College of Humanities & Fine Arts 2021–2022 Annual Report
Table of contents
Dean's Message
“We are the creative and cultural heart of UMass Amherst.”
Today's students are focused on the pressing issues of our time. They're eager to understand the world in which we live, they're interested in how we got here, where we're headed, and how to protect their futures.
The questions at the center of the humanities and arts have become urgent: What makes us human? What does the struggle for human rights, equity, and equality mean in our daily lives? How does an assertion become "truth"? How does dissent function in a democracy? Finding the answers through a wide range of voices, perspectives, and platforms has never been more important.
We are the creative and cultural heart of UMass Amherst. With a wealth of academic options, small classes taught by eminent faculty, and a dedicated staff of advisors, the College of Humanities and Fine Arts offers students an experience that combines the character of an exceptional liberal arts college with the cross-disciplinary expansiveness of a flagship research university. Faculty are mindful of both the broad range of lived experiences that students bring to the classroom, their urgent need for answers, and the many paths that await them when they leave campus. Our students graduate with a solid foundation in critical thinking and effective communication. Perhaps most critically, they have a generous capacity for empathy—for endeavoring to understand the lives of others.
The importance of these qualities in our future public servants, educators, writers, inventors, and leaders is not lost on me. It's one of the reasons why I believe so strongly in the necessity of the humanities and arts, and why my top priority is to provide our students with the access and support they need to achieve success. We're counting on them to preserve democracy and to make the world a better place.
Sincerely,
Barbara Krauthamer
Dean, College of Humanities & Fine Arts
In the Presence of Greatness
Visiting Scholars and Artists Bring New Ideas and Perspectives to Campus
Public Artist Talk with Laylah Ali
To a room packed with students—many of them art history and art majors—artist Laylah Ali discussed the evolution of her work, the nature of her practice, and how she thinks about making and viewing art.
Through her paintings and drawings, Ali investigates the disconnect between the human body and freedom. She is renowned for her “Greenheads” series of gouache paintings addressing themes of interpersonal violence and human brutality. Her work relates to important contemporary debates about race, power, and violence in U.S. society.
History Writer in Residence
Brooke Hauser's credentials include the Boston Globe, New York Times, Allure, Marie Claire, The New Yorker online, and the Boston Globe Magazine, and two nonfiction books: Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman and The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens.
As the Department of History's 2022 Writer in Residence, Hauser gave a public talk entitled "What's the Meaning of Work?" in which she explored the ever-evolving landscape of work—and the changing mindsets of workers—through a personal lens and examples from history, literature, pop culture, and the news.
Ashes to Ashes Film Screening with Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker
Evan Lewis, assistant dean for community outreach in the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, facilitated a conversation with Dr. Shirley Jackson Whitaker following a virtual screening of the 2020 documentary Ashes to Ashes. Dr. Whitaker is a resident of Amherst whose work as an artist and activist are the driving force behind the film.
Ashes to Ashes explores the pain and triumph of Winfred Rembert, the only living survivor of an attempted lynching, and chronicles his friendship with Dr. Whitaker, who is on a mission to memorialize the forgotten 4,000 African Americans lynched during the Jim Crow era. Together, their journeys of healing paint a powerful portrait.
You Didn’t Hear a Word I Said: The Critical Role of Conversations Across Difference in a ...
You Didn’t Hear a Word I Said: The Critical Role of Conversations Across Difference in a Democratic Society
Presented with the Isenberg School of Management, this talk by Ronald Crutcher—esteemed cellist, author, and former president of the University of Richmond—unpacked the themes of his memoir, I Had No Idea You Were Black: Navigating Race on the Road to Leadership, which examines his life as a Black leader bridging America’s cultural divide.
“In an increasingly polarized world, it has become almost impossible to have authentic conversations across different perspectives from race and gender to politics and ideology,” said Crutcher. His talk explored the forces that have driven this divide; how to lead during times of polarization; and the role of higher education in preparing students to uphold the tenets of democracy.
Jacobs Lecture with New Yorker Cartoonist Roz Chast
Roz Chast, noted cartoonist for the New Yorker and best-selling author, delivered the 2022 Robert and Pamela Jacobs Lecture with a talk called, “Can’t We Talk About Something More Jewish?” on April 27 in the Campus Center Auditorium.
Hosted by the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, Chast spoke about her work, and its connection to Jewish themes and her Jewish background.
