Latest news with #UMassAmherst
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Recent bad rap aside, the millionaires tax is making an impact
After reading Carine Hajjar's May 23 opinion piece, Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Just as learning never really ends, public policy can always grow and improve. While Hajjar identifies areas where such policy can be refined, it would be a disservice to overlook the amazing opportunities created by these dollars. Thank you, Massachusetts, for investing in residents like me. My classmates and I promise to make that investment worthwhile. Advertisement Mike McDougal Haverhill Fair Share funds have been a boon to public higher ed In response to Carine Hajjar's opinion piece regarding the Fair Share Amendment, it's important to also highlight the transformative impact this funding is having on public higher education in Massachusetts. The House's fiscal 2025 supplemental budget includes a $20 million investment in higher education, with $10 million allocated to the University of Massachusetts for its endowment matching program. This initiative provides a $1 state match for every $2 in private contributions to the school and has already created or supported 700 scholarship funds worth $135 million, which distribute $4.6 million in student aid annually. Advertisement The Senate's proposal of $125 million in capital support would provide much-needed state funding for deferred maintenance, and it aligns with Governor Maura Healey's visionary BRIGHT Act, which would modernize and improve sustainability on public campuses. A notable Senate earmark is the $10 million designated for a nursing simulation lab at UMass Amherst. This facility would double the enrollment capacity for the Amherst campus's nursing program, helping to address the statewide health care workforce shortage. The UMass system educates 73,000 students annually and is celebrating 19,000 new graduates entering the workforce, predominantly in Massachusetts. These strategic investments fulfill the promises made when voters approved the Fair Share Amendment and ensure a robust future for public higher education and the Commonwealth's economy. Christopher Dunn Associate vice chancellor for government relations UMass Amherst
Entrepreneur
3 days ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Her Dorm Room Side Hustle Led to $60,000 in Sales Overnight — Then Over $1 Million.
When Ali Grace was in high school, she loved thrift shopping for vintage denim with her mom. She'd cut up old jeans and repurpose or tailor them to fit her. And when she went off to college at UMass Amherst, she studied math and computer science. But by her senior year, in 2018, she'd gotten a little bored with her STEM studies and started looking for a creative outlet. She and her roommate started prowling thrift shops for vintage Levis and customizing them to fit the girls who lived in their dorm. Word got around, with more girls requesting their own custom jeans, and soon it became a side hustle, with Grace selling five to ten pairs a month for about $150 each. Want to read more stories like this? Subscribe to Money Makers, our free newsletter packed with creative side hustle ideas and successful strategies. Sign up here. " I had this thing on my website where you'd do a deposit and you'd fill out a form with all your measurements, inspo photos, what you want, and then I would individually text every single customer and talk to them about their order one-on-one before I Venmo requested them," she says. Around that time, Grace made her first wholesale connection. "I met this guy in front of a wall of Levi's at a thrift store, and he was like, 'Oh my mom has a barn of these.' It's crazy that the lady had the same birthday as me, drove the same car. She was essentially me but 55! Her name was Karen." During that period, Grace also took a class called Creative Entrepreneurship, which she credits for changing the trajectory of her life. The professor introduced her to a local business accelerator, which she decided to apply for, and got in. From the top 300 businesses, she made it through multiple rounds of elimination to the top 12, and won a few thousand dollars. "It wasn't about the money," she says. "It was about proving that this small business had the potential to be something big and that we were on the cusp of it. Once I saw the momentum, I moved forward with aligrace at full force." Image credit: Lauren Alexandra The first couple of years after graduating, her business, which she called aligrace, was a one-woman show. She opened a little boutique in Cape Cod, and then moved to California. "I will say I was extremely profitable then, and our jeans were probably 30% to 50% cheaper than they are now because I didn't have rent. All I had was the cost of inventory, the labor cost of me working on the jeans, and the seamstress