In Eight Years as Chancellor, His Bold Moves Took UMass Lowell to Another Level
06/21/2015
Lowell Sun
By Grant Welker
LOWELL -- Sounding like both a proud father and a convincing salesman, Marty Meehan darted from one part of UMass Lowell to another on a recent tour to show off highlights of his eight-year tenure leading the university.
Meehan has two speeds -- fast and faster -- as he moves from the new brick-and-glass Health and Social Sciences Building across a construction site that will soon be the university's first traditional college quadrangle, then to the hilly spot next to the 150-year-old Allen House, where he said his father went sledding as a boy. It was then off to University Crossing, Fox Hall, LeLacheur Park, then the Tsongas Center.
Meehan, who will become president of the University of Massachusetts system July 1, has been in a reflective mood.
Since being named president a month and a half ago, he said he's spent many weekend days walking around the campus and its neighborhood, looking at what he's helped accomplish as a member of Congress and as head of UMass Lowell.
"I'm kind of emotional about the fact of leaving here," he said in a recent interview.
Meehan's not leaving, really. As incoming head of the 73,000-student university system, he'll have to work more closely with legislators and the governor's office on state aid, try to keep student debt down, and guide the fledgling UMass School of Law Dartmouth.
He promises to keep a hand in UMass Lowell, his hometown college and alma mater, from his new office in downtown Boston.
Walking past renovations of the McGauvran Student Center, he says, "I'll tell you, I'll be back when this project is finished."
Meehan's time at UMass Lowell has been marked by bold moves:
* The university bought what was then the DoubleTree Hotel in 2009 and turned it into the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center, which is now used predominantly for student housing.
* The university also will create the state's first public pharmacy program and is establishing a campus in Kuwait in a partnership with Raytheon.
* It bought the Tsongas Center for $1 in early 2010 after the city looked to unload the arena, and then invested $12 million in the facility.
* The university became the first public school in Massachusetts to open privately built dorms, something Meehan said he hopes to duplicate at other UMass campuses.
* Meehan upgraded all UMass Lowell athletics to Division I, at a time when many smaller colleges have struggled to compete against larger schools. Its men's hockey program was already among the best in the country in recent years. Now its basketball teams have played powers such as Michigan and Ohio State.
UMass Lowell was planning an $80 million Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center in 2007, the university's first new academic building in 30 years. A committee suggested putting the facility in a quiet corner of the North Campus. Meehan, months into his tenure, had other ideas.
Meehan told school officials the building should be prominent, on the north bank of the Merrimack River just off University Avenue, where Smith Hall, an old brick dormitory, stood. Meehan met with the committee planning the building and made his case.
"To this day, all involved in that decision, I remember their concerns, but he saw the wisdom of siting the building there," said Jacqueline Moloney, the school's executive vice chancellor.
The building opened in 2012 and was joined last year by an even larger and more high-profile building across the river: University Crossing. Meehan even made sure to look at the blueprints for the new Howe Bridge that connects the two buildings, wanting to see exactly how the bridge would appear.
No detail is too small for Meehan.
He also told a story of a Lawrence youth, a high-achieving minority student, who had planned to go to the University of New Hampshire to study engineering. Meehan stepped in to offer the student a better financial-aid package, telling the Admissions Department how important it is to diversify the university's population with qualified applicants. The student ended up attending UMass Lowell.
That attention to detail is sharpest when it comes to image. Logos or banners with the university's name have been placed strategically on every school property to attract attention.
The university made the risky move of taking over the dilapidated Bellegarde Boathouse, located on the banks of the Merrimack River, and making substantial improvements, even adding an expansive waterfront patio that is now a revenue-producing venue for the operation. The university added at least three logos there.
"No one will ever wonder who owns the building," Meehan said.
Whatever moves the chancellor has made, they've helped give the university new highs in enrollment while attracting higher-caliber students. Endowment and research spending have also soared, and the university has climbed quickly up the U.S. News & World Report college rankings.
