Undergraduate Student Advisory Board

The Student Advisory Board is a group of seven students formed to develop, implement, and provide programs that help build community among English majors.

Last semester, the Student Advisory Board learned that the key to its success was teamwork. This may seem obvious -- we met just about weekly, to share observations, ideas, and turkey subs. We were constantly working as a team to try to brainstorm new ways to counsel students, new events to be held in Bartlett Hall, and new ways of catching the attention of English majors. However, the thing that didn't cross our minds was combining our team's efforts with those of another team -- the members of the English Society.

Signs advertising the printed release of Jabberwocky began appearing around Bartlett Hall, and from there, our idea was born -- join with the members of the English Society to hold an event! The planning began, e-mails were sent, and a reading was planned for mid-May. We had pizza and soda, and authors read their own work from the new edition of Jabberwocky. The turnout was one of the largest the Student Advisory Board had experienced and it was truly an entertaining event!

We now hope that we can create and stage events that will surpass even the turnout of our most successful event to date. We want to make peer-to-peer advising accessible, as a non-threatening, easy alternative to meeting with a professor or being misadvised by other students. Our major focus this semester will be reviewing our past efforts, brainstorming new ways of providing assistance to students, and putting our plans into action. Our shared Student Advisory Board email advisoryboard@english.umass.edu is a good start to making ourselves more accessible to students, and our own profiles below will hopefully make us more recognizable to students in need of guidance. We're hoping that this semester, the Student Advisory Board will be able to provide the best events and advising we've ever had.

Below, you'll find profiles of the current Student Advisory Board.

2007 - 2008 Student Advisory Board

Zachary Bloom is a freshman English major and Spanish minor. Within the English major he intends to pursue the Creative Writing letter of specialization with a concentration in poetry. In his free time he enjoys writing poetry and reading politics, poetry and the occasional novel. He is in the English major because of his passion for literature, and also because of the flexibility of the major, especially at the upper levels. The Spanish minor is just for fun. He intends to pursue a career as a freelance writer and poet after graduating.

Genevieve Crane is an Oklahoma native. She graduated from the wonders of public
high school in 2006 and is currently an English major working towards her Creative Writing certificate. Aside from the Student Advisory Board, she is involved in Greek Life through the Chi Omega sorority. In her free time, she enjoys long walks on the beach and prosaic personal ads. She will graduate in the winter of 2009.

Stefanie Millette is a senior English major, an Education minor, a candidate
for the Five College Certificate in Culture, Health and Science and a candidate
for the Public Policy and Administration Certificate. A house manager and usher
for the Fine Arts Center, she also works for the Office of Community Service
Learning. She's proud to be a counselor for Massachusett's foster children
through the organization Sibling Connections, and is excited to be starting a
Teach for America elementary school position in St. Louis post-graduation. She
laughs a lot, leaves long messages, enjoys harassing her sister Lisa as an
immature gesture of devotion, and never says no to mocha.

Shruti Sehgal is a freshman double major in English and Political Science.  She
is a member of the UMASS Amherst English Society and Jabberwocky Literary Magazine. She is also a political reporter for the Daily Collegian. In the future, she hopes to produce novels and literary works of creative and political design. Some of her favorite novels include A Fine Balance, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Wuthering Heights, and God of Small Things.  After college, she plans to attend law school.

Ryan Smith is a sophomore English major. He is a Resident Assistant in
Webster Hall and a co-manager at 'Sweets and More', a student run business in
Orchard Hill. Ryan is a brother in Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, and is involved in
many other campus activities at Umass Amherst, such as intramural flag football and
hockey. Currently, Ryan is in the process of becoming a writing tutor at the
University Writing Center.

Adam Zinkievich is a Senior English major with an Information Technologies Minor. He has completed three specializations within the English major (Professional Writing and Technical Communication (PWTC), Nonfiction Writing, and Creative Writing) and recommends all of them. The reason Adam became an English Major was due to the incredible placement record and prestige of the PWTC program and his love for reading and writing. Adam is also the President of the English Society, Editor of Bartlett's Undergraduate Writing Journal "Jabberwocky", and knows most of the ins and outs of the English department. He writes poetry in his spare seconds and is always in search of
new Emails to respond to.