Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion, and Belonging (i3b) Assistant Director Angelina Jenkins is one of just five honorees to receive a 2024 American College Personnel Association (ACPA) Annuit Coeptis Award for Emerging Professionals. In March, she will attend the ACPA Annual Convention and 100th Anniversary Celebration, where awardees will be honored at a dinner with wide-ranging discussion and exchange about professional issues.
The Annuit Coeptis Awards were created in 1979 by ACPA to celebrate the lives of Philip A. Tripp, Ursula Delworth, and Cynthia Johnson who dearly loved to challenge their contemporary and junior colleagues in a spirit of personal and professional sharing, good humor, and intellectual debate. This award is intended to be a generative and cross generational experience. The dinner models the importance of being both teachers and learners. It invites awardees into the practice of the synergy that can be created when we come together with cross generational wisdom.
Angelina came to i3b in July 2022. She was previously assistant director of the Paul Robeson Cultural Center at The Pennsylvania State University. At UMBC, she manages the core operations of The Mosaic, which officially celebrated 20 Years on February 2, 2024, and is celebrating with events and programs throughout the spring 2024 semester. She develops the Mosaic's educational programs and curriculum on cultural diversity, identity development, social justice awareness and advocacy, leadership development, and intercultural learning. Angelina also provides support to underrepresented population identities such as immigrants and children of immigrants and multi-racial and multi-ethnic identities, with the intent to foster community, healing, and learning. She is especially proud of the work she has done with the Multicultural Leadership Experience, Mixed Up (Multiracial / Cultural Series), and LOTUS: Leading Others to Thriving and Universal Success (a peer mentoring program for APIDA students, funded by a UMBC Hrabowski Innovation Fund grant).
She currently plays several leadership roles with national organizations, including co-coordinator of the Asian Pacific Islanders Promoting Educational eXcellence (APPEX) Summit; leadership team member for the Asian Pacific Islanders Knowledge Community (APIKC); and member of the NASPA 2024 Conference Leadership Committee and Engagement and Volunteers Subcommittee. She is a member of the UMBC Asian and Asian American Faculty and Staff Council and NASPA | Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.
Angelina is working on her Ph.D. in Higher Education, Student Affairs, and International Education Policy with a Student Affairs concentration from the University of Maryland, College Park.