Faculty

MEDIA ALERT

Description: The first lecture in the “2017-18 Dean’s Lecture Series: Courageous Conversations, ARHU Resists Hate And Bias” features Theo Wilson, the award-winning slam poet and social justice advocate who skyrocketed to social media fame after posting beliefs about hate and bias. Wilson will discuss his experience as a black man who went undercover in alt-right social media communities.

Who: Theo Wilson is a founding member of the Denver Slam Nuba team, which won the National Poetry Slam in 2011. He is also the executive director of Shop Talk Live, an organization that hosts community dialogues in barbershops and beauty salons on issues affecting African-American communities. In 2015, Wilson went undercover online to better understand the ideologies and social-media algorithms that inform the alt-right.

What: Award-winning slam poet and social justice advocate Theo Wilson discusses his experience as a black man who went undercover in alt-right social media communities.

When: Wednesday, November 29, 2017, 5:30 PM

Where: Gildenhorn Recital Hall. Located at the base of the grand staircase off the main lobby of The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

3800 The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center

8270 Alumni Drive

University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-1625

Why: This event is the first lecture in the “2017-18 Dean’s Lecture Series: Courageous Conversations, ARHU Resists Hate And Bias.” Future lecturers include Bobby Seale, founding chairman and national organizer of the Black Panther Party, and Mara Liasson, NPR political correspondent. This year’s speakers consider what it means to engage in courageous conversations that speak to the difficult issues of hate and bias across personal, political and historical frames. Each lecture is an opportunity for the campus and the UMD community to join together for provocative conversations about resisting these issues.

How: The event is free but tickets are required. Members of the press should contact Nicky Everette, Director of Marketing and Communications, to RSVP.

ABOUT THE SERIES:

The Arts & Humanities Dean's Lecture Series provides an opportunity for the college faculty, students and staff to join together with colleagues across campus for stimulating conversation about issues that cross our disciplines. Lectures and performances may address either enduring or emerging questions central to the arts and humanities, or questions arising from other disciplines to which the arts and humanities might speak. In addition to presenting a major public event, each lecturer interacts in smaller settings with faculty, graduate students and/or undergraduates.

The Arts and Humanities Center for Synergy will start accepting accepting DRIF proposals for the 2017-18 academic year Monday, September 18, 2017. Please see the Call for DRIF Proposals for more information.

Tenure-Track and Professional-Track Faculty are eligible to apply.  We offer three different funding categories that are in keeping with the Center for Synergy’s interdisciplinary and engaged research goals. A limited amount of subvention funds is also available for the reproduction of images for book publication. In addition, we offer funding in support of applications to the Division of Research Faculty Incentive Program Tier I Seed Grants. The vast majority of conference grants are awarded in the fall. There is only a small amount awarded for conference proposals in the spring cycle. Conference proposals should only be submitted in the spring cycle if the timelines of the conference requires you to apply then. New Directions Innovation Seed Grants are only awarded in the fall.  

Funded initiatives will be those that promise to promote interdisciplinary research and scholarship and/or enhance links to and engagement in the community beyond the campus. Due to budget constraints, priority will be given to requests from units that are not currently receiving operational funding from the Dean’s office. 

To submit a proposal, please log-on with your UMD directory ID and password to the College of Arts and Humanities Online Applications System which can be found at https://apply.arhu.umd.edu. There you can select the appropriate application and fill in the fields, upload your project description and submit when complete. You can save a draft of your application to submit at a later time, if necessary. Only one submission can be accepted per person per application so please make sure all applications are complete and fit the call before submitting. All applications for the fall cycle must be submitted electronically by 5 pm on Friday, October 13, 2017. 

We encourage everyone to apply! If you have any questions, please contact Linda Aldoory, Associate Dean for Research and Programming, at laldoory@umd.edu. 

