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Current News Releases

2008

Monday September 15

  • UMass Boston Hosts Global Learning Exchange Networks: Building Partnerships, Knowledge & Power to Advance Equitable Societies
    On Tuesday, September 16th, social change leaders and activists from Boston and Haifa, Israel will gather at the University of Massachusetts - Boston for a forum titled Global Learning Exchange Networks: Building Partnerships, Knowledge & Power to Advance Equitable Societies.  Co-sponsored by the Center for Social Policy at UMass – Boston and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, the forum will build upon the Boston-Haifa Learning Exchange; a peer learning exchange initiative to strengthen the nonprofit organizations and leaders in both cities.  

Monday Sept 8

  • Chancellor Motley Kicks Off New School Year With Convocation Address
    Chancellor J. Keith Motley today marked the beginning of the 2008-2009 academic year with a convocation address that called for increased attention to public higher education and outlined his vision for the future of the University of Massachusetts Boston. The chancellor’s address led a day of convocation activities at the campus, including remarks by UMass President Jack Wilson and Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville, a cookout and entertainment for students, and an evening community reception.

Monday August 25

  • UMass Boston Receives Commonwealth Corps Grant
    The University of Massachusetts Boston has received a $50,000 Commonwealth Corps grant for its Harbor Point Outreach Partnership (HPOP) to address community identified needs for tutoring, mentoring, access to higher education, and technology workshops for youth and adult residents of Harbor Point apartment community.

Friday August 15

Monday August 11

  • UMass Boston Moves Forward on Campus Master Plan
    Chancellor J. Keith Motley today announced that the University of Massachusetts Boston is moving forward on its 25-year master plan with $125 million in new funding and the selection of an architect to program and design an Integrated Sciences Complex, the first of two academic buildings planned for the campus in the coming years.

Monday July 14

  • UMass Boston’s Camp Shriver Expands for More Kids this Summer
    A five-year, $300,000 sponsorship from Procter & Gamble/Gillette has enabled the University of Massachusetts Boston to expand the length and enrollment of Camp Shriver, an inclusive summer camp that serves school children with and without intellectual disabilities on campus for four weeks this summer.

Tuesday July 1

  • U.S. Surgeon General Recognizes UMass Boston’s GoKids in Fight Against Childhood Obesity
    Acting U.S. Surgeon General Rear Admiral Steven K. Galson today presented UMass Boston Chancellor J. Keith Motley with a Champion Award for GoKids Boston’s work in helping to prevent childhood obesity. Dr. Galson toured GoKids Boston and conducted a roundtable discussion with area health officials as part of his national “Healthy Youth for a Healthy Future” program.

Thursday June 11

  • UMass Boston Centre Releases Report on the Economic State of New England
    The UMass Boston Financial Services Forum (FSF) released today The State of New England: Economic Slowdown and Recovery.  The report finds that while first quarter growth in Massachusetts was four times that of the national pace, and while Massachusetts has added jobs at a time when the US economy lost payroll employment, economic recovery in Massachusetts after the dotcom bust was not as robust compared to the national recovery.  The unemployment rate in Massachusetts remained below the national rate even as they both inched up from record lows in the early 2000s, but joblessness became more acute regionally compared. 

Friday May 30

  • University of Massachusetts Boston announces 2008 Commencement Speaker, Honorees
    Gloria E. White-Hammond, one of Boston’s—and the world’s—most distinguished humanitarians, will deliver the principal address at the University of Massachusetts Boston’s 40th commencement ceremonies, to be held on Friday, May 30. She will also receive an honorary degree, as will three other eminent guests: Ronald Logue, Sarah Moten, and Dan Rea.
  • UMass Boston Chancellor announces Faculty Awards for 2008
    Boston Mass., Chancellor J. Keith Motley awarded this year’s distinguished awards to five faculty members. Robert Crossley won the award for distinguished service, Gary Siperstein and Robert Shope for distinguished scholarship and Lois Rudnick and Brian White won the award for teaching. These awards not only recognize the faculty, but also their students and communities. Each of these distinguished professors has been endowed with the creativity and the ability to foster independent thinking in both their students and fellow professors. They have taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses and have successfully created partnerships with other disciplines both within and outside the university.

