Research and Scholarly Work

COLLEGE PARK, Md.—The University of Maryland College of Arts and Humanities is pleased to announce the launch of the Arts and Humanities Center for Synergy and its website arhusynergy.umd.edu. The site launched Wednesday, December 18, 2013, and is the product of years of concerted efforts between the Office of the Dean in the College of Arts and Humanities and input from faculty experts.

Led by Sheri Parks, associate dean of research, interdisciplinary scholarship and programming, the center seeks to help faculty, students and the larger community make connections across the diverse, yet interconnected disciplines of the college.

“The goal is to place these fields in broad context, facilitating new intellectual synergies that connect and inform the pressing human problems of our time,” said Bonnie Thornton Dill, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. “Through lectures, symposia, intellectual working groups and research initiatives, we will apply our new insights and skills to help individuals and academics alike.”

The site was designed not only to aggregate information about initiatives that cross disciplinary lines, but to act as a resource hub for scholars, students and community members looking to connect and build support for projects of mutual interest.

In the initial launch, the site will provide in-depth information about the many innovative and collaborative research, scholarship, events, programs, courses and outreach taking place in the college. In addition, the site hosts a wealth of information about grant resources and highlights the arts and humanities labs for inspiration and creativity.

“From the visual and performing arts to history, literature and culture, the arts and humanities provide powerful insights and perspectives for out-of-the box ideas,” said Parks. “They raise awareness, break down barriers and foster innovation.” 

To further inspire and engage the community, the college has organized this year’s dean’s lecture series to presentarts and humanities leaders who are influencing society and advancing the national conversation on the importance of humanities and social sciences to the improved state of the world. 

"We are proud to convene a community of arts and humanities leaders, continually reaching across disciplinary lines—theorizing, producing new tools and methodologies—to shape the future of the academy," said Thornton Dill. "We look forward to the valuable contributions of our established affiliates and the insights of emerging working groups to extend the conversations taking place nationally on the future of the arts and humanities."

Upcoming Enhancements

In subsequent releases, the website will provide a scholar database that will help users identify partners with similar interests. Also in the works are virtual labs with a variety of tools that can be used by existing or emerging working groups alike. The goal is to help people connect, collaborate and innovate.

The website was created through a synergistic collaboration between the web and application services and marketing and communications teams in the College of Arts and Humanities.

The website is an example of the college's commitment to improve the visibility of interdisciplinary initiatives not only within the college, but also through collaborations with those in other fields of study.

For more info, please contact Sheri Parks at slp@umd.edu.

School of Music

Congratulations to Musicology Professor Barbara Haggh-Huglo, who received a Fellowship for University Teachers from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for her topic, “Of Abbeys and Aldermen: Music in Ghent to 1559.”  Professor Haggh-Huglo’s research is one of 202 humanities projects to receive an award from the NEH for 2014.

With the support of the fellowship, Dr. Haggh-Huglo will complete her research and write a scholarly book that illustrates how music participated in several profound historical changes in the city of Ghent, now in Belgium. When asked why her research focuses on Ghent, she says, “For two reasons: Ghent was the most populous northern city after Paris in the late Middle Ages, and rich documentation survives, such as complete city council records, making it possible to learn the role of music in daily life and in major events in detail uncommon for this time.”

In addition to the book, Dr. Haggh-Huglo will develop a free, online database that lists the 500 most substantial benefactions for music registered in Ghent between 1329 and 1559. She also plans to arrange a series of performances in Belgium and at the University of Maryland, College Park, which will feature the music she discovered through her research.                                                                                                           

Dr. Haggh-Huglo believes her project can lead to a fresh understanding of music from other times and of the place it has – or could have – in today’s world. “Music played an important role in the major turning points in Ghent’s history,” she says. “There are implications for our modern culture, arts patronage, and in using music to make positive changes in society. I hope my findings give new ideas for other research that can tell us more about who we are.” 

by James Chute, The San Diego Union-Tribune

We’re always moving. But most of the time, we’re not even aware of it.

On a recent Saturday in the Old Globe Theatre’s rehearsal hall in Balboa Park, dancer Karen Bradley asked a group of innovators to pay special attention.

She took them through a series of exercises, from being still and feeling the subtle movement in their bodies, to using overt movements to express an idea.

