MCLA Receives Grant for STEM Pathways Project

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts recently was granted $75,000 from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education for its @Scale STEM Pathways Project.

The project, which builds upon MCLA's STEM Pathways Project, aims to further increase both enrollments in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors and the number of students graduating with a degree in a STEM disciplines. With this funding, MCLA will add supplemental instruction, tutoring and expanded internship opportunities.
 
"We are grateful for the support and investment in STEM education," said Monica N. Joslin, dean of academic affairs. "This will allow us to expand and enhance strategies and successful initiatives which promote students' academic, experiential, and career awareness interests, and also to reach out and work with our sister institutions on best practices in support of student success in STEM majors." 
 
Administered through the MCLA Center for Student Success and Engagement, the college's SSPP employs a STEM student success plan that begins with activities during a student's freshman year, and continues until they graduate. The SSPP delivers enhanced academic support, advising and career planning, and marshals the efforts of MCLA's academic affairs and student affairs departments.
 
The @Scale initiative was launched by the governor's STEM council to focus public and private resources in support of an integrated portfolio of education enhancement projects aligned to achieve the goals of the commonwealth's STEM plan.
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North Adams Disputes Report of 'Data Breach'

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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Mayor Jennifer Macksey says a Facebook post accusing the city of a data breach is false. 
 
She has scheduled a press conference for Monday to take questions. 
 
Michael Milazzo posted that he received "private confidential records" from the city in response to a public records request. 
 
These records were purportedly unrelated to his request but rather to a third party and inadvertently sent to him. 
 
"It appears that the person who received the names, addresses, and Social Security numbers of at least 419 individuals from the local area may be associated with web or AI-related development," he wrote on Facebook. 
 
In a late-night message to local media on Thursday, the mayor wrote that "the City has found no evidence to substantiate the claim that a widespread data breach involving personally identifying information has occurred."
 
The information was a vendor list provided to Starbridge, which had vendor names, addresses, ID numbers and amounts paid. Starbridge is a public sector vendor platform run on artificial intelligence systems. 
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