Halfway through her senior year at UMBC, Naomi Mburu M26, ’18, chemical engineering, was named the very first Rhodes Scholar in university history. So, following Commencement, she packed her bags and—after squeezing in a summer trip to Kenya—headed for jolly old England to make her mark on Oxford, the oldest English-speaking university in the world. Today, more than 3,500 miles from home in her pursuit of a doctorate in nuclear fusion, Mburu writes to share her thoughts on her first year at Oxford, and the ways she’s making herself right at home.

Roughly a year and a half ago, I received one of the biggest surprises I have ever received: the opportunity to attend the University of Oxford in England. As someone who has lived and attended elementary, middle, and high school all within 15 minutes of UMBC, I was itching to see the broader world and what it had to offer. Now, I have been living in Oxford for a little over six months and wanted to share some experiences and observations with my UMBC community.

There have been several wonderful and difficult moments woven throughout my experience thus far. Meeting hundreds of other Rhodes Scholars has been one of the most wonderful aspects of this experience, as the scholars come from many corners of the world and each have such interesting experiences and perspectives on life. Some of the moments I most enjoy at Oxford involve exchanging life stories with my fellow “Rhodies” and hearing my classmates passionately talk about topics that are close to their hearts.

Having the Rhodes community around me has definitely helped ease my adjustment to English life, but there have still been many times when I felt the loneliness of leaving home and starting off alone in a new country. I found that close community and friendship can sometime take quite a bit of time, patience, and effort to create, and maintaining old friendships across time zones can be a difficult thing to juggle. Luckily, there is so much fantastic technology like WhatsApp and FaceTime that allow me to easily connect with family and friends back home, and my family was able to visit me in April. There have also been some unexpected differences that I am learning to adjust to, the main being the weather and the sun setting at 3 p.m. in the winter.  

One of the biggest surprises of Oxford has been the structure of the Ph.D. compared to universities in America. For starters, here the Ph.D. is instead called the D.Phil., and in my department the D.Phil. process solely consists of an in-depth research project conducted over 3-4 years. There are no class or teaching requirements; the only responsibility is conducting research. This was quite a shift from my time at UMBC where I found myself balancing a full, pre-determined chemical engineering course load along with extracurriculars, teaching, and research. This has given me the chance to spend my first few months at Oxford really diving into my new field of nuclear fusion and thinking critically about what I want to get out of my Ph.D.

The increased freedom does come with added responsibility, however—students must decide for themselves what they want their D.Phil. experience to look like and proactively seek out those opportunities. Coming from a more structured undergraduate experience, this freedom was initially quite intimidating. However, I have seen how the flexibility of this new schedule has afforded me lots of time to try new things, travel, ponder, and simply do things that make me happy. Oxford has lots of great spots where I go to relax, read, or think, such as Christ Church Meadow, a beautiful field complete with cows which runs along the Thames River, or any of the beautiful college gardens.

Oxford and the Rhodes community are bursting with opportunities for students to “choose their own adventure.” The Rhodes House has been a central part of my experience thus far, as it serves as a meeting place for scholars past and present to plan events, study, and hang out. I have attended many scholar-led talks, musical performances, and even a mindfulness course there. The house also serves as the location for the annual Rhodes Retreat, which is a unique chance to spend a few days reflecting and discussing deep issues of life and purpose with your cohort.

In November, I helped organize an American Thanksgiving dinner for 130 people in the Rhodes House with a diverse team of people, some of whom had never experienced this type of holiday celebration. We had mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, homemade bread, turkey, a vegan option prepared by a scholar from Israel, and one of the Jamaican scholars even made jerk sauce for the turkey! Every year, the Rhodes House also sponsors scholar trips to places like Israel, China, Palestine, and Chile. I attended the Chile trip in March, where I joined a group of 11 other scholars on a nine-day backpacking expedition through Patagonia National Park.

Outside of the Rhodes House, I have attended talks at Oxford ranging from brain surgery to the evolution of language, tried new sports like rowing, and engaged in ancient traditions such as attending formal hall in the Harry Potter-style dining halls where we wear a mandatory black gown and stand for a formal Latin grace before the meal. And in March, the university supported me to attend a fusion-focused, week-long program that involved operating the world’s oldest functioning nuclear fusion reactor, located in Prague, Czech Republic, which was a great chance to meet other students in Europe interested in fusion and gain some hands-on experience with a fusion reactor.

Overall, my time at Oxford has been full of experiences that are continuing to shape the way I view the world and use my time. I look forward to all of the adventures the next year has in store!

–Naomi Mburu ’18

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Header image: Mburu finds the end of the rainbow during a Rhodes trip to Chile, which included a backpacking expedition through Patagonia National Park. All images courtesy of the author.

Job Title: Lantern Workshop Coordinator
Grade Levels: K-8th grade
Classification: Part-Time, Non-Exempt, Temporary Employee or Contractual
Reports to: Education Director
Compensation: $3600; $15/hour for 240 hours
Dates: June 17 to November 8, 2019

OVERVIEW

Hello Campus Partners,

Pride month is celebrated every year in June to give recognition to the LGBTQ+ community, their accomplishments, and their struggles. We celebrate in June to commemorate the Stonewall Rebellion, where members of the LGBTQ community retaliated against a violent police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. This is widely considered one of the most important moments in the LGBTQ+ movement. 

2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Rebellion, where WorldPride organizers are planning the biggest Pride event in history.

The following events are pride events happening in Maryland and around the east coast.