“The point I was trying to make is that movement — when we behave — it’s actually data; it’s information for us,” said Bradley, director of graduate studies at the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies and one of the faculty members for Balboa Park’s Art of Science Learning project.

“When we move creatively, we generate choices, which perhaps we wouldn’t think of in our (brain’s) frontal lobe right away, but stuff bubbles up from the back as we notice what we’re doing.”

So what does this have to do with addressing a significant, real-life challenge, which is the goal of this group created by the Art of Science Learning?

“If you are trying to solve a problem, and you want to see many different possible outcomes, sometimes moving it offers you an array of possibilities,” Bradley said. “Some of them are silly, and goofy, and you go, ‘OK, that’s not working.’ And some of them are like, ‘Wow, I wouldn’t have thought of that otherwise.’ ”

The San Diego Incubator for Innovation — where the arts are integrated with science, technology, engineering and math (also known as STEM) — is now in session.

To read more, please click here.

by Jason Farman, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Since I’ve been teaching in higher education, I have always been very confident of my teaching abilities. I knew I was a good teacher; that is, until fall semester of 2012.

I had just been awarded a fellowship with the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Maryland, given to 10 faculty members each year from disciplines all across the campus. I then met with my fellow faculty members every Friday morning for an hour to discuss teaching methods, pedagogical theories, and the role of face-to-face learning in the digital age.

Working alongside these seasoned scholar-teachers, I realized that everything I had taken for granted about my own teaching wasn’t always the best approach. I very quickly realized that each one of my assumptions had to be reevaluated, beginning with the idea that I was a good teacher.

Throughout the academic year working with the Center for Teaching Excellence, I built my teaching philosophy from the ground up, holding each of my assumptions under close examination. In the end, I crafted the following Manifesto for Active Learning.

To read more, please click here.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The University of Maryland is launching a campus-wide, interdisciplinary research center designed to advance a deep understanding of language to promote human and technological solutions to real world problems.

The Maryland Language Science Center will combine the brain trust of the world's broadest and most integrated community of language scientists to connect answers to deep scientific problems—such as understanding how our brains make the richness of human language(s) possible—with solutions to real-world problems involving language in education, technology, health and security.

The center is a collaborative effort involving more than 200 language scientists, drawn from 16 departments and centers in six colleges across the university.

"Language is the foundation of what makes humans distinctive as a species. Without it, society, culture, and technology would simply not be possible," says Colin Phillips, a UMD professor of linguistics and director of the Maryland Language Science Center. "The formation of this new center will help us solve a variety of complex research problems that require the diverse expertise of faculty and students across the entire university."

Building on the established work of language scientists at the university, the new center will solve a variety of pressing global problems.  Some of this work includes early identification of language disorders in infants; narrowing education achievement gaps caused by ‘language poverty’; and building technology for information extraction and for real-time translation systems that emulate the feats of simultaneous interpreters.

"With the creation of the new Maryland Language Science Center, we are focusing on an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to language science and making it one of the university's strategic priorities," says Mary Ann Rankin, UMD's senior vice president and provost. "Through this unique collaborative model between the humanities and sciences, we will be able to create connections across campus between traditionally disparate areas and secure our spot at a global leader in language science research."

The Language Science Center will also serve as an incubator for development of new research areas that intersect with language, such as culture, genetics, automatic speech recognition, and K-12 language education.

To learn more about the Maryland Language Science Center, visit www.languagescience.umd.edu/launch.

About the University of Maryland

The University of Maryland is the state’s flagship university and one of the nation's preeminent public research universities. A global leader in research, entrepreneurship and innovation, Maryland is ranked No. 21 among public universities by U.S. News & World Report and No. 14 among public universities by Forbes. The Institute of Higher Education, which ranks the world’s top universities based on research, puts Maryland at No. 38 in the world, No. 29 nationally and No. 13 among U.S. public research institutions. The university is also one of the top 10 highest-rated D.C.-area employers, according to Glassdoor.com. Its faculty includes three Nobel laureates, two Pulitzer Prize winners, 49 members of the national academies and scores of Fulbright scholars. The university is recognized for its diversity, with underrepresented students comprising one-third of the student population.