GSA: [Grants Review Panel] Call for Reviewers

Tamisha J. Ponder

lnterdisciplinarity and Social Justice: UMBC Possibilities

Widely known for offering different approaches to traditional research, interdisciplinarity draws knowledge from several other fields. Though seemingly an educated notion, consequently, interdisciplinary fields have encountered much resistance from practitioners of traditional disciplines. Aside from their difference in practices, resistance is also rooted in failure to admit their monopolizations of knowledge and omission of non-white objects. lnterdisciplinarity counters inequality by rejecting neutrality and suggesting that modern academy has failed to involve personal experiences into traditional discourses. As the personal largely became political, academia commissioned social justice issues. Parker and Samantrai (201) discuss the 1960s and early 1970s as a time where interest in social justice was taken within education. While Black studies, Chicano studies and Asian American studies rejected disciplines dominated by white faculty, women's studies served as a corrective to address women's erasure from humanities and to the sexism of the academy and society (pg. 7). Birthed at the brink of liberatory demonstration during anti-war protests, civil rights movement, women’s liberation movement etc., ethnic studies, cultural studies and women's studies emerged because of political movements accompanied by movements on college campuses. These fields became known as knowledge producers. Social justice is linked to interdisciplinarity, but are interdisciplinary scholars committed to social justice? How much of interdisciplinary work is rooted in social justice, and how much is simply application of varying methodologies? This microtalk will deliver a look at Parker and Samantrai's critical analysis of interdisciplinarity and its relationship with social justice, in addition to UMBC's possibilities.

Montia D. Gardner, M.Ed.

Social Capital and Rural Black Education: A Rosenwald School in Mississippi

Using an Oral History Methodology, this research seeks to analyze the social capital of rural Black communities and the building of Rosenwald Schools through an educational, historical, and sociological, interdisciplinary framework. Rosenwald Schools provide an historical analysis that supports Marion Orr 's theory of Black social capital, which is defined as the "ability of a particular group to work together to achieve social ends." There is evidence that Black educational advancement, particularly in the southern regions of the United States, was the accomplishment of organized Black communities during the Reconstruction era. Rosenwald Schools are the result of an educational partnership among Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears and Roebuck, and Booker T. Washington, president of Tuskegee Institute. In the earlier 20th century their partnership built 5,000 schools across the south. The Rosenwald-Washington model required the buy-in of African American communities and the support of white governing bodies. Evidence from Rosenwald Schools and educational advancement in the era of Reconstruction theorizes that social capital was more prevalent among rural Black communities with a Rosenwald School. By 1928 1/3 of Blacks in the south were educated in Rosenwald Schools and school attendance, literacy, years of schooling, and cognitive test scoring made their highest gains during this time in history. The micro talks presents evidence to connect the theory of Black social capital to the success of Rosenwald Schools with the hope of uncovering transferable strategies to support current educational advancement.

Title: Felonious Women & Familial Bonds: Convict Transportation to the Maryland Colony, 1718-1739

Title: Affective Childhood Origins of Type 2 Diabetes Among Older Adults