University Reporter: November, 2002
Also in this Issue:
Chancellor Gora Works with Children at Community Bulb Planting Day
Author Shares His Experiences On the Road with Hillary
University Health Services Debuts Wellness Center
Healey Library Partners with Boston Library Consortium to Offer Continuous Online Reference Services
Sacco and Vanzetti Expert Discusses New Evidence of Famed Case
Five New UMass Trustees Appointed
New: Measures of Distinction Publication
Gerontology Institute Scholar Outlines Plan for Baby Boomers’ Long-Term Care
Long-term
care is something most people would prefer not to think about, acknowledges
Yung-Ping Chen, the Frank J. Manning Eminent Scholar’s Chair
in Gerontology, in a recent Boston Globe op-ed piece. However, with
76 million aging baby boomers, Chen warns that the subject cannot
be avoided for long. Costs are skyrocketing. Nationally, the average
annual cost for nursing home care is $55,000, and $27,000 for home
health care, each cost having risen at rates higher than inflation
for many years. read more: Gerontology
Reading by Ha Jin
Poet, Novelist, and 1999 recipient of the National Book Award for Fiction
December 4, 3:00 p.m. Wheatley Hall, 6th floor, room 047
For more information, contact the English Department, 617-287-6702.
Chancellor Gora Works with Children at Community Bulb Planting Day
Chancellor Gora helps John Barnes, a middle schooler at the Little
House Alternative School, plant bulbs at Dorchester’s William
Meaney Playground on October 2. The bulbs, which will bloom in the
spring, are part of a yearlong beautification project to plant new
trees and flowers, apply fresh paint, repair benches, refurbish
artwork, and install original artwork at the playground. Working
with their teachers and Laura Baring-Gould, adjunct professor of
art at UMass Boston, the Little House students are using this experience
to study the relationship between people and the environment in
which they live. The project has been made possible by a grant from
Arts on the Point, the public sculpture park, as part of its education
and outreach mission.
(Photo by Harry Brett)
Author Shares His Experiences On the Road with Hillary
What was it like to be the advance man for Hillary Clinton in the nine years between her husband’s inauguration and her own election as senator? Pat Halley told all to political science students at UMass Boston on October 8. Maurice Cunningham, chair of the Political Science Department, invited the author of On the Road with Hillary to share his unique experiences with the classes, which included traveling to over 36 countries and 25 states with the former first lady. Halley spoke at length about the number of details and logistics he needed to consider in preparation for a visit by Clinton, including the need to negotiate with foreign governments, working with the media, and building crowds. He said he first thought of writing the book after touring the Kremlin with Boris Yeltsin and the Clintons.
(Photo by Harry Brett)
Measures of Distinction
The
Office of University Communications has created a new outreach publication,
“Measures of Distinction,” to share the distinctiveness
of UMass Boston’s mission with the Greater Boston community,
its leaders and residents. The four-page piece highlights some of
the many ongoing projects at UMass Boston that reflect the university’s
focus on academic excellence, innovation, economic development,
public service, access, and quality of life. For copies of the publication,
please contact the Office of University Communications and Community
Relations, 7-5300.
Five New UMass Trustees Appointed
Governor Jane M. Swift appointed five new members to the board of trustees of the University of Massachusetts.
The new members are: William F. Kennedy, an attorney with Nutter, McClennan & Fish in Boston; Stacey Rainey, former senior advisor and deputy chief of staff to Governor Swift; Robert K. Sheridan, CEO of Savings Bank Life Insurance in Woburn; Ellen Zane, network president for Partners HealthCare System, Inc., and Dr. Timothy J. Babineau, a surgeon for Boston Medical School and associate professor of surgery at Boston University School of Medicine.
The University of Massachusetts board of trustees is composed of 22 members, five of whom are student members from the Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and Worcester campuses. With the exception of student trustees, the governor appoints all members of the board.
University Health Services Debuts Wellness Center
By Lisa Greggo
Colorful
balloons and inviting tables decorated the hallways at the grand
opening of the new Wellness Center, held on October 9 in McCormack
Hall. University Health Services provided visitors with free cholesterol
and glucose screenings, as well as information about a variety of
topics, including blood donation, birth control, asthma, and allergies.
Linda Jorgensen, director of health education and wellness programs for University Health Services, explained, “We took all of our existing programs, added new ones, and rolled them into one. Our hope for the Wellness Center is to help people focus on self-improvement.” Some of the programs offered include health screenings, alcohol and drug education, yoga, Reiki, time management skills, and the “clean-sweep” program, a hundred-point inventory to help people prioritize their time.
