Weekly Bulletin

Mystery writer Archer Mayor to read at Libraries' Dinner with Friends

Mystery author Archer Mayor will be the guest speaker at the Friends of the UMass Amherst Libraries’ 11th annual “Dinner with Friends,” on Saturday, April 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the Du Bois Library.
 
Mayor is the author of the bestselling, Vermont-based mystery series featuring detective Joe Gunther, which the Chicago Tribune describes as “the best police procedurals being written in America.” He will be reading from and autographing copies of his newest novel, “Paradise City,” which is set in Northampton. The evening includes a champagne and hors d’oeuvre reception with music by student jazz

Applications open for Du Bois Fellowships

The Libraries offer short-term residential fellowships to assist younger scholars in conducting research in Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. Full-time graduate students, faculty, or independent scholars (with a Ph.D.) are eligible to apply. Fellows will receive a stipend of $2,500 for a four-week residency. The deadline for applications is April 19. For more information: http://bit.ly/dubois_fellowship. 
 
Among the approximately 15,000 linear feet of manuscripts held by SCUA are many valuable collections for the study of social change in the

Research images from VISUAL collection on view at Science and Engineering Library

“Images From VISUAL,” featuring 15 22-by-24-inch images captured during campus research, is on view through April 7 in the Science and Engineering Library, in the Lederle Graduate Research Center Lowrise, floor 2. Accompanying each image is a description in non-technical terms that explains the science behind the picture.
 
Ventures in Science Using Art Laboratory (VISUAL) is an educational outreach program of the National Science Foundation-supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC).  VISUAL is based on the premise that the visual arts can serve as an effective

Visiting Writers Series hosts poet Clark Coolidge March 28

The Visiting Writers Series will host poet Clark Coolidge on Thursday, March 28, at 8 p.m. at Memorial Hall.

Coolidge is a poet and jazz musician connected to both the Language movement and the New York school. Coolidge’s numerous collections of poetry include "Sound as Thought," which was chosen for the New American Poetry Series, "This Time We Are Both," "Own Face," and "Flag Flutter & U.S. Electric." His work is included in the collections "An Anthology of New York Poets" and in 1968’ s "The Young American Poets." He is a contributing editor for Sulfur.

The event is free and open to the

New course proposals

The following new course proposals have been submitted to the Faculty Senate Office for review and approval and are 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.

EDUC 647A, “Assistive Technology for Learners with Disabilities,” 3 credits; Instructor: Jason Travers; Focuses on benefits, affordances, problems, practices, and law related to the use of technology to support academic, social, communication, and adaptive development of students with special education

Doctoral oral exams for March 25-29

The graduate dean invites all graduate faculty to attend the final oral examinations for the doctoral candidates scheduled as follows:

Jorge Trabal, Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering. Monday, March 25, 9 a.m., 109 Knowles Engineering Building. Dissertation: “Data Quality Assessment and Rainfall Estimation Using Dense Radar Networks.” David McLaughlin, chr.

Marcil Boucher, Ph.D., Communication Disorders. Monday, March 25, 10 a.m., 358 N. Pleasant Street, room 206. Dissertation: “Evaluation of Motor Speech and Intervention Planning for Children with Autism.” Mary Andrianopoulos, chr.

Spring equinox programs offered at Sunwheel

The public is invited to witness sunrise and sunset associated with the spring equinox among the standing stones of the UMass Amherst Sunwheel on Wednesday, March 20 at 6:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. The events mark the astronomical change of seasons when days and nights are nearly equal in length in the Northern Hemisphere.
 
At the gatherings, which have attracted more than 10,000 visitors over the past 15 years, astronomers Judith Young and Stephen Schneider will discuss the astronomical cause of the sun’s changing position during the hour-long gatherings.

Penn State historian speaks on legacies of violence in Jim Crow era

Pennsylvania State University professor Nan Woodruff will present the Five College History Annual Lecture on Thursday, March 28 at 4 p.m. in the Cape Cod Lounge of the Student Union.
 
Woodruff’s lecture is titled “Living with the Legacies of Violence in the Jim Crow South: Memory, Trauma and the Civil Rights Movement.”
 
The event is free and open to the public.

Art historian examines cultural politics in Nazi-occupied Denmark

Art historian Kerry Greaves of the City University of New York will discuss the role of the subversive Danish art journal The Hell-Horse in criticizing both Nazi and Danish policies during World War II on Monday, March 25 at 5:30 p.m. in 301 Herter Hall.
 
Greaves’ talk, “Give and Take: Negotiating Cultural Politics during the Nazi Occupation of Denmark” is part of the series Scandinavian Impulses: Vengeance and Violence in Scandinavian Life and Culture.

On April 9, 1940, despite a non-aggression pact, Germany invaded and occupied Denmark after meeting only two hours of resistance.

Muthukumar speaks on 'Organizing Principles of Virus Assembly'

Murugappan Muthukumar, Wilmer D. Barrett Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering, will speak on “Menagerie of Viruses: Organizing Principles of Virus Assembly” at a Physics Department colloquium on Wednesday, March 13 at 4 p.m. in 124 Hasbrouck.

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