The New Honors College at UMass Boston
Happy New Year 2014! We herein spread the good news of the "novelty" which is the Honors College at the University of Massachusetts Boston. This new College is the legacy of its predecessor, the Honors Program and the Honors Program War of 1990 when Sherry H. Penney was Chancellor.
Of note, Robert H. Spaethling (Honors 228) retired; James F. Brennan (the first Program Director) departed for the Catholic University of America, CUA, and Fiora A. Bassanese (Honors 238) remains "rigid" as a reminder of the War at UMass/Boston.
Rajini Srikanth, the Dean, who arrived at UMass Boston in 1998, is a professor of English, and took over the reins of the Honors Program in 2004.
We ask, especially, "students of color" to stay vigilant as the Honors College has been the action of sweat, pain, suffering and tears of their predecessors! True to form, UMass Boston -- through the Honors Program -- has come a long way.
Chancellor J. Keith Motley and Provost Winston E. Langley, therefore, ought to be commended for their boldness in leading UMass Boston, once the scene of much racial unrest, to a meeting place of tolerance.
Contacted on the new development at his alma mater, former Jamaican Councillor Honorable Dr. Wilmot Max "Little David" Scotland Ramsay had nothing but praise for the Motley administration and said that it took 24 years "but an upgrade is an upgrade. Let's hope that students, faculty and staff will find this new experience as a worthwhile challenge benefiting all involved."
Ramsay, "the first person of color admitted" to the Honors Program, in the fall of 1989, as a Chancellorian Scholar, had to do battle with his Honors 238 Paper (in the Spring of 1990): A LOOK AT DANTE AND PETRARCA'S STYLES -- "the genesis of the Honors Program War" at UMass/Boston -- as Fiora Antonia Bassanese, the instructor, wrongfully charged Max Ramsay, who served the Honors Program as secretary and Editor-in-Chief of The UMass Times, with plagiarism. Although Ramsay was cleared of the charge, with a written "apology" from Bassanese, it was too late as shock and fatigue -- post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- settled in.
"Without the students there will be no program, no college. No college, no university," remarked Max Ramsay, President and Executive Director of Global Youth Trust, Inc., GYT, a non-profit organization.
Ramsay, who graduated from UMass Boston in 2005, and is a Jamaican American, said in 2007: ".... And, to my alma mater, the University of Massachusetts [Boston], let us hope you will find it in your heart to settle for the emotional, psychological and physical sufferings I have endured over these past ... years," in his A Declaration of War: 17 Years Later.
The Honors College at UMass Boston, therefore, is a step in the right direction, and we hail the University, while not forgetting the sacrifices made through the operations of its forerunner, the Honors Program. The Honors Program War at UMass/Boston being a central part of race relations and "differences" within and without the University remains unpleasant chapters of that War which was won by Hon. Wilmot Max Ramsay and his supporters, including persons within the UMass system. It was very nice to learn that the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, the ACLU of Massachusetts, was invited to address members of the Honors Program during this past fall, 2013, at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
(Copyright @ HERITAGE RESERVES, Friday, January 3, 2014)
