The Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) invites you to attend the Henrietta Lacks Memorial Lecture on Saturday, October 10, 2015, in Turner Auditorium on the Johns Hopkins East Baltimore (Medical) Campus.
The keynote speaker is Dr. Ruha Benjamin, Assistant Professor, Princeton University and author of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier. Special guest presenters include Dr. and Mrs. Roland Pattillo, Morehouse College; Dr. John Joseph Strouse, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; and members of the Lacksfamily. Copies of Dr. Benjamin’s book will be offered for sale and guests will have an opportunity to have their book signed. The 2015 winners of both the Henrietta LacksDunbar Health Sciences Scholarship and the Urban Health Institute’s Henrietta Lacks Memorial Community Award will be announced.
This is a free community event open to the public. Parking, breakfast, and lunch are provided at no cost to attendees. Parking is available in the Washington Street Garage, 701 N. Washington Street, Baltimore 21205. Handicapped/disabled parking may be requested on the registration form. Registration is required. Early registration is advised as online registration will close prior to the event. Space is limited. Click here to download the event poster.
For more information and to register online, visit: http://ictr.johnshopkins.edu/lecture.
The goal of this event is to describe the reach and complexity, both biomedically and ethically, of the story of Henrietta Lacks and HeLa cells as well as to provide some insight into the past, present, and future of the conduct of clinical research. By honoring Mrs. Lacks and the positive global impact of HeLa cells through this lecture series, the ICTR hopes to acknowledge, thank and honor everyone who participates in the clinical research process.
]]>Few college graduates can claim to have had the experience my fellow staff and I have shared while with the Women’s Center. Our jobs have been many things: one part employee, one part student, one part teacher, one part social justice programmer, one part artist, one part writer, one part friend, one part killjoy. I can’t speak for everybody, but I know I was able to work from many different angles–something I’ve always wanted in a job–and I was guided by my own passion for feminism and social justice. With the Women’s Center, I have gained quite a bit of insight into working with a professional social justice organization.
This is where I’m going to talk about what I’ve gained from my time with the Women’s Center.
I’m not crying or anything about it being my last day…
Working at the Women’s Center you gain a lot of different skills that become increasingly useful as you approach graduation and begin to enter the “real world,” as we so forebodingly call it (as if college is a wholly separate fantasy world where our responsibilities don’t exist). Here are a few of the most valuable things I’ve learned about, and that I’ve been reflecting on as I count down to my last day working at the Center.
Professional experience
First and foremost, the Women’s Center is a real live university department with an office and official logo and letterheads and everything. Working for the Center meant working in a professional space and conducting myself in a professional manner. We have tons of fun in the office, but we also work hard to get things done on campus. I would attend meetings with campus staff, write official copy for various publications, and (try to) conduct myself with the poise and responsibility of someone who wanted to represent the Women’s Center in the best way possible.
Vincent Adultman, or three children stacked on top of each other pretending to be an adult person, from Bojack Horseman.
Before I started at the Center, I took for granted what “professional experience” meant and how important it is; I thought I would simply enter the state of professionalism once I got a real job and made real money and had a real mortgage with a real wife and kids and a real white picket fence. Like a college student caterpillar becoming a business butterfly through the phenomenon of career chrysalis. No, professional experience is something truly important to new graduates out there, especially those who haven’t had as much time working in an office setting. Understanding how to represent your organization well and being familiar with the politics of professional life, whether that means comporting your language for student affairs or not wearing the boxers you slept in last night to work the next morning, can be crucial as you enter the professional world.
Research
Sometimes I imagine that the writing and research you do in college goes away once you get your dream job. As if you will become Miranda Priestly and just have a vision of what you want, and then some poor highly-skilled people will work all night to make your vision come into reality. Nope, sorry (or maybe that it is your reality… then you can stop reading). At the Women’s Center, research and writing are at the backbone of what we do.
The plainest function of the Women’s Center is to make UMBC a better place for women and other minority students (for a more eloquent mission statement, go here); in operationalizing this mission, we have to continually make arguments, and we rely on research–sometimes our own–to justify them. For example, people know that sexual assault on college campuses is a big deal, but HOW and WHY do they know that? Somebody who was assumedly concerned about the welfare of sexual assault survivors on campus, raising awareness about this issue, and curbing rape culture decided to conduct some research. Now we have their work to thank for Take Back the Night, the Clothesline Project, and many of the other activist projects that the Women’s Center has taken the lead in planning. The Women’s Center’s own director, Jess Myers, conducted research about online anti-sexual assault activism.
