Nearly 200 educators, students, artists, and administrators attended the 10th Annual Arts Integration Conference on Saturday, March 5 at UMBC. The event was hosted by UMBC’s Department of Education in cooperation with The Shriver Center. This year’s conference, titled The Heart of Arts: Building Community through Arts Integration, focused on how integrating visual arts, dance, music, and theatre into P-12 curricula can help build cultural awareness, enhance community engagement, and provide opportunities for students to become advocates for social justice.

The conference was developed for P-12 teachers, teacher candidates, youth leaders, and others who work with students through the arts. The event included an interactive general session, 14 hands-on workshops, and an art show where conference attendees interacted with Baltimore City student artists.

Many UMBC alumni participated in the conference, including presentations and remarks by Kevin Maxwell ’02, Ph.D., language, literacy, and culture, CEO of Prince George’s County Public Schools, and Margaret Weber ’12, M.A.T., art education, New York City Public Schools visual arts teacher. Weber shared best practices for producing engaging lessons that address cultural relevancy through her interactive presentation “Hallway as Canvas: Bringing Graffiti Art Techniques into the Classroom.” Other presenters included Fabiola Rodriguez ’16, M.A.T., and her UMBC PDS mentor, Sara Murphy.

Frank Anderson, assistant director of The Choice Program at UMBC, led an interactive general session titled “Giving Students a Choice through Socially Engaged Art.” Choice Program youth shared how their arts-based visual, music, and dance projects have helped them engage with their community, including a shared mosaic created with the Baltimore City Police Department and an audio recording of a community sound collage. Meghann Shutt, assistant director of the Shriver Center Peaceworker Program, and several Shriver Center Peaceworkers provided readings from Voices of a People’s History. 

Many UMBC interns and students, UMBC Professional Development School (PDS) teachers, teachers from six Maryland school districts and Washington, D.C., and students and faculty from the University of Maryland, College Park and Towson University participated in the conference.

“I believe our record-breaking attendance this year was due to the relevance of the topic. Teachers understand the importance of building community in their classrooms, their schools, and the neighborhoods in which their students live,” explains Barbara Bourne, clinical instructor and director of elementary education and arts coordinator in the education department. “Conference presenters demonstrated how the arts – music, drama, visual art, and dance – are powerful tools for building communities from within and for linking one community to another. Hopefully, participants discovered new strategies for using arts integration as a means to connect their students with others in their classes, schools, neighborhoods, and global communities.”

For more information, visit the education department website.

On March 22, The Atlantic published an in-depth story examining the visibility of churches in black-and youth-led political activism of the last several years compared to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. George Derek Musgrove ’97, history, associate professor of history, was quoted extensively in the article and provided historical context for why the church doesn’t play as central a role today as it did during the sixties.

During the civil rights era, Musgrove told The Atlantic that churches provided a natural venue for people to come together to share messages. However, the article states, fewer young African Americans attend church now compared to the sixties.

“The main resources were bodies,” he said. “The church was the organizational center of the community. You were guaranteed to see a certain number of people every Sunday, and a lot of those people were going to be participating in church activities throughout the week. You could get access to them.”

Musgrove went on to explain that recent civil rights and social justice movements in Baltimore largely reflect what is taking place across the country. “Baltimore is a local representation of a national concern,” he said. “The Black Lives Matter movement is, to a certain degree, a reaction to the bitter disappointment of the Obama years…These folks have come to political maturity at a time when … there was this real hope that Obama would create a new era. And they have seen that the aftermath of that claim that things have, in many cases, gotten worse.” He shared that the current generation of young black activists are building social movements through institutions outside the context of the church.

Read the full article “Black Activism, Unchurched” in The Atlantic. 

Image: George Derek Musgrove. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

A new report released by the U.S. Department of Education recognizes UMBC as a leader in supporting college opportunity for low-income students.

The report “Fulfilling the Promise, Serving the Need: Advancing College Opportunity for Low-Income Students” was released at today’s Conference Focused on Improving College Outcomes for Pell Students in Washington, D.C. It notes:

For our nation’s colleges and universities to serve as gateways to social mobility and economic opportunity, they must succeed in helping all hard-working students — regardless of their income, race, or parents’ education — to enroll in college, graduate, and go on to rewarding careers. The good news is that many institutions are doing impressive and inspiring work by increasing college access for low-income students, providing them with the aid and support they need, and sending them into the work place with high quality degrees.

In coverage of the report, The Baltimore Sun writes:

UMBC has substantially increased the number of students receiving Pell Grants, and those students are completing their degrees.

UMBC is one of just 55 U.S. colleges and universities, including two in Maryland, highlighted as model institutions for enrolling Pell Grant recipients in large numbers, as well as for attention to graduation rates and post-graduation job placement/earnings for Pell Grant recipients.

The report recognizes UMBC among 13 higher education institutions that have substantially increased Pell enrollment over the last five years, while demonstrating successful college degree attainment. “Without question,” the U.S. Department of Education notes, “these schools provide significant pieces of the puzzle as we work to increase the numbers of low-income students with high-quality degrees over the coming years.”

“For students from low- and moderate-income families, a college degree is the surest path to the middle class in our country,” U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. said in a statement. “I applaud the colleges and universities that have taken measurable steps to open up this pathway and make it a successful one for students from all backgrounds. But we need these types of efforts to become the rule and not the exception.”

More coverage of this announcement is available at Inside Higher Ed, The Hechinger Report, and WGBH’s On Campus blog.

Image: New UMBC entrance, March 2016. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

• Apartment management company: Mount Ridge

• Location: Maiden Choice Line, Catonsville, MD 21228

• School bus line: Arbutus Line. (<1 min walking to bus station)

• Housing fee: $1240 (include internet) + 80% water fee + electricity@gas (BGE)

• Parking: street parking, and backyard parking (all free)

• AC in the house; 1st floor; include furniture; full kitchen

• Security Deposit: $1800 (return back to you on move-out day) 

• Apartment management company: Mount Ridge

• Location: Maiden Choice Line, Catonsville, MD 21228

• School bus line: Arbutus Line. (<1 min walking to bus station)

• Housing fee: $1240 (include internet) + 80% water fee + electricity@gas (BGE)

• Parking: street parking, and backyard parking (all free)

• AC in the house; 1st floor; include furniture; full kitchen

• Security Deposit: $1800 (return back to you on move-out day) 

This annual conference is scheduled for Thursday, April 21 from 8AM-4PM at Martin’s West, 6821 Dogwood Road, Baltimore, MD  21244. Member registration is open.  To register, contact the MEEC Office at MEEC-Office@usmd.edu