Hello, fellow Overwatchers.
This weekend we will be having an in-person meeting!!!
Meeting Info
Last Wednesday was the second ever International Pronouns Day, a day created in 2018 that “seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace,” according to its website. But despite efforts being made by activists to encourage or mandate the correct use of transgender and nonbinary people’s pronouns, University of Maryland, Baltimore County students continue to be misgendered both by their peers and by university employees.
It is not that UMBC has implemented zero initiatives to protect trans people. According to Jess Myers, director of the Women’s Center, efforts have been made to make sure students’ preferred names appear on certain university documents like rosters, and one’s preferred name can be changed in the self-service area of myUMBC. Myers also told The Retriever via email that a similar function is being developed “to give students the similar option to update their pronouns in the self-service area once Enrollment Management rolls out the updated PeopleSoft system.”
However, while these initiatives are effective for communicating students’ preferred names and pronouns, there seem to be few policies, procedures or initiatives in place to assure that once pronouns are shared, they will be used.
Mason Blacker, a sophomore theatre studies major, has struggled with this firsthand. In the theatre department, which Blacker characterizes as a space that is generally very inclusive of trans and nonbinary people, teachers usually know to ask their students for their pronouns. But despite knowing that Blacker uses they/them pronouns, one of their professors has been misgendering them for two semesters.
“It’s so refreshing to come to school and have the first day of class be, ‘everyone share your name, your pronouns, your major and a fun fact,’” Blacker explains. “[But] then, the next day, you’re still misgendered.”
The effects of being misgendered by a professor reverberate even beyond the classroom. According to Blacker, when other students hear a professor use the wrong pronouns to refer to them, those students start using those same incorrect pronouns.
Ari Page, a senior english major and a copy editor at The Retriever, has had similar experiences. He recalls two separate instances where a professor sought him out to ask his pronouns, only to continuously get them wrong. “What just really grinds my gears,” Page says, “is that I didn’t ask them. I never sought them out and said ‘these are my pronouns.’ They sought me out to ask my pronouns and then don’t use them.”
Moreover, his professors seem to know when they are misgendering him; they will apologize, promise to try harder next time and then do it again the next day. “UMBC should have … a way to tell someone if a professor repeatedly gets pronouns wrong or is weird and offensive about trans people,” he says.
In fact, UMBC has no such process, at least not for that specific situation. According to Myers, the correct route to take if a professor is not respecting a student’s pronouns is to “consult with the Title IX coordinator to discuss their needs and explore resolutions as this issue could be seen as a gender discrimination issue as it relates to one’s gender identity.”
Bobbie Hoye, UMBC’s Title IX coordinator, agreed, though she did not clarify whether or not such a report had ever been made to the Title IX office. She explained via email that if such a situation were to arise, she “would speak with the Reporting Party to obtain additional information regarding the issue and the context,” such as whether the professor had been informed of the student’s correct pronouns before the incident and if the student believed the misgendering was intentional. She added that “based on the specific context and consistent with how the student would want the issue addressed and based on the assessment of the incident(s), the issue could be addressed informally and/or formally.”
For Blacker, being misgendered by their professor is not a big enough stressor for them to consider reporting it. However, if the misgendering seemed to be intentional or malicious, they would take their complaint to the Title IX office.
Page, on the other hand, would be entirely unwilling to go to the Title IX office to report being misgendered. “It takes way too long to get [complaints] through Title IX. By the time I figured out the process, by the time they respond, by the time it gets resolved, I will have graduated ten years ago,” he says. Furthermore, despite being a senior, Page says he had not previously known that the Title IX office was the correct venue for a complaint of this nature.
Though UMBC has made and continues to make efforts to help trans and nonbinary students inform their professors of their names and pronouns, there seems to be no way of regulating whether or not professors use them — beyond reporting them to the Title IX office, which seems like an incomplete and imperfect solution to some.
“I just think that some people would feel more safe if there was an actual, written policy,” Blacker says. “I think a policy would be like open arms to safety.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that preferred names appear on transcripts. Preferred names do not appear on official transcripts.
]]>The community at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County is known for being international. Students hail from about 100 countries in any given academic year, according to Associate Vice Provost for International Education Dr. David Di Maria. But lately, faculty and staff at UMBC have wondered how the institution can be more intentional with how it interacts with the world. This topic has quickly found its way into most of the university’s major plans and became the main focus of the university retreat before the start of the semester.
The International Education Services (IES) at UMBC is the chief departmental contact for any international aspect of the university, so its staff is well-trained in helping international students succeed at UMBC and helping students succeed abroad. Still, this rapid push for a comprehensive plan to interact with the world at an institutional level is fairly new to them. “My understanding of the initiative is that the university wants to create a global presence and bring a wider variety of students/scholars and researchers to the university,” Arthur Brown, the Program Management Specialist of IES, wrote in an emailed comment to The Retriever. “UMBC is ensuring that its students, faculty, and staff are prepared to succeed in an ever-increasing global environment.”
