Looking for internship or research opportunities? Want to learn more about a career field or industry? Learning how to network can yield great results, even in the virtual world!

What is networking?

Simply put, the process of making personal and professional connections and building those relationships over time in order to either (1) advance your career knowledge or (2) help you find opportunities related to areas of interest.

When and where should I network?

Networking can occur at any time anywhere -- family gatherings, doctor appointments, conversations with other students at social events, academic department gatherings, or even in the grocery check-out line. The best place to start is by connecting with people you already know. Your network already includes family, friends, neighbors, UMBC faculty and staff, and colleagues.

Can I network now? In a pandemic?? 

Yes!  You can reach out to anyone you know – virtually! 

Although we are in a virtual world, UMBC students also have many opportunities to interact with faculty, staff, alumni, and employers. The Career Center hosts a wide variety of virtual events throughout the academic year ranging from intimate, industry-specific employer panels to large career fairs. See our calendar of events.

How do I start?

The easiest way to begin is with a brief email explaining your motivation for reaching out.  Be sure to attach your resume. To structure the conversation, you can follow the Informational Interview guide – which will help you with questions to consider asking.

Join a student organization to build your network!

Here at UMBC there is wide variety of student organizations!  Whether it is cultural organization, a student group, a living learning community—those bonds begin now and continue long after you graduate. Explore the many affinity groups and clubs of interest.

TIP OF THE DAY:

“Networking can open many doors for students by providing opportunities to gain information, useful skills, and perhaps even your next position… but it can be challenging for those of us with more introverted personalities. The simplest way to start things off, either in person or via email is with a question. The question could be about what their job is, the talk or lecture they just gave, or other interesting item you’d like to know about.”  Cesar E. Perez-Gonzalez, Ph.D., Training Director, NIH, National Eye Institute

READ/WATCH THIS:

• Article: Tips for Successful Networking
• Video: Micro Session: Perfect Your Pitch (10 minutes)

WHAT’S MY NEXT STEP?

Now that you know the many benefits of building a robust network, consider one of the following next steps:

• Join at least one UMBC student organization of your choice to start building connections with those who share similar interests.
• Identify someone in your network and craft an email, requesting an informational interview.
• Craft a 30-second commercial to use for your next informal encounter!

Get the scoop on exciting internship opportunities! Follow the Career Center on Twitter, where we’ll be highlighting amazing internships across a variety of industries all week!

Join affiliate artist in harp Jacqueline Pollauf for a mini-concert of the music of Sergiu Natra.

Sergiu Natra (b. 1924) is a contemporary composer who has a special affinity for the harp and has written extensively for the instrument in solo and chamber settings. His music is dramatic, featuring strong rhythmic motifs and a wide variety of colors and articulations. The program will feature:

• Prayer
• Selections from A Book of Hebrew Songs
• Sonatina​

Jacqueline Pollauf is known for her sensitive performances, dedication to teaching, and beautifully-crafted compositions. She has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Eleventh World Harp Congress and the National Gallery of Art. Her most recent recording, Beau Soir, with cellist Dariusz Skoraczewski, was lauded as “utter perfection” (The Harp Column). Glissando Exercises, Pollauf’s most recent publication, is third in a series of exercise books for the harp. Her compositional works are available through Lyon and Healy Publications, Vanderbilt Music, Harp Column Music, and Oakway Studios.
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Pollauf is the director of the Baltimore Harp Camp, and is on the faculties of the Baltimore School for the Arts and UMBC. Performances and instructional videos can be found on her highly regarded YouTube channel. He holds Master and Bachelor of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory.

Visit here to join this event on Pollauf’s live stream on Facebook.

What this means for you

From October 8, 2020 5:01 pm until October 18, 2020at 8:00 am, the ORPC will be closed. No paper IRB related submissions or actions will be accepted to allow for Kuali IRB data migration. Responses to IRB protocol related questions and concerns may be delayed. We appreciate your patience as we complete the Kuali IRB data migration.

Next Steps 

Go to the Kuali at UMBC information page to access the current version of the Kuali for Protocols IRB User Guide. Please review the steps to prepare for submission of new protocols or other protocol actions beginning October 18, 2020.

Kuali IRB Website

Keep an eye on the IRB website.

Questions and Assistance

The ORPC staff are ready to assist and service IRB submissions through Kuali. We have posted virtual question/answer sessions on our myUMBC page to any questions you may have throughout the initial phase of Kuali IRB implementation. Of course, contact us at compliance@umbc.edu with other questions and concerns.

This may be of interest to some...

