Harvard University has named Thomas J. Hollister , a former banker and energy company executive, its chief financial officer, overseeing all matters of debt, cash, and financing for the nation’s wealthiest school. Hollister was most recently chairman of Tufts Medical Center’s board of trustees. He spent many years with Citizens Bank of Massachusetts, and was vice chairman of its parent company. From 2006 to 2013, Hollister was chief operating officer and financial chief for Global Partners LP, a Waltham-based company that distributes oil and gasoline and owns about 800 gas stations under brands including Exxon.

BETH HEALY and LAURA KRANTZ

NEW YORK — Hello? Anyone there? Facebook unveiled a voice-calling app for Android phones on Wednesday, the same day that its WhatsApp messaging service introduced voice-calling for iOS devices. Called ‘‘Hello,’’ the stand-alone app is from Facebook Creative Labs, the arm tasked with creating applications outside of Facebook. Other products, such as the news-reading app Paper, have met with limited success. Hello’s aim is to give people more information about who is calling them. Because it is connected to Facebook, Hello users can see information about their callers’ identity even if they do not count them as a contact.

Facebook Inc. missed analysts’ sales estimates in the first quarter, breaking a trend of far exceeding expectations and setting the company up for scrutiny of its increased spending. Revenue rose 42 percent to $3.54 billion compared with the average analyst estimate of $3.57 billion. Facebook has been working to enhance the quality and reach of its advertisements, expanding its ad empire beyond its main application. The company also has improved its tools for tracking the ads based on identity and increased its focus on higher-impact video ads. Advertising makes up about 94 percent of Facebook’s revenue. Facebook said its main application has 1.44 billion monthly active users, compared with 1.39 billion in the fourth quarter.

Aereo Inc. agreed to pay CBS Corp. and other broadcasters a total of $950,000 to resolve copyright claims totaling more than $99 million as the online-TV service backed by Barry Diller seeks to wind down in Chapter 11. The deal to pay less than a penny on the dollar would resolve all litigation among the companies, including Aereo’s lawsuit accusing the broadcasters of intentionally botching its asset auction, according to a filing Monday in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. The deal, backed by all the broadcasters, would leave Aereo with $811,000 to pay non-broadcast creditors with claims totaling $7.5 million, the company said. A hearing to approve the accord was set for May 7.

NEW YORK — McDonald’s plans to unwrap a plan next month that it says will help turn around ongoing sales declines around the world. The world’s biggest hamburger chain said Wednesday global sales declined 2.3 percent at established locations during the first three months of the year. That included a 2.6 percent drop in the United States, where it is facing changing tastes. Already this year, McDonald’s has announced a number of changes, including curbing the use of antibiotics in chicken and increasing pay for workers at company-owned stores.

MONROVIA, Calif. — Trader Joe’s customers who bought the chain’s Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage are urged to throw it out amid concerns plastic may have made its way into the packages. The US Department of Agriculture said this week that Massachusetts-based sausage maker Kayem Foods is recalling more than 59,000 pounds of the product. The recall is for 8-ounce sausage packages sold at Trader Joe’s stores nationwide and marked with expiration dates of April 22, 25, and 29. Customers can return the product for a full refund. The USDA says there is a remote chance of health problems if someone consumes the sausages.

WASHINGTON — The IRS’s overloaded phone system hung up on more than 8 million taxpayers this filing season as the agency cut millions of dollars from taxpayer services. For those who were not disconnected, only 40 percent got through to a person. Many of those people had to wait on hold for more than 30 minutes. A report by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee says the IRS diverted millions from taxpayer services and other areas to pay to help coordinate President Obama’s health law. At a hearing Wednesday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen blamed budget cuts. The agency’s budget has been cut by $1.2 billion since 2010. Koskinen said the agency is required by law to implement the health law.

