On World Poetry Day, we asked for your favorite line(s) of poetry and said we’d compile them. In honor National Poetry Month, which wraps up tomorrow, here’s the compiled piece we’ve woven into a single work just for fun. The selections ranged eras, tones and topic.
Thank you to Facebook Followers for sharing their favorites: Baltimore Hon Hive, Mary Mencarini Campbell, Susan Parker Coleman, Wayne Drozynski, William Derge, Tara A. O’Brien Elliott, Fred Fox, Sarah Hartwick, Michelle Kreiner, Suzy Mazer, and Aravinda Pillalamarri,
Every day something has tried to kill me and has failed.
I mean, I am in my country, watching my country burn, because of my country.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest
How little we know, and when we know it
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.
You do not have to be good
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life
I never saw a purple cow, I never hope to see one, I can tell you anyhow, I’d rather see than be one.
** Poems (in order):
“won’t you celebrate with me” by Lucille Clifton; “When They Say Pledge Allegiance, I Say” by Hala Alyan; Hamlet by William Shakespeare; “Like a Sentence” by John Asbery; “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)” by Nikki Giovanni; “Jabberwocky” (in Through the Looking-Glass) by Lewis Carroll; “The Pasture” by Robert Frost; “The Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver; “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth; “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost; “The Purple Cow” by Gelett Burgess; and “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver.
Erin Spahr, Social Studies Teacher at Urbana Middle School and Stephanie Gomer, English Teacher at Poolesville High School, were named this year’s Maryland History Day Statewide Middle and High School Teacher of the Year, respectively. The teachers discuss the impact of Maryland History Day program on students.
Erin Spahr, Social Studies Teacher at Urbana Middle School in Frederick, might not be teaching if not for a scheduling error. “I kind of landed in Mr. Holder’s class by accident,” the Maryland History Day Middle School Teacher of the Year said of meeting her own favorite social studies teacher. Between sophomore and junior year, Spahr’s high school switched scheduling formats.
“My school counselor called me in the middle of the summer and said, ‘Your choice is you can either take gym as a junior or you can take AP European history.’ And I went, ‘I’m not taking gym again.’” Spahr calls it “the best decision I ever made.” Spahr says Mr. Holder taught her critical thinking, observing primary sources, and honed her writing skills. “I never in a million years thought I liked European History and when I walked out of his class, I loved European History. I learned how to study in his class.”
Erin Spahr
With Maryland History Day, Spahr may be taking up the mantle in terms of helping kids love history who never thought they would. “I think History Day is unique because it gives them an opportunity to explore their interest in history in a unique way, right?” She brings up the vast array of passions kids have; visible in their topic choices ranging from basketball coach Larry Bird and the medicine penicillin, to September 11 and Ronald Reagan. “I have kids this year exploring sociology topics. Like one of them is exploring a serial killer’s effect on society. Other students choose topics tied to their own heritage, such as a student studying India and Goa. “I think it [History Day] just gives them an opportunity to dig into something and research it,” she says. “And I love seeing them get passionate about something they’re personally connected to or interested in.”
Spahr runs Maryland History Day as an afterschool club, which she says “almost tripled in size in just a single year.” She feels that having one of her students win the Special Prize for Civic Action and Engagement “really led to a lot of our students who love history and love clubs and love having a place to belong – but aren’t necessarily kids in other clubs – participating. Like that really kind of got them engaged and got their friends engaged and it gave them a place to come. So they really enjoy coming to my room for an hour every Monday after school and working on their projects together, it’s their social time together.”
One of those students, who also nominated Spahr for Maryland History Day Middle School Teacher of the Year, called her a “phenomenal mentor.” “She consistently goes above and beyond to ensure that her students receive the support they need to excel in their NHD projects,” the student wrote. “Whether it’s troubleshooting technical issues, providing constructive criticism, or offering general mentorship, Mrs. Spahr is always there to help us navigate the challenges we encounter…What truly sets Mrs. Spahr apart, however, is her unwavering passion for teaching and her genuine desire to see her students succeed…For Mrs. Spahr, the true measure of success lies in the personal growth and learning experiences of her students.”
After the competitions ended last year, Spahr hosted a party with food and drinks, where all of the students shared their projects. “Up until that point, we’d only been working on our projects and they’d seen little things and bits and pieces. But then that was the day where we played their [documentary video] document or they shared their websites and they brought in their exhibit boards, and they got to explain their projects to each other,” she says. “To have them share their projects with each other and their passion with each other because they all pick different things. So to share their passions with each other is really cool to see.”
Stephanie Gomer
Like her middle school counterpart, Maryland History Day High School Teacher of the Year Stephanie Gomer also enjoys seeing the students’ excitement over their projects. She remembers fondly a group of girls who advanced to the National History Day contest created an exhibit about the 1920s “allowing for alternative lifestyles.”
“They put a curtain on their exhibit,” the English Teacher at Poolesville High School recalls, “and they got so excited like, ‘Miss Gomer. It’s not just like literal, it’s like the figurative curtain that they peeled back on these lifestyles,’” they told her about the people participating in what 1920s America considered “alternative.” Gomer continues: “I remember the excitement of them in class and when they came up. This is why we do it, these moments like this and you’re going to remember this. So that was an amazing, amazing moment, just seeing them work together.” While Gomer thinks fondly on the students’ excitement, the students recognize their teacher’s own passion. In a nomination for Maryland History Day Teacher of the Year this year, one wrote:
Ms. Gomer is an amazing teacher. She excels in her area and exudes an amazing passion for the subject she teaches. She’s always there for her students, and it doesn’t take much observation to see how much she cares and values each and every one of them I’ve always felt welcome, and she’s never made me feel ashamed or embarrassed when I go in for additional help. She’s constantly encouraging and has a bright, bubbly personality unlike no other. She’s truly my favorite teacher, and there’s no one else I’d rather recommend.
