Join us today for our Free Farmers Market!! For the rest of the summer we'll be in the Center for Well-Being Room 118. Click 'Visit Website' below for directions to the building.
Used to working in beautiful sunny weather, Giovanna Orfali, a visual arts senior from São Paulo, Brazil, spent this summer behind the camera as a digital content intern at the Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC). A seasoned filmmaker and photographer, this internship was an opportunity to expand her professional network and bring a fresh perspective to Maryland history by creating short-form social media content to share the center’s unique exhibits and events with audiences across the state.
Orfali is a recipient of the #YouAreWelcomeHere scholarship that offers tuition support for international students. She came to UMBC with experience as a television video editor and videographer and has used her skillset working on a wide range of projects. She produced and edited “Arthropod Biodiversity and Applications,” a full-length instructional video course for the Department of Biological Sciences, and works part-time as a photographer for UMBC athletics events. When Orfali is not at the MCHC, she produces digital media for UMBC’s event and conference services, her second summer internship site.
Giovanna Orfali editing videos and photos of MCHC’s research library and documenting a Tom Miller exhibit. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
“When I began taking classes back home, no one was interested in editing audio, so I volunteered. I learned to say yes to all opportunities. At the TV station, I filmed interviews, exercise classes, and tourism commercials,” says Orfali. “I did the same when I came to UMBC. Being open to learning all aspects of audiovisual production has made me more confident and helped me make a lot of connections in and outside of the classroom.” Orfali’s short film “A Shared Story of Distance” was chosen to represent UMBC at the 2023 Maryland Film Festival Day: Student Shorts Showcase.
Hundreds of Retrievers like Orfali maximize their summer by putting their hard-earned skills to work in collaboration with campus and community partners. The 2025 arts, humanities, and social sciences summer interns are getting it done, one sunny day at a time.
No matter where a Retriever is in the world, they can search the online student job platform Handshake for thousands of summer internships, including on-campus opportunities. This was crucial for Humanities Scholar Kendal Howell, who stepped off the plane after studying business management abroad in France this past spring and into the office as an intern at UMBC’s Division of Student Affairs for their new academic partnerships and high-impact experiences (APHIE) unit. James DeVita, assistant vice president for APHIE, says his group needed materials and resources to help stakeholders understand the value of developing and engaging in high-impact experiences. So he turned to the experts in student experiences—the students themselves.
Kendal Howell working at the academic partnerships and high-impact experiences (APHIE) unit. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
“We wanted to add to the number of on-campus internships. It was wonderful to have created a new professional experience for over 25 students, whose research will directly benefit their peers in a multitude of ways,” says DeVita. “By the end of the internship, the interns had collectively reviewed over 30 publications and drafted six resources in addition to completing the mapping research and related presentation.”
“The student-led research team studied high-impact practices for scholars programs, including UMBC’s, and synthesized academic research of these practices on student success in higher education,” says Howell, an Africana studies and sociology senior, with a minor in entrepreneurship. She focused on entrepreneurship, education abroad, work-based learning, and student leadership opportunities. “The information we gathered will help inform campus leaders in improving UMBC’s scholar programs. This was my first internship, and I loved it!”
(l-r): Kendal Howell updates internship supervisor, James DeVita, on her latest project. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
Second-year gerontology doctoral student Claire McDonald also had the opportunity to conduct new research. Trained in quantitative research in psychology, McDonald gained qualitative methodology skills in her spring sociology class as part of her training to conduct research about aging in the LGBTQ+ community, a growing area of research. She is utilizing the mixed-methods LGBTQ+ Social Networks, Aging, and Policy Study, one of the few datasets on this topic, and hopes to add to her dissertation qualitative data from interviews with older LGBTQ+ adults in Baltimore for a mixed-methods project. Impressed with McDonald’s rigor, her professor recommended her to Rowena Winkler, the new assistant director for graduate student career development at the UMBC Career Center, who was seeking graduate students to conduct a 10-week qualitative research project.
(l-r): Claire McDonald discusses her research with her internship supervisor, Rowena Winkler. McDonald practices interviewing a graduate student about their experience. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
“I recruited over 100 students, conducted 11 individual interviews, and three focus groups to learn how and why graduate students use the Career Center and why they don’t,” says McDonald. Winkler appreciated the partnership. They co-facilitated two of the focus groups together. “I watched Claire build rapport with the students. She was very open-ended and asked great prompts and follow-ups,” says Winkler. “I’m happy she had the opportunity to hone in on some of these skills that she learned in her class.”
Professional growth and community building throughout the summer help students maintain ongoing growth at every stage of their learning process, leading to new jobs in other organizations, extending their internship to another semester, or a promotion from an intern to a staff member.