cost." Related: She Quit Corporate Life to Pursue a Side Hustle With Her Sister. They Saw Over $100,000 During Launch Weekend — and Now Have an 8-Figure Brand. Profitable or not, those years were a grind because Grace wanted to maintain personal connections with her customers. She texted each buyer in a kind of one-on-one consultation. "I remember I would stay at my office until midnight because I had to text everybody," she says. "Like, there are 75 people that I have to get through before I can start their orders! But it was really impactful and because when they would get their jeans, they would personally text me like, 'Oh my God, I've never had a pair that fit like this before!' When the pandemic hit, Grace shut down for a couple of months to cope with the chaos. But when she was ready to take orders again, she opened her website around midnight and went to bed. " I woke up and we had like $60,000 in sales in like 12 hours," she says. "At this time, I'm operating out of a shed in my yard. I have hundreds of Levi's, but I don't have a setup to accommodate like 300 orders in a day. So I got a warehouse. I expanded, I bought more inventory. I hired my first employee. I started hiring more teams of seamstresses. Things just really snowballed from there." To the uninitiated, building an entire business on customizing vintage Levi's might sound like an impossible sourcing dilemma. But, as Grace explains, there's actually a vast Levi's wholesale market, with sellers all over the world. After all, Levi's has been making jeans since 1873, and their jeans last a long time. "All of the denim we have is 20 to 30 years old," Grace says. "We have some jeans that are even older than 30 years old and they really hold up." In many ways, it's the most sustainable possible model for a fashion brand: recycling used materials, paying for local labor. But, unsurprisingly, everything about the business — from sourcing to the actual alterations — is labor-intensive. "One of our main wholesalers is in San Jose and he ships us like a thousand jeans at a time," Grace says. "We'll go up there on buying trips, which can be upwards of a 10 to 12-hour day. We drive up there with a U-Haul, dig through pallets trying to find grade A or B vintage denim. Then we size it, grade it and organize it by waist, butt and length, so when orders come in, it's really easy to find the sizes we need. Then we alter it to the desired style, with all the little extras — tilted pockets, split seam, unfolded hem, whatever it may be. It goes to the seamstress, and then there's a whole stain treatment process to clean the denim, since it's vintage. It's very hands-on and it's definitely been a grind to figure out how to scale this." It was in 2020, after ramping up production, that Grace also started reaching out to influencers. "To this day, we haven't paid a dollar in influencer marketing," she says. "Everything is just pure gifting. I don't ask anything in return." Image credit: Lauren Alexandra And though it took a little while, those no-strings-attached influencer relationships paid off in a big way. Revolve, the online fashion retailer, had long been a dream partner for Grace. "I tried all my avenues of getting in touch with Revolve and everything was a dead end," she says. "Then one day, I think it was in October 2023, I had a DM from Casey, the denim buyer. She had found us on TikTok through Kelsey DiPrima, one of our OG influencers." Related: Why Big-Name Influencers Are Losing Power — and Micro-Influencers Are Taking Over Still, even if it was the dream, selling to a retailer like Revolve meant finally developing standard sizing — a departure from Grace's foundational concept of vintage denim customized to each woman's body. "That was kind of hard for me because I loved that we were fully custom for so long," Grace says. "But it's just not scalable, you know? So I developed our 23 through 35 standard sizing based on all of our customers' measurements over the previous seven years, and then we crafted these standard size guides. But you still have the option to buy custom on our website." Since starting their partnership with Revolve, aligrace has also started selling at FWRD, the showroom Place, and recently launched with Anthropology. Last year, the company hit $1 million in sales, and Grace says, "I believe we can do $2 million this year with our website and wholesale connections." For Grace, one of the most rewarding parts of her journey has been staying connected to the "ride or die" aligrace customers she was texting into the wee hours, six years ago. "Some have like 15 pairs of our jeans in their closets now," she says. "They're my friends. It's not possible for me to be that hands-on anymore, but if I didn't do it like that back then, I don't think we would be where we are today. It really developed a community of people who wanted to support us."
