UMB will host a conference concerning the challenges American workers face in order to compete in the 21st Century global marketplace. The conference is the beginning of the Bay State’s conversation on “Tough Choices or Tough Times,” which is a report by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce calling for drastic reform of the upcoming century’s U.S. education system. The conference will be held in the Campus Center’s 3rd floor ballroom on Wednesday, February 28 at 10 am. For further information about the commission visit their website at www.skillscommission.com.

The Invention to Venture Clean Energy Workshop will be held at UMB on Friday, March 2 between 8:00am and 4:30pm in the 3rd floor ballroom in the Campus Center. The point of the workshop is to introduce the process and practice of clean energy technology entrepreneurship. Heading the event is Paul Wormester, the founding CEO of Konarka. The goal of the event is to introduce large numbers of university students and faculty, as well as community business leaders to the new technologies behind clean energy.

UMass has gone to pot. UMass-Amherst Professor Lyle Craker won his court case allowing him to grow marijuana for research purposes. Craker submitted a 2001 application to the Drug Enforcement Administration to gain permission to grow the illegal substance, buy the case did not get through the courts until now, but was eventually approved by an administrative law judge. The company funding Craker’s facility claimed that recent national research of the drug had neither the proper quantity nor quality in order to give proper data to the Food & Drug Administration.

UMB Amumni Manasseh Toh passed away on February 11, 2007. Born in 1955, Manasseh Toh was known on campus for having been a founding member of the African Hut Club, which was a precursor to the UMB African Students Union. Earning a bachelor’s degree in 2002 in Political Science before going on to get his Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the McCormack Graduate School for Public Policy, Toh was a supporter of the pan-African movement, and served in the African activist movement, especially when it came to HIV/Aids. As an intern for the McCormack Institute’s Center for Democracy and Development, Toh wrote his thesis on combating the spread of HIV/Aids. Manasseh Toh is survived by his wife Gladys, and their four children. Donations are being requested to send Manasseh Toh home. You can contact either Muna Kangsen at [email protected] or Fatmata Fatmata Jah-Sesay at [email protected].