The University of Massachusetts Amherst
Robert S. Cox Special Collections & University Archives Research Center
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Collecting area: UMass history

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Students

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Student Organizations Records

1867-2007
155 linear feet
Call no.: RG 045

Since the arrival of the first class of students at Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1867, the student body at UMass has grown to over 20,500 undergraduates and nearly 6,000 graduate students.

Record Group 45 includes the collected records of student activities at UMass Amherst, from student publications and organizations (fraternities and sororities, unions, and honorary societies) to records of student government, student protests, and religious and social groups. Also included are class notes and correspondence of some individual students while enrolled in the University.

Connect to another siteA number of student publications have been digitized and are indexed in YouMass.

Subjects

Aggie LifeBay State RuralistCollege SignalCollege students--MassachusettsGreek letter societies--MassachusettsStudent newspapers and periodicals--MassachusettsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--Students
University of Massachusetts Amherst. Students

University of Massachusetts Amherst Student Publications Collection

1869-2011
Call no.: RG 045/00
Depiction of Collegian editorial staff, 1921-1922
Collegian editorial staff, 1921-1922

Since almost the time of first arrival of students at Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1867, the college’s students have taken an active role in publishing items for their own consumption. Beginning with the appearance of the first yearbook, put together by the pioneer class during their junior year in 1870 and followed by publication of the first, short-lived newspaper, The College Monthly in 1887, students have been responsible for dozens of publications from literature to humor to a range of politically- and socially-oriented periodicals.
This series consists of the collected student publications from Massachusetts Agricultural College, Massachusetts State College, and UMass Amherst, including student newspapers, magazines, newsletters, inserts, yearbooks, and songbooks. Publications range from official publications emanating from the student body to unofficial works by student interest groups or academic departments. Links to digitized versions of the periodicals are supplied when available.

Subjects

Massachusetts Agricultural College--StudentsMassachusetts State College--StudentsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--Students

Types of material

MagazinesNewspapers
University of Massachusetts Amherst. Theses and Dissertations

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Theses and Dissertations

1894-2021
Call no.: RG 046

SCUA holds a nearly complete run of undergraduate honors theses, arranged chronologically by year and then alphabetically by author. A small selection of honors theses are available to view online at university’s institutional repository’s CHC Theses and Projects page. Honors theses can be viewed on site in the Special Collections and University Archives reading room. Starting in 2019, all undergraduate honors theses are submitted electronically.

  • Paper honors theses (pre-2019) may take up to one to two business days to retrieve.
  • Digital honors theses (2019 forward) must also be viewed on site in SCUA’s reading room, but they do not have a delay period from request to retrieval and access.

A spreadsheet list of honors theses can be consulted online. Email SCUA with your requests in advance of visiting. Please include the year, author’s full name, and the title for each thesis requested.

Masters theses and dissertations written by UMass Amherst students are not a part of the University Archives, but most are available in electronic form through the university’s institutional repository, ScholarWorks.

Contributors

University of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Massachusetts Amherst. University as a Whole

University of Massachusetts Amherst. University as a Whole

1849-2007
82.75 linear feet
Call no.: RG 001

Established under the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1863, the Massachusetts Agricultural College began with four faculty members and 56 students distributed among four wooden buildings and acres of farms, orchards, and fields. In keeping with the progressive educational principles of its early years, the College offered advanced instruction in the eminently practical pursuit of agriculture, while its fellow land grant college, MIT, covered the mechanical arts. Although “Mass Aggie’s” fortunes waxed and waned, it grew to become Massachusetts State College in 1931, and the University of Massachusetts in 1947.

Among the official publications of the University in Record Group 1 are institutional histories, annual reports, special reports, minutes, directories, catalogs, newsclippings, press releases, and memorabilia.

Contributors

University of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Massachusetts Amherst. University Outreach

University of Massachusetts Amherst. University Outreach

2000-2007
Call no.: RG 016

Helping to fulfill its land grant mission, outreach at UMass Amherst engages the university with the community in economic, social, cultural, environmental, and educational issues. Outreach applies the teaching, research, and knowledge resources of the university with benefit to the public throughout the Commonwealth, nation, and world. The office operates a number of programs, including Continuing & Professional Education, the Extension and Arts Extension Service, the University Without Walls, and WFCR radio.

The records of University Outreach document the initiatives originating with the Vice Chancellor for University Outreach. As a result of the evolution of responsibility for outreach activities, the records of individual programs may be located elsewhere in the archives.

Contributors

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Office of University Outreach
University of Massachusetts Literary Society

University of Massachusetts Literary Society Collection

1953-1959
6 boxes 2.75 linear feet
Call no.: RG 40/3 L4

In 1955, the Literary Society of the University of Massachusetts and Professor H. Leland Varley received a grant of $5,800 from the Educational Television and Radio Center to produce a series of one-hour radio programs centered on a discussion of the impact of eight major American novelists from a European perspective. The subjects included Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Wolfe, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, and John Steinbeck (who replaced the original choice, John Marquand).

The collection is comprised of administrative documents, transcripts, and sound recordings relating to the Literary Society radio program, ‘As others see us.’ Moderated by a member of the UMass Department of English, each broadcast featured discussions by distinguished literary critics such as W.H. Auden, R.P. Blackmur, Perry Miller, Maxwell Geismar, and Renato Poggioli. Dos Passos, Faulkner, and Steinbeck participated in person. Also included is a related item from an earlier program sponsored by the Literary Society: E.E. Cummings reading Twelve Poems.

