May 10th, 2013
by Marie
The hot topic nationally and locally is the issue of sequestration – its reach and fall-out. Many pundits and editorial writers have weighed-in on its perceived realities and the politics swirling around the issue. The Executive Director of Community Teamwork – Karen Frederick and CTI’s Director of Planning – Cheryl Amey have their very experienced views in today’s Lowell Sun as a rebuttal to the recent Sun editorial suggesting “barely a ripple” locally. With their permission we have it here for our readers:
A few weeks ago the Lowell Sun printed an editorial, “Sequestration Foolishness,” which suggested that there is barely a ripple of an impact on any Massachusetts resident. The implication was that sequestration doesn’t matter and that there will be no impact on Lowell.
That’s not the case.
Last week Congress passed legislation to protect air traffic controllers from furloughs resulting from the sequester. News reports of the impact of flight delays on the economy propelled Congress into action. What is lost on Congress is that the sequester’s impact on families and on communities like Lowell also impacts the economy. The last thing our country needs right now is anything that will further weaken our economic recovery and yet that is exactly the impact the sequester will have.
As a result of the sequester, in Massachusetts –
- 500 children will lose child care assistance. Parents of young children need child care in order to obtain and retain a job, which makes child care key to the economy. The fact is – working parents need child care.
- 1,100 fewer children will be served by Head Start, the federal pre-school program designed to give low income children a chance to start school ready to succeed – more on par with their wealthier counterparts, which affects their future performance in school and increases the likelihood they will graduate from high school (and hopefully go to college).
- 26,970 adults will no longer receive job search assistance. If we are going to strengthen the economy in our state, then those who have the hardest time finding a job need some help so that they can contribute to our communities, pay taxes, and become self-sufficient
- 2,940 fewer children will receive vaccines to combat illnesses and to promote healthy development.
- 160 fewer disabled children will receive assistance when our state loses $13.4 million in education aid for disabled children.
- Meals for the elderly will be cut by $535,000
- 500 fewer battered women will receive assistance as they try to escape from situations involving domestic violence.
- Juvenile justice grant funding will be cut by $300,000, which translates to fewer police in our communities.
When cuts are allocated throughout the state, the impact may be diffuse but, for those who are directly affected, the cuts will be great. For communities like Lowell, the impact translates to fewer parents employed who will pay taxes and purchase goods and services in the community. For children, the loss of child care or inability to participate in Head Start may have a life-long impact. Fewer seniors who receive fuel assistance or food may endanger their health and well-being. In addition, the these cuts all have an impact on small businesses—fuel delivered and meals prepared all represent jobs for others who do not directly receive assistance. Grocers and vendors who supply services like fuel are part of our local economy.
The sequester does matter. While we may not know at this time the exact impact on Lowell, by the time we do know it, it will be too late. The damage will be done. Community Teamwork Inc. (CTI) seeks to assist low-income people to become self-sufficient and to alleviate the effects of poverty. As an economic engine within the community, our goal is strengthen the economy in Lowell by strengthening families and small businesses. We have an array of programs funded by the federal government that at their core help individuals to work and contribute to our local economy and help small businesses grow. Demand for services far exceeds the resources we have. The sequester may not be visible, but the impact will be clear. Fewer parents who can get the child care they need to work, less money in the pockets of small business including local oil dealers and grocers, and layoffs in one of our community’s largest employers all undercut Lowell’s ability to grow the area’s economy.
It is up to us to let Congress know – if they can protect air traffic controllers from furloughs, then they can help those who are most vulnerable among us. And, in doing so, they will promote an economic development strategy that communities like Lowell need to survive and to prosper.
Karen Frederick, Executive Director
Cheryl Amey, PhD, Chief Planning Officer
Community Teamwork, Inc. Community Teamwork, Inc.
(For full disclosure ~ I am a member of the Community Teamwork, Inc. Board of Directors. I have served as the representative from the Town of Tewksbury since 1992. My tenure includes serving four terms as the President.)
Education, Greater Lowell, Lowell, Politics | 
1 Comment »
May 2nd, 2013
by Marie
For a while now UMass Lowell has been seeking a downtown Haverhill location for a satellite campus. With recent proposals not meeting its criteria, UML Chancellor Marty Meehan has entered into a partnership with Northern Essex Community College to offer bachelor’s degree courses at NECC’s Haverhill campus in time for the opening of the Fall semester. University officials will continue to seek downtown Haverhill space but will continue its NECC association. In today’s Eagle-Tribune staff writer Shawn Regan gives an update.