Like Howell, Handshake helped Orfali find both her summer internship at the MCHC as well as a spring internship in media production and audiovisual at the CATO Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. She impressed the MCHC team so much that they have extended her internship through the fall. “I learned a lot about working at a nonprofit that values the importance of history and culture, as well as collaborating with the external affairs team to create content for marketing purposes,” shared Orfali on LinkedIn. “This experience made me very interested in producing informative and educational videos and documentaries.”
As students advance in their academic careers, they can access paid, hands-on learning opportunities by serving as graduate assistants. Over the last eight years, Caleb Ruck, a language, literacy, and culture doctoral student and two-time alum, has climbed UMBC’s student worker ladder, including as a graphic designer and social media manager for UMBC’s Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion, and Belonging. He served as a special projects intern for the Center for Democracy and Civic Life and moved to the front of the classroom as a graduate teaching assistant for the modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication department.
Ruck is now the first year-long graduate assistant for the Center for Social Justice Dialogue where he is helping develop and establish programming and procedures, such as co-facilitating a first-year seminar on the intricacies of dialogue around social identity, race, power, privilege, and oppression, and co-facilitating Building Bridges Across Difference: A Dialogue for Every Day for staff and faculty.
Caleb Ruck (center) speaks with Jasmine Lee and Ciara Christian, M.A. ’18, sociology, Ph.D. ’22, language literacy, and culture, who both co-direct the Center for Social Justice Dialogue. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
This summer, Ruck focused on professional development by attending the National Intergroup Dialogue Institute, hosted by the University of Michigan’s program on intergroup relations, and preparing to welcome the first group of interns he helped interview.
Caleb Ruck shares his doctoral research with members of the Center for Social Justice Dialogue. (Brad Ziegler/UMBC)
“The skills I’ve acquired in this job make me feel more competent and prepared to co-facilitate dialogue, especially in student, staff, and faculty-facing contexts,” says Ruck ’22, modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication, and M.A. ’24, intercultural communication. “I want to be a faculty member, teach, and conduct research on social identity topics. Being able to navigate dialogue across differences is key.”
The UMBC Career Guide has templates and resources for students to help with internet and job search at every stage of their internship and job search. Listen to more tips on UMBC’s Careers Unleashed podcast.
]]>Fall 2025 Humanities Forum, the Dresher Center for the Humanities presents
Johanna Toruño is a Salvadoran-born, community-taught visual artist who uses the streets as a public platform and gallery. Raised in San Salvador until being displaced to the US at age 10, she is inspired by her experiences growing up in the aftermath of the civil war to use poster work as a medium to self-express and center a queer migrant lens. As she explains, “political art is the people’s art as it has been used for many generations.” In this talk, Toruño will discuss how she utilizes street art as a tool of resistance.
Johanna Toruño is the founder of The Unapologetic Street Series, a street art series that is exhibited at public spaces, such as walls, utility posts, and mailboxes. Her bold imagery and statements, often adorned in lush florals, celebrate queer, working class, and immigrant communities. Through her work, Toruño challenges social norms and centers messages of self-reflection and self-acceptance. Using a soft aesthetic with colors that remind her of home, Toruño brings storytelling and a chance for her audience to re-learn and decolonize their own self to accessible spaces. Her political and social messages highlight topics of reimagining norms, and the joy of holding space for collective liberation. Johanna is a TED speaker and lecturer at Universities like Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, and others. Johanna's work has been featured in The New York Times, Teen Vogue, NPR, Nylon, and more. Johanna lives and works in Los Angeles with her partner and 2 dogs. If she's not wheat pasting, she's cooking.
To RSVP and for more information, see the original post here.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Innovation, Research, and Creativity in the Arts; the Center for Social Justice Dialogue; the Department of Gender, Women’s, + Sexuality Studies; the Latin American Feminisms Faculty Working Group; the Latin American Studies Minor; the Latinx and Hispanic Faculty Association; The Mosaic: Center for Cultural Diversity; and the Orser Center for Public Humanities.
This event is open for full participation by all individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or any other protected category under applicable federal law, state law, and the University's nondiscrimination policy.
Calling all transfer students! This semester is all about YOU, and we’ve lined up e
vents designed to help you thrive. Whether you’re looking to make new connections, explore resources across campus, or discover how to shape your own unique UMBC journey, these events are the perfect place to start.
Come to one, come to some or better yet, come to ALL (we know you want to!). Each event is a chance to meet fellow Retrievers, build your community, and take full advantage of everything UMBC has to offer.
Take a look at our flyer for details, and get ready to kick off a Fall ’25 semester filled with connection, growth, and success. Here’s to making your transfer experience truly your own!
