11/23/2014
MetroWest Daily News
By Rick Holmes
I grew tired long ago of hearing politicians promise to go to Washington to “fight” for this or that, you or me. Somewhere along the way some consultant decided that was the metaphor voters preferred. Well, we got what we asked for: a Congress full of people who do nothing but fight.
I’m one voter who would rather hear candidates promise to build something instead of pledging to fight over everything.
Marty Meehan spent 14 years in Washington fighting. They were important fights – for stronger tobacco regulation, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, campaign finance reform and a quicker end to the Iraq War. He didn’t win them all, but he did his share of the heavy lifting in the House.
He left Congress seven years ago to build something: The University of Massachusetts at Lowell. By all indications he’s had great success.
When Meehan took over as chancellor of UMass Lowell, he found a regional commuter school with a campus that was divided in two and a bit rundown. Its identity as the state’s leading public polytechnic university was more theory than reality. It hadn’t built a new academic building in 32 years. Having dropped football years before, it was considering dropping hockey.
Meehan embarked on a building boom. He took over a closed hospital and bought a downtown hotel, creating dorms that made Lowell less of a commuter school: 82 percent of freshmen now live on campus. He built new academic buildings and Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center, with a new business center coming next door, in line with the school’s emphasis on research and applied technology. He built a new student center to tie together what once were separate campuses.
Instead of shutting down the hockey program, he built it up. He moved the school’s athletics into Division 1. UMass took over the troubled Tsongas arena and made it into a top collegiate hockey venue. The hockey team is now ranked number 5 in the country, playing before thousands of people and regularly seen on national TV.
To get better, colleges have to attract more students, and sports, new dorms and student amenities are part of the competition. As a result of Meehan’s moves, applications have tripled. Average SAT scores of entering freshmen have risen 79 points since 2007. Enrollment has increased nearly 50 percent.
The UMass Lowell student body is larger, smarter, more diverse, more international, and comes from more communities in Massachusetts than just a few years ago. Meehan expects those trends to continue.
"We need to appeal to students nationally," he told me during a recent visit in Framingham. The school is starting to get national attention, and is rising steadily in the rankings so important to attracting top students.
Meehan grew up in Lowell, and knows all about its proud history as a manufacturing hub, the decline that followed the closing of the great mills, its rich ethnic quilt and the potential of education, innovation and entrepreneurship to transform the lives of individuals and communities. Meehan’s goal is to make UMass the throbbing heart of the new Lowell.
Meehan’s still a politician of sorts. Bringing change to a university, where turf battles can be fierce and egos large, can be almost as hard as bringing change in the nation’s capital. Hustling federal research grants and private donations for the UMass endowment aren’t that different from raising campaign cash and bringing home the bacon to a congressional district.
And Meehan is still fighting – especially for greater support from the state Legislature for higher education. Despite some gains in the last couple of years, the taxpayers’ contribution to UMass and the other colleges and universities is still below Romney administration levels. Students and their families make up the difference, forcing record levels of student debt and pricing many out of a college education.
Meehan has some ideas for improving access and affordability without compromising high standards, ideas he’s sharing as a member of Gov.-elect Charlie Baker’s transition team.
So there’s politics in Meehan’s job, and maybe in his future. But he’s had three chances to run for Senate in the last five years and one chance to run for governor, and turned them all down.
It’s clear that, for now at least, Chancellor Meehan is happy to be building something. When I asked him if he missed Congress, he flashed a broad grin and held his fingers a half-inch apart. “Not even this much.”