ARHU Announces Foxworth Creative Enterprise Grants

College partners with Domonique ‘04 and Ashley ‘06 Foxworth to drive innovation in the arts and humanities.

College Park, Md. - The University of Maryland College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) announced today an agreement with former Ravens cornerback and NFL Players Association President Domonique Foxworth ‘04, and his wife, Ashley Manning Foxworth ‘06, Harvard Law School graduate, to launch the new “Foxworth Creative Enterprise Grants.” Their gift of $150,000 will fund a three-year pilot program intended to encourage the inclusion of the arts and humanities in spurring new ideas and solutions to some of society’s most pressing issues.

“The college’s faculty and students are engaged in amazing, far-reaching projects, and I see this initiative as another opportunity to help cultivate their work,” said College of Arts and Humanities Dean Bonnie Thornton Dill.

The Foxworth grant contributes to university-wide innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives like the Future of Information Alliance’s (FIA) Seed Grant Competition and the School of Public Policy’s Do Good Challenge, focusing the initiative on the application of arts and humanities skills—reading, writing, critical thinking and effective communication―and deep knowledge of language, culture and history to address real-world problems.

The college appointed Michelle V. Rowley, associate professor of women’s studies, as the first faculty administrator to lead this exciting initiative. Rowley’s research and teaching has been keenly focused on issues of gender and development, transnational feminism and women in the African diaspora.

“I have spent a lot of time thinking about this initiative and it acknowledges and provides support for the things that I value – social justice, community based pedagogy and connections between the university and the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. metropolitan area,” said Rowley.  

The grant will fund up to three “Creative Enterprise Teams,” consisting of five-eight students and one faculty mentor per team. The purpose of the program is to award competitive grants to faculty and student applicants who will partner, perhaps with outside organizations, to expand and develop innovative practices that can be shared and scaled-up to initiate change for underserved populations in the greater university community and beyond.

The college plans to announce a call for faculty and student applications later this year.