Since joining the New Yorker in 1978, Chast has established herself among the greatest artistic chroniclers of the anxieties, superstitions, furies, insecurities, and surreal imaginings of modern life. Her works are typically populated by hapless but relatively cheerful “everyfolk,” and she addresses the universal topics of guilt, aging, families, money, real estate and more. She has been called a “certifiable genius” by David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker.
Chast is the author of more than a dozen books for adults, including Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant?, a work that chronicles her relationship with her aging parents as they shift from independence to dependence. The book, released in 2014, was a New York Times Best Book of the Year, National Book Award finalist, winner of the 2014 Kirkus Prize and a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for the best books of 2014, the first time a graphic novel received the prize for autobiography.
In addition, Chast is the author of 11 other books for adults and numerous books for children.
The Robert and Pamela Jacobs Lecture Series in Jewish Culture provides public lectures by leading figures in contemporary Jewish thought, education, culture, or politics. Each lecture may explore a specific theme, such as American Jewish history, Jewish art, the Holocaust, or religious thought.
Dean's Distinguished Lecture
The second installment of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts Dean's Distinguished lecture series welcomed architect, designer, and scholar Mabel O. Wilson, who presented her talk "Studio&: A Black Study."
Wilson is Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation; Professor in African American and African Diasporic Studies; Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies; and Co-Director of the Global Africa Lab at Columbia University. She founded Studio&, a firm exploring different facets of art, architecture, and cultural history.
Department of English presents Troy Lecture
The Troy Lecture series is presented in honor of the late Frederick S. (Barney) Troy, emeritus professor of English and former trustee. The list of past speakers is singularly distinguished, and includes Nadine Gordimer, Sherman Alexie, Margaret Atwood, Judith Butler, J.M. Coetzee, Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka and Zadie Smith.
This year, public writer, photographer, and activist Anne McClintock presented “Monster: A Fugue in Fire and Ice.” McClintock’s interdisciplinary and transnational work explores the intersections between race, gender, and sexualities; imperialism and globalization, including Indigenous studies; visual culture and mass media; sexual and gender violence; militarization, climate chaos, and animal studies.
A Celebration of the Arts
In fall 2021, UMass Amherst honored its deep roots in the performing and fine arts at a ceremony—emceed by College of Humanities and Fine Arts Dean Barbara Krauthamer
In fall 2021, UMass Amherst honored its deep roots in the performing and fine arts at a ceremony—emceed by College of Humanities and Fine Arts Dean Barbara Krauthamer—celebrating the renaming of the Fine Arts Center building and spaces within, as well as acknowledging the centrality and importance of the arts to UMass Amherst’s legacy, present, and future.
The Fine Arts Center building has been named the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts in honor of the university’s first Black chancellor. The Bromery Center’s 1,800-seat concert hall, meanwhile, was renamed in honor of Frederick C. Tillis, a celebrated composer, poet, music educator, and arts administrator at the university, who died in 2020.
The event also served as an unveiling for the newly renovated Arts Bridge on the fourth floor of the Bromery Center, which features an array of multidisciplinary teaching spaces for the arts
The Bromery Center for the Arts
Perhaps the most important example of modern architecture on the UMass Amherst campus, the Bromery Center was conceived as a gateway to the campus at the south end of the Campus Pond. Designed in 1968 by Kevin Roche of Roche, Dinkloo and Associates, the building was seen as an innovation on American college campuses. It remains one of the most visible structures on campus. It was under the leadership of Chancellor Bromery that the Fine Arts Center was built.
Bromery, a geologist and geophysicist, came to UMass Amherst in 1967 as a professor of geology and rose quickly through the leadership ranks. He served as vice chancellor for student affairs, and then led the campus as chancellor from 1971 to 1979. His appointment as chancellor made him the second African American ever to lead a predominantly white campus, and the first African American to lead UMass Amherst. During his tenure, the U.S. was in political, social, and economic upheaval. Students were protesting the war in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal occurred, and the recent gains of the Civil Rights Movement were being challenged.
UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said, “Chancellor Bromery also inherited a campus experiencing explosive growth. As the bulging baby boomer demographic chose a path to college, applications to the university grew from about 5,000 in 1959 to more than 20,000 ten years later, and enrollment nearly tripled in the decade leading up to 1972.” He noted that Bromery evened the ratio of male and female students to 50-50 and intensified recruitment and support for students of color.
