In May, the campus gathered to celebrate the retirement of our beloved colleagues Dr. Joye Bowman and Dr. John Higginson, and to thank them for three decades of dedication to our shared mission. (For a tribute to John Higginson published at the time of his retirement, see page 30 of the 2020 edition of Past, Present & Future.)
Joye’s long career began at Wellesley College, where she earned her BA before heading to UCLA for her MA and PhD. After spending time in the history departments at the University of Southern California, the University of Virginia, the University of Illinois Chicago, and Northern Illinois University, Joye joined the faculty of the UMass Amherst history department in 1989.
Joye’s research centered on the Senegambia in the nineteenth century, particularly the region claimed by Portugal. Doctor Merle Bowen—professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a longtime friend of Joye’s—noted on the occasion of Joye’s retirement that, “because of the restrictions placed on researchers before the 1974 revolution against the fascist state in Portugal,” she and Joye “were part of the first generation of social scientists to be allowed into these rich archives.” From this work came Joye’s 1997 monograph Ominous Transition: Commerce and Colonial Expansion in the Senegambia and Guinea, 1857–1919, which, Bowen added,“remains a standard for scholars working on the Senegambia region.”Joye’sarticles have appeared in the Journal of African History, A Current Bibliography on African Affairs, History in Africa, and the Revista Internacional de Estudos Africanos.
At UMass Amherst, in addition to her stellar work in the classroom, Joye served in a number of leadership roles. Alongside numerous search committees and steady election to the department’s Personnel Committee, Joye served as director of undergraduate studies (1997–2001 and again in 2017–18); director of graduate admissions (2004–6); associate chair (2006–9); and chair (2010–16). Joye then served in several positions over six years in the dean’s office in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, including as interim dean. Along the way she was active in the Five College African Studies Council, which she chaired for several years. She was also part of the Mellon Sawyer World Studies Interdisciplinary Project (WSIP). Throughout her career, she participated in numerous initiatives designed to connect university faculty with local K–12 teachers, including a five-week Fulbright-Hays Study Tour with ten public school teachers in South Africa.
In reflecting on Joye’s impact, colleagues noted the ways she foregrounded, in the kinds of events she envisioned and helped plan, environmental and social justice as well as music and the arts. There are far too many examples here to propose more than a few, but one might recall Joye’s suggestion to bring the powerful artists Climbing PoeTree and Angélique Kidjo into the Feinberg Series, and her role in the College’s hosting of Felipe Salles’s The New Immigrant Experience, Shirley Jackson Whitaker’s Ashes to Ashes, cellist Ronald Crutcher’s address on race and leadership, and Biden White House environmental justice leader Catherine Coleman Flowers’s keynote for Black History Month. Joye’s commitment to showing the constant need for historical perspective, and to sharing departmental expertise, led to her idea that the department should have a blog, which became past@present, still thriving today.
Most recently, her scholarship has focused on American engineers in South Africa during the twentieth century as she and John Higginson work to complete their book, “Engineering Empire: The South African Odyssey of American Mining Engineers, 1893–1976.” Retirement will also afford her the opportunity to pursue long-envisioned research on her maternal grandmother, Caroline Lowe McWatt. McWatt, who attended the University of Minnesota in the 1940s, was a community activist in Saint Paul, Minnesota. There she worked with a variety of groups, including the Women’s Auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Joye’s research on McWatt’s activism and writings parlays this cherished family history into a study that will illuminate the community that Joye’s family helped build in the Twin Cities.
As colleagues paused to reflect on Joye’s tremendous impact on the department and the campus community through the years, what leapt to mind for many of us were her mentorship, collegiality, and warmth, and how she models what it means to be a leader who cares deeply about her colleagues’ whole selves. What stands out are all the ways that, by seeing her colleagues holistically, and not just in the roles they play at the university, Joye helped us succeed in realizing our own visions: for ourselves, the department, and the campus. As one colleague shared, “She was a great help to many of us in helping shape our ideas into programs that could work. And she took credit for nothing—even if she was at the center of an endeavor.” Another observed that Joye, in a “graceful and loving way, lifts everyone into their potential.”
“I truly would not have completed my PhD journey without Dr. Bowman—her steady encouragement, thoughtful guidance, and effortless sense of style modeled what it means to be a brilliant, confident, and self-assured Black woman scholar.”
—Brittany Frederick ’22PhD
As Joye retires, we share our heartfelt thanks to her for all the many ways she has enriched our lives and work. We are deeply appreciative for the ways she has led with grace, wisdom, integrity, and purpose. We are also so grateful for her thoughtful decision-making, caring and compassionate collegiality, and committed mentoring of people around her—embodying as a scholar, teacher, colleague, and leader the values that make our community so special.
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HONORING HER LEGACY
Created by the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, the Joye Bowman Social Justice Award will recognize members of the college community who have an exceptional commitment to advancing equity, justice, and service to the college. In addition, the Dr. Joye Bowman Cultural Resources Fund, established by Dr. Hilda Greenbaum, will support UMass students attending artistic and cultural productions, and make possible numerous other meaningful educational, cultural, and careers-oriented student experiences.
Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts and Distinguished Professor of History, Marla Miller was honored to be a colleague of Joye Bowman for 26 years. Joye, she reports, is among the three most beloved and important mentors of her own long career. This article was first published in the 2025 edition of the history department magazine, Past, Present & Future.