This is UMass Amherst
Facts, figures and points of pride to tell our story with specificity and passion.
- We're Smart.
UMass Amherst stands out as a campus of high-achievers. - We're Wide Open.
At UMass Amherst, anything is possible. - We're Real.
UMass Amherst students and faculty live and learn in the real world, where what we do makes a difference. - We're Entrepreneurial.
Our faculty and students don’t just think out of the box: they take the box apart and build something new. - We're Maroon.
UMass Amherst pride in community and campus runs deep.
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We’re Smart
Top of PageUMass Amherst stands out as a campus of high-achievers. Our students, faculty and staff earn national and international recognition for their excellence.
Student Quality and Success
UMass Amherst was an extraordinarily popular choice for students in fall 201.. The Class of 2015, numbering 4,700 students, is the largest and most academically accomplished in the history of UMass Amherst. A record 32,500 applied for admission. The academic profile of the incoming class continues to increase, with the average SAT scores of incoming students at 1187 and the grade point average 3.62.
- Five UMass Amherst alumni, including four 2010 graduates, have been awarded Fulbright scholarships for international studies for 2010-11. They are among more than 1,500 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad during the 2010-11 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The latest awards continue a record of success for UMass Amherst, which in 2009 was named a “Top Producer of Fulbright Students” by the Chronicle of Higher Education.
- Students at UMass Amherst are among the most successful nationally in the congressionally funded Gilman Scholarship program for study abroad. Sixteen UMass students were awarded the scholarships for the fall 2010 semester, ranking the school fourth in the country. The other three top-ranked schools are the University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco State University and New York University. Students from 381 public and private universities submitted more than 2,900 applications for the scholarships. Only 34 percent, or about 1,000 students, were selected nationally for the program, while the acceptance rate for UMass Amherst applicants was 42 percent.
- Teach for America has named UMass Amherst as one of the top large universities in the country contributing graduating seniors to its 2010 teaching corps. After a highly selective admissions process, 29 UMass Amherst graduates were selected for the program and will teach in urban and rural schools around the country. Teach for America participants commit to teach for two years. The admission process for this year’s teaching corps was even more selective than in previous years, with more than 46,000 graduating seniors, graduate students and professionals applying for 4,500 openings. UMass Amherst ranked 20th among universities with undergraduate enrollments of more than 10,000 and is the only public university in New England to rank in the top tier of recruits.
- Three first-year Ph.D. students in the Department of Linguistics at UMass Amherst were awarded Graduate Research Fellowships in 2010 by the National Science Foundation. Ten awards were made in the field of linguistics in the competition and no other university received more than two. NSF Graduate Research Fellowships are one of the most coveted and prestigious awards available to students at the beginning of their graduate careers.
- Tyler Holmes, a junior linebacker for the Minuteman football team, earned a number of accolades for his outstanding performance in 2010. He was named a first-team Football Championship All-American by the Associated Press, the New England Football Writers Gold Helmet award as the region’s player of the year, and an All-American by the American Football Coaches Association.
- Pamela J. Migalska of Randolph, a UMass Amherst student studying communications, was named Miss Polonia 2011 at the annual pageant in Holyoke.
We’re Wide Open
Top of PageAt UMass Amherst, anything is possible. It’s all about you and your mind wide open. Opportunities don’t just knock, they break down the doors.
- Making a UMass Amherst education accessible is a fundamental value of the university. To keep this commitment, UMass Amherst campus funding of need-based financial aid now stands at $37.3 million, a dramatic increase of $15 million over the past five years.
Key Financial Aid Figures for Full-Time Undergraduates 2009-10
- Total Undergraduate Student Aid: $245.1 million
- Average Need-Based Aid Package: $10,972
- Avg. Need-Based: Grant, $9,362; Loan, $4,385; Work, $1,247
- Need-based aid applicants: 15,396
- Need-based aid recipients: 10,857
- Applicants receiving need-based aid: 71%
- Total undergraduates receiving need-based aid: 52%
- Promoting student diversity is a campus priority. In fall 2010, UMass Amherst enrolled 3,473 undergraduate ALANA (African American, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American) students, about 21 percent of the total student population. This compares to 17 percent five years ago.
- UMass Amherst students embark on their careers with a valuable degree and manageable college debt. In 2008, two-thirds, or 66%, of UMass Amherst students graduated with debt, with the average amount being $21,621, according to U.S. News & World Report. This figure places UMass Amherst students in the mid-range for National University students, at No. 118 out of 206 schools surveyed.
