 A Message From Chancellor Lombardi About the Virginia Tech Tragedy
"In the wake of the horrific events at Virginia Tech, I want to extend my deepest sympathies to the families, friends and colleagues of those affected by this tragedy," wrote Chancellor Lombardi. "You are in the thoughts and prayers of the University of Massachusetts Amherst community in this extraordinarily difficult time. At UMass Amherst, our students, faculty and staff are affected in different ways by this tragedy, and many resources have been made available to provide assistance." Read more... Related article: Campus calls for emergency preparedness
 Psychology Student Cited for Outstanding Service
Second-year graduate student Mamta Dadlani received the Jamie Smile Award for outstanding service from the clinical division of the Psychology Department. In 2001, professor emeritus Norm Simonson created a fund, named after his newborn son, Jamie, to honor graduate students in clinical psychology who have demonstrated outstanding service to the department in community service, clinical work or research. Jamie, now 6 years old, presented the award, which includes a stipend. Read more...
 NFL Calls
UMass Amherst has several football players who, within hours of the NFL draft, agreed to sign free agent contracts with various teams. Wide receiver Brandon London '07 (sociology) is joining the New York Giants, tailback Steve Baylark is headed to the Arizona Cardinals, and guard David Thompson is off to the St. Louis Rams. Safety James Ihedigbo has been invited to the New York Jets Rookie Mini-Camp which will take place in May. Read more on the UMass Athletics site...
Read article in the Daily Collegian...
Distinguished Lecture Series Features Novak
Melinda A. Novak (psychology, chair of the department), one this year’s participants in the Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series, made her presentation, “Taking It Out on Yourself: Self-inflicted Injury in Monkeys and Humans,” in late April. Following her lecture, she received the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor given to indivduals for exemplary and extraordinary service to the campus. Read more..
 Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference Held on Campus
Students from 27 Massachusetts undergraduate institutions of public higher
education convened on campus April 27 for the 13th Annual Statewide Undergraduate Research Conference. More than 400 students, including many from SBS departments and programs, presented the results of thesis research, community service,
creative work, independent study, and study abroad experiences. This annual conference offers an excellent opportunity for undergraduate students to showcase their work in a professional setting before their peers faculty, and the public.
 Freedom from Fear and Depression
On Friday, May 11, as part of National Anxiety and Depression Awareness Week (sponsored by Freedom From Fear Foundation), the Psychological Services Center (PSC) at UMass Amherst will be offering free anxiety and depression screening sessions for the local and campus community. Read more...
 The Heat is On
Don't miss the Journalism 301 UMass Amherst Daily Collegian series on global warming. "The Heat is On" was produced by the students in BJ Roche's Writing About Public Issues class. Says Roche, "We
worked with the Collegian editors to produce a four-day series of stories to
make the subject important to students, and used many UMass Amherst sources in the
process. We invite comments to our courseblog: http://writingaboutpublicissues.blogspot.com. Links to the series:
4/9/07 The-Heat Is On: U.S. is number one contributor to global warming by Lauren Modisette
4/9/07 The Heat is On:
UMass professor stresses urgency of immediate action by Sophia Bruneau
4/9/07 Other sources for global warming compiled by Sophia Bruneau
4/10/07 The Heat is On:
More than just skin deep by Chanel Figueredo
4/10/07 The Heat is On:
Student environmental groups fight back by Jackie Hai
4/11/07 The Heat is On: UMass athletes feel the heat by Jeff Shapiro
4/11/07 The Heat is On: Warming affects summer plans by Daryl Popper
4/12/07 The Heat is On:
Group calls for action by Janelle Junkins
4/12/07 The Heat is On:
Seeking alternatives by Joshua H. Wilder
  SBS Presents Outstanding Teaching Awards
Maureen Perry-Jenkins (psychology) and Lynnette Leidy Sievert (anthropology) are the 2007 recipients of the College Teaching Award, presented by College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at UMass Amherst. Read more...