Subbaswamy also noted that it was during this period that the university was able to recruit jazz legends Max Roach, Archie Shepp and Tillis to the faculty, as well as acquire the archives of both W.E.B. Du Bois and Horace Mann Bond. It was during this time that UMass Amherst’s reputation as a leader in African American studies was strengthened, and the W.E.B. Du Bois Center was established.
“It was Chancellor Bromery’s approach to the arts that most clearly defines his leadership and his legacy on this campus,” Subbaswamy said. “After the FAC opened in 1975, Dr. Fred Tillis became one of its earliest directors, and the two men shared a vision of the arts as fundamentally and necessarily inclusive – and the chancellor was not afraid to challenge the academic status quo to realize that vision.”
The Frederick C. Tillis Performance Hall
Subbaswamy also announced the renaming of the main stage in the Bromery Center in honor of Frederick C. Tillis, Ph.D. a noted composer and music scholar, who joined the UMass faculty in 1970. In 1978, Bromery tapped Tillis to serve as the director of the Fine Arts Center, a position in which he served for nearly 20 years. He remained connected to the organization after his retirement in 1997 until his death in 2020 at age 90. Tillis is remembered as a musician, composer, educator, poet, and passionate arts advocate.
Tillis profoundly shaped the cultural and musical landscape at UMass Amherst, local community, and beyond. His work as a performer and composer spanned jazz and European music traditions, encompassing a wide range of cultural references. He composed more than 100 works for piano and voice, orchestra, and chorus, along with chamber music and works in the African American spiritual tradition. Tillis also published 15 books of poetry.
Tillis helped to launch some of the university’s most successful arts initiatives, including the jazz and Afro-American Music Studies program, the Jazz in July Summer Music Program, New World Theater, the Augusta Savage Gallery and the Asian Arts and Culture Program. He received several awards and represented UMass as a cultural ambassador, performing locally, nationally, and internationally with students, alumni, and faculty such as Salvatore Macchia, Jeffrey Holmes, David Sporny, and Horace Boyer.
The Arts Bridge
In 2020, the university undertook a $12.57 million renovation project on the fourth floor of the Bromery Center to transform the bridge of the center into a makerspace for the departments of art, music and dance, and theater. The multidisciplinary space includes a design studio, theater rehearsal studio, costume shop, music education classroom, music seminar room, recording studio, and newly designed spaces for animation and art classes and a computer lab.
“These state-of-the art facilities encourage emerging student artists as they hone their craft and practice, and support faculty as they conduct cutting-edge research and creative production,” Subbaswamy said. “Today, with the opening of the Arts Bridge, we are reaffirming our legacy of making the arts inclusive and accessible.”
Within the space is the Laura Bailey Costume Shop, generously supported by Laura Bailey, who graduated from UMass in 2003, and her parents Doug and Sara Bailey. Bailey says her career in film as a script supervisor for independent films was grounded in her UMass education in theater, which focuses as much on performance as it does the behind-the-scenes, hands-on work of mounting a production.
The Julie C. Hayes and Claude Bersano Recording Studio is named in recognition of Hayes, the former dean of the College of the Humanities and Fine Arts and her late husband, Claude Bersano, who was a recording engineer who had a love for classical organ music. The studio is supported by a fund created in their honor by Bill ’86 and Madeleine ’89 Noland. The fund will support the purchase and maintenance of recording equipment and other purposes related to the recording studi
Setting the Stage
A Musical Legacy
The Department of Music and Dance presented a musical tribute to Dr. Frederick C. Tillis (1930 –2020), one of the foremost architects of the music program as it exists today.
The Department of Music and Dance presented a musical tribute to Dr. Frederick C. Tillis (1930 –2020), one of the foremost architects of the music program as it exists today. The concert, entitled Celebrating the Musical Legacy of Frederick Tillis, took place in the recently dedicated Frederick C. Tillis Performance Hall in the Randolph W. Bromery Center for the Arts.
The concert featured performances by student ensembles, including Jazz Ensemble I, Vocal Jazz Ensemble, Chamber Choir, and Graduate String Quartet, along with several guest artists. Faculty members also performed, most notably two of Dr. Tillis’ longtime colleagues Jeffrey Holmes and Salvatore Macchia. Both played as members in Dr. Tillis’s Tradewinds jazz ensemble. The program included a variety of jazz, classical, and sacred works composed by Dr. Tillis, including For the Victims and Survivors of September 11th, narrated by Amilcar Shabazz, professor in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies.
