History of Intercultural Communication (INCC) at UMBC

The Department of Modern Languages, Linguistics, and Intercultural Communication at UMBC has had an interdisciplinary focus since the mid 1970s and the department is currently composed of specialists in linguistics, the social sciences, second language pedagogy, bilingual education, literary analysis, cultural studies, and intercultural communication. Thus the department’s decision to develop and MA in Intercultural Communication (INCC) as an alternative to the traditional foreign language and literary programs was consistent with its history and philosophy. Initiated in 1985, this MA program has been a response to the economic, political, social, and cultural complexities of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Initiated in 2011, the Center for Intercultural Research and Practice (CIRP) builds on the existing strength of the faculty and students in the MLLI department to serve as a model for intercultural training and research at UMBC, in the Baltimore-Washington area, and on a national level.

Some publications on the history of INCC at UMBC