“We are pleased that we can begin making a high-quality UMass Lowell education available in Haverhill as soon as September,” said UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan. “We have worked successfully with Northern Essex for years to help their graduates make a smooth transition to continue their education on our campus and now we can say that will be even easier.”
Meehan stressed the university is “totally committed” to finding a site downtown for a temporary satellite campus and then eventually a larger, permanent campus there.
“We wouldn’t be going to Northern Essex if we weren’t totally committed to downtown,” Meehan said. “The reason we are going to Northern Essex now is to begin to grow a program so we have the enrollments and structure in place for a larger site downtown.”
Read the full article here at eagletribune.com: http://www.eagletribune.com/haverhill/x326073258/UMass-Lowell-to-open-satellite-campus-at-NECC
Education, Greater Lowell, Lowell | 1 Comment »
April 25th, 2013
by Marie
GSE Dean Anita Greenwood, Chancellor Marty Meehan ’78 , Honoree George Tsapataris ’77, Executive Vice-Chancellor Jackie Moloney ’75. ’92 (UMass Lowell – Office of University Advancement)
Last Thursday evening in the midst of a very tough week it was heartening to spend time with members and supporters of the UMass Lowell family recognizing and celebrating the leadership and commitment of fellow alums and their professional achievements. Each in their own way gave tribute in return to the role of the University in their lives – whether they attended Lowell State Teachers College, Lowell Technological Institute, the University of Lowell or the University of Massachusetts – Lowell. Seven Alums were honored – George Membrino ’52 – Music Education; Kimberly Conroy Sawyer ’89 – Mathematics and Computing; Jeffrey Cosiol ’67 – Electrical Engineering; Mark Forziati ’78 – Business Administration; Bruce Arakelian ’82 Nursing; Danielle (Bergeron) McFadden ’07 – Community Social Psychology (given the “recent alum award”) and my good friend former Superintendent of the Lowell Public Schools George Tsapatsaris ’77 – Education.
My focus was particularly on George Tsapatsaris whom I’ve admired for a long time for his commitment to urban public school education and to whom the City of Lowell especially its students and parents owe a great debt of gratitude. His tenure as Superintendent – part of a 40 year legacy in Lowell – saw a $300 million dollars school buildings program that stands as the most comprehensive in the history of the City and the Commonwealth. His deft handling of a threaten federal law suit in conjunction with Mayor Richard Howe and City Solicitor Tom Sweeney turned the Lowell schools toward a better more productive educational pathway. While his heart remained in the Acre and the Bartlett School where he had been a student, teacher and assistant principal, the entire system – students teachers and staff got his attention and commitment. When honored in 2001 as a Distinguished Alum of Lowell High School George Tsapatsaris was described thusly: George Tsapatsaris, Class of 1949, was the second-longest-serving superintendent in Lowell Public School history. He served as a teacher, administrator and superintendent for more than four decades. His tenure as superintendent is noted for insuring equal educational opportunities for students and for an ambitious, comprehensive and successful school building program.
It is my honor to serve with him on the advisory board to the UML Graduate School of Education. It is a further honor to call him a fellow UML Alum and my friend. Congratulations and kudos to George Tsapatsaris for this well-deserved honor.
Learn about all the honorees here: http://alumni.uml.edu/s/1355/lowell/nophoto.aspx?sid=1355&gid=4&pgid=1259
Current Events, Education, History, Lowell | No Comments »
April 14th, 2013
by Marie
Massachusetts has long had an important role in free, quality public education. Just as in colonial times, Massachusetts continues to set the standard for public education in the new United States.
MassMoments remind us that on this day – April 14, 1642 – the Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the first law in the New World requiring that children be taught to read and write. It was an incredible step for education. While not a universal mandate at the time, it did set the stage for universal, free, compulsory public-school education in Massachusetts. “When John Adams drafted the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780, he included provisions that guaranteed public education to all citizens.”
…in 1642, Massachusetts Bay Colony passed the first law in the New World requiring that children be taught to read and write. The English Puritans who founded Massachusetts believed that the well-being of individuals, along with the success of the colony, depended on a people literate enough to read both the Bible and the laws of the land. Concerned that parents were ignoring the first law, in 1647 Massachusetts passed another one requiring that all towns establish and maintain public schools. It would be many years before these schools were open to all children. Only in the mid-nineteenth century was universal free public schooling guaranteed – in time, made compulsory — for Massachusetts children.
