Art Keene of the UMass Amherst anthropology department
has a passion and a gift for finding connections between
theory and experience, for bringing them together into praxis.
As the first Terrence Murray Commonwealth College Honors
Professor, he will combine propensity with opportunity: the
professorship allows him to create courses for ommonwealth
College, the state’s honors program, which will explore
the
identity and dynamics of community through praxis.
When Keene
came to UMass Amherst in 1979, having
just received his PhD in archaeology from the University
of
Michigan with a dissertation studying small scale societies
before the advent of capitalism, he brought with him a
professional and a personal interest in community. He was
a
member of daycare, food, and car-repair co-ops at the time.
He felt frustrated by the academic dictum that one kept lived
experience separate from scholarly, scientific work. After
his
first sabbatical, spent on a kibbutz in Israel, where rules
about
maintaining what educator and sociologist Parker Palmer calls “a
divided life” didn’t hold, Keene made
a decision. “I merged
my roles as a scholar, teacher, citizen, parent, and partner,”
he says. Keene ran for Amherst town meeting, began
coaching at the high school, and over time has come to focus
on cultural and applied anthropology and community service
learning. His innovative approach to teaching has led him
to
develop highly participatory courses, ones where, he says, “the
connection of theory to action is built in.”
As the disheveled
appearance of his Machmer office
indicates—every level surface is stacked with books
and
papers—connecting theory and action keeps Keene busy.
In
addition to teaching an introductory anthropology course
for
majors, he works with two programs related to community
service learning that he founded. His approach combines
work with community organization and academics, an idea
that has been gaining ground in higher education over the
last two decades.
Keene co-directs the Citizen Scholars Program,
sponsored by Commonwealth College, which awards scholarships
to
students who are integrating their studies with community
service. He also directs the Curricular Alternative Spring
Break (CASB). The program sends students to rural locales
like New Road, Virginia; by painting churches, reading
to preschoolers, and otherwise donating their labor, students
assist struggling communities and also come face to face
with social issues. Poverty, racism, and injustice become
real when students spend time with families living without
heat or indoor plumbing, when they meet fishermen whose livelihood
has suffered from pollution of fishing grounds.
“Very
creative work is being done in community service learning
at UMass Amherst,” says Keene, “some
of the most
innovative work in the country.”
Thanks to the Professorship,
Keene will add to the innovation.
He will spend the next year
creating a course focused on
the ethnography of the campus.
Students enrolled in the yearlong
program will research their
peers to develop a collective
self-portrait of sorts. In the
process, faculty should gain a
clearer picture of their students’
backgrounds and beliefs, and the
student will gain, says Keene,
“useful knowledge, a concrete
skill, self-awareness, a new lens,
and the satisfaction of knowing
that what they discover will have
an impact on teaching.” To help
design “The Ethnography of Us”
course, Keene plans to convene
a consulting group of faculty.
“Younger colleagues within the
anthropology department have
the creative genius, expertise, and
experience to help determine what
teachers need to know about their
students,” says Keene.
The Murray Professorship will
also allow Keene to teach an
important course in community
organizing that was developed
by Marshall Gantz at Harvard
University and is currently
being taught by UMass Amherst
doctoral candidate Mary Hannah
Henderson. In the course,
students learn how to organize,
then put their learning to work
on an organizing project of their
own devising. Both courses will
qualify as Commonwealth College
capstone courses—alternatives to
completing an honors thesis—and
enable students to explore a topic
in depth.
“It’s very exciting, having
the time to do curriculum
development. It’s a luxury, an
extraordinary experience,” says
Keene. And one guided by a
question he’s been asking since
his own student days: “How do
people find common interests and
act on them?”