June 8th and 9th: Capital Pride in DC

June 15th and 16th: Baltimore Pride  || Charles Street

 **UMBC's LGBTQ Student Union will be marching in the Baltimore Pride Parade on the 15th**

June 22: Frederick Pride || Carroll Creek Linear Park

June 29: Howard County Pride || Centennial Park

June 29: Annapolis Pride || West Street

June 29th and 30th: World Pride in New York

More events listed on the flyer attached

On campus:

We celebrated The FIRST Multi-Stall All-Gender Restroom with the All Gender Restroom Steering Committee, the LGBTQ FSA, and the Women's Center on May 28.

June 11: Webinar training on LGBTQ financial and legislative challenges

June 28: SafeZone Training for Faculty and Staff

For this UMBC-trained historian, a walk in the park led her on a 10-year journey to publishing her book Finding Kate.

Driven by her passion for history with support from her family, Meryl Carmel, M.A. ’94, history, dedicated 10 years of her life on a mission to Finding Kate. Her journey, which led her to write a book about philanthropist Kate Macy Ladd, was something full of unexpected moments ultimately connecting her and her future book subject.

On an inauspicious Sunday, Carmel decided to take a stroll in a park, a former grand estate located several miles from her home. On her walk, she came across a kiosk which held pamphlets about the woman who built the estate—called Natirar—and opened a convalescent home for working women there in the early 1900s.

This information reignited an early flame of interest for Carmel. The story of an affluent heiress who experienced great loss and still chose to use her life to help others spoke to a childhood question Carmel had never quite let go of.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Carmel discovered her love of history early on and spent much time as she could reading historical biographies. Even at the age of seven, she quickly realized that there weren’t many biographies written about women. One book in particular stood out to her, a biography of Betsy Ross. As Carmel learned more about Betsy, her curiosity led her to wonder why it seemed that only men did great things that were written about in books.

Decades later, her graduate work in women’s studies and history would focus on the accomplishments and contributions of our nation’s women, helping to answer the questions she had when she was younger.

For Carmel, publishing her book Finding Kate, was the culmination of a decade of research that took her to three different countries. Along the way, she discovered that her life was more tangled with Ladd’s story than she could have ever imagined.

When Carmel moved from Maryland to New Jersey, she was intrigued to learn that the nearby estate, Natirar, was owned by the King of Morocco. That surprising piece of trivia was only the tip of the iceberg of what she would soon learn.

Who exactly was the woman whose house was eventually bought by royalty? Ladd was raised in a Quaker family, her values steeped in charity and doing good for others. As an outpouring of her generosity, she opened a convalescent home for women called Maple Cottage on her 1,000-acre estate.This home was established in a comfortable setting where working women could stay for free for up to three weeks, to recover from an illness, surgery, or work-a-day weariness. Ladd saw a need to give women an opportunity to restore their health in a time when there were few similar options. What had inspired this act of philanthropy?

To answer this question, Carmel used typical historical methodology, such as consulting census records and secondary sources. But she also came up with a back door approach: tracking down some of distant descendants and descendants of her past employees. Carmel successfully located about 10 individuals with a connection to Ladd all over the country and even in Ireland, so she began traveling and gathering more information.

While many of the living relatives knew they had a very wealthy and generous ancestor, Carmel met one 92-year-old woman who actually knew Ladd.  This connection allowed Carmel to borrow many primary sources such as old photographs and boxes of random things, including old journals, diaries, and memorabilia. What Carmel didn’t expect to find along the way was her own personal tie to Ladd.

Along the way, Carmel discovered the name of the nurse who managed Maple Cottage. The long deceased nurse was buried in Meridian, New York, a place where Carmel and her husband had once spent a summer. It was the home of an old friend from her days as a student in Wisconsin.

It hit Carmel that the nurse and her friend—one buried in Meridian, one alive in Meridian—shared the same last name: Dudley. With a bit of investigating, Carmel discovered that Kate Macy Ladd’s nursing supervisor, Estelle Dudley, was actually the great-great aunt of Carmel’s friend Milli Dudley Lake. This came as a complete surprise to Lake.

This fortuitous coincidence was an exciting breakthrough for Carmel. Her luck increased even more when her former roommate uncovered a ledger book that belonged to her great-great aunt. It was filled with recipes for the food prepared for the guests at Maple Cottage. In that moment of human connection, Carmel knew that no matter what, she was determined to write her book.

Along the way, she learned that Ladd also created a foundation dedicated to health, the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, which still operates in New York City. In addition, a greatly enlarged version of her convalescent home operated in her mansion house for 34 years after her death. More than 22,000 women received free state-of-the-art care at what was called the Kate Macy Ladd Convalescent Home.

Carmel was able to tell Ladd’s story, she says, because she followed through with her childhood curiosity of the role America’s women have played since the country’s founding by earning a master’s degree in history from UMBC. During her time at UMBC, Carmel continued to be a full time mom to two little boys while her husband was a professor at University of Maryland, College Park. She found time to work as a teaching assistant, and often sought guidance from her advisor Dr. Jean R. Soderlund, one of her very few female professors. Carmel remembers Professor Soderlund as a meticulous researcher and an inspiring woman, who helped guide her through her graduate program with excellent grades, fond memories, and ultimately the ability to see her research through to publishing a book.

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To find out more about Carmel’s journey and the little known story of Kate Macy Ladd, please check out her website.

All photos, including the header image, courtesy of Meryl Carmel.