 Early Career Award Honors Constantino
Assistant Professor Michael Constantino (psychology) is the recipient of the 2007 Early-Career Award from
the American Psychological Foundation’s (APF) Division 29 (Psychotherapy). The award, to be presented at the 115th annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in August, recognizes promising contributions to psychotherapy, psychology, and the division of psychotherapy by a Division 29 member with 10 or fewer years of postdoctoral experience. Read more...
Faculty Notes
Michael Ash (economics) and Krista Harper (anthropology), currently teaching and conducting research in Hungary, joined Professor Tamara Steger and Dr. Richard Filcak of Central European University to offer a mini-conference on Environmental Justice. The event for students in the master’s program in Environmental Studies and created a forum for exchange on the relationship between the environment, racism, poverty and development.
Amanda Walker Johnson (anthropology) has received a Diversity Grant award from the General Education Council for her proposal “Anthropology 205: Inequality and Oppression Course Enhancement.”
Mari Castañeda (communication) is the 2007-2008 Chair-Elect / 2008-2009 Chair of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS), the largest academic organization focusing on Mexican Americans, Chicana/os, and Latina/os in North America. NACCS serves scholars across all geographical and disciplinary boundaries, and enhances opportunities for Chicana/os and Latina/os at all levels of higher education. For more info on NACCS, click here. Read profile on Castaneda.
Donal Carbaugh's (communication) research was selected for a special "Spotlight on Scholarship" program at the April 28 conference of the Eastern Communication Association in Providence. The event focused on Carbaugh’s ethnographic approach to communication with special attention to developments in environmental communication, media studies, communication codes, classroom interaction, deliberative discourses, and intercultural encounters.
Jarice Hanson (communication) is co-PI (principal investigator) on a 3-year, $2 million NSF grant entitled "Broadening Participation in Computing." The grant developed out of a campuswide initiative of the IT Minor Task Force, of which she was a member, and is aimed at encouraging girls and young women in area high schools and community colleges to consider careers in information technologies.
Norm Sims (journalism) will be the keynote speaker at the 2007 International Association for Literary Journalism Studies conference on May 18 at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. His address, "A Conversation about the Future of Literary Journalism," will cover some of the challenges facing literary journalists in today's media environment, as well as some of the triumphs of the form in the twentieth century. This speech, along with his new book due out in the fall, makes this a banner year for Sims.
Agustin Lao-Montes (sociology) has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship Award to study and teach in Colombia next fall.
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey (sociology, chair of department), Post-Doc Kevin Stainback (sociology) and Assistant Professor of Biostatistics Recai Yucel have been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the processes through which organizations create and destroy racial and gender segregation.
Alumni News
Pam Liebman '84 (communication), CEO of the Corcoran Group, the New York residential real estate powerhouse, was featured on the January 2007 cover of New York Family magazine with her two daughters, Dylan and Tori. In the cover story, "Moms in Charge," Liebman and other accomplished women spoke about making the best of work and family. Unfortunately, New York Family doesn't post its stories online, but you can link to a profile feature about Liebman in UMass Magazine (Spring 2004). Read it now.
Jill Landesberg-Boyle '87 (psychology), MEd '88, EdD '94 has been appointed president of Florida Keys Community College. Most recently she was vice president for student affairs at Pennsylvania College of Technology since 2003. Read more...
Andrew Kenneally '98 (communication),
policy and communications director for Boston City Councillor Michael F. Flaherty, is pursuing a master's in city planning at Boston University. Before joining the power brokers at Boston City Hall three years ago, Andrew was backpacking around Europe and attended Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland where he got a master's in conflict studies. Before that and right after school, he was in Washington, D.C. for five years where he served in a press and legislative capacity for three different members of the U.S. Congress. He lives in East Boston and can be reached via e-mail.
Michael Hoyle '91 MPA has been president of McIntosh College in Dover, NH, since February. See www.mcintoshcollege.edu.
