Socolow named director of McGillicuddy Humanities Center

Michael Socolow, associate professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism, has been named director of the Clement and Linda McGillicuddy Humanities Center at the University of Maine, effective July 1. 

Since 2010, the McGillicuddy Humanities Center has demonstrated the immediacy, relevance and applicability of humanities scholarship by advancing teaching, research and public engagement in the humanities in Maine.

Socolow is an award-winning author and former broadcast journalist. His scholarship on media history and media regulation has appeared in numerous academic journals, and his commentary has been published widely in mainstream media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, Politico and Columbia Journalism Review. In 2019, Socolow was a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar at the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra.

“I look forward to building upon the center’s terrific record of establishing partnerships with arts and humanities institutions in Maine, and encouraging and supporting collaborations between the faculty at the University of Maine and the public throughout the state,” Socolow says. “In this challenging and unprecedented era, the type of understanding, reflection and exchange promoted by humanistic inquiry and creative endeavor is needed more than ever.”

The McGillicuddy Humanities Center serves as a locus for humanities research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and meaningful conversations among scholars, artists, students and the public through the support of lectures, symposia, panels, performances and exhibitions, as well as individual and collaborative research of students and faculty. Under the guidance of outgoing director Margo Lukens, the center recently added a successful undergraduate Fellows program offering young scholars mentorship and support for their humanities research.