The Women’s Center lives up to the expectations that are put upon any department under the umbrella of a “research university,” like UMBC. We encourage and advance research, and even do our own. By partnering with other departments, the Women’s Center is able to help promote student research, which is what happened to me. Working with both the Gender and Women’s Studies Department and Megan Tagle Adams at the Center, I was able to conduct original research and present it at URCAD. Independent research is an incredibly important part of being a UMBC student and, if you’re interested in going on to graduate school, it is integral.
Leadership skills
One of the most important things that I’ve learned with the Women’s Center is how to be a good leader. None of us come to leadership from the same angle. Some of us are the ones who can stand on stage and rouse the crowd. Some of us are the ones who work hard to develop an idea into reality. Some of us just want to stimulate a conversation by listening and asking questions. No matter how you come at leadership, it is important to know that anyone can do it. It doesn’t take a cult of personality or a penchant for fine Italian pantsuits–it just takes you. Whether it’s through the mentorships with the best bosses in the world, Jess and Megan, or through the independence you are allowed while working on your own project, when you’re working with the Women’s Center, you learn so much about yourself as a leader, a team player, and how you can be better.
I think the Women’s Center is incredibly successful at encouraging what I’m going to call “responsible leadership”–a leadership that is founded on respect for others and social justice. We lead by listening and reflecting. We lead through solidarity among differences. We lead through attention to the power inequities that affect our relationships. We lead because we care and are passionate about positive social change. I am proud to have come out of the Women’s Center, not only a campus leader, but one that is thoughtful, sensitive, and ready to listen.
It’s not just that I’ve grown–it’s that I’ve been able to help my colleagues grow, as well. The staff at the Women’s Center is united in supporting one another and lifting each other up. As such, we are expected to do our best and push each other to be better. Coming into the Women’s Center, I knew I wanted to do big things on our campus, but I didn’t know how to make those things happen or where to even start. It was only by working with the Women’s Center as a team that we were able to make Critical Social Justice the important and sustainable initiative that it is today. I look back on the impact that CSJ has made with pride. I have affected change at UMBC, and the future looks bright. When I look back at the teamwork that was put into the program, it only makes everything feel so much more powerful.
Alright, this is where I’m going to get kind of abstract and very unapologetically sentimental.
I think the most important thing about my time with the Women’s Center, however, is that it was where I met my UMBC family. Some of my colleagues might see it differently, but I’m always inclined to understand relationships through kinship. See, my biological family is small. We’re just three people, so we have this thing where our friends become our family. For the longest time, I have had aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins who are nowhere near related to me–we just love each other, and that’s enough. That same kinship that comes so easily between myself and my big extended family, is also sown among us at the Women’s Center. I’ve cried in front of most of the Women’s Center staff–and not the cute cry. It’s that big, ball of emotion weighing down on your throat, gaggy cry. I’ve also laughed so hard that I had big warm happy tears dribble down my cheeks. The Women’s Center staff has cried together, laughed together, seen each other at our worst, at our best, and at our strangest. We’ve allowed a truly special amount of vulnerability between each other. We work hard to build each other up, and we also trust each other to challenge one another when we need it. It’s a powerful dynamic that we share, and it’s nothing less than a family of feminists and activists intent on supporting one another in the most radically caring ways.
I was going to end this blog post–my last blog post–with something like, “I don’t know what I would have done without the Women’s Center…” but I find it’s near impossible to even think about my life without the Women’s Center in it, because all of my experiences with the Center seem to be firmly rooted in my heart and my mind. I have been profoundly changed and inspired with this amazing group of people and their transformative ideas for the future.
Maybe there’s everything left to say. I could go on and on on about the Women’s Center for forever. I often do if you let me. But all I can think to end this post with is a simple thank you to the Women’s Center staff who’ve shared two of the most unforgettable years of my life. Thank you for being you and sharing in this phenomenal journey.
Current and future Women’s Center staff: May your days be filled with white male tears and the promise of feminist futures!
Take a look at all the events lined up for Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365!
Baltimore 101: Why Baltimore Matters – 12PM to 1PM in Commons 329 – Who are we talking about when we talk about Baltimore? Led by Dr. Jodi Kelber-Kaye.
Dialogue with Delegate Washington: LGBTQ Youth Homelessness – 7PM to 8:30PM in Commons 329 – Maryland State Delegate Mary Washington will speak about LGBTQ youth homelessness in Baltimore, including a brief overview of the history of LGBTQ rights in Maryland, where things stand now, and how you can get involved. Directly following this conversation there will be a small reception. Event sponsored by: Student Life’s Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity.
