The last bit of Mt. Ida College in Newton that still exists is a $2.5-million fund meant to pay off creditors following its purchase by UMass Amherst in 2018 that the fund's trustee can't close out because Mt. Ida's last president says he's owed a severance payment that UMass doesn't want to pay. Read more.
A Springfield minister whose son is a senior majoring in architecture at UMass Amherst has posted a copy of a racist email sent to Black students on campus. Read more.
Western Mass News reports the Commonwealth's Flagship Campus has decided that after nearly 60 years, it no longer has space for a permanent home for the Science Fiction Society, which has a library of some 10,000 science-fiction books - second in size in the country only to MIT. Read more.
The Daily Collegian reports on the annual Blarney Blowout festivities this past weekend, featuring crowds more akin to what you might see in Florida, only more warmly dressed and in a state that still has Covid-19 restrictions.
The Hampshire Gazette reports the Commonwealth's Flagship Campus has ordered all students - including off campu - to stay in their rooms except to get testing or meals due to an outbreak that has so far hit several hundred. The Daily Collegian reports one frat was suspended for "two massive back-to-back parties, packed to the brim with young people dancing and drinking."
The University of Massachusetts announced the furloughs today, citing a $169-million hole in its current budget. Among the losses: $67.4 million in anticipated housing and dining revenue caused by the school's decision to hold classes remotely this semester and a $30.6-million loss in tuition revenue.
Furlough status means the workers are still eligible for benefits, including health insurance.
In a statement this morning, UMass Athletic Director Ryan Bamford announced: Read more.
UMass Amherst alerted students and parents today that due to "the worsening conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic nationally," the school will only let students return who have no choice but to take classes in laboratories and studios or who need to be in face-to-face interactions with professors. Read more.
UMass Amherst yesterday notified students and parents that students who want to return to campus this fall can do so, with major restrictions (like no visitors in their dorm rooms and the requirement to take a Covid-19 test on demand, oh, and most classes will be held remotely, anyway).
But the school says it has an option for students who are all about that campus life but who might not feel comfortable actually being on the state's largest public-university campus - its satellite campus 80 miles away in Newton. Read more.
For the second time, a federal court has ruled that Mt. Ida College owes students nothing for the way it suddenly shut down, not even those who were screwed because the closure didn't leave them enough time to find placement at a different school. Read more.
UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy told students and parents that he's postponed graduation exercises originally set for May 8 and that while he wants to honor seniors at some point, he really has no idea when that might be possible: Read more.
UMass Amherst, which had earlier said it hoped to have students return to campus on April 6, today announced it's just having students move out for good this weekend. In an announcement to the campus and parents, Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy writes: Read more.
Word first broke at UMass Lowell of a new policy that applies to all five UMass campuses. Unlike at many other colleges, however, there's still a chance UMass students could return to campus, on April 6. Read more.
In a memo to UMass Amherst students, staff and parents, UMass Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy writes: Read more.
But the Commonwealth's Flagship Campus would prefer it if students express their hatred for Nazis in ways that do not include the use of profanity if at all possible. Read more.
When officials announced UMass Amherst's plans to buy the Mt. Ida College campus less than a mile from the Boston line, they offered vague statements about how they'd use it to let UMass Amherst students get internships in Boston and tie into the local hi-tech community. Read more.
Aaron Lecklider, chairman of the American Studies department at UMass Boston is not real happy with the news that the UMass system has found upwards of $50 million to buy the Amherst campus a Newton outpost even as the Boston campus is cutting departments and laying off staff:
The Mt. Ida campus will be used not by (minority-majority, working-class) UMass Boston, but rather by (predominantly white, middle-class) UMass Amherst in order to give their student body access to Boston internships. In other words, the UMass system wants to facilitate internships in Boston for students in Amherst while depriving resources to the 18,000 students on the existing campus in Boston. The Amherst campus will now have a campus in Boston that is literally segregated from the existing Boston campus. ...
The Globe reports UMass Amherst is buying Mt. Ida College in Newton, which it will shut down and remake as UMass Amherst's Boston campus (UMass Amherst Boston?). Current Mt. Ida students will be able to transfer to UMass Dartmouth.
In 2014, UMass Amherst senior James Haidak made headlines with a lawsuit alleging the college sexually discriminated against him for expelling him in what he said was a he said/she said case involving a UMass student he'd been dating.
Yesterday, a federal judge in Boston threw out his suit, saying that while UMass made a mistake in its disciplinary proceedings by delaying them five months, in part because of summer break, Haidak deserved everything he got. Read more.
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