Following the first presidential debate on September 26, Kimberly Moffitt was a guest on WYPR’s Midday program and WEAA’s The Marc Steiner Show to provide analysis and outline what the candidates need to do going forward to sway voters.

On WYPR, Moffitt, an associate professor of American studies, joined Liz Copeland, founder of the Urban Conservative project, and talked about how the tone and content of the debate changed after the first thirty minutes and offered her perspective on the strategy behind Hillary Clinton’s approach.

“This was not hands down a clear win for Hillary Clinton, but I do believe that she performed better than Donald Trump when I look at the entire 90 minutes,” explained Moffitt. “What I do think was different and savvy for her to do this time versus what I’ve seen her do in other settings…is that she decided not to play Trump’s game.”

Moffitt also said she thinks at this stage in the campaign, the candidates didn’t do much to sway voters’ opinions during the first debate. “I think folks are exactly where they were when they started this debate,” she explained.

On The Marc Steiner Show, Moffitt joined Richard Vatz, professor of rhetoric and communication at Towson University, and Mark Green, host of the nationally syndicated radio show Both Sides Now, to cover a range of issues during the debate. Among them, Moffitt commented on the moderating style of Lester Holt and the strategies that both candidates used to attempt to appeal to undecided voters.

To listen to the complete segments, click below.

Big takeaways from the presidential debate (WYPR’s Midday) 
Election roundtable: First debate (The Marc Steiner Show) 

Image: Kimberly Moffitt in her office. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Each year, the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation provides funding to faculty initiatives that challenge students to be active in their education and encourage faculty to be innovative and work across disciplines. Four projects received awards in  the spring 2016 round of the grant program.

Cedric Herring, professor and director of the Language, Literacy, and Culture Ph.D. program, and Loren Henderson, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology, received a grant  for “The Baltimore Metropolitan Area Study on Race, Inequality and the City: A Graduate Student Survey Research and Training Program.” Herring and Henderson will create a new multidisciplinary graduate program that trains students in survey research methods while generating social science data on issues of race and inequality in the Baltimore region to be shared with community leaders and policymakers to inform future decision-making.

Neil Rothman, professor of the practice of mechanical engineering, and Andrew Gadsden, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, will strengthen the foundation of the undergraduate mechanical engineering program by offering opportunities for students to explore conventional fabrication processes—skills and knowledge that are in high-demand when entering the workforce. The project is called “Incorporating CNC Machining in a Machine Design Course.” The team will integrate computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools into the program’s machine design course to give students experience designing, building, and testing machines and fabricating components.

Two seed grants were also awarded through the 2016 Hrabowski Fund for Innovation competition. Ian Anson, assistant professor of political science, received a seed grant for “’Nobody’s Ever Asked That Question’: Implementation of Student-led Survey Projects to Enhance Analytical Skills in the Social Sciences.” He will develop a new course that allows students to collaborate on the design, implementation, and analysis of a large-scale national online survey. The goal of the course is to help students develop analytical research skills and engage them in understanding research methods by shifting learning experiences from instructor-driven to student-led.

Katherine Gibson and Jeremy Dixon, lecturers in computer science and electrical engineering, will use seed grant funding to look at ways in which the campus can reduce academic integrity violations in computer science programs. The “Improving Student Support to Reduce Academic Integrity Violations for Computer Science I and II” team will implement an improved system for educating students on class policies that uses aural and visual resources and a mandatory quiz to test comprehension. The new approach will also include developing and promoting supplemental academic opportunities for students struggling with course material.

Proposals for the next round of Hrabowski Innovation Fund grants are due on October 14, 2016. For more information and to apply, visit UMBC’s Faculty Development Center.

Image: Neil Rothman, third from right, with Dean Julie Ross and members of UMBC’s Baja team; photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Readers of this year’s Baltimore Magazine guide to popular colleges in Maryland opened the publication to see a full-page vibrant photo of UMBC’s campus, taken from a rooftop above the tree canopy. UMBC is one of nine area colleges featured in the guide, with a university profile emphasizing the growing reach of UMBC’s positive reputation, the diversity of UMBC programs, and the university’s affordability.

“We are a best-value institution with national name recognition for undergraduate education, entrepreneurship, and innovation,” shared Diane Lee, vice provost and the dean of undergraduate education. UMBC’s strength in undergraduate research across all academic fields also earned a mention.

“We are producing great outcomes and people see it,” added Yvette Mozie-Ross, vice provost of enrollment management and planning, emphasizing how UMBC graduates are well prepared for the workforce and for graduate degree programs.

