DIVERSITY, INCLUSION & EQUITY

TOP 10

Diverse Issues in Higher Education ranks UMD among the top five for graduating African American students with bachelor degrees in area, ethnic, cultural, gender and group studies and foreign languages, literatures and linguistics, and among the top five for graduating Asian American students with doctoral degrees in visual and performing arts.

NEW FACULTY & POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS

>> LOOKING FORWARD FIVE NEW AFRICAN-AMERICANISTS

In 2018-19, three new AfricanAmericanists will join the college. GerShun Avilez and Chad B. Infante will join the Department of English and Jordana Moore Saggese will join the Department of Art History and Archaeology.

Two new UMD President’s Postdoctoral Fellows, Augustus Durham and Eva Hageman, will join the Departments of English and Women’s Studies, respectively. Durham is an expert in black studies who researches melancholy and the performance of genius. Hageman’s work examines reality television and its role in shaping representations of race.

FEATURES

Bonnie Thornton Dill, dean of ARHU and professor of women’s studies (center right), and Ana Patricia Rodríguez, associate professor of Spanish in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (center left), were both awarded the 2018 Faculty Minority Achievement Award from the President’s Commission on Ethnic Minority Issues at UMD in recognition of their commitment to fostering equality, diversity and inclusion across campus.

Foon V. Sham, professor of art, was named the Asian Influence / American Design Visionary Artist of the 2018 Smithsonian Craft Show in recognition of his iconic sculptures that reflect the combined influence of Asian aesthetics and the American experience. His organic pine wood sculpture was on display in the National Building Museum atrium, the site of the 2018 Smithsonian Craft Show.

>> LOOKING FORWARD

The Recovering Democracy Archive, a website launching this fall curated by the Rosenker Center for Political Communication and Civic Leadership, will feature important speeches by people historically marginalized in public deliberations and debate—like George Gillette (pictured left), chairman of the Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa tribes of North Dakota, who gave a speech protesting the Federal government’s seizure of the tribes’ homeland on the Missouri river.

Students in the School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies (TDPS) produced and performed “Clove,” a multidisciplinary piece written and directed by TDPS alumna Paige Hernandez ’02. The performance fused together spoken word, hip-hop, jazz and short plays to explore questions of gender identity, depression and suicide.