The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) released a new monograph entitled Becoming a Steward of Place: Four Areas of Institutional Focus. A section of the publication focuses on civic learning and engagement and uses UMBC’s BreakingGround as a model for creating seamless learning environments.

“BreakingGround [is] a campus-wide initiative uniting students, faculty and staff in fostering changes in the academic curriculum, co-curricular activities and campus culture,” the report states. “Students taking BreakingGround courses, participating in BreakingGround programs, and sharing stories on the BreakingGround website are learning to: think entrepreneurially about social challenges, work collectively to bridge differences, and contribute meaningfully to the common good. This work is supported by a campus culture that builds community from diversity and celebrates ingenuity and resourcefulness.”

To learn more about BreakingGround’s work, visit their website. Click here for more details on Becoming a Steward of Place: Four Areas of Institutional Focus.

UMBC and Loyola University Maryland’s Sellinger School of Business and Management are establishing Kiva U microfinance programs, made possible by grants from OneMain Financial, that will offer loans to local and global communities in need.

The $25,000 grants will make UMBC and Loyola’s Sellinger School the first two formally designated Kiva U chapters in Maryland. Kiva U seeks to engage students and educators in a global effort to expand financial inclusion, foster community, and have a tangible positive impact on issues that matter to them.

UMBC is quickly building a national reputation as a hub for scholars committed to making a difference as socially engaged community leaders and global citizens. Under the auspices of BreakingGround, UMBC’s civic engagement initiative, and UMBC’s Shriver Center, students will work with faculty and staff to develop a management team that will create marketing strategies and engage campus partners to support local, national and international communities. Planning began this summer, with the goal of awarding the first round of up to 10 loans in spring 2015.

David Hoffman, assistant director of student life for civic agency, says, “The Kiva project matches the spirit of BreakingGround, as well as the mission of UMBC, perfectly. It will put our students in a position to take real responsibility for nurturing entrepreneurial efforts that can help transform lives and communities.”

Click here to read more.

In a gripping Baltimore Sun feature story on the lives of former steel mill workers after the closing of Sparrows Point, video documentaries from the UMBC project “Documenting Cultural Heritage in Partnership with Communities” (supported by BreakingGround) offer important first-person perspectives on life and work in the community.

UMBC students interviewed former mill employees while learning about oral and audiovisual storytelling and documentation. The steelworkers shared their stories of working at the mill, the impact the Sparrows Point closure has had on the community, and the future of the industry locally and nationally. Bill Shewbridge (New Media Studio) and Michelle Stefano (American Studies) collaborated to bring to life a project that introduced students to the ideas, techniques and ethical considerations that underpin qualitative research, particularly from a community-based, out-in-the-field perspective.

Today’s Baltimore Sun features a front-page story about students in two UMBC BreakingGround courses and projects through which people from UMBC are solving problems and working with community partners to make innovative contributions to the common good. For additional details on BreakingGround, see the project website, myUMBC group or #digUMBC on Twitter.

Earlier this week, UMBC SGA President Kaylesh Ramu ’13, political science, shared the stage with the U.S. Under Secretary of Education and other leaders at the National Press Club as they launched Shaping Our Future, a new national civic engagement initiative (watch video).

Education Week covered the event, quoting Ramu on the role of college students as active agents of change in their communities, on campus and beyond. “We are starting to have a culture change and understand that we all bring about what is UMBC,” said Ramu, describing the ethos that grounds UMBC’s new BreakingGround initiative, which launched last week.

Shaping Our Future is a year-long national dialogue on the future of higher education. Ramu has been involved through her membership on the board of the American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP), a national alliance supporting innovative approaches to civic education and strong connections between universities and communities. President Hrabowski serves on ACP’s Presidents’ Advisory Council and UMBC staff David Hoffman, Michele Wolff and Craig Berger serve with Ramu on the national board.

“On campus, the good side of politics” is new Baltimore Sun op-ed written by David Hoffman, UMBC Assistant Director of Student Life for Civic Agency, and SGA President Kaylesh Ramu ’13, political science.

Hoffman and Ramu offer hope to readers who are “understandably skeptical about politics and public life” in this time of government gridlock and discord. They write that at UMBC, “students are helping lead the way to a new kind of politics that bridges difference and strengthens communities.”

The piece goes on to explore the civic engagement work underway at UMBC—carried forward by the BreakingGround initiative—as well as its roots in our campus culture and its implications for our broader democracy. Comments? Offer your thoughts, post your questions and share your experiences on the BreakingGround blog.

This week’s Huffington Post article “Owning Yes We Can” highlights the inspiring work of UMBC’s Student Government Association (SGA), which the authors call “a national model…of student organizing and empowerment.” They focus on SGA’s successful effort this spring to organize student opposition to state budget cuts that would have led to a dramatic tuition increase.

“Many would not have been able to stay in school with 15-20 percent increases in tuition expenses,” explained SGA member Meghan Carpenter. “I am so proud of what students from different organizations were able to start. We showed that students can make a change not just at our college, but in our state.”

The new U.S. Department of Education report “Advancing Civic Learning and Engagement in Democracy” recognizes UMBC’s Prove It! as a unique initiative at the forefront the higher ed’s emerging civic learning movement.

Prove It! is a campus-wide contest that funds student-led efforts to improve the university, such as projects to create a campus wi-fi plaza and convert waste oil into fuel for campus vehicles. This initiative is a hallmark of our Student Government Association’s focus on inspiring peers to become citizen leaders and problem-solvers in their own right.

The report notes that Prove It! demonstrates how UMBC “transformed its student government from a client-service model to one that promotes social entrepreneurship.” Beyond sparking campus change projects, Prove It! has been a powerful vehicle for spreading the SGA’s core message: all UMBC students can apply their skills and ingenuity to addressing community challenges.