Ivy Rachel (Parsons) Zera, 82, of Sunderland, retired head cook with the dining Commons, died March 15 at Cooley Dickinson Hospital following a period of failing health.

Professor J. Kevin Nugent of the School of Education is included in the portrait exhibition "Irish Faces: The Heart and Soul of Boston” currently on view at the John J. Burns Library at Boston College.

A memorial program titled “Remembering Ben,” honoring the late Benjamin Ricci of Amherst, professor emeritus of exercise science and longtime advocate for the mentally retarded, will be held Sunday, March 26, from 2-5 p.m. in Memorial Hall. Ricci died after an extended illness on Jan. 21 at the age of 82.

Some seeds, including those of the intellectual variety, germinate more slowly than others, as History professor Bruce Laurie can attest. More than a decade ago, while conducting research on the social life and politics of the “middling class” in the 19th century, he also found evidence of its role in antislavery politics in antebellum Massachusetts.