News

Hill directs Texas All-State Jazz Ensemble

Fine Arts Center director Willie L. Hill was invited recently to the 2013 Texas Music Educators Association Clinic/Convention, where he taught a clinic and conducted the Texas All-State Jazz Ensemble.
 
More than 26,000 people attend what is considered to be the largest music education conference in the country. Hill gave a clinic on jazz ensemble rehearsal techniques and conducted the All-State Jazz Ensemble in a stellar concert. Only 20 members were chosen for this ensemble comprised of the best young jazz talent in Texas.

Begun in 1920 as the Texas Band Teachers Association, the Texas

Historian to lecture on rise and decline of American democracy

Historian Robin D.G. Kelley, award-winning African-American scholar and History Department writer-in-residence, will speak Tuesday, March 5 in the Student Union’s Cape Cod Lounge beginning at 4 p.m.
 
Kelley’s talk is titled “The Long Rise and Short Decline of American Democracy.”
 
The author of seven books on urban American culture, including “Yo Mama’s Disfunktional: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America,” “Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of An American Original” and “Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class,” Kelley is Gary B.

Obituary: David Yaukey, professor emeritus of Sociology

David William Yaukey, 85, of Amherst, professor emeritus of Sociology, died Feb. 9 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital from complications following surgery.

Born in Japan, he was the son of China missionaries. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1949, taking one year off to serve in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II. He then earned his master’s degree and doctorate in sociology at Washington State College and the University of Washington, respectively. His professional interest was in international demography, and particularly in the world population explosion.

That interest eventually

Researcher speaks on challenges to secular feminist activism in Pakistan

Afiya S. Zia, a feminist researcher and activist based in Karachi, Pakistan, speaks on "Challenges to Secular Feminist Activism: The 'War on Terror' and Islamic Politics in Pakistan" on Tuesday, Feb. 26, 5-7 p.m. in the Cape Cod Lounge of the Student Union.

Zia will trace the backlash against the liberal and secular women's movement as betrayers of the Muslim (male) cause. She will also discuss the misguided prescription of academic and developmental projects that advocate the instrumentalization of Islam as an appropriate and "authentic" approach in Muslim contexts.

Story lectures on Jonathan Edwards at Renaissance Center

Ronald Story will deliver a lecture concerning Jonathan Edwards as part of the Renaissance Wednesday Lecture Series on March 6 at 4 p.m. at the Renaissance Center.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

View a conversation with Ronald Story, author of  "Jonathan Edwards and the Gospel of Love"
 
The Renaissance Center is located at 650 East Pleasant St. and can be reached at 577-3600.

Campus employees eligible for discount at Juniper Summer Writing Institute

The MFA Program for Poets and Writers, one of the nation's oldest and finest creative writing programs, will host its 10th annual Juniper Summer Writing Institute and eighth annual Institute for Young Writers from June 23-29. UMass employees and campus community members are invited to apply and receive a special discount.

The Juniper Summer Writing Institute offers a week of workshops in poetry, fiction, and memoir, craft sessions, readings, and manuscript consultations with world-renowned faculty and writers in residence including Mark Doty, Joy Williams, Dara Wier, Anthony Doerr, D.A.

Brady discuses contemplative pedagogy in STEM talk

Richard Brady, founder and director of Minding Your Life; Mindfulness in Teaching and Learning, will speak on “Learning to Stop, Stopping to Learn: Discovering the Contemplative Dimension" at a Tuesday STEM Talk on Tuesday, March 5 at 4 p.m. in 138 Hasbrouck.

Contemplative pedagogy is a young and growing approach in American education. It invites new possibilities for the emergence of creativity and promotes depth of understanding and a more personal relationship with course content. The path to contemplative learning is different for each educator who travels it.

New course proposal

The following new course proposal has been submitted to the Faculty Senate Office for review and approval and is listed here for faculty review and comment. Comments on any new course proposal should be submitted to Ernest May, secretary of the Faculty Senate, at senate@senate.umass.edu.

CE-ENGIN 684, “Environmental Reaction Kinetics,” 3 credits; Instructor: David Reckhow; Environmental Engineers are increasingly called upon to analyze the speed of pollutant conversion in chemical and biological systems.

Doctoral oral exams for March 4-8

The graduate dean invites all graduate faculty to attend the final oral examinations for the doctoral candidates scheduled as follows:

Yen-Han Lin, Ph.D., Chemical Engineering. Monday, March 4, 10:30 a.m., Gunness Student Center, Marcus Hall. Dissertation: “Stability of Liquid Films Flowing over Heterogeneous Surfaces and Gas-Solid Flow of Decomposing Particles with Applications to Biomass Pyrolysis.” Jeffery Davis, chr.

Zuojing Chen, Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering. Monday, March 4, 2 p.m., 201 Marcus Hall, Conference Room.

New course proposals

The following new course proposals have been submitted to the Faculty Senate Office for review and approval and are listed here for faculty review and comment. Comments on any new course proposal should be submitted to Ernest May, secretary of the Faculty Senate, at senate@senate.umass.edu.

E&C-ENGIN 688Y, “Graduate Project,” 3 credits; Instructor: C. V. Hollot (or R. W. Jackson, R. Tessier); This is the first semester of a two-semester project where a student works with a faculty advisor on a project which is suitable for six graduate credits.

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