UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Melissa Leaym-Fernandez, assistant teaching professor, College of Visual and Performing Arts, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, New Bedford, Massachusetts, has been named the 2025 recipient of the Linda Stein Upstander Award administered by Penn State University Libraries.
The Linda Stein Upstander Award honoring Joyce and Diane Froot annually supports social justice activists from around the world whose artistic or scholarly work promotes upstander activities. An online legacy statement about the Linda Stein Upstander Award describes Joyce Froot and Linda Stein’s friendship spanning nearly five decades and Froot’s active collection of Stein’s artwork.
To pursue her project, “The Marginalized Upstander: Engaging the Superpower of Community Service,” Leaym-Fernandez will receive $1,500 plus a $2,000 travel grant and will have full access to Penn State’s Linda Stein Art Education Collection in the University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections and Stein’s papers at Smith College Libraries’ Special Collections, as well as Stein’s websites haveartwilltravel.org and lindastein.com. Leaym-Fernandez’s resulting work will be developed for publication and archived in an online repository managed by the University Libraries.
In her application, Leaym-Fernandez wrote that her project will explore “connections between Linda Stein's ‘Displacement [from] Home’ Series and ‘The Ugly Doll’ project (completed with South Coast Massachusetts women, college students and teens) making 100 ugly dolls for a local shelter as purpose-filled upstanders. Writing about the project and art-based research I will share my findings and connections between upstander action, art education, Linda Stein Archives at Smith and [Penn State Special Collections] and the use of The Four Loves framework as one tool to help folks (re)discover empowerment and happiness.”
She added, “I survived many of experiences my students were currently facing and living through — I became a supportive insider — I was an unintentional upstander.”
Leaym-Fernandez will be honored and offer a presentation about her research project in March 2026 at Penn State University Park.
Justice activists from around the world whose artistic or scholarly work promotes upstander activities are encouraged to apply for the Linda Stein Upstander Award. Applicants are expected to have specific plans to research archival materials from Penn State’s Linda Stein Art Education Collection and Stein’s papers at Smith College Libraries’ Special Collections for their proposed projects.
Interested applicants may visit the online application site for more information. The annual application deadline for the 2026 award is 11:59 p.m. on Feb. 1.