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.
UMass Boston
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.
The Dorchester Reporter reports that UMass Boston is looking to sell the 20-acre site where the Bayside Expo Center used to be. UMass bought the land for expanding its campus but now hopes to use the money it'll earn from its sale just to shore up its existing buildings.
UMass Boston administrators today notified its workforce that 40 workers will either be laid off or have the hours reduced because of the school's continuing financial issues. The cuts are in addition to the 50 workers who took "voluntary separation."
With flooding in the news, WBZ reports that the Sustainable Solutions Lab at UMass Boston (itself right on the water) is looking at the potential of a hurricane barrier that would stretch along the outer waters of Boston Harbor and be activated when a hurricane approached. Read more.
The Dorchester Reporter gets a look at UMass Boston's latest ideas for the Bayside Expo Center it owns - which call for building "a modern-day Harvard Square."
The Dorchester Reporter reports talks between UMass Boston and the Kraft family to build a Revs stadium on the water have ended 0-0 and now UMass is going to look at what else they can build where the Bayside Expo Center used to be.
The Globe reports the move affects some summer and fall classes that some students need to graduate.
Mass Media reports a UMass freshman who fell from the third floor of the Campus Center on Feb. 28 died two days later.
An official at UMass Boston says the school is trying to stamp out white-supremacy posters that have been appearing on campus in recent days. Read more.
The Krafts think the old Bayside Expo Center, now owned by UMass Boston, would make a great location for a Revolution stadium. And Shirley Leung, on the rebound from the Olympics, swoons.
Some may say I have never met a stadium I didn’t like. But I really like this one. What’s most exciting is the opportunity to build something different in a part of the city that could use an economic jolt. It’s not another strip mall, big-box retailer, or luxury condo tower — and that’s a good thing.
Bidding for the sprawling Olympics tore the city apart, but a Dorchester stadium could be the project that brings everyone together.
Uncle Joe is coming for a visit.
Expect significant delays between 2 and 6 p.m. as Secret Service and law enforcement officers work to secure the area for the vice president's visit. A security check-point will be set up at around noon between the Kennedy Institute and the end of University Drive North to search all vehicles traveling toward the institute and the Campus Center.
Blake Stacey wonders what this "persistent water splashy thing" off the UMass Harbor Walk is.
The Dorchester Reporter scores on talks between UMass Boston, which now owns what's left of the expo center, and the Kraft family, which owns the soccer team.
A Boston hazardous-waste collection effort at UMass Boston was interrupted around 1 p.m. when somebody brought in "some chemicals that required immediate attention," the Boston Fire Department reports.
We found nitrocellulose, ether and picric acid were dropped off by a family of a retired doctor.
UMass Boston has alerted its students and staff they can just stay home on Monday due to the official opening of Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the US Senate. A roving UHub recipient of the alert forwarded us a copy:
The University of Massachusetts Boston campus will be closed beginning at 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 29 through Monday, March 30.
Campus will reopen for business on Tuesday, March 31.
The Globe reports on a study by an institute at UMass on all the economic benefits we'd see - but don't worry, the institute isn't directly affiliated with UMass Boston, which has strongly supported the games and stands to get its first dorms out of the deal. The study does caution we should be concerned about public expenditures and Olympics fever sucking the life out of projects and development in the rest of the state.
![Subscribe to UMass Boston](https://www.universalhub.com/misc/feed.png)