The magazine lists STEM fields as popular areas of study at UMBC, while also calling attention to the LEED Gold-certified Performing Arts and Humanities Building (“The PAHB”).

Faculty members Manil Suri, mathematics and statistics, and Kimberly Moffitt, American studies, are listed as “popular professors.” In addition, Kaye Whitehead Ph.D. ‘09, language, literacy, and culture, is highlighted as a popular professor at Loyola University.

Andrew Belasco, head counselor at College Transitions, an independent college-counseling company, says UMBC today is underrated. According to him, the Retrievers “have arrived.”

Image: The UMBC library in spring; photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

For eighteen students at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute (Poly), the spring semester provided an opportunity to delve into high-level academic research and offered an early glimpse into life as a college student.

The Poly students were part of a new AP class offered by the College Board that is a year-long, research-intensive course. Last fall, the students conducted group research projects, and the second semester was spent working on individual research papers.

The inaugural cohort of Poly AP capstone students spent the last several months working closely with the Honors College and UMBC faculty and graduate students in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) who served as mentors for the students’ individual research projects. The students visited campus to receive feedback from faculty on their work, use the resources of the Albin O. Kuhn Library, and present their final projects to their faculty mentors.

“Access to any part of the professorial ranks is difficult for most high school students,” shares Josh Headley, chair of the Poly history department. “The fact that the built in gatekeepers of academia were removed, and these students had direct access, with honest critiques of their work, was invaluable.”

Christopher Corbett, professor of the practice in the English department, served as a faculty mentor and visited Poly each week throughout the semester.

“This is an excellent opportunity for UMBC to connect with Baltimore in a real way. We need more of those connections,” explains Corbett. “I was impressed at how thoughtful and eager the students at Poly were. It’s a very friendly place. It was a pleasure to go there. I also had an opportunity to observe the classes in session and they were very engaged.”

May Chung, a Ph.D. student in language, literacy, and culture and another faculty mentor, observed the students develop skills and interests over the course of the semester as they grappled with their research questions and had direct access to college-level resources.

“I think this is a really important connection for students who are considering college to talk to and discuss what they are interested in with college educators. And it’s also equally valuable for we faculty to listen to what they have to say,” she says.

“The academic growth in this first cohort of AP Capstone students has been nothing less than phenomenal,” says Headley. “When they began, most of the students had only brief experiences with the academic research process, possibly a term paper that needed three valid sources and citations. As they went along, validating source material, and refining their arguments, their body of literature grew, and they began to recognize the author’s voice and tone more rapidly.”

The program was a chance to expand research offerings for high school students beyond STEM disciplines, and stimulus material was provided to the students at the beginning of the semester to help them generate research questions based exclusively in the arts and humanities.

“For CAHSS, this collaboration with Poly helps us not only to showcase the wonderful and important work of the university beyond the STEM disciplines, but is also a very clear example of the college’s commitment to civic engagement by reaching out and working with our partners in the Baltimore City Public School System,” says John Stolle-McAllister, associate dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences.

“The goal of this program is twofold,” adds Simon Stacey, director of the Honors College. “The first is to provide an opportunity for high school students interested in college access to come to campus to work directly with a professor or graduate student on a research project. The second goal is getting Baltimore high school students interested in coming to UMBC.”

The hope is for systemic adoption of the program, continuing it into next year to work with additional high school students.

“Partnerships like these allow both parties to increase student access to higher learning that is often fraught with roadblocks and hurdles,” says Headley. “When partnerships like these work well, it is always the students who benefit, with their increased academic ownership, and ability to succeed in their post-secondary goals.”

Images: (Top) Albin O. Kuhn Library, where students had access to resources for their research projects. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. Poly AP capstone students before presenting their research at UMBC. Photo by Lisa Bolton.  

John Fritz
Ph.D., Language, Literacy, and Culture
Summa Cum Laude
Hometown: Elkridge, Maryland
Plans: Continuing as UMBC’s Assistant VP of Information Technology

UMBC has allowed me to reinvent myself multiple times… I couldn’t be more appreciative or thankful for the opportunities to study my work and wear so many hats in my 21 years at UMBC.

John Fritz has worn several hats at UMBC over the last 21 years, and he credits the university with enabling him to reinvent himself and to grow through multiple careers. After Fritz began working at UMBC in 1995, he transitioned from working in public relations to information technology. His curiosity and thirst for knowledge led him to pursue his Ph.D. to study if technology, particularly the Learning Management System he was overseeing, could inform students through data analytics that help improve their academic success.

