Co-sponsored by the Office of Faculty Affairs and the Graduate School
Supported by the Office of the Provost
In Collaboration with Dresher Center for Humanities, CS3, and CIRCA

What is Write@UMBC?
Write@UMBC is a campus-wide writing initiative designed to help scholars and scholar-practitioners build sustainable writing habits through protected time, light accountability, and community support.

Who can participate?
Faculty, postdocs, graduate students, researchers, and administrators/staff across UMBC.

How it works

• 30 minutes of writing per day for two weeks

• Any scholarly writing or part of the writing process counts

• There will be no need to share your writing content

• Optional community check-ins for light accountability and reflections

When is the challenge?

March 2–15, 2026

How do I participate?

Register for Write@UMBC using this registration form. You must have a NCFDD-account. To activate your free account using your UMBC email here: https://members.ncfdd.org/institutions/umbc 

***Registration Deadline is February 22***

Wednesday, February 4 | 12:00-1:00pm | Sherman Hall 445
"Multimodal and Monomodal Feedback in Second Language Writing: Issues in Research and Practice"
Ana Oskoz, Ph.D.
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs & Professor, Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication
Click here for details and to register.

The UMBC Department of Education Research Seminar kicks off the spring semester with a presentation by Dr. Ana Oskoz, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor in the Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication.  Dr. Oskoz's presentation focuses on the integration of monomodal and multimodal feedback in three important areas of investigation: (1) how to provide monomodal or multimodal feedback to monomodal and/or multimodal texts either during the writing process or to the final products, (2) how to use different tools and their affordances (e.g., screencast software, ChatGPT) to provide feedback, and (3) whether multimodal feedback influences the nature of learners' revisions.
All members of the department, partners/collaborators, and students/faculty from other departments and institutions are invited to attend.  Lunch will be provided by the department.  Please RSVP as soon as possible.
Save the date for future talks:

Wednesday, March 4 | 12:00-1:00pm | Sherman Hall 445"We Ain't New to this, We True to This": Teaching Democracy and Citizenship: Through Black Educator Oral and Life Histories.Brandon Beck, Assitant Professor, Department of Education

Wednesday, April 1 | 12:00-1:00pm | Sherman Hall 445
"Cultivating a Rightful Presence: Inclusive Early Childhood STEM"
Michele Stites, Associate Professor of Early Education, Department of Education
Jonathan Singer, Professor, Department of Education

Wednesday, May 6 | 12:00-1:00pm | Sherman Hall 445
"A Multilingual Perspective on Literacy: Monolingual Bias in Reading Instruction and the Positioning of Emergent Bilinguals"
Laura Ascienzo-Moreno, Ph.D., Professor, Childhood, Bilingual And Special Education, School of Education, Brooklyn College

March 12, 2026 – 2:00 p.m. ET

Taking Ideas Public: A Scholar's Guide to Trade Publishing

Blair LM Kelley, President and Director, National Humanities Center
Tanya McKinnon, Founder and Principal Agent, McKinnon Literary

Join us for a lively conversation on what is lost and gained when academics write for trade publishers. The webinar will feature literary agent and founder of McKinnon Literary, Tanya McKinnon, who for the last 19 years has helped authors bring their ideas to life and find their audience. Tanya will be in dialogue with NHC President and Director Blair LM Kelley to discuss the writing and publication process, and how authors can make the leap from university presses to trade.

Blair LM Kelley is president and director of the National Humanities Center. An award-winning author, historian, and scholar of the African American experience, her scholarship and social commentary have focused on African American social movements, segregation, and the Black working class. Before joining the NHC, she served as the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and directed the Center for the Study of the American South. Previously, Kelley spent 20 years on the faculty and as an administrator at North Carolina State University, including as associate dean of interdisciplinary affairs and partnerships.

Tanya McKinnon is the founder and principal agent of McKinnon Literary. As a literary agent, she works to amplify progressive voices and help authors sharpen their projects regardless of genre. Having spent time on both sides of the agent-author relationship, she draws on this experience to bring a holistic perspective to the publishing industry and ensures her clients and their projects are handled with utmost care. McKinnon represents serious nonfiction, literary fiction, children's books, and graphic novels. Several of McKinnon's clients include New York Times best-sellers, winners of the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the LA Times Book Award, the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, and many more.

The Dresher Center for the Humanities is continuing our writing group into the Spring 2026 semester on Fridays from 10am to 11:30am online via WebEx.

This writing groups open to faculty, graduate students, and staff working on humanities-related projects.

https://umbc.webex.com/umbc/j.php?MTID=m3e509a76259be1f8e3262d623e29b53d

The Global Asias Initiative (GAI) at UMBC is holding a workshop to help support and curate an exhibit of creative works produced by students that relate and help illustrate understandings and relationalities to Asia as understood through a Global Asias framework. In the workshop, students will read and unpack a text written by Tina Chen (Global Asias: Method, Architecture, and Praxis) in order to better understand Global Asias, a theoretical, multidisciplinary framework that brings together the fields of Asian American and Asian Studies. We will work together to create an exhibit of student work that translates and explains Global Asias as an analytical lens to the campus and wider public. 

Students will arrive to the first session with a project they have either completed in a prior class or with a project in mind as well as having read an assigned text on Global Asias. Together with faculty mentors, we will discuss the text and clarify any questions in order to strengthen our collective understanding of the Global Asias framework.

In the second session, students will work to hone their project and work on writing artist statements that explain to a public audience how their piece reflects Global Asias–what Global Asias concept(s) does their piece draw on? How can we see that concept or process illustrated or represented in the piece? 

Participating in this workshop will help strengthen public writing skills, hone reading skills, and is an opportunity you can put on your resume/CV. 

Please make sure to keep available 5/1 for the exhibition install date and 5/4 for the Exhibition Reception.  

Applications are due Wed, February 11, 2026 by 11:59pm.

Application Process:

By 11:59pm on Wed., Feb.11, 2026: Submit responses via the following application form: https://forms.gle/3WBUUEA9NyrC16QU6 

Make sure to include:

• 1-2 sentence description of project 

• 2-3 sentence statement of why you're interested in participating 

WORKSHOP TIMELINE:

Session 1 (Friday 2/27, 12:00-2pm): reading & activity that asks that helps guide the revision of their project and helps them brainstorming their "artist statement"

In between sessions: students send advanced drafts

Session 2 (Friday 4/10, 12:00-2pm): bring workshopped/revised project, share. finalize and create connections between pieces.

(lunch will be provided)

Exhibition Install date: Friday, 5/1

Exhibition Reception: Monday 5/4

PAYMENT DISBURSEMENT:

Participating students will receive a $300 stipend. Receiving the stipend is dependent on completion of both workshop sessions and installing their piece in the exhibition. 

CONTACT INFO:

Please reach out to Dr. Mika Thornburg at mthornburg@umbc.edu, Dr. Tamara Bhalla at tbhalla@umbc.edu or Priya Bhayana at priyab@umbc.edu with any questions.