Professor David Glassberg Awarded Excellence Award from the New England Museum Association (NEMA) (November, 2014)
Congratulations to Professor Glassberg won a 2014 New England Museum Association Excellence Award for his work as part of the team that transformed the W.E.B Du Bois Homesite in Great Barrington from a demolished house to an interpretive trail and outdoor exhibition. The award cites the team’s collaboration with community and university partners, and its dedication to making the important stories of Du Bois’ life and legacy accessible to the public. The NEMA Excellence Award competition recognizes individual members for excellence in museum practice, whether they’re behind-the-scenes or on the front lines, the unsung heroes or the superstars. Professor Glassberg will be recognized for his award at the 96th Annual NEMA Conference in Boston and Cambridge, on Nov. 19-21. Congratulations!!!
UMass History Department Project Awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Grant
Congratulations go out to David Glassberg, John Higginson, Alice Nash, Richard Chu and Bruce Laurie who are part of a team led by the Collaborative for Educational Services in Northampton, MA and co-sponsored by the UMass Amherst History Department, which won a $168,440 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The program, titled Forge of Innovation will bring 72 educators from across the nation to the Pioneer Valley in the summer of 2015 to learn about this region’s history as a hub of development for new technologies during the Industrial Revolution. Teachers participating in the program will study the Armory as genesis to the early Industrial Revolution in two, five-day sessions next summer. They will examine primary sources, visit area museums and historical sites, and compare and contrast the Armory with three other models of development that occurred simultaneously in the Pioneer Valley. Program participants will then return to their classrooms with lesson plans that will help their students understand how history shapes events in the future. The project is a collaboration between the Collaborative for Educational Services's Emerging America Program, the University of Massachusetts History Department, Springfield Armory National Historic Site, and many other local partners. More information here.
Congratulations to go out to Professor Alice Nash, who, with Five Colleges, Inc., was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Dr. Nash will use the grant to direct an NEH Summer Institute for Teachers on Native American and indigenous studies next summer, Native Americans of New England: A Historical Overview. First offered in the summer of 2013, this three-week seminar will bring primary and secondary school teachers from around the country to UMass Amherst in July 2015 to examine the history of Native American peoples in New England from before the onset of European colonization through the present day. A rigorous, interdisciplinary humanities program, this Institute includes primary source analysis, museum visits, and conversations with Native and non-Native guest presenters. The Institute is directed by Professor Nash, in collaboration with Five Colleges Schools Partnership, the History Department Outreach Office, Dr. Rae Gould (Nipmuc), and local teacher and UMass Amherst alumna Kelley Brown.
Professor Barbara Krauthamer Wins Outstanding Research Award (September 2014)
At faculty convocation on September 12, Dr. Krauthamer received an Outstanding Accomplishment in Research and Creativity Award for her recent work on photographs of Black Americans during Reconstruction. She joined the Department's Marla Miller and Stephen Platt, who have also previously received this prestigious award.
Humanities Action Lab Wins IMLS Grant (September 2014)
The UMass Public History Program is a partner in the Humanities Action Lab, which has just been awarded a National Leadership Grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services in the amount of $484,000 over a three year period. Administered out of the New School for Social Research, the Humanities Action Lab is an interdisciplinary hub that brings together a range of university-wide, national, and global partnerships to foster public engagement on urgent social issues. Over the course of the next three years, the UMass Public History program will work with the other Humanities Action Lab partners to collaboratively design, implement and evaluate a nationally traveling exhibit, web platform and set of public dialogue strategies. The first exhibition will explore the past and present of incarceration, and it will begin its run in spring 2016. UMass’s panel will be designed by students in the fall 2015 introductory graduate seminar on public history (History 659), instructed by Professor Marla Miller.
Congratulations to Julio Capó, Jr., for receiving a 2014 Five-College Digital Humanities Grant
Professor Capó received the grant for his project "Timeline of LGBT Political Landmarks in the Americas" that he designed with Javier Corrales, Kelcy Shepherd, and Gretchen Gano. The LGBT Political Landmarks in the Americas project is an interactive timeline charting significant events in the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) activism in the Americas and around the World. In addition, the timeline serves as an open access data visualization platform for an extensible digital data collection.
Congratulations to Audrey Altstadt for receiving a 2014-2015 Woodrow Wilson Center Fellowship
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars welcomes outstanding and award winning scholars, practitioners, journalists and public intellectuals to conduct independent research on national and/or international issues addressing key public policy challenges. Through its scholars, the Center enriches crucial policy debates and provides a platform for scholars in the tradition of President Wilson to bring the worlds of policy and ideas together. Professor Altstadt will use the year-long fellowship to research the conditions of democracy in Azerbaijan since independence. Her research will also consider the prospects for the growth of political Islam in the country, and Azerbaijan's significance to U.S. interests.