Angela Chen strongly contemplated punching her Woodrow
Wilson fellowship ticket for a trip to France or Italy. The
senior history of art major imagined herself in Paris or
strolling through Italian cobbled streets as she delved
into her subject, courtesy of the $10,000 research
award.
Ultimately, however, Chen chose Eastern Avenue over
the Champs-Elysees.
Chen wanted to study the mural tradition, and she
decided to focus on Baltimore's commissioned public murals
and their effect on the communities that have them.
Specifically, she wanted to quantify the impact of the
Baltimore Mural Program, which began in 1987, and compare
it with other programs of its kind.
Since 1999, the
Woodrow Wilson fellowship awards have
allowed undergraduates like Chen the opportunity to pursue
an independent research project over the course of his or
her college career. Chen is one of 16 seniors who on
Friday, April 28, will display and discuss the results of
their research at a poster session, sponsored by the
university's Second Decade Society, to be held from 3 to 5
p.m. in Homewood's Glass Pavilion.
Chen began her project in earnest during her sophomore
year. She first headed to libraries to read up on the mural
tradition, and later ventured out into the city to see many
of the more than 120 murals produced by the program, which
operates under the auspices of the Baltimore Office of
Promotion and the Arts. She called her excursions "mural
runs," and they took her to all parts of the city,
including Greektown, Pigtown, Druid Hill and
Franklintown.
To examine the effectiveness of the program, she
compared pre-existing sociological data from areas of the
city with and without murals, before and after the murals
were painted.
The California native used a good portion of her
fellowship money on living expenses for the two summers she
resided in Baltimore to work on the project. During these
months, she interviewed the artists, community members and
Baltimore Mural Program staff to explore the mural creation
process and determine whether or not the works of art had
improved the neighborhoods they decorate. Chen's research
said that, by and large, they had.
"In general, I found that the mural brings the
community up in so many ways. For example, financially, you
see people reinvesting in renovation of their homes," she
said. "I also looked into how people felt about the area
where they are living, and that would rise after the
creation of a mural."
She also found that the areas in the immediate area of
the mural tended to be clean, perhaps out of pride and
admiration for the work of art.
Chen also factored in that neighborhoods that
commission a mural tend to be healthier in the first
place.
"It's a bit of what came first, the chicken or the egg
scenario, but either way you look at it, [the murals] tend
to have a positive impact," Chen said. "I'm very glad I
decided to conduct my research here. I got to see what it
was like in these neighborhoods and just meet lots of
people when I was walking around."
Chen's adviser for her project was Matthew Crenson,
chair of Political Science and an expert on urban studies
who has written about Baltimore's neighborhoods.
Crenson said that Chen's project was a perfect fit as
it paired her interest in art with her "relentless
sociability."
"The great thing about Baltimore is it becomes
something you can form a long-term attachment to," said
Crenson, a Baltimore native. "When students go to France,
for example, they go for a month, at most a year. But when
you do a project in a local neighborhood, you can really
make connections with and keep in touch with the people who
live there. You can get deeply involved, as I think Angela
did."
The annual Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research
Fellowship Program allows students in the Krieger School of
Arts and Sciences to delve into unconstrained research
during their undergraduate experience, mentored by
distinguished Johns Hopkins faculty. Each Wilson fellow
receives a grant of up to $10,000 to be distributed over
four years to support research expenses, including costs
associated with travel, equipment and use of archives.
The fellowships are given to incoming freshmen of
outstanding merit and promise and also to rising
sophomores, who receive up to $7,500 for three years. For
high school seniors, a Woodrow Wilson brochure is included
in the application packets mailed out by the Office of
Undergraduate Admissions. Current freshmen, however, must
submit a two-to-three-page proposal, a resume, a
second-semester transcript and a letter of recommendation
from a JHU faculty member who would become the student's
mentor.
The award is named after the former U.S. president,
who received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins. The program
was developed for the School of Arts and Sciences by
Herbert Kessler, then dean of the school and now a
professor of art history; Steven David, vice dean for
centers and programs; and university trustee J. Barclay
Knapp, who funded the fellowships through the school's
James B. Knapp Deanship, named for his late father.
The individual research projects are designed by the
fellows, and each student has the choice of focusing on a
single long-term project, exploring several aspects of a
particular discipline or working on various short-term
undertakings in an array of fields. Students can opt to
pursue research in their own major or, if they wish, branch
off into a totally unrelated discipline.
Elizabeth Krimmel decided to concentrate on her chosen
field and, like Chen, to focus on Baltimore. A senior
sociology major, Krimmel wanted to study the effects of a
local effort, the Power/Excel Foundation's Prison Project,
on reducing recidivism among inmates at the Baltimore
Pre-Release Unit for Women.
In the past 20 years, national incarceration rates for
previous criminal offenders have quadrupled, Krimmel said,
and the number of women in prison has increased at nearly
double the rate for men. Life after prison, Krimmel said,
is fraught with challenges. The women often have difficulty
securing a job due to their criminal record, fight
substance abuse battles and face the constant temptation of
returning to criminal activity in order to meet financial
obligations, especially in the case of women with children
to support. In addition, former inmates have trouble
rebuilding relationships with family and friends.
The Power/Excel Prison Project, founded in 2001,
attempts to prepare these women for re-entry into society
by addressing life skills, such as effective communication
and conflict management, while empowering women to take
control of their lives and to build meaningful
relationships. The program, which is voluntary, has groups
of eight to 15 women who meet once a week over an
eight-week period. The women learn conversation skills,
basic money matters, conflict resolution and even how to
meditate.
Krimmel shadowed one group of women in the program
last spring, helped teach a course and tracked the progress
among 136 women who had gone through the program. For
comparative purposes, she matched up each one of these
women to a former inmate who did not go through the program
but had similar offenses, family situations, age and
release date.
Krimmel is still waiting for the state's data on the
women's current status to complete her study. Her
preliminary findings, however, lead her to believe that the
program is valuable and effective, but that even more is
needed to overcome the obstacles these women face.
"These were real people with real problems. They were
fun to be around and excited about getting out, but scared
because they had nowhere to go. There are just not a lot of
services for people who are released, especially women,
since everything seems to be targeted for men," she said.
"That is what's so unique about my study: that there really
isn't much research on female incarceration. This was such
an interesting experience for me. I got to know these women
well. Some of them have children, some my age, so they were
kind of mothering to me."
Subjects of other Woodrow Wilson projects on display
at the Friday poster session [see below] include the
origins of modern Jordan, the business of Hollywood,
creating an energy policy in the 21st century and a
watershed analysis of the Monkey River in Belize.
To get a close-up look at the murals that Angela Chen
studied, consider taking a Baltimore Mural Bike Tour, run
by the Baltimore Office of Promotion. The next one is
scheduled for 10 a.m. on Sunday, May 21, leaving from the
Wynns Falls Bike Trail parking area off the 2700 block of
Frederick Avenue. The cost is $15 per person.
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