University of Massachusetts Amherst Names the Next Dean of Its Graduate School

Jacqueline Urla, chair and professor of anthropology in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been named dean of the Graduate School at the university. She will begin her new duties on January 1.

Professor Urla is a linguistic and political anthropologist who has conducted long-term ethnographic research on Basque language and cultural politics. She teaches and writes about minority language revitalization in Europe, language ideology and power, visual anthropology, and the ethnography of grassroots cultural activism. Dr. Urla is the associate editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language.

Dr. Urla joined the faculty at the University of Massachuetts in 1990. From 2006 to 2008, she was interm director of the film studies program at the university. She is the author of Reclaiming Basque: Language, Nation and Cultural Activism (University of Nevada Press, 2012).

Professor Urla is a graduate of the University of Michigan. She earned a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley