Chancellor's Monday Message
Monday, May 4, 2015    

UMass Dartmouth, "on the edge of something great"! Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham, on her visit to campus last week, observed, "Walking around the boldly modern campus, you get the sense that the place might be on the edge of something great. So many of its students already are." If you missed her column about UMassD on April 30, I attach it here (click here).

 

We have a new President for the UMass System, Chancellor Marty Meehan from UMass Lowell, who was unanimously selected on Friday by the Board of Trustees. Let us accord him a warm Corsair welcome and all our best wishes!

 

Are you ready for a mural on the rectangular fa�ade of the Campus Center? As part of our UMassD Living Gallery project, on Tuesday, May 5 at 9 - 9:30 AM in the Stoico/FIRST FED Charitable Foundation Grand Reading Room, artist Angelina Marino-Heidel from Portland, Oregon, will conduct a digital presentation of her proposed mural about the environmental consequences of industry, expressing concern about global warming through intense colors and evoking a feeling of "batik" printed cloth. Ms. Marino-Heidel was selected from a national pool of applicants by the Mural Art RFP Committee co-chaired by Dean Adrian Tio and Michael Hayes.

 

Our inaugural celebration of National Poetry Month concluded with a community poetry reading in the LARTS Atrium organized by Jill Shastany, a Master of Professional Writing student and Editor of UMassD's literary magazine Temper, with the leadership of Professor Lucas Mann and CAS Dean Jen Riley. Jill read poems she composed, such as "Stains of You," as did students Nikki Vijaybhaskar and Erin Sheehan, among others; while Professor John Buck and others recited selected poems, such as Emily Dickinson's "The Brain - is Wider than the Sky." Listening to them while perched on the concrete bench, as the fading light of sunset streamed from the outside through the glass window, viewing not only the presenters at the podium but above them, the lifting, flying alcoves designed by Paul Rudolph, I was reminded once again why UMass Dartmouth is an inimitably special place, indeed, Rudolph's academic utopia in the SouthCoast.

 

Last Tuesday, I joined Dean Kimberly Christopher at the College of Nursing's Sister Madeleine Clemence Vaillot Scholarship Day, a celebration of student scholarship collaboratively sponsored by the Theta Kappa Chapter of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing. The five podium presentations were exceptional: "The experience of Asian and Caucasian first generation college students attending a four-year university program: A qualitative study" by senior BSN student Lauren LaBounty, directed by Professor Maryellen Brisbois; "Haiti: A nation at risk for health" by RN to BSN student Beth Almeida, supervised by Professor Ouida Dowd; "The Jerry Bear pilot study" by MSN student Deborah St. Pierre, mentored by Professor Caitlin Stover; "The development of a clinical decision support tool to improve the utilization of hypodermoclysis in long-term care elders" by DNP student Anne Marie Caron, directed by Professor Elizabeth Chin; and "Systematic review of text messaging as an intervention for adolescent obesity" by PhD student Sharon Keating, supervised by Professor Mary McCurry. Thank you to Professor Elizabeth Chin and the members of the Scholarship Day Committee for a job well done!

 

Kudos as well to the approximately 100 students who displayed their 68 poster presentations at the Claire T. Carney Library Living Room. Thirteen scholarships funded by private donors such as the Bristol South County Medical Auxiliary, the Robert John Fisher Memorial Scholarship, and others were awarded to students Shereen Cruz, Brittani Atkinson, Mulken Tesafaye, Jocelyn Jefferson, India Bowman-Tirado, Meagan Cole, Joseph Ialuna, Brianna McLennan, Erica Medeiros, Sarah Manchester, Allison Cameron, Cindy Surin, and Callie Gomes. Congratulations to all of you!

 

Last week's Three Minute Thesis competition, with preliminary rounds for graduate and undergraduate students and a grand finale for finalists of the earlier rounds, highlighted the depth and breadth of research being conducted by UMassD students. Taking first place for undergraduates was Shravani Kakarla, Bioengineering major, for "Bio-production of ethanol via co-culture of Saccharaomyces cervisiae and Ralstonia eutropha." Matthew Camara, graduate student in the MBA program, earned graduate first place for "Mobile Money Transfer in the Developing World: A New Business Model." Congratulations to all the competitors -- 10 undergraduates and 19 graduate students -- for their informative presentations. Special thanks to the committee that organized this impressive event including Dr. Catherine Gardner, Dr. Trina Kershaw, Nancy Lenon-Robillard, Dr. Tesfay Meressi, Dr. Mark Silby, and Lauren Silva.

 

On April 18, I was honored to be invited to speak at the legislative breakfast organized by the Southeastern Massachusetts Labor Council and our very own Arnold Dubin Labor Education Center. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Center, and the breakfast afforded an opportunity for me to thank Professor Jose Soler, who is retiring this year after nearly a quarter century of service. In his remarks, Jose spoke passionately about the labor movement and the issues it champions on behalf of working-class families: public transportation, workplace safety, and educational opportunity. Undoubtedly, Jose will not stop his relentless labor advocacy in retirement, but today we convey to him heartfelt thanks!

 

I was proud to host Dr. Irwin and Joan Jacobs, Mayor Jon Mitchell and others at a dinner held last Thursday at the Barney Frank Room of the Claire T. Carney Library. Dr. Jacobs, who grew up in New Bedford, became a faculty member in Electrical Engineering at MIT and at UC San Diego, authored the book Principles of Communication Engineering and later co-founded the company QUALCOMM. We are grateful to the Jacobs family for their support of our College Now program and the Clemente Program in the Humanities in the last few years. Thank you to Senior Vice Chancellor Gerry Kavanaugh, Interim Vice Chancellor Jack Moynihan, Dean Bob Peck, Professors Sigal Gottlieb and John Buck as well as students Zachary Grant and Jacob Miller for joining us.

 

Have a good week, everyone!

Chancellor's Signature
UMass Dartmouth