Collections: Faculty

Playwright, poet, historian, student theater director and professor of English, University of Massachusetts.

Correspondence, speeches, lectures, drafts of writings, reviews, publicity material, programs and playbills, scrapbooks, grade books (1917-1959), newsclippings, memorabilia, and other papers, relating to Rand’s teaching career, his writing of poetry, plays, and history, and his activities, as a dramatic coach and director. Includes material relating to the dedication of Rand Theater.

Listen to oral history with Rand's wife:
Oral history, part 1
Oral history, part 2

After completing postdoctoral work in Germany under Nobel laureate E.O. Fischer, Marvin Rausch joined the Chemistry faculty at UMass Amherst in 1963. A scholar in organometallic chemistry of the transition metals, Rausch wrote over 150 articles during his career, and became one of the first chairs of the Organometallic Subdivision of the American Chemical Society’s Division of Inorganic Chemistry as well as the Permanent International Secretary of the International Conference on Organometallic Chemistry. A passionate collector of minerals and fan of the basketball team, he remained in Amherst until his death in May 2008.

The Rausch Papers document the latter part of Rausch’s long career as an organic chemist and Professor of Chemistry at UMass. In addition to extensive notes for research and teaching, Rausch’s papers include his professional and personal correspondence, committee notes, patents, and annual performance reports. Also included among the papers are research progress reports, information regarding a NATO grant awarded in 1995, and several molecular models that represent some of Rausch’s work in organic chemistry.

After receiving her B.S. from Massachusetts State College in 1941 and M.S. in microbiology from UMass in 1957, Iona Mae Reynolds embarked upon a teaching career of over 30 years in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, later serving as the school’s Assistant Director. In 1985 Reynolds was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal for her service to the University as a faculty member and her many years on the associate alumni Board of Directors.

The Reynolds Papers include reunion materials, photographs, and writings, as well as a small collection of UMass memorabilia.

Maida Leonard Riggs, class of 1936, taught women’s physical education at UMass before shifting to teacher preparation. Riggs was a beloved member of the UMass faculty for 28 years before her retirement. An adventurous spirit took Riggs around the globe: to Europe with the Red Cross during World War II; as a bicycling tour leader after the war; on a trek across Nepal at age 62; to Russia, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Uzbekistan. After retiring, Riggs, a self-described compulsive traveler, embarked on a more personal journey to explore her roots. Riggs transcribed more than 250 letters by her pioneer great-grandmother, Mary Ann Clark Longley, and published them under the title A Small Bit of Bread and Butter: Letters from the Dakota Territory, 1832-1869, an absorbing and sometimes heartbreaking account of life on the frontier. An avid photographer, Riggs took advantage of any opportunity to use her camera. These images, particularly from World War II, tell as many stories as do her correspondence. Her memoir, Dancing in Paratrooper Boots, contains typed copies of her letters from her days as a Red Cross volunteer during the war.

The Riggs Papers are a rich documentary history of the World War II era, both in America and Europe, as well as an engrossing study (in transcripts) of the American frontier. Included with extensive correspondence and photographs are published and unpublished prose, and Lovingly, Lucy: Vignettes of a Pioneer Woman’s Life, an essay on Riggs’s paternal grandmother, Lucy Dodge Riggs. Additional items in the collection include handwritten journals, one detailing a trip to China and Japan in 1982, and Riggs’s photographs of young children at play taken for her book on child development, Jump to Joy: Helping Children Grow Through Active Play. Riggs also took her genealogical research seriously, meticulously charting her family’s 1638 immigration from England to Massachusetts. With camera in hand, she later traveled to England in search of more evidence of the Longleys’ English roots.

Methodist Clergyman; literary and religious scholar.

Correspondence, drafts of writings, notes for lectures and sermons, book reviews, course materials, class notes taken as a student, biographical material, and other papers, relating chiefly to Sander’s studies of English and religious literature, his teaching career at several colleges (including the University of Massachusetts) and church-related activities. Includes draft of an unpublished book on the Bible as literature; correspondence and organized material from his participation in Laymen’s Academy for Oecumenical Studies, Amherst Massachusetts (LAOS); and notebook of funeral records (1940-1957).

Born in Montefegatesi, Italy, in April 1937, Roland Sarti began his academic career as a teaching assistant and instructor at Rutgers University from 1960-1964. In the fall of 1967, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Italian History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, becoming chair of the University Seminar on Studies in Modern Italy five years later. A scholar of the fascist movement in Italy, Sarti also wrote on topics ranging from rural life in the Apennines to the life of the revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini. During his tenure at UMass, he served on the Personnel, Curriculum, and Graduate Studies Committees, and played a prominent role in the Faculty Senate and the International Programs Office, particularly with respect to the summer programs in Italy. A past president of the New England Historical Society and the Society for Italian Historical Studies, he was a board member for the European History Quarterly and the H-Italy Network. He retired from active teaching in 2002.

The Sarti Papers document Sarti’s distinguished career as professor, author, and chair of the History Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. They consist of professional correspondence, history department records, records of major crises at the University, Italian studies newsletters, student publications, and historical society records. A significant amount of the materials, particularly among the correspondence and periodicals, are in Italian.

For nearly 30 years, Fred C. Sears served as Professor of Pomology at the Massachusetts Agricultural College. Born in Lexington, Mass., in 1866, Sears was raised on the Kansas prairies and educated at Kansas State College. After graduating in 1892, he taught horticulture in Kansas, Utah, and Nova Scotia before returning to Massachusetts and to MAC in 1907. The author of three textbooks and numerous articles on fruit culture and orcharding, he also developed the successful Bay Road Fruit Farm with his colleagues Frank A. Waugh and E.R. Critchett. Sears died at his home in Amherst in October 1949.