Baltimore in Action: Always Rising Keynote Event – Doors open at 6:30PM, keynote begins at 7PM in the UC Ballroom – Teach-in panel moderated by radio host Marc Steiner featuring Baltimore social justice activists: Rev. Dr. Heber Brown, III, faith-based activist and community organizer; Dr. Marisela B. Gomez, public health advocate and author; Tawanda Jones, activist and sister of Tyrone West; Jacqueline Robarge, founder of Power Inside; Kwame Rose, social activist and hip-hop artist. Meet-and-greet reception with the speakers will follow the keynote.
Vines, Rhymes, & Headlines: Telling the Story of Baltimore – 12PM to 1PM on Commons Main Street – Discussion with Karen Houppert, author and editor-in-chief of Baltimore City Paper. Moderated by Professor Deborah Rudacille (English). 12PM to 2PM – Multimedia exhibit exploring Baltimore as captured through the mainstream media – and the tweets, photos, music, and new media pushing back. Event sponsored by: the Women’s Center.
From Belief to Action: An Interfaith Dialogue – 5PM to 6:30PM on Commons Main Street – Moderated roundtable discussion with religious and spiritual leaders engaged in social justice activism in Baltimore followed by a facilitated audience conversation. Panelists will highlight the many ways that their religious and spiritual beliefs and practices inform and propel their work towards justice and equality. Event sponsored by: Student Life’s Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity.
How to Talk to Kids about “-Isms” – 10AM to 11AM in the Women’s Center – Roundtable discussion about the challenges and best practices for introducing children to social justice. Invited panelists include: Lisa Gray, Dr. Jodi Kelber-Kaye, and Dr. Marcela Sarmiento Mellinger. Event sponsored by: the Women’s Center.
Walking Tour of a Baltimore Neighborhood – 12:30PM to 3PM, meet at Commons & Park bus stop – Join Dr. Kate Drabinski from GWST for a 90-minute walking tour that will take us from the UMBC shuttle stop at MLK and Pratt, into Pigtown, and back across MLK for a tour of the Westside. Free tickets available at the CIC desk from September 28th through October 21st.
If your department or organization is planning a program this fall semester that reflects the spirit of Critical Social Justice: Baltimore 365, let us know at womens.center@umbc.edu!
More details and events will be announced leading up to CSJ: Baltimore 365, so like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and use the hashtag #CSJ365 to keep up-to-date with the latest news!
* All events are free and open to the public.
** Contact womens.center@umbc.edu if you need special accommodations.
Mosaic Center 25Live Reservation Requirements
Important Requester Information: Please note that the Mosaic is only reservable by UMBC student leaders, staff and faculty through 25Live Monday through Friday, from 5pm until the Commons closes and Saturdays and Sundays according to normal Commons building hours. The center is a "first come, first seated" lounge space Monday through Friday, 10am-5pm except during noted Student Life sponsored events and meetings.
Reservations are for the space only. AV equipment, tables or chairs cannot be requested for use in our center. Catering and/or food is allowed on a case by case basis.
Please limit your functions in the Mosaic Center to no more than 30 people.
Please see the Commons front desk staff to be let into the Mosaic Center (unless prior arrangements have been made with Mosaic Center staff).
Before submitting a request, please read “Student Life's Mosaic Center Reservation Agreement” listed below.
Student Life's Mosaic Center Reservation Agreement:
I and/or my group agrees to leave the Mosaic Center in good condition. This means:
· The center will be left generally clean and tidy,
· All tables and chairs will be returned to their original locations,
· All center print materials will be straightened and reset,
· All non-food related trash will be placed in trash cans and all food trash will be disposed of outside the center,
· The whiteboard will be wiped clean (if used),
· The lights will be turned off,
· The door will be closed upon exiting the space and,
· The Commons Information Desk staff will be notified at the end of your event/meeting so they can lock the door.
If you and/or your group fail to adhere to this agreement, your reservation privileges may be suspended or revoked for the remainderof the semester and/or year.
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UMBC Women Who Rock is a blog series I’m working on throughout the 2014-15 academic year (and now perhaps beyond). In my role as Women’s Center director, I have some of the best opportunities to become acquainted with some of UMBC’s best and brightest women on campus. I admire the ways they live authentic lives unapologetically that challenge the stereotypes and assumptions that are often assigned to women. By debunking these stereotypes and forcing us to check our assumptions, they allow us to expand our notion of what a woman is and can be.
