The Fitchburg State University Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT) met this morning in Percival Hall. Team members, including Dr. Hank Parkinson, Dean of Student Development, Rachel Graddy, Director of Disability Services, Jason Smith, Assistant Dean for Student Success for Academic Affairs, Dr. William Cummings, Director of Compliance and Title IX, and Junior Pena, Director of Student Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Programs (via zoom) discussed policies and procedures in an effort to improve the groups work and the overall Fitchburg State University community.

Mark St. Laurent gives a lesson in voice as part of our Community Music Program this afternoon in the Band Room of our Conlon Fine Arts Center. The Community Music Program offers year-round programs (individual & group lessons, cello choir, chamber music fest) to the public.

This afternoon, President Lapidus hosted an Ice Cream Social at the Lisciotti Pavilion in the Antonucci Science Center. The event was an opportunity for colleagues to gather and welcome new arrivals to campus including Provost Patricia Marshall and Dean of Health and Natural Sciences Jennifer Hanselman. President Lapidus and Special Assistant to the President Gail Doiron doled out the ice cream to an eager and grateful crowd.

Today saw the culmination of Fitchburg State University's Admissions, Marketing & Integrated Communications, Print Services departments, in partnership with officials and departments within Fitchburg, MA. The weeks long partnership enables the university to enhance our downtown presence as the city continues to grow.

Fitchburg State University's Upward Bound Summer Program students work on thank you notes to send in gratitude to their area internships. Upward Bound provides academic support through tutoring services, educational and college preparatory workshops, and cultural field trips stressing academic development, The program serves high school students from Fitchburg and Leominster for the duration of their high school career and beyond. The 6-week summer residential program gives students an opportunity to live on the Fitchburg State University campus and experience life as a college student. Students attend academic classes in the morning, participate in community service worksites in the afternoon, are engaged in a variety of entertaining workshops in the evening and have the option of attending college visits and cultural trips on the weekend.

Last Friday, incoming First Year students took a break as they helped out with a Housing and Residential Services video.

The Fitchburg State University Center for Professional Studies' Advanced Placement Summer Institutes (APSI) first week is in full swing. The APSI are designed to support all aspects of AP courses, including AP methodology, curriculum, class assignments and examinations as well as providing strategies for teaching AP courses. Art & Design Educators spent the week long program in a combination of lecture, projects, and discussion to improve their teaching skills. 

This summer more than 65 students from Fitchburg State's Early College, Upward Bound, and Upward Math and Science Programs are taking part in Dual Enrollment courses made possible by a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education's Commonwealth Dual Enrollment Program.  Here students in Professor Kyle Anderson's Earth Systems Science Class take part in a lab exploring the principles of Oceanography. 

Two of our Music Department faculty, Jane Fiske (piano) and Amy McGlothlin (saxophone), rehearsed in our Kent Recital Hall this afternoon for an upcoming concert. The concert is part of the Old Deerfield Village Summer Concert Series and will take place on July 31  at 3 p.m. Learn more about the concert series, and how to attend, here.

This week, the 5th Fitchburg State University Police Program's Recruit Officer Course (ROC) is off campus for their Emergency Vehicle Operator Course (EVOC). This morning, students worked on braking.