Read the full article at MassMoments.com
here for a fuller history of how a free, public school education system evolved in Massachusetts and how it became a model for the nation.
Education, History, Politics | No Comments »
April 10th, 2013
by PaulM
Professor George Lopez, Chair of Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame is this year’s F. Bradford Morse Distinguished Lecturer. Join UMass Lowell and Middlesex Community College for a reception at 5:30 p.m. and lecture at 6:30 p.m. in the Brad Morse Federal Building, 50 Kearney Square, Lowell, Massachusetts. The lecture is entitled, “Imagining a Violence-Free World: Building the New Peace to End the New Violence.” RSVP to artsandideas@uml.edu
Education, Lowell | No Comments »
April 3rd, 2013
by DickH
This is a re-post from the LowellDeeds blog from earlier today:
I spent this morning at the Tsongas Arena helping to staff the housing booth at the Money Strong for Life Fair organized by the Jeanne d’Arc Credit Union and attended by nearly 300 seniors from Lowell High School. This is the third year that the fair has been held and each time it has gotten better and bigger (a class from Methuen High School participated this year). The purpose of the fair is to introduce students to the realities of managing one’s money in a real-world simulation. Based on pre-interviews, students are placed in a job and then must visit the tables set up around the floor of the arena with each table supplying either necessities or luxuries. The large table in the middle of the room is “credit counseling” which is where many of the students end up after discovering that their income is inadequate to fund their desired lifestyle. The tables cover clothing, education, nutrition/health, luxury items, furniture, housing, insurance, savings, transportation, credit, and job skills. A “reality check” table gives students a dose of real life by confronting them with unexpected and unbudgeted situations that throw the best of budgets into disarray. This type of financial literacy training is of tremendous benefit to these high school students. (Many adults would benefit from it, as well). Jeanne d’Arc Credit Union is to be commended for the scale of its support of this effort. Not only was the arena rented and lunch provided to the students, but more than 60 employees of the credit union helped staff the tables at the event.
Current Events, Education, Lowell | No Comments »
March 7th, 2013
by Marie
As a Lowell State College/UMass Lowell Alum and a member of the Graduate School of Education Advisory Board, I’m really pleased to offer kudos and congratulations to James H. Nehring, UMass Lowell/Graduate School of Education Associate Professor in Leadership in Schooling. Professor Nehring has been selected as the 2013-2014 Fulbright Scholar for Northern Ireland Governance and Public Policy. The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, is the United States’ flagship program for international exchange of scholars. Fulbright Awards are highly competitive and among the most prestigious scholarship programs worldwide.
UMass Lowell/GSE Professor Jame H. Nehring
Nehring will be in residence at Queens University Belfast for the upcoming fall semester. He will conduct research on schools serving lower-income communities that teach skills above and beyond those measured by standardized, government tests.
“I am honored to be selected for a Fulbright, and I am excited that this important research will be able to move forward as a result,” says Nehring.
A wealth of research demonstrates that the pressure of high stakes tests narrows the curriculum. Schools serving low-income families are under the greatest pressure to improve test scores.
“Teaching and learning suffer the most in these schools, however, there are some outlier schools successfully serving lower income communities,” says Nehring. “Despite test pressure, these schools teach students a wide range of skills such as creative problem solving, collaboration, leadership, intellectual openness and reflection. How do they do it? How can other schools do likewise? How can we alter policy to promote what they are doing?”
Nehring hopes that his research results will provide practical guidance for school leaders and suggestions for policy makers who want schools to teach beyond the test.
“We chose schools in Northern Ireland, Israel and the United States for our study, in part because all three jurisdictions have high stakes tests and a history of education inequality,” he says. “We are concerned that inequality is widening as test pressure rises.”
Before coming to UMass Lowell in 2006, Nehring taught in public schools for 25 years. He led the startup of three public high schools designed to foster intellectual, social and emotional growth. He is the author of five books and numerous articles on education.