In addition to several offprints, the collection contains a set of articles written by Sears for the Country Gentleman bound with editorial correspondence; the well-edited original manuscripts of Sears’ textbooks Productive Orcharding (1914) and Productive Small Fruit Culture (1920), including correspondence, reviews, and photographs; Reports of the Massachusetts Fruit Growers Association (1911-1912, 1914-1916), and editions of Productive Orcharding (1927) and Fruit Growing Projects (1912) bound with Japanese titles.

E. Ann Sheridan was a longtime professor and dean emerita at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who made significant contributions to the field of nursing in both of her professional and academic practices. Ann spent much of her life supporting the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst School of Nursing through her advocacy, teaching, alumni relations, and history work.

Ann was born on February 17th, 1934 in Lawrence, Massachusettsto parents Eva C. (Lambart) Sheridan and John J. Sheridan. Ann was raised in Salem, Massachusetts where she spent most of her childhood and was educated at the St. Mary’s Grammar School and the St. James High School. In her senior year of highschool, Ann was the recipient of a diocesan scholarship to the Catherine Laboure School of Nursing in Boston, Massachusetts where she would later graduate from in 1954, having earned a degree in nursing. After earning her degree, Ann began her career as a pediatric nurse, where her lifetime interest in pediatric nursing began. After several years of working as a pediatric staff nurse, Ann attended Boston College and earned a baccalaureate degree in nursing in 1957. Ann worked in many Boston hospitals, including Boston City Hospital during the Polio epidemic, operating “iron lung” respiration machines. During her time here Ann also cared for polio-patient and future mayor of Boston, John Collins who came down with the disease in 1955 and ran for Boston City Council from his hospital room.

Ann later returned to her hometown of Salem, Masssachussetss where she accepted a position as supervisor of the pediatric unit at Salem Hospital, where she built a strong foundation of both nursing and administrative skills. Over the years she worked in many hospitals across the country including Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and California.

Ann Sheridan went on to earn a master’s of science in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964 before being hired as an adjunct professor at UMass Amherst’s School of Nursing in 1965, where she would spend the rest of her academic career. Ann would also go on to earn a pediatric nurse practitioner certification from the University of Wisconsin in 1973, and an Ee.D from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1983. Ann lived through much of the School of Nursings history and growth. When the School of Nursing was merged with the Division of Public Health to create the School of Health Sciences in 1973, Ann was a strong supporter of the School of Nursing’s independence which finally became reality again in 1988. Ann served as Interim Director of the nursing program from 1986-1988. By the time of her retirement in 1998, Ann was instrumental in many committees and activities, such as founding the College of Nursing Alumni Board, helping to establish the Beta Zeta at-Large Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, and by helping document and publish the history of the school of nursing through newspaper articles, commemorative books, and oral histories. Ann was the recipient of the UMass Amherst Chancellor’s Medal in 1997, the Umass Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Living Legend Award from the American Nurses Association, Massachusetts in 2016 among many other recognitions and accolades. Ann spent her retirement in connection with the School of Nursing attending events, working with alumni, creating the Dr. E. Ann Sheridan Scholarship, and supporting the school’s history through researching and writing newspaper articles, commemorative history books, participating in oral history projects, and working with the universities Robert S. Cox Special Collections and Archives on campus, as well as other nursing archives across the country. Ann Sheridan was predeceased by her parents, her partner George L, Balestri, her sisters Alice C. Saben, Claire F. Fosberry, Marion L. Rudolph, her brothers John J. Sheridan Jr. and Thomas J. Sheridan. She was survived by her family of cousins, nieces, and nephews of multiple generations of which she remained close to her whole life. Ann Sheridan passed away on March 26th, 2024 after a short illness.

Ann Sheridan’s dissertation, Contracting and client satisfaction: an inquiry into the delivery of effective nursing care, completed at UMass Amherst in 1983, is available online: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/14435

The research interests of Professor of Botany Otto Stein lay primary in the morphogenesis of higher plants, the effects of chemicals on cell deformation, and the development of apical meristems. After receiving his doctorate from the University of Minnesota in 1954, Stein accepted a position at the University of Missouri, before coming to UMass in 1964, eventually becoming chair of the department. He left Amherst briefly to pursue a NATO Senior Research Fellowship at Imperial College in London, England (1971-1972), and remained active in the field until his retirement in 1990.

The bulk of the Stein collection is comprised of lecture notes on plant anatomy and reprints of Stein’s articles.

Noted for his research in photosynthesis and the redox activity associated with the plasma membrane of plant cells, the plant physiologist Arthur I. Stern served in the Botany and Biology Departments at UMass Amherst for over thirty years. Receiving his doctorate at Brandeis University for a dissertation under Jerome A. Schiff on chloroplast development in Euglena (1962), Stern spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow at the NIH before joining the Botany faculty at UMass. Teaching courses in plant metabolism, he continued his research on chloroplasts and photosynthesis in Euglena and Phaseolus, among other topics. In 1982, Stern helped develop the biology track for the Honors Program and new Commonwealth College. Stern transferred to the Biology Department in 1988 and retired in December 1997.

The Stern Papers contain a range of materials documenting Stern’s research on photosynthesis, particularly in Euglena, notes for research and teaching, and a small assortment of professional correspondence. Also of note are some reminiscences contributed by Stern following Jerome Schiff’s death in 1995.