Mosaic History

Our History: The Mosaic’s 15 Aspirations

The Mosaic’s 15 represents a historic milestone for our center, our department, the Division of Student Affairs, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a whole. To honor this moment, we created an art piece that represents how our work has been possible  through community and partnerships. We invited our community to take part in this communal art piece by contributing a tile to “Our Mosaic.”

Each Talavera tile of this art piece is unique, colorful, and expressive. Each tile represents the students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community partners that make UMBC as vibrant and diverse as the tiles themselves. The chemical changes that occurred within the tiles during their hand-made production serves as a metaphor for the internal, transformative, strenuous changes that have taken place throughout our campuses’ collective identity-development. To honor and Look Back on the struggles and contributions of our ancestors, specifically the original cultivators of this land, and to welcome change by Moving Forward in anticipation of our future global family, we commit to these 15 aspirations for our students, campus, and world.

For our students, we commit to the following:

  1. To amplify and promote the growth of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, programs, and resources in our campus community.
  2. To highlight the needs of our growing student population by advocating for additional resources, spaces, and staff.
  3. To more accurately assess the cross-cultural needs of ALL students, both undergrad and graduate students alike.
  4. To build solidarity with minoritized and marginalized student communities; particularly with students of color across ALL social identities.
  5. To continue to engage with student groups, support their community needs, and cultivate their leadership.
  6. To enrich the professional and educational experiences of our student staff as they integrate their identities into their careers and beyond UMBC.

For our campus, we commit to the following:

  1. To encourage the broader UMBC community’s commitment to inclusive excellence.
  2. To uphold and encourage community wide adoption of the Brave Space Guidelines to create shared accountability for our words and actions.
  3. To further develop spaces that promote intentional, meaningful, accessible, and positive cross-cultural exchange.
  4. To strategically increase our visibility by fostering new relationships and nurturing our existing ones.
  5. To continue to co-create innovative, educational programming that centers social and global justice.
  6. To guide the development of an advisory board that allows avenues for deeper partnership and relationships with campus community leaders and stakeholders.

For our global family and world, we commit to the following:

  1. To explore our involvement with local communities, specifically Arbutus, Catonsville, and Baltimore City.
  2. To encourage more sustainable and green practices across the UMBC campus that recognize the collective impact of our actions and responsibility to our global community, wildlife, and planet.
  3. To intentionally disrupt systemic supremacy and supremacist behavior through educating from a place of care and concern, while respecting the identity development process.