Get ready for Critical Social Justice: Ignite with our What You Need to Know series. Written by Women’s Center student staff member Hannah Wilcove.

On October 15th, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano posted the following message to Twitter: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” These sixteen words sparked the rebirth and rapid growth of a campaign created eleven years ago by activist Tarana Burke.

As you probably already know, the #MeToo movement has been a way for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories, or at least acknowledge their existence. Its recent resurgence came on the heels of powerful men like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby finally facing the long-overdue consequences for their actions, although other accusations still loom in the air, unresolved. The sustained prevalence of the movement over this past year, especially given the high volume of news we take in on a regular basis, is a testament to the strength of digital forms of activism. Me Too and other modern movements such as Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street are characterized by their decentralized structure and reliance on publicity through multiple forms of media. Our keynote speaker Deanna Zandt utilized both her social media presence and her participation in an episode of the podcast This American Life titled “Five Women” to not only share her story, but also to talk about the experience of doing so.

Like the consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s, the #MeToo movement is about recognizing commonality of experiences and the systemic factors that influence them. This is what the principle of “the personal is political” is all about: while each survivor has their own individual story, the #MeToo movement provides a way for people to recognize that they are not alone in their experience. As an important note, many women of color flipped the script of this common slogan during the time period known as Second Wave Feminism, and advocated that “the political is personal” in order to make it known that the politics of social movements had significant impacts on their everyday lives.

CSJ as a whole and this year’s theme of Ignite is in part about finding community while doing activist work. Whether you’re a seasoned advocate for the causes you believe in or totally new to fighting for social justice, we all need people to support us in our work and remind us that we are not alone. I hope to see you at one (or more!) of our many CSJ events building that community.

UMBC’s STRiVE leadership and social change retreat has inspired hundreds of undergraduate students in the past 10 years. Now it's your turn.

This year’s STRiVE retreat will take place January 7-11, 2019. STRiVE participants will make new friends, learn about themselves, reflect on values and ethics, work in teams to envision contributions they could make at UMBC, and tackle both simulated and real leadership and social change challenges. Past STRiVE participants have gotten deeply involved in campus organizations and initiatives, and have made phenomenal contributions.

To apply for a spot in STRiVE 2019, complete this form by Sunday, November 11, 2018. 

STRiVE is hosted by UMBC's Center for Democracy and Civic Life, and sponsored by the UMBC Student Government Association. More information on this program is available below.

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STRiVE: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is STRiVE?

STRiVE is an intensive, engaging and exhilarating off-campus leadership retreat (5 days, 4 nights) developed by UMBC to help students become more effective leaders on campus and throughout their lives. STRiVE participants will make new friends, learn about themselves, reflect on values and ethics, work in teams to envision contributions they could make at UMBC, and tackle both simulated and real leadership and social change challenges. The STRiVE experience will include a bonfire, challenge course, games and other fun activities.

Do I have to be an “involved” student to attend STRiVE?

Absolutely not! STRiVE will be helpful to any student regardless of previous involvement or leadership experience. No prior experience is necessary! We are looking for a diverse group of students committed to developing their leadership skills and applying them to create positive change in the campus community. The application asks about campus involvement only to give the STRiVE planning team a sense of the different perspectives participants will bring to the retreat.

When is STRiVE?

The dates for STRiVE will be January 7 - 11, 2019.

Where is STRiVE being held?

STRiVE will be held at Skycroft Conference Center in Middletown, Maryland. Participants will stay in motel-style rooms (sharing a room with 1 other student) and all activities will be held on site. Bus transportation between UMBC and the retreat site will be provided.

How much does it cost to attend STRiVE?

UMBC covers most of the cost of each participant’s attendance. However, there is a participation fee of $100 that helps cover some of the cost of transportation, lodging and food. Money should not be a barrier to attendance, however, and participants will be able to complete a form to request financial assistance.

When is the application due?

Original deadline: Sunday, November 4, 2018. Extended deadline: Sunday, November 11, 2018.

When will are accepted applicants informed?

Applicants will receive an email in late November with additional details about participating in STRiVE.

How can I find out more information about STRiVE?

Please contact David Hoffman at dhoffman@umbc.edu.

Get ready for Critical Social Justice: Ignite with our What You Need to Know series. Written by Kaleigh Mrowka, Assistant Director for Residential Education, and Lauren Mauriello, Assistant Director of Student Conduct.

