It has been a rocky few weeks at the University of Massachusetts Amherst: www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/14/m...

Amherst’s most destructive fire in recent history drew a mutual aid response that the fire chief calls “one of the success stories” of the night. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/11/m...

With an open investigation and many lingering questions, students were feeling unsettled Monday. One senior who didn’t want to give her name brushed tears away as she stood at the charred site. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/10/m...

The Hotel UMass is known for its prime location, stark Brutalist architecture, and prominence as a teaching hotel. Now it’s also drawing attention as one setting in an elaborate cocaine sting. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/05/m...

Retsef Levi may not be a household name, but he is already impacting how every household in the United States will access vaccines, and it couldn’t be at a more consequential time. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/21/m...

The MIT model serves as a "cookbook." The main recipe: "Get together a faculty board, make sure they’re diverse, and stay out of politics." Of course, it’s hard to avoid politics when talking about Israel.

In Massachusetts, “This is not the time to panic. This is really the time to prepare,” said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/09/m...

“Death to the IDF” defaced the entrance doors of the Stata Center, the university’s computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory, along with the tagged signature DAMPL, which stands for the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/07/m...

The complaint characterizes Smith’s current policies as either violating or encroaching on the rights of “biological women” under Title IX, a depiction opponents say is a willful misinterpretation of the landmark civil rights law that’s gaining traction. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/27/m...

While the budget scenarios UMass Amherst administrators are requesting are only an exercise in financial planning at this point, professors are already thinking about what they may have to lose. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/19/m...

“I did all the things right. I was compliant. They asked me to leave. I left the country,” said the PhD student. In doing so, “I became a statistic to their self-deportation [initiative].” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/19/m...

Harvard's resistance to the Trump administration has been aided by an all-out media blitz, with the university helping to spotlight faculty whose research is in peril and dispatching Pres. Alan Garber on a rare national media tour. w/ @brookehaus.bsky.social www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/11/b...

“Alan Garber — bless his soul — was not trained, and our PR team was not trained, to launch defenses against authoritarian governments,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard and the author of “How Democracies Die.” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/06/11/b...

“I want Americans to know that we are not just statistics or pawns in a political fight. We are future leaders, scientists, teachers, and bridge builders. And we chose Harvard.”

Boston University professor Min Ye sees Rubio’s “rejection” of Chinese students as “a strong signal that we want to go back to the ’70s,” she said, before “the whole global collaboration in science, technology, and education.”

“Education is about opening your mind to different things, right… But in a situation where you cannot talk freely, or live freely, or travel freely within the safest part of the world — that is a psychological burden.”

International students: We want to hear your thoughts about the future. What happens next? Our higher ed team is also interested in talking to school faculty and staff who work with international students www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/19/m...

Covered UMass Amherst commencement last night and heard a common refrain — graduates are worried about job security in the wake of federal cuts and funding freezes. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/16/m...

Even as grounds crews begin to mow pastoral greens and put up graduation banners, there’s also a feeling of apprehension thrumming beneath the regular rhythms of college life. “It’s not really a secret that a lot of us are feeling some fear.” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/14/m...

I wrote about the midlife emotional mosh pit that is perimenopause and why, to quote a children's book, "a screaming song is good to know in case you need to scream." www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/15/m...

The task for commencement speakers is a bit trickier than usual: They have to navigate a highly charged political landscape at a critical moment for higher education and the country, all while inspiring the next generation and not alienating their parents. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/14/m...

Rachel Petherbridge, fifth-year PhD candidate, likened the ongoing funding threats to “a slow-moving train.” With the threats on Monday, the train suddenly “jerked forward.” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/06/m...

“Journalism isn't the first media-related named horse to run in the Kentucky Derby.” Also see: “Newsboy in 1882 (11th place finish); there was Editor's Note in 1996 (sixth place finish); Suddenbreakingnews in 2016 (fifth place finish).” www.usatoday.com/story/sports...

“This is just textbook authoritarian behavior,” said Steven Levitsky, professor of government and Latin American studies at Harvard. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/05/02/m...

“There’s a fear of having conversations about anything related to Israel/Palestine because people don’t know enough to participate and don’t want to say the wrong thing,” said one student. “But they can listen.” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/30/m...

“Both reports show where Harvard failed to support students at a time when they needed it most.” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/29/m...

Lookout monkey at the Rock of Gibraltar. Very Oz.

“Nothing about this is normal." w. @samanthajgross.bsky.social www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/15/m...

Excited to share some news: As of Monday, I joined the Globe's stellar higher ed/Metro team as a full-time reporter. I'll also be keeping an eye on Western Mass. stories more generally. Please send tips, ideas, etc. my way at [email protected].

RIP

“It’s the first time Lincoln Center has celebrated the raw, propulsive D.I.Y. genre of punk, let alone the women who kicked their way through.” 👀‼️‼️ www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/a...

“All I Want for Christmas Is You,” the hit song by Mariah Carey, was not stolen from other songwriters, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled this week.

Finally found a solution to dresses with no pockets — overalls. With pockets for a notebook, paperback, bill to be mailed, lip gloss, phone, earbuds, drum sticks, and good-looking pine cones.

Our new podcast begins on the docks of a Massachusetts city. It involves a rogue cop. A demand for drugs. A phrase he'd used again and again: “confidential informant.” This secretive system in policing has a dark underside. We found it in New Bedford.

One word: “Loraz-a-payum” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/11/a...

With a J. Mascis cameo of sorts. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/06/a...

How am I only now discovering Leon Russell? But also — so happy to be discovering Leon Russell only now.

And the weekend begins.

“Do I think that our project is probably going to get killed? Yeah, of course.” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/29/a...

Talked to Charles Thompson (aka Frank Black & Black Francis) about making music and making art: “Everyone has permission to pick up pigment and make a mark on the wall.” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/01/23/a...

“He was drawn to mystery because he understood mystery as a conversation — a collision of differences, interpretations, perspectives.”

Hi