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An intergalactic effort managed by UMass astronomers will produce the most complete atlas of the heavens ever attempted. Ten institutions and agencies will cooperate on a map of the skies 50,000 times more sensitive than its predecessor and locating several hundred million stars. The 20,000 gigabytes of information add up, says astronomy professor Michael Skrutskie, "to several times the holdings of the Library of Congress."
More startling results from our excellent recycling program: the average recycling rate since April of 1996 is almost 49 percent of the total campus waste stream. Recyling saved some $162,000 in disposal costs during that time and raised about $30,500 in extra revenue. Plus, a new composting system has yielded 230 tons of landscaping material.
"The Super," a 110-pound vehicle with a standard lawnmower engine, finished first in the nation and third internationally in a National Supermileage Design Competition in Michigan last summer. The little roadster was built by UMass engineering students and sponsored in part by UMass Transit. Ian Grosse was the faculty advisor.
"Funding for UMass increases for the sixth year in a row," reads the lead headline in the fall issue of our sister publication, the Alumni Connection.. As the Alumni Association quarterly reported, this year's state budget includes $403 million for the UMass system, a 7.7 per cent increase over last year. "Very good news indeed," said Chancellor David K. Scott, who commended Senate President Thomas Birmingham and House Speaker Thomas Finneran, along with Ways and Means Chairman Senator Stan Rosenberg '77 and Representative Paul Haley as "the key figures" in gaining the increase. Scott praised Rosenberg as "a tireless champion of the university over the years."
A forty percent jump in private support for the UMass system last year has been reported by the President's Office, including a record $24.2 million at the Amherst campus. Our campus has also generated some $43 million so far on behalf of Campaign UMass as part of its $125 million goal. The 1996 tally for private donations was $15.3 million.
Among the volunteers taking disabled veterans fishing at the National Salmon Station pond in Sunderland is Massachusetts Angler and UMass carpenter Kenny Kushi. Ken's secret is mini-marshmallows, a bait that seems to appeal to the sweet tooth of the trout at the station.
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Recently named two of the ten most influential corporate heads in America - making UMass the only school with two alumni on the list - John Smith '60 of General Motors and John Welch '57 of General Electric were awared the first-ever UMass President's Medals at the formal installation of William S. Bulger in September.
A free-standing honors college at UMass was established this summer by a unanimous vote of the Board of Higher Education. Commonwealth College will grow out of the current honors program; to qualify, students must rank in the top ten percent of their high school classes and score a combined 1,300 on their SATs. Enrollment is expected to grow to 2,500.
Competing with the U.S. National Crew at the World Rowing championships in Aiguebelette, France, in September were former UMass rowers Michelle Borkhuis '96, Deanna Groark '97, Sarah Jones '97 and Wendy Wilbur '95. All four rowed in boats that finished in the top six of their respective heats.
One of this year's Livingston Awards, the largest all-media, general reporting prizes in American journalism, was won by Charles Sennott '84 of the Boston Globe. Sennott's "Armed for Profit," a series on the U.S. arms industry in the wake of the Cold War, received the award for national reporting.
Has there ever before been a father-daughter duo graduating at the same time from this campus? Certainly not summa cum laude. That's what happened last spring when Robert Shulman of Wendell and Sara Shulman of Greenfield were among some 4,000 undergraduate degree recipients. Both father and child earned degrees in comparative literature, but dad edged out daughter on the GPA, 4.0 to 3.8.
Having announced her retirement at the end of the 1996 season, head softball coach Elaine Sortino has reconsidered after the team's splendid 1997 showing. In her eighteenth year as coach, Sortino led the team to the school's second NCAA Women's College World Series appearance, and was named Speedline NFCA Northeast Region Coach of the Year.
Some good old tunnel vision by UMass extension educator Scott Jackson may save some rare turtles from becoming flattened fauna. Jackson is experimenting with tunnels allowing painted and snapping turtles to travel under roads they tend to cross while following their basic instincts. (A similar tunnel, the locally famous salamander crossing, has been in use in Amherst since 1987 and inspired the name of a well-known folk music group.)
