Change is good
North Adams, MA - Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts will celebrate Commencement exercises on Saturday, May 17, beginning at 11 AM in the Amsler Campus Center Gym. This year, 370 students, including 38 masters candidates, will receive degrees. U.S. Senator John F. Kerry will deliver the keynote address to the class of 2008. Kerry will receive a Doctor of Laws.
North Adams, MA - All are invited to the Alternative Spring Break Presentation Friday, May 2nd at 4 pm at MCLA Gallery 51, located at 51 Main Street in North Adams, MA. Refreshments will be served!
Students will be presenting their experiences working with the National Wildlife Federation in New Orleans as part of Katrina relief efforts.
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA – The SEE Fund’s First Annual “Founders Celebration and Fundraiser” is being held at the Williamstown Savings Bank, 795 Main St., this Friday, April 11, from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
“This is a great opportunity for people in Williamstown and Lanesboro not only to celebrate the founders’ vision and learn what we do but also to help us continue their work by strengthening the fund,” said Lee Harrison, Chairman of the Fund for Sustaining Educational Excellence at Mt. Greylock Regional High School. “In addition to wine, food, and student chamber music, we’ll hear students and teachers discuss the difference the fund has made in their lives.”
Since its inception in 1996, The SEE Fund has awarded grants totaling more than $115,000 to support educational excellence at Mt. Greylock Regional High School. These grants have supported: Visits by guest authors & artists; construction of a greenhouse; printmaking and stained glass workshops; the purchase of equipment for fine arts, science, photography, and athletics; a peer-training program; and programs to promote interest in history and literature.
“The founders recognized that tight school budgets and insufficient federal and state support for education make it increasingly difficult for public schools to purchase the equipment and implement the programs that mean the difference between a good education and an excellent education,” Harrison noted. “And as we all know, our public schools face even greater obstacles today.”
This event will have a unique twist: Rewards for the highest donations.
“Thanks to the generosity of Brian Fairbank, CEO of Jiminy Peak, we are able to offer the highest donors two books of tickets to Jiminy’s Mountain Adventure ride,” said Nat Karns, the group’s Vice Chairman. “Each book of tickets is valued at approximately $500.”
In addition, the Williamstown Savings Bank is donating a “Williamstownopoly” game, which will be auctioned off at the event.
For more information, call 458-9582 Ext. 149 or email theseefund@gmail.com. The SEE Fund is a fund of the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and, accordingly, all donations are tax deductible. Credit cards donations are accepted.
(UPDATED: 10:40 a.m., March 31)
Mount Greylock Regional High School would shed a science teaching position next year -- but add four posts overall, including four in special-education services -- under a proposed $9.9-million budget – a 5.7 percent increase over this year -- approved by the school board. The figure includes a proposed $23,000 special appropriation which Lanesborough voters will be asked to approve over and above the town's mandated share of the regional district's budget. READ FULL STORY. The board also welcomed a planned gift of 40-60 computers from Williams College. Two members of the Williamstown Finance Committee comment; saying the MGRHS budget is more than 2-percent above the FinCom's target and includes four new positions. (READ THEIR COMMENTS)
North Adams, MA - Silvio O. Conte Middle School, supported by the PTG is having a fundraising auction on Friday, March 7 at 6:30 PM. Preview begins at 6:00. Donations of gift certificates, merchandise, services and time have been made by many Berkshire County businesses and will go to the highest bidders. This is an auctioneer-run event. For a preview of the items, http://conteptg.napsk12.org/
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- What motivates teens to use swear words? Where do they learn them? And what should parents -- and teachers -- do about it? These and other questions were answered on Monday, Dec. 10, by Dr. Timothy Jay, a psychology professor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams. For 37 years, Jay has studied cursing and swearing as social and psychological phenomenon. He discussed his work at a regular monthly meeting of the Mount Greylock Regional High School parent-teacher organization. Listen to Dr. Jay's remarks (after an announcement by PTO co-chair Lisa Hiley) by clicking on the carat of the bar below. You can also download an MP3 podcast for off-line listening.
North Adams, MA - This year for the first time part of the Kidspace artist residency program will be organized in collaboration with the North Adams literary organization Inkberry. A writer-in-residence works with third-grade classes in the three North Adams elementary schools to create writing pieces. The students will present their writing at free special events for families, friends, and the general public in MASS MoCA's Café B-10. Brayton 3rd graders will present on December 4th at 6:00 PM. Other classes will present their work in February. Refreshments will be provided and the Kidspace gallery will be open from 4:30 - 7:30 PM.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Orange-and-red posters and order forms are plastered around Mount Greylock Regional High School signaling the start of what is becomming an annual effort -- the Florida citrus fruit sale to benefit the school's "Friends of the Arts" fund. Parent Carol Stein-Payne has been running the annual effort for at least four years. The public can order boxes of naval oranges, red grapefruit or a mix, for $25 a box (20 pounds). The cutoff date for odering is Nov. 28 and the fruit will arrive by refrigerated truck from Mixon Fruit Farm, in Bradenton, Fla., on Dec. 11 or 12, and be delivered to you by students. Students will be canvasing with order sheets, but if you don't hear from anyone, call Stein-Payne at (413) 458-8197 or email cpayne@adelphia.net to place your pre-paid order.
(Photos courtesy of Roman Iwasiwka Photography)
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- High-school students throughout Berkshire County are readying for an annual bout of performing the bard -- the 19th Annual Fall Shakespeare Festival -- and the most famous of the British playwright's works, Romeo & Juliet, will be performed this Thursday and Friday at Mount Greylock Regional High School.
Tickets are only $5 for students and $7 for adults and organizers say there will be a cornucopia of refreshments and baked goods during each intermission. There is no Saturday performance. The Greylock show stars seniors Davy Payne as Romeo and Lizzie Fox as Juliet.
The Mount Greylock cast will also perform at 6:30 p.m. on Fri., Nov. 16 at the Founders' Theater at Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox. Other high schools in the Berkshires will join Mount Greylock students on Thurs.-Sat., Nov. 15-17, in back-to-back performances of the bard's plays at Shakespeare & Co.'s Lenox campus. Those performances are also public. For a full schedule go to the website, or call the box office at (413) 637-3353.
"The Fall Festival has a very specific aesthetic," says Libby Augarten, a Shakespeare & Co. staffer assigned to co-direct the Mount Greylock production. "We wait until auditions are over to choose a play, so we can pick the one that's just right for a particular group of students."
The process of picking the right play from Shakespeare's repertoire for each school can be painstaking, says Augarten. "The students and directors generate the work together, and the process is just as important as the finished production. We ask the students to make decisions, have opinions, take risks, be articulate about their feelings, and be themselves."
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Full disclosure: A son of this post's author has a role in the MGRHS production.
North Adams, MA - Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts will host a forum on Tuesday, Oct. 30, at 3:30 PM in Murdock Hall room 218, to help connect students with members of Berkshire Chamber of Commerce’s Berkshire Young Professionals and to hear about their experiences of living and working in the Berkshires. The event is free and open to the public.
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