As an English teacher, Gomer “love[s] the interdisciplinary aspect” of Maryland History Day. She says that element echoes the interdisciplinary nature of Humanities House, one of Poolesville’s magnet programs where she teaches. Students take an array of advanced classes in English, history, government, literature, composition, art history, and criticism. Maryland History Day is a part of this curriculum for freshmen (who are assigned papers) and juniors, who can choose their project medium. Gomer appreciates the challenges Maryland History Day presents the students with. “I think it really just challenges some of the skills that they have, but also lets them develop them further,” she says. “So I think that’s one of the reasons why I love History Day for them.” Students in the Humanities House have strong research skills, but Gomer says History Day “lets them take it to the next level.” The program hones their skills in other ways like collaborating with a group, figuring out next steps, and solving problems with certain deadlines. Gomer recalls a group of students selected to present at a museum. “That particular group had some group dynamics,” she says, gently referring to ordinary conflict, like one student feeling like their partner isn’t completing their fair share of the work or following up. “I remember having to sit down and we troubleshoot it and talk through some of that and then seeing them after they had that experience,” she says. Since the group advanced to the national level and were selected to present at the museum, they were honored at the Maryland State House this winter. While working on the project, Gomer says the group “wanted to throw in the towel,” but later “seeing them on the other side, that was great to talk to them.” After visiting the State House, they told Gomer that “It was such an amazing experience.” Gomers response: “This is why I didn’t let you give it up because I knew the potential that you had.”
On the more academic skills honed, Gomer highlights History Day’s focus on primary sources, specifically interviewing them. “Finding people to talk with and interview, I think that’s something that they don’t always get to do or have to do in some of their other research assignments.” Gomer also brings up composing questions, conducting interviews, and incorporating that into a project. “Students find human connection and then find a way to implement that in their projects…I think that’s what makes this a really valuable experience for them, too.”
Gomer and Spahr will be honored at the Maryland History Day Statewide Contest Awards Ceremony, alongside students, on May 4. As the Maryland History Day Teachers of the Year, they are automatically nominated for National History Day’s Behring Teacher of the Year Award in their respective divisions.
We are delighted to announce the 2024 One Maryland One Book selection of What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy. The novel follows a cast of characters who are forced to endure the chaos of a strong earthquake. They realize that everything they thought was certain suddenly isn’t. Released by Tin House books in 2022, the novel was chosen by the Selection Committee under this year’s theme of Restorative Futures.
What Storm, What Thunder features a cast of loosely-connected characters in and around Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the aftermath of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck the country in 2010. Chancy shows us her characters – an NGO architect, a water-bottling executive, a drug trafficker, an immigrant cab driver, and others – in scenes that take place before and after the earthquake, and sometimes even during the event itself. We learn their pasts and plans, all as the deadly earthquake strikes. Written in eloquent, heart-wrenching prose, Chancy captures the reader and shows them a vision of Haiti that is at once heartbreaking and yet hopeful.
Our Selection Committee felt What Storm, What Thunder represented a timely pick, as it takes place in the aftermath of large-scale, society-changing devastation. They also cited it as a wonderful opportunity for high school students to learn about a different culture through a recent historical event that captures many of today’s concerns. Alejandra B. of our selection committee said “It would be good for immigrant families to see additional languages besides English being appreciated in literature.” Topics such as poverty, the environment, and disaster response would make readers more aware of what it can be like in other parts of the world. Ida J., another committee member said, the novel “would be an intriguing read about the histories/interactions between varying nations.”
What Storm, What Thunder was selected among our Top 3 finalists. The list included the recently-published Susan Muaddi Darraj’s Behind You Is the Seathat follows three Palestinian-American families living in Baltimore, and The World Doesn’t Require You, Rion Amilcar Scott’s collection of stories which takes place in the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland.
Darraj’s Behind You Is the Sea dives right into the action of three Palestinian-American families who live in Baltimore: the Ammars; the Baladis, and the Salamehs. The families are both separated and brought together by social class, gender, generational divide, and religious values. What the selection committee saw in this book was the chance to highlight a Maryland author and to feature fictionalized immigrant families and how they have adapted to American life right in Baltimore.
Rion Amilcar Scott’s The World Doesn’t Require You is a collection of short stories and a novella that all take place in the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland, the location of the only successful slave revolt in the early 1800s. Scott’s characters range from being sons of God to a doctoral student playing a children’s game that goes back to the days of slavery. Scott is a professor at the University of Maryland and the committee thought it would be interesting to have a local author whose work both on and off the page is deeply connected with Maryland. Committee member Michele G. said that she “felt like she knew everyone in the book” and that the book “blurs reality with history and truth in fiction.”
We hope that we put What Storm, What Thunder on your radar this year. Pick up a copy and read it before the fall when OMOB partners will be hosting related events in your community. Interested organizations and institutions can sign up to become a program partner and receive a limited quantity of free copies of the book with the agreement to hold a related program or event. Partners will also be invited to apply for funding opportunities to support programs. Information for this will be made public during this summer.
