■An exhibition of much local interest to people in this area has opened at the Jorgensen Gallery at the University of Connecticut featuring the works of Prof. George Cohen of Smith College. Cohen has been working on a new technique of acrylic on canvas as well as on wood since 1965 when he first started experimenting with various art mediums.
■The Northampton School Committee Monday voted unanimously to allow a student-marshaled cigarette smoking room in the high school to help eliminate alleged smoking and pushing of marijuana among students. The student-supervised smoking room will be located in the old music room.
■An investor and two bus drivers whose routes took them past the Stanley Home Products building say they plan to buy the former factory and convert it into a retail outlet center, apartments and storage space. The potential buyers are Ronald S. Glidden of Easthampton, a driver for Hampshire County Transit; Philip Brocklesby, a Greenfield resident who is also a bus driver; and investor Edward Wilcox of Turners Falls.
■The Planning Board last night postponed a vote on a proposed 10-unit apartment building on Fruit Street, which residents in the neighborhood oppose. Chairman Andrew Crystal said his board needs time to mull complex issues involved in James and Patricia Boyle’s request for a special permit to develop the open lot at 15 Fruit St.
■The city of Northampton has landed a $135,960 grant to help it buy about 28 acres in the Mineral Hills Conservation Area in the western part of the city. The purchase is part of a large effort that began more than a decade ago to create a protected corridor in the Mineral Hills from Sylvester Road to the Westhampton town line.
■Prof. Salman Hameed, director of Hampshire College’s new Center for the Study of Science in Muslim Societies, wants his institution and the Five Colleges to become a destination for Muslim studies. To jump-start that effort, Hampshire is opening an interdisciplinary research center focusing on science’s role in the Muslim world.