On the Fringe
One Festival, Dozens of Theater Pieces to View
Fringe Fest ’22 showcased everything from outrageous experimental work to shining new voices to expertly rendered productions of classic scenes. The festival was anchored by the UMass New Play Lab, a graduate student-driven project that explores various facets of new play development. This year, a collective of graduate students from various theater disciplines collaborated to cultivate brand-new work through a nimble and flexible process that responded to the needs of each individual project.
Black Voices at UMass
Ever-growing website featuring voices, stories, and experiences of members of the Black community
As part of the Black Presence Initiative, Dr. John Bracey—professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies—and his students have conducted oral history interviews with past and present members of UMass Amherst's Black community. Over the past two years, Bracey and his team conducted dozens of interviews with alumni, students, staff, and faculty.
Faculty Excellence
Faculty Excellence
Profoundly dedicated to HFA students, our eminent faculty are creative thinkers and doers who develop original and thought-provoking programs that promote rigorous intellectual exchange about the most pressing issues of today and tomorrow.
College Outstanding Teaching Award:Ray Kinoshita Mann
In recognition of exceptional teaching, mentoring, curriculum development efforts, and her impact on students' lives, Ray Kinoshita Mann—professor in the Department of Architecture—was presented with the 2022 College Outstanding Teacher Award.
Teaching at UMass Amherst since 1995, Mann is a compassionate and empathetic educator sensitive to those with unique learning needs and students with disabilities. Mann will often go out of her way to help students who need extra support outside the classroom while inspiring and encouraging them to take risks and stretch their skills beyond what they thought were their limits.
Mann has developed a deep slate of classroom studio topics related to the public good. She worked with students to develop a community center for the Nipmuc Tribe in central Massachusetts and on the adaptation and re-use of abandoned structures in Springfield and Holyoke as therapeutic spaces for Alzheimer’s patients.
Martín Espada Garners National Book Award
“Martín Espada is one of the most important poets of his generation, and with good reason. His poignant and powerful work touches our souls. He is a shining light in the arts and humanities on our campus, and his extraordinary writing and commitment to social justice is an inspiration throughout the world.”
—Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy
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English professor and poet Martín Espada won the National Book Award for his book Floaters, a collection of poetry that runs from scathing socio-political commentary to homages of family and love.
Floaters takes its title from a term used by certain Border Patrol agents to describe migrants who drown trying to cross the Rio Grande at the U.S./Mexico border. The title poem responds to the viral photograph of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and Angie Valeria, a Salvadoran father and daughter who drowned in the Río Grande.
Espada’s work bears witness to confrontations with anti-immigrant bigotry as a tenant lawyer years ago, and today he sings the praises of Central American adolescents kicking soccer balls over a barbed wire fence in an internment camp founded, he says, on that same bigotry. He also believes that times of hate call for poems of love—even in the voice of a cantankerous Galápagos tortoise.
Gretchen Gerzina
For her outstanding research and creativity, Gerzina was named the UMass Amherst Spotlight Scholar for the Fall 2021 semester. “She has had an extraordinarily productive career,” says Randall Knoper, chair of the Department of English, praising her accomplishments in research and writing. “And she shows no signs of slowing down.”
Gerzina has dedicated her career to illuminating the lives of others as the author or editor of nine influential books, with two more in progress. Her work, which is both exacting and visionary, brings to light unknown facets of the lives of well-known figures as well as the lives of those overlooked by history.
Her prowess is widely acknowledged: Gerzina has received a Fulbright Scholar award and two National Endowment for the Humanities grants. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017 and to the American Antiquarian Society in 2019, and is in demand as a speaker, panelist, and podcaster in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.
Gerzina calls herself an accidental biographer. Her first book, Carrington: A Life, grew from her PhD thesis and told the story of the English painter Dora Carrington, associated with the Bloomsbury group early in the 20th century. The novelist Meg Wolitzer says the book is “as full of idiosyncrasy, pleasure, and pathos as real life.”
Gerzina is candid about the struggle of writing biography. The intensive research, deep thinking, and imagination she brings to each project make it a complicated endeavor, even as she has become an acknowledged expert in it, having chaired the jury for the Pulitzer Prize for biography. Each of her books poses unique challenges. “The things you think you know about
telling a life don’t always hold true because lives are tricky things,” she says. “The truth is going to be different for every biographer. I love that aspect of the work.”
