had to fly back home early due to COVID-19. She hopes to return soon.
Scheirer in Germany during her study abroad. Photo courtesy of Scheirer.
Scheirer also chose to minor in gender, women’s, and sexuality studies after taking courses that expanded her perspective. “I was a feminist, but I had not viewed feminism through these theories,” she explains. “It opened a door for me.” Scheirer analyzed different feminists’ points of view through her writing while learning about how people occupy spaces differently.
Beyond her coursework, Scheirer put her writing skills to work covering arts and culture for The Retriever. She also found a community of close friends from different backgrounds through UMBC’s Equestrian Club, serving two terms as president. “Being president of the Equestrian Club taught me a lot about responsibility, collaboration, and motivating people,” she says, and it “gave me a sense of community.”
Scheirer (kneeling from the right) with UMBC’s equestrian club. Photo courtesy of Scheirer.
Be Your Best Self
Scheirer is waiting to find out what her next global adventure will be. She hopes to be an English teaching assistant in Andorra through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. If accepted, Scheirer will move to Andorra, where her French skills will come in handy, in the fall of 2021.
As she looks back on her last four years, she is grateful for making UMBC the place where she has not just earned her degree, but also learned more about herself. Scheirer remembers receiving a UMBC t-shirt with the phrase, “Be Your Best Self.” “I know it’s on a t-shirt, but it’s true,” she laughs. She says her peers were all working hard to become their best selves regardless of the field they were studying.
“UMBC allowed me to stop worrying about what I ‘should’ be doing,” says Scheirer. “Being a Retriever gave me the confidence to know that what I ‘should’ be doing is being myself.”
Banner image: Maya Scheirer visiting Barcelona, Spain while studying abroad in Lüneburg, Germany.
UMBC’s Marjoleine Kars has published a new book examining accounts of a nearly successful rebellion of enslaved people just over 250 years ago. Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast (The New Press, 2020) chronicles a rebellion by enslaved people in the Dutch colony of Berbice, 1763 – 1764. This uprising took place thirty years before Toussaint L’Ouverture led a successful rebellion by enslaved people in Haiti against French colonizers.
“It is important that people know that there is a long history of African people, people of African descent, and in the African diaspora, fighting against oppression and putting their lives on the line like they are today,” says Kars, associate professor of history. “There is also a long tradition of people having different ideas about how to fight oppression and what life should look like at the other side.”
Unexpected archival find
Marjoleine Kars. Photo by Tim Ford.
Kars traveled to the National Archives of the Netherlands in the Hague many times to study primary documents about the uprising that had not been researched before. The archives house colonial documents about the rebellion, including the journals of the governor, military reports, and correspondence between officials in Berbice and the government in the Netherlands. She also came across a rare find in colonial research that became the basis for her book: first-hand accounts by enslaved people.
The archive stores 500 pages of personal accounts from judicial investigations of people who were enslaved when the rebellion was suppressed. While these first-hand accounts are unique and essential to the book, Kars acknowledges their limitations.
The fifteen-month rebellion
“These accounts are problematic records because they were obtained under duress, translated from Creole to Dutch, summarized by the clerk, and done in third person,” shares Kars. “However, they still provide a unique and important perspective that breaks from the racist accounts of the colonial government.”
Kars uses these documents to weave an untold story about the uprising led by Coffij against the colonial government of Berbice. Like many enslaved people in the European colonies, Coffij was captured in his home of West Africa as a child and enslaved to work in the sugar plantations of the Dutch colony.
A decade before the rebellion, Berbice suffered from drought, crop failure, and the Seven Years War, which slowed the shipment of food. Enslaved people fought to stave off starvation and to survive raging epidemics, while also experiencing torture at the hands of Dutch slaveholders. As deaths rose, surviving enslaved people were at even greater risk of death through overwork.
Coffij led 4,500 enslaved African and people of African descent and 350 enslaved indigenous people in rebelling against 350 Europeans spread over five plantations. While he was leading a fight for independence from the Dutch, he was not fighting to create a democracy. Rather, Coffij sought to found a similar authoritarian government led by him and dependent on the plantation system. The rebellion lasted fifteen months.
Ideas of freedom
Cover of Blood on the River.
Kars also examines the motivations and experiences of the many people she describes as remaining neutral in the conflict. “Rebellions are suicidal. And neither side was offering a life free from slavery,” she explains. In this way, enslaved people who wanted to be independent subsistence farmers, and be free on their own terms, faced painful choices in the rebellion.
“Blood on the River is a story about the complex political internal dynamics of a rebellion and this anticolonial fight between former slaves and former masters,” Kars shares. It’s also about “the many ideas of what freedom means.”
Award-winning scholarship
Kars’s first writing on this research topic was an article focusing on the women of the rebellion. It was published in the American Historical Review in 2016. “Dodging Rebellion: Politics and Gender in the Berbice Slave Uprising of 1763” earned four prizes in 2017. She received the Vanderwood Prize, which is awarded for a distinguished article on Latin American history. She also earned the Kimberly S. Hanger Article Prize for the quality and originality of research and writing.
The Carol Gold Best Article Award seeks to promote women’s history and to support women in the historical profession. Kars received the prize in 2017, which acknowledged her article as the best peer-reviewed journal article of the year.
The Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction, affiliated with the American Historical Association, also gave Kars their biennial article prize. This prize recognizes “outstanding and path-breaking scholarship that furthers historical understanding of the circumstances, causes, and consequences of increased global interaction, worldwide exchanges, and cross-cultural connections in the early modern period.”
Funding for research
Research for the book spanned over a decade. During this time Kars received major funding from various organizations. Kars was a Huntington Library Fellow in 2018 – 2019. She was a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European Institute in Florence, Italy between 2016 and 2017. She also received a Franklin Research Grant from the American Philosophical Society, an NEH Fellowship for College Teachers, and a Mellon InterAmericas Fellowship from the John Carter Brown Library over the course of five years.
UMBC also supported Kars’s research for this book. Kars received a College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Research Fellowship. She also received a Dresher Center for the Humanities Residential Faculty Fellowship and a Dresher Center for the Humanities Summer Fellowship, and a UMBC summer fellowship.
Jasmine A. Lee, director of inclusive excellence in UMBC’s Division of Student Affairs, is now also leading UMBC’s Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion and Belonging (i3B). The new i3B brings together UMBC’s Mosaic Center, Interfaith Center, and Pride Center to create “opportunities for students to build their awareness and knowledge of diverse people, cultures and belief systems.”
In a recent conversation with UMBC News, Lee discussed the intention and goals of i3B, and the support and guidance her team offers to students and staff across campus. As the featured speaker at UMBC’s recent Hill-Robinson McNair Lecture, she also shared the impact of her experience with the McNair Scholars Program. The national program, which has supported 392 students at UMBC since 1992, prepares talented college students who are first-generation, low-income, or from underrepresented minority groups, for doctoral study.
Event introduction is at 5:47. Lee’s lecture begins at 21:00.
UMBC News: What was the intention in creating i3B?
Lee: The intention was to elevate and amplify diversity and inclusion work, focusing on students. The work has been happening, but i3B gives this work a distinct space within the Division of Student Affairs.
In our work we are thinking about how to support students in their identity development, how to help them find belonging, while they also cultivate a sense of belonging for others, and how to see themselves and one another. We also do the same with faculty and staff. We support them in doing this work within the context of their social identities specifically as it relates race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, spirituality, and religion.
i3B is equipping folks with the awareness, skills and knowledge—through dialogue, workshops, educational programming and training—to become the type of person who knows how to cultivate and create inclusive excellence at an institution. For me, what inclusive excellence means is a daily recommitment, a daily walk. I don’t think it is ever something we arrive at. I think it is something we have to be committed to and actively engage in. The work that we do in i3B is about how we get there.
UMBC News: How can students engage in social justice work when they are juggling so many responsibilities?
Lee: For folks who want to be engaged and can’t see how, it is important to start with self. Critical self-reflection is required. How do I show up? It’s important to think about the identities you represent. Pay attention to what privileges these identities provide or take away. Be aware of the access you have. How do they intersect to create my unique lived story? How does that impact how I interact with others and how others interact with me? Starting with themselves leverages their most immediate sphere of influence.
Jasmine Lee. Photo courtesy of Lee.
I think sometimes it is easy to hop in a protest—to be engaged in an abstract vocalization of what needs to happen. I think that is easy. It is really hard to talk to your friends, parents, and co-workers about something that they did or said that was racist, homophobic, or problematic. Think of ways you can drop breadcrumbs. Plant seeds that create an environment. Even if it’s just at home. Talk about and question together. Critically reflect on the things that you are hearing. Pay attention to the way you are talking, and what you are seeing in the media.
For people who have been doing it for far too long, it is OK to take a rest. I now recognize that rest and prioritizing you matters. Audre Lorde says, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” If I don’t fight another day my existence is the resistance. The fact that I take up space in areas that are literally places that were not created for me—that is the resistance.
This is why I believe dialogue is so important. It is asking us to love justice more than we hate oppression or the people that are enacting it. It is really predicated on radical love, humanity, and the inherent dignity we all have as humans.
UMBC News: You were the keynote speaker at this year’s annual Hill-Robinson McNair Lecture. How did your experience as a McNair Scholar shape your work in diversity, equity, and inclusion?
Lee: I am a first-generation college student. My parents went to college after my brother and I began college. We had to figure out the college process on our own. I was never a good high school student because traditional K-12 education did not fit me as a learner. I started at community college and then transferred a couple of times to different universities for family reasons. After exploring a variety of majors over the years, I found social work. It was about connecting with people through a dialogue process. It was me. I graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a bachelor’s degree in social work.
Lee, in the middle, with her and mentor, Betty Brown-Chapell. Photo courtesy of Lee.
Before graduating, one of my professors, Betty Brown-Chapell, emerita professor of the School of Social Work at Eastern Michigan University, noted my research skills. She suggested I join the McNair Program and pursue a Ph.D. I didn’t want to do the work. After she asked for the fifth time, I agreed. She became my mentor and my entire life changed. As a McNair, I became a nationally certified dialogue facilitator. I also published and presented my research, and worked at a center similar to i3B. The McNair Program helped me realize that exactly the way that I think and the way that I view the world is valuable and it is missing.
After completing a master’s in social work from the University of Michigan, I pursued a Ph.D. in higher, adult, and lifelong education at Michigan State University (MSU). The program shifted my understanding of what was possible for my future. Every single aspect of the life I have now is a direct result of the McNair Program.
