Chancellor's Monday Message
Monday, September 21, 2015    
What a fitting tribute we held on September 18 at Lawrence Hall, attended by almost 200 guests, to honor the memory of our friend and benefactor, Chuck Charlton! The day began with a brunch I hosted for Chuck's daughter Stacey, Charlton Trustees Augusta Haydock and Mike Garfield, former Chancellors Peter Cressy and Jean MacCormack, Trustee Mardee Xifaras, former UMass Board of Trustees Chair Robert Karam and Dale Ferris, Claire T. Carney, Reverend Robert Lawrence and Beth Duffy, Otilia Ferreira, and former Dean of Nursing Betty Pennington.
 
With Dean Angappa Gunasekaran as the master of ceremonies, the Celebration of Life service included video clips about Chuck that were creatively produced by Stacey Charlton; recollections by Chuck's best friend Don Ramsbottom; former SouthCoast Health System CEO Rick Dreyer, Augusta Haydock, Bob Karam, Professor Steve White, and myself. Mayor Sam Sutter of Fall River delivered remarks on the impact of the Charlton philanthropy on his city, and Reverend Lawrence recited a poem he composed and performed the benediction. The musical renditions of "Seasons of Love" and "The Navy Hymn" by Professor James Hay and the University Chamber Choir, "I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cent Store" by Professor Marcelle Gauvin, and "You Raise Me Up" by senior Nursing student Jillian Zucco during the service were exquisitely performed.
 
"How do you measure the life of a woman or man?" our choir students intoned. How do you measure the impact of Chuck Charlton? At UMass Dartmouth, it is the Charlton College of Business itself that has grown to 2,000 students; cited as one of the 295 Best Business Colleges by Princeton Review; recently recommended for reaccreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business; with newly implemented Master's degrees in Accounting, Technology Management, and Health Care Management; and a Ph.D. program just approved by the UMass Board of Trustees. It is the Charlton Learning Pavilion, currently under construction and to be completed next year that will house an auditorium, technology labs, "smart" classrooms, and group study spaces for students. It is students who excel like the three who spoke at the service: Matt Witzgall, who earned a B.S. in Management two years ago, lives in Fall River and now works at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center; Miriam Asangong, a senior Accounting student, originally from Cameroon and now a Framingham resident, who holds a GPA of 3.9 and has tutored at the Boys and Girls Club and worked at the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program; or Megan De Barros, a senior Marketing student and soccer athlete from Seekonk with a GPA of 3.8 and is the first in her family to go to college. Ultimately, the measure of Chuck's impact is in all of us who knew him and learned his priceless lessons of humility, kindness, compassion, and empathy. We will miss him dearly.
 
For a flawless event such as the Chuck Charlton Celebration of Life to happen owes to months of patient planning, conscientious work, and painstaking attention to detail by a huge team including Joyce Antine, Robin Brow, Sean Rooney, Don Ramsbottom, John Hoey, Renee Buisson, Lori Nickerson, Emil Fioravanti, and their respective team members. I am grateful to Music Department Chair Ron Sherwin and Dean Adrian Tio for their support of the musical numbers in the program. Waring Sullivan Funeral Homes provided ushers and guest books; and flowers were donated by the Boys and Girls Club of Fall River, Fall River Historical Society, Family Services Association, Marine Museum and United Way of Fall River.  
 
Last Friday as well, I attended the opening of a new exhibit titled A Collective Body: Uncovered and Illuminated at the New Bedford Art Museum, curated by Professor Memory Holloway and featuring the work of our faculty artists Laurie Kaplowitz, Elena Peteva, Stacy Latt Savage, and Suzanne Schireson. The delicately textured nine-panel acrylic painting "Totem" by Professor Kaplowitz, Professor Schireson's stop-motion animation "Fanny Brice Erased," the intriguing charcoal drawing "Mom in Transition - III" by Professor Peteva, and the playful physicality of "Bloom" by Professor Latt Savage, among others, captured the attention of the enthusiastic crowd that visited the gallery. Picasso once remarked that "The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." Between now and November 13, stop by and see the exhibit to wash off the dust of life!
 
Did you read the front-page article in the Standard-Times that highlighted the life-changing work of our Civil and Environmental Engineering students in Valle Las Perlas in Bocas del Toro, Panama? Kudos to our students Zachary Aaronson, Casey Snook, Johnniel Gomez, and Christopher Griffin, who conducted surveys, water testing, and meetings with the indigenous Ngobe people and Panamanian government officials as part of an Engineers Without Borders project to rehabilitate the village's water distribution system. This is the fourth summer that our UMassD students have traveled to Panama, so the engineering projects have continuity from year to year.
 
Our UMassD Living Gallery project, envisioned to enhance the aesthetics of our Paul Rudolph campus and transform it to an artistic destination, continues with the addition of the John McCormack-designed garden at the campus entrance, the installation of sculptures, and in October, the unveiling of a mural by Angelina Marino-Heidel at the Campus Center fa�ade. If you have crossed the courtyard between the Charlton College of Business and the Claire T. Carney Library, you may have seen installed on the green two new sculptures: the elongated silver "Onset" donated by David Stone and "King David's Gate," a gift from Deborah Stone. Two other sculptures, "Dancing Lady" and "Rio Grande" will be installed indoors at the Claire T. Carney Library.
 
Have a good week, everyone!

Chancellor's Signature
UMass Dartmouth