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THE COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS

›› FOCUS ON FACULTY

carrie ann quinn Carrie Ann Quinn is the newest faculty addition to the theater arts program. She heads up the acting program and plans to increase the number of theater majors in the program. She teaches core curriculum courses in acting as well as improvisation, stage movement and voice.
Quinn has already made a name for herself well before coming to UMass Boston. She taught at Clemson University and prior to that had acted in TV, films and on stage in Los Angeles and NY. She developed a new acting technique called “A Method for a New Millennium” that she teaches internationally as a guest artist. Also an accomplished stage director, she recently won a spot in SLAM Boston as one of eight people selected to direct a SLAM production.
A north shore native, Carrie Ann is excited to be in Boston where there is a lot of theatres and acting work available. “I wanted to be in a metropolitan city for personal goals and wanted the challenges of a university setting with a more diverse student body. The students here are more appreciative - and thirsty,” she notes. She sees herself preparing her students for a graduate education as actors and added that the “technical aspects of theater (stage management, set and light design) skills lead to great jobs, especially since the UMass Boston program is a performing arts major and not strictly an acting major.”
She plans to get UMass Boston more involved in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and start a student drama club on campus. Quinn would be pleased to hear from theater arts graduates to find out what they are doing and who would like to speak to a class or get involved in a production.
   
faculty_Lloydschwartz

Poems by Lloyd Schwartz, a 1994 Pulitzer Prize winner for criticism and the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English at UMass Boston, were set as songs by this year’s composition fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center. The fellows are emerging professional composers chosen from hundreds of applicants from all over the world.
The concert at which these compositions were performed took place in the Chamber Music Hall at Tanglewood on July 29. “I’ve been writing poems seriously for nearly fifty years, but I’ve also been a music critic for more than thirty years,” said Schwartz. “Rarely does a door ever open between these two compartments of my life. Now it has!” (In addition to teaching at UMass Boston, Schwartz is the classical music editor of the Boston Phoenix and a weekly contributor to NPR’s Fresh Air.)
“I felt incredibly lucky to have my work be the center of this event. I said that I thought every poet in America should envy my experience.” When asked if this new venue was something he was interested in pursuing, Professor Schwartz did not think he would be receiving a Grammy nomination any time in the future. “I love music as much as I love poetry, but I’m not a musician.”
Readers can see and hear the performances of the songs at http://www.youtube.com/mkuznet.

negron

Anthropology Professor Rosalyn Negrón, PhD, has identity issues, specifically ones that deal with Latino ethnic identity. Her current research, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, examines how ethnic categories like Latino, Mexican, and American are used in daily life. She is particularly interested in how people use language and discourse to switch among these identifications. Negrón intends to apply her research toward a better understanding of what is captured by the ethnic categories used in health research. For example, is it meaningful for research purposes to categorize a Venezuelan as Venezuelan if his/her social network and language use reflects dominant Puerto Rican influences? Negrón suggests that a social network-based analysis can provide key insights into the many ways that people choose to identify as members of multiple spheres of social interaction. Negrón received her Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 2007 and began at UMass Boston this spring. She teaches Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, U.S. Immigration, and a research seminar on Latino Leadership Opportunity Program.

 

silliman

Steve Silliman, PhD, studies Native American communities in 17th- through 21st-century New England and the impact of colonialism on their cultural heritage. Silliman is a faculty member of the Department of Anthropology, and serves as director of our M.A. program in historical archaeology.

Each summer, Silliman leads an archaeological field school that gives more than a dozen students a chance to work and study at historical sites on the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation Reservation in North Stonington, Connecticut, an area that is home to members of the Pequot tribe. The field school not only teaches students invaluable skills in archaeological methods but also makes them aware of their responsibilities in assisting the Pequot tribe in preserving their history.

Whether in the field or on campus, Silliman emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and helps students understand the links between archaeology, history and their own lives. Silliman’s teaching and research show archaeology is not only about unearthing the past, but also about interpreting the dynamics of culture and heritage to make us aware of who we are.