Lee with her mother at her doctoral commencement ceremony. Photo courtesy of Lee.
At MSU, I also led development of the Madison Academic Diversity Initiative (MADI). It connected students with mentors and other supports to increase their sense of belonging and connection and boost student retention. What I learned in the development of the program and from the students themselves continues to show up in my work.
Lee, fourth from the left in the first row, with the second cohort of the Madison Academic Diversity Initiative. Photo courtesy of Lee.
UMBC News: What advice would you give other McNair Scholars, at UMBC or across the country?
Lee: I would want them to know that sometimes, and maybe most of the time, what might feel like a setback is a setup for something that is supposed to happen. I think it is important to understand that when things don’t happen the way you want them to, it is not inherently a “no” even if the door is shut. Perhaps that door shut so that another could open, even if it is a year later. It is also a reminder that no matter what happens—Ph.D. or E.D.D., or no terminal degree—you are still enough.
Lee, in the middle, at her doctoral commencement with a group of undergraduate students who began their degree at the same time as Lee. Photo courtesy of Lee.
I would also say to remain humble. Be aware that your terminal degree is privileged. People who have lived experiences beyond yours are often overlooked or their voices and stories and expertise are undervalued. Always, always, always accept the privilege and responsibility that comes with having a seat at the table. Create spaces for other people. Bring other chairs or drag that table to them.
UMBC’s Sherman Center for Early Learning in Urban Communities is now in its third year of strengthening and expanding early childhood education in Maryland. The center was founded with the support of a $6 million grant from the George and Betsy Sherman Family Foundation in 2017. It has developed a series of research-based initiatives to address the needs of children from birth to eight years old in Maryland, and the workforce dedicated to educating them.
(L to R) Betsy Sherman, Mavis Sanders, Louise Corwin, and Meredith Callanan. Photo by Chris Ferenzi for UMBC.
The initial grant founding the center helped establish the Maryland Early Childhood Leadership Program (MECLP), a faculty research fellowship, and an innovative literacy program. All three elements create a body of work that is transforming early childhood education—on campus, in Baltimore City, and across the state.
Strong partnerships with researchers, schools, and families are the foundation of this work. “We never say, ‘This is what we are going to do.’ We engage our partners in conversation about what they need,” shares Mavis Sanders, professor of education and director of the Sherman Center.
“We try not to be reactive or directive, but responsive,” she says. “It is about listening. We can’t do our work without our partnerships.”
Sanders (on the right) speaking with a parent at one of the Sherman Center’s Families, Libraries, and Early Literacy Project events at Lakeland.
Investing in early childhood research
The Sherman Center’s faculty research fellowships support faculty and their doctoral students. The funding helps them undertake research that expands knowledge about policies and practices related to early childhood education. The program encourages collaborations within and across departments, fields, and institutions. Awards range from $50,000 to $100,000.
Kindel Nash andlanguage, literacy, and culture (LLC) doctoral student Josh Michael ‘10, political science and education, were the inaugural research fellows in 2017-2018. Nash is an associate professor of education and Michael is the assistant director of UMBC’s Sherman STEM Teachers Scholars Program. Their multi-year study, in collaboration with Maree G. Farring Elementary/Middle School, examines the effects of using the Read Two Impress intervention with struggling third-grade readers.
(L to R) Josh Michael, Kindel Nash, and Olivia Grimes’s ‘19, individualized study, discuss Grimes’s science lesson guide at the 2019 Summer Teacher Institute.
Two additional faculty received the award in 2018 – 2019. Susan Sonnenschein, professor of psychology, and Claudia Galindo, associate professor of education policy, University of Maryland, and former associate professor of LLC at UMBC. The team is working with Bay-Brook Elementary/Middle School and Curtis Bay Elementary/Middle School. They are studying the outcomes of the Sherman Center’s Literacy Fellows program, a collaboration with UMBC’s Shriver Center.
The program provides teachers additional classroom support from UMBC student volunteers from all majors. Sherman Center Literacy fellows volunteered for nearly 300 hours in 2018 – 2019 and more than 500 hours in 2019 – 2020.
Nihira Mugamba ‘21, political science and Africana studies at Bay-Brook Elementary/Middle School as Shriver Literacy Fellow. Photo courtesy of Mugamba.
“Dr. Sonneschein and I have been working collaboratively for ten years. We take an interdisciplinary approach to examine family and school mechanisms. This helps to improve the educational experiences and outcomes of Black and Brown students,” explains Galindo. “We have witnessed the potential and impact of the Literacy Fellows program on students and teachers in Baltimore City.”
Latest research awards focus on Judy Centers
Research awards for 2020 – 2021 were given to two research teams. The first team includes Patricia A. Young, associate professor of education, and Deborah Kabura Kariuki, clinical instructor of computer science education. Young and Kariuki are working on a year-long study, “Infusing a Culture-based Computational Thinking Curriculum in Urban Preschools.” They will partner with the Judith P. Hoyer Center Early Learning Hub at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School. Judy Centers help prepare children from age birth through kindergarten for school readiness.
Patricia Young. Photo courtesy of Young.
“It is imperative that disenfranchised students and communities have opportunities to explore computational thinking, to be active participants in this technological revolution,” shares Young. “Our research provides an introduction into the practices of computational thinking for preschoolers and the pedagogy for preschool teachers.”
