Dr. Jodi Crandall

UMBC has announced four recipients in the inaugural round of the Jodi Crandall Fellowship for Research in Language, Literacy & Culture. Named for The LLC Doctoral Program’s founder and professor emerita Dr. Jodi Crandall, the prizes will promote collaborative interdisciplinary research by LLC doctoral students.

“The Jodi Crandall Fellowship will allow our doctoral students to pursue important interdisciplinary research in areas of increasingly pressing importance in our local Baltimore community and internationally; in very general terms, all of the Fellowships in 2015 will study issues involved in communicating across cultural borders,” said Dr. Craig Saper, Professor and Director of The Language, Literacy, and Culture Doctoral program.

The inaugural fellows are:

•  Jermaine Ellerbee for his research titled “Social Context of Education Lab,” in the Social Context of Education Lab Category, with mentor Dr. Susan M. Blunck, and collaborator Dr. Juanita Ashby-Bey
• Erin Berry for her research on “Online Sociolinguistic Practices Among Black Female Millennials at Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” in the Sociolinguistics Lab Category, with mentor and collaborator Dr. Christine Mallinson
• Landry Digeon and Ibrahim Er, for their research titled “Social Context of Education Lab,” in the Digital Publishing Lab Category,” with mentor and collaborator Dr. Edward Larkey

Back row, L-R: Jermaine Ellerbe, Landry Digeon, Dr. Craig Saper; front row, L-R: Dr. Jodi Crandall, Erin Berry, Ibrahim Er

“The LLC Doctoral Program will benefit enormously from the Crandall Fellowships as it helps us establish research clusters and applied research laboratories in our program, and each of the Fellows will do research relevant in those areas,” said Dr. Saper.

The fellowship program was first announced at Dr. Crandall’s retirement celebration in 2012 to support students of the program; the LLC faculty decided it should be named to honor her. Crandall hopes to grow the endowment in the coming years with the help of the LLC community.

“Support for interdisciplinary research in the humanities and social sciences is quite limited. There are always fewer research assistantships for our students than are needed,” she said. “I specifically wanted to start a fellowship to support students and to encourage interdisciplinary, collaborative research between LLC students, LLC students and faculty, or LLC current and former students.”

In addition to acting as the founding director of The Language, Literacy & Culture Doctoral program at UMBC, Crandall is a professor emerita of the Department of Education, as well as a former co-director of UMBC’s TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) master’s program.

Click here to support the Jodi Crandall Fellowship.

Editor’s note: Here at UMBC, our students are the heartbeat of campus, and we are committed to providing them the best possible education. So, for the month of March, we will be highlighting our amazing academic departments, some of their recent achievements, and ways that you can help fund their continued excellence.

Your gift is extremely important and many of our students are depending on you. Please show your support and make an impact today. With you we can make a difference.

The Education Department is proud to announce that Joan Shin ’99 M.A., instructional development systems, and ’08 Ph.D., language, literacy & culture, received the 2013 Ben Warren International House Trust Prize for her book Teaching Young Learners English. The department would also like to announce that Zane Berge, professor of education, won the Distance Education Book Award from the Association for Educational Communications and Technology.

With your help, the Education department can sustain an education student during the internship phase of their program and provide an education student with supplies and presentation material.

Click here to donate.

The English Department is thrilled to announce that it welcomed new faculty members with expertise in contemporary African-American literature, the Harlem Renaissance, digital humanities, sound studies, and poetry. The department would also like to announce that the new graduate program is doing amazing research, ranging from the sociolinguistic study of code switching in the African-American community to the exploration of the aesthetics and politics of fan fiction in online communities.

With your help, the English department can organize a trips for students to the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Walters Art Museum, and the Creative Alliance as well as host a speakers series for UMBC students and the public, bringing in talented creative writers and journalists from around the country.

To donate, click here.

The Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics & Intercultural Communication is proud to announce that Dr. Ana María Schwartz Caballero received the NFL Hispanic Heritage Leadership Award. The department would also like to announce that MLLI faculty and students were featured in Russia Beyond the Headlines and Voice of America; both articles covered the Russian Club’s star-studded evening of Russian song, cuisine, and fashion.

With your help, the Modern Languages, Linguistics & Intercultural Communication department can support activities of the Intercultural Living Exchange, fund study abroad scholarships, and award students for academic excellence.

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The Philosophy Department is excited to share that in the past year the it has supported undergraduate and graduate research, awarded  scholarships, and funded student trips to national conferences.

With your help, the Philosophy department can continue supporting these worthwhile initiatives and continue providing students a top-rate education.

To donate, click here.