A Celebration of Leadership Transition

Celebration of Leadership Transition

WORDS OF GRATITUDE ÁNGEL DAVID NIEVES

INCOMING DIRECTOR

I want to thank Dean Poiger and Dr. Lori Lefkovitz in their respective roles for their ongoing and uninterrupted support of the Humanities Center, and and for their ongoing and uninterrupted support of me as theme leader this past year for the fellowship under the broad framework of “Reckonings.” I also want to thank Gabrielle Fiorenza-Hagopian for coordinating our fellowship and events and making everything run so smoothly and beautifully. Uta and Lori’s support has allowed me to be an eyewitness to the ways in which interdisciplinary faculty work across multiple disciplines, demonstrating why the humanities have always mattered in the life of the mind and should continue to matter. It has been an honor to have been entrusted with the Fellows Program this past year. I can’t thank Lori enough for this opportunity. I have grown to admire and cherish my new friends and colleagues from this enriching experience. Lori has been one of the most welcoming people to Northeastern that anyone could ever imagine. She inevitably deciphered that I was from New York — my Flushing, Queens accent (which I have worked hard to keep hidden) was not so well hidden from her — and she began her many (some subtle, some not so subtle) ways of interrogating an individual without appearing to be asking a lot of questions. Very matter of fact, just graceful enough, in that motherly, but way too smart way that she has, that you might not notice how much she was really trying to glean from your answers and how she reframed the subsequent questions so as to garner even more info. We eventually got to talking even more, and the overlaps between our stories as children of immigrant parents were undeniable. Lori’s sense of humor, her deep intellect, and her vast knowledge of the humanities and how it intersects across fields, sub-fields, and disciplines are testament to the foundation she has laid for the Humanities Center today. The numerous awards, grants, and the Faculty Fellows Program make up only a part of the ways in which the Humanities Center has helped to shape a bold conversation about the importance of the humanities in today’s STEM-obsessed academy, one still too focused on a single-minded corporate finance model that has proven unreliable and unsustainable, as it espouses a quasi neo-liberal university laden jargon. The Humanities at NU have provided, and will continue to provide, a model for ways of looking at a critical university studies framework while also engaging in collaborative, sustainable, carbon-neutral, community co-created projects across all our fields so that we can come to terms with the sorts of inequalities we have helped to reinforce at institutions of higher education, and that we can similarly help to dismantle. Lori has given us a path, and the runway needed for this sort of critically engaged scholarship, for which I am grateful as the Center’s next Director.

GABRIELLE FIORENZA-HAGOPIAN

I’m fortunate to have been a part of the Humanities Center since July 2018; as the sole staff member of the Center I gained immeasurable experience supporting the many events, programs, and research initiatives the Center housed. Working alongside Lori throughout the years has been a pleasure, whether she is doling out sage advice or leading the Center through the tumult that was the early days of the COVID pandemic, she has always led with intelligence, humor, and passion. I was introduced to Ángel in 2020 when he joined the CSSH faculty and was about to convene our “Reckonings” Fellowship group. I was immediately greeted by his signature warmth and witnessed his valuable insights and dedication to the humanities during our Fellowship meetings. As I move on to my next chapter within Northeastern University and reflect on the incredible individuals I’ve collaborated with, it is truly a bittersweet goodbye.