The team will create an e-learning module and computational thinking instructional materials to help children at the Judy Center learn these concepts.
Judy Center staff members provide free books to early readers at a 2019 Sherman Center Families, Libraries, and Early Literacy Project event at Lakeland.
The second team includes Jane Lincove, associate professor of public policy; Lieny Jeon, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education; and Sarah Bollard, citywide coordinator for Judy Centers. They are working on a three-year study, “Judy Centers in Baltimore: Improving Data-Informed Decisions.”
Diverse books anchor literacy
The cornerstone of the Sherman Center is its focus on improving literacy experiences and outcomes for young learners in Baltimore City. “Literacy is a gateway to knowledge across all curriculum areas,” says Sanders. The Sherman Center has implemented four literacy interventions: the Diverse Books Project; Teacher Summer Institute; Literacy Fellows; and Families, Libraries, and Early Literacy Project.
The “Integrated Learning: Science Through Diverse Books” unit developed by UMBC alumna Olivia Grimes.
The Center implements these literacy programs through close partnerships with five Baltimore City Public Schools and 50 early childhood educators. Together, they reach about 1,250 children. They also work with approximately 30 families annually who have children ages birth to three, through the Judy Centers at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School and Curtis Bay Elementary/Middle School.
A parent reads to her toddler at a 2019 Sherman Center event.
The Diverse Books Project is a growing library of books housed at the Sherman Center. It reflects the lives and cultures of children and families of color. The books are used by UMBC teaching interns, graduate students, volunteers, and faculty, and by early childhood educators. They use the books to introduce and reinforce literacy across all subjects.
Lakeland teachers deliver school supplies to a student’s home in summer 2020. Photo courtesy of Sanders.
Teaching with diverse books
During the Sherman Center’s Teacher Summer Institute teachers partner schools learn to use these books as tools to support literacy. They also explore how research-based strategies like translanguaging can support more inclusive, high-achieving classrooms.
Jennifer McMahon, associate professor of education, working with early childhood educators from Baltimore City Public Schools during the 2019 Teacher Summer Institute.
In 2019, 49 educators across the state requested 250 diverse books after working with the Sherman Center. The Institute went virtual this summer. It provided 50 early childhood educators from partner schools with nearly $15,000 worth of supplies for their students and to set up virtual classrooms.
A student from one of the Sherman Center’s partner schools unpacks new supplies for the 2020 – 2021 school year. Photo courtesy of Sanders.
Working directly with families
In addition to working with teachers, the Sherman Center also works directly with families. They are invited to attend quarterly Families, Libraries, and Early Literacy Project events at Lakeland and Curtis Bay Elementary/Middle Schools. The events provide families a safe space in their neighborhoods to meet other families. They also learn strategies to promote their children’s kindergarten readiness, and create materials to support learning at home.
In addition to these activities, a librarian from the Enoch Pratt Free Library leads a story time session for the families at the events. Families also have a chance to select and take home diverse books for their children. In 2019, UMBC distributed 178 multicultural books to families at Curtis Bay and Lakeland Judy Centers.
An Enoch Pratt librarian leads a story time at the 2019 Sherman Center’s Families, Libraries, and Early Literacy Project event at Lakeland.
Creating a new system
As the world copes with COVID-19, the Sherman Center’s literacy, professional development, and research programs will continue to adapt. The center will support the literacy needs of children throughout Maryland in the current virtual environment.
“We are not preparing teachers, administrators, public servants, and students to adapt strategies to work within the status quo of early childhood,” notes Sanders. Instead, the Sherman Center is preparing education professionals to be innovators. She says, “We will create a new early childhood education system that reflects and serves the diversity of today and tomorrow.”
Banner image: Sanders (in the middle, in red) surrounded by Sherman Center, Judy Center, and Enoch Pratt Free Library staff at the Families, Libraries, and Early Literacy Project event at Lakeland in February 2019. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC unless otherwise noted.
When COVID-19 spread across the United States, essential workers scrambled to find open childcare centers with available spots. The pandemic exposed a longstanding shortage of licensed early childhood education providers, exacerbated by the public health crisis.
Among the many causes of this shortage has been a lack of professional development and career pathways for early childhood education providers and leaders who serve children from birth to age five. This is a challenge UMBC and the State of Maryland are working to address.
Investing in early childhood leaders
UMBC’s Sherman Center for Early Childhood Learning in Urban Communities has been leading change in this field in Maryland since 2017 through its Maryland Early Childhood Leadership Education Program (MECLP). The program’s 12-month post-baccalaureate course equips current leaders in early childhood education with the skills, knowledge, and network needed to implement effective and long-lasting change in classrooms, school districts, and nonprofits across the state.
(L to R) Betsy Sherman, Sanders, Corwin, and Meredith Callanan a MECLP advisory committee member. Photo by Chris Ferenzi for UMBC.
In 2017 the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) granted $100,000 to UMBC’s Sherman Center. The MSDE grant, along with $50,000 from a $6 million grant from the George and Betsy Sherman Family Foundation to the Sherman Center, helped establish MECLP. In May, MSDE granted an additional $150,000 award to the Sherman Center to sustain MECLP’s programs and initiatives.
“We are thrilled to be a founding supporter of MECLP. It is the capstone of our workforce support for the Maryland early childhood community,” explains MSDE’s Steven Hicks, assistant state superintendent in the Division of Early Childhood. “We’re creating a career ladder that ensures quality learning and development. It will also ensure a robust supply of highly qualified early childhood leaders.”