An invitation to a virtual conversation on curatorial self-censorship as they celebrate the publication of Curating Under Pressure: International perspectives on negotiating conflict and upholding integrity, Routledge (2020). 

Scheduled for 12 p.m. EDT Wed 21 Oct and hosted by the National Coalition Against Censorship in New York.

 

https://ncac.org/news/virtual-book-launch-curating-under-pressure

 

This blogpost was a collaborative effort between all members of the Women’s Center staff team. A majority of this post was written by student staff members.

Today is Indigenous People’s Day. Some may continue to claim this as “Columbus Day” but to celebrate Columbus is to celebrate colonialism, mass genocide, racism, and the (both historic and modern) oppression of Native Americans and all of the indigenous people.

To honor Indigenous People’s Day and the community it centers, the Women’s Center is sharing how we try to honor and acknowledge the Indigenous roots of our area, the land that UMBC occupies, as well as the long history of universities benefitting from the violent seizure of Native lands. 

In doing so, we would like to start by sharing the land recognition statement that we use (with thank yous to the Office of Equity and Inclusion, Dresher Center, and Dr. Ashley Minner from American Studies for sharing the newly official* land recognition statement with us, as well):

UMBC was established upon the land of the Piscataway and Susquehannock peoples. Susquehannocks ceded this land and, over time, citizens of many more Indigenous nations have come to reside in this region. 

For those residing in the area: this is not our land; we occupy it. Colonialism has long undergirded systemic violence faced by Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color.

We humbly offer our respects to all past, present, and future indigenous people connected to this place.

*as this blog was being written, UMBC released an official land recognition statement that is linked here

Full disclosure: as the Women’s Center has learned more about Indigenous peoples, our land recognition statement evolves. We also recognize that a simple statement is not enough. Land recognition can simply be a performative step of solidarity, so that is why we seek to learn and build on this work. And also why we hope you’ll read on.

What is land recognition and why is it important?

A land recognition is a formal statement that recognizes and respects Indigenous Peoples as the traditional stewards of a region. It recognizes the enduring relationship that exists between Indigenous people and their traditional territories. 

Recognizing the land where we reside is an expression of gratitude and appreciation to those whose territory you reside on. It’s a process of honoring the Indigenous people who have been living and working on the land from time immemorial (in spite of the notion that Indigenous people are a purely historical population/that Native Americans “don’t exist”). Land recognition is also a way of respecting Indigenous people’s inherent kinship beliefs when it comes to the land as these beliefs were restricted and stigmatized for so long.

Ultimately, land recognition is a process of:

• addressing invisibility
• honoring Indigenous peoples
• raising critical consciousness
• building affinity to create alliances                    

How have universities benefitted from the expulsion and exploitation of Indigenous peoples?

In order to explain how specifically universities have benefitted from colonialism, we look to the 19th century and the oft lionized President Abraham Lincoln. In 1862, Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, which freely distributed “public domain lands” (scare quotes explained below) to universities as seed capital for the creation of “land-grant universities” or LGUs (more appropriately called, “land-GRAB universities”). These lands then raised funds for fledgling colleges, or LGUs, across the nation. The land gifted through the Morrill Act was land seized or ceded by Native Americans to the US government. Although many treaties were created in order to legally and officially exchange land ownership, almost all of these treaties were products of coercion and exploitation of the continued systemic degradation of Indigenous people.

Once the government gifted these land parcels to institutions of higher education, the lands were then either sold to speculators to generate university endowments or universities became speculators themselves on the lands given to them. 

All told, the land-grabs, when adjusted for inflation, were worth about half a billion dollars. 

Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone, “Land-Grab Universities,” High Country News (2020)

In other words, it’s not enough to recognize the land that universities are built on; we must also recognize the land from which universities build a significant profit. In fact, the grants were as big or bigger than major cities, and were often located hundreds or even thousands of miles away from their beneficiaries (this is exemplified by our very own University of Maryland; more below). 

Campuses in the US are inherently built on stolen land, but they are also built by stolen land. 

To see how your college or university directly benefits from land grabs, you can see Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone’s interactive map of the United States and the way the Morrill Act parceled away Indigenous lands.

A university to highlight (in the case of the University System of Maryland) would be the University of Maryland, which, as you can see via Lee and Ahtone’s data, benefitted from 1,456 Indigenous land parcels across the US totaling 202,971 acres.

