Mitch Julian Boucher

Mitch Boucher joined the University Without Walls Department of Interdisciplinary Studies faculty in September 2010. Having been a non-traditional student himself, he understands what it is like to return to school with adult responsibilities, and he treasures the opportunity to work with adult and non-traditional students at University Without Walls. His areas of study focus on United States culture, discourse, and social justice movements in the twentieth-century United States, particularly at the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality. Before joining the UWW Interdisciplinary Studies faculty, Mitch taught as a lecturer for the Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Department at UMass Amherst, as an adjunct faculty member in English at Holyoke Community College and as a graduate student at UMass Amherst and Ohio University. He has taught a variety of courses in literatures of the United States, sexuality studies, queer theory, American studies, and LGBTQI+ history from an intersectional perspective, as well as first-year, junior-level, and experimental writing. 

Mitch has interests in critical pedagogy, respects and learns from the knowledge that people enrolled in UWW courses bring with them into his classes, and strives to build connections as a basis for learning in online environments. His goal as a teacher is to create a supportive, yet challenging learning environment where students pursue their own scholarly interests while critically engaging with the knowledge that is produced and circulates through our social institutions and cultural environments. Mitch teaches core UWW courses in a blended format at the UMass Amherst Center at Springfield and is the co-founder of the Social Justice Residency Weekend, which he has co-taught at the Center since it opened in 2011. In 2024, he was honored to receive the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

Educational Background

• B.A., English with minor in Women’s Studies, Eastern Connecticut State University
• M.A., English with minor in Women’s Studies, Ohio University
• Ph.D., English with concentration in American Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst
• Graduate Certificate in Advanced Feminist Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Teaching and Research Interests

Cultural representations of race, class, gender, sexuality; twentieth-century United States literature and history; cultural studies; social justice movements; transgender studies; LGBTQI+ history; queer theory; gender and sexuality studies.

Personal Interests

Mitch treasures time with his family and enjoys the outdoors. He recently started learning to play the cello, and has a labradoodle named Teddy Lupin who occasionally makes appearances in his teaching videos.