Ben Cammarata, TJX Companies Inc. cofounder, will retire as chairman of the off-price retailer’s board of directors in June, according to a statement from the company. The board plans to elect chief executive Carol Meyrowitz as the next chairman. Cammarata, who served as the chairman since 1999, will continue to act as an adviser. TJX operates T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, and Sierra Trading Post. Cammarata founded T.J. Maxx in 1976.

The town of Winchendon is building a 2.6 megawatt solar panel array. Solar power developer SunEdison Inc. said Wednesday it would build the panels over a 12-acre landfill. The town will save up to $8 million over the life of its 20-year power purchase agreement, SunEdison said, including $400,000 in its first year of operation. The typical solar panel lasts around 20 to 25 years before it degrades significantly. Currently, Massachusetts has around 797 megawatts of solar projects installed, according to the Department of Energy Resources. The developer said the project would eliminate 1,805 tons of carbon dioxide per year, the equivalent of taking 380 cars off the road. After the project is complete, SunEdison will sell the panels to TerraForm Power, an affiliated company.

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has won first prize in a contest to develop an inexpensive way to desalinate water in developing countries. A system developed by Amos Winter, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, and doctoral student Natasha Wright won out over four other contenders in the contest, which was sponsored by the US Agency for International Development and the Bureau of Reclamation and held at a research facility in Alamogordo, N.M., earlier this month. The MIT team will receive a $160,000 reward for developing the system; a team from the University of Texas El Paso won a second-place prize of $40,000. A team made up of university researchers from Nepal, Jordan, Israel, Brazil, and the United States received honorable mention. All three teams will be eligible to share in an additional $400,000 in grants to set up pilot projects.

Summary:
EDUCATION

Harvard names ex-banker its financial chief

Harvard University has named Thomas J. Hollister
 , a former banker and energy company executive, its chief financial officer, overseeing all matters of debt, cash, and financing for the nation’s wealthiest school.


Viewers and critics have remarked that this show, nominally a comedy, often veers quite effectively into dramatic territory. Louis C.K. addressed this tonal balance with reporters at the Television Critics Association winter press tour. “It’s not like I’m playing basketball and I want to play baseball,” he said. “Maybe I want to play defense instead of offense sometimes. Maybe it’s like that. I just love telling these stories. Throughout last season there were moments I felt funny, and there were moments that were very dramatic. My favorite work that I see in TV and movies has both. To me, most comedy movies that are comedies don’t make me laugh as much, but movies like . . . ‘Raging Bull’ and ‘GoodFellas’ are hilarious movies, but they’re very dark. They’re considered dramas, I guess, but those things make me laugh.”

So who wants to bet that Jake Ballard is not really dead? All those thanks and other messages from actor Scott Foley (above) and other cast members on Twitter seem calculated to throw the audience off. If not, we can only hope he’s standing in the sun somewhere.

Lip Sync Battle 10 p.m., Spike

Sports night as the former boxer squares off against the former defensive end.

The Odd Couple 8:30 p.m., CBS

American Crime 10 p.m., ABC

Summary: A look at what’s on TV Thursday, including “Louie” on FX, “Scandal” on ABC, and “Lip Sync Battle” on Spike.


The cast of Orange Is the New Black

04/27/2015 AT 02:30 PM EDT

It's a throwback, you potato with eyes!

's upcoming season, Netflix has revealed a poster that is sure to whet fans' appetite for season 3 even as it nods to the show's history.

Orange Is the New Black season 3 poster

The poster shows Daya Diaz (Dascha Polanco), Alex Vause (

), Suzanne "Crazy Eyes" Warren (

) and Galina "Red" Reznikov (

) on saint candles, with each character's votive featuring plenty of hints about her past.

We won't spoil the hunt entirely, but we will decode the main image of each character's candle in case you need a head start:

 In season 1, Daya is called a "coconut" by Gloria (Selenis Leyva) because she doesn't speak Spanish.

 Alex's bright red rose is definitely a nod to the tattoo on her upper right arm.