Systems to support emerging leaders
Mavis Sanders, professor of education and director of the Sherman Center, welcomed Louise Corwin to the Sherman Center in 2018. Corwin would help the Sherman Center assess Maryland’s early childhood needs and create a framework to meet those needs. As the former executive director of the Ready at Five school readiness organization, housed at bwtech@UMBC, she brought extensive experience in early childhood education.
Sanders presenting at a MECLP meeting. Photo by Chris Ferenzi for UMBC.
“The Sherman Center decided to bring Louise onboard as an executive in residence. We wanted her to help anchor and develop this idea at UMBC,” shares Sanders. Corwin developed an advisory committee of leading voices in Maryland’s early childhood work. Sanders and Corwin have continued to work together since 2018 to further develop MECLP.
Louise Corwin. Photo courtesy of Corwin.
After identifying the needs they wanted to help the state address, Sanders and Corwin sought researchers across the country who had successfully implemented early childhood leadership programs. This includes experts like Anne Douglass, founder and executive director of the Institute for Early Education Leadership and Innovation at University of Massachusetts Boston.
Douglass tests, studies, and implements new policies, practices, and systems that increase the capacity of early educators to lead change and improvement in the field. She conducts her research in partnership with professional, community, government, and philanthropic systems that share this vision. Sanders and Corwin partnered with Douglass to adapt Boston’s program to meet Maryland’s needs.
Putting theory into practice
Through the post-baccalaureate program, fellows learn the leadership skills necessary to create and support pathways for organizational progress. They also learn to sustain improvements in early childhood education settings.
UMBC expects to graduate 12 early childhood professionals in December at the conclusion of the first year-long course. This cohort includes diverse leaders in policy development at the school district and state levels; high-achieving early childhood program leaders; and advocates for families, children, and childcare professionals across the state.
“Exposed to training in entrepreneurial leadership, cohort members advance their knowledge,” says Douglass. “They become more effective leaders, and implement new practices and systems to better support young children, their families, and communities.
Photo by Marlayna Demon ’11 for UMBC.
During the program participants are connected with a network of mentors in the field. They will continue to have access to them after completing the program. This community of support proved to be invaluable for the educators during the transition to virtual education due to COVID-19.
At a moment when transformative leadership is needed in education, Corwin is confident that “MECLP graduates will affect state-level change in systems, policies, and programs, and advocate for equitable high-quality early childhood care and education for all children” in the years to come.
Banner image: The MECLP 2019 –2020 cohort, fall 2019. Photo by Chris Ferenzi for UMBC.
Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead will present UMBC’s 42nd annual W. E. B. Du Bois lecture on the intersection of COVID-19, systemic racism, and anti-racist action.
Whitehead, Ph.D. ‘09, language, literacy, and culture, is an associate professor of communication and African American studies at Loyola University Maryland. She is also the award-winning radio host of “Today With Dr. Kaye” on WEAA. Her talk, “Black COVID Stories, Black Lives Matter, and Protest: A Conversation about the Ongoing Struggle for Justice and Change,” will examine the long-term societal impacts of today’s conversations about anti-Blackness, anti-racism, policing, and justice in the context of Du Bois’s research.
“I want to talk about how we can have these difficult conversations not just around race but around antiracism, White supremacy, and police brutality,” shares Whitehead. “We will take Du Bois’s work to explore people’s experiences in this country. It’s about who gets to say who they are as an American, what that looks like, and what it means in the broader picture.”
Being Black in America
Du Bois’s scholarship on double consciousness addressed what it meant to be Black in America at the beginning of the 20th century. He used this concept to describe how Black Americans had to continually be conscious of themselves both through their own eyes and through the lens of a racist, oppressive White society.
Whitehead notes that Du Bois was arguing for the right of Black men to vote; the end of separate but equal public spaces; the right of Black people to live, speak, and be anywhere; and equal enforcement of the law. She says these rights were seen as extremely radical for the early 1900s and, unfortunately, are still radical today.
W. E. B. Du Bois. Photo from creative commons.
“What Black America is demanding today is the same as what Du Bois was demanding more than a century ago,” shares Whitehead. “On the eve of 2021 we are still fighting against White supremacy, voter suppression, and police brutality, and fighting for access to the table.”
In the wake of ongoing violence against Black people, Whitehead notes that Black America is asking America to be more responsive and more responsible in its treatment of Black and Brown people. She shares, “We will use his lens to have a 21st century conversation on how we move forward as a nation.”
Where to find Dr. Kaye’s work
Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead. Photo courtesy of Whitehead.
In addition to her other work, Whitehead is also a columnist for The Afro newspaper and the founding executive director of the Emilie Frances Davis Center for Education, Research, and Culture. She is the author of four award-winning books. These include Notes from a Colored Girl: The Civil War Pocket Diaries of Emilie Frances Davis; Race Brave; Letters to My Black Sons: Raising Boys in a Post-Racial America; and Sparking the Genius: The Carter G. Woodson Lecture. She is also a documentary filmmaker and a former Baltimore City middle school teacher, recipient of the 2006-07 Maryland History Teacher of the Year Award.
