UMBC has announced the projects selected to receive grants in the 2022 - 2023 rounds of the Hrabowski Fund for Innovation competition, including two projects by staff in Student Affairs' Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion, and Belonging (i3b).The Hrabowski Fund supports initiatives to enhance teaching and learning at UMBC, with specific emphasis on innovative approaches to increase student success.

Assessing Sense of Belonging and Dialogue Skills in a FYS Course: This team is now led by i3b Acting Director Ciara Christian M.A. '18, Applied Sociology, and Ph.D. '22, Language, Literacy, and Culture. They will utilize data collected from a first-year seminar course that employs dialogue pedagogy to learn which practices contribute to first-year and transfer students' sense of belonging in the classroom. 

As a Minority Serving Institution, UMBC's students bring rich experiences from all corners of the globe. While the benefits of diversity are evident, students are not always well-equipped to engage meaningfully across differences. Additionally, stakeholders across campus have anecdotally noted several casualties of COVID in relationships--the ability to practice empathy and the inclination to dialogue across differences of identity, worldview, and lived experience. These casualties contribute to a lack of connection, making it imperative for UMBC to explore the ways in which students find, create, and experience a sense of belonging on campus.

LOTUS Mentoring Program--Leading Others to Thriving and Universal Success: Angelina Jenkins, i3b's assistant director, will develop, pilot, and assess an identity-based mentoring program targeted at supporting undergraduate Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi American (APIDA) students at UMBC. 

UMBC's current student population boasts broad diversity, but as a Minority Serving Institution, students of color make up about 52 percent of the student population. More specifically, 19 percent of UMBC's student population is made up of APIDA communities. In 2021, Michelle Obama celebrated UMBC as an Asian-Serving Institution, yet UMBC has no initiatives or interventions that center these populations. With a primary goal of building cultural confidence through peer-to-peer connections, APIDA students will increase their sense of belonging, build community connections, and have a deeper understanding of their racial and ethnic identity.

Learn more about i3b.