-Jess
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In the few UMBC Women Who Rock blog posts I’ve written over the past year, I end with the same paragraph every time. I ask my readers about which UMBC women inspire them and how the counter narratives they’re sharing with us allow UMBC and our greater community to be more of exactly who we want to be. I absolutely love the power of counternarratives and their ability to expose assumptions and reveal complexities and depth. And, while it’s so important to emphasize the counternarratives, after connecting with Rehana Shafi earlier this summer, I was reminded of the importance of also simply knowing the narrative of someone’s life.
Rehana speaking at the dedication of the naming of Sherman Hall.
Rehana and I are both a part of the Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA) Division and for the past four years have shared time together at leadership team meetings. During these meetings, I have looked to Rehana as a role model as I design my own concept of women’s leadership. I appreciate the time I have to sit with her around the UAA leadership table. She asks important questions, provides important context to discussions, inserts moments of humor and light-heartedness, and exemplifies confidence. I have learned a great deal from Rehana by simply being at the same table with her. And, despite having spent this time with Rehana, I recently was reflecting on the fact that I knew very little about her and who she is. This realization inspired me to set up a time to meet with her under the guise of a UMBC Women Who Rocks interview.
So, I asked her “Who are you?”
But, let me take a step back. This actually wasn’t the first question I asked her.
Rehana with the graduating class of 2013 Sherman Scholars.
First, I asked her about her role as the director of the Sherman’s Scholars Program and what journey did she take to get there. She shared her journey starting out an exercise science major in college, which led her to a brief stint working as personal trainer. Through this experience she learned that she really liked educating people, which led her to the experience of teaching ESL to middle school students, which eventually led her to working in the Choice Program in an alternative school in East Baltimore County. Of course, the Choice Program led her to the Shriver Center at UMBC and she worked there for several years coordinating service-learning and K-12 outreach. Finally, she found the perfect opportunity in the Sherman STEM Teacher Scholars Program to apply everything she loved and was important to her about education, and she’s been working as the director ever since. We also talked about what it looks like for her to be a woman of color in a leadership position and the responsibility she feels to reach and support the few others on campus who look like her.
While this is a very condensed version of our conversation and her journey, through the simple act of storytelling, I realized how much Rehana and I had in common. We no longer just worked in the same division at UMBC but also had these neat little connections. We both have social work in our background and found our way into higher education as a way to find balance in self-care and still wanting to make a difference. We’ve both experienced first-hand the inequities of education and the ways in which children are pushed through systems. We both see ourselves as educators and that doesn’t have to include being in the classroom. We also both feel constrained by 5 and 10-year plans and would rather just be open to the possibilities.
When there was a pause in the conversation, I took a step back and looked at the questions I had prepared related to why she as a UMBC woman indeed rocks. I had scribbled down a note that asked “life outside of UMBC?” and that’s when I asked the big question, “Who are you… Who is Rehana outside of UMBC?”
Up until this point, I had been jotting facts down and was heading onto a third page to ensure an accurate portrayal of this UMBC Women Who Rocks. But, this is where the note taking took a pause and I just listened. As she attempted to answer this question, Rehana vulnerably explained to me, “I’m still searching for what that is.” In this part of our conversation she shared the deep impact the passing of loved ones has had on her recent journey. She spoke to the time she spent needing and wanting to take care of others around her but how that also impacted her ability to practice self-care. She’s beginning to figure out what self-care looks like for her and what that means to who she is. It includes eating well and exercising and maybe learning to swim or pick up sewing again. It includes what’s around her and not letting life happen while she isn’t watching. Through this simple question, I learned more about who Rehana really is and wants to be – and it’s way more than what exists on her resume or within her job title. It made me think about how often leadership and excellence is defined by doing, but the real challenge is really in the being.
This has me thinking a lot about a recent post another Women’s Center staff member wrote in the aftermath of the Baltimore Uprisings. She began her post with the question, “How are you?” and reflected on the deep importance this simple question holds in providing critical care to others. After my conversation with Rehana, I believe the similar meaning can be given to the question, “Who are you?” Asking the questions of “Who are you?” and “How are you?” is integral to practicing feminist leadership. I’m grateful for the time Rehana and I carved out during our busy days for her to share her story of not just doing but being. As I head into what I’m sure will be another busy fall semester, this experience has encouraged me to challenge myself to take the time to ask that short and immensely powerful question – “Who are you?”
Rehana with the Shermans and Dr. Hrabowski at the Sherman Hall dedication ceremony.
Who are the UMBC women in your life that inspire you to think outside your expectations and assumptions? What are the counter narrative stories they’re sharing with us allowing UMBC and our greater community to be more of exactly who we want to be? Comment below and maybe you’ll just find them featured in a future UMBC Women Who Rock post.
