Attention All Undergraduate Researchers!

Have you completed research that you want to refine and publish?

Would you like to be able to put “published author” on your resume?

Would you like professional criticism on your writing from a peer and faculty reviewers?

Submit your paper to the 2018 UMBC Review for consideration. Direct all questions to our editors at umbcreview@umbc.edu.

Deadline: September 15, 2017

With Mother’s Day still in the air and with UMBC’s 50th Commencement quickly approaching, the Women’s Center is reflecting with immense pride on all of the UMBC mothers and parents who have passed through our doors, used our services, and who have walked across the stage to receive their diplomas.

Our moms and parents, whether they are a part of the Returning Women Student Scholars Programs, use the lactation room, or just come in to the Center to hang out, exemplify the eponymous “grit” that is so integral to UMBC’s identity. UMBC moms balance an enormous amount of responsibilities as they work to advance their careers. From partners to full time jobs and from children to parents in need, moms returning to UMBC face unique challenges and require unique support.

Being a parent and being a university student are often identities that are invisible. As most traditional students create their schedules and hope to get into a class with their favorite professor, UMBC moms and parents are striving to create a schedule that enables them to balance family, school, work, and their own self-care. The Women’s Center is a place where we strive to honor the complexities of being a parent and a student through supportive and dynamic services. Our moms and parents have access to scholarships, professional development workshops, our lactation room, and 1-1 support services.

This Mother’s Day the Women’s Center is proud to recognize the mothers and parents who are a part of the UMBC community and who we are honored to serve everyday. As this year comes to a close, please consider making a donation to the Women’s Center in honor of our 25th Anniversary. Your gift goes on to support UMBC moms and make our services even better. 

Give today, and help us support our UMBC moms, parents, and returning students.

Check out the stories of two of our graduating Returning Women Scholars on UMBC News:

Erin Callahan and Natacha Ngea.

The Women’s Center at UMBC turns 25 this year! We’re excited to share our important milestone with UMBC’s 50th Anniversary and will be celebrating throughout the year with the rest of campus! We were inspired by Special Collections archival project Archives Gold: 50 Objects for UMBC’s 50th and decided to do our own digging into the Women’s Center archives. Over the course of the year, we’ll be sharing 25 “Then vs Now” archives to celebrate the origin and evolution of the Women’s Center at UMBC.

This week we’re featuring event flyers from of our Take Back the Night. 

Since Take Back the Night 2017 just happened a few weeks ago, the experience may be fresh in many of our minds. As social media and technology has enhanced over the past several years, it’s always interesting looking back at old event flyers and Take Back the Night is no different! As we’ve been diving over the archives this past year, it’s neat to see the ways in which promoting Take Back the Night has evolved. From basic event flyers to hashtags and geofilters, the importance of getting students to this critical event remains constant.

One of our first TBTN flyers from 1991. 

Take Back the Night 2003

A last minute advertisement located in The Retriever Weekly in 2003

One of the newer TBTN flyers from 2016. 

This year Kayla Smith shows off our newest flyer and logo! Kayla-ception via SnapChat!!

You can learn more about the history of Take Back the Night at UMBC by checking out our recent blog post on just that!

What are the memories you have of the Women’s Center over the years that are meaningful to you? What does the Women’s Center mean to you today? Share your memories and pictures with us in the comment section below!

Stay up-to-date with our 25th anniversary on social media using #UMBCWC25. Share your Women’s Center experiences and memories with the UMBC community using #UMBCWC25 AND #UMBC50!

The Women’s Center at UMBC turns 25 this year! We’re excited to share our important milestone with UMBC’s 50th Anniversary and will be celebrating throughout the year with the rest of campus! We were inspired by Special Collections archival project Archives Gold: 50 Objects for UMBC’s 50th and decided to do our own digging into the Women’s Center archives. Over the course of the year, we’ll be sharing 25 “Then vs Now” archives to celebrate the origin and evolution of the Women’s Center at UMBC.

This week we’re featuring the history of the Women’s Center event and programming tabling and outreach!

An important part of the Women’s Center vision has been education and outreach. Since our opening in 1991, the Women’s center has continually been dedicated to campus and community outreach and providing resources related to women’s issues, social justice, and feminism to the UMBC community.

One of the earliest Clothesline Project displays in 1998 at the UC Plaza

Women’s Center community members tabling at the 1998 Clothesline Project display

Today, the Women’s Center tables at numerous events throughout the academic year. Both student and professional staff take time out of their day to help inform UMBC community members about campus, the Women’s Center and community resources. We also table for special days like National Coming Out Day and critical initiatives such as the Telling Our Stories Project. Next time you see us tabling, be sure to stop by, say hi and check out our resources!!