Have more questions? You can reach out to our Program Officer for Literature programs, Aditya Desai at adesai@mdhumanities.org
The Office of Historical Correctionsby Danielle Evans
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue
How High We Go In the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Noor by Nnedi Okorafor
The World Doesn’t Require You: Storiesby Rion Amilcar Scott
The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
We’re thrilled to announce the Top Ten Titles for our 2024 One Maryland One Book program!
Working from the theme of Restorative Futures, our Maryland Center for the Book staff and selection committee members have worked hard to narrow a list of over 230 title submissions down to ten. Whichever book is picked, readers will go on a journey of exploring how people deal with uncertain futures, posit better ones, and what actions readers can take to assuage today’s anxieties.
This year, we’re excited that three of our Top Ten authors are Maryland-based: Susan Muaddi Darraj, Danielle Evans, and Rion Amilcar Scott.
Darraj’s Behind You Is the Sea is a novel, released later this month, that features chapters told from the points of view of members of Baltimore’s Palestinian American community. The book follows three families –the Baladi’s, Salamehs, and Ammars – and their journeys as one man from the Salamehs goes to Palestine for the first time, and others face impacts of decisions made generations ago. Stereotypes of Palestinian culture are faced head-on as the community experiences funerals, weddings, broken hearts, and devastating secrets. Darraj lives in Baltimore and teaches at Harford Community College and Johns Hopkins University.
Evans’ short story collection The Office of Historical Corrections follows characters with their various coping strategies regarding large topics such as race, history, and culture. The title novella readers will get to follow a Black scholar as she is entangled with a historical mystery that puts everything in her life on the line. Other characters struggle with the difference between lust and love, getting overwhelmed by grief, and being ousted on social media. Evans also teaches at Johns Hopkins University.
Scott’s The World Doesn’t Require You takes place in the fictional town of Cross River, Maryland. Cross River was established by the leader’s of America’s only successful slave revolt in the mid-1800s. Readers will experience the perspectives of the town’s residents through decades and even species. Scott has created a world of magical realism where fantasy and reality are always at odds. The book has characters described by some as “the most memorable in contemporary American fiction.” Scott lives in Annapolis with his family.
Two novels on our list take place far away from Maryland, but still capture the intensity of the theme of Restorative Futures. These novels make readers across the state relate to the struggle that many go through after natural disasters and the generational impact of colonialism.
Myriam J.A. Chancy’s novel What Storm, What Thunder is set in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, following the characters before and after the 7.0 magnitude event hits the nation’s capital. Despite their circumstances in the aftermath, the characters shine through in the ways they are able to help one another.
Imbolo Mbue’s novel How Beautiful We Were takes place in the fictional African village of Kosawa, where characters are ravaged by the environmental impacts of an American oil company. Kosawa’s farmlands have become infertile and children die from drinking toxic water. The story is told through a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who goes on to risk everything in order for her people to be free.
One of the books on the list that dips into the science fiction and dystopian genres is Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s collection of short stories. Adjei-Brenyah takes his characters and puts them into extraordinary situations. He throws the violence and injustice that Black people go through every day in this country into sharp relief. The prejudice of the justice system and the horrors of consumerism are some of the topics explored in this collection. Roxanne Gay says of Friday Black: “This book is dark and captivating and essential. This book is a call to arms and it is a condemnation.”
Another book on our list that goes into sci-fi and dystopian genres is The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara. In a future where the world is run by a Board of Corporations, Rao’s daughter Athena reckons with his legacy both literally and figuratively as readers come to acknowledge how we have reached the stage of technological capitalism and wonder what could come next.
The next science fiction title on our list is How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu. The characters in Dark tell their story centuries after mankind is trying to survive in the aftermath of a climate plague. The journeys the characters go through cross centuries and continents and shows readers the resilience of the human spirit.
From Africanfuturist Nnedi Okorafor comes the science fiction novel Noor, a story about a Nigerian woman named Anwuli Okwudili (or AO), who has always thought of the initials AO to mean Artificial Organism. AO ends up being on the run and bumps into a man named DNA. In this world everything is streamed, so AO and DNA’s journey is available for all to see. Just as the characters in the novel, readers should expect the unexpected.
There is one nonfiction title on our list this year: How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler. They are a queer, mixed-race writer and a science and conservation journalist. Imbler has always been interested in the sea and the creatures who live in its hostile or remote environments. Each essay in the collection delves into one of the said creatures, whether it’s an octopus or the Bobbitt worm. These are stories of adaptation, survival, sexuality, and care, and expertly interwoven with stories from Imbler’s life. This will read as an inspiration to expanding the mind to see the ways in which we all can live.
We hope you have enjoyed learning about the titles in our top ten for this year! There are certainly some fascinating and thought provoking books on the list. Check back with us in February to see the Top Three!
We spoke with Lia Atanat, our Maryland History Day Outreach & Professional Development Coordinator, about our new collaboration with tribal consultants and teachers in creating inquiry kits about the Indigenous history and culture of the land now known as Maryland.
Q: Could you quickly describe the inquiry kits for our readers?
A: Sure! The inquiry kits are online sets of historical sources that all pertain to a certain, specific topic. We started creating them in 2016 with funding from a Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources grant. The kits have proven to be useful for students looking for research topics, and for teachers looking to introduce a class unit or practice primary source analysis skills with their students. They cover topics like landmark court cases, important historical phenomena like the Civil Rights Movement, but also lesser-taught histories like Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawai’i. Q: What first sparked the idea for these new inquiry kits?
