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Stamp Student Union
Thursday, September 18, 2014 - 4:00 PM to Friday, September 19, 2014 - 4:30 PM

Join the Center for the History of the New America and the Center for Health Equity at the University of Maryland on September 18th-19th!

Bioscience Research Building 1103
Thursday, September 11, 2014 - 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM

Most people associate Sigmund Freud with the assertion that speech errors reveal repressed thoughts, a claim that doe

Francis Scott Key Hall, Room 0106
Thursday, October 02, 2014 - 4:00 PM

Archaeology and History: At the Meeting Place of Two Disciplines celebrates the scholarly career of Professor Kenneth Holum.

Rasmuson Theater, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, 4th Street & Independence Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C.
Saturday, May 03, 2014 - 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM

Students in Foxworth course, SPAN408I, present their work on the Salvadoran transmigration at the Smithsonian.

Library of Congress, Room 220, the AMED Reading Room, on the second level of the Thomas Jefferson Building
Wednesday, September 17, 2014 - 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 17, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
The World of Persian Literary Humanism: Spreading Culture through Books”Hamid Dabashi, Columbia University 
 

The college's Year in Review is now available online. You can also request a printed copy through the Dean's Office by calling 301.405.2090 (While supplies last). 

MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN:

Dear Colleagues:
With great excitement we share with you that by September of 2014, the DeVos Institute of Arts Management will relocate to the University of Maryland, College Park, joining the College of Arts and Humanities’ robust portfolio. The institute will continue its work in collaboration with the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, one of the nation's leading arts incubators. Joining the ranks of renowned arts partners the School of Music; School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies; the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library; and the Visiting Artist Program, the institute will continue to provide training to arts administrators and arts management consultation to cultural organizations, governments, and foundations nationally and internationally. There has been considerable interest in the college to  develop programs in arts management, and by adding the expertise of this new partner, we are even better positioned to shape the future of the arts worldwide. Through training, mentoring and scholarship of arts students, leaders and entrepreneurs we will be at the forefront of arts education. Over the next several months we will be discussing the details of this relationship with DeVos as well as with faculty and staff in the center and the college.  Please stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, you can learn more about our new partner by visiting the DeVos Institute of Arts Management online: http://www.kennedy-center.org/education/artsmanagement/.

Sincerely,

Bonnie Thornton Dill, Dean, College of Arts and Humanities

Martin Wollesen, Executive Director, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center 

COLLEGE PARK, Md. –The DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center, a premier organization for training and supporting arts leadership, is moving to the University of Maryland. Michael M. Kaiser, a foremost expert in arts management, together with the current director Brett Egan, will lead the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland when the change becomes effective September 1, 2014.

Founded by Kaiser in 2001 after he became president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the DeVos Institute trains, supports and empowers arts managers and their boards. It has advised thousands of individuals, organizations, governments and foundations throughout the United States and in over 70 countries on six continents.

"Michael Kaiser and the DeVos Institute are the international gold standard in arts management education and consulting. To have them on our campus is an extraordinary boost to excellence and innovation in the arts at the University of Maryland," says its president Wallace Loh.

The DeVos Institute's offices, staff, and leadership team will relocate from the Kennedy Center to the university campus. At UMD, the institute will continue its important role in the arts community while working with the university on strategic initiatives in the arts.

"The Kennedy Center has been a remarkable home to the DeVos Institute and has allowed Brett Egan and me to build a sizeable education and consulting practice," says Kaiser. "I thank David Rubenstein and the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center for their unwavering support and Wallace Loh for his gracious invitation to join the University of Maryland. I look forward to increasing the institute's scope and record of service in our new home."

The DeVos Institute offers a variety of programs that provide practical training at all stages of professional development in the field, including fundraising, artistic planning, strategic planning and board development. Signature offerings include fellowships designed to prepare mid-career arts managers for executive positions and a robust board training program.