Women’s Center community member Jahia tabling at the 2016 Telling Our Stories Showcase

Former Women’s Center Director Dr. Mollie Monahan-Kreishman, Administrative Assistant, Eryl Pettit and Student Staff Mahnoor Siddiqui tabling on Mainstreet back in 2010!

Celebrating National Coming Out Day at our 2015 NCOD tabling event with Women’s Center Staff member, Kayla Smith!

Student Staff, Michael, and WC community member, Deja, at the 2017 Lovapalooza

What are the memories you have of the Women’s Center over the years that are meaningful to you? What does the Women’s Center mean to you today? Share your memories and pictures with us in the comment section below!

Stay up-to-date with our 25th anniversary on social media using #UMBCWC25. Share your Women’s Center experiences and memories with the UMBC community using #UMBCWC25 AND #UMBC50!

The Women’s Center at UMBC turns 25 this year! We’re excited to share our important milestone with UMBC’s 50th Anniversary and will be celebrating throughout the year with the rest of campus! We were inspired by Special Collections archival project Archives Gold: 50 Objects for UMBC’s 50th and decided to do our own digging into the Women’s Center archives. Over the course of the year, we’ll be sharing 25 “Then vs Now” archives to celebrate the origin and evolution of the Women’s Center at UMBC.

This week we’re featuring the history of Women’s Center anniversary celebrations! 

Student Staff at The Women’s Center’s 25th anniversary photo booth

The Women’s Center has always had something to celebrate. We often talk about how women-centered spaces and activists spaces by their very nature are radical and bold and well, we find that worth celebrating. As you already know, this year the Women’s Center is celebrating our 25th anniversary. We kicked off the year with a birthday party where some of our founding members and critical people in our history spoke about the importance of Women’s Centers and the way they had seen the Women’s Center grow over the years. We had cupcakes, enjoyed a feminist- inspired photo- booth, and had a wonderful time. Throughout the year, we continued to document and celebrate our history at events such as Critical Social Justice and welcoming Provost Rous to the Women’s Center to meet with current students, staff, and faculty. We also reached out to alum and former staff members over the year and created a 25 Friends of the Women’s Center to honor those who have given of their time and resources to support our work.

Simmona Simmons, a founder of The Women’s Center, speaks for the 25th anniversary celebration

But how have we celebrated past anniversaries?

During our 10th year of operation, the Women’s Center hosted a chair making event in which student organizations and departments connected to the Center, decorated a chair to represent themselves in the space. For many years, these chairs lined the walls of the Women’s Center as both decoration and useful places to sit. While the chairs are not out in our space on a daily basis anymore, you’ll see them make an appearance during roundtable events or other gatherings that require additional seating.

For our 20th anniversary, the Women’s Center Advisory Board and professional staff were committed to hosting large anniversary celebrations over the course of the year. Key events included our opening and closing picnic,a collection of women photographers featured in the Library gallery, and a service project at a local women’s shelter. UMBC student, Stefanie Mavronis, ’12 , interviewed many UMBC students, staff, and faculty for a digital story telling project to capture the theme of the anniversary: 100,000 Stories – Which One is Yours.  In the spirit of the chair decorating that happened in our 10th year, we created a quilt featuring student organizations and departments that continue to be important to who we are as a Center.

Unveiling the 20th anniversary quilt lovingly crafted by student staff member, Lizzy Wunsch, Class of 2015. 

What are the memories you have of the Women’s Center over the years that are meaningful to you? What does the Women’s Center mean to you today? Share your memories and pictures with us in the comment section below!

Stay up-to-date with our 25th anniversary on social media using #UMBCWC25. Share your Women’s Center experiences and memories with the UMBC community using #UMBCWC25 AND #UMBC50!

On April 13th 2017, UMBC hosted Take Back the Night. The night began with an introduction by the emcees and march leaders, Kayla and Sarah, and Women’s Center staff member, Amelia.

After the introduction was the survivor speak-out. The speak-out is the heart of Take Back the Night. This is the point in the night where survivors are encouraged to come up and share their story with the crowd before the march throughout campus. As a survivor, sharing your story at TBTN allows you to publicly acknowledge your experience with a crowd that believes you and supports you.

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

Photo credit: Amelia Meman

Photo credit: Amelia Meman

We then moved on to the march portion of the night where we got loud and chanted in support of victims of sexual violence.