 When Piper first arrives at Litchfield, she accidentally takes a screwdriver from the workroom, and chaos ensues when the flashlight's batteries go out while she's helping Alex fix the dryer.

 The roses on Suzanne's candle are a nod to Vee's (Lorraine Toussaint) season 2 habit of calling her "Garden Rose."

 Red's use of flower pots to hide her contraband that same season is also given a visual hat tip.

Searching for every single hidden message in the poster will hopefully offer impatient fans a slight distraction from their agonizing wait until

premieres June 12 (3 a.m. ET) on Netflix.

Summary: Can you spot all the hidden messages in the Easter-egg-filled image?


He's read the "Hunger Games" trilogy and "Decoded," Jay-Z's biography. He's also pored over Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and "West by West," Jerry West's biography.

For LeBron James, the playoffs mean a farewell to technology and a warm welcome to literature. This year, as James tries to guide the Cavaliers back to the NBA Finals for the first time since 2007, he's reading another science fiction thriller.

LeBron just told me he's been reading the book Divergent. (During playoffs he cuts off sports TV except watching games with the sound off.)

— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) May 4, 2015

Many people are familiar with the "Divergent" series, a group of post-apocalyptic dystopian novels, because they have been adapted into a set of movies. The first film came out in March 2014 and the second, "Insurgent", was released in March 2015.

"[T]he reading has given me an opportunity to, just for those couple hours of the day or those 20 minutes, 25 minutes before the game, an opportunity just to read and think about something else and get a sense of what else is going on besides the game of basketball," James said in 2012. "It's made me comfortable. I'm not saying it's the trick. It's just something that I decided to do at the beginning of the postseason, and it's worked for me."

James discussed his habit in an interview with Oprah after he and the Miami Heat won the 2012 NBA championship:

Coincidentally, "Divergent" is set in Chicago, where James will be traveling later this week. The Cavaliers are taking on the Chicago Bulls in their Eastern Conference semifinal series.

For the record, James briefly broke his "no technology" rule over the weekend:

LeBron on Chris Paul game winner:“I called him from my wife’s phone. I told him how amazing he was. And I hung up on him. That’s the truth.”

— Teddy Greenstein (@TeddyGreenstein) May 4, 2015

2014-15 Highest Paid NBA Players

Summary: He's read the "Hunger Games" trilogy and "Decoded," Jay-Z's biography. He's also pored over Malcolm Gladwell's &am...


The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question “How do you go from a worker bee to a decision maker?” is by Joe Hyrkin, CEO of Issuu.

I was once asked to define the position of CEO in one word: equity. Yes, there’s more stock equity in being a CEO, but that wasn’t why I choose this word. As CEO of a company, I have equity in the product. I have equity in the customers’ reliance on the product. I have equity in our team. Given that each employee is spending more time with us at the office than anyone else, in many ways, I have equity in their family as well. And there’s a unique responsibility that comes with this kind of equity across an organization.

To grow from a worker bee to a decision maker (not necessarily the CEO) you have to want to think beyond the specific day to day details of your current job. This isn’t about gaining power, but rather looking at how your current role serves the company, the clients, and the product, beyond the specifics of the pay check you receive. As you start to become more aware about how your role fits into the larger context, you can begin to see how your efforts can help grow and expand the business. Are there areas that the company ought to expand in, but for which there doesn’t seem to be any resources? Are some people or areas of the business struggling, where you might be able to offer a specific solution that hasn’t been considered before?

In the mid 90s, I was a sales manager for The Economist Group in Hong Kong. The group had strong sales in Hong Kong itself, but wanted to expand to Beijing and China. I saw this as opportunity that would expand my responsibilities, and equally as important, I saw it as a critical need for the company–management agreed. My enthusiasm, interest, and willingness to try to open a new market out weighed my youth and lack of experience. I was offered the opportunity to take a few trips to see if I could drum up business in these two new locations. I ultimately ended up moving to Beijing to open The Economist Group’s first office in Beijing since the 1930s.

