News

UMass Trustees Approve Fee Increase, Call for Future Two-year Freeze

Freeze possible if state returns to 50-50 funding

DARTMOUTH - Calling it an action needed to protect quality and offset a decade of state budget cuts, the UMass Board of Trustees today approved a 4.9 percent tuition and fees increase for undergraduates and most graduate students - but pledged to freeze charges in Fall 2013 and Fall 2014 if the state agrees to fund 50 percent of the University’s education budget.

"If the state agrees to take on a more equitable share of the funding burden over the next two years, we will keep tuition and fees frozen at this new level," said James J.

Observe Rare Transit of Venus on June 5 at UMass Amherst Sunwheel

AMHERST, Mass. - The public is invited to witness one of the rarest of astronomical events, a transit of Venus, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Sunwheel from 5:30 p.m. until sunset on Tuesday, June 5.

Astronomy professor and department chair Stephen Schneider will introduce the transit and the Sunwheel. During the transit, which is similar to an eclipse except that Venus is so far away it only blocks a small part of the sun, observers can see Venus as a small disk moving across the sun. The actual transit begins at 6:04 p.m.

Margulis Memorial Plaque and Painting Installed at UMass Amherst

AMHERST, Mass. - A dynamic and colorful painting honoring the life and work of renowned University of Massachusetts Amherst researcher Lynn Margulis is being installed this week in the Morrill Science Center on campus, where it will aptly dominate a shared hallway between the biology and geosciences departments.

Her UMass Amherst colleagues say the 4 x 6-foot reproduction of a bright and complex painting, "Endosymbiosis: Homage to Lynn Margulis," by Shoshanah Dubiner of Ashland, Ore., is a fitting tribute to the brilliant originality of a woman who combined microbiology, chemistry, geology,

Pages