Outreach Initiatives

The College of Humanities and Fine Arts has always been committed to a broad public mandate. Our programs also offer extraordinary opportunities for UMass students to gain on-the-ground experience and make transformative connections with local communities and for our local communities to get involved with our campus. Below are just a few examples.

Arts Extension Service

Through the Arts Extension Service, we strengthen the humanities’ presence in communities throughout the commonwealth and the nation with the only arts extension program in the country—in a vibrant reimagining of our land grant mission. This initiative fosters collaboration on a wealth of public programming with local arts groups and helps these groups build financial resiliency through education programs that include online arts managements certificate and degree programs. In fact, virtually every state arts agency in the nation has consulted with HFA’s Arts Extension Service.

Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy

The Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy aims to promote public understanding, scholarship, and activism in support of compelling and sustainable alternatives to militarism, authoritarianism, and environmental degradation. It recognizes that some of the world’s most pressing problems are interrelated and can only be resolved adequately through multidisciplinary problem solving.

Philosophy in Public Schools Project

The Philosophy in Public Schools program (PiPS) works to send Five College students, UMass graduate students, and professors into public K–12 schools in Western Massachusetts to do philosophy with children. 

Prison Education Initiative 

The UMass Amherst Prison Education Initiative, led by Laura Ciolkowski in the Department of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, is a cross-campus collective of faculty, students, and community partners that offers tuition-free UMass courses inside local jails, including “inside-out” courses that enroll UMass students and incarcerated students. The initiative also works to clear pathways for formerly incarcerated students to continue their education at UMass or in a community college setting and provides research, teaching, and community engagement opportunities for faculty and students interested in social justice and education.

Slavery North Initiative

Slavery North is a one-of-a-kind academic and cultural destination where scholars, thinkers and artists research and build community that transforms society’s understanding of the neglected histories of trans-Atlantic slavery in Canada and the U.S. North.