ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
November 18, 2004
New director injects culture
into Trotter Institute agenda
Jeremy Schwab
Barbara Lewis has big plans for the Trotter Institute.
The former University of Kentucky theater department head wants
to continue the UMass Boston institute’s focus on conducting
sociological and political research in the black community.
However, she wants to open up the institute’s scope to include
studies on black culture.
“I don’t want to re-invent the wheel,” said
the new director during a Banner interview last week. “I
don’t want to displace politics or sociology. I think [art
and politics] are very connected. I think one of the reasons they
are more connected in the African American community than maybe
other places is there were so many forms of political expression
denied African Americans that they used the arts to express these
things.”
For roughly seven years, the Trotter Institute has gone through
a series of interim directors. Lewis, who started September 1,
is envisioned by the university as a permanent director.
And she is already making her mark. She has stepped up the institute’s
efforts to bring in speakers geared at attracting students, including
popular culture figures.
Lewis says events such as the talk given at the end of October
by Lisa Gay Hamilton, an actress who plays a lawyer on The Practice
and is now appearing in a Broadway performance, will increase
the Trotter’s profile on campus.
“One student came up to me afterwards,” said Lewis.
“She asked, ‘Where is the Trotter?’ I said it’s
on the 10th floor of the library. She said, ‘It’s
on campus?’ One of the things I want to do is make sure
everybody knows the Trotter is there.”
Aiming to increase the institute’s profile among academics,
Lewis wants to turn the Trotter Review from an in-house publication
into a peer-reviewed journal.
“There is no panel of scholars who would make a judgement
on the work,” she said. “It has created a reputation
for itself. But I want to expand that reputation.”
Lewis’ fascination with outspoken turn-of-the-century black
journalist William Monroe Trotter is one of the main reasons she
took the job.
“I knew about and admired him and was drawn to the Trotter
Institute because of him,” she said.
Lewis, who came to the Trotter from her post at the University
of Kentucky, aims to increase awareness of Trotter as an historical
figure.
She plans to bring to campus the author of a new biography of
Trotter, who published The Guardian, a black newspaper in Boston
in the early 20th century.
Other projects she is contemplating or planning include: bringing
author Glenn Loury to campus to speak about reparations, collaborating
with UMass’ planned Native American Institute on a course
on Native American and black interactions, researching the methodology
of charter school assessment, conducting a post-election forum
on the African American vote, researching low-income housing conditions
and convening a discussion on education issues and continuing
to collaborate with other groups on another New Majority Conference
to bring activists of color together to discuss a common political
agenda.
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