My point is look for the overlap between your capabilities and the needs of the company, especially where others might be hesitant. If you demonstrate an interest in creating something new or a willingness to fail, you often can create an area of expertise that becomes relied upon within the organization. In that way, you’re building equity and knowledge that will lead to larger responsibilities and authority.

Read all answers to the Leadership Insider question: How do you go from a worker bee to a decision maker?

The advantages of a tough boss by Sunil Rajaraman, co-founder of Scripted.com.

How to smoothly transition from a colleague to a manager by Nir Polak, CEO and co-founder of Exabeam.

4 signs you’re ready to be a manager by Dominic Paschel, vice president of corporate finance and investor relations at Pandora Media.

Summary: Are you willing to take on more responsibilities?


The only thing surprising about the Op-Ed article by Seymour Wishman (''Evidence Illegally Obtained by Police'' Sept. 21) in which he broadly referred to police officers as incompetents, criminals, liars and incipient ''bands of marauding hoodlums,'' is that a responsible newspaper would publish such an outrageous diatribe.

he central point to be made about the exclusionary rule, and the injustice it repeatedly and systematically works in American courts, is that it cannot be understood - not by police, not by law professors, not by an increasing number of Federal and state judges across the country.

Take, for example, the most recent pronouncement under the rule by the Supreme Court, handed down last July 1. The Court decided two cases, one from California (Robbins), and the other from New York (Belton), in which all nine Justices agreed that automobiles had been lawfully stopped by police on the public highways, that the occupants of the cars had been lawfully arrested, that the police had probable cause to believe the vehicles contained contraband, and that the police had the right to conduct a search of the interior, the glove compartment and the trunk of cars, on the spot, without going to a judge for a warrent.

In the California case, the officers found two plastic containers in the car trunk, which they opened and in which they discovered a large quantity of illegal drugs. In the New York case, the officer found a jacket on the seat of the car, unzippered a pocket, and found illegal drugs.

Justices Stevens, Blackmun and Rehnquist voted to uphold the warrantless searches of the containers and the jacket. Justices Brennan, White and Marshall voted to invalidate both searches, approving the seizure of the containers and the jacket without a warrant, but holding that the police should have gone to a judge for a warrant to open them. Justices Powell and Stewart and Chief Justice Burger upheld the search of the jacket and invalidated the search of the containers.

Ironically, California's highest court had upheld the container search, and New York's highest court had invalidated the jacket search, results precisely opposite to those enunciated by the Supreme Court. These joint results are not compatible with the thinking of a single Justice on the Supreme Court. The divisions in reasoning among numerous judges in the lower courts that heard these cases can only be described as amazing.

Perhaps Justice Powell had the cop on the beat in mind when he said, in Robbins, that the law of search and seizure with respect to automobiles ''is intolerably confusing. The court apparently cannot agree even on what it has held previously, let alone on how these cases should be decided.''

Twenty years of rigid application of Mapp v. Ohio, the source of the exclusionary rule in state courts, is enough. It has worked intolerable mischief in the criminal courts. It should be modified to prevent its application, in the words of Justice White in Stone v. Powell, ''in those many circumstances where the evidence at issue was seized by an officer acting in the good faith belief that his conduct comported with existing law and having reasonable grounds for this belief.'' Your writer shames the law and the legal pr ofession in scapegoatingAmerica's rank-and-file police officers for t he rule's inherent obscurity. KENNETH CONBOY Deputy Pol ice Commissioner, N.Y.C. New York, Sept. 24, 1981 *

