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Visit our "Where are they now?" Alumni News Blog to learn more about UMBC History Alums and Their Careers. If you are an alum, let us know!

Congratulations to the Spring 2012 Graduates in History!

The 2011 Joseph L. Arnold Prize for the best essay on Baltimore history was awarded to Sara Patanaude for her paper, "Playing Fair: The Fight for Interracial Athletics in Baltimore." She received the award at the Baltimore City Historical Society conference on neighborhood history on May 11 of this year. Sara Patenaude received her M.A. in History at UMBC in 2011. The research project that led to the Arnold Prize essay grew out of her thesis, "The City in A Swing Set: The Desegregation of Public Parks in Baltimore," for which Dr. Michelle Scott served as her advisor. She is currently a Ph.D. student at Georgia State University, where she continues to research Baltimore history, with a focus on "questions of how access (or lack thereof) to public space affects communities."

The Joseph L. Arnold Prize for Outstanding Writing on Baltimore's History confers a $500 cash award, supported by a generous grant in memory of Joseph R. and Anne S. Byrnes. UMBC American Studies Emeritus Professor Ed Orser coordinated the reviewing process, which included historians from Baltimore universities (Loyola University of Maryland, the University of Baltimore) and the Baltimore City Historical Society.

Our annual Webb lecture, named for Bob K. Webb, will be given in fall 2012 by Prof. Judy Walkowitz from Johns Hopkins University who will speak about her new book, Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London (Yale, 2012). More info soon!

The UMBC history faculty is composed of scholar-teachers at the forefront of knowledge in their fields. The department offers a B.A. and M.A. in history and is affiliated with the Ph.D. programs in Public Policy and Language Literacy and Culture. The department's faculty are committed to helping students expand their understanding of the world through learning to apply the knowledge and analytical abilities gained by studying the past.

The study of history enables students to develop writing, research, analytical, and communication skills that broaden their perspectives on the past and provide new sights on current issues and problems. In addition to encouraging mature judgment, the history curriculum trains students to work sensibly and logically with a wide variety of evidence. Graduates in history work in a wide range of fields including government, business, and education.