Read more about Professor Gerzina’s work and see a list of her book recommendations
Juana Valdés Named Latinx Artist Fellow
The Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation announced the newest cohort of the Latinx Artist Fellowship, among them Juana Valdés, associate professor in the UMass Amherst Department of Art. This multi-year initiative administered by the US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF) in collaboration with the New York Foundation for the Arts recognizes annually 15 of the most compelling Latinx visual artists working in the United States today and aims to address a systemic lack of support, visibility, and patronage of Latinx visual artists—individuals of Latin American or Caribbean descent, born or living in the United States.
FacultyWorks Launched
Monika Schmitter, professor and chair of the History of Art and Architecture department, was joined by Patricia Fortini Brown (Princeton University), David Young Kim (University of Pennsylvania), and Marjorie Rubright (UMass Kinney Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies) to discuss her latest book The Art Collector in Early Modern Italy: Andrea Odoni and his Venetian Palace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). This discussion was the first in the college’s FacultyWorks series, which seeks to explore and amplify original work by HFA faculty.
Distinguished Teaching Awards
Jennifer Fronc, professor of history, and Mazen Naous, professor of English, were recognized by the Center for Teaching and Learning as winners of the 2021–2022 Distinguished Teaching Award. Since 1961, the UMass Amherst has presented the Distinguished Teaching Award to instructors who demonstrate exemplary teaching at the highest institutional level. This highly competitive and prestigious campus-wide honor is the only student-initiated award on campus.
Conti Fellowship
Banu Subramaniam, professor of women, gender, sexuality studies, was awarded a Conti Fellowship from the Office of Research and Engagement. The fellowship acknowledges the high quality and importance of a faculty member’s accomplishments in research and creative activity at UMass Amherst and their potential for continuing excellence.
Subramaniam’s research explores the philosophy, history, and culture of the natural sciences and medicine as they relate to gender, race, ethnicity, and caste. This Conti Fellowship will enable Professor Subramaniam to complete her book, Decolonizing Botany: Empire and the Environmental Humanities, which will address calls to “decolonize” botanical science.
Student Excellence
Celebrating the Class of 2022
On May 13, 2022, the HFA honored the class of 2022 at our Senior Recognition Celebration—the college’s first in-person celebration since May 2019.
Tiarra Cooper Wins 3MT
Tiarra Cooper, PhD candidate in German & Scandinavian Studies, was named the winner of the Graduate School’s 2022 Three Minute Thesis competition.
The Three Minute Thesis (3MT) challenges graduate students to describe their research in an engaging manner, using non-technical language, all in three minutes or less. Cooper’s presentation, “The Affective Experiences of Women Forcibly Sterilized Under the Nazi Regime, 1933–1945” was selected by the distinguished panel of judges as the winner in the live campus final, held on March 4 in the Old Chapel.
Maya Cunningham Receives Ford Fellowship
Maya Cunningham is an ethnomusicologist, a Fulbright Scholar, a cultural activist, a Black Music practitioner, and visual artist. Her research focuses on culturally responsive music education for African American students, African American cultural identity, and intersections between African/African American identities and traditional African and African American musics.
Every year the Ford Foundation Fellowship Program awards 75 predoctoral fellowships to outstanding scholars across the US in a competition administered by the Fellowships Office of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The program seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties by increasing their ethnic and racial diversity, maximizing the educational benefits of diversity, and increasing the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.
Out of a pool of over 1,800 applicants, Maya Cunningham, a PhD candidate in the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, was selected for the prestigious Ford fellowship because she has demonstrated superior academic achievement, shows promise of future achievement as a scholar and teacher at the university level, and is well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students. Ms. Cunningham is also a two-time Fulbright recipient.
Senior Leadership Award and William F. Field Alumni Scholar Awards
The Senior Leadership Award recognizes graduating seniors who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and service to the UMass Amherst community. Award recipients have distinguished themselves through important contributions to student organizations, campus jobs, academic excellence, and community service.
The William F. Field Alumni Scholar Awards were established in 1976 to recognize third-year students for academic achievements. The program was named in honor of William F. Field, the university’s first dean of students, for his outstanding support of academic excellence and his personal commitment to bringing out the best in every student.