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Visa interview pause impacts international students in Massachusetts
AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) – The State Department has paused scheduling new visa interviews for international students. How does the budget get passed in Massachusetts? The Associated Press states that the pause in interviews is temporary while they work to expand the social media vetting process for international students. U.S. officials say it won't affect already-scheduled interviews. They do not specify what they're screening social media for, but recent crackdowns on international students targeted those appearing to be involved in pro-Palestinian protests. Western Massachusetts is home to dozens of universities that accept international students. The biggest, of course, is UMass Amherst. Earlier this spring, the administration revoked the legal status of thousands of international students already in the country, affecting dozens here in western Massachusetts. They then restored that status after a ruling from a federal judge. If the administration carries out this plan, it could severely slow down student visa processing and hurt many universities in our area that rely on international students' tuition. At UMass Amherst, for example, the international student population is over 7,500, and they're likely to feel an impact if they do not enroll these students, who often pay full tuition. WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Mass. man struck and killed by Commuter Rail train remembered as ‘dear and humble'
A Cohasset man who was struck and killed by an MBTA Commuter Rail train earlier this month is being remembered for always putting his family before himself. On May 3, 78-year-old John Canney was driving a pickup truck over the Beechwood Street railroad crossing in Cohasset around 11:20 a.m. when the truck was hit by the train, the Norfolk County District Attorney's Office said previously. He was declared dead at the scene, and his truck was declared a total loss. John Frederick Canney was born in Davenport, Iowa, to John and Marjorie Canney, according to his obituary. The couple raised him in Needham, Massachusetts, and he went on to graduate from UMass Amherst with a degree in German Literature. After college, Canney was introduced to the finance world through a job working on Wall Street in New York City, according to his obituary. He went on to found a Boston-based municipal advisory group. Read more: Man killed in Cohasset MBTA train strike identified Canney was an avid reader and considered the Mathematics Dictionary light reading, according to his obituary. He was also member of the Cohasset Yacht Club and had a passion for sailing. 'Always the patient, steady, and capable captain, he loved sailing his Atlantic City Catboat, Annie S.,' his obituary reads. More recently, Canney rediscovered his love of painting, according to his obituary. He could often be found working on a thumbnail print. Canney was married to his wife, Barbara Canney, for 42 years, and he leaves her and his son, Garrett Canney, behind, according to his obituary. He is described as 'a devoted husband and father who always put his family before himself.' 'John was a dear and humble man of greatness, and the world is diminished by his loss,' his obituary reads. A memorial service for Canney is scheduled for Sunday, May 25, at 2 p.m. at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Cohasset, according to his obituary. A celebration of his life is set to follow immediately afterward at the Lightkeeper's Cottage in Cohasset. In lieu of flowers, Canney's family asks that people honor his memory by donating to a local non-profit of your choice, according to his obituary. Mega Millions numbers: Are you the lucky winner of Tuesday's $139 million jackpot? Closing hotel shelters has benefits but could leave families with no place to go The Password, Jhostynxon Garcia, cracks three-run homer in Triple-A debut Georgia woman gets decade in prison for smuggling 12 lbs. of meth to Mass. Mass. lawyer to plead guilty to embezzling millions from relatives, business associate Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Amherst warns residents of fake property records request scheme
AMHERST, Mass. (WWLP) – A new scheme is targeting residents in the Town of Amherst. UMass Amherst hosts 155th commencement with 20,000 attendees The Town of Amherst states that schemers are sending letters requesting checks to be sent to 'Property Records MA' at an address in Cambridge in exchange for a copy of your property records, like a deed. The town is advising residents to exercise caution and to avoid sending money or any personal information to unsolicited letters. If you need to acquire any documents about your property, contact the Registry of Deeds, the bank you have a mortgage with, or the probate court if there has been any involvement due to death, divorce, or land court matters. This scheme has been alerted to the Hampshire Registry of Deeds, and they have confirmed that there is no fee to print out your property information if you go to their office. Their information is as follows: Address: 60 Railroad Ave, Northampton Phone number: 413-584-3637 Email: hampshirereg@ Website: WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
