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December 7, 2015

What do moose fat, algae blooms, classroom and office assignments, urban residential segregation and crackling fireplaces have in common? A fascinating showcase of research by scholars and practitioners from around the Five Colleges showed how spatial analysis – the study of social and material dynamics through their patterns in physical space – can offer new layers of understanding about the natural and social patterns and inequalities all around us. 

December 7, 2015

In May, the Washington Posts’s “Wonkblog” argued that the next frontier of workplace legislation was “over when you work, not how much you make.”  UMass Amherst sociologists Naomi Gerstel and Dan Clawson pen the lead article of today's Work in Progress (the blog of the American Sociological Association's section on Organizations, Occupations and Work). Drawing from their recent award-winning book, Unequal Time, they detail the ways scheduling can impact workers in a variety of ways. Their post provides  excellent context for the blog's panel, featuring posts by Kyla Walters and Joya Misra (also at UMass) who describe the constraints placed on workers in the retail industry, and Brian Halpin (of U.C. Davis Sociology) detailing the use of last minute scheduling in a restaurant kitchen. 

ICE immigrant removal flight to Guatemala / Charles Reed
December 7, 2015

Hundreds of thousands of Central Americans, deported from Mexico and the United States, have arrived back in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in the past five years. Often facing conditions that are worse now than when they departed, this rapidly growing population of deportees—including tens of thousands of children—are in danger of entering a revolving door of migration, deportation, and remigration. Without comprehensive reception and reintegration services, deportees struggle to anchor themselves again in their countries of origin. Yet there is little research on current services and their successes and limitations. On this webinar, MPI researchers will discuss findings from their new report including a detailed examination of reception and reintegration services in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. They will also provide information on the types of services returning migrants receive, their funding sources and capacities, and the number of beneficiaries in each country, while highlighting elements conducive to successful reintegration strategies.  

December 3, 2015

Program: The Data Incubator is an intensive 8 week fellowship that prepares masters, PhDs, and postdocs in STEM and social science fields seeking industry careers as data scientists. The program is free for Fellows and supported by sponsorships from hundreds of employers across multiple industries. In response to the overwhelming interest in our earlier sessions, we will be holding another fellowship.

Locations: There will be both an in-person (in NYC, DC, SF) and online section of the fellowship. There is a common application for both the online and in-person sections.

Dates: All sections will be from 2016-03-21 to 2016-05-13

Application Linkhttp://www.thedataincubator.com/#apply?ref=wYmJlcnJ5QGxycmMudW1hc3MuZWR1

John McCarthy, Dean of the Graduate School at UMass Amherst
December 3, 2015

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) recently awarded the distinction of Fellow to John J. McCarthy, senior vice provost for academic affairs and dean of the Graduate School, and Michael J. Maroney, professor of chemistry, “for their efforts toward advancing science applications that are deemed scientifically or socially distinguished.” McCarthy, a Distinguished University Professor who has served as vice provost and dean since 2012, was recognized for his “distinguished contributions to linguistic science, particularly in formal models of phonological representation, and in developing a new scientific paradigm for constraint-based natural language grammars.” See here for more information about our distinguished colleague.

November 30, 2015

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Understanding and Using the Head Start CARES Data

Join us for a webinar on Dec 17, 2015 at 1:30 PM EST. The Head Start CARES (Classroom-based Approaches and Resources for Emotion and Social skill promotion) demonstration tests three distinct approaches to enhancing children's social-emotional development on a large scale within the Head Start system - the largest federally funded early-childhood education program in the US. This 90-minute webinar will introduce the Head Start CARES Demonstration data archive and impact analysis model, and review the data organization and instruments available for the  project.

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