Summary: To the Editor:     The only thing surprising about the Op-Ed article by Seymour Wishman (''Evidence Illegally Obtained by Police'' Sept. 21) in which he broadly referred to police officers as incompetents, criminals, liars and incipient ''bands of marauding hoodlums,'' is that a responsible newspaper would publish such an outrageous diatribe.   he central point to be made about the exclusionary rule, and the injustice it repeatedly and systematically works in American courts, is that it cannot be understood - not by police, not by law professors, not by an increasing number of Federal and state judges across the country.   Take, for example, the most recent pronouncement under the rule by the Supreme Court, handed down last July 1. The Court decided two cases, one from California (Robbins), and the other from New York (Belton), in which all nine Justices agreed that automobiles had been lawfully stopped by police on the public highways, that the occupants of the cars had been lawfully arrested, that the police had probable cause to believe the vehicles contained contraband, and that the police had the right to conduct a search of the interior, the glove compartment and the trunk of cars, on the spot, without going to a judge for a warrent.


By now it's a familiar refrain: if juvenile crime is on the rise, don't fool around with goody-goody programs for youthful offenders; prosecute them as adults.

In Vermont, where folks normally take pride in their independence and caution, lawmakers went for the idea in a big way: not content to lower the age for adult criminality to 16, as countless states have done, they moved it all the way back to 10.

That was in July. Now Vermonters are having second thoughts, for a salient reason: the state still permits the death penalty, and the new law makes it possible to execute fourth graders. Having belatedly focused on this point, the legislators may now decide to modify the law.

We don't approve of the death penalty in any case, but the absurdity of this situation serves as an imporant reminder: no matter how mean their behavior, children must be treated as children.


ALBANY, March 25— The majority leader of the State Senate said today that the Republican-controlled house would pass a budget on Monday that was $450 million more than Governor Carey's $16.2 billion proposal. The Senate budget would increase local revenue sharing and add $190 million to the Governor's school-aid package.

In what has become an annual gambit in the budget process here, the majority leader, Senator Warren M. Anderson of Binghamton, called a news conference today - one week before the new state fiscal year begins - to accuse Governor Carey and Assembly Speaker Stanley Fink of ''stonewalling'' negotiations and acting in an ''irresponsible'' manner.

The Governor's director of policy management, Michael J. DelGiudice, countered by calling the Senate plan a ''monstrosity'' that overspent revenues. Speaker Fink, a Brooklyn Democrat, said the Senator's staff had failed to show where cuts to the Carey budget proposal would be made - ''and that's irresponsible.'' Carey Called 'Irresponsible'

Later, the Senate minority leader, Manfred Ohrenstein of Manhattan, added his voice to the Democratic chorus and called Mr. Anderson ''irresponsible.''

At his news conference, Mr. Anderson declined to say how he would cover the additional local aid or the $500 million in tax cuts the Senate has already approved. ''If they look at revenues and expenditures as we do, they would see those tax cuts could be accommodated,'' he said.

Senator Anderson said the barrier to agreement on a budget was the Democratic leaders' insistence on dealing now with a series of initiatives like mass-transit aid and the state assumption of local Medicaid costs that said he believed could be put off until after the April 1 deadline for adoption of the budget.

That deadline was breached without dire consequences two years ago, and the talk is that April 10, the scheduled start of the legislators' spring vacation, will be the real budget deadline this year.

Mr. Anderson believes that a move to pick up the billion-dollar local share of Medicaid - which the Governor proposes to do over a four-year period - should await the fate in Congress of President Reagan's plan to place a ceiling on Federal Medicaid reimbursement. Says Transit Funds Are Available

The Senator also said a mass-transit package was ''not an emergency.'' He said he believed there remained $50 million in unused 1979 transportation bond funds that could tide over the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

The chairman of the authority, Richard Ravitch, said he did not know what $50 million Mr. Anderson was talking about. The Senator proposes to pass five basic budget bills on Monday to cover local assistance, state purposes, capital construction, legislative and judiciary costs and debt service. He said his local assistance bill would not include Medicaid funds for abortions - about $5 million.

