Jacqueline Moloney, Chancellor Emerita, UMass Lowell
Jacqueline Moloney has been actively involved with the city, its non-profits, and the university since her days as a student at Lowell State College (now known as UMass Lowell). As an undergraduate, she was active in numerous student groups including as founding member of a Women’s Center and Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG). She was also an active member of the Communicator a local community newspaper and volunteered for Paul Tsongas’s first congressional campaign. As a young professional, she served at several non-profits including the Lowell Association for Retarded Children (LARC) (where she first met Nancy Donahue--see the Donahue interview), and the Indo-Chinese Foundation and served on numerous boards including the House of Hope, the Greater Lowell Community Foundation, Girls Inc. and Lowell General Hospital. After joining the University in the 1980’s, she rose through the ranks as founding director of the Centers for Learning to Dean of Continuing Education; then in 2007 she became Executive Vice-Chancellor in the Martin T. Meehan Administration. In 2015, she was appointed as the first female Chancellor and became a nationally recognized leader for innovation and entrepreneurship and for her dedication to the success of students. This includes establishing the DifferenceMaker program which encourages entrepreneurship; and creating an endowment for the Moloney Student Scholars program which funds students to intern at non-profits and to work with faculty. She is now Chancellor-Emerita and Senior Fellow of the Donahue Institute.
The Interview
In her interview, she begins with her own childhood memories of Lowell—walking its bustling streets and later witnessing its economic decline. Later, as a young professional in social services, she saw first-hand how the vision laid by leaders like Dick and Nancy Donahue, George and Carol Duncan, or Paul and Niki Tsongas and others had transformed the city into a community that was thriving by working together for the greater good. While serving as Executive Vice-Chancellor to Chancellor Meehan and later as Chancellor, she prioritized programs that honored that foundation and built partnerships that would revitalize the economy and fabric of the city, first through the Innovation Hub in downtown Lowell and more recently the University’s East Campus, now known as the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor (LINC). Not surprisingly, her advice to the next generation is straightforward: “be a difference maker.”