Register to attend the 42nd annual W. E. B. Du Bois lecture, to be held virtually on Wednesday, November 11, 2020, 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. This Humanities Forum event is presented by UMBC’s Africana studies department. It is co-sponsored by the Center for Social Science Scholarship and the Dresher Center for the Humanities.
Banner image: Whitehead presents at GRIT-X during UMBC’s 50th anniversary celebration. Photo by Jim Burger for UMBC.
UMBC’s Kindel Nash, associate professor of education, and colleagues have produced one of the first books to address culturally sustaining literacy education in early childhood, Toward Culturally Sustaining Teaching (Routledge 2020). The book shares findings from the first cohort of the Professional Dyads of Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT) program. This program pairs educators who are interested in developing culturally relevant literacy practices in diverse pre-K, kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms.
The PDCRT program is supported by the Early Childhood Education Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English, and purposefully elevates the work of teachers and researchers of color. All participants in the cohort central to the book, with the exception of Nash, were educators and researchers of color.
Nash edited the book with Crystal Polite Glover, associate professor of early childhood education at Winthrop University in South Carolina, and Bilal Polson, principal at Northern Parkway school in Long Island, NY, who also participated in PDCRT.
Defining culturally sustaining teaching
Culturally sustaining pedagogy, Nash explains, focuses on countering structures that systematically erase the culture and language of communities of color.
Nash notes that widely adopted practices in early childhood education view communities of color from a highly problematic deficit mindset. “Culturally sustaining teaching is a conscious decision to teach and work within communities of color from an asset mindset,” she says. This framework has been widely researched in secondary education but, Nash notes, little has been done in early childhood until now.
H. Samy Alim and Django Paris are recognized for developing foundational scholarship in this field. Alim is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences and professor of anthropology and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the founding director of the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Language. Paris is the inaugural James A. and Cherry A. Banks Professor of Multicultural Education and director of the Banks Center for Educational Justice in the University of Washington College of Education.
“Culturally sustaining pedagogy is about revitalizing and transforming, about ultimately undoing schooling as we know it to return to and imagine anew the ways our communities have sustained and must sustain each other, our society, our planet,” Paris writes in the book’s foreword. “As we continue to build together, I remain grateful for projects like this book, which are part of our collective effort to sustain the world we need, with our ancestors, our young ones, our elders, forward.”
Sustaining success for all
The book provides in-depth examples from the experiences of the first PDCRT cohort, which paired four highly successful early childhood educators with researchers across the U.S. The researchers found that the teachers they were paired with were already applying this framework without previous training.
Patricia Piña, a dual-language early childhood educator in Kansas City, Missouri, was Nash’s PDCRT partner. Piña valued and connected the culture and language of her predominantly Latinx classroom by using different culturally sustaining teaching strategies. She created bilingual books and made assessments language-accessible. Among other strategies, she also used translanguaging daily—communicating concepts and ideas via different cultural frameworks in a student’s native language.
Piña’s students experienced great success developing age-expected skills in English and Spanish across all subjects. However, as successful as Piña was as an educator, she ultimately left teaching after a young child who spoke Spanish in the classroom was referred for special education services after being tested in English. This experience had unfortunately happened many times over her teaching career.
Tackling an inequitable system
Piña’s experience is one many teachers of color have to face. They must not only be their own advocate in a profession dominated by white teachers and administrators, but they must also often be the only advocate for students of color, Nash says. It is something she has witnessed frequently in eight years of research with high-performing urban teachers.
“The dominant ideas about schooling are connected to Western individualistic notions of learning that broadly support how White American students learn,” explains Nash. “It is a very inequitable system.”
Nash feels that there is still a long journey to successfully implement culturally sustaining teaching in the U.S. education system, particularly for White teachers who primarily work with other White educators. Further, she explains that it is not enough for White teachers to have close relationships with people of color. She notes, “White educators must unlearn the deep feelings about communities of color they have been socialized to have in a system built on slavery and White supremacy.”
Unlearning racism
Nash hopes educators understand that this is why recruitment and retention of educators of color benefits everyone. “White educators and researchers will not be able to apply culturally sustaining teaching if they are only working with other White teachers in reflecting on their Whiteness,” says Nash.
Her book is an example of the impact teachers can have when they commit to this work. “This includes not only changing how we teach,” she says, “but whom we teach with.”
Banner image: Kindel Nash. Photo by Arionna Gonsalves ’19, media and communication studies and modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication.
A team of researchers led by Charissa Cheah, professor of psychology at UMBC, has found that a high percentage of Chinese American parents and children have witnessed and experienced an increase in racial discrimination since the outbreak of COVID-19.
The data reveal that large percentages of Chinese Americans are experiencing racism at interpersonal, institutional, and collective levels, both in person and online, during COVID-19. These experiences harm both adults’ and children’s mental health, and reflect a history of racism against Asian Americans in the United States.
Charissa Cheah. Photo courtesy of Cheah.
The team suggests that public health strategies are urgently needed to decrease fear, stigmatization, and discrimination. They recommend that schools develop strategies to address racism targeting Asian American youth. They also note that healthcare professionals need to be educated on how to address the mental health needs of this population.
Cheah is a cultural developmental psychologist. She completed the research with co-investigators Shimei Pan, assistant professor of information systems at UMBC, and Cixin Wang, assistant professor of school psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Eleven recent UMBC alumni are recipients of 2020 – 2021 Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards, including seven from UMBC’s Class of 2020. Each year over 11,000 students apply and just over 2,000 are selected from hundreds of colleges and universities across the United States. The award secures funding for U.S. students to pursue international graduate study, research, internships, or teaching.
