NEWS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE               DATE: 3/22/07 CONTACT: LESLIE SCHALER, COMMUNICATION ASST., (413) 545-0162 UMASS AMHERST LIBRARIES HOSTS A Celebration of the Life of Professor Emeritus John “Jack” Maki Amherst, MA – The UMass Amherst Libraries will host a celebration of the life of professor emeritus of political science John “Jack” Maki on Thursday April 19, 2007, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., in Special Collections & University Archives (Floor 25, in W.E.B. Du Bois Library).  Professor Maki died on December 7, 2006 at the age of 97; April 19th would have been his 98th birthday. Guests are invited to share stories and memories. An exhibit of photographs, manuscripts, maps, and reports that Professor Maki donated to the Library will be on display.  The event is free and open to the public, refreshments will be served.  Professor Maki’s involvement with UMass Amherst began in 1966.  He played many administrative roles: chair of the Program of Asian Studies; vice dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (1967-70); presiding officer of the Faculty Senate (1975-6); a leader of the American Association of University Professors; president of Phi Beta Kappa.  He was also the first president of the New England Conference of the Association of Asian Studies.  He retired in 1980 and was a “founding father” of the Retired Faculty Association.  He helped forge a sister-state agreement between Massachusetts and Hokkaido (1987).  In 1999, he was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal. According to Professor of Chinese Alan Cohen, "Professor Maki was the creator of the predecessor of Asian Languages and Literatures (A.L.L.). As Dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences he initiated a proposal to form an African and Asian studies program. Bill Naff, a former student of Professor Maki's, was brought to UMass to be the founder of the Asian Studies Program (which eventually became A.L.L.).  It is from the seed planted by Professor Maki that the A.L.L. we have today grew." John McGilvrey Maki, was born Hiroo Sugiyama in Tacoma, Washington, of parents who had emigrated from Japan.  They gave him up soon after birth to be raised by the McGilvrey family, whereupon he became John McGilvrey.  On marrying in 1936 he took the name Maki, a Japanese near-approximation of the first syllable of his adoptive surname.  Maki earned his BA in 1932 and MA in 1936 in English literature from the University of Washington.  His M.A. thesis was a translation of a French study, Le Roman et les Idées en Angleterre: l’Influence de Science (1860-1890).  According to his autobiography, Voyage through the 20th Century, after he was advised that “with my Japanese face, I could never get an appointment to teach English literature,” he shifted to Japanese literature, a change that entailed learning Japanese.  Maki spent the years 1936-38 in Japan doing research and taught at University of Washington beginning in the spring of 1939.  Interned with other Americans of Japanese descent in 1942, he was released after one month because he had been offered a job in Washington, D.C. with the Federal Communications Commission; he moved later to the Office of War Information.  In 1946 he went to Japan with the Occupation; in recent years he was pleased to find his Occupation memos reproduced in a Japanese compilation of Occupation documents.  He received his PhD in political science from Harvard (1948); Harvard accepted his first book, Japanese Militarism: Its Cause and Cure (1945), in lieu of a thesis.  Maki taught at the University of Washington until 1966, when he moved to the University of Massachusetts.  In 1976 Hokkaido University awarded Maki an honorary doctorate.  In 1983, in recognition of efforts to further U.S.-Japan relations, he was awarded the Third Class Order of the Sacred Treasure by the emperor of Japan. For John “Jack” Maki’s obituary: http://www.umass.edu/loop/people/articles/42743.php. For more information about this event or to make reservations, contact Sharon Domier, (413) 577-2633, sdomier@library.umass.edu