- UMass Amherst is one of the nation’s best long-term values for students, according to the January 2009 issue of SmartMoney magazine, which ranks colleges based on the cost of attendance and earning power after graduation. UMass ranks 18th nationally in a study of 50 leading colleges, placing ahead of schools such as Harvard, Yale, Swarthmore, Dartmouth and the University of Michigan. Overall, “public universities turn out to be a far better deal than virtually all the privates we surveyed” in providing return on investment, according to the magazine.
We’re Real
Top of PageUMass Amherst students and faculty live and learn in the real world, where what we do makes a difference. Our work is of critical importance.
- Economic impact: Based on a fiscal 2010 study, the impact of UMass Amherst on economic activity in Massachusetts was approximately $1.43 billion. The spending of the UMass Amherst campus, its employees and students helped to support an additional 5,174 jobs in the Commonwealth.
- UMass Amherst is one of the nation’s top public research universities. In fiscal 2010, the campus had another record-breaking year for sponsored activities, receiving $170 million in grants and contracts, a 24 percent increase compared with fiscal 2009. Nearly $40 million are funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as stimulus funds.
- Major capital investments are reshaping UMass Amherst in the most dramatic campus makeover in 35 years, providing modern facilities to support our world-class teaching and research missions.
- The award-winning Central Heating Plant
- Integrated Sciences Building
- Studio Arts Building
- Student Recreation Center
- Transit Center
- Renovated Skinner Hall, home of the School of Nursing
- Renovated Berkshire Dining Commons
- The $156.5 million New Laboratory Science Building, designed so researchers from different fields can work together on major initiatives ranging from the development of biofuels and clean energy technologies to pharmaceutical production, drug design and tissue engineering. The north wing of the building will be occupied by the fall of 2012, while the other half of the building will be shell and core space that provides UMass Amherst with space that can be equipped for a variety of research initiatives in the future.
- The $5.7 million George N. Parks Minuteman Marching Band Building, built to serve as the permanent home for the 300-member band known as “The Power and Class of New England.” The facility, set to open in 2011, will be attached by a walkway to the Grinnell Arena, which is being renovated as part of the project.
- The $12.5 million police station, across from the North Fire Station, which will be one of the most advanced, energy-efficient structures on campus. The complex will provide a modern home for the police department’s patrol, investigation, specialized and emergency services, as well as crime prevention and educational initiatives for the campus. The facility will open in 2011.
- Upgrade of the Southwest Residential Area Concourse, including replacement of underground infrastructure, already completed, and a major facelift through a landscape design that radically reduces blacktop paving. Projected completion is scheduled for 2011.
- A $182 million residential and teaching complex in the heart of the campus to serve as the home of the Commonwealth Honors College. The facility will be one of the best public university complexes of its kind in the nation, and will include 1,500 beds, nine classrooms, faculty residences along with space for gathering, advising and administration of the program. The new living/learning facility will be erected on the east side of Commonwealth Avenue between the Recreation Center and the Boyden Gymnasium. The complex will open in fall 2013.
- An $85 million academic classroom building to provide the campus with 1,800 new state-of-the-art classroom seats and academic space for programs including communications, journalism and linguistics. It is expected to be completed by January 2014. The Commonwealth is contributing $65 million to the construction through the Higher Education Bond Bill.
- UMass Amherst shapes the future of Massachusetts. The state’s flagship public university has more than 222,000 living alumni, and more than 110,000 of them live in the Commonwealth. Our graduates form the professional backbone of Massachusetts.
- The Massachusetts Legislature includes 17 UMass Amherst alumni in 2011.
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We’re Entrepreneurial
Top of PageOur faculty and students don’t just think out of the box: they take the box apart and build something new.
Using creative and entrepreneurial approaches to find a new way forward, UMass Amherst researchers have positioned the campus as a national leader in green solutions to meet energy needs and to define the shape of the green economy through green buildings and green jobs.
For example, original research on green biofuels by chemical engineer George Huber recently led to formation of the spinoff company, Anellotech. It will use his low-cost, single-step process for turning sawdust, woody stalks and other waste biomass to produce—in small, local refineries—gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel precursors, heating oil and the feedstock pyrolysis oils for producing chemicals such as benzene, toluene and xylenes.
Meanwhile, microbiologist Susan Leschine’s discovery and development of the anaerobic Q Microbe to produce ethanol from abundant plant waste has made headlines and attracted investors. Her biofuels spinoff company, Qteros, plans to build a $3.2 million biomass-to-ethanol conversion pilot plant in Chicopee.
