News from around campus
Grand Challenges: Newly-Launched Urban Equity Collaborative Hosts Open House
On Tuesday, October 3, 2023, the newly-launched Urban Equity Collaborative (UEC) at the University of Maryland welcomed members of the campus community and beyond to an open house, providing an opportunity to discuss the initiative's mission, vision, programming, and team.
New LGBTQ+ Equity Center director to focus on fostering community
Kristopher Oliveira brings experience and a passion for social justice to his new role as director of the University of Maryland’s LGBTQ+ Equity Center.
Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility (MIDA) Launches
The new Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility (MIDA) combines the expertise and passion of researchers, designers, developers and educators from multiple disciplines at the University of Maryland (UMD) with a united goal of making digital technologies accessible for all.
Party Queen, Behind the Scenes: Alum Highlights Black Chefs, Artists at NYC-Based Event Agency
“Most of these folks didn’t look like me,” said Mayfield. She decided to build her own event business—one that prioritized chefs of color and women-owned businesses and artists overlooked by traditional agencies.
A Community Makes Art to Honor Its History
The community-based art project was prompted by the City of College Park’s ongoing restorative justice work to renounce systemic racism and acknowledge and address the ways the city and other agencies have harmed Lakeland in the past.
Op/Ed: Affirmative Action Isn’t Hurting Asian Americans in College Admissions
The University of Maryland’s Janelle Wong, director of Asian American studies and a professor of American studies and of government and politics; and Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English, American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California, argue in a new Los Angeles Times essay the data don’t reveal evidence of an Asian American penalty in race-conscious college admissions.
Read "From Paper Craft Making to Google’s UX Design Team: Leveraging Creativity to Create Equitable Experiences" from the College of Information Studies
At Robert E. Lee’s Former Residence, Researcher Opens the Door to Overlooked Legacies
“You can’t talk about this house without talking about enslavement,” she said. “There is not a space among this mansion that an enslaved person did not touch.”
How a Handful of K-12 Teachers Doubled Racial Gap in Disciplinary Referrals
A small percentage of teachers is sending an outsized number of students to the principal's office—often for subjective offenses—exacerbating racial disparities in education, according to new research led by the University of Maryland.
UMD Receives $500K to Boost Number of Black, Latina and Native American Women in Computing
A nonprofit tech coalition has awarded the University of Maryland $500,000 to establish a program in the Iribe Initiative for Inclusion and Diversity in Computing (I4C) to expand the ranks of Black, Latina and Native American (BLNA) women who earn bachelor’s degrees in computing.