Jeff Keck '03 (STPEC) is executive director of the Springfield (Mass.) Business Improvement District (BID). Recently featured in a Business West article, he has an eclectic past: insurance agent, air traffic controller, waiter, construction worker, heavy metal guitarist, band manager, and French chef. But since landing his first job at BID seven years ago, it looks like he has found an outlet for his diverse background. Read the article...
Do you have news you'd like to share? Send it to the SBS Newsletter.
SBS in the News
New Scientist.com, 4/25/07. Richard D. Wolff (economics) comments in a story that says new research finds that smart people don’t necessarily fare better economically than others with ordinary intelligence. Wolff says, "IQ is clearly overwhelmed or trumped by the cultural imperative to consume. People with higher IQs are acutely aware of all the goods and services that they can consume." Wolff believes that smart people often have high expectations for what they deserve. "It’s a notion of 'That's what I'm entitled to as an American—that's what I get for working hard.'" He notes that wages of American workers increased steadily, in real terms, from the 1820s to the 1970s, and people in the US expect their standard of living to constantly improve. However, the buying power of US wages has recently declined. Read the article...
 International Journal of Communication, 2007. “Governance Without Politics: Civil Society, Development and the Postcolonial State” by Paula Chakravartty (communication) is included in the new, publicly accessible International Journal of Communication. The article examines the social terrain behind the institutions of policy-making in the postcolonial contexts, specifically addressing debates between Southern and Northern perspectives in debates over the World Summit on Information Society and the larger parameters of the Information Society. Read the article...
Monthly Review, April 2007. An essay about the financialization of capitalism references the writings of Robert Pollin (economics). Pollin is described as "a major analyst of finacialization." Read the article...
Shreveport, LA, Times, 4/16/07. Naomi Gerstel (sociology) comments on the cost of marriage in a story examining the benefits of being single, which include staying more connected to family and friends and being available to care for elderly parents. Read the article...
 Medical News Today, 4/10/07. Lynnette Leidy Sievert (anthropology) is co-author of a new report that finds women who get hot flashes have higher blood pressure than those who don’t. While previous research has linked menopause to high blood pressure, the new Weill Cornell study, published in the March/April issue of Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society, may be the first to link hot flashes to high blood pressure. Read the article....
A Word from SBS
This e-letter has been created for alumni and friends of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. SBS includes the departments and programs of Anthropology, Communication, Economics, Journalism, Labor Studies, Legal Studies, Neuroscience and Behavior, Political Science, Psychology, Public Policy and Administration, Social Thought and Political Economy (STPEC), and Sociology. With 38,000 alumni, 5,000 current undergraduate majors, and 500 graduate students, SBS is the largest of UMass Amherst’s colleges. In addition to its departments, it is home to numerous programs and research institutions. Through the general education courses that SBS offers, the College’s 150 faculty members teach one quarter of the nearly 20,000 undergraduates on campus in any given semester.
Gifts from alumni and friends are vital to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Your investment allows us to create remarkable opportunities for today’s—and tomorrow's—students. If you are already a donor, please accept our sincere thanks. If not, please consider a donation to SBS for your department, student financial aid, or a purpose that speaks to your personal experiences and priorities. To make a gift online, click here. Questions? Contact:
James Mallet, Director of Development
College of Social and Behavioral Sciences
236 Draper Hall
University of Massachusetts Amherst
40 Campus Center Way
Amherst, MA 01003-9244
(413) 577-1700
We welcome feedback related to this newsletter, the college in general, specific concerns, or topics of interest. Please address all correspondence, including story ideas, to Sabine Cray, marketing and communication specialist. If you wish to add your name to the mailing list, or if you wish to unsubscribe, please write to the SBS Newsletter. If you have had a change of address, email or other personal information, you can update it online. The College of Social and Behavioral Sciences respects your privacy. Your contact information will not be shared with anyone unrelated to the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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