Chancellor's Monday Message
What a rousing Saturday we had on campus as 1,100 prospective students and their family members attended Open House and more than 2,800 current students, faculty, staff, and their family members joined us at the Fall Family Festival! On a crisp and glorious autumn day, we basked in the brilliant sunshine and relished the music, food, festivities, and frolic. Thank you to the inimitable team that organized both events: Ian Day, Kelley Mahoney, Tabitha Marsden, the entire Enrollment Management team and Admission Ambassadors, Renee Buisson, Cynthia Cummings, Sherri Miles, David Milstone, Marjorie Fernandes, Chris Laib, Sean Rooney, the Conference Services team, and a multitude of staff. I am grateful to Deans Jen Riley, Bob Peck, Angappa Gunasekaran, the Associate Deans, and numerous faculty and others who were on hand at the College and Department exhibit tables to provide information and assistance.  
 
This past week was exciting as I traveled to the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities (CUMU) Conference held at the University of Nebraska Omaha, hosted by President John Christensen. Did you know that the word Omaha, named after an indigenous tribe that once occupied a reservation encompassing northeastern Nebraska and western Iowa, means "those going against the wind or current?" Historians believe the word refers to migration up the Missouri River of the Omaha tribe's ancestors.
 
The conference theme was "Love of Place: the Metropolitan University Advantage." I attended a meeting of the Executive Committee on which I serve and a dinner for university presidents and chancellors held at the Doorly Aquarium under a jaw-dropping tank with sharks, stingrays, and other marine creatures floating above us. Several of our faculty and staff delivered presentations of their work: Leduc Center Director Matt Roy, "South Coast Serves: A University Assisted Collaborative of Community Partners;" Ben Jones, "The Capacity Wheel: Towards A New Model of Measuring Organizational Effectiveness;" John Quinn, "UMass Dartmouth School of Law: Public Interests Law Fellowship Program;" Professor Andrea Klimt, " Community Empowerment and Connections Through Photography;" and Professor Caitlin Stover, "Reflection Binder: A Transformational Learning Assignment in a Graduate Level Service Learning Course."
 
Over a week ago, Provost Mohammad Karim and I, along with our Cabinet members and Deans, welcomed 39 new faculty members at a reception held at the Claire T. Carney Library Grand Reading Room. Our new cohort of professors constitutes 10% of our total faculty, and ten of the 39 were hired in the English Department. I highlight three of them here so you can appreciate the caliber and quality of our new faculty talent! Professor Jacqueline O'Dell, who received her PhD at Tufts University, focuses her research on contemporary American literature, reading practices and genre, and is engaged in a book project titled Network Anxieties: Fantasies of Literary Autonomy in Contemporary Literary Culture. Professor Alireza Asadpoure completed his PhD in Structural Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California Irvine, and conducts research in the field of computational mechanics with emphasis on stochastic modeling and optimization of complex systems and materials. Professor Cristina Cipriano Crowe is a PhD graduate in applied Developmental and Educational Psychology from Boston College who finished her postdoctoral training at Yale University, and focuses her research on the relationship between educational contexts, microclassroom processes, and psychosocial and academic outcomes across development. Congratulations to all, and I hope you are gradually becoming acclimated to UMass Dartmouth!
 
Kudos to SMAST Dean Steve Lohrenz for his new WHOI/NOAA $752,807 grant titled "Research and Education in Quantitative Fisheries and Ecosystem Science!"
 
Congratulations to Professors Marilyn Asselin and Deborah Armstrong for receiving the National League for Nursing/Chamberlain Research Award for their study "Promoting Innovative Academic Leadership through Critical Reflective Teaching Practice!"
 
Hats off to Professor Nora Barnes and her students in the Center for Marketing Research for their survey on the impact of "buy" buttons on social media on consumer behavior in millennial generation individuals, recently cited in the Business section of the online Time Magazine. Professor Barnes' team found that only 35% of millennials were likely to use the "buy" button on Facebook and only 24% of them indicated probability of using the "buy" button on Twitter.    
 
On October 9, we convened the South Coast Development Partnership at the Law School for a panel discussion on energy planning and policy, led by Speaker Pro Tempore Pat Haddad. Representative Haddad presented her proposed legislation, H-2882, "An Act to Promote Energy Diversity." Representative Tony Cabral also discussed his bill, H-2851, "An Act to Promote Offshore Wind Energy." Other speakers were Mayor Jon Mitchell, with commentary provided by Jeff Bishop, Senior Director of Governmental Policies at Brookfield Renewable; James Daly, Vice President of Energy Supply at Eversource; Matt Morrisey, Executive Director of Offshore Wind; Tony Sapienza, President of Joseph Abboud Manufacturing; and Cindy Rodrigues, President of the Greater Southeastern Massachusetts Labor Council. As our region and the Commonwealth continue to pursue economic development, it is critical to explore safe, sustainable, and affordable energy sources while at the same time limiting the impact of climate change and protecting the environment. Plaudits to SCDP Executive Director Hugh Dunn for a job well done!
 
With the growth and increasing influence of the management consulting industry on companies in the U.S. and the world, a group of Charlton College of Business students led by Sahil Patel, President; Devin Welch, Vice President; and Kevin Sheehan, Recruitment Coordinator; have established a Management Consulting Club. This student-run organization, with Professor Bharatrendra Rai as Advisor, is targeted to those students who are interested in pursuing careers in management consulting. If you would like to participate, the meetings are on Mondays at 4-5 PM at CCB 115.

Have a good week, everyone!
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