The Mosaic

About

The Mosaic is a center for resources, community building, and staff support, and is a lounge space for UMBC community members of all backgrounds to use for relaxing, programming, small events, and small gatherings. We strive to develop innovative programs & initiatives that celebrate cultural diversity while advocating for inclusion, equity, & social justice.

You can visit the Mosaic to eat lunch, study, & chat with your friends or us, seek any resources you may need, or find a space to rest in between classes. The Mosaic is also designated as an accessible space for prayer, reflection, meditation &/or to pick up a bag from our campus pantry, Retriever Essentials.

We host various events centered around diversity, equity, inclusion, & social justice (DEISJ). We help students find community with peers who are like them and peers who are unlike them. We are also a resource for both undergraduate & graduate students who have questions about race, ethnicity, nationality, and/or citizenship status.

Mission

The Mosaic strives to provide diverse, equitable, and inclusive learning opportunities that center and celebrate racial, ethnic, and national identities. We do this through student identity-based social justice-centered advocacy and programming, intra/intercultural dialogue and storytelling, and community-based gatherings to create a sense of belonging and to empower all UMBC community members to be agents of social change.

History

Opening on February 2, 2004, The Mosaic (Originally named UMBC’s Multicultural Center) is dedicated to creating an environment that supports cross-cultural education and collaboration at UMBC. This space was created out of the work of students, staff, faculty, alumnx, and community partners that saw the need for a student-centered space for cultural learning and identity development after the disbandment of The Office of Multicultural Affairs in the early 2000s. Originally serving as the “central broad diversity office” within the Student Diversity & Inclusion area in Campus Life (Originally named Student Life), The Mosaic now serves as one of three identity-based spaces on campus, focusing on sense of belonging, equity, and inclusion in connection to underrepresented racial, ethnic, and national identities. In the spring of 2022, The Mosaic: Center for Culture and Diversity, was renamed to The Mosaic: Center for Cultural Diversity to further promote the mission of both The Mosaic and i3b and its equal partnership of being 1 of 4 departmental areas.

Today, The Mosaic is composed of a lounge, a student staff work area, and additional interior staff offices. Located in The Commons 2B23, The Mosaic provides guests with a safe, inclusive space to find belonging, create friendship, connect with our staff, engage in prayer, or just a place to study or relax.

Mosaic lotus in circleLocation

2B23, The Commons on the second floor.

Hours

Fall & Spring

  • Monday, Tuesday, Thursday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
  • Wednesday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
  • Friday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Summer & Winter

  • Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
  • Wednesday 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.

Contact

Additional Resources

 

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. We created an art piece to honor the historical moment representing how community and partnerships made our work possible. We invited our community to participate 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 serve 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:

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

For our campus, we commit to the following:

  • To encourage the broader UMBC community’s commitment to inclusive excellence.
  • To uphold and encourage community-wide adoption of the Brave Space Guidelines to create shared accountability for our words and actions.
  • To develop spaces that promote intentional, meaningful, accessible, and positive cross-cultural exchange.
  • To strategically increase our visibility by fostering new relationships and nurturing our existing ones.
  • To continue to co-create innovative, educational programming that centers social and global justice.
  • 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:

  • To explore our involvement with local communities, specifically Arbutus, Catonsville, and Baltimore City.
  • 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 the planet.
  • To intentionally disrupt systemic supremacy and supremacist behavior through educating from a place of care and concern while respecting the identity development process.