Baltimore Field School 3.0: Collaborative Teaching in Public Humanities (2026)
The Baltimore Field School 3.0, Collaborative Teaching in Public Humanities, invites applicants for the third iteration in our community-engaged, place-based pedagogy series. This time, faculty, staff, and students will come together for a one-day intensive workshop aimed at creating collaborative teaching tools rooted in public humanities approaches that strive to make the university’s outreach infrastructure more equitable and inclusive. By the end of the day, participants will have contributed to a toolkit that may include syllabus templates, assignment examples, assessment tools, and rubrics that will be localized in a shared online repository.
The BFS 3.0 application is open to all UMBC graduate students, staff, and faculty invested in teaching and public humanities. Applications are due Monday, Feb. 16. A cohort of 15 fellows will be selected in March 2026, and each fellow will receive a $250 stipend. We strive to support early career faculty and build a diverse cohort.
The 2025 BFS workshop will take place on May 27, 2026 from 10:00am – 5:00pm in the Lion Brothers Building. Lunch will be provided, and an informal (and optional) social will take place after the workshop.
For more information or to apply, click the application tab above.
To learn more about UMBC’s Public Humanities program and minor in public humanities, see:
https://cahss.umbc.edu/publichumanities
https://amstcommunitystudies.org
Read the following open-acess journal article for more history and context on BFS:
Nicole King, Tahira Mahdi, and Sarah Fouts, “Rethinking the Field in Crisis: The Baltimore Field School and Building Ethical Community and University Partnerships,” Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Vol. 28 No. 1 (2024).
Abstract
This Projects With Promise case study offers insights for addressing tensions between universities and communities in building partnerships and collectively rethinking “the field” of community engagement. We explore moving beyond a solely place-based understanding of “the field” into an ethos based on human interactions and mutual trust. Through an analysis of the Baltimore Field School (BFS) project, we argue that partnerships must be designed to create the time and space for self-reflexive qualitative methods that emerge from a personality-proof and sustainable infrastructure that can respond to crises and needs in both communities and universities. Rethinking and even “undoing” notions of institutional time and space within universities allows community-centered reflection that begins to cross the boundaries imposed by neoliberal institutions focused on profits above people. Exploring the distinct scholarly communities of higher education can inspire academics to rethink how universities can work with and not just for local communities.
####
Baltimore Field School 2.0 (2022-2023) ARCHIVE
As part of UMBC’s Public Humanities program, Baltimore Field School is an ongoing approach to community engaged research that moves from extractive approaches to research and instead is aimed at building sustainable and ethical projects while helping make the university’s outreach infrastructure more equitable.
From 2022-2023, we completed the Baltimore Field School 2.0: Undoing & Doing Anew in Public Humanities which was composed of 13 UMBC graduate students, staff, and faculty along with 8 community partners and 3 team leaders. This leg of the field school was funded by a public engagement grant from American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) of over $150,000. The grant will funded collaborative projects developed with community fellows and will focus on food and land justice, racial equity, and journalism/public information. The cohort of community fellows included: Betty Bland-Thomas of South Baltimore Partnership, Yesenia Mejia of Creative Alliance, Curtis Eaddy II of Presidential Brands, Eddie Conway and Cameron Granadino of Real News Network, Tisha Guthrie of Poppleton Now and Baltimore’s Renters United, Lisa Snowden of Baltimore Beat, Aishah Alfadhalah of Mera Kitchen Collective, and Eric Jackson of the Black Yield Institute.
From 2020-2021, we implemented the inaugural Baltimore Field School (BFS), launched through a $125,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2020. This group was composed of 15 UMBC faculty, staff, and graduate students with 2 community fellows.
For more information contact Director of Public Humanities – Department of American Studies, UMBC – Sarah Fouts sfouts@umbc.edu.
BFS 2.0 is funded by an ACLS Sustaining Public Engagement Grant
2025 Updates
In 2025, UMBC’s Public Humanities program entered a pivotal phase of restructuring, increased recognition, and expanded teaching and community engagement. The most significant development was the merger of the Public Humanities Minor with the Orser Center for the Study of Community, Place, and Culture to form the Orser Center for Public Humanities. Co-directed by Dr. Nicole King and Dr. Sarah Fouts, the new center reflects a more unified and intentional commitment to public-facing scholarship, collaborative research, and student-centered learning. This reorganization was the work of a sub-committee of the Public Humanities Advisory Committee. For more on the Orser Center for Public Humanities see: https://amstcommunitystudies.org/.
The center officially launched with a public event that brought together students, alumni, faculty, and community members to celebrate the Soul of the Butterfly exhibition in the AOK Library Rotunda which showcased our commitment to community engagement, archival research, and public and traditional art in Baltimore (see photo above).
Internally, we strengthened key partnerships to improve both administrative efficiency and student support. Collaborating with UMBC’s CARAT office, we streamlined our grant writing and internal processes with Maryland State Art Council’s Maryland Folklife Network.
With the support of Program Management Specialist Morgan Dowty, we also revised and updated our elective course listings, so that Public Humanities students have access to the full range of interdisciplinary offerings each semester. This effort corrected previous gaps in course visibility and accessibility. To improve student access to transportation, we partnered with leaders from CDLR, Visual Arts, CADVC, History, and Public Humanities to petition for the coordinators of the UMBC Downtown Shuttle to stop at the Lion Brothers Building, making it easier for faculty and students to reach Baltimore-based classrooms and studios.
Those of us who teach at the Lion Brothers Building (875 Hollins St) in downtown Baltimore, led a presentation at the downtown classroom, tour of IMDA MFA students studios, and a walking tour of the community surrounding the classroom (Hollins/Poppleton) with our previous Dean Kimberly Moffitt and President Valerie Sheares Ashby. In addition to co-directors King and Fouts, we had Sarah Sharp and Beth Yashnyk (VART), Joby Taylor (Shriver Center/Community Leadership), Melissa Blair (Public History), Mika Thornburg (Postdoctoral Fellow of Global Asias), and Poppleton community member Pastor Brenda White (Allen AME Church) attend the tour with President Sheares Ashby. (See photo below)
We deepened our external collaborations, particularly with the Maryland State Art Council’s Maryland Folklife Network (MFN). This included strategic planning meetings and new grant applications aimed at connecting CAHSS departments more closely to public folklife initiatives at our regional center. This work, led in partnership with UMBC Special Collections and Dr. Beth Saunders, supports a more integrated model of public humanities and folklife network programming and community archival work.
Check out more information and apply to be a BFS 3.0 Fellow in 2026 here (also under the application tab above).
