On September 19, 1966, UMBC opened its doors to students for the first day of classes in the institution’s history. Mimi Dietrich ’70, American studies, was among those “pioneer” students, encouraged by faculty and administrators to take advantage of a campus where everything was both new and possible.

“So many of them were inspiring because they were joining us in this new university,” says Dietrich, who has in her decades as an alumna continued to show her passion for UMBC in a variety of ways.

Dietrich will receive the UMBC Alumni Award for Distinguished Service at a ceremony on October 4.

The pioneering spirit has continued to carry Dietrich to pursue her passion in quilting. After teaching middle school and pre-school for 6 years, Dietrich shifted her focus to teach needlework and quilting. For 50 years, Dietrich has traveled across the United States to teach at guilds, festivals, state conferences, cruises, and an American studies course at UMBC. Dietrich was inducted into The Quilters Hall of Fame in 2015 and was named Professional Quilt Teacher of the Year by the International Association of Creative Arts Professionals in 2013. The author of 17 books and countless publications, Dietrich now teaches a year-long class focused on Baltimore Album Quilts. A founding member of The Village Quilters in Catonsville and the Baltimore Applique Society, Dietrich is preparing for an exhibit of her quilts in 2019.

Alongside her professional successes, Dietrich hasn’t strayed far from UMBC in the decades following graduation. A founding member of the Fab Four, an alumni group comprised of graduates of UMBC’s first four graduating classes, Dietrich took on a pivotal volunteer role engaging the earliest alumni heading into UMBC’s milestone 25th and 50th anniversaries. During UMBC’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2016, The Fab Four hosted several events, and continues to plan initiatives aimed at connecting UMBC’s early alumni with the university.

Dietrich credits her husband and fellow alumnus Robert “Bob” Dietrich ’70, biological science, for keeping her connected to UMBC, where he worked for 40 years. A former member of UMBC’s Alumni Association Board of Directors, Dietrich was named UMBC Volunteer of the Year in 1997, an honor she shared with husband Bob. Together, they’ve raised two sons, Jon and Ryan, who have grown up to be wonderful dads to their three grandchildren.

– Amy Dalrymple

On September 19, 2018 we’ll be hosting The Black Ladies Brunch Collective, a group of Maryland-based poets whose mission it is to “promote and inspire the voices of Black women,” and on February 18, 2019 we will present novelist Michael Downs. Our focus this year is on writers who actively build and sustain Baltimore’s unique literary community. Complete bios of our guests are below.

All readings are in the Skylight Room, Commons, at 5:00 pm. Book signing and refreshments to follow the event.

Our goal is to make the arts come alive at UMBC, so that literature is experienced as a vibrant, interdisciplinary form of creation, expression, and civic engagement – for everyone. This year we are pleased to count a wide range of diverse departments as our sponsors, including:  Africana Studies; The English Department; The Dean of CAHSS; Dresher Center; Mosaic Center; Gender and Women’s Studies; History; Sociology and Anthropology.

BIOS for 2018-19 English Department Reading Series

BLACK LADIES BRUNCH COLLECTIVE

The Black Ladies Brunch Collective (BLBC), founded in 2014 in Washington, D.C. The group’s mission is to promote and inspire the voices of Black women—who have been, as a population, historically marginalized and silenced. BLBC recognizes the artistic work of Black women, and encourages and fosters collaboration between them. BLBC serves the whole artistic community but specifically aims to inspire under-privileged/under-represented/women of color. BLBC wishes to serve as a model for other black women writers who desire to create social and professional communities that not only support their creative development but also enrich and maintain their spirits.

Teri Ellen Cross Davis is the author of Haint, winner of the 2017 Ohioana Poetry Book Award, a Cave Canem fellow, and member of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective. She is the poetry coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Her website is www.poetsandparents.com.

Katy Richey’s work has appeared in Rattle, Cincinnati Review, RHINO and The Offing. She received an honorable mention for the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and has received fellowships from Fine Arts Work Center, MD State Arts Council and The Cave Canem Foundation.

celeste doaks, a poet and journalist, is the editor of Not Without Our Laughter, and author of Cornrows and Cornfields. Doaks, a Pushcart prize nominee, received her MFA from NC State University. Currently, she is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Delaware.

Tafisha A. Edwards is the author of The Bloodlet, winner of Phantom Books’ 2016 Breitling Chapbook Prize. She is the Poetry Editor of Gigantic Sequins. Her poems have appeared in The Offing, The Nashville Review, Phantom, West Branch Wired, The Atlas Review and other print and publications.

Saida Agostini is a queer afro-guyanese poet and activist.A Cave Canem graduate fellow, her work is featured or forthcoming in Origins, Drunk in the Midnight Choir, the Black Ladies Brunch Collective's anthology, Not Without Our Laughter, pluck!, The Little Patuxent Review, and other publications.

MICHAEL DOWNS

Michael Downs, a Hartford native, is the author of The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist, his debut novel from Acre Books. Earlier works include The Greatest Show: Stories, inspired by the true story of the Hartford, Conn., circus fire, and House of Good Hope: A Promise for a Broken City, named a finalist in memoir for the Connecticut Book Award. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and is a professor of English at Towson University.