To: Colleagues
From: Bonnie Thornton Dill, Dean
Date: July 20, 2017
Re: Associate Dean Appointments

Dear Colleagues:

I'm pleased to announce the appointments of Linda Aldoory and Ralph Bauer to Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Humanities.

Linda Aldoory, Professor of Communication, will serve as the Associate Dean for Research and Programming, effective July 1. She will work to support research and scholarly productivity of the college’s faculty and graduate students by enhancing opportunities for sponsored research, fellowships, partnerships and awards. She will lead the Arts and Humanities Center for Synergy and develop programming that promotes the distinctive mission of the college across the university, in the community and nationally. Working closely with students, faculty, staff, administrators, the Office of the Vice President for Research and external partners, Aldoory will develop a plan to illuminate the work of the arts and humanities, particularly scholarship of diverse, interdisciplinary and collaborative nature.

Aldoory joined the faculty at UMD in 1999 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication. In 2005 she was promoted to Associate Professor and later, from 2011-2015, was appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health where she served as Endowed Chair and Director of UMD’s Herschel S. Horowitz Center for Health Literacy. She returned to the Department of Communication in 2015, most recently serving as Associate Chair and Co-Director of Graduate Studies. Aldoory’s promotion to Professor is effective August 2017. She has served on numerous committees and advisory boards, including departmental faculty and teaching committees, Collegiate Council and UMD’s Future of Information Alliance Advisory Board.

Her research explores the field of health communication, specifically public health campaigns and message design and their effects on underserved populations. She has published an edited book and has authored more than 40 articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries. She has been awarded a commissioned paper by the National Academies of Science and has been the Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on several extramural grants and contracts.

Aldoory holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from The George Washington University, a master’s degree in journalism from University of Texas at Austin and a doctoral degree in mass communication from Syracuse University.

Ralph Bauer, Associate Professor of English, will serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, effective August 15. He will oversee undergraduate and graduate curriculum, courses, programs and enrollments; graduate student recruitment, fellowships and advisory board; ARHU’s five living-learning programs and the Learning Outcomes Assessment (LOA) process. He will spearhead efforts to highlight the knowledge and skills acquired in arts and humanities based learning, and help develop pathways for majors who want to combine their learning with the sciences or other disciplines, in and outside of the college. Working closely with students, faculty, staff and administrators, particularly the Office of Undergraduate Studies and The Graduate School, Bauer will provide leadership and support that facilitates forward-looking, cutting-edge and diversity-infused education in the arts and humanities.  

Since his arrival at UMD in 1998, Bauer has served as Director of Graduate Studies and Director of Honors in the Department of English. He has also served on college and university committees, including the ARHU Committee on Programs, Courses and Curricula (PCC); the UMD Graduate Council Working Group for Teaching Assistant Training and Mentoring; and the 2017 Middle States Accreditation Review Committee.

Bauer’s research explores the literatures and cultures of the Colonial Americas from a hemispheric perspective, with special focus on the history of science and Native American Studies. He is editor of the Early Americas Digital Archive and author of "The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures: Empire, Travel, Modernity" (Cambridge University Press, 2003 and 2008); "Creole Subjects in the Colonial Americas: Empires, Texts, Identities" (University of North Carolina Press, 2009); and “The Alchemy of Conquest: Science, Religion, and the Secrets of the New World” (forthcoming, University of Virginia Press); among others.

He was previously awarded Outstanding Director of Graduate Studies by UMD’s Graduate School and a Colorado Endowment for the Humanities Publication Prize for his translation of “An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru.”

Bauer earned his bachelor’s degrees in English, German and Spanish from University of Erlangen (Nuremberg, Germany) and master’s and doctoral degrees in American Studies from Michigan State University.  

I welcome these new administrators to the Dean’s Office and invite you to offer them congratulations on their respective appointments. I also wish to thank the outgoing Associate Deans Sheri Parks and Alene Moyer for their excellent leadership and service over the past five years.

I give special thanks to members of the search committee, chaired by Juan Uriagereka, Professor of Linguistics.