THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COMMEMORATES
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History Month 2023
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Sharon Fries-Britt, PhD
Professor of Higher Education
University of Maryland, College Park
TUESDAY, FEB. 7
Noon to 1:30 p.m.
MSTF Leadership Hall
OFFICE OF EQUITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION
PROGRAM
Welcoming Remarks
Bruce
E. Jarrell, MD, FACS President, UMB“Lift Every Voice and Sing”
Voices of Coppin State University
Introduction of Keynote Speaker
Diane Forbes Berthoud, PhD, MA
Chief Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Ofcer and Vice President, UMB, and Professor, Graduate School
Keynote Address
Sharon Fries-Britt, PhD
Professor of Higher Education, University of Maryland, College Park
Introduction of Spoken-Word Artist
Dr. Forbes Berthoud
Selection of Works
Lady Brion, MFA
Spoken-Word Artist
Closing Remarks
Dr. Forbes Berthoud
Reception in the Atrium immediately following the event
LADY BRION, MFA
Lady Brion is an international spoken-word artist, curator, activist, organizer, educator, and executive director of the Pennsylvania Avenue Black Arts and Entertainment District. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in communication and culture from Howard University and her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing and publishing design from the University of Baltimore.
In addition, Lady Brion has won the 2016 National Poetry Slam, the 2017/2019 Southern Fried Regional Slam, and the 2019 Rustbelt Regional Slam. Most recently, she became the Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion and International Poetry Slam Champion (team slam) in April 2021. In 2018, she published a book and album called “With My Head Unbowed.”
Lady Brion serves on the board for DewMore Baltimore and as the cultural curator for a grassroots political think-tank called Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle in Baltimore.
SHARON FRIES-BRITT, PhD Professor of Higher Education University of Maryland, College Park
Sharon Fries-Britt hadn’t intended to become a professor, thinking that after she earned her doctorate she would continue her work as an administrator in higher education. But by taking that leap, she has continued her diversity, equity, and inclusion work through her research.
“The way I’ve carved out my career and life is that the thread of doing work in the feld of race, diversity, and equity has been my longest strand,” said Fries-Britt, professor of higher education and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Fries-Britt plans to tie in her experience as an academic as well as her research in her keynote speech during UMB’s Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Black History Month Celebration. Fries-Britt’s research examines the experiences of high-achieving Black students, faculty, and staf in higher education and underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) felds. She recently completed work on a National Science Foundation grant studying Black students in STEM felds who transferred from community colleges to four-year institutions.
“My research aligns with a lot of the focus of UMB’s campus, my work with high-achieving Black students and our investment in the next generation of talent in the nation,” she said. “We need their leadership because we’re underresourced in the nation in terms of our human capital in some of the felds on UMB’s campus.”
She also is in the second year of working with the Gates Foundation to develop a post-secondary strategy on advancing equity.
“In my own work nationally, we’ve been talking about the fact that in higher ed we tend to focus on individual levels of learning. I want to talk about individual and organizational levels of learning. That’s necessary if we’re going to advance equity,” Fries-Britt said. “It isn’t enough for you and me to learn individually in our own space and lives, but our systems, our organizations, and various sectors of our society have to be engaged.”
Fries-Britt considers herself a benefactor of King’s work.
“I’m a product of King’s dream,” she said. “I have always, at every stage of my life and work, understood that there’s a piece of me that works and seeks to do well in my life on behalf of paying back for that work.”
King’s work has inspired Fries-Britt, co-author and co-editor of the 2022 book “Building Mentorship Networks to Support Black Women: A Guide to Succeeding in the Academy,” to mentor students.
“I mentor other people in my life to continue to pass that torch and legacy on, to feel like I am doing my part to live the best life that I can and open space for other people to have access to not just advance the Black community but to advance the larger community of humanity,” she said.