“You are a valued and important voice.” “UMBC cares and listens.” “The diversity on UMBC’s campus helps to bring out the best in everyone.” Along with an eye-catching color gradient, these words adorn the walls of the Mezzanine Gallery in The Commons. And while the phrases may sound like something President Valerie Sheares Ashby would (and does) say quite often, they are actually part of an Arts+ initiative, student-sourced art installation that asked students: “Inclusive excellence: What does it mean to you?”
Created by students in the spring 2025 class Professional Practices in Graphic Design, the installation transforms the Mezzanine Gallery and nearby breezeway into spaces that reflect UMBC’s welcoming community. Funded by Student Affairs Communications and Marketing, the project included Petra Janka ’25, graphic design and modern languages and linguistics, and a current human-centered computing master’s student. In this Q&A, Janka and President Sheares Ashby talk about student-led inclusive excellence and the ways that UMBC welcomes people into its community.
President Valerie Sheares Ashby: How did your class approach this project?
Petra Janka: Our class was asked to help to reimagine and transform two spaces in The Commons: The Mezzanine Gallery and the entrance near the breezeway. We wanted students to interact with something enjoyable and inspirational. So our design approach focused on creating a multi-perspective experience.
There are three specific views you can take in this installation. From one side, you see this colorful gradient representing the diversity of residential life on campus. From the other angle, you can see the black and gold gradient symbolizing academic life at the university. If you look at it straight on, you can see the quotes included in the installation and the digital signage, which highlights additional answers. We sourced these quotes by surveying students about their connections, their advice, their challenges, their experiences on campus, and so on.
Left: headshot of Petra Janka in front of the colorful gradient perspective; Right: Designed by the same class, “The Roots of Inclusive Excellence” mural takes over the entire wall of the breezeway entrance to The Commons. The flowers of all different colors, shapes, and sizes represent the many backgrounds and stories each UMBC student brings to campus.
Sheares Ashby: This is fantastic. It is a brilliant idea on multiple levels. I talk about inclusive excellence all the time because it is a core value of the institution, but hearing students’ experience lets me know we are doing something right. It also lets me know there is more for us to do, right? These quotes inspire me to keep going—to try to make the place even more inclusive for everyone.
It is one thing for me to say it, but to know that your student peer is saying—”Give everyone a chance”—well, that is far more powerful than if I were using my voice. When I read the quotes on the wall, I think, “Oh, that is different. That is more powerful. That is more meaningful.”
Janka: The motto of our group was: “From the students, for the students.” We wanted everyone who passes by to stop, read, and feel seen, heard, and valued, and I think we achieved that.
Sheares Ashby: This is a unique institution. It is a very different thing to be at an institution that has been around for more than 150 years, and one that has been around for 59. Older institutions are pretty hard to change. Students certainly have an impact everywhere they go, but you are not creating that institution anymore, not fundamentally changing the DNA.
But, here, we are still in a space where we are becoming clear about our values, but we are flexible and humble enough to recognize there is still more input to receive, still more growth to experience, still new ideas to include. We can be better and different, and it is our clarity about our core principle of inclusive excellence that enables us to do that.
Janka: Last spring, when we were scouting out the space, we saw how many people pass through because this is a place to eat, study, and meet friends. We wanted to add something that becomes part of that everyday experience at UMBC. And now the colors draw your eyes to it, and then you read the messages, and you feel connected, and you’re like, “Oh, this is nice. I feel inspired to do better, to give everyone a chance.” I hope it stays up for a long time.
Sheares Ashby: We are clearly better because you are here. This is what students do. Each time a new student joins us, UMBC gets better.
The project, part of UMBC’s Arts+ initiative, was completed and installed by commonvision, UMBC Student Design and Print Center students Shomapti Hussein ‘25 and Thomas Hammond ‘25, under the print and installation guidance of Tori Richner ‘22, general associate: print production, and the supervision of SACM staff. The Commons Facilities and Operations team installed the panels and screen in the Mezzanine Gallery, and were integral partners in this project.
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