The Indigenous Maryland Inquiry Kit project grew out of a collaboration with a number of other organizations who are all looking for ways to get local Indigenous sources and stories out to teachers, students, and the broader community. It really started with the Maryland State Archives (MSA), who last year published the Mayis Indigenous Records, an online database that will contain transcriptions of all of the records in their collections that mention Indigenous people and place names. They reached out to local organizations like the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), the Maryland State Arts Council, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, among others, to find ways to make their records more accessible to teachers. We already had this great platform for contextualizing and sharing source sets with teachers, so the idea came together organically from there.
Q: What are the outreach team’s hopes for this collaboration and final product?
A: We hope that these kits will contribute to a revision in the way the history of Native Nations has been taught until recently—as people relegated to the earliest years of the history of European colonization, as people who made less contributions to history than European colonists, and as minor players in Maryland and US histories. MSDE has recently revised their social studies standards to include Indigenous Maryland history and culture, and we hope to align with their vision of inclusion. One of the important takeaways, as simple as it sounds, is that there are still Indigenous people in Maryland, who are often left out of the conversation about local history, heritage, and culture.
Q: Can you talk about your work with English Language Learners and how this relates? A: We’ve been striving to make our work with History Day and the inquiry kits accessible to the growing population of English learners in the state. A large percentage of those English learners have Indigenous Latin American background. Even though their background will generally not include local Maryland tribes, we hope that inclusion of indigenous perspectives will also be meaningful to those students, through solidarity with other Indigenous identities and a shift in how the curriculum portrays colonized people.
Q: How are you working with tribal leaders? Have you learned anything so far about working with them?
A: For this project, local tribal leaders and community members will work with us as paid consultants to ensure that the new kits portray Indigenous culture and history with accuracy and respect. The tribal leaders I’ve worked with so far, who include members of the Nause-Waiwash Band and Pocomoke Nation, have expressed how difficult it is to get young people engaged with Indigenous communities, cultures, and stories. They are open to exploring new formats and digital media that kids will find accessible and appealing, and that includes youth in their own communities. I think the new inquiry kits will fit in well with that vision, and in addition to making their stories more broadly accessible, they will help to equip communities with a curriculum development tool to pass down their stories to new generations of tribal members. Q: How are you collaborating with teachers? A: MSA and MSDE ran a workshop this summer to provide training to teachers in local Indigenous culture and history. The participants spent four days learning how to find and use Indigenous historical sources, they learned about the Mayis database, they attended sessions led by tribal leaders and members, they visited sites relevant to Indigenous culture and history, and they created lesson plans to bring that new knowledge to their classrooms. We plan to recruit our kit creators from among the teachers who participated in that workshop. This will allow us to be selective and make sure that the new kits align with our goals and our tribal consultants’ requests. We also know that having teachers create the kits will ensure that they are useful to other teachers.
Q: What kind of professional development resources are you planning for teachers?
A: We’re planning to create a teacher guide module that will introduce teachers to the Indigenous MD kit collection, including what types of sources they might encounter in the kits, how to use them, how the kits align with the new social studies curriculum, and where to learn more about Indigenous histories and communities in Maryland. We know that the majority of social studies educators don’t have extensive training in Indigenous history, so we plan to include a bibliography that will help provide background knowledge to teach those lessons.
In addition to that digital resource, every year the MHD outreach staff offer to hold workshops for teachers at their August district in-service days. Next August, in addition to our usual workshops on History Day and the broader body of inquiry kits, we’d like to hold some sessions to introduce the new Indigenous MD kits.
Q: What impact are the inquiry kits in general having? What responses are you hearing from teachers and students? A: Every year, the outreach team introduces the inquiry kits to students in the classroom, to teachers across Maryland, and we even present them to educators at national conferences. Teachers appreciate the ways many of the kits align with units they teach, making it easy for them to grab a set of sources to use in the classroom. Students, on the other hand, appreciate that the range of topics covers a broad variety of interest areas – a student who is not interested in traditional history topics might find our kits relating to sports, the arts, or science and it can open the way for them to get interested in doing research. I see this extending to the new collection of kits as well – the stories of Indigenous people that we will tell will not just be the conflicts and treaties they had with Europeans; they will touch on environmental science, craft, and lifeways, many of which are still carried on or still affect people in Maryland.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to add? A: I would just say that I am really pleased by the amount of collaboration that has already gone into this project and that will go into it in the coming year. There are so many state and local organizations who we’re proud to be working with, as well as tribal leaders, teachers, and more. Working together, we are able to accomplish so much more and elevate the voices that deserve to be elevated. And again, we thank the Library of Congress for supporting our decision to shift our focus to be able to do that.
The Library of Congress’ Teaching with Primary Sources Program will fund the Indigenous Maryland Inquiry Kits.
Emily Ross joined Maryland Humanities as the Program Officer, Grants in June. She talks with us over Zoom about what she’s looking forward to in her new position, what appeals to her about leading Maryland Humanities’ Hatza SHINE Grants Program, and more.
Q: What made you decide to apply for the role of Program Officer, Grants?
A: Sure. What originally drew me to the position was Maryland Humanities itself as an organization. I think it’s a fantastic organization and I’m a big believer in the value of humanities-based education. And I’ve always wanted to work in the arts and humanities. And I have before and I wanted to continue that throughout my career. I was drawn to the position of Program Officer, Grants because I wanted to be in a position where I was able to connect small organizations to funding opportunities that would have a real impact. And I know that Maryland Humanities has offered some really strong funding opportunities before so I’m really excited to be a part of it.
Q: Is there anything you’re excited about applying from your previous work to this position?
