A Look Back, Jan. 29

50 Years Ago

■In a massive shakeup at the University of Massachusetts School of Education, Dean Dwight Allen has resigned, and Associate Dean Atron Gentry has been fired, the Gazette learned today. The resignation and dismissal come in the wake of several weeks of reports that funds at the School of Education may have been spent on purposes other than those for which they were intended.

■Whatever welfare may mean to recipients, to the director of the Northampton office, Douglas Wilkinson, it approaches an administrative nightmare. In a talk yesterday, Wilkinson told the Community Council of Hampshire County that there are over 1,000 cases listed with the local office which cannot be assigned because of lack of social workers.

25 Years Ago

■The cost of attending the University of Massachusetts will hold steady next fall, the fifth consecutive year in which tuition has dropped or stayed the same. On average, students at the campuses in Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth and Lowell will pay $4,680 in tuition and fees, the same they are currently paying.

■Northampton’s Planning Board last night approved a special site plan allowing the former Caldor store in the North King Street plaza to be converted into a Wal-Mart. One of the conditions on the permit is that Wal-Mart contribute $10,000 to a fund to make long-term improvements to the nearby intersection of Hatfield Street and Cooke Avenue, which many consider hazardous.

10 Years Ago

■Parents in Cummington are scrambling to find alternatives to busing their elementary school children to Dalton after the Central Berkshire Regional School Committee voted in December to close the Berkshire Trail Elementary School at the end of this school year. An Ad Hoc Education Committee is leading the effort to come up with a workable short-term plan that would keep the students closer to Cummington.

■Northampton Police and the Northwestern district attorney’s office announced Wednesday that two teenagers suspected of spray-painting swastikas and the N-word on Sherman Avenue will not be charged with hate crimes. Law enforcement officials say it appears the girls did not mean to intimidate, threaten, oppress or target anyone based on race of religion.