10-15-2023 EDU - Flipbook - Page 4
4 The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, October 15, 2023
Shekinah Davis (center) leads a UMBC Peaceworker ethical reflection session. Each week throughout the academic year, Peaceworker fellows meet to discuss a topic of personal interest to consider together.
Aligning experience, interests and goals
Graduate programs connect students’ past experiences with future goals
By Katie Turner, Contributing Writer
nlike traditional undergraduate students, many people starting graduate
programs already have significant work
and life experiences. Three graduate
programs in Maryland are working to capitalize
on the knowledge students are bringing to the
classroom and channeling those skills toward
accomplishing their goals.
U
UMBC’s Peaceworker Program
What do you do with a group of smart
people with diverse cultural experiences who
are committed to making a positive impact in
their communities?
This was the question that UMBC’s
Shriver Center answered when it created the
Peaceworker Fellows program in 1994. Now
starting its 30th cohort, the program welcomes
returning Peace Corps volunteers to earn their
graduate degree at UMBC.
“Our program has a dual focus to engage
returning Peace Corps volunteers who want
to continue the good work that they've been
doing, and to support Baltimore area nonprofits and public service agencies in doing the
good work that they're already doing,” explains
Charlotte Keniston, director of the Shriver
Peaceworker Fellows Program. However, she
says that the ethical reflection embedded in the
program is what really sets it apart.
“Every Friday we bring the Fellows together
for ethical reflection,” said Keniston, who says
that the conversation allows students to discuss
their academic work through the lens of service. “They’re bringing all of these really unique
perspectives to the conversation; they’re really
cross-disciplinary in the work they are doing.”
Shekinah Davis is a 2021 graduate of the
program. She began her Peace Corps service in
2017, working as a community health volunteer in Ecuador. Originally from Oregon, she
decided to move to Maryland when she heard
about the program at UMBC.
All Peaceworker students complete a
JOURNALISM
MATTERS
22-month internship with a Baltimore nonprofit. Davis interned with Wide Angle Youth
Media, a nonprofit organization that provides
media arts education for middle and high
school students in Baltimore City.
Now, she is working as a client engagement
manager for MOMcares, a nonprofit that provides under-supported Black birthing mothers
and families in Baltimore City with prenatal
and postpartum doula care, health advocacy
and self-care support.
She says that beyond academics,
Peaceworkers helped her find her place and
her path.
“It is a community of like-minded people
who are all passionate about justice work and
helping people access that power that they
already have,” says Davis. “The shared love for
justice doesn't end when the program ends.”
ic director of the online master in management
studies at the University of Maryland Robert H.
Smith School of Business. The program welcomes students from all industry backgrounds
who want to improve their management acumen.
“Wherever you are – higher education,
art, sports, if you want to grow within your
career into leadership roles, you need to gain
those skills,” she says. “We had someone with
an undergrad in violin performance and she
wanted to go to arts management. Now she is
an arts development associate at Carnegie Hall
in New York.”
While an in-person masters in management
program already exists, this fall the university began the first cohort of online masters in
management program, which, Derfler-Rozin
explains, makes advanced business education
more accessible to a wider range of students.
UMD Online Masters in Management
“Management is for everyone,” said Rellie
Derfler-Rozin, associate professor and academ-
Future goals,
continued on page 9
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