A: Yeah, so I’ve just graduated with my Master of Social Work degree from University of Maryland, Baltimore, which gave me a really strong foundation and grant making and implementation and social science and research policy.
One of the first things that [Maryland Humanities Executive Director] Lindsay Baker said to me when we met was, “You know we don’t do social work, right? We don’t do social work at Maryland Humanities.” I was like, “Uh, you kind of do a little bit.” Because I specialize in what’s called macro social work, which encompasses social research and project management and program development, all of which are framed by social justice and economic justice, which is supported by the Social Work Code of Ethics.
I’m really excited about applying my skills and developing partnerships and conducting outreach. When I was at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, I had the opportunity to initiate a partnership between the Department of Children Family Services, and the museum and that taught me a lot about what it takes to build a successful partnership. I am just really excited to acquire those skills in this position, as well. It’s really about learning that connections can sometimes happen in the least obvious places, and happen at the speed of trust, and just always being open to hearing people’s needs.
Q: What are you looking most forward to in this role?
A I’m really looking forward to learning more about all of the amazing humanities organizations across the strait. I’ve been in Maryland for two years now, but that’s just been in Baltimore. And I know there’s a lot more to the state of Maryland than just the city of Baltimore so I’ve got a lot to learn about the funding landscape and the community of all the humanities organizations. I’m really looking forward to also working on a long-term goal of growing grant funding to strengthen these humanities organizations across the strait, and focusing on new funding models for communities that have been maybe previously overlooked.
Q: What do you find valuable about offering general operating support?
A: I think general operating support is a really right step in the in the right direction towards a grantmaking practice that is trust-based. We as an organization trust that the organizations who received the Hatza SHINE (Strengthening the Humanities Investment in Nonprofits for Equity) Grants, they know what they need to spend it on, they know best on what they need to spend it on, and we’re not going to sit here and judge and dictate what they should or shouldn’t spend it on. And that they’ll do it responsibly. So whether that’s simply keeping the lights on getting folks their salary, or even launching a new program, we know that they know what they can best use this money towards. I think that kind of really speaks to redistributing some of the power dynamics in the funding world. As a funder and as an organization, I think we have to be willing to give up some of the power and some of the control and be more of a supporter and a collaborator rather than judging what an organization needs. And above all, I really want to show up in this role in a way that’s approachable and relational rather than transactional.
Q: What you find unique specifically about the Hatza SHINE Grants Program? And what your favorite aspect might be that you haven’t already addressed?
A: Yeah, first I do think it’s really important to note that the fact that we provide general operating support is a big part of what makes the Hatza SHINE grants so unique. I think I’ve been already getting a lot of feedback from folks who are interested in applying or previous grantees who keep saying, you know, this is the only opportunity that we’ve we found that that supports general operating everything is so program based, especially for really small organizations. And I think that also makes the Hatza SHINE program unique that we really try to focus on the small and mid-sized humanities organizations that maybe don’t have the staffing capacity or the programmatic capacity or resources to be really competitive in fundraising.
I would say my favorite aspect of the program is that I feel like we’ve really set a good intention to see it grow. I think it presents a really great opportunity to build networks and engage with others and really amplify the state’s investment that they’ve made in this program and just strengthen the community of humanities programs throughout Maryland.
Q:Can you elaborate on that last part a little bit?
A: Sure. The state’s given us this money, and they they’re trusting Maryland Humanities to grow our partnerships with the organizations that we work with. So I think I want to see the program grow, and it has grown already. So just in the past year, we were awarded 50 grants through the SHINE program, and this year, we’re set up to award 95. So I think that that’s definitely a message from the state saying, “Hey, we support this and we think this is a great idea. And we want to see it grow.” So I’m excited to see where what’s in store in the future.
Q: I know, you mentioned the number of grants, of course, but I’m wondering if you could talk about anything else that’s changed about the Hatza SHINE grant program this year, as opposed to our first round?
A: Sure. I did want to emphasize the name change. So we’ve changed the name to honor Marilyn Hatza, who was our director of Grants and Community Engagement. She was really central to the creation of the SHINE Grants program. It really felt right to honor her by memorializing her name in the in the grants program. And I’ve had the pleasure of learning about her sort of vicariously through folks that she worked with in the past. I’ve been getting a lot of feedback saying, thank you so much for honoring her in that way. And it’s interesting to hear about such a prolific person and hear about the work that they did, and I think it’s inspiring to hear about and I’m glad that you know, Lindsey made that decision to rename the program.
Applications for the Hatza SHINE Grants are due September 1. Learn more.
Executive Director Lindsey Baker looks at how organizations can fight stagnancy and reflects on Vu Le’s latest Nonprofit AF blog post.
I’m constantly holding policies and procedures up against the light to see how they could be better. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in the day of being a small museum Executive Director and creating exhibits each year by committee. Each year, we’d have volunteers who would write text, then edit their text once it was mocked-up and on the walls, putting post-it notes triumphantly over what they had already written. Trying to make it “just right”. This effort to always look for improvement is one I definitely understand.
This dedication to constantly do better was in my mind when I read Vu Le’s piece about being lazy in the non-profit field. As usual, Vu’s writing hit a nerve in me. One line in particular, about how laziness shows up in CEOs/EDs, sent me into a tailspin of deep thought:
“Forcing your team members to follow inane and nonsensical rules because you’re too lazy to try to improve your skills as a leader so you stick to archaic, ineffective, and inequitable BS.”
