Meet Ph.D. Candidate Eean Grimshaw!
By Grace Keller and Gabby Grondalski
Eean Grimshaw is a Ph.D. candidate in the Communication Department here at UMass Amherst. He grew up in Boise, Idaho, and attended the University of Montana for his undergraduate degree. During his freshman year at school, he was working towards a degree in Mathematics until he discovered his interest in Native American studies. Growing up, his Grandmother always had an interest in Native art, so he had previous exposure to that culture. The Native American department was very small and “the major was primarily there to help native students if they had a hard time being away from their reservation.” After spending some time in his classes just listening and learning more, he eventually started engaging in class and developing friendships with the native students. In one of his classes, he learned how to speak Arapaho, which is one of the Plains Algonquian languages, closely related to Gros Ventre and other Arapahoan languages.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Native American studies, he took some time off from academia. During this time, he coached lacrosse and worked at a restaurant. However, after a couple of years, he felt starved of academic challenges and decided to go back to school to receive his master’s degree in Communication at the University of Montana. “What has driven me to get my masters, and eventually my Ph.D., is an interest in intercultural spaces where natives and non-natives are interacting with one another. That certainly has been a foundational part of some of my experiences and who I am. I am interested in what happens in those spaces because there are a lot of negative things like racism and stereotyping.” His master’s thesis focused on the controversial issues regarding the Washington football team and their mascot. “It was about the complicated discussions that occur in Indian countries, specifically with the Blackfeet tribe. The Washington team logo was designed by a tribal member and it is a side image of a historic Blackfeet tribal chief.”
When applying to Ph.D. programs, Eean found only a few Universities where the faculty did similar indigenous work. The reason Eean came to UMass was because of Donal Carbaugh, who received his master’s degree from the University of Montana, and worked with the Blackfeet for 30 years. Eean and Donal have a lot of similar interests in the Blackfeet people, and have had opportunities to collaborate and co-author publications. They also have a couple of book chapters coming out this year. Eean’s dissertation is on the Blackfeet which is a program run out of Glacier National Park. To do his work for his dissertation, he lived on the reservation two summers ago with his colleague Robert Hall. They met at the University of Montana, and their friendship began when they learned how to speak Arapaho together in an accelerated second language acquisition program.
This semester, Eean is teaching three sections of Cultural Codes in Communication with professor Benjamin Bailey. He teaches synchronously and enjoys being able to have engagement with the students. “It’s a neat class because it allows me to bring in some of my dissertation stuff to share. We have built that into the syllabus which is awesome.” Eean loves to be in the classroom with his students, “I’m a teacher and educator first and foremost. That’s the role I love the most.” His favorite class to teach is the first-year seminar. “I like to be the person that the students recognize as someone in the department that has taken an interest in their education. It’s an important role to have… someone who is compassionate and empathetic with their students.”
His advice to Communication students is to “take yourself seriously. Don’t sell yourself short in what you’re getting your degree in and what you’re getting an education in. I do believe that a Communication degree is one of the most versatile degrees that you can get. It doesn’t devalue it. It makes it more valuable. We (the department) can be a place where people who have very different interests and very different ideas of how things work or how they see the world can come and get perspective and understanding about how to communicate and understand that communication. So if we have people that want to go into business, sports broadcasting, writing, and entertainment, we can support them. All of that can be done within Communication. It’s hard when students don’t believe that themselves.” Eean is passionate about what he does and contributes to many different parts of the Communication Department. We are very fortunate to have him at UMass, and we look forward to seeing all that he accomplishes.