Fritz’s daughter Zoe is currently a sophomore at UMBC, and his wife Dawn earned her master’s degree in teaching at UMBC in 2008. John shares that earning his Ph.D. has been one of the most rewarding things he has ever accomplished and is proud to begin UMBC’s 50th anniversary year as both a leader in UMBC’s administration and an alumnus.

Images: UMBC’s outdoor pool, where throughout his time as a student, employee, and even now as a parent, Fritz spends time swimming laps, which he says has been a great stress reliever and think tank to sort through issues and opportunities. Photos by Marlayna Demond ‘11 for UMBC.

More than 1,000 speakers representing 50 countries gathered in Baltimore for the TESOL 2016 International Convention from April 5-8, 2016. The gathering celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the TESOL International Association and covered a range of topics including language testing and assessment, technology in language learning, bilingual education, and refugee and immigration concerns. UMBC’s English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) programs had many major roles at the event, demonstrating UMBC’s impact around the globe in TESOL.

Heidi Faust, associate director of TESOL Professional Training Programs in the education department, received a grant to research English teacher professional development through professional learning communities (PLCs). She presented her work at the convention and discussed how the global demand for access to English is increasing and more teachers are transitioning from teaching English to adults to younger learners. Faust is using her grant to gather data, surveys, and analysis of teacher reflective journals to test sustainable models for teacher professional development.

“There’s opportunity for empowerment,” Faust explained during her presentation. “My hope is that this will be transformative for teachers at the professional level and communities will continue to sustain their growth.”

Faust also organized an academic session at the convention in her position as chair of the Intercultural Communication Interest Section, and she presented as part of the newly formed TESOL Diversity Forum.

Joan Shin ’08, Ph.D., language, literacy, and culture, and professor of the practice in the education department, was an invited speaker at the convention and presented her work using song to teach young learners English and also hosted a “Tea with Distinguished TESOLers.”

Before the convention, Shin was named a “30 Up and Coming” TESOL professional for her work as an international leader in teaching English to young learners. Her work has taken her to Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and ten other countries to train English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers to meet the needs of elementary-aged students. She has received praise and recognition for a National Geographic Learning book series that she co-edited with Jodi Crandall, founding director of the language, literacy, and culture program and professor emerita of education, designed to give learners the skills and knowledge they need to learn English and understand the world around them.

“With this honor, I feel inspired to work even harder to make a positive difference in the education of English learners through my work with teachers here in Maryland and worldwide,” Shin said after receiving the award.

The TESOL convention local committee included UMBC education department faculty members Laura Hook, Doaa Rasheed, and Yeji Yoon, and many alumni and partners connected with UMBC’s TESOL programs attended an anniversary reception at the convention. This included colleagues from the U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of Education, National Geographic Learning, and several other organizations.

The ESOL program began at UMBC in 1979, and hundreds of alumni are currently practicing ESOL teachers locally, throughout the country, and around the world. Read more about UMBC’s ESOL programs on the education department website.

Header Image: Heidi Faust presents at the 2016 TESOL International Convention. 

For its 50th anniversary, the TESOL International Association has recognized 50 professionals who have made significant contributions to TESOL (Teaching English to Students of Other Languages) within the past 50 years (“50 at 50”), and 30 up and coming professionals (“30 Up and Coming”) who are emerging as leaders in the field.

Jodi Crandall, founding director of the language, literacy, and culture program and professor emerita of education, was selected for the “50 at 50” list.

“TESOL International Association congratulates these outstanding TESOL professionals! Their leadership has helped build the association and develop English language teaching and learning into a profession that touches the lives of students and educators worldwide,” TESOL announced in a press release on its website.

Crandall’s lengthy list of career accomplishments include: professor emerita at UMBC and former chair, Department of Education; former co-director of UMBC’s MA TESOL program; past president of TESOL, Washington, D.C. Area Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Association (WATESOL), and American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL); and member of the board of trustees and former vice president of the Center for Applied Linguistics.

Last year, UMBC announced the four inaugural recipients of the Jodi Crandall Fellowship for Research in Language, Literacy & Culture. The awards are designed to promote collaborative interdisciplinary research by LLC doctoral students.

Joan Shin ’08, Ph.D., language, literacy and culture, and professor of practice in the education department, was named a “30 Up and Coming” TESOL professional.