"We are very fortunate that one of the world's most well-known and well-respected arts administrators is bringing his 30 years of arts management experience and the DeVos Institute to the University of Maryland," says Mary Ann Rankin, UMD's senior vice president and provost.  "This is an extraordinary opportunity to expand arts programming and management training and to raise the profile of the arts at the University of Maryland to the highest levels."

Kaiser's extensive global leadership experience in arts management includes serving successfully as chief executive of the Royal Opera House in London, the American Ballet Theatre, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater before taking his position at the Kennedy Center. Besides founding and leading the institute, Kaiser played a key role in expanding its educational and artistic programming and oversaw major renovations to the Kennedy Center.

"Michael established the arts management training program when he arrived at the Kennedy Center in 2001 and he has nurtured it into a world-class institute," says Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein. "We wish Michael the greatest of success as he guides his life's work to its full potential at the University of Maryland where the institute can benefit from the resources of a major educational institution. We look forward to future collaborations between the institute and the Center."

"Training and preparing arts managers to effectively lead artists and arts organizations is a powerful way to leverage creative talents for the benefit and enjoyment of all of us," state Betsy and Dick DeVos. "We're glad the institute's mission will continue to thrive at the University of Maryland as Michael and Brett guide the DeVos Institute to become the world's leading institution devoted to training arts managers."

Additional information about the DeVos Institute is available at www.DeVosInstitute.org.

About the University of Maryland

The University of Maryland is the state's flagship university and one of the nation's preeminent public research universities. A global leader in research, entrepreneurship and innovation, the university is home to more than 37,000 students, 9,000 faculty and staff, and 250 academic programs. Its faculty includes three Nobel laureates, two Pulitzer Prize winners, 49 members of the national academies and scores of Fulbright scholars. The institution has a $1.7 billion operating budget, secures $500 million annually in external research funding and recently completed a $1 billion dollar fundraising campaign.

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by Monette A. Bailey, Terp Magazine

If you don’t think the liberal arts involve hands-on work in the real world, think again. A new fund in the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) is encouraging innovative classes that will tackle problems like poverty, racism and gender equality.

A $150,000 gift from NFL Players Association President Domonique Foxworth ’04 and wife Ashley (Manning) ’06, provides seed money for faculty to plan the courses in which students design community outreach programs.

The Foxworth Creative Enterprise Initiative will complement existing efforts to apply arts and humanities skills—reading, writing, critical thinking and communication along with deep knowledge of culture, language and history—to real challenges. Among them are projects helping recent immigrants find their voice through poetry or using ancient Greek literature about war to help veterans discuss and make sense of their experience.

 A committee is reviewing ideas for courses; three will be introduced in Spring 2014.

“The root of many social problems is faulty thinking. The arts and humanities teach you to think both critically and empathetically,” says Michelle Rowley, associate professor of women’s studies and the project’s point person.

As an American studies major, Domonique took a social activism course that stimulated his interest in nonprofit work. After a stellar career on the Terps football team, he played cornerback for the Broncos, Falcons and Ravens, and retired with an injury in 2011. This fall he’s attending Harvard Business School.

Ashley, an English major who later graduated from Harvard Law School, also values a grassroots approach. Their initiative stemmed from conversations the couple had with ARHU Dean Bonnie Thornton Dill on how to nurture students to be more civically engaged citizens.

“We hope that students are going to be interested in helping others long after they leave school,” says Ashley.

By Jackie Zakrewsky

Hacker. Brainiac. Creative genius. Email savior.

These labels don’t faze software entrepreneur Dave Baggett ’92, founder of the Bethesda, Md.-based company Arcode – though they’re flying thick and fast in the flurry of reviews generated among tech bloggers about Arcode’s first product, Inky.

“So much for the slow organic growth path,” the 2009 Distinguished Alumnus of the College of Arts and Humanities noted in a recent email.

