Thomas is new chair of Board of Trustees

Henry M. Thomas, III, of Springfield, is the new chair of the Board of Trustees following his appointment June 27 by Gov. Deval Patrick.  Thomas, who was appointed to the board by Patrick in September 2007, succeeds James J. Karam, whose term as chair expired at the end of the academic year. Karam will serve on the board until February, when his term ends.

Thomas, who is president of the Urban League of Springfield, most recently served as the board’s vice chair and chair of its Committee on Academic and Student Affairs.

“Henry Thomas is the consummate citizen-servant.

McBride, Harb share in creative economy grants

A Journalism Program partnership with Springfield’s Commerce High School and a joint effort with UMass Dartmouth to promote the development of permaculture gardens have been awarded grants from the President’s Creative Economy Initiatives Fund.
 
President Robert L. Caret last week announced more than $259,000 in grants from the fund to support nine faculty-led projects that promote the arts and culture in Massachusetts. Awards were made to faculty from the Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth and Lowell campuses.
 
Journalism professor Nicholas McBride was awarded $25,000 for a project to bring

Police station is second campus building to receive LEED Gold certification

The UMass Amherst Police Station has been awarded LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI).
 
LEED—Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design—is the nation’s preeminent program for the design, construction and operation of high-performance green buildings.
 
The building was designed by Caolo & Bieniek Associates, Inc. of Chicopee. The general contractor was CTA Construction Company of Waltham.
 
The station is unique both in terms of LEED certification and building use, according to

Campus researchers, international team, say past periodic warmth in Arctic may be related to melting Antarctic ice sheets

First analyses of the longest sediment core ever collected on land in the Arctic, published this week inScience, provide dramatic, “astonishing” documentation that intense warm intervals, warmer than scientists thought possible, occurred there over the past 2.8 million years.
 
Further, these extreme inter-glacial warm periods correspond closely with times when parts of Antarctica were ice-free and also warm, suggesting strong inter-hemispheric climate connectivity, say the project’s three co-chief scientists. The polar regions are much more vulnerable to change than once believed, they add.

Computer scientists, biostatistician share in system technology grants

Faculty members from the College of Natural Sciences and the School of Public Health and Health Sciences are among the recipients of nearly $750,000 in grants from the President’s Science and Technology Initiatives Fund announced June 18 by President Robert L. Caret.

Computer scientists Yanlei Diao, Preshant Shenoy and Deepak Ganesan were awarded a total of $321,250 and biostatistician Andrea Foulkes received $97,500 through the fund, which provides seed grants to accelerate research activity across all five campuses and position researchers to attract larger investments from external sources

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