Another UMass Amherst microbiologist, Derek Lovley, has brought more than $21 million in sponsored research to the campus with his Geobacter project. This entrepreneurial scientist dares to dream that someday the amazing Geobacter bacterium can be harnessed to meet a residence’s daily power needs by digesting its solid waste and cleaning its waste water, in a sustainable “green home of the future.”
At the same time, new-way thinking by UMass Amherst economists is influencing the national discussion about how best to stimulate the U.S. economy and promote sustainability. Economics research by Robert Pollin and colleagues at the Political Economy Research Institute provide a fresh “greenprint” for national recovery. Their studies show, for example, that investing in clean energy such as wind power, solar and biofuels will create about three times more good-paying jobs than conventional projects. An added bonus is that taking this new direction will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on foreign oil.
- Continuing a long tradition of service in the Peace Corps, more than two dozen UMass Amherst alumni in 2009 are volunteering in 24 countries around the world. Since 1961, 1,165 alumni have served overseas, ranking UMass 21st among more 3,000 schools in the nation. The volunteers are engaged in a variety of projects related to education, agriculture, health and HIV/AIDS, the environment and youth development. They are serving in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Botswana, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, China, the eastern Caribbean, Ecuador, Fiji, Guatemala, Guinea, Lesotho, Micronesia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Philippines, Romania, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand, Uganda and Zambia.
- UMass Amherst is among the nation’s leaders in promoting social responsibility and public service, according to a guide compiled by The Princeton Review and College Compact. UMass Amherst is one of 81 institutions chosen from more than 900 institutions featured in Colleges with a Conscience, published by Random House/Princeton Review Books in 2005. Criteria for selection included admissions practices and scholarships rewarding community service; support for service-learning programs, student activism and student voice in school governance, and the level of social engagement of its student body.
We’re Maroon
Top of PageUMass Amherst pride in community and campus runs deep
- Amherst, Mass., ranks as the Best College Town in America, according to a column published on MSN.com by college advisor Katherine L. Cohen, founder and CEO of Ivywise. Cohen’s May 2009 column was followed by more accolades in August 2009 by the national Hotels and Travel Reservations site, which touted Amherst as one of the country’s best college communities, along with locales such as Chapel Hill, N.C.; Austin, Texas; Berkeley, Calif.; Boulder, Colo.; Athens, Ga., and Princeton, N.J. In another ranking of college towns, this time by the Internet-based news service The Daily Beast in December 2009, Amherst popped up in the top 10, enjoying one of highest percentages of adults with graduate-level degrees (43 percent) in the nation.
- Floris Wilma Ortiz, an alumna and lecturer in the School of Education, was selected as Massachusetts Teacher of the Year in 2010. She is an English as a second language teacher at Amherst Regional Middle School.
- Alumnus Kenneth Feinberg was chosen by President Barack Obama to oversee an account funded by BP to compensate victims of the Gulf Oil spill.
- UMass Amherst nailed a world record on Labor Day 2010 when more than 300 volunteers gathered on the Haigis Mall to assemble a monstrous California sushi roll which, at 422 feet, was more than 90 feet longer than one created at the University of California, Berkeley last fall. Thousands of new and returning students gathered for the event as Chancellor Robert Holub and Food Network chef Jet Tila presided over the massive assembly line. The recipe included 650 sheets of nori (seaweed), 200 pounds of rice, 200 pounds of surimi, 100 pounds of avocado, 100 pounds of cucumber, two pounds of sesame seeds, five gallons of soy sauce and six pounds of wasabi.
- Alumnus Charley Eiseman, who graduated in 2000 with major in wildlife and fisheries conservation, and Noah Charney, a doctoral candidate in organismic and evolutionary biology, have won the National Outdoor Book Award for best nature guidebook of 2010. This is the outdoor world's largest and most prestigious book award program. Their 592-page work, “Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American Species,” includes nearly 1,000 color photos and identifies thousands of marvelously mysterious signs created by beetles, spiders, flies, ants, slugs and many other spineless animals. Topics covered include eggs, cocoons, nests, webs, galls and other plant damage, holes in the ground, and even the patterns left by tiny feet scurrying in the dust.
- With more than 222,000 graduates worldwide, UMass Amherst has a vast network of alumni in all 50 states and around the world. The venerable Alumni Association is 137 years old and has almost 60 clubs, groups and international contacts that organize regional social, networking, volunteer and athletic events.