2022 William F. Field Alumni Scholars
- Samantha Gallant ’23, English
- Tim Goliger ’23, Music & Dance
- Jemma Kepner ’23, Theater
Zachary Glanz Named 21st-Century Leader
UMass Amherst honored the exemplary achievement, initiative, and leadership of some of its most talented graduating seniors during Undergraduate Commencement. Ten members of the 2022 graduating class were honored as 21st-Century Leaders, including Zachary Glanz.
Glanz majored in Middle Eastern Studies with a secondary major in Chinese Language and Literature. An ROTC standout throughout his four years at UMass Amherst, Glanz was named the Navy Federal Credit Union ROTC All-American Student of the Year, earning $5,000 for UMass ROTC. He ranks among the top 10 percent of Army ROTC cadets in the nation and was designated a Distinguished Military Graduate. Fascinated by foreign languages, culture, and history, he graduated with a command of Mandarin Chinese and Arabic and knowledge of Korean. He excelled in his Chinese courses and went on to study the language further through Indiana University Bloomington with a Department of Defense scholarship in the summer of 2020 and then in Taiwan with a Project Global Officers Scholarship in the summer of 2021. After commencement, Glanz will enter the Military Intelligence (MI) basic officer leader course in Arizona and will subsequently be commissioned as an MI officer in the United States Army, joining the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division in South Korea in December.
The Senior Leadership and William F. Field Alumni Scholar Awards are sponsored by the alumni association
The Tides that Bind
How can we understand and study video games not only as a popular medium but also as a cultural art form?
Students in the UMass Game Design Lab—led by English professor TreaAndrea Russworm—ask questions like: How can we understand and study video games not only as a popular medium but also as a cultural art form? What are some of the ways in which we can formally think about how games have come to matter in our society? How can we use our passion for games, expansive imaginations, and humanities-centered training to create better games?
This year, Game Design Lab students worked collaboratively to design a new game called “The Tides that Bind.” The game’s narrative follows the character Esme as they reconnect with their estranged grandmother who lives in the mysterious coastal town of Malmer.
“I am so proud of our students for writing, drawing, animating, and programming this beautiful and cerebral game from inception to completion,” said Russworm. “It has been quite a year of lessons learned and memories formed, and their work is but one example of the bright future of Media Arts, of emergent and creative uses of technology and humanities literacies.”
Watch a documentary about the making of “The Tides that Bind” »
Probing the Mysteries of Language
Through an independent research study of her own design, Emily Knick ‘23 investigates how languages evolve and what such changes can teach us about how the brain produces and perceives language.
Emily Knick
At UMass Amherst, Emily Knick ‘23 discovered a passion for something that is a fundamental part of the human experience, yet most people rarely contemplate: language.
“We wake up every day and go around talking to each other, yet there’s so much we don’t understand about how we actually do it,” she said. “There’s a whole world out there to explore.”
Knick’s path to linguistics didn’t follow a straight line. Originally from Richmond, Va., she enrolled in a biology program at a community college and began taking classes in Japanese for fun, inspired by her love of Japanese films. She found herself fascinated by the linguistic aspects of learning a new language and wanted to delve deeper. She transferred to UMass Amherst as a first-year student largely because of the Department of Linguistics’ stellar reputation: consistently ranked second in the world after MIT.
At UMass, Knick has been able to combine her dual interests in Japanese and linguistics in an independent research project that investigates a change taking place in the pronunciation of certain consonants in Tokyo Japanese, a dialect spoken by those who live or were raised in Tokyo. Knick approached her professor, John Kingston, with the idea for the research project, and he agreed to advise her.
According to Kingston, most linguistics majors are exposed to research. “By doing research as undergrads, our students get to explore whether they are interested in continuing on in research, which means potentially applying to graduate school—typically in linguistics, but also in computer science and other fields,” said Kristine Yu, associate professor, who also advises Knick. “They get a sense of the challenges and whether it’s something they love doing, and it gives them a piece of work to show when they apply to graduate school.”
Knick’s interest in her research topic grew out of a UMass course she took on phonetics.
“I became interested in how people hear consonants. For example, if I say the words ‘pot’ and ‘bot,’ a listener can distinguish the meaning of each word because of the way they hear the ‘p’ and the ‘b’ sounds,” she explained. “In different languages, different acoustic properties are varied in order to distinguish between consonant sounds.”
