For the past year, UMBC’s Timothy Nohe, professor of visual arts, has served as a Fellow of the American Council on Education (ACE), the preeminent national program for cultivating leaders in higher education. Tahir Hemphill is a creative technologist, multimedia artist, and design researcher who uses a hip-hop framework to develop new ways for people to engage with data and culture. Hemphill is one of two Postdoctoral Fellows for Faculty Diversity to join UMBC’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences this fall. A new augmented reality app, developed in partnership between UMBC and IMET, will give users an imagined glimpse under the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The UMBC Symphony has provided a home to students and community members alike. As the long time director retires, musicians look back on the past five decades of the symphony. The past pandemic year saw arts communities unable to connect with audiences in traditional ways. Usually reliant on people gathering together to experience their work, creators and performers were thrust online. Some artistic experiences were rendered impossible, but the challenging situation didn’t slow the creative efforts of visual and performing artists of UMBC’s Class of 2021. UMBC artists are once again in the limelight at the annual SPARK pop-up gallery, a joint project with Towson University that can be enjoyed in person through June 26 at Maryland Art Place in downtown Baltimore. As the pandemic surged across the country last spring, university arts venues closed their doors, but that didn’t stop UMBC artists from creating. Without the traditional opportunities for collaboration that can be so important in dance, music, theatre, and the visual arts, they turned to new approaches and to individual projects with determination and passion. UMBC’s Kimberly Moffitt, professor of Language, Literacy & Culture and affiliate professor of Africana Studies, has been appointed Interim Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Pianist Daniel Pesca will participate in the Library of Congress’s Boccaccio Project, in which ten composers will be paired with ten performers. The newly commissioned musical compositions will be presented in a series of online broadcasts. This fall, UMBC will bid farewell to one of its senior leaders as Scott Casper, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS), departs the university to assume the presidency of the American Antiquarian Society (AAS). Majoring in the arts requires intense levels of stamina and self-discipline — long hours rehearsing, creating, writing, designing, interpreting — coupled with an inner drive for inquiry and perfection. UMBC’s undergraduate and graduate students in the arts are no exception, reaching forward even in this era of social distancing. UMBC’s first virtual Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day made students’ work even more accessible to the community.
UMBC’s Timothy Nohe brings an artist’s perspective to prestigious ACE Fellowship
Tahir Hemphill merges hip-hop, computing, and cultural analysis as UMBC’s first postdoctoral fellow in the visual arts
UMBC and IMET faculty reveal a hidden world in the Chesapeake Bay
Passing the Baton
UMBC’s latest graduates in the arts forge new creative paths despite a challenging year
SPARK IV: A New World?
UMBC’s newest arts grads forge ahead with creative work, despite a year apart
Kimberly Moffitt appointed interim dean of UMBC’s College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
Library of Congress commissions UMBC’s Daniel Pesca to bring new work of music to the public during pandemic
UMBC celebrates Dean Scott Casper, next president of the American Antiquarian Society
Creating new pathways: Meet ten UMBC arts graduates advancing their fields
Virtual URCAD Puts Student Research on Broad Display
