Special Activities

Administration Building, 7th Floor

Special Activities

Annual Lectures & Seminars

The UMBC History Department presents special lectures open to the public during the school year. Check here for information on the dates, speakers and topics for:

Annual History Department Seminar Series includes the Webb and Low lectures as well as a venue for Department and Visiting faculty, exceptional students and experts in various fields to discuss topics of interest.

The Robert K. Webb Lecture honors Professor Robert K. Webb, distinguished scholar of British history and former chair of the History Department. The Department invites leading scholars to lecture on European history each fall.

The W. Augustus Low Lecture is in memory of Professor Augustus Low, founder of the History Department. In keeping with Professor Low's area of specialization, the Lecture brings historians of Civil Rights and Southern History to campus each spring.

The Social Science Forum presents topics and perspectives of vital interest to the social sciences community and beyond. Lectures are free and open to the public and will last approximately one hour, followed by a question and answer period and a reception. Events take place throughout the year.

The Humanities Forum The UMBC Humanities Forum offers a program of events that illustrate the richness of contemporary work in philosophy, history, culture, language, literature, and the arts. The Forum is particularly interested in demonstrating the links that bring the humanities, the social sciences, and the sciences together.

Center for History Education

The Center for History Education is the product of a partnership between the Department of History at UMBC and the Maryland Council for History Education. It seeks to promote and strengthen the teaching of history in Maryland schools by serving as a bridge between school teachers and academic historians in the state. Public schools in Maryland face increasing opportunities and pressures to enhance the teaching of history. On the one hand, the imminent arrival of the new Social Studies Standards, the existing Core Learning Goals, and the related student assessment exams all strongly emphasize historical content and historical thinking skills. On the other hand, the Internet and other forms of the new electronic media offer a fast-expanding wealth of historical information and resources for students of the past. Indeed, the Internet now offers access to the sort of primary sources and documentary materials that had previously been available only to professional historians working in archives and university libraries. The Web thus opens up exciting new opportunities for the teaching of sophisticated historical research skills at the secondary school-level.

The CHE seeks to help teachers both to adjust to the new demands and to take advantage of the new opportunities. From the outset, the CHE has focused on helping teachers improve the quality and enrich the content of their history lesson plans and curricula. In cooperation with the teachers on the Council for History Education, the CHE has developed graduate courses in World and American History for social studies teachers. These courses are intended to familiarize teachers with the relevant historical content and scholarly skills, and to help them develop lesson plans for their own social studies classes.

Special Opportunities and Internships

Students have the opportunity to enhance their classroom experience by participating in internships in such organizations as the Maryland Historical Society and the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis, the Baltimore Museum of Industry, and other museums, Archives, and historical societies in the region. One agency wrote to "thank UMBC's History Department for the wonderful employees and interns you have been sending us....To say we are satisfied with the quality of the people would be an understatement." For further information about internship opportunities, contact the Department of History.

In addition to winning prestigious national fellowships and prizes, UMBC historians have served as scholars-in-residence at the National Security Agency and the National Foreign Affairs Training Center of the U.S. Department of State and have worked with state and county officials in designing history curricula in the public schools.