04-17-2022 Education - Flipbook - Page 5
The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, April 17, 2022 5
Student crosses cultures
CCBC recently updated its criminal justice curriculum to better align with industry current practices.
Customized programs bring
change for good
Curriculum tailor-made to fit societal needs
By Elizabeth Levy Malis, Contributing Writer
W
hat if you could enroll for a degree,
or certificate, tailor-made to help
remedy societal ills? Today, that's
reality at some Baltimore area
higher learning institutions.
Cases in point: three local programs, at
separate schools, address criminal justice, intercultural communication, and climate finance
and risk management. The programs attract
traditional students and working professionals.
CCBC Focus on Social Justice: The CSI-Effect
Education sees increasing interest in criminal justice studies. One reason: crime storylines
star front and center in popular media.
“I really do attribute it to the CSI-effect,”
says Community College of Baltimore County
(CCBC)’s Melissa McDermott Lane, professor
and criminal justice studies department chair,
school of business, technology and law. “Turn
on the TV; you’ll see a volume of police shows,”
both real and fictionalized. It’s a reflection as
well as fuel for interest in the field.
CCBC offers a certificate as well as an
Associate of Applied Science degree in criminal
justice studies. Recently, it updated curriculum
to better align with industry current practices.
Now electives include courses on community
policing, civil rights, restorative justice, interpersonal communication and mental health. In
Fall 2022, for degree students, “Social justice in
the urban community” becomes a requirement
rather than an elective; it remains an elective for
the certificate program.
CCBC belongs to a joint initiative called
Community Policing Partnership. Others in this
cross-organizational effort include Baltimore
County Police Department, Baltimore County
Police Academy, Baltimore County Public
Schools and Office of County Executive. The
goal: to build pathways for public safety-focused
careers in Baltimore County and ensure a next
generation of law enforcement that reflects the
diversity in Baltimore County.
“We offer a 21st century education to fill 21st
century jobs, which includes a criminal justice
program that addresses modern day issues,” says
CCBC President Sandra Kurtinitis.
CCBC’s social justice studies appeals to college
students straight out of high school, older adults
returning to school, and numerous police and correctional academies. “It’s a broad array,” says Lane.
While working professionals may veer
toward the certificate program, “students who
will become future professionals enroll in the
degree program,” says Lane, who notes her
graduates find themselves quite marketable.
“They find work in the police department, as
corrections officers, probation offers, private
investigators, in forensics, or they can pursue
further study in criminology.
This education includes a hard look at mistakes of the past. “We look at examples of social
injustice based on gender, race, class. We try
to understand the industry’s mistakes, so we
can get better,” says Lane. “My hope is just by
students being exposed to these issues, that they
become better professionals. Here, they learn
resources from which to pull, move forward, be
more proactive, and look at remedies.”
Global Influences at UMBC
It’s an international village in a slice of campus at University of Maryland Baltimore County
(UMBC). There, students and faculty hail from
across the globe for its M.A. program in intercultural communication, offered by the department
of modern languages, linguisticsand intercultural
communication. Launched in 1985, as a response
Fulbright scholar Maria Morte Costea relocated
from Spain to Baltimore to enroll in the two-year
M.A. in intercultural communication at UMBC.
She’s multilingual – speaking Spanish, French,
English and Arabic. She studied journalism and
international relations before entering graduate
school here. Previously, she worked as an on-air
reporter for a Spanish TV channel, and in France
for the government of Spain.
Before moving to Charm City, she didn’t know a
thing about Baltimore. “In Europe, you hear about
New York, Miami, D.C.,” she admits. “But I love
Baltimore. It’s a great community – despite things I
heard like ‘Baltimore is dangerous.’” Yet dire comments didn’t deter her. Undaunted, Morte Costea
went into West Baltimore to make a documentary,
created with help of Professor Bill Shewbridge and
Associate Professor Nicole King, Ph.D., and the
Baltimore Traces Project.
“I like that the M.A. program is broad and
open, allowing me to explore my interests,” she
says. “Each student can personalize this degree for
their needs.” So far, her favorite class is filmmaking. “Before [UMBC], I did just on-air reporting.
Here, I got to work behind the scenes,” says Morte
Costea, whose documentary explores how African
Americans get displaced by development for
gentrification in Baltimore City’s Poppleton neighborhood through a process known as eminent
domain, where the state takes private property for
public use. “I did not know this kind of thing is
done in the U.S.A.,” she says. “I was learning about
it for the first time.”
Morte Costea documented conflict caused by a
massive development plan for the long-time residents who own the land wanted for development.
One family she filmed had lived in Poppleton
four generations and did not want to move out —
despite that today the neighborhood is burdened
with high vacancy and blight. Ripe for development.
Her documentary shows residents saying they
“are not against development, just against development with displacement.” She documents people
who assert “it’s another example of wholesale
movement of African Americans out of neighborhoods.” Some see it as akin to what the White man
did to Native Americans.
This M.A. in intercultural communication
“focuses on 'other cultures' – not just other
countries,” says Shewbridge. “Intercultural does
not mean just foreign lands. Going into West
Baltimore can be an intercultural experience.
Maria not only learned about her subject matter
but learned the culture.”
Her documentary is being shown at The
Charles Theater as part of the Poppleton Filmfest.
to economic, political, social and cultural complexities of modern times, this degree offers a
dual focus: combining intercultural communication with knowledge of another language.
Customized programs,
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