While COVID-19 has presented a range of challenges and uncertainties for Fulbright recipients, UMBC is proud to celebrate their hard work and achievements.
“This year’s recipients have demonstrated great flexibility and maturity as they navigate the changes that our current global situation requires,” explains Brian Souders, M.A.‘19, TESOL and Ph.D. ’09, language, literacy and culture. He serves as associate director of global engagement opportunities in UMBC’s office of International Education Services.
Souders, who is also UMBC’s Fulbright program advisor and scholar liaison, says that these hurdles have also not deterred UMBC faculty, students, and alumni from applying for the 2021 – 2022 Fulbright award.
UMBC’s 2020 – 2021 Fulbright U.S. Student Program award recipients
Middle East
Kiplyn Jones, M.P.P. ’20, public policy, Jordan, English Teaching
East Asia
Osia on campus. Photo courtesy of Osia.
Hannah Jang ’20, global studies, Korea, English Teaching Assistant
Phillip McKnight, M.A. ’19, instructional systems design, Laos, English Teaching Assistant
Samina Musa ’20, chemical engineering, Malaysia, English Teaching Assistant
Uchenna Osia ’19, computer science, Malaysia, English Teaching Assistant
Europe and Eurasia
Brandon Ables, M.F.A., ’20, intermedia and digital arts, Romania, English Teaching Assistant
Alida Hartwell ’20, bioinformatics/computational biology, Latvia, English Teaching Assistant
Matthew Linz ’20, modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication, Kazakhstan, English Teaching Assistant
Idania Ramos ’20, psychology, Spain, English Teaching Assistant
Jocelyn Wilkins ’20, mechanical engineering, University of Porto, Portugal, Master’s Program
Kashett in Costa Rica, where he previously studied abroad. Photo courtesy of Kashett.
Western Hemisphere
Daniel Kashkett ’19, global studies, Mexico, Bilateral Internship Program
Top Fulbright producer
The Fulbright U.S. Student program is highly competitive, and recipients are chosen based on academic or professional achievement and demonstrated leadership potential. UMBC’s ten 2020 – 2021 recipients include students from a broad range of majors. And they’ve been selected for a diverse range of experiences, as English teaching assistants, interns, and graduate students in Europe, East Asia, Western Hemisphere, and the Middle East.
This success comes after UMBC was named a Fulbright Top Producing Institution for receiving fourteen Fulbright U.S. Student awards in 2019 – 2020. Only a small portion of institutions participating in the Fulbright program are designated as top producers each year, an honor granted by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Both the Fulbright U.S. Student Program and the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program are designed to help build networks to support cross-cultural understanding. They connect people from the United States with people from around the world to dispel stereotypes and help each other reach common goals.
Faculty Fulbright for research in Southeast Asia
Beyond the student program, faculty are eligible to apply for the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program to further research on critical world problems in all disciplines. This year, UMBC’s John Rennie Short, professor of public policy, has received a Fulbright award to conduct research in Southeast Asia on the geopolitics of the South China Sea.
Kuala Lampur, one of the places Rennie Short will visit for research. Photo courtesy of Rennie Short.
The award will support Rennie Short’s research in Malaysia and the Philippines and allow him to visit Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. He will interview scholars and foreign policy analysts while at the Asian Center at the University of the Philippines Diliman and the Centre for ASEAN Regionalism at the University of Malaya, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Rennie Short also plans to give public lectures and seminars about U.S. public policy and other topics while in Southeast Asia.
Kuala Lampur, one of the places Rennie Short will visit for research.
Photo courtesy of Rennie Short.
This research will inform Rennie Short’s second book on East Asian maritime issues. “The book will widen our understanding of the complex and troubled geopolitics of the South China Sea,” he explains. “It will provide an Association of Southeast Asian Nations perspective to counter the dominant Chinese and U.S. narratives.”
Rennie Short’s first book on East Asian geopolitical issues, Korea: A Cartographic History (2012, University of Chicago Press), tackled the East Sea versus Sea of Japan naming dispute between South Korea and Japan. He has also written “Troubled Waters: Conflict in the South China Sea Explained,” republished in U.S. News & World Report.
Other recent UMBC faculty recipients of Fulbright U.S. Scholar awards include Charissa Cheah, professor of psychology; Guenet Abraham, associate professor visual arts; Chuck Eggleton, professor and chair of mechanical engineering; and Marc Zupan, associate professor of mechanical engineering.
Abraham in Ethiopia as a Fulbright Scholar in 2018. Photo courtesy of Abraham.
Banner image: International hanging from the ceiling of UMBC’s Commons. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 unless otherwise noted.
UMBC’s Taka Yamashita has been awarded a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences for an innovative three-year research project on how adult literacy impacts success in community college STEM education and job training programs. Yamashita is an associate professor of sociology and faculty member in the UMBC/UMB gerontology Ph.D. program. He will explore how the literacy, numeracy, and problem-solving skills of adults (ages 18 and over), can be indicators of career and academic readiness in community college STEM programs.
