UMBC Women Who Rock is a blog series I’m working on throughout the 2014-15 academic year. In my role as Women’s Center director, I have some of the best opportunities to become acquainted with some of UMBC’s best and brightest women on campus. I admire the ways they live authentic lives unapologetically that challenge the stereotypes and assumptions that are often assigned to women. By debunking these stereotypes and forcing us to check our assumptions, they allow us to expand our notion of what a woman is and can be.

-Jess

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

UMBC Women Who Rock!
Amelia Meman, GWST major & Women’s Center staff member extraordinaire 

Birthdays are my most favorite of holidays. I love birthdays, and I’m not just talking about my own birthday, I’m talking about all birthdays. I love the celebration of life which is why you’ll often hear me say to the birthday person, “Thank you for being born.” And, today, it’s Amelia’s birthday. Happiest of birthdays to you, you brilliant feminist killjoy.

Life-giving and killjoy? Yes and I’ll get to that.

I first met Amelia in the spring of 2013 when she and several other Gender + Women’s Studies students would take over the Women’s Center lounge for “lunch bunch” in between their morning and afternoon classes. They would swoop in with their feminist theory and activism and the whole place would come alive with laughter, pondering, and thoughtful conversations. Consequently, I was excited when Amelia reached out to me over the summer to interview for an internship through the Honors College. The Women’s Center hasn’t been the same since.

Meet Amelia!

In her two years working in the Women’s Center, Amelia has come to be one of the hardest working people I know. She is wicked smart. She cares deeply about the quality of her work. She takes self-initiative to include commissioning herself to be the Women’s Center’s artist-in-residence. She is also a good friend who is genuinely committed to the well-being and support of those she loves. After she graduates and I think back on Amelia’s time in the Women’s Center, I’ll think of laughter. The laughter that comes from underwater animals, a blog post created entirely through gifs, and the reenactment of Leslie Knope and Burt Macklin misadventures.

And, just as importantly, I’ll think of the cracks and the fissures Amelia has taught me to see. In preparing to write this post, I explained to Amelia that I use the UMBC Women Who Rocks series to explore the ways in which the featured woman has challenged me to reconsider the assumptions and stereotypes I hold and I asked Amelia how she believes she’s challenged me. Her reply, “My challenge is that I always challenge people.” Touché, Amelia. As a self-identified feminist killjoy, I should have seen that one coming. She went on to wonder, though, if always recognizing and pointing out problems is unproductive, but conclusively ended with “the only way for change to happen is to recognize the cracks and fissures.”

There’s nothing more I can do than to whole-heartedly agree with her. For example, it is in the embracing of the imperfect that led Amelia to envision what is now Critical Social Justice. When Amelia looked around at social justice movements and thought about her experience at UMBC, she saw gaps and inequitable hierarchies, missed opportunities to engage in critical conversations, and a sense of apathy. Instead of just ignoring those issues or complaining about them, she considered an alternative that sought change. An alternative which in just two short years has been a transformative experience for the Women’s Center and has excited many UMBC students about the role they can play in social justice movements.

As I’ve written, back spaced, written some more, and back spaced again, I have felt challenged throughout the entire exercise of writing this post about Amelia. For someone who means so much to me (and on her birthday of all days), I wanted this reflection to be perfect, but I kept seeing its faults and all that it wasn’t. It’s a reminder to me how perfectionism can be limiting. A perfect sentence that is never written is just an unwritten sentence. So I back spaced some more and wrote again and this one particular image of Amelia kept coming to mind. It’s an image of Amelia crying and being frustrated with herself. She’s just finished up an activity at summer STRiVE (where she was a participant and I was a coach) and she doesn’t like what she’s learned about herself. In this activity that was solely centered in privilege and power and the haves and have-nots, Amelia took it all and loved it. In the debriefing of the activity, though, she was quick to see the cracks and fissures of her own actions. For someone who lives and breathes the practice of social justice, she was surprised by the ease in which she placed those values aside for a game and that scared her. Amelia could have easily hid her feelings or pretended like she was just acting out the part of the big bad capitalist. But she didn’t. She owned every part of her actions and recognized the cracks and fissures in an effort to create change within herself. And, in that moment I was never more proud of her.