 

Tuesday April 15

  • UMass Boston unveils state-of-the-art nursing and healthcare facility
    Realizing that the classroom and clinical placements are increasingly insufficient in preparing students to function in our complex healthcare environment, UMass Boston is now setting a new trend in nursing and healthcare education and training with the grand opening of its Center for Clinical Education and Research in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences (CNHS). The spanking new $4.6 million, 5100 sq ft. facility is among the first of its kind in New England, and is built to showcase patient simulation, a rapidly growing trend in healthcare education, which mimics the clinical setting but eliminates any risk to patients. The center aims to improve the safety and quality of care provided by students and practicing clinicians through the use of simulation and advanced technology, which allows deliberate repetitive practice, team and communication exercises and immediate feedback. Along with the teaching aspect, the Center will be participating in research endeavors that identify the best practices and evaluate the effectiveness of simulation.

Wednesday April 9

  • University Unveils New Online Community and Advancement Website
    Alumni and friends of UMass Boston will find that their electronic “home” has been transformed. new online community, is now available to all graduates of UMass Boston, Boston State College, and Boston State’s predecessors. The community, which is shared with the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Lowell, and Worcester campuses, enables alumni to create a personal profile and search for friends and classmates using a password-protected online directory.

Thursday April 3

  • College of Management Student Team Named B-School Beanpot Finalists
    College of Management (CM) undergraduate students, for the first time, participated in the B-School Beanpot CaseAnalysisCompetition. The competition, modeled on the hockey tournament, provides an opportunity for managementstudents to benchmark their skills against peers and the expectations of the corporate community.  One of the two CM teams placed fourth overall. This is the first time a team new to the competition, was named a finalist. CM competing teams were finalists Glenn Natali, Sandy Kiriakidis, Elena Asllani, Linda Chu, and Saida Abdalla, who shared the $250.00 prize. The other CM team included Jeff Masse, Daria Tremoularis, Yelena Bryant, Hassan Bammi, and Jemin Patel. The College of Management is very proud of its students, and also of faculty coach and assistant professor Theodora Welch and Amy Mei, CM undergraduate program director, who worked with the students to prepare for the competition.

Thursday March 20

Tuesday March 11

  • Seven Currently Serving Mass. Mayors Celebrate Woman’s History Month at UMass Boston
    On March 11th UMass Boston held an event highlighting the surge in women serving as mayors across Massachusetts. Women now comprise 25% of all mayors of cities in the commonwealth. The event “Women Mayors of Massachusetts: Making History. Meeting Challenge.” featured a panel discussion of 7 of the current 11 female mayors and was moderated by NECN’s Alison King.

Monday March 10

  • Indonesian governmental and educational leaders to discuss partnership with UMass Boston
    A high level delegation from Indonesia will be visiting UMass Boston to meet with the dean and faculty of the College of Public and Community Service this Friday, February 29. The delegation include of Dr. Ferdy Firdaus, the Vice Rector of the University of As-Syafi'iyah, and Dr. Tutty Alawiyah, a former Minister for Women’s Affairs in two previous governments in Indonesia.

Thursday March 6

Tuesday February 26

Monday February 25

  • A Hunger for More: Fuld Trust Scholarships Make Second Careers in Nursing Possible

    While Jean McGinty captured awards as a pastry chef and Jon Debach developed software, Salley Burkart balanced corporate books. Around the same time, all three of them hungered for something more. The College of Nursing and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Boston embraced these three career-changers, and the Helene Fuld Scholarship Program is now making their professional goal of a nursing career possible.

  • Disparities center funded
    UMass Boston and the Harvard School of Public Health will create a research center devoted to health and healthcare disparities, the institutions said today.

    • A five-year, $7.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities will fund the Horizon Center, named for its goal of providing healthy options, research, interventions, and community organizing, the schools said.
    The center will work with the Cherishing our Hearts and Souls Coalition, a group that has collaborated with the Harvard School of Public Health on efforts to close health gaps in Roxbury, which has the youngest, poorest, least educated, and least employed people among Boston's neighborhoods, the school said.

  • 'Mockingbird' to fly again
    The folks at WUMB Radio are hosting a songwriting contest to foster interest in "To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee. Amateurs and professionals are invited to submit songs inspired by the novel. Finalists will perform "American-Idol"-style at the Mockingbird Festival at UMass Boston on May 10.

    • WUMB is hosting dozens of "Mockingbird" events around Eastern Massachusetts, touching on the music of the 1930s, the history of race relations in America, and Southern cooking, among other subjects. The station's "Big Read" campaign is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Details at WUMB.org.

     

Sunday February 24

  • A NUDGE TOWARD SCIENCE
    Students from Tucker Elementary School are teaming up with graduate students from UMass Boston on a science project. They will examine the Neponset River watershed in Milton. UMass Boston is also a partner with schools in Dedham and Boston in its Watershed-Integrated Sciences Partnership (WISP). The goal is to recruit more middle school students into science careers, and create life-long connections for graduate students with K-12 education, according to UMass Boston.

