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Polish Studies receives $900,000 gift
The newly established Walter Raleigh Amesbury, Jr. and Cecile Dudley Amesbury Endowment for Polish Language, Literature and Culture is the largest gift ever made to the College of Humanities and Fine Arts.
A gift of more than $900,000 to Polish studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is ensuring that the small but thriving program has a solid future on campus.
The newly established Walter Raleigh Amesbury, Jr. and Cecile Dudley Amesbury Endowment for Polish Language, Literature and Culture is the largest gift ever made to the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. The gift is eligible for the Commonwealth’s recently established endowment matching program, which will result in a state match of $450,000 and an endowment totaling $1,350,000.
For comparative literature professor Robert Rothstein, who has been teaching Polish at UMass Amherst since 1971, the endowment will help broaden the range of Polish-related cultural and education programs offered by the campus. Rothstein also hopes the Amesbury gift will help attract more private support from the Polish-American community in Western Massachusetts and across the state. “We want to the build the endowment to fund a faculty chair,” he says. In fact, adds Rothstein, the endowment has already received a $1,000 donation from the Society of Polish American Culture of Western Massachusetts.
The Amesbury gift came to UMass Amherst in a rather roundabout way. Walter Raleigh Amesbury Jr., a retired economist from Philadelphia who traced his heritage back to the 16th-century English explorer, wanted to honor his late wife, Cecile Dudley Amesbury, a descendent of one of the oldest royal families in Krakow, Poland. After Walter died last year, Jane Trighre of South Deerfield, a longtime friend of the Amesburys, suggested to his niece, Jane Goldberg, that UMass Amherst just might be the place to fulfill her uncle’s wish.
A meeting with Rothstein helped seal the decision, says Goldberg. “UMass Amherst had a basic program already. The endowment could complement what is already in place.”
“My uncle wanted to honor his wife with the money. This way, it honors him as well,” says Goldberg, who lives in Hingham. “It also helps a state institution that needs the money more than a private school.”
According to Rothstein, there is a long tradition of cultural and education ties linking the campus and the substantial Polish community in the region. The Amesbury Endowment, he says, will provide additional resources to bring lecturers and other programs to campus—events that will also interest the Polish-American community.
After many years of involvement with the Polish-American community in Western Massachusetts and his current stint as a columnist for the White Eagle, a biweekly Polish newspaper based in Boston, Rothstein is confident that there is a wellspring of interest just waiting to be tapped.
He notes that the W.E.B. Du Bois Library has a significant collection of Polish and Slavic materials, including records from Polish communities in the area, and peasant autobiographies and photographs compiled by Polish sociologist Jozef Obrebski during the 1930s.
Meanwhile, interest is strong in the only Polish language program in the Five College area, says Rothstein, who is currently teaching 33 students in his elementary Polish course. The interest is so strong, he adds, that he plans to revive another course, “Introduction to the Polish People,” which hasn’t been taught for several years. With the additional support from the Amesbury Endowment, it may be possible in the future to fund visits by Polish scholars who could teach about other aspects of their culture, such as art, music, film or contemporary Polish politics or economics.
“The Amesbury Endowment will enable the entire campus to broaden its understanding of the richness of Polish culture,” says Lee R. Edwards, dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. “We are very grateful to the entire family for giving us this wonderful opportunity.”