This desire to analyze the university’s international ties and learn better strategies for global interactions prompted the university to create the role of Associate Vice Provost for International Education in 2017. Di Maria has been in this position ever since, which he describes as “help[ing] the institution to analyze ways that we could improve coordination of international activities.”
Di Maria’s chief responsibilities focus on the ‘internationalization’ of the university. “Internationalization… is really the international, global, intercultural dimensions of teaching, research and service… really how UMBC is engaging with the world,” Di Maria said. Once he learns more about just what kinds of interactions UMBC faculty and students have with the world, he hopes to create methods for coordinating the interactions better. “Say we have two departments operating in India, how do we get those two departments, if they’re in different colleges, to even know what the other is doing?”
“Whether you [students] stay in Maryland and work for companies that are engaging in exports and trade, or for the federal government,” having a global perspective is essential for college graduates, Di Maria said. “Are students exposed to authors [and] viewpoints from outside the US and from other cultures?”
Di Maria and his team began discussing how to ensure UMBC students receive this type of education last August, just over one year ago. He explained that there is one overarching steering committee for the university and six sub-committees under it: education abroad; internationalization of the curriculum, co-curriculum and learning outcomes; international partnerships; international student recruitment and retention; internationalization of research; and a global operations group. The findings of these sub-committees will be published in what Di Maria calls a ‘self-study’.
The various subgroups met for months and pulled data on the types of interactions faculty, staff and students have with the world. “It was kind of analyzing what the current state [of internationalization at UMBC] is, and starting to learn about what the industry standards are, and best practices for the future,” Di Maria said. The committees looked at a wide variety of statistics to understand the current state. “For example, we looked at two years of travel data. Where are faculty, staff and students traveling outside of the US?”
Before the start of the semester, Di Maria and his team used the faculty and staff retreat to share the initial findings of the study with the campus community. 82 faculty and staff “engaged across seven committees” to learn some of the findings of the study and discuss how this information can be implemented in the classroom.
In addition to analyzing how the community currently interacts with the world, the IES team also brainstormed methods for encouraging more students to study abroad. This included looking at financial barriers as well as academic challenges. “When is the best time to study abroad in a given major? What are the best courses to take abroad? Where should you study in terms of an institution so that the credits will transfer and you’ll still make progress in your degree?”
With the retreat over and the concept of internationalization fresh in the minds of faculty and staff, Di Maria says the next step is to release the self-study to the campus community, which should be released as a five-year plan by next summer. “It’s not that it’s a separate plan from the university’s strategic plan, but that every action aligns and really helps to move forward the strategic goals and objectives of the university,” he said. “So it’s not that it’s something new, it’s just looking at the international dimensions of what we’ve already said is important.”
]]>9:00 am – 4:00 pm
(Continental Breakfast – 8:00 am)
University of Maryland, Baltimore
University of Maryland BioPark, Discover Auditorium
801 W. Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
Course Presenters:
Denise Clark, Associate Vice President for Research Administration – University of Maryland College Park
Ann Holmes, Assistant Dean, Administration and Finance – University of Maryland College Park
Course Description:
The world of research
administration is constantly evolving and technology plays an important
role in that evolution. The introduction of the audit approach called
“Data Analytics” requires we take a deeper dive into our internal
policies, processes, controls, and systems of record to establish what
is adequate “source documentation” for the various transactions we
review and approve. Does your signature constitute your confirmation
that your institution has adequate internal controls in place? Where
have we come from, and where are we going?
This workshop will look at the importance of establishing, implementing and assessing your internal controls as they relate to transactional level detail and philosophical approaches to meeting the reasonableness, allowability, and allocability tests, as well as research administration as a whole. Are internal controls only related to financial transactions? What about the rest of the regulatory environment? How do we implement risk assessment approaches and provide tools for non-financially related aspects of research administration? Internal controls: who is in control and what are the ramifications of a lack thereof? Come explore these issues with us!
Learning Objectives:
Prerequisites: Working knowledge of the Uniform Guidance and over three years’ experience in research administration.
Who Should Attend?
In Howard County, a battle is raging on that is dividing parents, teachers and students. The source of the commotion? A plan to redraw district lines with the opening of its 13th high school in order to relieve overcrowding and diversify its schools. Unfortunately, many are angered at the decision, reasons including their children attending school farther away than their initial zoned school.
Students are complaining that they’ll have to get up earlier, and since buses will have to drive longer distances, they’ll make a bad environmental impact. And then you can’t forget the parents who are adamant against their child attending school with an increase in minorities: “Blacks ruin Columbia. Not all blacks. The urban blacks.”
Let’s break this down. According to a report from Fox45 local news, “School officials want to move more than 7,000 students to different schools to help ease overcrowding.” But many are opposing this for different reasons. For students who are concerned about having to wake up longer or drive long distances, there are some solutions. Manage your time, or drop extracurriculars that eat up too much of your time. Second, try and carpool if that will save gas, or bike to school.