The five bills do not take into account Governor Carey's plans for a ceiling on state and local spending nor the local Medicaid pickup, but would show assumption by the state of a 15 percent increase in welfare grants.

''That's the game plan,'' Mr. Anderson said. ''I don't want to do it. I'd much prefer we work right now on trying to get bills that would be generally acceptable.''


Mayor Koch said yesterday that New York City suffered from serious housing problems that affected the lives of most of its residents, but he offered little or no hope that matters would improve much.

He said decreasing Federal funds were certain to worsen the housing prospects for low-income New Yorkers who depended on subsidized housing. And high interest rates on mortgages, which the Mayor called a ''national problem,'' made it unlikely that private builders would be able to offer many new homes for moderate- and middle-income persons, he said. Mr. Koch acknowledged that there was little he could do about that as Mayor, even if re-elected.

''It certainly does concern me that there are not adequate apartments,'' Mr. Koch said. ''Not only for the poor, but for the middle class as well.''

The Mayor made those assessments in an interview in his City Hall office, one of several on key issues in his re-election campaign. Anthony B. Gliedman, his Housing Commissioner, was present for the 70-minute interview. 'Regret' for State of Housing

Although he referred often to Mr. Gliedman and to a prepared fact sheet, usually to make favorable comparisons between his administration and that of his predecessor, Abraham D. Beame, Mr. Koch's overall tone was not optimistic. At least eight times he used variations of the word ''regret'' to describe the current state of housing and other economic affairs in the city and nation.

And several times, instead of responding directly to questions about how he planned to improve housing if he was re-elected, Mr. Koch recalled his own childhood.

For example, in response to a question about high rents in many parts of the city, Mr. Koch responded: ''Why don't you compare the prices of cars? When I was a child, we bought a Plymouth for $300. That was our first car - it was $300. How much is a Plymouth today? Five, six thousand dollars? In 1937, it was $300. It's regrettable that prices are going up and that we have inflation and that we have high interest costs.'' 'You Made It if You Moved'

Asked if the problem-plagued mass-transit system might be contributing to the decline of some neighborhoods outside of Manhattan because people find it too difficult or dangerous to commute to such areas, Mr. Koch said:

''I don't think so, frankly, because I think there was always the lure of the Upper East Side as the place to be. When I was a child, the lure - and I was born in the South Bronx, Crotona Park East, about six blocks from Charlotte Street - you made it if you moved to the Grand Concourse. That was the avenue.''

He went on to say that people were reluctant to live in many parts of the outer boroughs today because ''the aspirations are different.'' He added: ''It isn't the question of the mass transit. It is a question of status for the people that we are talking about.'' Trying to Improve the Record

Several times he declined to make specific promises, saying at one point: ''In housing, I want to make sure that we use every dollar available to us for the construction of new housing, or rehabilitating housing and to improve our record, even though the Feds have reduced the dollars. We will try to make up for that with innovative approaches to deal with those shortfalls.''

On other issues, the Mayor made the following points:

- He feels that the conversion of hundreds of apartment buildings to cooperatives in recent years has been good for the city, despite ''some negatives,'' such as evictions of those who would not or could not buy their apartments. Although he initially opposed it, he said. he had come to support a proposal to increase the proportion of tenants needed to buy their apartments before a building could convert under an eviction plan. He said he had made the change to give tenants ''parity'' with landlords in conversion negotiations.

- He said rents were ''excessive'' in many parts of the city, especially in Manhattan, where even one-bedroom apartments frequently cost $800 a month now. He said there was little or nothing he could do about that, but that without the city's rent regulation systems the rents would probably be doubled.

- He said he had recently come to believe that many rents in the city violated the legal limits, and that he would introduce a bill in the next State Legislature to mandate treble damages against any landlord caught willfully violating the rent limits on rentstabilized apartments. Noting that similar legislation had failed several times, he said, ''We're going to make this a city bill in this Legislature, to give it extra weight.''

