Leo Hwang

Assistant Academic Dean

College of Natural Sciences

University of Massachusetts

Amherst, MA, USA

Degrees

B.A. English and Fine Arts, University of the South

M.F.A. English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Ph.D. Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Honors and Awards

Mountain Scholars Program: a College Success Program for Students of Color, Department of Higher Education and the Lumina Foundation: $100,000.00, 2020
Bridges to College: Department of Higher Education Grant for helping adult learners transition to college: $56,938.00, 2019
Liberty Bell Award in recognition of contribution to justice in Franklin County, 2018
Common Good Reads Program: Supporting Changing Lives Through Literature from Mass Humanities: $1,500.00, 2016-17
Rethinking the Creative Economy: Participatory Action Research in the Greater Franklin County from the University of MassachusettsPresident’s Creative Economy Fund: $32,200, 2010-2011
Fostering Art and Culture Project of the Greater Franklin County from the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s John and Abigail Adams Program, Greenfield Community College: $48,000, 2010-2011
Federal Appropriation for Fostering the Arts and Culture in Franklin County from the Department of Education, Greenfield Community College: $167,030, 2008-2011
Federal Appropriation for developing a web portal for Arts and Culture in Franklin County, Greenfield Community College: $30,000, 2008-2011
Fostering Art and Culture in Franklin County, economic development grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s John and Abigail Adams Program, Greenfield Community College: $15,000, 2008-2009
Fostering Arts and Culture in Franklin County, economic development grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s John and Abigail Adams Program, Greenfield Community College: $57,107, 2006-2007
Community College Leadership Academy, Scholar, 2006
Rosselli/deFilippis Scholarship, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, 2002
Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, work-study scholarship, 2001-2003
Excellence in Teaching Award, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1997

Research Interests

Economic/Human Geography, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Diverse Economies, Community Economies, Creative Economy, Collaboration, Creativity, Community Colleges, Higher Education.

Current Project: Rethinking the Creative Economy: Participatory Action Research with Artists and Artisans in the Greater Franklin County

Links

Leo's Website

Rethinking the Creative Economy Project

Curriculum vitae

Hwang CV .pdf

Publications

"Focusing on Assets: Action Research for an Inclusive and Diverse Workplace," The Handbook of Diverse Economies

In higher education, efforts to diversify the workforce and create a more inclusive and repre- sentative environment for students and employees have often been stymied by institutionalized racism, a lack of resources, and a lack of institutional energy. In this chapter I discuss an action research intervention, inspired by diverse economies scholarship, that was aimed at valuing and strengthening diversity and inclusion in a community college setting. A starting point for the project was the recognition that within the workplace there are multiple forms of work being performed, and associated ways of being, that fall outside of the traditional identity of a waged worker being paid for services rendered. For instance, the work of creating an inclu- sive workplace relies on volunteering, college service, gifting, mentoring, professional devel- opment, sweat equity – all practices that help create a sense of community that is larger than just an educational services enterprise in which teaching is delivered in return for monetary payment. In a complex organization like a community college, the business orientation of the ‘enterprise’ thus sits alongside non-capitalist orientations. In a climate of increasingly limited resources, it is the combination of non-capitalist practices and diverse identities that has the potential to engender change and drive the mission of the workplace to become more diverse and more inclusive. This chapter describes the context and process of using an assets-based approach to highlight diversity and enhance inclusion in a community college setting.

Butler’s Tourism Area Life Cycle and Its Expansion to the Creative Economy

In 1980, R. W. Butler published his tourism area cycle of evolution model graphing a correlation of number of tourists on the y-axis and time on the x-axis. Although a location’s capacity for number of tourists and the specific number of sustainable years may vary from location to location, Butler proposed that every tourist location evolves through a common set of stages: exploration, involvement, development, consolidation, stagnation, and then some variation of rejuvenation or decline. Butler’s model frames the resources that enable a region to become a tourist destination as finite and ultimately exhaustible.

Rather than imagining a tourist destination always being a tourist destination, Butler recognizes that change is constant and that, ultimately, the initial reasons a location becomes a desirable tourist destination will no longer exist and the location will either need to seek rejuvenation or face decline. Embedded within Butler’s model is a call for sustainability and the conservation of resources, thereby increasing the length of time a location can maintain being a viable tourist destination. There is also an implicit call for closer collaboration and integration of the tourism industry and the local community to better shield the local community from potential exploitation or disenfranchisement.

Rethinking the Creative Economy: Utilizing Participatory Action Research to Develop the Community Economy of Artists and Artisans The Rethinking the Creative Economy Project utilzed the Community Economies model and a participatory action research methodology to explore non-capitalist practices of artists and artisans in Franklin County, Massachusetts. This article begins a conversation about how to explore economic development of the creative economy in ways that strengthen artists and artisans in a postcapitalist framework.

Rethinking the Creative Economy: Utilizing Participatory Action Research to Develop the Community Economy of Artists and Artisans

Artists and artisans have a crucial role in the sustainability of the creative economy. By utilizing a participatory action research approach seeded by the work of J. K. Gibson-Graham, Jenny Cameron, and Julie Graham's study of community economies in the Pioneer Valley, The Rethinking the Creative Economy Project demonstrates how a collaborative research methodology can reappropriate development from the exploitation of artists and artisans as a panacea for economically challenged communities and as a tool that can help perform a postcapitalist environment. The project seeks to promote the specific assets and strategies of artists and artisans in ways that will benefit the broader community by providing a thriving cultural milieu in which creative expression is valued and embraced and in which the explicit inclusion of a diverse economy fosters both the possibility and the reality of an improved quality of life.