Knick designed a two-part study to investigate a phenomenon among speakers of Tokyo Japanese. Consonants known as “plosives”—like the sounds made by P, T, K, B, D, and G—were starting to sound more similar to each other. Yet, Knick said, “Listeners don’t seem to have trouble distinguishing them, which I find very strange!” She recorded speech from Tokyo Japanese-speaking participants of various ages and sexes, both in Japan and in the United States. Knick analyzed the voice recordings using a software that produces visual representations of speech. This first part of the study, which she completed during her junior year, confirmed the pronunciation change, both at the sentence and word level. The change appears to be led by younger speakers, and females in particular.
“Younger speakers are producing sounds with less of the vocal fold vibration, also known as pre-voicing, and are instead using a short little lag, or period of silence,” Knick said.
Praising Knick’s innovative research study, Kingston said, “It gets at fundamental questions: What is triggering these changes? Who is leading the changes? Who is following? We don’t have good ideas yet about why language changes at the moment it does. Studying this case helps us understand these questions better.”
Next, Knick plans to conduct a perception study to investigate how people hear the sound change.
“I’m fascinated by how the brain processes language,” said Knick. “A lot of past psycholinguistic work assumes that the way the mind tells the mouth how to produce sounds is the reverse of how sounds are perceived. Yet … whether or not this assumption is correct is still unknown. A good way to investigate this is through sound changes, as I’m doing in my research.”
Beyond deepening her understanding of linguistic concepts and developing new skills in statistics, programming, and encoding, Knick said conducting research has allowed her to hone many other abilities, including organization, clear communication of academic concepts to diverse audiences, and speaking her second language, Japanese, in a real-world context. In addition, she said, “I’ve had to become more flexible and accept that experiments never go perfectly. This has extended into many other areas in my life!”
Knick is exploring pursuing a PhD in linguistics or psychology/cognitive science to study speech perception and neurolinguistics, or working in the field of data science—another skill set she developed through research.
She advised any undergraduate who is considering doing research to reach out to their professors, even if they don’t see an open research position listed. “The worst they can do is say no, but you’d be surprised how often they say yes,” she said.
“Don’t be afraid to ask questions,” Knick asserted. “Research isn’t about knowing everything; research is about not knowing things and wanting to find out the answer."
Internship Support Recipients
Internships can open doors to future careers. This year, 11 students benefitted from the HFA Internship Assistance Fund, which enabled them to gain valuable experience.
Internship Support Recipients
Alumni Excellence
Chasing Language: HFA Alumni Featured on Cover of UMass Magazine
The Spring 2022 issue of UMass magazine went behind the scenes at Merriam-Webster dictionary, where five alumni of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts work to define language and capture vocabulary—easier said than done.
Faculty Excellence Bolstered with Gift from Pamela and Robert Jacobs
Longtime Supporters Pamela M. Jacobs ’69 and Robert D. Jacobs ’68 were already planning to make an additional pledge in conjunction with the upcoming capital campaign, although they were still early in their thinking. However, when they were on campus for the annual Robert D. and Pamela M. Jacobs Lecture in Jewish Culture last spring—this time with New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast—they met with Dean Barbara Krauthamer to discuss their philanthropy and preliminary ideas for continuing to support Jewish students, scholarship, and culture. When the Jacobses learned of the availability of the State Matching Endowment Incentive Program (SMEIP) funds, they were very interested in accelerating their philanthropic plans to take advantage of the opportunity.
Working with Dean Barbara Krauthamer, they discussed their priorities—amplifying those demonstrated in previous pledges and gifts—and heard from the dean about her desire to support faculty excellence. Seeing just how closely their interests align, the Jacobses made their gift of $500,000 to establish the Robert D. and Pamela M. Jacobs Faculty Excellence Fund. Along with the state matching funds, a total of $750,000 will be used to support the recruitment and retention of faculty in the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies or faculty who are working on research in a related field, such as history.
The availability of SMEIP funds provided a substantial incentive to the Jacobs to make their pledge and secure the match.
Hisao ’88 and Karen ’88 Kushi Support First-Generation and Underrepresented Minority Students
With a generous gift, Hisao ’88 and Karen ’88 Kushi—who met at UMass—established the Opportunity Scholars Endowed Fund.
Designed for first semester students from underrepresented populations or first-generation college students, HFA’s Opportunity Scholars is a program that promotes personal development, scholarship, leadership, community service, and connection to people, cultural centers, and resources on campus. The Kushi’s support will allow the program to expand and grow, helping more students and providing more programming designed to provide them with a strong foundation at UMass.
Celebrating Alumni at Homecoming
Rachael Rollins and Charlie Sennott were celebrated as recipients of Alumni Honors during HFA’s Scholars and Donors event.
Rollins, who was appointed by the president as US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, received the Excellence in Service Award.
Charlie Sennott received the distinguished leader award.
Sennott, an accomplished foreign correspondent, is dedicated to the pursuit of ethical journalism and works to support the next generation of journalists.
In the spotlight
As a UMass Amherst theater major, Tony Award-nominated stage designer David Korins ’99 was introduced to set design. The department excels in technical theater arts. During his visit, he met with the next generation of Broadway lighting, set, and sound designers.
David Korins
New Funds Established in 2021-2022
The Christie and Chinua Achebe Scholarship Fund is aimed at promoting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive scholarly environment in which outstanding undergraduate students support the advancement of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the university. Established by the Christie and Chinua Achebe Foundation, the fund will provide support each year for undergraduate students majoring or minoring in Afro-American Studies or students with demonstrated interest in Native American and indigenous heritage.
Novelist, poet, and critic Chinua Achebe and his wife Christie—both born to Igbo parents in Nigeria—met had three children only a few years before the country was overtaken by a bloody civil war in 1967. The Nigerian-Biafran War, fought between the Igbo people’s Republic of Biafra and the government of Nigeria, culminated in the death and genocide of over two million Igbos. During the war, Chinua Achebe served as roving ambassador for Biafra, and Christie set up schools for children on the front.
In 1972, Chinua Achebe accepted an offer to teach at UMass Amherst as a visiting professor of English. He and Christie moved their family and found community, friends, and an opportunity to recover from the devastating effects of war. Christie enrolled in the doctorate program in Education where she was exposed to Native American history.
The Achebe family acknowledge that in moments of their vulnerability they discovered other sources of strength in our human condition. Because of their relationship with UMass Amherst, the Christie and Chinua Achebe Foundation established this scholarship in the spirit of moving forward, transcending, and extending concerns to help future generations of students, hoping that they will pass on this insight to improve the world around us.
- Jane Lunin Perel Poets’ Fund
The bequest of poet Jane Lunin Perel ‘71MFA will provide support to rising second-year MFA poetry students who demonstrate a passion for poetry and exceptional development of their craft. - Kathleen Lugosch Architecture Award Fund
Established in honor of Professor Kathleen Lugosch upon her retirement to support graduate students pursuing a Master’s in Architecture. - Robert Rothstein Prize
Established in support of undergraduates and in honor of Professor Robert Rothstein, who directed the Russian, Eurasian, and Polish Studies Program and held the Amesbury Professorship in Polish Language, Literature and Culture. - Maureen Tracy Venti Memorial Fund
Established in honor of Maureen Traci Venti ’72, this fund supports three awards supporting scholarships, internships, and study abroad. - John H. Bracey Fellowship Fund
Provides summer fellowship support for doctoral students in the W.E.B.Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies to enable students to make significant progress at the early stage of research or the final stages of completing their dissertations. - Edwin Gentzler Translation Center Fund
Gifted by professors Edwin Gentzler and Jenny Spencer, the fund supports the founding principle of the Translation Center as it pertains to ensuring civil rights in the context of translation and particularly languages of limited diffusion. - Lisa Hayward Basile Scholarship
Established in honor of Lisa Hayward Basile—artist, teacher, and wife of Isenberg School of Management graduate Stephen Basile ’75—this fund supports students in the art education program with financial need. - Nadine Shank Double Major Scholarship
Established in honor of Nadine Shank, who taught piano in the department of music and dance for over 40 years, this fund supports music students pursuing a second major in a non-arts field.
HFA By The Numbers
Full-time Faculty
Graduate Teaching Assistants
Student/Faculty Ratio
Undergraduate Students
Graduate Students
Minors Earned
Undergraduate Major Programs
Undergraduate Minor Programs
Master’s Program
Doctoral Programs
Scholarships & Fellowships Awarded
Awards
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Chart
Linguistics Worldwide Ranking
Arts & Humanities Worldwide Ranking
Top 150 English Language and Literature Worldwide Ranking
Top 150 Modern Languages Worldwide Ranking
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