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Andrea Ayvazian papers

 Collection
Identifier: SSC-MS-00760

Scope and Contents

Professional and personal papers, including correspondence, business records, sermons, writings, both published and unpublished, and teaching/workshop materials, especially strong in anti-racism material.

Dates of Materials

  • Creation: 1960 - 2015

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for use without restriction beyond the standard terms and conditions of Smith College Special Collections.

Conditions Governing Use

The Sophia Smith Collection owns copyright to the works in this collection created by Andrea Ayvazian. Copyright to materials authored by others may be owned by those individuals or their assigns. Permission must be obtained to publish reproductions or quotations beyond "fair use." It is the responsibility of the researcher to identify and satisfy all copyright holders.

Biographical Note

Andrea Ayvazian has held a variety of occupations over the years: labor and delivery nurse, mountaineering guide, anti-racism consultant, a teacher on the grade school level as well as college, a folk singer and published poet, a college dean of religous life, and a pastor. She credits her undergraduate years (1969-1973) at Oberlin College with her radicalization as a lifelong feminist, peace activist, and since 1982, a war tax resister. In addition to the BA in English Ayvazian earned at Oberlin (1973), she also holds a BS in nursing from UNC at Chapel Hill (1979), a MA in nursing from Duke University (1980), a PhD in Racial and Ethnic Studies from the Graduate School of The Union Institute (1994), and a Masters of Divinity from Yale University (1998). In the 1980s, after a few years of teaching biology and ethics at Hampshire College, Ayvazian worked for the Peace Development Fund, based in Amherst, Massachusetts, before founding her own non-profit organization, Communitas, Inc. which specialized in providing anti-racism training and education for a varity of clients in Northampton and nationwide. During the 1990s, she also taught in the Smith College School for Social Work. In 1996, she became the Protestant chaplain at Mount Holyoke College and two years later was appointed Dean of Religious Life there. Since 2005, Ayvazian has been a pastor at the Haydenville Congregational Church in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she has continued her lifelong activism for"peace, social justice, LBGT civil rights and civil liberties, and environmental sustainability"(http://haydenvillechurch.org/about/pastors/). She and her life partner, Michael Klare, Five Colleges Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, are the parents of Sasha Klare-Ayvazian and live in Northampton.

Extent

23.834 linear feet (23 containers)

0.395796 Gigabytes

Language of Materials

English

Additional Description

Abstract

Professional and personal papers, including correspondence, business records, sermons, writings, both published and unpublished, and teaching/workshop materials, especially strong in anti-racism material, of Andrea Ayvazian, labor and delivery nurse, mountaineering guide, anti-racism consultant, a teacher, a folk singer and published poet, a college dean of religous life, and a pastor.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

As a preservation measure, researchers must use digital copies of audiovisual materials in this collection. Please consult with Special Collections staff or email specialcollections@smith.edu to request the creation of and access to digital copies.

This collection contains materials received from the donor in digital form that are not currently available online. Please consult with Special Collections staff to request access to this digital content.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The collection was gifted by Andrea Ayvazian in 2015.

Related Materials

Frances Crowe Papers, Peace Collection, Felice Yeskel Papers

Processing Information

The contents of computer media in this collection has been copied to networked storage for preservation and access; the original directory and file structure was retained and file lists were created.

Related Names

Subject

Source

Subjects

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Finding aid in the Andrea Ayvazian papers
Status
Legacy Finding Aid (Updated)
Author
Madison White
Date
2018
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Revision Statements

  • 2017-07-26T17:48:24-04:00: This record was migrated from InMagic DB Textworks to ArchivesSpace.
  • 2018-10-18: Updated to conform to DACS
  • 2020-03-23: Added boxes 1-22 and oversize, updated dates
  • 2020-06-11: Description added for born-digital content.
  • 2020-09-14: Entered container instance info.

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History Repository

https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/about/sophia-smith-collection-womens-history
Contact:
Neilson Library
7 Neilson Drive
Northampton MA 01063

  • Smith College Special Collections
  • Neilson Library, 7 Neilson Drive
  • Northampton, Massachusetts, 01063
  • specialcollections@smith.edu
  • 413-585-2970

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Creative Commons License
Text and metadata are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.