CAMPUS

Painting a portrait of success

Scott O'Connell
Scott.O'Connell@telegram.com

GARDNER – Mount Wachusett Community College has received a $250,000 grant from the Barr Foundation to participate in a long-term student success study.

Mount Wachusett will be involved in a year-long undertaking called Portrait of a Graduate, aimed at defining what students should know and be able to do at graduation. According to the college, the project will consist of "examining graduates’ readiness for college, career and community; review(ing) existing student outcomes frameworks; (and) identify(ing) knowledge and skills all community graduates will attain."

"The rate of change in the world today is exponentially faster than it has ever been, and it is essential for us to look at what students should know, and be able to do, at the point of high school graduation as they prepare to enter higher education and/or the workforce in a world that is very different than the one most of us grew up in," Fagan Forhan, assistant dean at MWCC, said in a statement. "The school districts in our region have been working deeply together for a number of years, and are poised to truly move the needle on the educational experience – and outcomes – for youth in North Central Massachusetts."

Mount Wachusett will work on the project with Fitchburg, Gardner, Leominster and Murdock high schools, among other partners.

WPI prof gets award

Worcester Polytechnic Institute chemistry and biochemistry professor Bruce Bursten has received the 2020 American Chemical Society Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry.

The award recognizes recipients for "significant service and outstanding research" in the field of advanced inorganic chemistry, according to WPI. Bursten will receive the award at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting in Philadelphia in March.

"I am deeply humbled to receive this award from the American Chemical Society," he said in a statement. "To be selected to receive this award by peers within my discipline is a very special honor to me. I am grateful to my students and colleagues who have given me such a rich and satisfying career in chemistry."

Literature prize in Ireland

Heather Treseler, an English professor at Worcester State University, has won Ireland’s Munster Literature Centre’s International Chapbook Prize for 2019, according to the school.

Treseler’s chapbook of poems, "Partruition," will be published this March, according to Worcester State. She will travel to Cork, which will host its International Poetry Festival around the same time, to give a public reading.

She will also receive $1,100 for winning the Chapbook Prize.

At Worcester State, she is a Presidential Fellow in Art, Education and Community.

Video game jam

Becker College later this month will be a host site for the Global Game Jam, which the school described as the largest game creation event taking place at multiple locations across the world.

The Game Jam at Becker will take place from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2, and is free and open to all college students who are at least 18. Participants will work together to design, create and test their own games within the 48 hours of the competition, according to the college.

More information is available online at globalgamejam.org.

ALS fundraiser

Fitchburg State University and Worcester State University’s hockey teams will face off next month to raise money to combat ALS in honor of a man with local higher education ties.

Funds from the game specifically will go to support the ALS Association Massachusetts Chapter and the Glenn Roberts Memorial Scholarship at Fitchburg High School.

Roberts, who worked at Mount Wachusett Community College for more than 20 years and earned a master’s degree at Fitchburg State, died in 2013 from ALS.

Tickets to the game, which will take place at the Wallace Civic Center in Fitchburg at 4 p.m. Feb. 1, are $10.