How would higher education look if it adopted an agentic approach to its work? How might students’ experiences change, and what might it be like to work in this new environment? Here are some things colleges and universities taking an agentic approach to education would do ... (continue reading)

George Mehaffy, founder of the American Democracy Project (ADP), has reflected  that too many of the campus civic learning and democratic engagement programs and activities inspired by ADP in its first few years were "marginal, episodic, and celebratory." I believe we need equally clear and concise language to describe the positive attributes of profoundly valuable and effective engagement efforts...(continue reading)

Earlier this month, I traveled to New Orleans to attend the joint Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement meeting of the American Democracy Project (ADP), The Democracy Commitment (TDC) and NASPA (an organization for Student Affairs professionals in higher education). This was my first ADP meeting, and a couple of things stuck out to me... (continue reading)

Thanks to the Mechanical Engineering department, I was able to join UMBC’s delegation to the 2015 American Democracy Project/The Democracy Commitment/NASPA Civic Learning & Democratic Engagement conference in New Orleans earlier this month... (continue reading)

A number of us from UMBC have been working with partners from across Baltimore--artists, civic leaders, and faculty, staff and students from local colleges and universities--to plan for the Imagining America conference (October 1-3, 2015). In preparation for a recent meeting of this Baltimore Organizing Group, I put together a rough summary of themes that had come up in our previous meetings: a highly abbreviated account of Baltimore’s distinctive history, and its urgent challenges and opportunities, as seen through the eyes of the group’s members. I'm sharing it because I thought the key themes people came up with are so salient to recent events... (continue reading)

[What follows is a transcription of President Hrabowski's remarks at the UMBC Discussion on Complex Challenges Facing Baltimore Communities held Friday, May 1, 2015].

Someone asked me if I thought our students would come out for something in Baltimore. And I said, “I have no doubt.” Thousands of our students and faculty and staff care deeply about children and families in our city, because that’s who we are.

This is about all of us; about our country, not just about Baltimore. What we see in our city is what we see in our country... (continue reading)

I am the child and grandchild of policemen, both of whom worked in Baltimore City and more. There were nights as a child that I feared for my father's safety. I knew he had a job to do. I just wanted him to come home... (continue reading)

I speak to you today not as Kimberly Moffitt, media scholar, but Kimberly Moffitt the parent of two brown children who attend Baltimore City Public Schools and as a founder of the Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys Public Charter Schools, which opens its doors to 264 boys in Fall 2015...(continue reading)

A proper thank you and acknowledgment can never be late when you mean it. I want to say thank you to each and every UMBC activist (and now friend) for showing up this past week and standing up for something you believe in... (continue reading)