The
Snapshot

Fast News from FSU

FSU student interns work in the recently renovated Challenger Learning Center at the Christa McAuliffe Center.

Campus News

FSU receives $1 million
in federal funding
to create a virtual simulation lab at the Christa McAuliffe Center

The Massachusetts Congressional Delegation helped secure $1 million in federal funding this past spring to create a state-of-the-art simulation lab in the newly renovated Christa McAuliffe Center for Integrated Science Learning at Framingham State University.

The McAuliffe Simulation Lab (MSL) will feature high-resolution visualizations and virtual reality simulations that put STEM learning into

real-world contexts. Its programming will complement learning experiences in the Center’s upgraded Challenger Learning Center and refurbished digital planetarium, and further establish the McAuliffe Center as a unique STEM learning hub in the Commonwealth.

The appeal of NASA’s space and earth science missions combined with the power of shared VR simulations provide a sound platform for students to deepen their STEM engagement.

“Learning becomes meaningful when STEM concepts are put into real-world contexts,” says McAuliffe Center Director Irene Porro, PhD. “VR simulations will allow students to experience high-risk work scenarios in a risk-free way, from exploring an off-shore

wind farm to piloting a space shuttle, opening possibilities unimaginable to them before.”

The McAuliffe Center held a grand reopening ceremony in January following a nearly $8 million renovation and revitalization project.

Campus News

Americans and the Holocaust Traveling Exhibition Featured at Henry Whittemore Library

Americans participate in an anti-Nazi protest in New York after learning of the Kristallnacht attacks on Jews in Germany, November 1938. Associated Press.

The Henry Whittemore Library at Framingham State University played host this fall to a powerful traveling exhibition called Americans and the Holocaust, which examines the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s.

The FSU library was one of 50 U.S. libraries selected to host the exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial

Museum and the American Library Association (ALA), and the only one in Massachusetts.

“We are so proud to be selected from a competitive pool of applicants from all across the nation to host this important and powerful exhibition,” said Whittemore Library Dean Millie Gonzalez. “The exhibition challenges people to not only ask, ‘What would I have done?’ but also, ‘What will I do?’”

The 1,100-square-foot exhibition examines various aspects of American society: the government, the military, refugee aid organizations, the media and the general public. Drawing on a remarkable collection of primary sources from the 1930s and 1940s, the exhibition tells the stories of Americans

who acted in response to Nazism, challenging the commonly held assumptions that Americans knew little and did nothing about the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as the Holocaust unfolded. It provides a portrait of American society that shows how the Depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism shaped responses to Nazism and the Holocaust.

For more information about Americans and the Holocaust and related programming at Framingham State University, visit www.framingham.edu. To learn more about the exhibition, visit ushmm.org/americans-ala.

Campus News

Danforth Art Museum and School Receives $100,000
Endowment Gift

Framingham State University’s Danforth Art Museum and School received word in March that it is the recipient of a $100,000 unrestricted endowment gift. Donors Katherine and Robert Eyre stated that they made the gift “to benefit the activities and initiatives of both the Museum and the Art School.” This gift is the first to be specifically designated for an unrestricted endowment fund since the institution became part of Framingham State University.

A team hangs a painting for a new exhibition in Framingham State University’s Danforth Art Museum.

“We are over the moon with this generous and unexpected gift,” said Museum Director and Curator Jessica Roscio.

“It represents a level of commitment to our mission and programs that is truly humbling. We couldn’t be more appreciative!”

Bob and Katie Eyre are trustees of the Danforth Art Alliance, part of the Danforth’s volunteer leadership and residents of Wayland. In honor of their

donation, the gallery in which the Museum shows its permanent collection will be named the Katherine and Robert Eyre Gallery.

The Danforth was founded in 1975, and became a part of Framingham State University in 2018. It serves more than 30 communities in MetroWest and beyond, and is the only museum with an art school between Boston and Worcester.

“We are over the moon with this generous and unexpected gift … it represents a level of commitment to our mission and programs that is truly humbling. We couldn’t be more appreciative!”