The Library has two types of study rooms available for student use:

● Reservable Study Rooms:

These 20 rooms can be reserved up to five days in advance. Reservations are limited to 3 hours per person or group each day. Book yours today!

● Open Study Rooms:

These 12 rooms are left open for students to use on a first-come, first-served basis. Each room has four seats.  They are located on the Quiet Floors: rooms 553-558 and 653-658.

Get ready for Critical Social Justice: Ignite with our What You Need to Know series. Written by Alexia Petasis.

Activism can be defined as a “practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.” This can come in many forms and finding your own voice as an activist can be challenging. Something I’ve realized is that activism can meet you where you are at, and there is beauty in combining your passions with your role as an activist. The arts, whether that is performing arts (dance or theatre), visual arts (painting, photography, etc), or fine arts (poetry, music, etc) have the ability to convey complex stories, perspectives, and emotions and creates space to understand the experiences of others. As a powerful medium of communication, the arts can lend themselves well to activism and advocacy work.

As an introduction to Critical Social Justice week, the Women’s Center will be hosting Art as Feeling, Art as Knowledge: A Conversation, from 6:30 to 8 pm on Wednesday, October 17th in the Fine Arts Recital Hall. This event will demonstrate ways in which both the performing and visual arts can be used for social justice activism. In recognition of Relationship Violence Awareness Month, the dance, choreographed by Alexia Petasis, will reflect the development and progression of relationship violence. Alexia collaborated with the We Believe You student group and the Women’s Center to share her choreographed piece in April 2018 for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The dance provoked conversation and experiences that many found unable to understand before witnessing this dance piece. Read more on this Retriever review here. Jen White-Johnson, Visual Arts ’08, will be sharing the ways she uses visual art, specifically graphic design, to empower individuals with autism. Inspired by her son Knox and the intersectional identities he has, Jen’s photography, design, and writing celebrate the joy of being a child on the spectrum. See more of her work here.

Another event the Women’s Center will be hosting as part of CSJ:Ignite is our Community Art Project on October 23, from 11:30 am to 2:30 pm on Academic Row. This event aims to engage and create space for individuals to imagine what a social justice future looks like. Join us to come together as a community and use art as a way of expressing our own visions of a socially just future. There will be popcorn and lots of art supplies! If you are an artist and want to learn how to use your talents to speak out, if you are an activist and haven’t quite considered how art can be integrated within social justice movements, or if you are generally curious about all the knowledge that will be shared throughout this event, everyone is welcome!

Tell us a little about yourself.

Hello! My name is Kate Atwell and I am a math tutor. I am a sophomore math and computer science double major with a music and creative writing minor. I live in Frederick, MD and live on campus during the year. In addition to math, I am a big fan of writing and the humanities, and like to learn a lot about other disciplines as well as my own.

Tell us about how you are involved on campus.

In addition to tutoring, I attend hackUMBC workshops and work in a research lab on campus. I am a member of the Meyerhoff and NSA Scholars programs, as well as the Honors College. I am also a Center for Women in Technology (CWIT) affiliate, which I would highly recommend for those who are in technical majors. I am also in Camerata, UMBC's chamber choir, and am planning on getting involved in several other student organizations this semester.

How and why did you get involved in being a tutor?

Before starting at the Math and Science Tutoring Center, I tutored for Ms. Tighe and Dr. Nanes during their office hours in CASTLE, after a question posed during one of their office hours turned into a regular job. I'd tutored a bit in high school and found it to be really rewarding, and wanted to continue in college. This semester, my roommate applied to the Math and Science Tutoring Center and encouraged me to do so as well, and I was excited to bring my skills to the Center

What is your favorite thing about being a tutor?

For me, being a tutor is really rewarding, and the best part is when a student comes in a bit shaky on the topic and something you say makes something click for them. Knowing that I had a part to play in that moment makes me feel as though I made a difference and helped them better succeed in that class.

Why should students utilize the tutoring?

For one, it's a free and readily available resource; we're open Mondays through Thursdays 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM and Fridays 12:00 PM – 2:00 PM. For another, it will definitely increase your understanding of the topic, even if you're fairly solid on it. If you're not too confident about a certain topic, or don't fully understand it, we'll point you in the right direction and help you master it. Tutors can also give you advice on how best to prepare for quizzes and exams, and helpful tips to succeed in the class in general. The Math and Science Tutoring Center can also get pretty packed, so often students in the same class will get the chance to form groups and meet one another. 

What advice would you give students about how to prepare for a tutoring session? 