Six UMass heroes were inducted into the campus Athletic Hall of Fame this fall: Joe DiSarcina, captain of the basketball team in the late 1960s and shortstop on a baseball team that went to the College World Series; Vic Fusia, winningest football coach in school history; the late Dick Garber, winningest coach in college lacrosse history; Sue Peters, all-time leading scorer in UMass women's basketball; Judy Strong, onetime National Player of the Year and Olympian in field hockey; and Billy Tindall, basketball and track and field standout.
The hundred most creative people in show business - the so-called "It List" in Entertainment Weekly - includes Kyle Cooper '85, producer of the title art for such Hollywood hits as Seven, Twister, and Mission: Impossible.
Six UMass heroes were inducted into the campus athletic hall of fame this fall: Joe DiSarcina, captain of the basketball team in the late 1960s and shortstop on a baseball team that went to the College World Series; Vic Fusia, winningest football coach in school history; the late Dick Garber, winningest coach in college lacrosse history; Sue Peters, all-time leading scorer in UMass women's basketball; Judy Strong, onetime National Player of the Year and Olympian in field hockey; and Billy Tindall, basketball and track and field standout.
The Milwaukee Brewers picked campus baseball tyro Doug Clark in the twentieth round of the major league amateur draft. Brad Gorrie was also drafted, bringing to twenty-five the number of UMass draftees during the ten-year tenure of Coach Mike Stone. Five UMass players have made it to the majors.
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"I expected dogmatic propaganda," says Barton Byg, professor of Germanic languages and literatures. "They are anything but." Byg directs an archive of some 3,000 films made in East Germany between 1946 and 1990. The collection - the only one of its kind outside Germany - was laced in the W.E.B. DuBois Library this fall, and a conference attended by a number of the producers, directors, actors and screenwriters was covered in the October 26 New York Times. |
The first Pittsfield MBA class graduated in August in ceremonies at the Berkshire Plaza Hotel. All twenty-four grads are western Massachusetts businesspeople who studied part-time to upgrade skills and earn degrees. "The Berkshire community encouraged the creation of this program," says Heather Miller, admissions director for the SOM program, "and with our first class, we've produced an excellent group of graduates who can give something back to their communities."
Also in August, thirty graduates of the Pioneer Valley Enterprise Program received certificates at Amherst's Lord Jeffrey Inn. Each participant develops a plan to grow, improve or launch a small business in this collaborative effort among the Donahue Institute and the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center, both campus-based, and state government and community development groups.
Since the Peace Corps was founded in 1961, 954 UMass alumni have made their campus twentieth in the country in number of volunteers. Currently, some 230 are among the 6,500 Peace Corps volunteers serving in eight-seven countries of the developing world.
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Well, Umies, look at it now. Renovations at the kiva-shaped southeast outpost of the Isenberg School of Management - until recently, an auditorium fallen on hard times - have been completed, and students are taking classes in the 469-seat hall. Improvements include new flooring, seating, decorative finishes, and an audio-visual system par excellence. Mahar will eventually accommodate real-time video conferencing via fiberoptic cables. |
Lugging
400 pounds of equipment to the 21,464-foot summit of an extinct volcano,
three graduate and post-doctoral geoscience researchers installed the
world's highest satellite-linked weather station on Nevado Sajama in Bolivia
this summer. The station will help scientists analyze ice cores that provide
several thousand years of climatic records.
The
largest joint venture ever between the U.S. and Mexico the UMass-led
construction of the world's most largest and most sensitive radio-telescope
has begun with a dirt road blazed to the top of a mountain in central
Mexico. An international panel met in August to review designs for the
150-foot-diameter telescope. Construction of the $50-million project is
expected to be completed in the year 2000.
We
love lists: Among more than 3,500 U.S. colleges
and universities, UMass finished forty-sixth in a recent 
Cold
war