Whew. That hit hard. How many times have I looked at a policy or procedure and thought…BUT…WHY? Why does this exist? Why hasn’t it been changed? I had never considered that it might be laziness.
My first thought is that some leaders may find it hard to envision a way that is different from the “inane and nonsensical rules” they themselves followed. In my mind, this camp is aligned with the same thought processes that support unpaid internships and hate student loan forgiveness. They might think, “I paid my dues” and so should others. As a leader who is always trying to make things better, I struggle with this. I know these things made my life more difficult and created barriers for participation. So, I can’t imagine perpetuating them if I have the power to change them.
Others may be afraid of what it might take to overturn some of those rules. Or what the unseen impact might be if they change them. Many of us land in leadership positions with a lot of knowledge about our content area, but not a lot of training or support in terms of leadership and decision making. So often, it seems inane rules are created as a CYA. I know sometimes I think about a change I’d like to make to make our team’s working lives easier and I wonder…what was the reason this rule was created in the first place? Am I missing something here and I’ll regret this change later?
One way I’ve combatted this fear is inclusive decision making. I can’t know everything. It’s unrealistic to expect anyone to know everything. But I can include my staff in decision making for policies and procedures. Often they will think of something I haven’t—a reason that implementation will be difficult, a tweak that makes the change more feasible—and we are able to move forward towards the end goal better prepared. This type of leadership opens up space for each staff person to use their voice and their personal experience to guide the policies and procedures of the organization. While it isn’t always clean, and it isn’t always quick I am sure that our organization is better for it.
And then, there are times where I think some leaders WANT to change something, but in the nonprofit world, like many of their staff, they lack the capacity. They simply do not have the time to make the change happen. A really straightforward example of this for me is our attempt to create an equitable spot bonus policy. Every version we’ve come up with doesn’t feel “perfect”. And while great is the enemy of good, we do want to make sure we’re satisfied with the policy we create. So we’re going on 6 months of using a draft form policy. Sometimes, all we can do is admit something’s not perfect while creating the fairest version we know how to at the moment.
For me, learning and doing better is a vital aspect of my leadership style. It requires me to challenge the status quo, question outdated practices, and strive for equitable and efficient solutions. While some leaders may hesitate due to a fear of change or a lack of resources, inclusive decision-making and collaboration can alleviate these concerns. By involving our staff and valuing their unique perspectives, we can navigate the complexities of decision-making and create policies that better serve our organization and its stakeholders.
Image of Amaniyea Payne and the Mercy High School students, courtesy of Moving History
Breai Mason-Campbell watched as the teen girls at Mercy High School took selfies wearing lapas—colorful West African skirts worn in dancing—and headdresses. Her colleague, Amaniyea Payne, choreographed the high school girls in a piece about Frederick Douglass, after Mason-Campbell and Payne joined them in watching a documentary created by a Mercy alumnus and looking at old photographs of him. (“This this man would have been a GQ model, I’m telling you,” she says as an aside.)
“They have such a sense of dignity, you know, pride and excitement about their own culture,” Mason-Campbell tells me.” There’s moments that, I’m just like, ‘Oh, look, it works.’”
Breai Mason-Campbell
Dignity and cultural memory are key to Moving History, which Mason-Campbell originally founded as a dance performance troupe under the name Guardian Dance Company. The organization now bills itself as “Kinetic African American History” and expanded the organization’s work to have a broader and more immersive focus to fulfill the mission of “teaching the story of African-American people.” Along with dance, activities include cooking African American cuisine, creating visual art, and playing instrumental and vocal music.
“I wanted my community to have a greater measure of dignity,” a goal that Mason-Campbell said stemmed from reflection on personal experience. “I really had a lot of questions about the causes of poverty, like, the cycles of violence that I had been a party to growing up in Baltimore,” she says. “ I buried so many friends in high school. You know, it was like you hear about it on the news. But like, I’m a real person in one of those stories.”
Mason-Campbell reveals that she lost her own boyfriend to gun violence after her high school graduation. She could name someone she knew who died for each year in high school. “These weren’t people who were distant friends. It‘s was my group of friends, like my walk-around, my go-to-the-basketball-court friends, my hang-out-outside-and-talk friends.”
She sought the answers to these questions about root causes of violence and poverty in college and graduate school. Mason-Campbell earned a Bachelor’s degrees in both Religion and Geography & Urban Studies from Temple University in 1999. She then received her Master’s Degree from Harvard Divinity School with a focus in African American Social Ethics, with a thesis on Hip-Hop as a religious and moral touchstone for African American youth.
Image courtesy of Moving History
“I started to learn about structural racism and structural oppressions.” Mason-Campbell outlines sixteen years of working in Sandtown after school. “Over the course of those years, the company was starting to operate even without a name but I had come to correlate a sense of dignity, a sense of identity with a healthier community.” Discussion of race is connected to self-esteem, posits Mason-Campbell. “But when we talk about race and self-esteem, then it’s like, oh, this is political, you know, we’re not having this conversation or whatever.”
Mason-Campbell compares what she tries to provide to Hebrew School. She mentions she has friends who are all different branches of Judaism, or non-observant, but they have the shared experience. “That depth of connection with history, of purpose and culture, really seems to do something buoyant for people. And I wanted my community to have that kind of buoyancy, that sense of belonging, that sense of gravitas, of the importance of self and the importance of community and the importance of legacy.”
Mason-Campbell works directly with students, as opposed to only performing for them, because “that’s the way that knowledge passes in our community.” She talks about family recipes. “This is a serious thing around here, how you make the macaroni and cheese. It must be a part of memory.”