It can be difficult to imagine how big that much land is, so in terms universities might particularly appreciate that’s:

• 156,132 football fields
• 37,587 Capital One Fields (with a combined capacity of 37,587,222 people social distancing at 5 square feet)
• 152 UMD College Park campuses 
• 406 UMBC campuses
• 3.5 Baltimores

Tribal nations who originated on this violently ceded land include the Chippewa, Ottawa, Kansas, Great and Little Osage, Oto, Missouri, Sioux (Wahpeton and Sisseton Band), Sioux (Medewakanton and Wahpekuta), Chippewa of the Mississippi and Lake Superior, and the Omaha.

Are land recognitions enough?

No.

As we said at the top, land recognition, if not backed by research and a commitment to learning, is performative activism at best. So… what can we do?

Well, we can’t fix the history of land-grab universities. Unless we not only give back stolen land (land which is now used for grocery stores, gas stations, warehouses, entire neighborhoods, baseball stadiums, and cemeteries among other things), but commit to reparations, we can’t fix anything. As Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy is quoted: “The more work that we do with decolonization and reconciliation, the more you start to realize there is no reconciliation without the return of stolen land.”

The more work that we do with decolonization and reconciliation, the more you start to realize there is no reconciliation without the return of stolen land.

Dr. Cutcha Risling Baldy

The first step to doing better, is by acknowledging and understanding this history. This is a teeny tiny step, but it’s a step. The information above is by no means complete and it is also mostly from the two-year reporting of Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone of High Country News. You should read the full article here.

Beyond reading and learning (many more resources below), the Women’s Center student staff has also generated some good ideas that we’re ready and willing to share.

Suggestions for going beyond land recognitions

For UMBC in particular:

• Conduct outreach toward the Piscataway Conoy tribe through their Tribal Council and discuss how to make a more readily available path to higher education for those who we owe our campus to 
• More research on UMBC’s Indigenous student populations, especially in differentiating American Indian and Alaskan Native (AIAN), Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI), and other Indigenous students
• Address the alienation Indigenous students may feel rather than simply asking them to participate in “diversity” initiatives. 
• Implement a Land Recognition policy for all school-funded events
• Include a Land Recognition on all UMBC affiliated websites (we are one step closer as of today with an official UMBC land recognition statement)
• Whenever possible, discuss how programming, curriculum may relate to Indigenous people and their history and interests
• Structure classes to allow students to explore non-normative pedagogies such as those informed by Indigenous cultures and scholars
• Redirect profits made from Indigenous land to supporting the education of indigenous students
• Going beyond awareness of the injustice and actually doing work to challenge the injustice. This means working with the Piscataway Conoy Tribal Council to understand their specific wishes on this. 
• Work with offices like Initiatives for Identity, Inclusion, and Belonging (I3B) and/or the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) to create intentional space for Indigenous identifying students on UMBC’s campus
• Support, amplify, and create platforms for Indigenous voices
• Create large-scale events, campaigns celebrating Indigenous People’s Day
• Highlight and encourage research that identifies the inequities Indigenous students face 

Generally speaking

• Research! Get your stories from Indian Country Today, High Country News, Native Lens, or other Indigenous media platforms
• Learn about Indigenous studies through more than just a historical lens
• Whenever possible, discuss how programming, curriculum may relate to Indigenous people and their history and interests
• Structure classes to allow students to explore non-canonical pedagogies such as those informed by Indigenous cultures and scholars
• Redirect profits made from Indigenous land to supporting the education of indigenous students
• Ask Indigenous students what they need to be best supported 
• Create more programming that specifically centers Indigineity 
• Support Indigenous organizations by donating your time and/or money
  • Baltimore American Indian Center       
  • Native American LifeLines, Inc.  
  • Piscataway Conoy Tribe      
  • National Museum of the American Indian 
• Support Indigenous-led grassroots change movements and campaigns
  • Start here: Support local government initiatives to officially change “Columbus Day” to “Indigenous People’s Day” OR call your local representative and ask them why your state is still celebrating Columbus Day. Not sure? Here’s a list from 2019 of states that have made a change.
• Commit to returning land (local, state, federal governments around the world are currently returning land to Indigenous people)
• Support, amplify, and create platforms for Indigenous voices
• Create large-scale events, campaigns celebrating events like Indigenous People’s Day and National Native American Heritage Month (coming in November!!)

