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In 2021-22, our MA Program carried on with the three diversity initiatives implemented under the leadership of the Graduate Program Director Gülru Çakmak, namely the Graduate Diversity Fellowship, Holistic Admission Evaluation Rubric and the Annual Graduate Student Climate Survey. All of these initiatives were heralded by our decision to eliminate the GRE test requirements from our graduate program applications in 2020. Thanks to the interest generated by our Graduate Diversity Fellowship in the 2021 application cycle, we received a very large pool of highly qualified applicants, and the incoming graduate class of Fall 2021 proved to be one of the most diverse groups in the history of the program. The equally diverse incoming class of Fall 2022 attests to our commitment to addressing the systemic economic, social, racial and other institutionalized barriers to the field of art history that are experienced by students from historically underrepresented and disadvantaged populations. In the last two admission cycles, our graduate admissions committee developed and employed a “Holistic Admission Evaluation Rubric” with the goal to promoting a holistic review of each applicant, balancing measurable cognitive skills (such as GPA and other markers of standard academic success) with the applicant’s non-cognitive skills (such as motivation, social adaptability, overcoming adversities in life, creativity in problem solving, leadership, etc.). Last but not the least, our Graduate Student Climate Survey, administered annually in the Spring semester, aims to assess a variety of factors impacting the academic success and well-being of our MA candidates including (but not limited to) equity, inclusion, diversity, discrimination, professionalization opportunities, funding, and access to support structures for students with disabilities.

 Our Graduate Diversity Fellowship, the linchpin of all the diversity and equity initiatives in our graduate program, was made possible by a generous donation to our department. A critical role falls on our alumni in helping us maintain and improve our graduate diversity initiatives, and we invite those interested in supporting us to contact our department chair Monika Schmitter (mschmitt@umass.edu). To learn more about our Graduate Diversity Fellowship, please visit our website.