UMD COLLEGE PARK COHORT

 
DR. GERSHUN AVILEZ, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equality and InclusionDr. GerShun Avilez is a cultural studies scholar who specializes in contemporary African American and Black Diasporic literatures and visual cultures. His scholarship explores how questions of gender and sexuality inform artistic production. In addition, he works in the fields of political radicalism, spatial theory, gender studies, and medical humanities. He has published several books, and is currently working on a third project, which focuses on documenting queer history.

Throughout his work and teaching, Dr. Avilez is committed to studying a wide variety of art forms, including, drama, fiction, non-fiction, film, poetry, visual and performance art among others. He was the recipient of the Poorvu Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Teaching in 2011 (Yale University).

GerShun received his PhD in English from the University of Pennsylvania, where he also earned a Graduate Certificate in Africana Studies. Dr. Avilez has held professorships at Yale University, UNC Chapel Hill, and a post-doctorate Fellowship at the University of Rochester.

You can learn more about Prof. Avilez here: https://umcp.academia.edu/GerShunAvilez

Crystal U. Davis, Assistant Professor
Dance, Performance and Scholarship
Head of MFA Dance Program
School of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies

Crystal U. Davis is a dancer, movement analyst, and critical race theorist.  As a performer her work spans an array of genres from modern dance companies including Notes in Motion to East Indian dance companies including Nayikas Dance Theater Company to her own postmodern choreography at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival and Dance New Amsterdam.

Her creative work centers around the incongruities present between our daily behaviors and belief systems. She has conducted ethnographic research in Rajasthan, India on the relationship between religious beliefs and both creative and pedestrian movement. Her current research explores implicit bias in dance through a critical theory lens and how identity politics of privilege manifest in the body. Some of her recent publications include “Tendus and Tenancy: Black Dancers and the White Landscape of Dance Education” in the Palgrave Handbook of Race and Arts in Education and “Laying New Ground: Uprooting White Privilege and Planting Seeds of Equity and Inclusion” in Dance Education and Responsible Citizenship: Promoting Civic Engagement through Effective Dance Pedagogies.

You can learn more about Prof. Davis here: https://tdps.umd.edu/directory/crystal-davis

Dr. Sahar Khamis, Associate Professor
Communication

Dr. Sahar Khamis is an expert on Arab and Muslim media, and the former Head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department in Qatar University. She is a former Mellon Islamic Studies Initiative Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago.

She is the co-author of the books: Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace(Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Egyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and the co-editor of Arab Women’s Activism and Socio-Political Transformation: Unfinished Gendered Revolutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Additionally, she authored and co-authored numerous book chapters, journal articles and conference papers, regionally and internationally.

Dr. Khamis is a media commentator and analyst, a public speaker, a human rights commissioner in the Human Rights Commission in Montgomery County, Maryland, and a radio host, who presents a monthly radio show on “U.S. Arab Radio” (the first Arab-American radio station broadcasting in the U.S. and Canada).

You can learn more about Dr. Khamis at: https://communication.umd.edu/directory/sahar-khamis
https://saharkhamis.wordpress.com/

 
Dr. Nancy Mirabal, Associate Professor
American Studies

Nancy Raquel Mirabal is Associate Professor in the Department of American Studies and Director of the U.S. Latina/o Studies Program. Mirabal is an historian who has published widely in the fields of  Afro-diasporic, gentrification, and spatial studies. She is the author of Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957 (NYU Press, 2017) and co-editor of Keywords for Latina/o Studies (NYU Press, 2017), winner of a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She is currently working on two projects: Whiteness as Gentrification and a Radical Lens: Visual Culture and the Racial Politics of Place in Washington DC, 1973-1999.

She is a recipient of several grants and awards, including a Scholar in Residence Fellowship, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, University Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellowship, U.C. Berkeley; Social Science Research Council International Migration Fellowship, National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, and Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. In 2021 Mirabal was named a University of Maryland Graduate Faculty Mentor of the Year.

You can learn more about Dr. Mirabal here: https://amst.umd.edu/directory/nancy-mirabal

 
Dr. Catherine Steele, Associate Professor
Communication

Dr. Catherine Knight Steele is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland – College Park and was the Founding Director of the African American Digital Humanities Initiative (AADHum). She now directs the Black Communication and Technology lab as a part of the Digital Inquiry, Speculation, Collaboration, & Optimism Network. Dr. Steele also serves as the Director of the Graduate Certificate in Digital Studies in the Arts and Humanities.

Her research focuses on race, gender, and media, with a specific emphasis on African American culture and discourse and new media. Dr. Steele’s research on the Black blogosphere, digital discourses of resistance and joy, and digital Black feminism has been published in such journals as Social Media + Society, Feminist Media Studies, and Television and New Media. Her book Digital Black Feminism (NYU Press), examines the relationship between Black women and technology, and was the 2022 recipient of the Association of Internet Research 2022 Nancy Baym Book Award.

