COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Lead: Rebecca Damari, director of research at the NFLC

Description: Through a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) in the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) at the University of Maryland is developing a comprehensive, research-based professional development program for world language teachers, with a particular focus on the needs of community colleges and instructors of less commonly taught languages.  

The program, “Professionals in Education Advancing Research and Language Learning” (PEARLL), received special designation from the Department of Education to become a Title VI Language Resource Center (LRC), joining a competitive national network of centers developing resources to promote the teaching and learning of world languages.

Image by Doug Thompson for the U.S. Department of State (Via ShareAmerica).

Principal Investigator: Kenneth Elpus, associate professor of music education

Co-Principal Investigator: Stephanie Prichard, assistant professor of music education

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to explore the relation between rigorous, high quality arts education in high school and academic outcomes at the high school and postsecondary levels. Prior research on the association between arts education and academic outcomes has yielded mixed results, possibly due to wide variation in the definitions of arts education and the academic measures used by researchers. In this study, the research team will analyze a novel administrative dataset that overcomes those weaknesses to establish the relationship between arts education and academic achievement.

Project Activities: The research team will examine the academic achievement outcomes for students who chose to enroll in arts courses compared to those who did not for ten cohorts of American students who pursued courses from the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program, using data provided by the International Baccalaureate Organization. Additionally, they will link IB data to data from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) to compare postsecondary outcomes for arts and non-arts IB students. Finally, they will see if their findings from the IB dataset replicate using data from the Maryland Longitudinal Data System (MLDS) Center for students in the public high schools of Maryland.

Products: The research team will produce preliminary evidence of the potential for arts education to improve high school and postsecondary academic outcomes. In addition, they will produce peer-reviewed publications in arts education and general education research journals, host in-service workshops for arts educators; participate in annual meetings for arts educators and policymakers; publish articles in education practitioner journals and magazines; publish blog posts and op-ed articles on platforms intended to reach the general public; and communicate about these products through various social media platforms.

Robyn Muncy, professor of history, is a guest curator of "Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote," an exhibit to commemorate the centenary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment at the National Archives in Washington, DC. The exhibit opened in March and will run through September 2020. 

The exhibition is part of a nationwide initiative exploring the generations-long fight for universal woman suffrage. Despite decades of marches, petitions, and public debate to enshrine a woman’s right to vote in the Constitution, the 19th Amendment – while an enormous milestone – did not grant voting rights for all. The challenges of its passage reverberate to the ongoing fight for gender equity today. 

What is now considered a key component of citizenship - the right to vote - is often taken for granted, and is not afforded to all through the Constitution. Through this initiative, the National Archives will not only highlight the hard-won victories that stemmed from the Women’s Suffrage movement, but also remind modern-day citizens of their responsibilities associated with the right to vote.

Read more about the exhibition on the National Archives website.

Professor of English Merle Collins received a $10,000 grant from the UMD Global Classrooms Initiative to support her course "Caribbean Literature: Literature and Ideas in the Caribbean," which will be held in collaboration with students and faculty at the University of the West Indies. This course will provide students with an innovative and exciting international, cross-cultural, and project-based learning experience. 

The 2018 Global Classrooms Initiative grants are provided and by the Office of International Affairs in collaboration with Mthe University of Maryland Graduate School. These awards are intended to provide financial support to faculty to develop innovative, project-based courses that bring together UMD students and students from partner universities around the world using various digital technologies. These exciting new courses aim to provide our students with international experiences that mirror the kind of work they will encounter throughout their lives: cross cultural, virtual, and project-based.

Project Director: Mary Corbin Sies, Associate Professor of American Studies 

Project Title: Change and Resilience in Lakeland: African Americans in College Park, Md., 1950–1980

Project Description: A daylong digitization event, by-appointment collecting visits to neighbors’ homes, and a public interpretation event to document and explore the history of Lakeland, an African-American community in Prince George’s County, Maryland.