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

Photo credit: Amelia Meman

After the march, community members got together for some craftivism! This portion of the program is intended to provide space for reflection, creative expression, and community building.

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

Photo credit: Jaedon Huie

Thank you so much to everyone for a powerful and moving evening. Thank you to every survivor for sharing their story, to every ally who supported the survivors and a special thank you to all the volunteers who made TBTN possible!

Photo Credit: Amelia Meman

If you weren’t able to make it, here are some resources:

• Women’s Center at UMBC
• UMBC Counseling Center
• Title IX and UMBC’s Interim Policy on Prohibited Sexual Misconduct and Other Related Misconduct
  

Photo credit: Amelia Meman

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the Women’s Center is hosting its 5th consecutive Take Back The Night (TBTN) on Thursday, April 13th. Over the years, we’ve had a lot of questions about what Take Back the Night exactly is, why it looks the way it does, and how students can get involved. To help get those questions answered this year, we’ve doing a “What You Need to Know” series focused on TBTN so stay tuned for more posts over the next couple of weeks. This is the fourth post in the series and it focuses on the Take Back the Night’s partnership with Greek Week.

UMBC’s Fraternity & Sorority Community has been involved with Take Back the Night since 2013 when TBTN returned to campus.  We know there are some questions about that involvement, and we’re hoping we can answer them here.

The History – Susan DuMont, Former Coordinator for Fraternities & Sororities, 2010-2015

I was on the Women’s Center Board when the conversation started about bringing TBTN back to UMBC, and I was really excited to be a part of the planning and figuring out what TBTN at UMBC could look like.

That spring when all of the chapters sat down to plan Greek Week, we realized that TBTN was in the middle of Greek Week.  I said that it was important to me that we not plan anything at the same time, so they could either have a Greek Week event earlier in the day or we could incorporate TBTN into Greek Week itself.  I explained what TBTN was, and the chapters decided that they wanted to actively support it.

For sorority members, TBTN is an important opportunity to support all of the survivors and for survivors to give voice to personal experiences with sexual assault.  Every year, including the first, a large number of sorority women have shared their stories from the microphone.  For the men in the community, TBTN was similarly an opportunity to support survivors, but it has also been a chance to witness and participate in a conversation that they are rarely so intimately included in.  Attending TBTN has allowed them to better grasp the magnitude of the prevalence and severity of sexual assault and how personal and important the issue is to their community.  In the second year of TBTN, two fraternity men also spoke as survivors.

Today – Cory Bosco, Coordinator for Fraternities & Sororities

Fraternities and sororities are organizations based on the concept of brotherhood and sisterhood – relationships that go much further than just friendship.  I have seen the expression of relief and gratefulness when survivors step away from the mic and are embraced by their sisters or their brothers.  Our chapters participate in TBTN because sexual assault affects this campus and our community, and our members want to be part of ending sexual violence.  We attend TBTN because we want to actively change the reality of sexual assault and show that UMBC’s Fraternity & Sorority community is here to be an ally.

Every year we revisit the conversation about whether TBTN should be included in Greek Week, and if so, how to include it in a way that is respectful to the event.  While Greek Week is a chance to celebrate the community and is a fun and competitive experience, it is also a chance to celebrate what the UMBC Fraternity & Sorority Community is about beyond the fun – and that includes a deep commitment to supporting each other as family and a commitment to social justice that is both historical and ongoing. 

There is a misconception that chapters are “required” to attend TBTN.  That is entirely false.  While it is part of Greek Week, chapters “max out” their Greek Week “opportunity” from the program by having a very, very small percentage of their chapter attend comparatively .  What you actually witness, though, is a huge turnout from the majority of chapters regardless of points earned.  The event is part of Greek Week because it is important to chapters, rather than being important to chapters because it is part of Greek Week. 

For more information about UMBC’s TBTN (check out Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter too by searching the hashtag #UMBCTBTN):

• Stop by the Women’s Center on April 11, 12, and 13th to make a rally sign for the march
• A blog post about UMBC’s 2005 TBTN march written by alum, Dr. Grollman.
• Speak: Knowing a Survivor Without Knowing Their Story – a blog post on cultivating a survivor-responsive campus
• Register for and attend an upcoming Supporting Survivors of Sexual Violence workshop. Click here for more details on the students workshop.
• The Women’s Center 2016 TBTN roundup
• A BreakingGround post about how the 2013 TBTN came to be – Our Own ‘Take Back the Night’

Stay tuned for the next installment of what you need to know about TBTN 2017!