“[Restorative practices] provide a clear blueprint to ensure that on the path to making social justice, we model that justness in our own behavior – especially toward those people and systems we hope to change.” – John Bailie

Restorative practices is a form of democratic dialogue, which at its core, is about relationships within communities. According to the International Institute for Restorative Practices, the fundamental premise of restorative practices is that “people are happier, more cooperative and productive, and more likely to make positive changes when those in authority do things with them, rather than to them or for them” (Wachtel & Wachtel, 2012). Within higher education environments, this includes teaching students skills for being in relationship with their peers, understanding obligations that exist based on community needs, and engaging within a community to repair harms caused within those relationships.

Restorative justice techniques can be used to address instances of inequality, such as an incident of bias, but can it address the structural issues that sustain oppression? What does it have to do with social justice?

The modern practices of restorative justice have roots in the ways indigenous communities addressed harm. The idea that communities can and should seek to address social issues by including those most impacted by the harms or decisions that impact them is blunted by our western political and social hierarchies and our impulse toward retribution rather than reparation.  Kay Pranis (2005), an expert facilitator of a restorative justice technique called circles, highlights the capacity for restorative justice to pick up when we have reached the limits of democracy.

While it is only recently becoming a known methodology and philosophy in higher education, restorative practices and restorative justice have been popular in the criminal justice system, K-12 education, and other entities for some time as  From a Critical Social Justice perspective, restorative practices lens provides both a methodology and ethos to build stronger communities around difference, reduce power differentials, and create a sense of agency for all members of a community.

So what does that mean for us when considering social justice within a community like UMBC? As the quote that opens this blog post implies, restorative practices can serve as a blueprint for the creation of a more just and inclusive community.  By shifting the focus towards caring for all members of a community, we can seek to create communities that promote justice.

In talking about restorative practices within the framework of Critical Social Justice Week, we will explore the idea of restorative justice as a means to address systems of oppression by looking at methods and tools for restoring power to those who have been harmed, victimized or marginalize, and building individual and community capacity to address community problems. 

To learn more about Restorative Practices, come to our event on Monday, October 22 from 4-5 pm in Commons 329

Congratulations to the following faculty, students, and alumni for their recent accomplishments!  

Michael Bass, Psychology ‘12, and Andre Crawley, Visual Arts ‘09, were named Baltimore Rising Stars by the Baltimore Business Journal.

Danielle L. Beatty Moody, Psychology, shared her research on how racial discrimination affects women's health in Everyday discrimination literally raises women's blood pressure, in The Atlantic.

Amy Bhatt, Gender and Women’s Studies, discussed family separations in the Trump era, in the Academic Minute.

Tim Brennan, Public Policy and Economics, will discuss The Consumer Welfare Standard in Antitrust Law at the November Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21^st Century.

Chris Curran, Public Policy, discussed law enforcement officers in k-12 public schools in “Academic Minute: School Resource Officers and Discipline,” in Inside Higher Ed.

Steven Dashiell, PhD student in Language, Literacy, and Culture, won the Best Student Paper in American Culture award at the Popular Culture Association of the South conference.

Rhiannon Dowling, M.A. ‘09 in Historical Studies (Advisor: Kate Brown), won this year's Robert C. Tucker/Stephen F. Cohen Dissertation Prize for her dissertation, “Brezhnev's War on Crime: The Criminal in Soviet Society, 1963-1982.”

Matt Fagan, Geography and Environmental Systems, conducted research which suggests tropical forests are rarely given a chance to fully regrow before they are cleared again, limiting their carbon-storage benefits, in the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Natural History of Ecological Restoration Blog.

Cathy Graham, Economics ‘81, was named to the 2018 Washington Business Journal's Women Who Mean Business list.

Nancy Kusmaul, Social Work, received the Distinguished Alumni Awardfrom the University at Buffalo School of Social Work.

Jane Lincove, Public Policy, discussed her research on understanding the link between school choice and transportation in How does school choice affect student commutes in New Orleans?, in EdWeek.

Christine Mallinson, Language, Literacy, & Culture, published the co-edited book Rural Voices: Language, Identity, and Social Change across Place.

Roy Meyers, Political Science, was awarded the Aaron Wildavsky Award for lifetime achievement, from the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management.