Amelia and the Women’s Center staff at last year’s Lavender Celebration.

Being a killjoy takes honesty, vulnerability, and courage, especially when looking at oneself. In my identity as a feminist and advocate for social justice I know there’s been times I’ve been more than shy about recognizing where I still need to learn and grow and be challenged out of fear that I wouldn’t belong. In an effort to be perfect, I’ve turned my eyes away from the imperfections shutting down the chance to let change and growth to their thing. Through Amelia’s quest to be unapologetically worthy of the space she takes up she has helped create brave spaces within myself to feel at home in my contradictions while taking strides to engage in the what’s, how’s and why’s of those imperfections. Amelia has given me the opportunity to stay connected to my imperfections and to name them rather than distancing myself from them. It’s the distancing that kills us, whereas the joy comes in living yourself into the solutions. As we wrapped up our conversation, Amelia reflected on the courage is takes to say this thing, this person, this Me may “be problematic and I still love you.” So yes, back to my point of being live-giving and a killjoy. Amelia has shown me how to be both.

When my friend, who met Amelia last November at the National Women’s Studies Association conference, recently found out that Amelia is graduating in May she instantly replied “What are you going to do?!” For someone who only briefly met Amelia this is a testament to the good work she does and most especially the important space she takes up in my heart. I replied, “I don’t know… Cry?” And, maybe I will a little, but during her time here at UMBC, Amelia has challenged me to examine my own cracks and fissures and that has helped me become a better supervisor, a better feminist, and a better me. So, I will also be filled with joy. The joy that can only come from the honesty and vulnerability it takes to freely be me in all my faults and perfections.

So, on this day, and every day, Amelia Meman, you are a UMBC Woman Who Rocks. Happy birthday. Thank you for being born.

Amelia and others from the Critical Social Justice Student Alliance – a student organization that stemmed out of the energy and passion of Critical Social Justice

Who are the UMBC women in your life that inspire you to think outside your expectations and assumptions? What are the counter narrative stories they’re sharing with us allowing UMBC and our greater community to be more of exactly who we want to be? Comment below and maybe you’ll just find them featured in a future UMBC Women Who Rock post.

* * * * * * * * * *

Check out other UMBC Women Who Rock:

Amanda Knapp (featured August 2014)
Susan Dumont (featured October 2014)
Jahia Knobloch (featured January 2015)
A Reflection on Encouragement and Accountability (February 2015)

Walk In Advising Hours March 9th-13th
Got a question? Stop on by! 

Monday, March 2nd
2pm-4pm

Tuesday, March 3rd
10am-11:30am and 1:30pm-3pm

Wednesday, March 4th
2pm-4pm

Thursday, March 5th
10am-11:30am and 1:30pm-3pm

Friday, March 6th
Appointment Only

Advisors are also available by appointment. 

In 2003, the first year of programming for the PROMISE AGEP, a UMBC Public Policy graduate student named Robert Alexander asked if PROMISE could sponsor a “town hall” type of seminar with UMBC’s President, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski. That conversation birthed the concept of an annual seminar for graduate students that would feature the university’s president. Dr. Robert Alexander is now part of the Health & Analytics Business Unit at Battelle, after spending nearly 10 years in his first dream job in Health Communications at the Center for Disease Control (CDC). Similarly, after more than 10 years, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski is the Chair of the U.S. President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans, and has received numerous recognition from media outlets such as TIME, US News & World Report, PBS (“Charlie Rose,” “Tavis Smiley”), and CBS (“60 Minutes.”). The president continues to make time in his schedule to address graduate students. Dr. Hrabowski has been having his spring semester conversation with graduate students at UMBC since 2004. The 2015 talk will be held on Wednesday.