- The Mayor said his administration had spent $300 million in the last three years on repairing and operating many of the 10,000 properties it had taken over through tax foreclosure. He said that, while other cities might tell the 35,000 families living in those properties to ''fend for yourself,'' his administration was committed to providing essential services to the tenants. He also said the city hoped to sell as many of the buildings as possible. City's Role Is Small

A theme he repeated often was that his administration had done what it could to improve housing, and he called the performance of Mr. Gliedman and his predecessor, Nathan Leventhal, now a deputy mayor, ''stellar.'' But overall, Mr. Koch said, city government could do little more than be aggressive in obtaining and using Federal funds and offering property-tax abatements to private developers willing to build. He cited interest rates several times as an example of a problem beyond his authority.

''That's the problem, and it's not something New York City can solve,'' he said. ''It is a national problem. and it requires a national solution.''


MONTPELIER, Vt., March 3— Vermonters voted overwhelmingly at town meetings this week to support a mutual freeze on nuclear weapons by the United States and the Soviet Union.

The issue was placed alongside such mundane town meeting agenda items as snowplows and school budgets in more than two-thirds of the state's 252 cities and towns, and won voter approval in 155. It was rejected in 22 towns and tabled without a vote in eight others.

''If the current Administration in Washington is listening to anything, it should listen to this,'' said David McCauley of Putney, where he and other members of the Vermont chapter of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, coordinated the statewide effort.

The turnout for the town meetings was described by most local officials as average. No exact tally on the arms freeze question was available; in many towns the issue was decided by voice vote. Legislators to Vote Soon

The complicated ballot question asked the Legislature to call on Congress to request that President Reagan seek a mutual freeze on the production, testing and use of nuclear weapons. The resolution is to be introduced Thursday in the Vermont House of Representatives. State Representative Stephan A. Morse, the House Speaker, said he would bring the resolution to the floor as soon as possible.

Elsewhere in Vermont balloting, voters in Burlington, the state's largest city, gave Mayor Bernard Sanders, a socialist, a major victory by electing three of his supporters to the Board of Aldermen. Republicans picked up two seats, and two others will be decided in runoff elections.

If the Mayor's supporters win the two runoffs their votes, along with those of two Aldermen already sympathetic to his goals, will give Mr. Sanders a working majority on the 13-member board.

The Mayor narrowly defeated a five-term incumbent last year in a victory that the Democrats termed a fluke. Since then he has battled, generally without success, to push appointments and programs past a Board of Aldermen dominated by the Democrats.

Mr. Sanders said today that the voters showed they wanted changes in local affairs to proceed. Terming the results of the aldermanic elections ''a mandate,'' he said: ''Our job is to involve people and to come up with as many bold and progressive initiatives as we can - programs that will improve the quality of life.'' Constitutional Change Approved

Vermonters also approved by a large margin an amendment to the State Constitution that would give judges broader discretion on whether to grant bail to criminal suspects. The measure will allow judges to deny bail in cases in which the defendant could receive a life sentence. Previously, bail was withheld only in cases involving capital crimes.

It was the arms freeze issue, however, that generated the most attention at the town meetings. All three major television networks covered the vote on the resolution, and the state's newspapers reported debate on the issue for weeks.

In Northfield, seat of Norwich University, a private military college founded in 1819, the nuclear freeze question was rejected by a single vote, 86 to 85. ''It is very presumptuous for people to send a message to the President suggesting to him how we should conduct the foreign policy of this country,'' said George Mitchell, a Northfield resident.

After the vote the Rev. Alan Kelchner, pastor of the United Church in Northfield and a strong supporter of the arms freeze resolution, said, ''I'm less optimistic about the future of the world than I was when I got up this morning.''

But in West Windsor, the arms freeze article passed by a unanimous voice vote. Supporters of the arms freeze then stood and sang ''America.''

Illustrations: photo of town meetin in Vermont