An adept fundraiser, Meehan captured millions of private dollars for the wave of new buildings across campus. Always attuned to aesthetics, he's committed $2 million of school money to repairing several bridges that are in such bad shape that some university buses have to take detours.
Meehan brought new prestige to the university. U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, then House speaker, attended his inaugural address in 2007, when he vowed the campus would be "physically transformed" with new buildings. His quick success won over people like Ahmed Abdelal, then provost at Northeastern University.
"It really was Marty (that attracted me)," said Abdelal, now UMass Lowell's provost. "When he was looking for a provost, they asked if I had thought about it. At that point, I hadn't."
Stephen McCarthy, co-director of the Massachusetts Medical Device Development Center (M2D2), saw a sudden change at the university as well.
"It was crazy, it was amazing," McCarthy said of when Meehan became chancellor. "It was exciting, too."
Meehan first had to win over university officials looking to replace his predecessor, William Hogan. Meehan was well known in the Lowell area and across Massachusetts, but he was a congressman. Many weren't sure what to make of a politician wanting to run a university.
Meehan earned the respect of the UMass Lowell search committee, then the system's trustees, said Jack Wilson, president emeritus of the UMass system and now distinguished professor of emerging technologies and innovation at UMass Lowell.
If anyone is familiar with Meehan's transition to, and success in, academia, it is Wilson. During his time as UMass president from 2003 to 2011, Wilson called Meehan his "go-to guy" in the Massachusetts delegation in Washington because of his passion for UMass and ability to get things done.
Wilson said Meehan faced several obstacles in being named chancellor. There was a natural hesitancy among trustees to choose a congressman, plus there were also several great candidates to lead UMass Lowell, he said.
"But there was substantial consensus that he was such a strong candidate," Wilson said.
Meehan also earned a quick consensus from the UMass board of trustees choosing a successor to President Robert Caret, who succeeded Wilson as UMass president. Meehan spoke to trustees with familiarity and ease. Their decision was unanimous.
The chancellor showed in that interview the same confidence that led him to take a number of risky moves at UMass Lowell. "I will personally raise more money than anyone's ever raised at this university," he told trustees. "I will."
None of that means Meehan will have an easy time as president of the five-campus university system. The state Legislature used to pay most of the cost of higher education at UMass, but, like other states, has cut back dramatically in recent years.
Only six states have reduced higher-education spending more than Massachusetts since fiscal 2001, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. That drop in funding also hit the UMass system disproportionately hard, compared to the state college and community-college systems.
In nine years, annual per-pupil spending for UMass declined by nearly $2,300.
Meehan, a 58-year-old father of two who lives in Andover, has a few factors working in his favor. He has a strong enough relationship with Gov. Charlie Baker that Baker named Meehan to his transition team. Meehan said he's also had long relationships with several top legislators, and his fundraising abilities are well-known.
While in Congress, as he pointed out on his recent campus tour, he helped commit $1.9 million in federal funding for a river walk behind LeLacheur Park. The funding was critical but unlikely. Meehan seized on a competitive race for John Kerry's Senate seat that spurred funding in states with seats up for grabs.
The UMass president's office will be moved this fall from near Boston's Post Office Square to another tower within a short walk of the Statehouse. The proximity and familiarity will help, but it doesn't guarantee more aid from the state, Meehan said.
"I want the state to hold us accountable," he said.
At the Lowell campus, Meehan has been proudest of dramatically increasing student diversity. He also mentioned attracting more of the area's best-achieving high-school students, and collaborating with other campuses, such as with the UMass Medical School on M2D2.
Meehan has mixed emotions about departing UMass Lowell. It has been a job he said he enjoyed more than any other, and one in which he was able to affect lives more than during his 14 years in Congress.
"When I came to Lowell," he said, "I said I wanted to give back to my alma mater because it had given so much to me."