Image courtesy of Moving History
Mason-Campbell worked with two students for ten years, on the Lindy Hop, the 1928 dance. “Though it’s a dance from Harlem, it’s become super dominated on the international competition stage by Sweden, because Sweden had all this money to come and take our Lindy Hop greats and bring them over there to teach,” she says. “And you know, because the way Jim Crow worked here, Lindy Hop wasn’t preserved.” She references Norma Miller and Frankie Manning, Black Lindy Hop dancers who didn’t reach the same height of fame as Astaire. “Fred Astaire can move to California and open a studio, right? Two black dancers can’t do that. We, in fact, don’t even know their names because of Jim Crow.”
Mason-Campbell’s two students would attend the international Lindy Hop competition year after and lose to Swedish dancers. In 2019, she had the opportunity to send them to Lindy Hop camp in Sweden. “We pushed and pushed and pushed,” she tells me. “They won. First place. From first grade to twelfth grade is how long it took. But we did it.”
Inequity clutches to every field, and the nonprofit sector is not absolved. Nonprofit Finance Fund reports that forty-one percent of white-led nonprofits received 50% or more unrestricted funds in FY2021 as compared to 26% of BIPOC-led organizations. Mason-Campbell has to maintain another job to support her work with Moving History. “With education classes for kids, or, you know, training for teachers, or whatever we’re doing, communication with our supporters, online stuff, all of that stuff can’t happen without funding.”
Image courtesy of Moving History
Mason-Campbell states that without the $10,000 Strengthening the Humanities Investment in Nonprofits for Equity (SHINE) grant from Maryland Humanities, she wouldn’t be able to keep two members of her staff aboard. Payne and Sonya Kumar serve as the organization’s Arts Program Coordinator and Administrator, respectively. Mason-Campbell relies on Kumar to communicate with supporters and complete digital work. Payne—who also choreographed the Frederick Douglass piece—liaises with the sites where Moving History performs and educates. “There just wasn’t money to pay people,” Mason-Campbell says. “And me paying them out of pocket, which I have again and again, it’s just not sustainable. I’ve got three kids, you know?”
Mason-Campbell expresses a wave of relief when she learned Moving History received the SHINE funding. “Knowing that I could pay payroll, and we would have more money left was a relief because sometimes we pay payroll, and that’s everything. And then I’m like biting my nails,” she confesses. “The fact that we pay payroll, and then there was still money, which meant I could go into another payroll with money just to pay staff? It’s like such a weight off my shoulders.”
Mason-Campbell places Moving History in the landscape of Maryland, what she calls a “forerunner in pushing for social justice,” especially in the national climate with ban on discussing race, gender, or sexuality in the classroom. “This is just another way we can stand for justice,” she says. “Y’all might think that you’re going to say, we don’t say race, or we don’t say gay, whatever else, you decided to try to silence people about to try to create some kind of real false sense of homogeneity and maintain your power structure the way it exists,” she adds. “We’re saying, ‘No. We’re going to center discussions about our cultural heritages. We’re going to center these histories and the learning of these cultures, their preservation, and their practice.’”
“What would it look like if we took steps daily to care for ourselves and our colleagues in the same way as we do for the objects in our care?” This winter, Executive Director Lindsey Baker gave the keynote at the Small Museum Association Conference. The conference theme: “Creating a Culture of Care.” She talks about her experience giving the address.
Image courtesy of DLS Creative
Many of my 20+ internships, fellowships, and part-time work gigs with small museums during my undergraduate and graduate school days were unpaid. I had to subsidize them working additional jobs. After receiving my Master’s Degree, I became Executive Director of a tiny historical society. I believed in the work and the importance of local history so deeply, that I often caught myself working 12+ hour days trying to get it all done at an organization with 1.5 staff (and a robust volunteer program).
This type of over dedication is the norm for museum work. Professional museum jobs are few and far between with many museum professionals struggling to find paid work. Once we do, we often work above and beyond any normal expectations because we believe in the mission so strongly and we know we are “lucky” to have our job.
I know firsthand the many ways small museum people put themselves last on the list of things to prioritize, working for low pay and extremely long hours. Being asked to do the jobs of multiple people, working weekends and evenings year after year, and doing it all for boards who may not fully understand the field or your work.
Image courtesy of DLS Creative
Within this often isolating context, many small museum people find comfort and joy when given the opportunity to spend time with their colleagues. The Small Museum Association (SMA) Annual Conference is one of the best opportunities for that type of community building in our region. I first attended SMA when I was an undergraduate at Goucher College. I was hooked. Since my first year attending, I have been a regular attendee–presenting more times than I can count, serving on the Conference Committee and later on the Board of Directors. SMA drew me back year after year because these people understood my day to day work life in a way that no one else could. We consoled one another, lifted one another up, and worked to figure out how to create experiences at our organizations that brought our respective communities together.
In all my years attending, I never thought I’d be standing on the stage giving the keynote. What special expertise did I have beyond my colleagues?
Well, I was wrong. There was something radical I was doing in my work–prioritizing the humanity of my staff at Maryland Humanities.
When Will Roulett, SMA’s Conference Chair, asked me to give the keynote address at the 2023 Conference, he asked me to speak to the conference theme, “Creating a Culture of Care.” He wanted me to talk about the work I’ve been loudly doing at Maryland Humanities in centering the wellbeing and humanity of our staff.
I was thrilled to be asked to speak about this topic. I spent months thinking through how I could focus this talk and draw from personal experience.