Subjects

Authors, AmericanNovelists, AmericanPoets--United States

Contributors

Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973Bailey, Robeson, 1906-Barron, LeoneBlackmur, R. P. (Richard P.), 1904-1965Coindreau, Maurice EdgarCollins, Carvel Emerson, 1912-Cowie, Alexander, 1896-1978Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin), 1894-1962Dos Passos, John, 1896-1970Faulkner, William, 1897-1962Fenton, CharlesGeismar, Maxwell David, 1909-Girard, Rene, 1923-Goldberg, Maxwell Henry, 1907-Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961James, Henry, 1843-1916Klarmann, Adolf D. (Adolf Donald), 1904-1975Koehler, StanleyLevin, Harry, 1912-1994Lewis, Sinclair, 1885-1951Lohner, EdgarMagny, Claude-Edmonde, 1913-1966Miller, Perry, 1905-1963Niedeck, Arthur E.Peyre, Henri, 1901-Poggioli, Renato, 1907-1963Rudin, Seymour, 1922-Savage, Richard C.Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968Varley, H. LelandWolfe, Thomas, 1900-1938

Types of material

Sound recordings
University of Massachusetts. Trustees

University of Massachusetts Amherst. Trustees

1864-2007
84.25 linear feet
Call no.: RG 002

When Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew incorporated the Board of Trustees for the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1863, the fourteen members of the board were charged with creating a new agricultural college. Since that time, the Board of Trustees (including student trustees) had governed the University, meeting regularly to act on University-wide matters of policy, mission, finance, and campus maintenance. Governance responsibilities in some areas (e.g., tuition, academic program review and approval) are shared with the statewide Board of Higher Education. The Board of Trustees maintains a Chair and six standing committees: Executive, Administration and Finance, Academic and Student Affairs, Athletics, Audit, and External Affairs. The President and the Five College Chancellors administer board policy.
The bulk of the Board of Trustees records consists of meeting minutes (1906-2007) and Trustee Documents (1963-2007), along with the papers of a small number of individual trustees and the records of the Trustees’ “Commission on the Future of the University of Massachusetts” (1988-1989), which resulted in the consolidation of the state’s five public university campuses under a single President and Board of Trustees. In partnership with the Board of Trustees, SCUA has digitized the complete minutes of the Board from chartering of the university in 1863 through 2004.

Contributors

Massachusetts Agricultural College. TrusteesMassachusetts State College. TrusteesUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Trustees

Types of material

Minutes
Uno, Roberta

Roberta Uno Collection of Asian American Women Playwrights' Scripts

1924-2005
25 boxes 9 linear feet
Call no.: MS 345
Depiction of Coconut masquerade postcard
Coconut masquerade postcard

Roberta Uno was the founder and long time artistic director of the New WORLD Theater at UMass Amherst, a theater in residence dedicated to the production of works by playwrights of color.

Established by Uno in 1993, the Asian American Women Playwrights Scripts Collection contains manuscripts of plays, but also production histories, reviews, and articles, along with biographies and audio and videotaped interviews with playwrights. Among the individuals represented are Brenda Wong Aoki, Jeannie Barroga, Marina Feleo Gonzales, Jessica Hagedorn, Velina Hasu Houston, Genny Lim, le thi diem thuy, Ling-Ai Li, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, Nobuko Miyamoto, Bina Sharif, and Diana Son.

Subjects

Asian American women authorsNew WORLD TheaterPlaywrights

Contributors

Uno, Roberta, 1956-

Types of material

Scripts (Documents)
Váli, Ferenc A. (Ferenc Albert), 1905-

Ferenc A. Vali Papers

1964-1969
1 box 0.5 linear feet
Call no.: FS 137
Depiction of Ferenc Vali
Ferenc Vali

A scholar of international politics, Ferenc Vali left his native Hungary during the revolution of 1956 after five years of imprisonment for his political activities. Born on May 25, 1905, Vali was educated at the University of Budapest and London School of Economics (PhD, 1932), and worked as a Professor of International Law at the University of Budapest until his arrest. Following his escape and a brief period as Fellow at Harvard, he joined the faculty in political science at UMass Amherst in 1961. A popular lecturer, he became the first member of the Political Science Department to receive emeritus status in 1975. He died at his home in Amherst in 1984.

The Vali collection includes both published and unpublished essays by Ferenc Vali on Hungary during the post-revolutionary years and idealism and realism in American foreign policy.

Subjects

Hungary--History--1945-1989United States--Foreign relationsUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst--FacultyUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Department of Political Science

Contributors

Váli, Ferenc A. (Ferenc Albert), 1905-
Valley Peace Center (Amherst, Mass.)

Valley Peace Center Records

1965-1973
28 boxes 13.5 linear feet
Call no.: MS 301

In the summer of 1967, members of University of Massachusetts Amherst campus groups, such as the Faculty Group on War and Peace and the Students for Political Action, joined with individuals from other area colleges and from the community at large to form the Valley Peace Center of Amherst for the purposes of opposing the Vietnam War, providing draft counseling, eliciting pledges from the government to avoid first use of nuclear and biological weapons, and reduction of the power of the “military-industrial complex”. The Center was active for more than five and a half years, drawing its financial support largely from the community and its human resources from student and community volunteers.

Correspondence, minutes, volunteer and membership lists, financial records, newsletters, questionnaires, notes, petitions, clippings, posters, circulars, pamphlets, periodicals, other printed matter, and memorabilia. Includes material relating to alternative service, boycotts, war tax resistance, prison reform, environmental quality, and political candidates.

Gift of Nonny Burack and Dean A. Allen, 1974

Subjects

Amherst (Mass.)--Social conditions--20th centuryDraft--United States--HistoryPacifists--MassachusettsPeace movements--Massachusetts--AmherstSocial movements--Massachusetts--AmherstVietnam War, 1961-1975--Protest movements--Massachusetts--AmherstWestover Air Force Base (Mass.)--History--20th century

Contributors

Valley Peace Center (Amherst, Mass.)

Types of material

EphemeraPamphlets