Foxworth Creative Enterprise Initiative

 English alumna funds new initiative addressing social issues affecting underrepresented communities.

A new initiative, sponsored by the College of Arts and Humanities, works to address social issues affecting underrepresented communities on the University of Maryland campus or in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. The Foxworth Creative Enterprise Initiative provides a model for the use of the humanities as a major tool in addressing issues of concern to marginalized groups. Grants are awarded to faculty who create courses, using one or more fields in the humanities, to collaboratively address social problems with an underrepresented community. These courses will give students the chance to expand the classroom and make a difference by directly engaging in social empowerment.

The initiative is made possible by English alumna Ashley Foxworth and her husband Domonique Foxworth, another alumnus of the university. Both of them, through their own experiences with the humanities, have enhanced the lives of groups dealing with significant social issues. Ashley used her English degree to teach 9^th- and 10^th- grade English as a part of Teach For America in Washington D.C., while Domonique has improved the lives of urban youth through programs helping to teach teens how to write and develop intellectual skills for lifelong success. For more information on how this recently graduated couple has used their humanities degrees to tackle societal issues, visit http://www.arhu.umd.edu/news/fielding-success.

We would like to thank the Foxworths for their generosity to the university and their efforts at social transformation.