Friday February 15

  • UMass prof honored for work with at-risk families Dorchester Reporter

    • Professor Gary N. Siperstein was conferred with the President's Public Service Award. Siperstein is the founder and director of the Center for Social Development and Education at UMass-Boston. He was honored for his work in addressing the needs of at-risk children and families. The Center for Social Development and Education is recognized nationally for its expertise in enhancing social development of children with learning and behavioral problems.

Thursday February 14

Thursday February 14

  • Watershed-Integrated Science Partnership
    The University of Massachusetts Boston is partnering with three school districts to support and enrich existing science curricula and help implement more advanced science instructional systems. The Neponset watershed will provide an experiential framework to contextualize curriculum content. Using a natural boundary (a watershed) as an integrating theme will demonstrate to students that communities of diverse socio-economic backgrounds have many commonalities and natural connections.

Tuesday February 12

  • 2008 Kingston-Mann Awards Ceremony
    On November 2, 2007, UMass Boston Chancellor Keith Motley welcomed students, their families, faculty advisors, and administrators to the third annual Kingston-Mann Awards Banquet celebrating undergraduate student contributions to scholarship on diversity and inclusion. Jose Luiz Filho-Pradho and Lydia Grinnell of UMass Boston were among the top prizewinners chosen from a consortium of New England colleges and universities that includes UMass Boston, UMass Dartmouth, Lesley University, Emmanuel College, UMass Lowell, Massasoit Community College, Rhode Island College, and the University of New Hampshire.

Monday February 4

  • The Road to Progress
    In a meeting with Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell and other officials, Boston officials, including Mayor Tom Menino and former Chancellor of UMass Boston Sherry Penney, learned about the community effort and collective civic resolve it took to win the bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics, create the site, and host the Games. Penney says that Seattle's civic leadership - which created paths for young people to grow into higher-level positions - was a model for the Emerging Leaders Program founded by her and headquartered at UMass Boston. That program has given special training to dozens of young executives in the city.

Monday February 4

  • A World of Potential
    It began with a great idea: Gather a diverse group of local civic leaders and take them around the globe to see how other great cities are growing and innovating. But in our notoriously insular town, petty politics and small-mindedness keep the City to City program from reaching its full promise. City to City was the brainchild of former assistant to the UMass Boston Chancellor Hubie Jones. At 74, Jones is still running City to City, advising the City Year youth volunteer program that he helped launch, writing a book about Boston race relations, and devoting a lot of time to his latest creation, the Boston Children's Chorus.

Thursday January 31

  • UMass Boston given $2M gift -- its largest ever.
    UMass Boston reports it has landed $2.1 million from the Bernard Osher Foundation -- the largest private donation in the school's history. The gift will fund the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Reentry Scholarship Program at UMass Boston, according to the school. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute plans to offer more than 70 noncredit courses to adults age 50 and older. The Reentry Scholarship Program will offer 10 annual scholarships of $5,000 each to students, usually between the ages of 25 and 50, aimed at students who are working toward their first degrees after their studies had been interrupted for about five years. Each program will receive $1 million each, while the remaining $100,000 will provide funding for current operations. The gifts will be matched by $500,000 each through the Massachusetts Public Higher Education Endowment Incentive Program.

Sunday January 27

  • What's under Revere's house? With radar, scientists take peek
    The grounds of the Paul Revere House, Boston's oldest building and a historic Colonial landmark, are getting an examination. But there will be no probing; the procedure is noninvasive. Using a technology called ground penetrating radar, Allen Gontz, an assistant professor of environmental, earth, and ocean sciences at UMass Boston, began a series of soil tests at the North End site on Tuesday. He is looking for gas lines, water pipes, and deep features like wells, privies, and previous foundations.

Thursday January 24

  • Change is in the air at WUMB
    Thanks in part to a recent grant that allowed it to evaluate its mission, WUMB listeners will be getting a station that is more responsive to the community's needs. The impetus for these changes is a station-renewal grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. One of five awarded in July to stations across the country, the grant of approximately $500,000 has allowed WUMB, to poll listeners and conduct focus groups about what the station should be as it finishes its first 25 years on air.

Wednesday January 23

  • Alumni celebrate Boston State College room dedication
    On December 6, an excited group of Boston State College alumni assembled at the Campus Center to commemorate the 25th anniversary of their alma mater’s merger with UMass Boston. The event, the culmination of a year of events celebrating BSC’s legacy, featured the dedication of the new Boston State College Room by Chancellor J. Keith Motley and members of the BSC and UMass Boston communities. The audience applauded as ninety-four-year-old Richard Newman, a former Boston State and UMass Boston Professor of foreign languages, cut the ribbon to open the new room.