Generally the people who get the most out of a tutoring session are those who come with specific questions or specific topics they'd like to work on, so I would suggest looking through your notes and your assigned problems and figure out what you're struggling with, whether it's a certain topic or just a few problems that aren't clicking. However, either way we will definitely work with you to increase your understanding of the topic and figure out what it is you need to work on!

When and where can someone work with you through the Learning Resources Center?

My hours are 11-1 on Mondays and Wednesdays, 3-4 on Tuesdays. I tutor MATH 104, 106, 150, 155, 151, 152, and 251, STAT 121 as well as CMSC 201 and CMSC 203. The LRC has the hours of each tutor online, as well as the subject they teach, so if you can't make those hours or are looking for a specific tutor or subject, that's a great way to find people who are available! The LRC is located towards the front of the library on the first floor, on the far right past the RLC. 

Harini Narayan is a Student Staff member at the Women’s Center. She is an MLLI major and is currently a co-facilitator of the Women’s Center’s discussion groups, Between Women. 

The lyrics, “I am woman, hear me roar!,” made history thanks to singer Helen Reddy, lending an amazingly catchy slogan to the movement of women’s rights. The phrase itself is innocuous, associating strength with femininity. Girl Power and the Future is Female are other popular slogans adopted by modern-day feminists (these examples are literally lifted from shirts that I own) with the goal of empowering their users.

Empowerment is like a haircut: the styles that suit people largely vary, and not everyone prefers what looks conventionally attractive.

A huge issue with modern-day feminism, or the Second Wave, is the Westernized perversion of what liberation looks like. This concept is commonly dubbed, “white feminism,” and usually consists of white women enforcing standards of equality centered solely around their status while simultaneously disregarding the privilege afforded to them by their race. This type of indirect discrimination is often not purposeful, but can be a product of ignorance. When people do not consider the varied lens through which others experience the world, they do not consider the effects of multifaceted identities on marginalized people’s perspectives. Intersectional identities overlap like different colors, creating new ones through these combinations. If sexual identity and ethnicity are the colors red and blue, respectively, then the intersectional identity they create would be purple. However, when those representative colors are not alike between individuals, confusion arises: one person’s purple identity can be misidentified by someone who does not see both blue and red; to someone who cannot see blue, red is the only identity that is recognized. Building bridges toward intersectionality begins with understanding this concept of different lenses. No two people have identical sets of lenses, but that does not invalidate the existence of lenses unlike our own. I may not have a blue lens to mix with my red, but perhaps my intersectional identity is represented by orange, made by the same red with my unique yellow. What makes an inclusive feminist is a person’s ability to recognize and validate the identities that are unlike their own and respect cultures to which they might not belong or even understand.

Upon reading the phrase, “Forcing opinions about religious head coverings on female and nonbinary Muslims,” what do you imagine? Is it a man forcing his wife or daughter to wear a hijab, or is it a “free the nipple” Westerner telling her/them to take it off and conform to their idea of freedom? White feminism is very exclusionary and, more often than not, is also subtly cissexist and racist. It’s what decrees that all Muslims that choose to wear head coverings must be oppressed, because why else would they do that? It can’t possibly be their own choice. An intersectional feminist, Muslim or not, would be able to understand that freedom from oppression lies in the ability to make decisions for oneself.  

Exclusionary logic undermines women under the guise of liberation: it implicitly creates a preconception of what freedom looks like. Objectively, housewives that choose their own lifestyle are every bit as empowered as a female CEO. The power lies in the freedom to make such decisions for oneself. Making the assumption that a woman can’t be free unless she emulates men in mannerisms, occupation, or lifestyle perpetuates misogynistic stereotypes that only further the stigmatization of feminism. The concept of “white feminism” is overtaking a movement that is supposed to represent equity over equality.

The concept of equity vs. equality is pictured above. Equality is everyone receiving the same exact bike, even though only one person of the four can ride it comfortably. Equity, on the other hand, is everyone receiving something catered to their individual needs for a result of all four people being able to comfortably ride their own bikes.

Perception of women is an equity vs. equality issue, as well. Empowerment is not a one-size-fits all concept, but rather it is the readily available option to live on one’s own terms, without answering to stereotypes or discrimination. Empowerment should mean nobody looks down on nurses, teachers, or homemakers, as if their occupations are unworthy of respect because they are female-dominated fields. For some women, empowerment is Helen Reddy’s, “I am woman, hear me roar!” but for some, empowerment is quiet and unassuming. Power comes from the ability to make a choice, and to have that choice be respected.

For more information on the concepts discussed, here are some resources!

• Harvard International Review, The Struggle of the Veiled Woman
• TEDTalk, Is Equality Enough?
• Bustle, What is White Feminism? Here Are 7 Sneaky Ways It Shows Up Into Your Life