Bragging Writes

On February 15, 2021, Commonwealth Honors College hosted, via Zoom, its annual Black Heritage Month event. This year’s event, entitled “The Arts as a Praxis of Liberation: Embodying Change and Transformation in a Time of Racial Justice,” invited Professor Jamila Lyiscott of social justice education and Professor Juana Valdés of printmaking as panelists, and was moderated by Professor Judyie Al-Bilali of the Department of Theater.

Jana Douglass ’20 was recently named a national finalist for the prestigious Marshall Scholarship. Of the thousands of students nominated by their universities this year for a total of forty Marshall Scholarships, Douglass was interviewed as one of the 160 finalists—a nod to her excellent academic and civic achievement.

Commonwealth Honors professor John Simpson recently opened an art exhibition at the newly constructed The Mill District in North Amherst featuring students’ work from his class “The Springfield Renaissance: Art and the City.”

Henry Turner ’00 has recently been named Principal of the Year by the online publication K-12 Dive for his leadership during the pandemic at Newton North High School, particularly his commitment to equity and antiracism. Turner, who graduated from UMass Amherst with a degree in history, also currently serves on the Commonwealth Honors College advisory board.

Kathleen Brown-Perez, a Commonwealth Honors senior lecturer in anthropology, recently received a $2.5 million, four-year grant through the Five College Native American and Indigenous Studies program (NAIS).

Commonwealth Honors College is happy to celebrate the outstanding achievements of its 2020 scholarship award recipients in the 2020 Commonwealth Honors College Scholarship Award Virtual Celebration. This year, Commonwealth Honors awarded over 200 scholarships totaling more than $350,000.

The Abraham Bohn Children of Veterans Scholarship endowment fund will support undergraduates who are children of deceased or disabled veterans as they work toward their degree at UMass. The endowed fund was established by Larry Bohn ’74 with a $1 million gift, plus $500,000 in incentives from the state.

The Student Advisory Board provides feedback and recommendations to the Dean regarding the College’s teaching, research, and outreach missions, especially as it relates to student success.

Despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, the UMass Student Farm Enterprise is still harvesting crops for the Amherst and UMass communities. The Student Farm is a year-long class held through the Stockbridge School of Agriculture where students go through the full farming cycle—from planning and contracting vendors during the winter and early spring, to growing throughout the summer and harvesting in the fall.