Each year, Critical Social Justice provides a series of interactive events for the UMBC community to explore social justice from a variety of perspectives. In celebration of UMBC’s 50th anniversary and The Women’s Center‘s 25th anniversary, this year’s theme focused on UMBC and Baltimore as places that represent home for many people.

Critical Social Justice week is coordinated by The Women’s Center and Student Life’s Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity. Some of the week’s most popular events this year included a social justice activism workshop; a roundtable on challenges LGBTQ youth may face relating to home; a walking tour in Baltimore led by Kate Drabinski, lecturer in gender and women’s studies; and a panel on how the idea of home relates to social justice.

In describing the goals of Critical Social Justice, Jess Myers, director of The Women’s Center, and Megan Tagle Adams, assistant director of The Women’s Center, explained, “As we celebrate and contemplate UMBC as a home for learning, activism, and social change, we embrace the opportunity to invest ourselves in creating meaningful change here on campus in addition to taking our newly gained insights and knowledge with us back home, wherever that may be.”

At the start of a compelling keynote talk on October 25, Maureen Evans Arthurs ’13, gender and women’s studies and political science, and Daniel Willey ’17, gender and women’s studies, shared personal stories about UMBC has helped them to find their home.

“Throughout Critical Social Justice, we want you to consider where you have found your home, and wherever you find that home, may you find community, healing, and the ability to live authentically and to love,” Evans Arthurs said.

In her keynote talk “Body/ Land/ Home: Disability Justice, Healing Justice and Femme of Color Brilliance,” Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explained what the idea of home means to her and how lived experiences can provide a foundation for social justice.

“In talking about what home is…I want to focus it on my own experiences as a disabled femme queer person of color and my activism, organizing, and artwork surrounding that and a lot of other people as well,” she shared. “I want to talk about how ableism and disability is so important to everybody, disabled and non-disabled people, when we think about what it means to come home for us.”

Piepzna-Samarasinha is a poet, performer, healer, and activist whose work focuses on underrepresented people, disability justice, queer and trans people of color, and abuse survivors. She spoke thoughtfully about expectations of perfection and about intersectionalities of racism and ableism.

“It takes incredible strength and resilience to continue on in a world that reminds us that we don’t belong here,” she said, adding “communities that don’t shame you for your body and your mind are really important.”

She particularly highlighted the power of support networks for people with disabilities, for sharing experiences and resources and creating events, spaces, and homes that are truly accessible. “We figure out how to offer each other care from where we are,” she said, “and to not leave each other behind.”

The keynote address provided a springboard for additional conversations within the UMBC community.

“It is in this spirit that the fourth annual Critical Social Justice aims to create space and learning opportunities to consider the ways we can challenge, explore, and redefine the concept of home based upon our individual and collective histories as well as our intersecting identities,” said Myers and Tagle Adams.

For more on Critical Social Justice, visit The Women’s Center website.

Image: Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha presents the 2016 Critical Social Justice keynote address at UMBC. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.  

A new partnership between UMBC and the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University will bring Peabody Conservatory students Mauricio Rey Gallego, cellist, and Teodora Adzharova, pianist, to UMBC to coach chamber music students and to perform in the Earl and Darielle Linehan Concert Hall this fall.

Together Rey Gallego and Adzharova will lead three class sessions under the mentorship of UMBC music faculty member Airi Yoshioka in which they will coach UMBC chamber music students on musical and career preparation skills. The residency will culminate in a free, public performance by Rey Gallego and Adzharova on Sunday, November 13, featuring works by Beethoven, Bach, and Brahms.

“Bringing together the different kinds of students that we each have at our schools in a meaningful way is an important goal of this partnership,” says UMBC Department of Music Chair Linda Dusman. “Our undergraduate students will benefit from working with more advanced students and having the opportunity to envision careers in music through contact with Peabody’s young professionals.”

“One of the strengths of this collaboration stems from the fact that UMBC’s music program focuses on new music, on experimentation, and innovation—and does so in a gorgeous new concert hall,” says Sarah Hoover, special assistant to the dean for innovation, interdisciplinary partnerships and community initiatives at Peabody. “We hope that our partnership will help build audiences for Linehan Concert Hall while providing important developmental experience for Peabody students.”

UMBC’s Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Scott Casper notes, “This partnership represents a remarkable opportunity for students at UMBC and the Peabody Institute to learn and grow by working together. We look forward to the future collaborative opportunities that will emerge from this beginning.”

Mauricio Rey Gallego was born in Madrid (Spain) in 1991, and began playing the cello when he was eight years old, studying at the Conservatorio Profesional de Música in Valladolid until he was 17. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música in Madrid. A student of Amit Peled, he completed the master of music degree at Peabody in 2015 and is currently pursuing a doctor of musical arts degree at Peabody. As an orchestral musician, Mauricio has performed in Spain, France, Germany, Finland, and the United States. He was a member of JONDE (National Youth Orchestra of Spain) for three years, performing with the orchestra in the Auditorio Nacional de Madrid and in the Young Euro Classic Festival in Berlin, Germany. Rey Gallego has also participated in a number of festivals and music courses throughout Europe and the United States, including the Fórum de Violoncellos de España, Escuela y Festival Internacional de Música Ciudad de Lucena PRESJOVEM, and Cursos Superiores de Música Unicaja, the Touquet International Music Masters Festival, Interlochen, Chautauqua, and the International Cello Festival at Towson University.

Teodora Adzharova was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria and began piano study at the age of seven. By the time she graduated from high school, she had won both national and international competitions in Bulgaria, France, Germany, Macedonia, and the Czech Republic. She has studied at the Conservatory in Bulgaria and the University of Central Arkansas. After earning a master’s degree at Peabody, she joined the Peabody Conservatory and Preparatory faculties and is currently pursuing a doctor of musical arts degree in the studio of Ellen Mack. She is the accompanying coordinator at the Peabody Institute.

Information on the November 13 recital at UMBC by Rey Gallego and Adzharova can be found on the Arts & Culture calendar.

Images: UMBC Symphony in the Earl and Darielle Linehan Concert Hall. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. Teodora Adzharova and Mauricio Rey Gallego. Courtesy of The Peabody Institute.

The Graduate School at NC State University will host a Scholars Visitation Program, February 26-28, 2017. These programs are provided at no cost to students who are accepted into the visitation program. Completed applications to attend the Program can be emailed directly to the Program Director, Brett A. Locklear. Additional information can be found on the NC State Scholars Visitation Program website.

*** The NC State Scholars Visitation Program is February 26-28, 2017.

       The application deadline is November 30, 2016, at 12 noon.
       Decisions will be emailed on December 16, 2016.
       Website: go.ncsu.edu/scholarsvisit

Questions and Contact

For additional information and selection criteria, visit the website, or contact Brett A. Locklear, at balockle@ncsu.edu.

There's still some time to sample Starbucks... visit them in front of the Library!