More than 1,200 members of the campus community contributed $764,238 to the 2012-13 Faculty and Staff Campaign, according to Sarah Sligo, executive director of Annual Giving.
The gift total represents a 5 percent increase in donations over last year, while the number of donors grew 6 percent to 1,229, said Sligo.
“Our faculty and staff really stepped up for this year's campaign, illustrating in this most tangible way the depth of their support for moving UMass Amherst forward,” said co-chair Robert Feldman, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
To help promote a culture
Professor Max Page of the Art, Art History and Architecture Department, is one of three scholars nationally named to receive the Rome Prize for Historic Preservation and Conservation, awarded annually by the American Academy in Rome to honor “the highest standard of excellence in the arts and humanities.”
As the campus marks its sesquicentennial, two of the major public events will be the formal inauguration of Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy on April 27 and the annual Founders Day cookout on the Goodell Lawn on April 29. 
Students, faculty and staff are being asked to help shape a new mission statement for University Health Services by participating in an upcoming survey, according to James Sheehan, vice chancellor for Administration and Finance.
Results of a new study by memory experts in the Psychology Department suggest that adding symbols such as stars or circles to license plates does not make them easier for adults to remember than the traditional plate with only letters and numbers.
For hundreds of years, naturalists and scientists have identified new species based on an organism’s visible differences. But now, new genetic techniques are revealing that different species can show little to no visible differences.