|
September 13, 2002
Front-Page News
Science Flair
WFCR, the public radio station serving western New England, on
September 5 broadcast a report on the opening of Kendade Hall,
the heart of the College's new science center. Frank DeToma,
Professor of Biological Sciences on the Alumnae Foundation and
director of the College's science center, told news director
Bob Paquette that the center is a metaphor for the way that mathematics
and the sciences are blending into an "integrated, overlapping,
and self-reinforcing explanation of the universe and its local
inhabitants." DeToma also spoke about Kendade with reporter
Ron Hall on WHMP-AM in Northampton.
State of the City
A profile of the city of Holyoke published in the August 17 editions
of the Boston Globe cited Preston Smith II, associate professor
of politics, who has studied the redevelopment of that city's
downtown neighborhood. Smith acknowledged that Holyoke faces significant
challenges, but noted that its mayor, Michael Sullivan, "has
created a climate to get things done."
Paying the Piper
The Ridge Tool Company, maker of the Propress system for joining
copper tubing, has posted a profile on its corporate Web site
featuring Mount Holyoke's plumbing staff. The MHC plumbers are
responsible for keeping the water, gas, and sewer systems running
in the campus's twenty dormitories and some forty academic, administrative,
and other buildings. The site describes the staff's use of a safer
and faster method for joining copper tubing that does not require
flame soldering. "It allows us to do our maintenance jobs
quickly," MHC's supervisor of plumbing Jim Moynihan is quoted
as saying in the article, "freeing up the department to take
on more projects." Visit http://www.ridgid.com/propresssystem/ppprofiles.asp
to read the article. Use Internet Explorer to access the site.
Young and United
The August 6 issue of the New York Daily News featured
a story titled "Local Shaping Labor's Next Leaders"
that focused on the Summer Youth Brigade of Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ. "With corporate America
doing the perp walk," writes News reporter Denis Hamill,
"… Local 32BJ is showing young America how to walk the
union walk." The article explains how this summer program,
now in its second year, recruits young adults, ages eighteen to
twenty-one, pays them $400 a week, and gives them on-the-job training
in how to organize, picket, and campaign. Among what Local 32BJ
president Michael Fishman calls in the article "a new generation
of activists," is eighteen-year-old Shera Resch '05 of Washington
Heights, Brooklyn. Hamill writes that Resch's life took a turn
for the better several years ago when her father, a building superintendent
in Brooklyn, became a member of the SEIU. "He always worked
so hard," Hamill quotes Resch as saying, "… but
we struggled. But I remember when his building was organized by
Local 32BJ my family's life improved. Suddenly there was more
money in the house." Resch continues, "Instead of pushing
us right into work right out of high school he encouraged college,
which he never had the chance to do." Says Fishman, "Our
new labor leaders will come out of this kind of summer program.
And, hey, they also earn enough money to help pay for some college
expenses, which helps their parents, many of whom are our rank
and file."
The
counter is
1,716
|