But here’s the thing: This redistricting process has the power to change students’ lives — minority lives, to be exact. Howard County has one of the best school systems in the nation. So, naturally, any parent would want to send their child to a school in the county. Redrawing district lines will open up new opportunities for minorities. Unfortunately, the situation in Howard County gives a glimpse into what segregation looks like in America today.
Although Congress outlawed segregation years ago, that does not mean that its effects are not felt today. Here’s the thing, after segregation ended and students of color tried to integrate into white schools, many white people were furious. So they packed up their belongings, and moved out of the city areas towards the rural areas, creating suburbs. With a majority of students being racial minorities, that meant that there were fewer resources available for them to succeed, funding was reallocated to the suburbs and urban schools were far behind than their white counterparts.
This is why the schools in Howard County — and, by extension, around the country — that have a white majority are extremely successful, have a lot of funding, and make high school graduates prepared for higher education. And you know what? It’s time to change that narrative. Now is the perfect time to do so through the Howard County redistricting battle.
To those parents who think that African-Americans, or other minorities, don’t belong in the new school simply because of their skin color: How dare you think that your child is too precious, so much more important, that they’ll be ‘tainted’ by a more diverse student population. If I were your child, I would be ashamed to have you as my parent. I hope your children are ashamed of the many racist letters you all have sent to the Howard County school board.
At the end of the day, white parents complain about the idea of their kids attending school with black students and other minorities. But, by white parents leaving neighborhoods because other races are moving in, they are reestablishing segregation. This means that schools will most likely have poor resources and are not preparing their students for college. These parents create the very same school they complain about.
Now imagine if no whites had moved out when minorities moved in. Then racial integration would have been established, and with white students in the mix, funding would remain in the urban communities. That way, all of the students would be prepared for a good college career by the time they graduate.
I think that the redistricting process should go through. Many will be upset, and I’m sure a lot of things will have to change in people’s daily lives that they find inconvenient. These people will find a way and move on with their lives. In the meantime, underprivileged minorities will get the best education possible. In the future, we’ll look back on this and focus on how far we have progressed when it comes to providing equal education for all.
]]>Cold weather and high winds didn’t prevent UNICEF Club’s most recent bake sale in the Breezeway. Freezing, they set up their table and organized their merchandise: succulents, socks and sweets. Their blue flag depicting the official UNICEF logo of a mother and child surrounded by olive leaves threatened to leap off the table it was taped to with each gust of wind. In fact, several of the patterned socks the club was selling for five dollars took flight and had to be chased down by the club’s members. The UNICEF Club’s members willingly put up with all of the weather’s inconveniences so they can fundraise for the organization they align themselves with.
The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, better known as UNICEF, was created through the United Nations Grand Assembly in 1946 to provide emergency aid to children and mothers affected by World War II. Seven years later, the organization changed its name to the United Nations Children’s Fund after getting a permanent spot in the United Nations to advocate for the long-term needs of children.
UNICEF runs a program called UNICEF Clubs which allows college students to advocate for the voices of children within their own communities. There are only two colleges in Maryland with a registered UNICEF Club, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County has one of them.
“UNICEF is really transparent,” the club’s vice president Celena Dang, a junior double majoring in biology and psychology, explained why she is so supportive of the organization. “86 percent of their funding goes to their cause, which is higher than most [charities].” According to UNICEF’s website, the remaining 11 percent goes to administration and fundraising costs.
“We didn’t do that many events,” Fatimah Shaalan, a junior majoring in financial economics and math, recounted about the beginning years of the club. “But it got better. Now we’ve added a new board position, event coordinator, just to have more things on campus and raise awareness of our club.” Shaalan joined as a freshman when the UNICEF Club was only two years old. She began serving as the club’s president this semester. Her role includes overlooking the meetings, fostering connections with different organizations on campus and raising the awareness of the club and its goals.
One of the events that the UNICEF Club oversaw this semester was the International Day of Peace celebration on September 23. They handed out short positive messages written on colorful pinwheels and had activities such as cookie decorating to peak passing students’ interest. Later this semester, they plan to host a cultural fashion show to embrace diversity and to engage with more students on campus.
The club’s major event for this semester is their annual Masquerade Gala, which was held on Oct. 18 in the Skylight Lounge. Last year’s Gala had a small turn-out, which Shaalan credits to a miscommunication between the club and Student Government Association (SGA). This year, however, SGA provided funding for the Gala, which enabled the UNICEF Club to smoothly organize the event. The UNICEF club created 120 free tickets for UMBC students that were all claimed before the club even had time to promote the event. “I’m really scared that it was just a problem with the website and no one will actually show up,” Shaalan joked the day before the Gala.
In addition to events dedicated to raising awareness and funds, the UNICEF Club focuses on volunteering in UMBC’s local community. This year, the UNICEF Club worked in collaboration with the Shriver Center to create a volunteer mentorship program at the Children’s Home, a residential care facility in Catonsville for kids aged 2 through 18. Members build bonds with foster children and offer help and guidance.
The UNICEF Club plans to connect to form more connections on campus to raise awareness and spark change. “We are always trying to find ways to be more engaging with our members and other student organizations,” said Shaalan.
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