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At a ceremony this morning at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, the Baltimore Business Journal recognized (above, left to right) Open Society Institute Advisory Board members Veronica Cool and Eddie Brown, and Community Fellowships Director Pamela King among 11 Baltimore-area “Leaders in Diversity.” Fenimore Fisher, vice provost and chief diversity officer at Johns Hopkins University, gave […]

A recent episode of WYPR’s Life in the Balance featured 2017 OSI Community Fellow Alex Long’s Team Redemption Boxing Gym program. Long, a member of Safe Streets, a violence prevention program in McElderry Park, started the boxing program for youth ages 10-15 in 2015 but was able to expand and strengthen with his fellowship. The gym, he […]

On Sunday, Patrick Gaspard, the president of Open Society Foundations, appeared as a panelist on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.” Gaspard, who is a former senior aide to President Obama and U.S. ambassador to South Africa, along with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, ABC’s chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl and others, discussed the Mueller […]

Recently, the Real News Network featured a story on Open Society Institute’s latest Talking About Race event, “Mothers of the Movement Speak.” The event, co-sponsored by the University of Baltimore College of Public Affairs and Baltimore Ceasefire, included Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir Rice; Gwen Carr, mother of Eric Garner; Marion Gray-Hopkins, mother of Gary Albert […]

This week Morgan State University Professor and 2012 OSI Community Fellow Lawrence Brown launches the Baltimore Equity Toolkit and Power Mapping website. The Powermap, an analytical tool that can be used to both understand the impact of redlining and change the trajectory of redlined communities, was originally developed by Brown in 2016-2017 with the help […]

Last week, Mayor Catherine Pugh visited Maunabo, a city on the Southeastern coast of Puerto Rico, as part of a mayoral exchange organized by Open Society Foundations. The program, launched in February, was created so that U.S. mayors could express solidarity and share expertise with their Puerto Rican counterparts as they try to rebuild after […]

The Coalition to Reform School Discipline is asking the Baltimore school board to create a new version of the Miranda warning to use in the event that they place students under arrest. The coalition, which includes Open Society grantees NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, ACLU of Maryland, the Public Defender’s Office, and Disability Rights Maryland, […]

On Wednesday, students in Dr. Lamarr Shields‘ (back row, right) Teacher Exchange program met with Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises (back row, third from right) to talk about the progress of their work and what they’ve learned. Dr Shields, and educator and 2016 OSI Community Fellow founded the Teacher Exchange with the idea that […]

On Tuesday, the Baltimore Teacher Supply Swap, which was co-founded by 2016 Open Society Community Fellow Melissa Badeker (pictured), officially opened its new headquarters at 1794 Union Avenue in Woodberry. The Supply Swap collects unused supplies that sit in teachers’ homes and school supply closets and gets them into the hands of teachers who can use them. […]

Today, several staff members from Open Society Institute met with about 20 representatives from Baltimore’s Latino community to talk about OSI’s program areas and Safe City Baltimore initiative, and listen to the representatives’ thoughts on what is most needed in their communities. Open Society Advisory Board member Veronica Cool (speaking in the photo above), arranged […]