Meeting workers’ and STEM industry needs
Many workers with limited academic credentials or skills face the need to expand their skill set to fit a rapidly changing STEM-focused labor market. The wide range of skills needed for STEM jobs creates both challenges and opportunities for workers to begin “middle-skill” positions, which do not require four-year undergraduate or graduate degrees. Career training programs can make a significant difference for these workers.
Yamashita notes that community colleges are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of adults who seek STEM skill training. However, in addition to knowledge and work skills, many workers also need to learn the basic skills to manage college level coursework, he explains.
“While community colleges can offer a path, students’ community college readiness may present a barrier to completing the training and entering the STEM workforce,” shares Yamashita. He explains, “Recent national data clearly showed that many of the adults seeking to acquire new new knowledge and skill sets do not have the sufficient basic reading and math skills needed for higher education coursework in the U.S.”
The power of three perspectives
This research project is led by Yamashita, principal investigator; Rita Karam, senior policy researcher at RAND Corporation; and Phyllis Cummins, assistant director of research at Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University of Ohio. The team will gather quantitative and qualitative data from three community college STEM programs. These include programs at Clover Park Technical College in Washington state, Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio, and Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana.
The researchers will assess students’ basic math, reading, and technology skills to predict their academic success in STEM skills training programs. They will also analyze national data and create the first national profile of basic skills across different segments of the adult population for a variety of STEM industries.
“We’re seeking to explore relationships between basic skills, college readiness, and academic outcomes,” says Yamashita. “Our goal is to better understand the underlying themes and/or key factors that are linked to enhanced basic skills and academic success in the STEM-related sub-baccalaureate programs.” These findings, Yamashita notes, could have a long-lasting positive impact on current and future workers’ lives as well as the STEM labor market.
Banner image: Yamashita. Photo courtesy of Yamashita.
Elizabeth Patton’s new book Easy Living: The Rise of the Home Office (2020, Rutgers University Press) explores how Americans think about the modern home office and why. Patton’s book is a historical view of how marketing and popular media have shaped how mostly white, heterosexual, upper-middle-class families in the United States have talked about working from home. Due to COVID-19, remote work has hit unprecedented highs, but Patton’s scholarship reveals that it’s far from a new idea.
“I was interested in learning about how people talked about working from home from the early 19th century to today,” says Patton, an assistant professor of media and communication studies at UMBC. “I wanted to understand how certain public figures, technology and real estate companies, film and TV contributed to these conversations and shaped today’s idea of working from home.”
Patton explains this phenomenon, as her family redefines work spaces during COVID-19, in her latest article: “In the work-from-home battle for space, women are the reluctant nomads.” Originally published by The Conversation, the article has been republished by CNN, Fast Company, and others, reaching nearly 140,000 reads so far.
The gendered home office
Patton’s research reveals how early-19th century advertising and media portrayed women in two traditionally private spaces: the kitchen and the bedroom. This shifted during WWII as ads encouraged women to work jobs men had to leave behind. However, by the 1950s many women were expected to leave careers and return to domesticity.
Patton found advertising campaigns from phone companies motivating women to work more efficiently by having a phone line installed in the kitchen and in the bedroom. “Typewriter ads also encouraged women to work as typists from their kitchen office,” shares Patton. “This work was not to advance a career but to support their household economy.”
Men, on the other hand, occupied the public space in the home—the living room or den—to work, relax, or entertain. Patton’s research also describes how advertising and media discussed the work men brought home from the office as a way for them to maintain a work-life balance, especially with the rise of long commutes. Real estate and furniture ads lured urban families to the suburbs with the promise of a garage or a home office to give men more family time and bigger kitchens to help women more efficiently run their household.
Hollywood’s influence
Patton made a particularly compelling, unexpected discovery during her research at the Library of Congress: evidence of the influence of Hugh Hefner, the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine. Hefner played a significant role in conceptualizing the modern work-from-home lifestyle, the bachelor pad, and the “man cave.”
“While he is an extremely problematic figure, there is no denying his influence in this area,” explains Patton. Research shows how Hefner used advances in phone, computer, television, and architecture to conceptualize private and public home spaces for a successful work-life balance, making commutes irrelevant.
Family life on TV
Bill Cosby, a disgraced public figure, helped transform the portrayal of men and women having successful careers and a thriving family life on television, says Patton.
“The Cosby Show was a primetime family show that created an aspirational lifestyle,” shares Patton. “It was a very purposeful portrayal of how men, working as doctors, lawyers, or writers, could have a successful and fulfilling work-life balance while at the same time supporting their wives in leaving the home to pursue similar careers.”
Patton also shares how it wasn’t until the 1980s and early 1990s, with second-wave feminism, that women were more frequently portrayed in advertising and popular media as having a career outside of the home or having a home office. Still, these portrayals were seen as controversial, especially when central female characters were single working mothers. And if women had to bring work home, their office was still the kitchen.
COVID-19 and the home office evolution
Patton’s book comes at an unprecedented time when many adults and children have had to shift their work and learning spaces from the public office and school to the private home. This change has reopened questions about private and public work spaces and work-life balance, as well as class, equity, and access.
“I’m always thinking about who is missing or left out in the conversation. I’m telling this history, but this history is not possible without depending on people of color and people working in service jobs,” explains Patton. “This is where class and race intersect. And it is necessary to keep this idea of working from home going, even more so now with a pandemic.”
Banner image: Patton on campus in academic row. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11.
