News

Director Andrea Segre discusses film work

“Mediterranean Interrupted: Human Rights, Love, Rebellion, Testimony and Filmmaking,” an audiovisual conversation with international award-winning director Andrea Segre, will be presented Tuesday, March 12 at 5:30 p.m. in 301 Herter Hall. The talk will be accompanied by excerpts from his documentaries “The Green Blood,” “Like a Man on Earth” and “Closed Sea.”
 
Segre is a director of fictions and documentaries for cinema and television and also a researcher in sociology of communication.

Visiting Writers Series hosts Lysley Tenorio March 14

The Visiting Writers Series will host author Lysley Tenorio on Thursday, March 14 at 8 p.m. at the University Club.

Tenorio is the author of the short story collection "Monstress." His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Zoetrope: All-Story, Manoa, and The Best New American Voices and Pushcart Prize anthologies. A Whiting Writer's Award winner and a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, he has received fellowships from the University of Wisconsin, Phillips Exeter Academy and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The event is free and open to the public.

Retired Faculty Association to hear about research libraries in digital age

Jay Schafer, director of Libraries, will discuss “Research Libraries in the Digital Age” as the featured speaker during the Retired Faculty Association meeting on Wednesday, March 13, starting at 10 a.m. in 162-65 Campus Center.
 
The business meeting, with coffee and cookies, will begin at 10 a.m. followed at 10:30 by a presentation by Dennis Swinford, director of Campus Planning, on “Campus construction projects.” Schafer’s talk is at 11.
 
 
 

Dakin Pancake Breakfast set for March 16 at Renaissance Center

The annual Dakin “All You Can Eat” Pancake Breakfast is being held Saturday, March 16, 8 a.m. to noon at the Renaissance Center, 650 East Pleasant St.

Volunteer chefs will provide a palate-pleasing buffet of pancakes, sausage, bacon and beverages with maple syrup tapped from sugar maples on the center’s property and generously donated by local sugarer Richard McIntire and his grandsons.

The suggested donation of $10 for adults and $5 for children.

For information, contact the center at renaissance@english.umass.edu or 577-3600.

Author Charles Mann to lecture March 12 at Renaissance Center

Best-selling author and Amherst resident Charles C. Mann will speak Tuesday, March 12 at 4:30 p.m. at the Renaissance Center as part of its Celebrity Lecture Series

Mann's international bestseller "1491" ripped down the notion that Columbus tamed a continent of scattered, uncivilized natives. His subsequent book, "1493," completes this historical re-envisioning, inviting readers to view the arrival of Europeans in the Americas through a powerful lens—as an interaction that sparked the first truly global exchange system.

Keck Foundation awards $1m for research on ultrathin films

Physicists Narayanan Menon, Benny Davidovitch and Christopher Santangelo, with polymer scientist Thomas Russell, recently won a three-year, $1 million Keck Foundation grant to develop the basic science needed to spontaneously deliver ultrathin films to fluid interfaces. The W.M. Keck Science and Engineering program funds “endeavors that are distinctive and novel in their approach. It encourages projects that are high-risk with the potential for transformative impact.”
 
As Menon explains, he and his collaborators will build upon their previous successes to tackle a handful of new problems,

New course proposal

The following new course proposal has been submitted to the Faculty Senate Office for review and approval and is listed here for faculty review and comment. Comments on any new course proposal should be submitted to Ernest May, secretary of the Faculty Senate, at senate@senate.umass.edu.

MICROBIO 695, “Applied Molecular Biotechnology Laboratory (AMBL)," credits 5/5/7; Instructor: Jeffrey J. Kane; The Applied Molecular Biotechnology Laboratory (AMBL) is a requisite course for the M.S. concentration in Applied Molecular Biotechnology.

Toong wins Silver Plate Award

Ken Toong, executive director of Auxiliary Enterprises, has been named a winner of a 2013 Silver Plate Award from the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association (IFMA) in the colleges and universities category.
 
Now in its 59th year, the awards program recognizes excellence in eight segments of foodservice operations. From among the winners, one will be named the 2013 IFMA Gold Plate Award winner at the annual Gold & Silver Plate Celebration on May 20 in Chicago.
           
“The awards allow us to pay tribute to these outstanding individuals whose contributions advance their

Pham awarded grants to strengthen speech-language services for Vietnamese communities

Giang Pham, assistant professor in Communication Disorders, was recently awarded two grants to strengthen communication needs and services to Vietnamese communities regionally and abroad.
 
The campus’s International Studies Council and International Programs Office awarded Pham a $5,000 Internationalization Grant to conduct an exploratory trip to Vietnam during the 2013-14 academic year.

Nieswandt invited to University of Bremen as visiting scholar

Martina Nieswandt, associate professor in the School of Education's Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies, was an invited visiting scholar to the University of Bremen, Germany, in January and February.
 
During her stay, she worked with elementary pre-service teachers on topics such as gender and science, and scientific literacy in a course taught by professor Brunhilde Marquardt-Mau.

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