Learn more about the UMass Lowell Graduate School of Education here: http://www.uml.edu/education/default.aspx. Learn more about Professor Nehring here: http://www.uml.edu/Education/faculty/nehring-james.aspx
Education, Greater Lowell, Lowell | No Comments »
March 7th, 2013
by Marie
MassMoments reminds us that on this day March 7, 1876, Scotland-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for a device that could transmit human speech over a wire – the telephone. Bell’s patents and the success of the Bell Telephone Company, which he established in 1877, made the young inventor a very rich man. There is a Lowell connection to the Bell story.
On the evening of April 24, 1877, in the reception room of Huntington Exhibition Hall above the Boston and Lowell railroad station the seeds of fortune were sewn. The financial foundation of the well-known Theodore Edson Parker Foundation is rooted at this historic event where less than a year after the patent was granted, and still some time before Bell Telephone Company was incorporated, an exclusive audience of 40 “gentlemen” gathered to see and hear a professor from Boston University named Alexander Graham Bell demonstrate his new invention, the “telephony.” A newspaper account of the evening relates that ” the test commenced . . . when a cabinet organ was played in Boston and was distinctly heard in this city [Lowell].” The invited guests heard such popular songs as “Yankee Doodle,” “Home Sweet Home,” and “Hold the Fort,” the last also sung by Thomas A. Watson, Bell’s assistant. History was made over the wires to and from Boston and Lowell. Dr. Moses Greeley Parker attended that night and ultimately became on of the biggest stockholders of both the American Telephone Company and the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. A philanthropic man – Parker’s legacy continues. The bulk of his fortune was passed on to a nephew, Theodore Edson Parker Jr. who inspired and made possible the eventual formation of the Theodore Edson Parker Foundation, now dedicated to supporting non-profit organizations and causes in the city of Lowell. The Parker Foundation was one of the early and very important supporters of the Greater Lowell Community Foundation.
…in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone. Born in Scotland, Bell settled in Boston when he was in his early 20s. He made his living as a teacher of the deaf; on the side he tinkered with transmitters and electromagnets. In the summer of 1876, Bell gave the first public demonstration of the “electrical speech machine” he had invented. A few months later he achieved his ultimate goal: transmitting and receiving spoken words over a telephone line. When Bell died on August 2, 1922, the nation’s telephones went silent for one minute in a fitting tribute to a man who had done so much to further oral communication.
Culture, Education, Greater Lowell, History, Lowell | No Comments »
February 20th, 2013
by Marie
This is the award won in 2011 by local historian David McKean.
It’s time to offer your nomination(s) for the 2013 Annual Awards for Lowell Preservation and Culture. The Lowell Heritage Partnership joins the Lowell National Historical Park in seeking nominations from the community for recognition and acknowledgment of contributions to preservation and culture. From the recent press release:
Lowell Heritage Partnership and Lowell National Historical Park are seeking nominations from the community for acknowledging the contributions of organizations or individuals in the areas of historic preservation and cultural heritage. Superintendent Celeste Bernardo stated that, “these awards give the Park and Partnership an opportunity to recognize those making major contributions to the development of this community and its historic resources. We intend to promote stewardship of these ideals for the benefit of future generations.” The award recipients will be announced at the fifth annual Lowell Preservation and Cultural Heritage Awards Reception as part of Doors Open Lowell in May.
These two award categories represent the important nature of the Park’s dual mission to “preserve and interpret the nationally significant historical and cultural sites” in Lowell. Two awards may be presented in each area, one to an enrolled middle through college student and one from the broader community nominees. Referring to the awards, Lowell Heritage Partnership president, Janet Leggat stated, “The Lowell Heritage Partnership was formed around cultural heritage and historic preservation, and the contributions these ideals make to the quality of life in Lowell. We look forward to again participating, with these awards going to deserving individuals and organizations that uphold the ideals we so strongly believe in.”
For the full press release and nomination forms use this LNHP link: http://www.nps.gov/lowe/parknews/2013-annual-awards-in-lowell-historic-preservation-and-culture.htm
Culture, Current Events, Education, History, Lowell | No Comments »
February 14th, 2013
by Marie
UMass Lowell Chancellor Mary Meehan had big new s to announce at a press conference and rally at the UML/Tsongas Center this morning. UMass Lowell is going Division I for all it men’s and women’s sports! Saying that it will be a challenge but a great step for the University, Meehan noted:
“This is about the academics of this institution,” said UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan. “This is about where we’ve been and where we’re going as an institution. You’re associated by those teams you play, and those universities that are a part of your league. And we belong in America East.”
Current Events, Education, Lowell | No Comments »
Recent Comments