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Liberal Arts professor, director honored for lifetime contributions to humanities
Dr. Susan Roach, director of the School of Literature and Language at Louisiana Tech University, recently received the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities 2015 Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Humanities at an awards dinner in Baton Rouge.
Roach, who holds the Mildred Saunders Adams Endowed Professorship in English at Louisiana Tech, was honored according to the Endowment for “her tireless work as a folklorist, including the documentation and presentation of Louisiana arts and crafts, music, ritual traditions, occupational lore and foodways. She served as a key leader in Louisiana folklorists’ response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and continues to author new scholarship, most recently in her groundbreaking ‘Delta Pieces’ project.”
‘Delta Pieces,’ an online anthology on Northeast Louisiana folklife, includes 68 interactive essays illustrated with photographs and recordings, with 19 of the essays authored by Roach, who also served as editor with Maida Owens as co-editor.
According to state folklorist Maida Owens, Roach “has had an exceptional career as a public folklorist who has always maintained the highest of standards in all her efforts despite heavy teaching loads at times.”
After receiving her Ph. D. in folklore from the University of Texas, Roach returned home to her native Ruston to start her folklore career. In her initial folklife survey project done through Louisiana Tech’s English department in 1984, she documented five parishes which resulted in the exhibition and monograph, Gifts from the Hills: North Central Louisiana Folk Traditions.
Subsequently, she began teaching in the English department and continuing her folklore research publications in journals and anthologies and public folklore consulting with the Louisiana Folklife Festival and the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. In 1999, she received the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Special Humanities Award for another publication and exhibition, “On My Way: The Arts of Sarah Albritton,” a project also funded by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
From 1999 to 2009, Roach served as regional folklorist at Louisiana Tech for the Louisiana state Folklife Program. She documented folk artists and traditions, provided technical assistance to individuals and organizations, wrote essays for festival booklets, museum exhibitions, and professional articles, and conducted oral history and folklife documentation workshops as well as many presentations for the public and the Veterans History Project.
Roach also developed the Louisiana Quilt Documentation Project, in which she documented quilts, provided quilt documentation and preservation workshops, and finally created an online quilt database which includes 2,272 quilts as well as essays on quilts and quilt exhibition and documentation. This database is also included in The Quilt Index, a national project based at Michigan State University. In 2009 when budget cuts closed the state’s regional folklife program, Roach continued to teach folklore, African American literature, and technical writing courses and served as the technical writing program coordinator. In 2011, she was appointed director of the School of Literature and Language.
The awards are given annually by the state’s humanities council as part of its efforts to recognize the individuals and organizations making invaluable contributions to the culture of Louisiana.
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities to all residents of the state. Its mission is to provide access to and an appreciation of Louisiana’s rich, shared, and diverse historical, literary, and cultural heritage through grant-supported outreach programs; early childhood education, family literacy, and adult reading initiatives; teacher professional development institutes; publications; film and radio documentaries; museum exhibitions; public lectures; library projects; and other diverse public humanities programming.
Since 1971, the LEH has been the organizational standard-bearer for historical, cultural, and needs-driven, outcomes-based educational programming, across all 64 Louisiana parishes.
Written by Judith Roberts – jroberts@latech.edu
Dr. Susan Roach receives the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Humanities from Drew Tessier of LEH Board of Directors (Photo credit: Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.)
Roach, who holds the Mildred Saunders Adams Endowed Professorship in English at Louisiana Tech, was honored according to the Endowment for “her tireless work as a folklorist, including the documentation and presentation of Louisiana arts and crafts, music, ritual traditions, occupational lore and foodways. She served as a key leader in Louisiana folklorists’ response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and continues to author new scholarship, most recently in her groundbreaking ‘Delta Pieces’ project.”
‘Delta Pieces,’ an online anthology on Northeast Louisiana folklife, includes 68 interactive essays illustrated with photographs and recordings, with 19 of the essays authored by Roach, who also served as editor with Maida Owens as co-editor.
According to state folklorist Maida Owens, Roach “has had an exceptional career as a public folklorist who has always maintained the highest of standards in all her efforts despite heavy teaching loads at times.”
After receiving her Ph. D. in folklore from the University of Texas, Roach returned home to her native Ruston to start her folklore career. In her initial folklife survey project done through Louisiana Tech’s English department in 1984, she documented five parishes which resulted in the exhibition and monograph, Gifts from the Hills: North Central Louisiana Folk Traditions.
Subsequently, she began teaching in the English department and continuing her folklore research publications in journals and anthologies and public folklore consulting with the Louisiana Folklife Festival and the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. In 1999, she received the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Special Humanities Award for another publication and exhibition, “On My Way: The Arts of Sarah Albritton,” a project also funded by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
From 1999 to 2009, Roach served as regional folklorist at Louisiana Tech for the Louisiana state Folklife Program. She documented folk artists and traditions, provided technical assistance to individuals and organizations, wrote essays for festival booklets, museum exhibitions, and professional articles, and conducted oral history and folklife documentation workshops as well as many presentations for the public and the Veterans History Project.
Roach also developed the Louisiana Quilt Documentation Project, in which she documented quilts, provided quilt documentation and preservation workshops, and finally created an online quilt database which includes 2,272 quilts as well as essays on quilts and quilt exhibition and documentation. This database is also included in The Quilt Index, a national project based at Michigan State University. In 2009 when budget cuts closed the state’s regional folklife program, Roach continued to teach folklore, African American literature, and technical writing courses and served as the technical writing program coordinator. In 2011, she was appointed director of the School of Literature and Language.
The awards are given annually by the state’s humanities council as part of its efforts to recognize the individuals and organizations making invaluable contributions to the culture of Louisiana.
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational opportunities to all residents of the state. Its mission is to provide access to and an appreciation of Louisiana’s rich, shared, and diverse historical, literary, and cultural heritage through grant-supported outreach programs; early childhood education, family literacy, and adult reading initiatives; teacher professional development institutes; publications; film and radio documentaries; museum exhibitions; public lectures; library projects; and other diverse public humanities programming.
Since 1971, the LEH has been the organizational standard-bearer for historical, cultural, and needs-driven, outcomes-based educational programming, across all 64 Louisiana parishes.
Written by Judith Roberts – jroberts@latech.edu
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