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Check out other UMBC Women Who Rock:
Amanda Knapp (featured August 2014)
Susan Dumont (featured October 2014)
Jahia Knobloch (featured January 2015)
A Reflection on Encouragement and Accountability (February 2015)
Amelia Meman (March 2015)
Ashley Sweet (May 2015)
Apply to Rebuilding Manhood this fall by submitting your application of interest by September 6th (deadline extended)
We accept students on a rolling basis so don't wait to submit your application.
Rebuilding Manhood takes place on Fridays from 2-3:15pm starting on September 11th and ending on December 4th.
UMBC faculty and staff are encouraged to nominate students by filling out this nomination form by no later than Friday, August 28th.
A blog reflection written by Women’s Center intern Bree Best
For the past several months I have been trying to conceptualize what I wanted to say about white privilege and protesting, the struggle of identifying power structures, access to privileged dissent, and a whole litany of other things that I could go on about dealing with Racism = Prejudice + Power. One recent experience sticks out in my mind as indicative of just how harmful white privilege can be in spaces that are supposed to be about social justice.
Thirty-five of the 46 women who have publicly accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault are featured on the cover of New York Magazine.
At the end of March 2015, I went to protest Bill Cosby at the Lyric in Baltimore and immediately I noticed the appalling disparity between white women to women of color. As I looked for the protest organizer to discuss my concerns, I heard the protesters shame the patrons as they were walking into the Lyric – patrons who were overwhelmingly people of color. I came to protest Bill Cosby’s rape allegations and bring awareness to sexual assault, not to further marginalize already marginalized people.
When I expressed my concerns to the white woman protest leader, her response was immediately defensive: “We’re supposed to shame the patrons. They’re the ones that paid for the tickets to come see this show. That’s how a protest works.” I tried explaining my discomfort as a woman of color seeing mostly white women protesting a black man by yelling at people of color and mentioned that many of these same people being yelled at may have experienced white people yelling at them while protesting for Civil Rights, so perhaps a different strategy would be worth considering.
Peak white feminism at a Slut Walk NYC march in 2011. Using racism to combat sexism = FAIL.
Ultimately, I ended up leaving the protest after the organizer told me that I was being combative (among other unsavory things). As I drowned my intersectional feminist rage in Blue Moon and mixed drinks, I considered how much more effective the protest could have been if the white organizer and participants had used an intersectional lens to think about how systems of power influence their lives, including their approach to activism. We need more critical dialogue not just about race and racism but specifically about whiteness, which is often forgotten in these discussions because it is the invisible norm against which everything else is othered.
Disrupting this white-centric framework is crucial for engaging in anti-racism. On a national scale, the Black Lives Matter protests are a direct interruption of that a Eurocentric worldview. Just as we need to decenter whiteness in the physical spaces like these protests, we also need for “allies” to decenter whiteness mentally so that they can engage in social justice without reproducing oppressive power structures or erasing the voices of people of color.
I’ve been in many situations like the Cosby protest when a white person got defensive when I pointed out a racial disparity or racially motivated power dynamics and I tried to push them to understand how problematic that can be, at which point they would either leave or ask me to leave by insinuating that I was being “difficult to work with.” These racial interactions are an everyday occurrence for me because I and many other black people must continually navigate “white space” while also decentering whiteness. However, in order to effectively dismantle white supremacy, black people cannot be the only ones working to disrupt white space – in our communities and our minds – but rather white people must also take on the often-uncomfortable challenge of confronting their own privilege.
Most places can be considered spaces of privilege and prejudice unless they actively work against oppression.
With white spaces being virtually everywhere, my beloved Women’s Center at UMBC is no different. Throughout my internship I’ve had many conversations with Women’s Center staff about we can continue working to decenter whiteness, including more intentionally focusing on the voices and perspectives of women of color and developing strategies to more effectively enable white people to engage in constructive dialogue around race and racism. Dismantling white supremacy is a daunting task and I am equipped with the skills and opportunities to aid in this endeavor despite how exhausting this work can be.
As with most social change work, progress in anti-racist work takes time, a humbled nature, and patience. People make mistakes and call each other out. If that is the case, use the white leadership from the Cosby protest as an example of how not to react. Instead I would suggest: Take a breath, assess your privilege, welcome the lesson, and ask engaging questions that focus on creating an effective impact in communities of color. If people want to build diverse communities, then we as a community have to acknowledge and embrace our differences through understanding the greater systems at large that privileges few and oppresses many.