The Wellness Center occupies a warm and inviting space and has
comfortable furniture where people can sit and look through a library
of books and pamphlets on subjects such as depression, self-confidence,
and exam-panic. Students can also access the website on one of three
center computers.
Kathleen Golden-McAndrew, executive director of University Health
Systems, said, “The Wellness Center has working relationships
with the Fitness Center and the psychology, athletics, and nursing
departments. Our goal is to meet the needs of the students and to
do outreach. This central location for programs and groups will
help students to know that this is the place to go.”
Golden-McAndrew encourages students to go online and join the mailing list. “We want to know what students want,” she said.
The Wellness Center is open to all students, staff, and faculty, and is located at McCormack Hall, 1-613. You can access their website at www.umbwellness.org.
Students tour the information tables and displays at the grand opening of the Wellness Center held on October 9 in McCormack Hall. (Photo by Harry Brett)
Healey Library Partners with Boston Library Consortium to Offer Continuous Online Reference Services
By Linda Stewart
This fall, the Healey Library is joining the Boston Library Consortium (BLC) ASK 24/7 online reference project to expand their services to the university community. Beginning November 12, the on line reference tool will offer “24/7” service to students and staff who are able to connect to the service from the Healey Library homepage www.lib.umb.edu. Chat reference users will not only get answers to their questions, but can access the assistance of reference librarians, who will be able to “co-browse” with the user and actually see what is happening on his or her screen. Librarians can then show the user how to find information on the web and in the online databases, as well as provide direct information.
BLC is providing the services as a two-year experiment and will be evaluating service demand and the adequacy of shared chat reference to provide satisfactory service to its users. UMass Boston is one of the many BLC institutions participating in the first year of the project, including Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Northeastern University, Tufts University, University of Connecticut, UMass Amherst, University of New Hampshire, and Williams College.
Staff at the participating institutions will share in providing service 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Other librarians throughout the country who use the same chat reference vendor will provide evening and weekend service. In exchange for the 24-hour coverage, BLC librarians will answer questions from around the country for a portion of the 40 hours of service that they provide. However, reference librarians will always be able to give priority to users coming from BLC institutions.
Online chat reference service is already available on a limited basis to students and staff at UMass Boston. The Healey Library has provided service for the past year in cooperation with librarians at UMass’s five campuses. However, due to staffing obligations, the service had been limited to 1:00 to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. This new BLC project will allow library staff to expand the hours of service as they share the work with the reference staff of other institutions.
The new service will be yet another tool for faculty and students to use. They can access on site reference help on the fourth floor of the library, phone reference assistance 7-5940, and e-mail reference help at library.reference@umb.edu
Sacco and Vanzetti Expert Discusses New Evidence of Famed Case
By Anne-Marie Kent
The
years between the 1921 conviction and the 1927 execution of Nicola
Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for a South Braintree double murder
were fraught with litigation and public protest, fueled by doubts
about the validity of evidence and the legality of court proceedings
against the two political radicals. A subject of Upton Sinclair’s
novel Boston and sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the case still
draws interest today, 75 years after the two men were executed.
On October 5, history professor Spencer DiScala moderated a panel session focusing on the case from inside and outside the courtroom. The panel was part of a two-day conference and week-long exhibit, “The Sacco Vanzetti Case: 75 Years Later,” at the Boston Public Library. According to DiScala, the Boston Public Library has two of the most important collections regarding the case: the Aldo Felicani Sacco-Vanzetti Collection and Il Fondo L’Adunata. “I think this exhibit and conference are important because they show that the case is still very much alive,” says DiScala.
He notes that many documents have become newly available, shedding new light on the case and giving rise to new questions. DiScala’s morning panel included presentations by Professor Michael Topp of the University of Texas, El Paso, who spoke on issues of fairness in the Sacco Vanzetti Trial; the Honorable Peter V. Agnes, Jr., associate justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, who addressed the role of Judge Webster Thayer in the trial; and Paul Avrich, distinguished professor of history, emeritus, from Queens College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York, who spoke on what Sacco and Vanzetti’s friends said.
The afternoon session, moderated by Judge Agnes, focused on the topic “The Power of Their Ideas.” During this session, historian Robert D’Attilio showed a restoration of documentary film footage of the Sacco Vanzetti funeral procession. It was the first public screening of this footage.
The Sacco Vanzetti Project is the initiative of the Sacco Vanzetti Educational Trust of the Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts. It is a collaborative venture involving the Boston Public Library, the Harvard Law Library, the Massachusetts State Archives, the Supreme Judicial Court Archives, and UMass Boston.