At the beginning of my speech, I asked “What would it look like if we took steps daily to care for ourselves and our colleagues in the same way as we do for the objects in our care?” I talked about how when we show grace helps us push back against some of white supremacy’s key characteristics like fear, urgency, prioritizing individual progress and quantity, and the binary.
Two parts of the speech seemed to strike the audience the most. I started out by telling the story of a boss who took care of me when my dad died. She told me to go lay down on the floor in a specific bedroom tucked behind a large bed, safe and secure where visitors could not see me. I remember doing so and just letting the tears come out in my own little safe space. I am still so thankful for this memory of the early prioritization of my own humanity that helped shape my feelings about our work and how we bring ourselves to it. Sharing it with this large audience, I realized how important this simple gesture was on her part.
In another part of the talk, I wanted to show the audience the practical part of how we show grace in an organization. I shared a screenshot of a Slack message I sent to staff after another mass shooting.
The slide with the Slack message I shared
I paused to let the audience read the message. I chose not to read it aloud because I knew if I did the tears would flow in a way that prevented me from continuing.
I included this transparent and vulnerable image to show how I try to treat my staff as whole people and allow them to take care of themselves when and how they need.
SMA is nothing if not full of professionals looking for practical tips. To that end, I included policies and procedures into the talk, including my personal favorite, our snow day policy. I know it’s hard to think through how to actually apply these concepts, but honestly, that is the most important part.
The reaction from the talk was very validating. Afterwards, many people came up to me to share their experiences and how it resonated with them. Others still send me expressive texts, emails, and LinkedIn messages saying that the talk validated their experiences. I had clearly struck a nerve. Seeing the response reinforced the urgency in how much our field needs to start taking care of themselves.
This was a call to action. I hope the friends and partners I’ve “grown up” with over the years at SMA are able to join me in finding ways to prioritize themselves and their colleagues. I will continue to push for our field to do better. If you’re interested in hearing more, you can always follow me on LinkedIn where I am living my best life talking all things workplace culture.
There’s a lot of excitement around this year’s One Maryland One Book (OMOB) pick with the theme of Connection. Our selection committee has narrowed our list down to a Top Three: Infinite Country by Patricia Engel, There There by Tommy Orange, and Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson. These three similar yet singular novels will surely keep readers anticipating the final pick announcement in March.
Infinite Country follows a mixed immigration status family from Colombia to the United States and back. Readers are introduced to the teenage protagonist Talia, as she escapes from a “prison school for youth offenders” in Colombia. Her father has procured a plane ticket reunite her with her mother and siblings in the United States, where she was born. Talia’s journey is interlaced with her family members’ points-of-view and their histories as a family, living in different countries and times.
InfiniteCountry represents a narrative common to many within Maryland’s robust immigrant community, and specifically the growing Latine population, which as of 2019 make up 32.1% of first generation and 6.7% of second generation immigrants.
Rachael G. of our selection committee members says Country is “such a beautifully written book…a literary selection, short, and well-edited. It is one of my favorite books that I have read this year.” Another member, Alejandra B. says “this novel is the most complete summary of the life of a Colombian immigrant. The heartfelt story not only made me long for my family still living in the city of Bogota, where I was born. It was a reminder that being an immigrant is an asset, a valuable addition to this country.”
There There uses several characters’ points-of-view to tell the story of Native Americans as they converge at the Oakland Powwow. However, they are all unaware of the ways that they connect.
One of our selection committee members, Brendan B., said of the novel: “It’s one of my favorite books of all time.” Another member, Becky A., said “It was the one I felt most interested in re-reading after I’d finished. I was more drawn to the characters. There were several lines that lingered in my mind for days after finishing … and still bubble to consciousness when something even tangentially related comes up.”
If There There is our selection, it would be the first OMOB selection by a Native American or Indigenous author since 2011. The book presents a new and long-overdue opportunity for Maryland’s audiences to discuss and engage with Indigenous histories, narratives, and communities.
Red at the Bone takes a multi-generational look at sixteen-year-old Melody’s family in Brooklyn, NYC. Issues involving sex, parenthood, class, and gender are apparent throughout the novel.
Committee member Natalie L., says “Jacqueline Woodson has woven a generational story that will resonate with all cultures and ages. Readers will become so intertwined in each character that they will experience the shared love so deeply and understand what it means to love til you’re red at the bone will ring out in their soul.” Another member, Patty S., says “This is the heart-wrenching story of two families brought together by Melody’s birth. The choices each family member make along life’s journey will resonate with anyone who has struggled to make their own hard decisions. It is another beautiful story from a writer who has a gift for allowing her readers to really know her characters.”
Teens and younger readers, Woodson’s usual demographic audience, will connect and relate a lot to the feelings and happenings in Bone. They are currently coming of age, as Melody does in the book, and beginning to learn about the adult world. But the novel also features raw history: readers absorb Melody’s grandmother’s account of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre where her grandmother’s beauty shop was burned to the ground, or how the impact of 9/11 reverberates through Melody’s family.
Only one of these three titles will be this year’s selection, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add the other two to your to-be-read lists! There are deep connections between the characters in all of these books and we are excited to see what the final pick will be.
I’m constantly holding policies and procedures up against the light to see how they could be better. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in the day of being a small museum Executive Director and creating exhibits each year by committee. Each year, we’d have volunteers who would write text, then edit their text once it was mocked-up and on the walls, putting post-it notes triumphantly over what they had already written. Trying to make it “just right”. This effort to always look for improvement is one I definitely understand. 
