FROM OTHER SOURCES: NEWS FOR AND ABOUT AMHERST
From Other Sources offers links to articles that may be of interest to Amherst readers. We will update this section weekly.
Media
Decline in Readers, Ads, Leads Hundreds of Newspapers to Fold. by David Bauder and David A. Lieb. (3/11/19) Town by Town, Local Journalism is dying. The authors see this as a tangible threat to democracy. (from APNEWS)
Town Finance
The Hundred Massachusetts Towns with the Highest Property Tax Rates by Stephen Solis. (4/24/19). Amherst is 10th. Longmeadow is the highest. Shutesbury is second. (MassLive)
Diversity
New Committee in Amherst to Offer Advice on Increasing Diversity in Town Boards. by Scott Merzbach (3/7/19) As part of an effort to increase the diversity of those serving in Amherst’s government, a new committee will soon be providing advice to the town manager on committee appointments. (from The Daily Hampshire Gazette)
Valley Group Talks Race on South Carolina Trip by Greta Jochem (2/25/19) In late January, 18 people from all over western Massachusetts traveled to South Carolina to talk about race with people from different states through a new project called Bridge4Unity. (from The Daily Hampshire Gazette)
Transportation
Regional Transit Authorities in Crisis: Western Mass Copes with Inadequate Funding. by Lillian Ilsley-Greene (3/31/19) Last month, the nonprofit A Better City reported that transit in the commonwealth will experience a funding gap of $8.4 billion over the next 10 years, leaving the state of transit systems in Massachusetts further from a standard set by the Federal Transit Administration to ensure well maintained and reliable transit infrastructure. (from The Daily Hampshire Gazette) h
Bleak Outlook for Extended Amherst Bus Service This Summer. by Scott Merzbach (3/7/19) Despite a continued push to guarantee extended bus service on core PVTA routes through Amherst this summer, chances are slim that it will happen. Douglas Slaughter, the town’s representative to the PVTA Advisory Committee, told the Town Council Monday that even though Town Meeting last May increased the town’s appropriation for bus service by $53,000, there are many challenges to having buses run deeper into the night when college students are away. Any changes to what are known as fixed routes require an extended, months-long process to schedule drivers and to inform riders, Slaughter said.h (from the Daily Hampshire Gazette)
UMass
UMASS John Olver Building Named “Building of the Year” by World Architects by Diane Lederman (3/2/19) World-Architects, a membership-based network of selected contemporary architects and building professionals, named the $52 million project its U.S. Building of the Year after online polling. (from MassLive)
Amilcar Shabazz Inaugurated as the President of the National Council of Black Studies . (3/21/19) Amilcar Shabazz, professor in the W.E.B. Du Bois department of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been inaugurated as the new president of the National Council for Black Studies (NCBS) at the group’s annual conference held recently in New Orleans. (from Inside UMass)
Hampshire College
The Unmaking of a College: Notes from Inside the Hampshire College Runaway Train. by Margaret Cerullo (3/8/19) (from The Nation) Hampshire College professor Margaret Cerullo offers her analysis of the current crisis. “If Hampshire goes under, the arts and the liberal arts as inspiration to lives of critical inquiry and social engagement will have been dealt another serious blow.” (from The Nation)
Hampshire College, A Child of the Sixties, Faces its “Visioning Problem” by Masha Gessen (3/9/19). Amherst College professor Masha Gessen revisits the original vision of Hampshire College in light of its current existential crisis. (from The New Yorker)