What’s Up with “What’s the Tea?”: Starts, Stops & Lessons Learned in Social Justice Work

By Lisa Gray, Assistant Director of Student Life, Cultural and Spiritual Diversity.  Earlier this year, Joakina Stone, then a Res Life colleague and collateral work staff with Student Life’s Mosaic Center, along with an amazing group of students, staff and faculty, helped us to co-create our new Mosaic Social Justice discussion series. We exchanged a bunch……

Guest Post: Black Lives Matter and Mental Brave Spaces

This guest post was written by Ty Philip and was originally featured on the Women’s Center blog.  When discussing the concept and implementation of brave spaces, a lot of the conversation revolves around the idea that these spaces are inherently physical. We speak of transforming places into brave spaces, designating that certain locations at certain……

How to Plan a Social Justice Event in 6 Steps

By Jasmine Malhotra, Graduate Coordinator for Cultural Programs with Student Life’s The Mosaic: Center for Culture & Diversity UMBC’s Critical Social Justice (CSJ) Week 2015 will be February 16 -20th. As we get closer to the week and all the exciting events that will take place, you may be wondering how you can participate. What……

Critical Social Justice Keynote Speakers Reflections on Ferguson

There have been so many blog posts written within the past three months since Michael Brown’s murder and especially within the past 48 hours documenting the anger, the sadness, the rage in the aftermath of what has (and is) taking place in Ferguson (read this or this or this just for starters).  There is nothing that I……

Why Equality Isn’t Fair: A Lesson from Fourth Grade

This post is written by Madison Miller. It was originally featured on the Women’s Center WordPress, which you can find here. With much discussion in Women’s Center staff meetings about actively applying our work in the Center as student staff members to other areas of our lives, I have recently been thinking a lot about……

Guest Post: Honoring Stonewall, LGBTQ History Month, and Reina Gossett

This guest post was written by Women’s Center student staff member Ty Philip.  In celebrating LGBTQ History Month, it’s important to remember those who don’t fit into the mainstream representation of the LGBTQ community. As the LGBTQ community has made gains in society, it is important to recognize that the face of the movement is……

A Beginner’s Guide to Privilege

This guest post by Madison Miller was originally posted on the Women’s Center at UMBC blog.  In addition to working at the Women’s Center as a student staff member, I also serve as a Resident Assistant in a first-year residential hall on campus. Recently, my paraprofessional staff and I have been exploring the topic of……

Inspiring Social Justice to Address Emerging Health Crises in Vulnerable Populations

As part of Critical Social Justice week, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology is organizing a workshop “Inspiring Social Justice to Address Emerging Health Crises in Vulnerable Populations” to be held on Monday, March 3rd from 12-2pm in Sherman A-220. The first panel, “The Health Toll of Human Rights Violations Against Female Political Prisoners, Transsexuals,……

Why I’m Spreading the Word to End the Word

A guest post from ThuyVy Duong, who works with SUCCESS (Students United for Campus-Community Engagement for Post-Secondary Success), a partnership of UMBC and the Maryland Department of Disabilities. SUCCESS is the first 4-year college experience for young adults with intellectual disabilities in Maryland. My name is ThuyVy Duong and I pledge to not use the……

End the Automatic Prosecution of Youth as Adults

By law youth as young as 14 charged with certain crimes will be automatically sent to the adult criminal justice system based solely on age and offense. Join Just Kids and Critical Social Justice on Monday, March 10th at 7pm in UMBC University Center 310 to learn how the consequences of the push to “get tough on……