UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND EASTERN SHORE
A newsletter for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends
OCTOBER 2022
‘It’s about student voices within the community’
Three-day Media and Community Festival focuses on student-community engagement
Dr. Cynthia Cravens (right) poses for a picture with attendees during the Media and Community Festival on Oct. 14
Sometimes, the best ideas come from a bit of inspiration and a bit of tweaking. That was the case when Dr. Dana Little, a UMES professor in the Department of English and Modern Languages Digital Media Studies program, attended the annual South by Southwest convention and festival in Austin, TX earlier this year. It was during that experience that she came up with the idea of an event that would incorporate the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s missions of interdisciplinary studies in addition to community engagement. “I was trying to figure out exactly what would be the best way to introduce what I could do from South-by-Southwest here,” Little said. “I wanted to do something that would be a symposium or series and I just said ‘media’ and that pretty much was it.” What came from it was the creation of UMES’s inaugural Media and Community Festival, a three-day event from Oct.13-15 that featured demonstrations and exhibitions from various academic departments and student organizations, special guest speaker forums including one headlined by reality star Amber Eggers of the WeTV show, “Life After Lockup,” and a town-and-gown component that took place in Downtown Princess Anne.
“When I knew we were going to pursue (the idea of the festival), I thought that would be an excellent way to combine what we’re doing academically with what Dana wanted to do with media (and other initiatives the Center for Teaching Excellence does such Dr. Pamela Allison of UMES’ Center for as the social justice Entrepreneurship and Innovation addresses the audience during a forum at the Media committee) to do and Community Festival on Oct. 14. with more community engagement,” said Dr. Cynthia Cravens, the director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and a fellow professor in the English department. “So, it became this sort of holistic project trying to bring together all these disparate threads under one sort of umbrella.” The first day of the event, was held in Downtown Princess Anne as a remix of the town’s monthly “First Thursday” celebration, with UMES faculty and students participating in the festivities. The second day of the festival was in the Student Services Center with simultaneous events including the exhibitions and demonstrations in the ballroom and the forums in the theater. On the final day of the festival, held at Hawk’s Corner on Main Street in Princess Anne, Eggers, who is Little’s niece, participated in an “Ask Me Anything” forum while members of UMES’s Digital Media Studies program were involved in a ‘pop-up’ podcast on the discussion of “Afrofuturism” and how it can be applied Amber Eggers of “Life After Lock Up” to the HBCU experience. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
IN THIS ISSUE
PAGE 2 Pep Band
PAGE 3
First Look/ Career Fair
PAGE 4-5
Mister & Miss UMES Q&A
PAGE 6-8
Arts & Humanities Month
PAGE 9
Entrepreneur & Innovation Center
PAGE 10
Faculty Art Exhibit
PAGE 11
Athletics
PAGE 12
Small Farms Conference