Mechanics Cooperative Bank has named two students recipients of its 2012 scholarships. more

DARTMOUTH – The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has released “UMass Performance: Accountable and On the Move,” a plan for measuring the university’s performance across key areas, including improving student graduation rates, increasing alumni giving and campus-facility investments, that will be updated annually. more

PROVIDENCE – A Superior Court judge this month dismissed a lawsuit from the Pawtucket and Woonsocket school departments challenging the state’s new education-funding formula, upholding the constitutionality of the formula. more

PROVIDENCE – Patrick T. Conley, a former Providence College professor who unsuccessfully attempted to develop Conley’s Pier along Allens Avenue in the city, has been appointed the state’s historian laureate, Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis announced last week. more

BRISTOL – The Community Partnerships Center at Roger Williams University began the spring 2013 semester with 14 projects under way, as part of the university’s partnership with the R.I. Economic Development Corporation announced last October. more

Three Brown University Professors – David Cane, Rose McDermott and Walter Strauss – have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the school announced Wednesday. more

In Sylvia Maxfield, Providence College has a dynamic leader of its College of Business. She has the academic qualifications one would expect, including a doctorate in political economy from Harvard University. She has a varied and interesting work experience, having held academic posts at Yale University and Simmons College, as well as having worked as a sovereign credit analyst for Lehman Brothers. more

Students on March 14 play “Phytoplankton Bingo” by looking through microscopes to identify microorganisms found in Narragansett Bay, during the Tech Collective’s 12th annual GRRL Tech Interactive Technology Expo. More than 470 high school girls from around the state participated in the expo at the University of Rhode Island. The event is designed to let students learn about job opportunities in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Students attended workshops held across the university’s South Kingstown campus. Sixty educators also participated in the expo. more

Between 2001 and 2012, school enrollment in Bristol County, Mass., dropped 12.2 percent, according to data from the Boston Business Journal’s DataCenter. more

With its plan to expand educational efforts in downtown Providence, Roger Williams University is doing more than energizing its offerings. It will help boost the capital city as well. more