Tuesday January 22

  • Economic Incompetence: Bush Stimulus Package Misses the Point
    Professor in the Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Christian E. Weller notes that most financial markets around the world have fallen since the start of the year, with all of them plunging in unison yesterday. Today, the Federal Reserve was forced to cut its key federal funds rate by three quarters of a percentage point, to 3.5 percent, to calm global stock markets, as investors adjusted anew to the long-term structural weaknesses in the U.S. economy, particularly in consumer spending and in the housing and mortgage markets.

 

2007

Wednesday December 19

  • New mission for UMass-Boston?
    David Soo, a Boston Globe reader who is a doctoral student in higher education at UPenn writes that he shares UMass Boston student trustee Jason Pramas's concern over the threat to UMass Boston's traditional mission that could come from building dorms and spending millions to "raise its profile." Soo said that, this country, and especially Massachusetts, has a diversity of higher-education institutions, each with a distinct mission. UMass-Boston has a proud tradition of educating Boston's working-class, minority, and immigrant students, and using its institutional resources to serve the urban community. Administrators should resist mission drift by honoring UMass-Boston's historic and vital mission, he added.

Monday December 17

  • On the move at UMass-Boston
    After taking the helm as chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Boston earlier this year, J. Keith Motley is talking to as many people as he can about the campus's future. And he is now the champion of a 25-year master plan to turn the school into a powerhouse. Motley says the campus already has a lot to be proud of. But he's right to take up a herald's trumpet. Noting that the school hasn't taken a long, hard look at itself since the 1970s, Motley argues that it's time for UMass-Boston to fulfill its potential.

Monday December 17

  • UMass-Boston proposes transformation of campus
    Officials at the University of Massachusetts-Boston are presenting a plan to transform the commuter school into a more traditional campus. A preliminary proposal being presented to the UMass Board of Trustees Friday would include construction of the school's first dormitories, an idea that in the past has met from opposition from residents of Boston's Dorchester neighborhood. The first phase of the plan calls for spending $750 million over the next decade to build three new academic buildings, two dormitories and an above-ground parking garage at the waterfront campus.

Monday December 17

  • Schools ready building boom
    America's college town is becoming a boom town. Hub universities and colleges are poised to spend billions on everything from state-of-the-art academic buildings to new dorms in an expansion of historic proportions. It's a trend, experts say, fueled by rich and growing endowments and fierce competition for students. BC, Suffolk University and UMass Boston have each put forth sweeping plans to revamp or expand their campuses in recent weeks. The BC and UMass plans alone represent a combined $1.5 billion in proposed spending. UMass Boston is proposing a radical makeover to its fast-deteriorating, brick-and-concrete complex on the harbor in Dorchester. New academic buildings, green parks and walkways and the university's first-ever dorms are in the works.

Monday December 17

  • Facelift for UMass Boston
    Led by Chancellor J. Keith Motley, officials are focused on the first 10 years of the plan to improve the site, hoping to transform it into a more pedestrian-friendly campus with new academic buildings, making better use of its waterside location. About $125 million of the Phase I cost would come from state borrowing. Private fundraising and additional borrowing by UMass would help finance the rest.

Friday December 14

  • UMass harbors hopes
    J. Keith Motley, the new chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston, yesterday unveiled a sweeping, $700 million-plus plan to revamp the school's harborside campus. The proposal, which Motley is now preparing to present to the university's board of trustees, envisions a total remake of the university's brick-and-concrete campus, built in the early 1970s.

Friday December 14

  • UMass Boston plans dorms, more traditional campus
    The University of Massachusetts at Boston plans to dramatically overhaul its crumbling campus by adding academic buildings and reviving a controversial proposal to build the school's first dormitories, part of a large-scale campaign to transform the Columbia Point college into a waterfront showcase. The preliminary, 25-year plan, which will be presented to the UMass Board of Trustees this morning, would redesign the layout to capitalize on its Dorchester Bay location and replace the university's vast brick plazas with a series of grassy quads linked by pedestrian walkways. In the first phase of the blueprint, university officials are proposing to spend $750 million over the next decade to build three academic buildings along a central walkway bisecting the campus, two dormitories for 1,000 students, and a 1,000-space above-ground parking garage. The dormitory proposal, which has drawn surprising support from Mayor Thomas M. Menino, promises to again raise the ire of Savin Hill and Columbia Point residents who have consistently opposed similar proposals in the past.

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