Wildwood Remembers is a three-part series exploring UMass connections to Wildwood Cemetery with Rebecca Fricke, General Manager of Wildwood Cemetery.

Oct. 7, 7pm

Frederick Law Olmsted, Cemeteries, and the Gardenesque, with Dr. Ethan Carr, Professor of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning 

Nov. 4, 7pm

The Man Who Loved Trees, the Life and Legacy of Frank A. Waugh (1869-1943), with Dr. Annaliese Bischoff, Professor Emerita of Landscape Architecture

Jan. 13, 7pm

Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archives and Memory Work: Giving Agency to the Silent, with Taelore Marsh, Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archives Archivist (co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Amherst Racial Justice Committee)

January 21, 6-7pm

Join us for an exploration of Digital Wellbeing. Dr. Elizabeth (Betsy) Cracco, Assistant Vice Chancellor, Campus Life and Wellbeing, at UMass Amherst, will present "IRL – In Real Life: Mental health and the importance of embodied experience in a digital world."

Wellbeing Wednesdays are monthly programs exploring topics in health and wellness. Presented in partnership with RecWell (UMass Amherst Recreation and Wellbeing), these events are free and open to all. Registration is recommended at the link below.

Register Here

First Thursdays, 7-8pm

Get to know some MASSively talented up-and-coming UMass musicians in this chill monthly concert series. Spring 2026 dates are February 5, March 5, April 2, and May 7. Check back monthly for artist line-ups. Presented in partnership with the UMass Songwriting and Production Club, the MASSive Desk Concert Series is free and open to all.

February 7, 14, 21, and 28, 10am-12pm

Craft away the winter blues with a family-friendly art activity every Saturday in February! Stop by our Craft Corner at UMass Downtown between 10am and 12pm to complete a DIY craft activity:

Feb. 7: Design Your Own Olympic Medal and Torch*

Celebrate the Winter Games with a hands-on craft

Feb. 14: Make Your Own Valentine's Day Card

Make a handmade card with Amherst Recreation and share the love

Feb. 21: Build Your Own Snowman*

Shape, stack, and decorate your own snowy friend

Feb. 28: Decorate Your Own Birdhouse*

Paint and decorate a birdhouse for your backyard feathered friends

*February 7, 21, and 28 craft activities are best suited for ages 3-8, but all four drop-in events are free and open to all. No registration required. Children must be supervised by an adult. Activities offered while supplies last.

February 7, 6-7:30pm

Presented in partnership with the Amherst Business Improvement District, Writers Reading is a curated series featuring local authors. In our next installment of the reading series, join us for a line-up curated by Henk Rossouw. Featured writer Andrea Lawlor will join Rossouw, Dan Bevacqua, and Julie Choffel in sharing selections from their work.

This event is free to attend and open to all. Books will be available for purchase. See author bios below. 

Andrea Lawlor is the author of two chapbooks, Position Papers (Factory Hollow Press, 2016), and Position Papers (Belladonna*, 2024), as well as a novel, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (Rescue Press, 2017; Vintage, 2019; Picador UK, 2019). Their stories, essays, and poems have appeared in publications such as Ploughshares, The Brooklyn Rail, jubilat, and The New York Times. They are the recipient of a Whiting Award for Fiction and the Prix Sade, as well as fellowships from Lambda Literary, Radar Labs, the Ucross Foundation, and Macdowell. They are an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Mount Holyoke College, and live in Western Massachusetts. 

Dan Bevacqua is the Director of the Creative Writing Program at Western New England University. He is the author of the novel Molly Bit (Simon & Schuster). His short stories have appeared in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, The Best American Mystery Stories, the New Orleans Review, the Literary Review, and the Paris Review. He lives in North Amherst with his wife, the poet Hannah Brooks-Motl. 

Julie Choffel is the author of Dear Wallace (The Backwaters/University of Nebraska Press, 2024), The Hello Delay (Fordham UP, 2012), and a handful of chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including New England Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Orion, Conduit, New American Writing, and the tiny. Originally from Texas, she teaches at the University of Connecticut and lives near Hartford with her partner and their three children. 

Henk Rossouw's debut Xamissa (Fordham University Press, 2018) won the Poetic Justice Institute Editor's Prize. The African Poetry Book Fund included his chapbook The Water Archives in the 2018 box set New-Generation African Poets. His poems have been in POETRY, Boston Review, and The Paris Review, among other places. From 2018 to 2025, he taught at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he co-directed the Creative Writing Program and received early tenure. Originally from South Africa, he lives in Western Massachusetts.

February 18, 10am-3pm

First Tuesdays, 10am-4pm

Looking for job opportunities at UMass Amherst? Need help with your application or have questions about the hiring process? Are you a new employee with questions about onboarding? UMass Amherst Human Resources is here to help! 

The UMass HR team offers weekly community office hours at UMass Downtown to provide application assistance and interview guidance for prospective employees and CORI verifications and onboarding support for new hires. 

No appointment necessary. Just stop by during UMass HR's community office hours!

HR staff will not host community office hours at UMass Downtown in January 2026.

James oversees the university's multipurpose retail, event and meeting satellite space in downtown Amherst, which opened this week.

The conversations, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on April 24, May 6 and June 10 in the university’s new multipurpose retail, event and meeting space at 108 North Pleasant St. in downtown Amherst, are free and open to all.

Attendees at the event, scheduled for 5:30-7 p.m. at UMass Downtown, will learn about various volunteer opportunities and discover ways to contribute their time and skills to support local organizations and strengthen our community.