Shin is an international leader in teaching English to young learners. Her work has taken her to Brazil, Turkey, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and ten other countries to train English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers to meet the needs of elementary-aged students. She has received praise and recognition for a National Geographic Learning book series that she co-edited with Crandall designed to give learners the skills and knowledge they need to learn English and understand the world around them. Read more about Shin’s accomplishments in UMBC Magazine.

“It is so exciting to be named one of the ’30 Up and Coming’ leaders in TESOL,” explains Shin. “To be honest, I feel humbled by this recognition. There are many dedicated and talented English teaching professionals who are providing excellent scholarship and leadership to our field locally and globally. With this honor, I feel inspired to work even harder to make a positive difference in the education of English learners through my work with teachers here in Maryland and worldwide.”

Images: Joan Shin and Jodi Crandall. Photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

When Christine Mallinson asked her students to find a new way to highlight UMBC’s linguistic diversity, she knew they’d get creative. In fact, they made waves in the education world with a video that viewers across the country have praised as “inspiring” and “fascinating.”

Mallinson, an associate professor of language, literacy, and culture (LLC), taught a graduate seminar in fall 2015 titled “Language in Diverse Schools and Communities.” As part of the course, students collaborated with Frankie Films, a video production company headed by Francesca Cerquetti ’14, visual arts, to produce “Voices of UMBC.” The video features students from across the university sharing their experiences and celebrating linguistic diversity as a cultural resource.

“We knew we wanted to maximize the visibility of linguistic diversity in the film, so we tried to make sure we had many languages represented,” explains Mallinson. “It didn’t just have to be foreign language diversity, it’s also diversity within English, and we knew we wanted sign language represented as well.”

Students in the seminar wrote and shared their linguistic autobiographies and discovered a deep sense of pride and connection to their linguistic heritage. When they started the video production process, they sought to shed light on the educational and social benefits that students experience when they share connections with people from varying language backgrounds.

“Because language gives us a different way of describing, knowing, and interacting with the world, we can gain new insights and perspectives through our interactions with people of diverse language backgrounds,” says Kimberly Feldman, a Ph.D. student in LLC who worked on the film. “I think the film captures some of the joy people feel about their language heritage as well as the excitement of being around and engaging with people who speak other languages and dialects.”

The student filmmakers crafted questions, recruited students to interview, and edited the film to emphasize the voice and individual experiences of each participant. Beyond capturing linguistic diversity at UMBC, the finished film speaks to larger themes, particularly the growing demand for interactions with people of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds as the world becomes more globalized and cross-cultural communication skills become more essential.

“Language diversity is such an important resource to have as 21^st-century learners,” shares May Chung, a Ph.D. student in LLC who worked on the film. “We need to build a communicative competence…it’s all part of being a global citizen, and I am pleased to pioneer our project at UMBC.”

Mallinson presented “Voices of UMBC” at the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) annual meeting in January, where it was very well received. She says linguists are beginning to do more research and outreach on bringing awareness of diversity to higher education, and UMBC is emerging as a leader in this field.

“One person during the [LSA meeting] comment session said ‘UMBC students get it.’ The film exemplifies the fact that we understand what it is to celebrate diversity,” Mallinson shares.

“All too often we talk about diversity in a superficial way without really delving into what the word actually means,” says Deanna Cerquetti, a Ph.D. student in LLC who worked on the film. “By allowing people the opportunity to talk about their linguistic backgrounds, we begin to paint the picture of who they really are and where they come from.”

Mallinson and her students are scheduled to present “Voices of UMBC” at the upcoming SouthEastern Conference on Linguistics later this month in New Orleans. There they plan to further demonstrate a leading model for how language outreach can occur on a college campus—the UMBC model. The students will also present the video at UMBC’s Graduate Research Conference on March 23, 2016.

Note: Other project collaborators include LLC students Ron Collins and Tissa Thomas, and Mercedes Lopez, a master’s student in text, technologies, and literature.

Image: (From left to right) Deanna Cerquetti, Kimberly Feldman, May Chung, and Christine Mallinson. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC. 

Nationwide, just 4 percent of full-time professors are black and 3 percent are Hispanic. What will it take to move the dial on the representation of diverse faculty at U.S. colleges and universities? American Public Media’s Marketplace, a leading radio program on business and the economy, tackles this question in two new stories highlighting UMBC’s work to train, recruit, hire and retain diverse faculty.

