AMHERST — This college town’s top elected officials have endorsed the effort to make Amherst a sanctuary community where all immigrants, whether in the United States legally or not, receive protections to ensure their safety and well-being.
After two hours of discussion that led to elements of the proposed bylaw being refined, the Select Board unanimously recommended the petition that will come before Town Meeting next month.
If adopted, the bylaw would guide police interactions with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials, limit information that can be collected about a person’s immigration status, and prohibit anyone affiliated with town government from being complicit with any type of Muslim registry.
NORTHAMPTON — Henry Louis Gates Jr., an award-winning scholar and cultural critic, will speak in Northampton on the last half-century of civil rights movements in the U.S.
The event will take place at 4:30 p.m. on Monday in the Weinstein Auditorium on College Lane at Smith College. It will begin with screenings of excerpts from his new documentary film, “Black America Since MLK.” Following the screening, Gates will talk with Smith College President Kathleen McCartney about the film and broader issues of civil rights.
The event is free and open to the public. If the auditorium fills up, the talk will be streamed in the Carroll Room at the Campus Center.
Gates is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He has co-authored 21 books and created 15 documentary films.
Gates created the six-part PBS documentary series “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross,” which earned an Emmy Award, the Peabody Award and the NAACP Image Award, among others.
In 2009, Gates was arrested in front of his home after a neighbor called Cambridge Police about two black men appearing to “force entry” as he and his driver attempted to push through the jammed front door of his own home. His arrest sparked controversy and garnered attention from former President Barack Obama.
Former Smith president dies
NORTHAMPTON — Mary Maples Dunn, Smith College’s eighth president, died peacefully on Sunday at 85, leaving behind many achievements and fond memories from the countless lives she touched.
“Everyone liked to be in her company,” said Kathleen McCartney, current president of Smith College. “She was amazing.”
Dunn, a resident of Cambridge and Philadelphia, died while visiting relatives in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Dunn took her position as president at Smith in 1985 and served for 10 years. She retired in 1995.
In one decade, her administration added five new majors, raked in record numbers of applicants and balanced the school’s budget. Her administration created programs (such as the 1988 Smith Design for Institutional Diversity program) and changed policies to recognize issues of race and sexuality.
She also oversaw the raising of $300 million, construction of Bass Hall and Young Science Library, and the doubling of Smith’s endowment.
A Berkshire County man admitted in court Monday to brandishing a gun at the University of Massachusetts when he went to pick up a teenage friend in January 2016.
Jeremy Arbore, 20, of Sheffield, pleaded guilty in Northampton Superior Court Monday to unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of a loaded firearm, carrying a firearm on school grounds and assault by means of a dangerous weapon.
On Jan. 23, 2016, Arbore received a call from a 15-year-old female friend asking to be picked up at the UMass Amherst campus where she had been attending a party. When Arbore arrived with another young man, an argument broke out between Arbore and two people over which vehicle the teen should get into, prosecutors told the judge.
At some point in the argument, Arbore revealed a “fully functional firearm” which made one of the other individuals fearful that the gun would be used against him, prosecutors said.
AMHERST — Geologist and geochemist Isaac Larsen at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has received a five-year, $542,000 faculty early career development (CAREER) grant from the National Science Foundation to address basic research questions about soil production, soil erosion, agricultural landscape evolution and human impact in these areas.
The CAREER award is the NSF’s highest award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and integrating education and research with their institution’s mission.
Larsen and colleagues will study Midwest soils where remnants of the native prairie still exist, specifically in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota. The overall topic is understanding rates at which natural soils are produced compared to how much is eroded by human intervention.
“I think we’ll be able to produce the first quantitative estimates of soil mass balance, production rates and soil lifespan in landscapes where soils form from glacial sediment, which are largely unknown at present. There is virtually no information on rates of soil formation in agricultural landscapes, yet these are some of the most fertile regions of the world,” Larsen said in a press release from the school.