Pathways to Leadership

A Discussion with President Freeman Hrabowski

UMBC President, Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

1:00 – 2:15 PM

Lunch will be served at 1:00

Talk will begin at 1:30 PM. Everyone needs to be seated by 1:25 PM.

Library Gallery (first floor), AOK Library, UMBC Campus, Directions & Parking

REGISTER/RSVP

UMBC Community, Please RSVP on MyUMBC: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/29312

Guests, please RSVP by providing your name and school/organization in the comment section below.

This event is free, but you will need to register.

As part of our PROMISE AGEP-T alliance with the University System of Maryland, graduate students from any school within the USM may attend. Guests from other schools are also invited as part of our commitment to provide graduate students with professional development. Faculty and staff are also invited to attend.

————

More about Dr. Hrabowski’s White House Appointment: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/07/26/president-obama-announces-more-key-administration-posts

Hrabowski Photos courtesy of baltimore.cbslocal.com, blog.ted.com, amazon.com, and umbc.edu

————

More about Dr. Robert Alexander’s work on the U.S.’ first federally funded anti-smoking campaign: Journal article in The Lancet. Dr. Alexander returned to be a Mentor-in-Residence for the PROMISE AGEP during the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the PROMISE Summer Success Institute (SSI), August 2013.   Dr. Alexander was a member of the first cohort of the PROMISE AGEP Peer Mentors for UMBC, 2004. We thank Dr. Alexander, whose request as a PhD candidate, launched the plans for our annual present-day Presidential “Pathways to Leadership” seminar for graduate students.

The International Center of Mental Health Policy and Economics has awarded UMBC researchers David Salkever (Public Policy) and Brent Gibbons (Ph.D., ’13, Maryland Institute for Policy Analysis and Research), along with co-authors Robert E. Drake, William D. Frey, Thomas W. Hale, and Mustafa Karakus, an Excellence in Mental Health Policy and Economics Research Award – 2015 for the article “Increasing Earnings of Social Security Disability Income Beneficiaries with Serious Mental Disorder.”

The article, which was published in the Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics 2014; 17 (2): 75-90, reports the results of MIPAR research conducted in collaboration with Westat for the Social Security Administration. The award will be presented on March 27 in Venice, Italy at the Twelfth Workshop on Costs and Assessment.

Name: Ben Lasher

Internship, Co-op or Research Site: dlr | marketing, inc. | Title of Your Position: Design and Social Media Intern

Major(s)/Minor(s): Media and Communications Studies

Expected Graduation Year: December 2015

Briefly describe your internship, co-op, research, or service-learning opportunity, including your day-to-day tasks, responsibilities, and assignments.

I worked directly with dlr's only two employees, as well as another intern. I was assigned various tasks, including research, graphic design, social media, and administrative items.

Describe the process of obtaining your internship, research, or co-op opportunity.

Dr. Jason Loviglio sent an email to the MCS listserve that forwarded the company's search for interns. My supervisor, Maria Satyshur, attended UMBC as an MCS student. I contacted Maria after receiving notice of the position and things transpired pretty standardly from there.

Which of the following resources did you use to find your current experience?

Faculty Connections

What have you enjoyed the most about your position or organization/company?

Maria and Diane were fantastic bosses. They were never anything but friendly and supportive of me and my endeavors.

What have you gained from your experience that you could not have gained from another opportunity?

I think dlr provided me an interesting insight into the marketing industry because of the way they structure their business. They work in a sort of free-lance style, taking assignments from various clients. So I got to work with a wide variety if organizations in the greater Baltimore area.

What advice would you give to another student who is seeking an internship or similar experience?

dlr was a fantastic place to have my first internship. If all you think you know of what you want for a career is "uh...something about marketing?", then I highly recommend dlr.

Please provide a short reflection or quote about what you liked most about your position / earning internship credit / the internship placement process.

This internship really provided me with much more insight and confidence than I could have ever expected.

Like this story on Facebook or FAV/RT on Twitter!

Like the Career Center on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

#UMBCintern