Erin O’Keefe, M.P.P ’10 and current Public Policy PhD student, will present at the October Coalition of Urban Metropolitan Universities conference on leading a place-based community engagement initiative. Her work is highlighted as one of five case studies in a new book, Place Based Community Engagement in Higher Education by Kent Koth and Erica Yamura.

Rebecca Postowski, M.P.P, received a fellowship to attend the Behavioral Energy and Climate Change Conference in DC.

Bob Provine, Psychology, weighs in on the lasting effects laugher can have on a person, both good and bad, in Christine Blasey Ford and the dark side of laughter, in the Washington Post, and in Beaumont Enterprise.

Susan M. Sterett, Public Policy, published “Data Access as Regulation,” in American Behavioral Scientist. She also co-authored “Symposium: Reflecting on the Profession” with Jennifer A. Diascro, in PS: Political Science and Politics.

Get ready for Critical Social Justice: Ignite with our What You Need to Know series. Written by Courtney Hobson, Coordinator in the Dresher Center for the Humanities.

When you need to look up information on the internet, Google is the number one site we typically go to. If you type in “Indigenous Peoples’ Day,” or “Aretha Franklin,” the first result will likely be an article on Wikipedia.

For those of you not in the know, Wikipedia is a free open-source encyclopedia which means that anyone can edit it. Most of the editors consist of academics or hobbyists who, with time, a computer and a steady internet connection, are generating informative articles that are viewed by millions all over the world.

As one of the top ten visited internet sites in the world, Wikipedia is not merely a tool to record facts; it is helping to shape our collective knowledge. Winston Churchill once remarked that, “history is written by the victors.” Knowing our history is important, but knowing the authors is even moreso. This brings us to editing articles on Wikipedia.

Less than 10% of Wikipedia’s editors identify as cis or trans women and the editors that do identify as women are more likely than men to have their edits reverted.

What does this mean? This means that women are not seen or valued as notable contributors to our society. The statistics are similarly dismal for POC.

Editing Wikipedia is a step towards challenging systemic structures that tell us what information is important enough to know. It is a step that I realized that anyone could take when I attended my first edit-a-thon in 2016 at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The edit-a-thon focused on expanding or creating articles about Black artists. With just 30 minutes of writing and research, I was able to create an short article or stub. I am now one of those hobbyists who edit articles for fun, but I focus on adding content about people from Baltimore, especially Black women.

For the CSJ: Ignite Wikipedia edit-a-thon, we will have a chance to discuss these issues in greater depth, as well as explore resources available through our library. But most importantly, we will inject Wikipedia with a bit of Baltimore and shine a light on figures and events who have shaped our city.

Further reading below:

• Gender bias on Wikipedia
• Wikimedia Foundation releases gender bias report
• Why didn’t Wikipedia have an article on Donna Strickland, a Nobel Prize winner?
• Doing the work: Editing Wikipedia as an act of reconciliation
• How Does Political Wikipedia Stay Apolitical?
• Why I’m making it My Feminist Mission to End Wikipedia’s Notability Policy
• Art and Feminism
• afroCROWD
• Women in Red Wikiproject

Now accepting applications for: 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

2019 Summer Research Team Program for

Minority Serving Institutions

The purpose of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Summer Research Team (SRT) Program is to increase and enhance the scientific leadership at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) in research areas that support the mission and goals of DHS. This program provides faculty and student research teams with the opportunity to conduct research at the university-based DHS Centers of Excellence (DHS Centers). The SRT Program and DHS Centers are sponsored by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate Office of University Programs.

Faculty: receive a $1,200 weekly stipend and are encouraged to apply for up to $50,000 in follow-on funding at the end of their appointment.

Graduate students: receive a $700 weekly stipend.

Undergraduate students: receive a $600 weekly stipend.

All participants may be eligible to receive housing and travel allowances.

10-week research experiences are offered at university-based DHS Centers of Excellence (DHS Centers).

Areas of research: Engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biological / life sciences, environmental science, emergency and incident management, social sciences, and more.  Additional information regarding DHS Areas of Research may be found on the program website. 

U.S. citizenship required

Previous program participants may apply.

Application deadline: December 21, 2018 11:59 pm EST.

How to Apply: Applications and supporting materials must be submitted at

 https://www.zintellect.com/Opportunity/Details/DHS-SRTMSI-2019-Faculty

Detailed information about the program can be found at:

http://www.orau.gov/dhseducation/faculty/index.html

For questions please email us at dhsed@orau.org.

DHS has partnered with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) to manage this program.