Michael Socolow (2020-2022), Associate Professor of Communication and Journalism
Margo Lukens (2018-2020), Professor of English
On July 1, 2018, I began my term as the fifth director of the McGillicuddy Humanities Center. I took on this responsibility knowing how well my predecessors positioned the Center. We had an endowment from Clem and Linda McGillicuddy, a dedicated and active Executive Board, a widely-representative faculty advisory board who do not seem to want to “term out,” a freshly painted and furnished space, and excellent staff support.
Throughout my term I was committed to supporting faculty and student projects that express and demonstrate how work in the humanities can make life better. The events and activities inspired by our 2018-2019 annual Symposium, War Without End: a Symposium on the Legacy of World War I, showed the topic’s continued relevance today. The Maine statehood bicentennial celebrations began in the summer of 2019, and provided a timely opportunity for our center to discuss the legacy of colonization in our 2019-2020 annual symposium, Society, Colonization and Decolonization.
The McGillicuddy Humanities Center had to pivot our focus on public engagement in response to the pandemic that has changed all of our lives. The puzzle of delivering classes remotely and creating presentations that can live online became an opportunity. With the expertise of our humanities specialist, Karen Sieber, and other humanities faculty, we considered how to bring the skills and concepts of digital humanities to students in humanities majors, through coursework and institutional support for digital humanities. We continued meeting every two weeks with all of our MHC undergraduate fellows, as they completed their research projects. They astounded us with their serious interest and desire to push forward. We are about to grow our cohort of McGillicuddy Humanities Center undergraduate fellows from six to seven. The new group is diverse and exciting, and ready to dive into their new projects
Although I have loved every minute of it, I think it’s fitting that directors of this extraordinary institution should turn over the privilege of leadership after the brief two-year hitch. I felt, like each of the prior directors, that coming from the faculty ranks with ideas, networks, and passions, I was able to bring it all to bear in the decisions, events and structures I had a part in creating.
Jennifer Moxley (2016-2018), Professor of English
When I took over in 2016, the Humanities Center was a “tween”—no longer a child, not yet a young adult. Buoyed by faculty, administrative, and staff support—as well as the optimism of our Executive Committee—I was privileged to oversee such an amazing growth spurt in the Center that by the end of my term I felt no qualms handing over the keys.
Some highlights of my directorship: when long-time supporters Clement and Linda McGillicuddy gave us a new name; moving into and furnishing our first physical space at 110 South Stevens; working with my assistant Katrina Wynn; her stellar makeover of our webpage and supercharging of our social media; working with the Humanities Student Task Force to design an Engaged Black Bear Digital Badge; developing a Humanities Undergraduate Fellows program; supporting the impressive research and generous programming of my colleagues. I could go on. From a purely personal (and perhaps selfish) standpoint, becoming director did exactly what I had hoped: it put me in rooms with intelligent and inspiring people. People who needed no convincing that—though intellectually challenging and even emotionally risky—the study of the Humanities equips us with the knowledge and resilience needed to live a productive, balanced, and meaningful life.
Liam Riordan (2014-2016), Professor of History
Justin Wolff (2012-2014), Professor of Art History
During my term as director the MHC was known as the University of Maine Humanities Initiative (UMHI). In 2014, with significant help from administrators and development officers, we intensified fundraising efforts and raised our profile, bringing our message to alumni and legislators in Washington, D.C. The UMHI also organized two Maine Humanities Summits, in 2013 and 2014, in Augusta. The daylong events featured papers and panels by UMaine administrators and faculty; humanities scholars from other Maine colleges and universities; and humanities professionals from the Maine Humanities Council, National Humanities Center, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. These ambitious initiatives helped us refine our mission and communicate our objectives to donors. By 2014 the UMHI had become a Humanities Center with a growing endowment.
From 2012 to 2014 we formalized several of the programs that form the foundation of today’s MHC. The UMHI introduced substantial faculty grants to support humanities research at UMaine, developed a program of annual symposia, and sponsored the first Bangor Humanities Day. The inaugural symposium (2013), Bibliopoetics: The Art and Future of the Book, was organized in collaboration with the National Poetry Foundation and featured an international roster of speakers addressing topics including electronic libraries, digital publishing platforms, and digital manuscript studies. The second annual symposium (2014), In and Out of Place: Finding Home in Franco America, was organized in collaboration with the Franco American Centre.
Scott See (2010-2012), Professor of History and Canadian Studies
