ARTHUR S. KEENE
 
Professor of Anthropology
Terrence Murray Professor in Commonwealth College
 
Director, UMass Alliance for Community Transformation
 
Co-Director, UMass Citizen Scholar's Program

 
E-mail Address: keene@anthro.umass.edu
Postal Address:
Department of Anthropology
Machmer Hall
240 Hicks Way
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003-9278
 
Voice Phone: (413) 545-0214
Fax: (413) 545-9494
 
CLICK HERE for information on UMass Anthropology including information on the undergraduate major or minor, or admission to the graduate program.
Microbiography: I am a member of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts. I received my BA. from the University of Wisconsin in 1973 and my MA (1974) and Ph.D. (1979) from the University of Michigan. I formally trained as an archaeologist but my current research and teaching are in the fields of cultural and applied anthropology and community service learning. I have done field work in Israel, Australia, Norway, France, The Netherlands and in various venues in North America. My current research interests focus on issues of community and social justice. Throughout the eighties and nineties I conducted fieldwork on an Israeli kibbutz examining the struggles of this community to maintain its well established webs of mutual asstistance and commitment in the face of growing individualism and pressures to privatize. For the last ten years or so I have been asking the same questions that I have asked about the kibbutz in my own community in Amherst, Massachusetts. This has led me to experiment in the field of community service learning. I founded and direct the Curricular Alternative Spring Break Program at UMass. CASB (now affliated with the UMass Alliance for Community Transformation (UACT)) gives students the opportunity to combine rigorous course work with direct service to communities in need. I also co-direct the Citizen Scholars Program at UMass, a scholarship program designed to support students who want to combine academics and service while developing leadership skills. and preparing for life as engaged citizens in a diverse democracy. These efforts also reflect my ongoing interest in learning communities and in critical pedagogy. I currently sit on the steering committee of Educators for Community Engagement (formerly the Invisible College), a national organization dedicated to the promotion of community service learning as well on the editorial board for the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. I served as Associate Dean of Commonwealth College, the Honors College at UMass, during its inaugural year and currently hold the Terrence Murray Professorship within the college. I continue to teach honors courses for ComCol and work closely with a number of its students and with the Office of Community Service Learning at Commonwealth College. When I am not at the University or out in the field I am active in community activities in Amherst. I served for several years as an elected representative to Amherst Town Meeting. For many years I was a host parent in the A Better Chance Program in Amherst. I am also head coach of the Amherst Regional High School Women's Cross Country Team and co-meet director of the Amherst Cross Country Invitiational at Hampshire College.
ART KEENE'S COURSE SYLLABI AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
 
ART"S LISTS
 
COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING: PAPERS AND RESOURCES
 
AMHERST REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY
 
ISRAEL/PALESTINE: PAPERS AND RESOURCES