“Telling Our Stories: I’m Not/I Am” project is made possible by American Association of University Women Campus Action Grant.

The Women’s Center and Women of Color Coalition recently received a $5,000 grant from the American Association of University Women to fund their “Telling Our Stories: I’m Not/I Am” project.

The project aims to “raise awareness and reject stereotypes about women of color, and create a space for women-of-color voices and counternarratives”.

UMBC was one of eleven universities awarded the AAUW’s Campus-Action Grant. The project also received $500 from UMBC’s Breaking Ground initiative.

“I think it is important to bring some of that visibility to UMBC because so often people talk about how UMBC is so diverse,” said Megan Tagle Adams, coordinator of the Women’s Center.

“We want to not only engage with what’s going on in our community at UMBC, but also what is happening at large, even a global ideal of what microaggressions women of color go through on a daily basis” added Brianne Best, a senior English major and member at large in the Women of Color Coalition.

The campaign involves a series of discussions about sexist or racist microaggressions, and one’s experiences as a woman of color. Microaggressions are “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to certain individuals because of their group membership.” They are unconscious discriminations, rather than conscious ones.

These discussions provide a safe space for women of color to discuss sensitive issues while promoting solidarity amongst themselves. Best said the discussions are “a great way for women of color to speak out and actually tell their stories.”

She continued, “I think the Safe Space and Brave Space model of dealing with women-of-color issues is very needed because not only do we need to have these safe space discussions so that we can talk about our situations, but we need a way to combat [systemic injustices].”

Space Spaces create environments conducive to learning about different cultures and ethnicities. Brave Spaces involves bringing up topics such as racism and sexism in ways that challenge perceived societal power dynamics.

The project concludes with the Telling our Stories: Showcase, which will take place on April 29. It will display performances from women of color to give them opportunity for genuine self-representation through creative means such as songs or spoken poetry, among other creative art forms.

The tone of the event is completely dependent on people who volunteer to participate in the showcase. “It really depends on the performers, and I imagine there will be a variety of art forms because everyone feels in different ways which means they will express it in different ways. We really, more than anything, want it to be authentic,” said Adams.

Best added: “With story-telling, no story is going to be the exact same as the others, and I think that is good. That tells you how diverse people are within themselves, because women of color cannot be put in a box.”

Read more stories from: The Retriever Weekly

In response to new research from Johns Hopkins University, Psychology Research Professor and Professor Emeritus Robert Provine was interviewed for an article in the Baltimore Sun discussing his research on human social behavior and attractiveness. The Johns Hopkins study found that human perception of attractiveness may be fluid, contagious, and often influenced by what is generally considered attractive by others.

In the article, Provine said that it is fashion that is shifting constantly, rather than an evolutionary standard of beauty in culture. He noted that people don’t realize they are frequently pushed to like something new and different.

“We are not always captain of our ship,” he said. What’s constant across nearly all societies and eras is that “clear eyes, good skin and long, lustrous hair are always signs of beauty,” Provine added.

“They are reliable, honest signals because they are hard to change,” he said. “When has disease, red, runny eyes, hair that’s falling out and skin lesions been attractive? Ultimately, beauty is a matter of good health and the evolutionary product of likely reproductive success. There is nothing arbitrary about beauty.”

To read the full article titled “Beauty is in the shifting eye of the beholder,” click here.

A film by Bill Shewbridge and Michelle Stefano has been selected to be screened at several prestigious film festivals in May and June. Produced by Shewbridge, professor of the practice of media and communication studies, and Stefano, visiting assistant professor of American studies, Mill Stories: Remembering Sparrows Point Steel Mill is a documentary based on the stories gathered through the “Mill Stories” project. The project seeks to document the sociocultural impacts of industrial decline and help amplify the voices of those affected by it in the Baltimore region.

The documentary has been selected to screen at three upcoming film festivals: the 14^th Royal Anthropological Institute International Festival of Ethnographic Film (Bristol, UK, June 16-19, 2015), the 12^th International Congress of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) Film Program (Zagreb, Croatia, June 22-24, 2015), and the Workers Unite! Film Festival in New York City (May 19, 2015).

UPDATE 4/28: This event has been cancelled. The organizers are working to reschedule at a later date. For the latest updates, please visit baltimoretraces.org. Locally, on April 28, Mill Stories is scheduled to be screened at the Chesapeake Arts Center in Brooklyn Park from 6-8 p.m. For more information on the event, click here. For more information on the “Mill Stories” project, click here.

URCAD is fast approaching, but volunteers are still needed for the event on Wednesday, April 22!

Come to the volunteer briefing on Wednesday, April 8th at noon in Sondheim 103 to learn more about what is needed from the volunteers, or sign up below. 

In particular, URCAD needs help with set up, making posters, running AV, taking pictures, and helping out during the event from 9:30a to 12:30p or from 12:30p to 4:00p. 

Eliot Carney-Seim, Austin Pagano, Michael Leung, Andrea Wozniak and Zach Holtzman

The Game Developer's Club has created five projects: Revolve Online, a 3D online multi-player shooter, Rolling Thunder, a 3D tactical flight simulator, Hue Bots, a 2D top-down puzzle game, Second Hand, a 2D puzzle horror game, and Inheritance, a 2D dungeon crawler.

If you think you can win, come to URCAD and test these games out!

Wednesday, April 22 from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.in the University Center Ballroom.