You can learn more about Dr. Steele here: http://www.catherineknightsteele.com

The University of Maryland’s National Foreign Language Center (UMD-NFLC) is proud to  announce that we have become a DLNSEO funded Language Training Center (LTC) which will  provide language courses in Korean, Russian, and Ukrainian beginning this fall.  

Additionally, UMD-NFLC’s existing Title VI Language Resource Center (LRC) has been  renewed for funding for another four years, 2022-2026.  

Please see information about each center below.  

LTC Background  

With decades of experience supporting government partners and developing courses, learning  materials, and assessments in over 100 languages, the LTC will provide language courses  specifically tailored to the government’s needs.  

In order to support government and military linguists to carry out their missions UMD-NFLC  will offer courses centered on current, relevant, and authentic curriculum which will be taught in  carefully sequenced thematic units that integrate culture, area studies, and language.  

UMD-NFLC offers five-week hybrid and online language courses, providing 150 hours of direct  instruction with an additional 50 hours of guided practice in the form of graded homework,  online assessments, and online learning modules. Students also have access to the UMD-NFLC’s  Language Portal, an online collection of language learning materials and assessments, and they  can earn ten Continuing Education Units for completing the course.  

Korean; Blended (classroom and online); Incoming ILR 2 Course pre-requisites

Russian; Blended (classroom and online); Incoming ILR 2 Course pre-requisites

Ukrainian; Online; Incoming ILR 2 Course pre-requisites

Pedagogical Approach  

UMD-NFLC’s courses are designed around its research-based principles of effective language  teaching, which maximize students’ proficiency gains:  

• Implementing a standards-based and thematically organized curriculum  • Integrating culture, content, and language in the classroom
• Adapting and using expertly-leveled, authentic materials 
• Using the target language and providing comprehensible input 
• Facilitating a learner-centered classroom 
• Conducting performance-based assessments  

Institution Website: https://nflc.umd.edu/LTC  

LRC Background  

Professionals in Education Advancing Research and Language Learning (PEARLL) at the  University of Maryland promotes a multifaced, research-based program for excellence in  language instruction. PEARLL offers a common vision for high-quality language learning and  provides materials and models of professional learning for language educators, with a special  focus on the needs of instructors at community colleges, historically Black colleges and  universities (HBCUs), and of less commonly taught languages (LCTLs). PEARLL’s goals for  the 2022-2026 LRC grant period take a comprehensive view of the knowledge and skills world  language educators need to prepare students to thrive in an increasingly interconnected world,  particularly in light of post-pandemic teacher needs.  

1. To promote models of educator effectiveness for language learning, PEARLL will  increase the reach of the Teacher Effectiveness for Language Learning (TELL)  Framework, develop and pilot model curricula for courses at community colleges and  HBCUs, and identify a network of model classrooms that serve as regional hubs for  professional learning. 
2. PEARLL seeks to facilitate reflective practice for language educators by continuing to  contribute to the development of Catalyst, an online portfolio for language educators;  maintaining communities of practice; publishing a guide to action research for language  educators; and supporting an educator in resident who will contribute to PEARLL  projects.
3. Recognizing the importance for language teachers of having knowledgeable and skilled  supervisors and teacher leaders, PEARLL will help leaders develop leadership skills to  support teacher effectiveness through a guide to effective world language programs, a  leadership certificate, a summer leadership academy, and research on how program  leaders adapt to and implement their learning.
4. To connect language teacher educators and classroom practitioners, PEARLL will  support and host the International Language Teacher Education Conference and identify  how the TELL Framework can facilitate the transition from being a student teacher to a  classroom teacher by examining how the TELL Framework is used in language teacher  training. 
5. Building on PEARLL’s experience offering in-person and virtual professional learning,  PEARLL will continue to provide professional learning opportunities for language  educators, including a hybrid summit focused on LCTL educators and a series of annual  summer institutes for classroom teachers. These activities will be supported by two  research projects, one to understand language teachers’ needs for professional learning,  and a second to identify whether there is a relationship between professional learning  offered by PEARLL and participating educators’ teaching practices.  

PEARLL’s projects will draw on PEARLL’s and UMD-NFLC’s expertise and experience in  offering high-quality professional learning opportunities; developing resources such as model  curricula; and collaborating with teachers, schools and districts, and colleges and universities  around the country.  

Institution Website: https://pearll.nflc.umd.edu  

By Jessica Weiss ’05

The University of Maryland has received a nearly $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation that will support efforts to improve the way handwritten documents from the premodern Islamicate world—primarily in Persian and Arabic—are turned into machine-readable text for use by academics or the public. 

Assistant Professor Matthew Thomas Miller and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Jonathan Parkes Allen, both of the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies, will work with researchers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), led by computer scientist Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick, on the innovative humanities-computer science collaboration. UCSD received its own $300,000 award.    

Over three years, the researchers will work in the domain of handwritten text recognition, which are methods designed to automatically read a diversity of human handwriting types with high levels of accuracy. 