“Building a more diverse faculty” shines a spotlight on UMBC postdoctoral fellow Keisha Allen, education, and her experience transitioning from graduate student to faculty member. Allen is receiving mentorship from Mavis Sanders, professor of education, and Claudia Galindo, associate professor of language, literacy, and culture.

The story follows Sanders as she supports Allen in building the confidence to present her research to colleagues without notes, relying on her knowledge as an expert in culturally responsive pedagogy and adolescent literacy.

“You have to sort of own that identity, that now you are the expert,” Sanders explained. “It just takes practice.”

Allen is part of the newest cohort of the Postdoctoral Fellows for Faculty Diversity program, which is designed to support scholars who are emerging as cutting-edge researchers and educators in their fields and who are committed to supporting diversity in the academy.

Tyson King-Meadows, professor of political science, chair of Africana studies, and co-chair of the Executive Committee for the Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of Underrepresented Minority Faculty, explains the major goals of the postdoctoral fellows program in the Marketplace story.

“The purpose of the program is to get them prepared for the professoriate and for them to understand all the nuances of being a faculty member of color or a particular gender,” King-Meadows says.

Edward Glover ’16 mathematics, a Meyerhoff Scholar and president of the Black Student Union, has worked closely with UMBC administration and faculty in addressing faculty diversity. He described in the radio story how he’d like to see UMBC faculty increasingly reflect the student body’s diversity.

The second segment, “A university confronts bias in faculty hiring,” shifts the focus to UMBC’s initiatives to address bias in the faculty hiring process, an all too common problem in higher education, across academic fields. King-Meadows describes the need for STRIDE, UMBC’s Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence committee. This groups is developing tools to make recruitment processes more open and fair, to ensure the university hires the best candidate for each position rather than the candidate most similar to those managing the hiring process.

Susan McDonough, associate professor of history, highlights the importance of white faculty advocating for diversity in hiring and pointing out bias during the process.

“The burden has to be more on the majority culture to do it more than we do it,” she says. “I’ve seen it in my classrooms that, when students of color point out bias, there’s often a willingness to dismiss it that would not have been there if it had been a majority person who had shared that thought.”

Christopher Murphy, professor and chair of psychology, goes on to describe the work being done at UMBC to educate professors about unconscious biases that can unfairly eliminate qualified candidates during faculty searches.

Marketplace reporter Amy Scott notes that UMBC is well-known as one of the most diverse research universities in the country.

“Many people know us because we’ve had considerable success in educating students of all races in science and engineering,” President Freeman Hrabowski told Scott. “Our graduation and retention rates for African Americans and other students of color are as high as they are for any other group.”

Provost Philip Rous takes from this success inspiration to tackle the next important challenge: increasing the diversity of UMBC’s faculty. Although UMBC is ahead of the national average, Provost Rous says, “I would be the first to say that we’re not where we want to be, and this is probably the highest strategic priority I have as provost.”

“Talented minority faculty are not unicorns,” says King-Meadows. “It just depends on where you’re looking.”

Listen to the complete two-part series below:

Building a more diverse faculty
A university confronts bias in faculty hiring

Read more about faculty diversity initiatives at UMBC.

Image: Mejdulene Shomali, gender and women’s studies; Nkiru Nnawulezi, psychology; and Keisha Allen, education, meet with President Hrabowski. All images by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

The TESOL International Association has announced the recipients of its 2015 research mini-grants, and UMBC’s Heidi Faust is the winner of a grant to research English teacher professional development through professional learning communities (PLCs).

The project, titled “Sustaining Professional Development through Professional Learning Communities: A Case Study of the Impact on Teacher Identity and Practice at a Peruvian Binational Center,” will investigate the impact of professional learning communities on English language teachers as the global demand for access to English increases and more teachers are transitioning from teaching English to adults to younger learners.

“Without knowledge to manage the developmental, behavioral, and cognitive demands of young learners, such teachers may experience high levels of frustration and likewise work very hard with limited results. They may not identify as English teachers of young learners and may lack the stamina to stay in the classroom with young learners,” a press release announcing the award stated.

As part of the project, Faust, an instructor in the education department, LLC doctoral student, and associate director of TESOL professional training programs at UMBC, will use archival course data, surveys, and analysis of teacher reflective journals to examine the sustainability of PLCs in enhancing the professional development and identity of teachers.

In addition to her work at UMBC, Faust currently coordinates online professional development for English teachers and learners from more than 100 countries. She is an English language specialist for the U.S. Department of State and the 2015–2016 Chair of the Intercultural Communication Interest Section. Read more on the TESOL International Association website.