Police add patrols at UMass library after assault

AMHERST - University of Massachusetts police have increased patrols in and around the W.E.B. Du Bois Library following a sexual assault in the library's bathroom last week.

Deputy Chief Patrick T. Archbald declined to quantify the increase, but said it includes uniformed officers and student cadets. More library staff have also been added to monitor suspicious activity, he said.

UMass prof seeks to buoy middle class

AMHERST - With worker productivity on the rise and wages struggling just to stay level, University of Massachusetts professor Ralph W. Whitehead Jr. went to Washington, D.C., this month to discuss the state of the American middle class with Vice President Joe Biden.

Levasseur's talk on roots of terrorism might find new venue

AMHERST - Proponents of a planned talk by a former member of a radical group that was canceled by University of Massachusetts officials this week decry the cancellation as an affront to free speech. Meanwhile, there is a move afoot to find another venue for the talk by Raymond Luc Levasseur, a convicted domestic terrorist.

UMass police seek sex assault suspect

AMHERST - University of Massachusetts police are seeking a suspect involved in a reported sexual assault Tuesday night in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.

The assault allegedly took place in the women's bathroom on the library's 19th floor between the hours of 10 and 11 p.m.

Two alums step up with $125 million for Amherst College

AMHERST - In an apparently unprecedented move, anonymous donors have pledged to donate $125 million to Amherst College over the next five years, college officials announced Tuesday.

Alumna tapped as MHC president

SOUTH HADLEY - When Lynn Pasquerella completed an alumnae survey identifying which qualities she'd like to see in the next president of Mount Holyoke College, she never dreamed she could be describing herself.

On Monday, college officials named Pasquerella, a medical ethicist and provost at the University of Hartford, as Mount Holyoke's 18th president.

She succeeds president Joanne V. Creighton, who has served as the college's president since 1996. She announced her retirement in the spring.

New UMass rec center open

AMHERST - After a delay, the University of Massachusetts Recreation Center opened Friday for student use.

The $52 million center's opening was pushed back about a month while a final fire prevention systems inspection was conducted by the Amherst Fire Department and then addressed by the university.