“This work has the potential to remove substantial roadblocks for digital study of the premodern Islamicate written tradition and would be really transformative for future studies of these manuscripts,” Miller said. “We are very grateful to the NSF for its support.” 

This latest research proposal builds on a number of ongoing efforts to develop open-source technology to expand digital access to manuscripts and books from the premodern Islamicate world in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu; Miller currently leads an interdisciplinary team of researchers on a $1.75 million grant from the Mellon Foundation as well as a $300,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

There are hundreds of thousands—perhaps even millions—of premodern Islamicate books and manuscripts spanning over 1,500 years, from the 7th–19th centuries, forming perhaps the largest archive of cultural production of the premodern world. Scanning and digitization efforts over the last decade have made images of Islamicate manuscripts in a large number of collections available to the public. However, they remain mostly “locked” for digital search and manipulation because the text has not been transcribed into digital text.  

The task is made more difficult by the diversity and intricacy of many Arabic manuscripts, said Allen, who is a historian of early modern Ottoman religious and cultural history. They may be written alongside diagonal notes, annotations and corrections, in multiple colors and “hands.” 

Under the NSF grant, researchers will develop new techniques that remove the need for extensive manual—or human—labor, a method known as “unsupervised” transcription. Eventually, the tools under development will produce models that will be able to automatically transcribe large quantities of Persian and Arabic script in a multitude of different styles with substantially higher degrees of accuracy than is currently possible.

“The Arabic script tradition is so extensive and so broad,” Allen said. “People need to be able to read these manuscripts, search within them, and integrate them into their research.” 

Image: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Ms. or. oct. 3759

Anyone who works in higher education knows the value of IT. Colleges and universities are entering a new normal for education, and it’s up to technology leaders to guide them into this new frontier. From hybrid learning to cybersecurity, universities are facing new challenges, making new investments, and learning new skills and lessons along the way.

For our 2022 list of higher ed IT influencers to follow, EdTech: Focus on Higher Education chose 30 people using their platforms to propel universities forward. Whether they’re working with educators to boost their digital teaching skills or promoting diversity and inclusivity in collegiate esports, these influencers are making waves at their institutions. Take a look at this year’s list of higher education IT leaders, bloggers, podcasters and social media personalities and give them a follow.

Catherine Knight Steele

In addition to her role as assistant professor of communication at University of Maryland, College Park, Catherine Knight Steele is director of the university’s Black Communication and Technology Lab, where her research focuses on Black culture and discourse and digital communication. She is the author of Digital Black Feminism, a book that explores the relationship between Black women and the past, present and future of technology.

@SteeleCat717
Website: Catherine Knight Steele  

Click below to read the full article and see the other Top 30 Influcencers to Follow in 2022.

By Jessica Weiss ’05

The University of Maryland has received a $1.75 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to continue development of open-source technology to expand digital access to manuscripts and books from the premodern Islamicate world in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu.

Matthew Thomas Miller, assistant professor in the Roshan Institute for Persian Studies in the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, leads the interdisciplinary team of researchers, including David Smith from Northeastern University, Sarah Bowen Savant from Aga Khan University (AKU) in London, Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick from the University of California, San Diego, and Raffaele Viglianti from the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities at Maryland. The Mellon Foundation has been funding the project, known as “OpenITI AOCP,” since 2019.

“Over the past four years we have made incredible progress on the creation of digital infrastructure for Islamicate studies, and that is thanks in large part to the Mellon Foundation,” Miller said. “We are honored that the foundation continues to support our efforts to expand access to and digitally preserve such a rich and important cultural tradition.”

There are currently hundreds of thousands—perhaps even millions—of premodern Islamicate books and manuscripts that are not able to be accessed digitally by academics or the public, Miller said.

Thus far, the project team—made up of computer science and humanities experts—has successfully improved the accuracy of open-source Persian and Arabic optical character recognition (OCR) software, which is a system that turns physical, printed documents into machine-readable text. Under the new grant, they will use this OCR software to produce 2,500 new digitized Persian and Arabic texts, as well as expand the OCR system’s capabilities into Ottoman Turkish and Urdu.

They also aim to improve the accuracy of open-source handwritten text recognition (HTR) for Arabic-script manuscripts. A subfield of OCR technology, HTR tools are designed to read a diversity of human handwriting types with high levels of accuracy.

The team will also roll out a user-friendly redesign of its eScriptorium platform, which hosts the open-source tools. This latest Mellon grant will last three years. (Last year, Miller also received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the project.)

Though he hopes its next phase of developments mark a major improvement for Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Urdu texts, Miller said the goal ultimately is for the open-source tools to be used across a wide variety of languages.

“We really hope the technology will be reused by other users, especially those working in other under-resourced languages,” he said. “It’s designed to meet the needs of varied users.”

Image description: Persian ruba‘i (quatrain) calligraphy dating between circa 1610 and circa 1620. Gift in honor of Madeline Neves Clapp; Gift of Mrs. Henry White Cannon by exchange; Bequest of Louise T. Cooper; Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund; From the Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection. Learn more.