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The Walters Art Museum is pleased to offer opportunities for qualified undergraduate and graduate candidates to intern in various museum divisions throughout the year. Based on a system of supervised learning, the internships enable interns to understand how a museum operates and how to relate this experience to academic and professional goals. Credit can be arranged with your college/university.

UMBC welcomed the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for a regional grant-writing workshop on February 20, 2015. The workshop, conducted by the NEH’s Division of Research Programs, was sponsored by the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS); and the Office of the Vice President for Research. 

Faculty participants from UMBC and seven area colleges and universities learned about NEH grant and fellowship programs, and special initiatives. The Maryland Humanities Council also spoke about its grant opportunities. A “mock” evaluation panel, led by UMBC NEH Fellows Kate Brown (History), Thomas Field (MLLI), and Anna Shields (MLLI), discussed the NEH proposal review process. Grant application-writing strategies were also shared. 

"The Dresher Center was pleased to welcome the NEH to campus,” noted director Jessica Berman. “Workshops like these give a shot in the arm to researchers, who then begin to consider how their work fits into national priorities and initiatives. The workshop also showcased the strengths of UMBC faculty work in the humanities.”

With an annual program budget of $108 million, the NEH awards grants to individuals and groups of humanities researchers at universities, museums, libraries and archives, and other cultural and educational organizations. These highly competitive grants, which are evaluated by scholars and other experts in their field, have an average award rate of between seven and ten per cent per year. If denied, NEH encourages applicants to re-submit.

The Endowment also supports public programs and special initiatives, like the new “Common Good: The Humanities in the Public Square,” which seeks to bring humanities scholarship to public attention in new, significant ways. The NEH’s Office of Digital Humanities provides grants to projects that integrate new technologies in humanities research, as well as those that study digital culture from a humanistic perspective. 

NEH-funded research projects often cross the disciplinary boundaries between the arts, humanities, and social sciences. At UMBC, NEH fellowships and grants have been awarded to CAHSS faculty in the departments of Africana Studies; English; Geography and Environmental Systems; History; Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication; Political Science, Sociology-Anthropology, Theatre, and Visual Arts. 

For information on NEH programs, contact Rachel Brubaker, Assistant Director for Grants and Program Development, Dresher Center for the Humanities: rbruba1@umbc.edu. 

Photo (from left to right): Anna Shields, MLLI; Tom Field, MLLI; and Kate Brown, History

by Sierra Francis

This year, in an interdisciplinary collaboration with evolutionary biologist Timothy A. Mousseau (University of South Carolina), UMBC environmental historian Kate Brown was awarded the highly competitive Collaborative Research Fellowship by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). According to ACLS, “The ten teams of scholars selected for funding cross boundaries of discipline, methodology, and geography to undertake new research projects that will result in joint publications.” 

Both professors will co-author journal articles for the 30^th anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in April 2016, as well as a monograph that examines the relationship between scientific knowledge and the historical contexts of its production. 

Why is this significant? To this day there is still no consensus on the impact the accident had. The collaborative project between Brown and Mousseau will explore how both knowledge and ignorance of Chernobyl’s disastrous effects have been produced over the last thirty years. ACLS states, “The researchers will analyze the historical trajectory of the funding, production of three decades of scientific research on Chernobyl from 1986 to the present, and in Fukushima from 2011 on, in order to describe what is known and debated about the impact of long term, low dose exposure to ionizing radiation on plants, animals, and humans.” 

For more information please visit: https://www.acls.org/research/fellow.aspx?cid=0dd290b2-00a8-e411-9417-000c29879dd6

Congratulations Professor Brown!

HBO Seeks Diverse, Emerging Writers for HBOAccess Writing Fellowship

Professor Hayden elected to the newest class of OSA Fellow Members

Dr. L. Michael Hayden, UMBC Professor of Physics and Department Chair, was honored as a 2015 Fellow Member of The Optical Society (OSA), the leading professional society for researchers, industry leaders, and students focused on the science of light and founded in 1916. Dr. Hayden was one of 76 individuals recognized by OSA for their significant contributions to the advancement of optics and photonics. Dr. Hayden's professional interests involve the study of new materials, including nonlinear optical and electro-optic polymers, and their use in terahertz applications.

“This year’s class of OSA Fellows has offered prodigious service to OSA and the global optics community,” said OSA President Philip Bucksbaum. “The Optical Society is honored to offer recognition for their outstanding contributions and leadership in the optics and photonics profession.”

Reference: http://www.osa.org/en-us/awards_and_grants/fellow_members/recent_fellows/2015_fellows/, downloaded 3/2/15.

The achievements tool allows instructors to create opportunities for students to earn recognition for their accomplishments in courses.  Instructors can designate criteria for issuing rewards to students in the form of both badges and certificates. Students can see which rewards they have earned and what is required to receive additional rewards, providing insight into learning progression toward defined competencies (help.blackboard.com).   

The Instructional Technology Team will be holding a workshop on Blackboard Achievements on Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Click here  to RSVP and see event details.  

To learn more about using Achievements in Blackboard:

• visit our Blackboard Achievements FAQ page  

• open an RT Ticket  for any technical issues

• view the schedule of training workshops on the DoIT Group Page. 

•  contact the Instructional Technology Team with any questions or concerns