Resources:

• LandGrabU.org
• UMBC statement on land recognition
• Indigenous Land Acknowledgement Information
• “Land-grab universities” by Robert Lee and Tristan Ahtone, High Country News
• Cornell University and Indigenous Dispossession Project
• Beyond the Land Acknowledgement: College “LAND BACK” or Free Tuition for Native Students, Hack the Gates
• Why Land Acknowledgments Matter by Chip Colwell
• Why capitalize “Indigenous”? by Christine Weeber
• Northwestern University Land Acknowledgement
• Native Lens
• Native Appropriations
• All My Relations Podcast by Matika Wilbur and Adrienne Keene
• Surviving Disappearance, Re-Imagining & Humanizing Native Peoples: Matika Wilbur at TEDxSeattle
• The Anti-Indigenous Handbook By Tristan Ahtone, Lorena Allam, Leilani Rania Ganser, Kalen Goodluck, Brittany Guyot, and Anna V. Smith

UMBC’s Kindel Nash, associate professor of education, and colleagues have produced one of the first books to address culturally sustaining literacy education in early childhood, Toward Culturally Sustaining Teaching (Routledge 2020). The book shares findings from the first cohort of the Professional Dyads of Culturally Relevant Teaching (PDCRT) program. This program pairs educators who are interested in developing culturally relevant literacy practices in diverse pre-K, kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms. 

The PDCRT program is supported by the Early Childhood Education Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English, and purposefully elevates the work of teachers and researchers of color. All participants in the cohort central to the book, with the exception of Nash, were educators and researchers of color. 

Nash edited the book with Crystal Polite Glover, associate professor of early childhood education at Winthrop University in South Carolina, and Bilal Polson, principal at Northern Parkway school in Long Island, NY, who also participated in PDCRT.

Defining culturally sustaining teaching

Culturally sustaining pedagogy, Nash explains, focuses on countering structures that systematically erase the culture and language of communities of color. 

Nash notes that widely adopted practices in early childhood education view communities of color from a highly problematic deficit mindset. “Culturally sustaining teaching is a conscious decision to teach and work within communities of color from an asset mindset,” she says. This framework has been widely researched in secondary education but, Nash notes, little has been done in early childhood until now. 

H. Samy Alim and Django Paris are recognized for developing foundational scholarship in this field. Alim is the David O. Sears Presidential Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences and professor of anthropology and African American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the founding director of the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Language. Paris is the inaugural James A. and Cherry A. Banks Professor of Multicultural Education and director of the Banks Center for Educational Justice in the University of Washington College of Education.

“Culturally sustaining pedagogy is about revitalizing and transforming, about ultimately undoing schooling as we know it to return to and imagine anew the ways our communities have sustained and must sustain each other, our society, our planet,” Paris writes in the book’s foreword. “As we continue to build together, I remain grateful for projects like this book, which are part of our collective effort to sustain the world we need, with our ancestors, our young ones, our elders, forward.”

Sustaining success for all

The book provides in-depth examples from the experiences of the first PDCRT cohort, which paired four highly successful early childhood educators with researchers across the U.S. The researchers found that the teachers they were paired with were already applying this framework without previous training. 

Patricia Piña, a dual-language early childhood educator in Kansas City, Missouri, was Nash’s PDCRT partner. Piña valued and connected the culture and language of her predominantly Latinx classroom by using different culturally sustaining teaching strategies. She created bilingual books and made assessments language-accessible. Among other strategies, she also used translanguaging daily—communicating concepts and ideas via different cultural frameworks in a student’s native language. 

Piña’s students experienced great success developing age-expected skills in English and Spanish across all subjects. However, as successful as Piña was as an educator, she ultimately left teaching after a young child who spoke Spanish in the classroom was referred for special education services after being tested in English. This experience had unfortunately happened many times over her teaching career.

Tackling an inequitable system

Piña’s experience is one many teachers of color have to face. They must not only be their own advocate in a profession dominated by white teachers and administrators, but they must also often be the only advocate for students of color, Nash says. It is something she has witnessed frequently in eight years of research with high-performing urban teachers. 

“The dominant ideas about schooling are connected to Western individualistic notions of learning that broadly support how White American students learn,” explains Nash. “It is a very inequitable system.” 

Nash feels that there is still a long journey to successfully implement culturally sustaining teaching in the U.S. education system, particularly for White teachers who primarily work with other White educators. Further, she explains that it is not enough for White teachers to have close relationships with people of color. She notes, “White educators must unlearn the deep feelings about communities of color they have been socialized to have in a system built on slavery and White supremacy.”

Unlearning racism

Nash hopes educators understand that this is why recruitment and retention of educators of color benefits everyone. “White educators and researchers will not be able to apply culturally sustaining teaching if they are only working with other White teachers in reflecting on their Whiteness,” says Nash. 

Her book is an example of the impact teachers can have when they commit to this work. “This includes not only changing how we teach,” she says, “but whom we teach with.”

Banner image: Kindel Nash. Photo by Arionna Gonsalves ’19, media and communication studies and modern languages, linguistics, and intercultural communication.