Rashad Robinson to Deliver SMCM Commencement Address
St. Mary’s College of Maryland is pleased to announce that Rashad Robinson, executive director of ColorOfChange, the nation’s largest online civil rights organization, will be the 2015 Commencement keynote speaker. The Commencement ceremony will be held on the college’s Townhouse Green on Saturday, May 16, starting at 10 a.m.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland Featured in "The Princeton Review's Guide to 353 Green Colleges: 2015 Edition"
St. Mary’s College of Maryland is one of the 353 most environmentally responsible colleges, according to The Princeton Review. The education services company features St. Mary’s College in the 2015 edition of its downloadable book, “The Princeton Review Guide to 353 Green Colleges,” published April 16—a few days before the April 22 celebration of Earth Day.
The Princeton Review chose the schools featured in its "green guide" based on data from the company's 2014 survey of hundreds of four-year colleges concerning the schools' commitments to the environment and sustainability. More than 25 data points were weighted in the assessment. Schools with green rating scores of 83 or higher made it into this guide. Most of the schools (347) in this edition are in the U.S. Five are in Canada. One is in Egypt.
"We strongly recommend St. Mary’s College of Maryland and the other fine colleges in this guide to the many environmentally-minded students who seek to study and live at green colleges," said Rob Franek, senior vice president and publisher, The Princeton Review.
Franek noted his company’s recent survey findings indicating significant interest among college-bound students in attending green colleges. "Among nearly 10,000 teens who participated in our 2015 College Hopes & Worries Survey, 61% told us that having information about a school’s commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the college," he said.
Learn more about St. Mary’s College’s sustainability efforts at www.smcm.edu/sustainability.
SMCM Professors Teach in Côte D'Ivoire and Slovenia via Prestigious Fulbright Grants
Two St. Mary’s College of Maryland professors have received Fulbright Scholar grants for research and teaching abroad.
Kenneth Cohen, associate professor of history and coordinator of the Museum Studies program, has been selected for a Fulbright grant for the 2015-16 academic year. Cohen will teach graduate courses in American Studies at Félix Houphoüet Boigny University in Côte D'Ivoire. He will also work with Côte D'Ivoire's national museum, Musée des Civilisations, to develop online and other programming as the institution recovers from having lost roughly 80% of its collections during a civil war in the country in 2010-11. Cohen also has received support from the Smithsonian Institution and George Mason University's Center for History and New Media.
"I am honored and excited to have received this award and to have support from numerous institutions as I begin work on a project that I hope can be a model for international partnership," Cohen said. "Museums have long borrowed objects from each other, but the next step is working together to expand access to the training and technology that will allow anyone on the planet to learn about a distant place through locals' own take on their unique cultural heritage." Cohen expects to apply his own experiences to classes at St. Mary's College when he returns, as he is already working with Associate Professor of Computer Science Alan Jamieson on a new digital humanities course.
Lin Muilenburg, associate professor in the Department of Educational Studies, was awarded a 2014-15 Fulbright grant to teach in Slovenia. The focus of her project, “Transforming Learning with Educational Technologies,” is to help K-12 teachers and teacher educators to create engaging, student-centered instruction that builds 21st century skills.
Speaking about the motivations for her project, Muilenburg cites the “evolving” relationship between technology and education in the modern age,” saying that a “fundamental challenge is providing the education and staff development needed to empower teachers and faculty to adopt innovative instructional practices.” She hopes that her Fulbright work will help students and teachers alike develop a firmer grasp on the technologies influencing education, allowing them to develop skills useful both in and outside the classroom.
Muilenburg, who left for Slovenia in February 2015, is currently teaching undergraduate and graduate-level courses at the Faculty of Education of the University of Ljubljana, where she is also facilitating staff development workshops for in-service educators.