That ubiquitous technology, which Baggett simply calls “mail,” happens to be his current entrepreneurial target. Through a simple download at inky.com, Baggett aims to offer the world a better email experience, with “smart” features such as a unified inbox that consolidates a user’s email accounts and sorts messages by relevance.

Baggett is the first to admit Arcode wasn’t ready to unleash Inky on the world.

“We’re hardly out of [initial] alpha [testing] at this point and are focused primarily on fixing bugs,” he wrote in late December in a post on the Hacker News website.

But Inky’s unexpected debut in the tech community has found Baggett fielding questions about a host of issues, ranging from security and privacy concerns to requests for mobile versions of Inky. The magna cum laude graduate with a double major in linguistics and computer science offers straight-up answers, no matter how much “geek argot,” or tech lingo, is thrown his way.

If you question whether Inky is “wrapped with Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF), with web page JavaScript calling native Python scripts,” Baggett has a simple answer that doesn’t give away the company store: “Yes, it embeds Python and uses CEF. But there’s a lot of other native code running there as well.”

For the past two decades, Baggett’s programming acumen and entrepreneurial spirit have served him well. As he wrote on Hacker News, “I'm a hacker who (long ago) co-wrote Crash Bandicoot (1&2) and co-founded ITA Software, which was sold to Google in 2010.”

That track record led to an extensive overview of Inky in the influential online media hub known as Tech Crunch and prompted one blogger to write, “I’ll try Inky just because of your credentials.”

Meanwhile, the hard work of getting Inky right continues. In an interview at Arcode last year, Baggett noted that making “this transition from the dumb mail client to a smart one entails solving a lot of hard [technical] problems”—to the extent that “larger companies with more resources will not easily clone what you do.”

He also recognized that getting the product right wasn’t the only hurdle he faced in creating Inky.

“The biggest challenge with consumers is you have no idea what they’re going to like,” he said. “It’s worth pointing out that you have to do everything right and then get somewhat lucky to have that happen.”

You can try Inky for free at http://inky.com

11/7/12

 

ALL events are FREE (ticketed) and open to the public.

Reserve tickets through the Clarice Smith Center online at www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu or by calling 301.405.ARTS.

 

David Alan Grier in conversation
Monday, November 12, 2012, 7 PM
Dekelboum Concert Hall Clarice Smith Center

The multitalented comedian and film, television, and Broadway star discusses the creative process, comedy and improvisation, music and his life experiences with culture and race. Named one of Comedy Central’s “100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time,” Grier was most recently nominated for a 2012 Tony Award for his performance in the critically acclaimed Broadway revival of The Gershwins’ “Porgy and Bess.”

Cosponsored by The School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies

Eric Schlosser in conversation
Wednesday, November 28, 2012, 5:30 PM
Gildenhorn Recital Hall, Clarice Smith Center

Award-winning journalist, producer of the critically acclaimed documentary “FOOD, Inc.,” and best-selling author of “ Fast Food Nation” — selected by TIME magazine as one of the top 100 non-fiction books of all time — discusses the controversial and alarming state of public health, agriculture and the food industry in America.

Cosponsored by UMD Dining Services Green Dining Program

Chimamanda Adiche
Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 5:30 PM
Gildenhorn Recital Hall, Clarice Smith Center

2008 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship recipient and award-winning Nigerian author of “Half of a Yellow Sun,” “Purple Hibiscus,” and “The Thing Round Your Neck,” which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book in Africa, speaks to the cross-generational significance of storytelling and its enduring impact on the cultural history of our lives.

Cosponsored by the Center for Literary and Comparative Studies and The Institute for International Programs

Cathy Davidson
Thursday, April 18, 2013, 5:30 PM
Gildenhorn Recital Hall, Clarice Smith Center

Professor of English at Duke University, renowned scholar in Digital Humanities and Interdisciplinary Studies, and prolific author of “Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn,” explores how the modern digital age will globally shape the future innovation of learning.

Cosponsored by the ADVANCE Program

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