UMass Boston Magazine - Spring 2021

Spring 2021

UMass Boston A M AG A Z I N E F O R A L U M N I A N D F R I E N D S O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A S S AC H U S E T T S B O S TO N

From

Wheatley

to the

White House UMass Boston Prepared Gina McCarthy ’76 for National Climate Leadership

Also in this issue: •New Provost Joseph Berger •COVID-19 Research •MBA President Denise Murphy ’80

A Message from the Chancellor

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e have so much to be thankful for as we enjoy this commencement season. We are incredibly grateful for our dedicated faculty and staff, who despite the daunting challenges of the past year rose to the occasion and didn’t miss a beat; and for our wonderful students, who once again demonstrated what it is to be a Beacon, to lead and succeed no matter how difficult the path.

Spring is always a time that inspires hope and brings renewal. This year, however, after the social, economic, and pandemic-induced turmoil of the past, spring seems an even more powerful metaphor. A new presidential administration put the coronavirus in its crosshairs, and we are seeing a way forward to a post-pandemic world.

The Biden Administration has also made climate change a top priority, and has enlisted one of our own, Gina McCarthy ’76, to lead their efforts as White House national climate advisor. Gina, who says her time at UMass Boston earning a degree in social anthropology “changed everything,” brings a unique approach to her very important work. We are thrilled to feature a brilliant and committed alumna working on the cutting edge of one of the existential issues of our time. Gina’s personal and professional journey resonates with fellow alumni, inspires our students, and is a story that we are excited to share more broadly with our community.

UMass Boston also recently opened a new chapter in the academic leadership of the university with the appointment of former dean of the College of Education and Human Development Joseph Berger as the 13th provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Joe brings to this position years of demonstrated excellence in academic leadership and higher education management. He shares with me, and our campus community, a passion to create a model anti-racist, health-promoting university. Those efforts are also highlighted in this issue of UMass Boston magazine.

I hope you find this issue as invigorating as I do. But I would be remiss if I didn’t highlight another important story in this magazine: our campus community’s engagement in the fight against the coronavirus. From our University Health Services’ vigorous testing program, to our nursing students who volunteered their time to help vaccinate people, to our faculty who engaged in research to combat the disease as well as understand its social impacts. Thank you.

Please stay well.

Sincerely, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco

UMass Boston

UMass Boston VOL. 21, NO. 2, SPRING 2021 UMass Boston is a magazine for alumni and friends of the University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston State College, the State College at Boston, the State Teachers College at Boston, the Teachers College of the City of Boston, and Boston Normal School.

VOLUME 21, NUMBER 2, SPRING 2021

IN THIS ISSUE

8 From Wheatley to the White House

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White House climate advisor Gina McCarthy ’76

Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco

12 On the Front Lines of COVID-19 Research

Provost Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Joseph Berger

and Outreach UMass Boston fights the pandemic in the lab and in the community

Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Engagement Megan Delage Sullivan

16 Denise Murphy ’80 Turns Words into Action

Denise Murphy ’80 leads the Massachusetts Bar Association

Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Adam Wise

17 The PACE Program Prepares Students for

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Alumni Engagement Allison Duffy

Career Success An innovative apprenticeship program teaches valuable job skills

Director of Alumni Engagement Steve Whittemore Director of Communications DeWayne Lehman

18 Campus Quad Is Taking Shape 20 New Provost, New Approach

Managing Editor Ed Hazell

Provost Joseph Berger’s fresh ideas

Associate Editors Peter Grennen Anne McLaughlin Writers Danille Bilotta, Vanessa Chatterley, Andrea Kennedy, Anne McLaughlin, Crystal Valencia Designers Rose Coveney, Suzanne Korschun, Wendy Lanchester, Chansavanh Phanthalangsy Photo Credits Cover, Rose Lincoln/Harvard University Pg. 8, Sarah Blesener/ The New York Times Pg. 9, Joshua Roberts/Getty Images Pg. 10, MANDEL NGAN/ AFP via Getty Images (top left) Pg. 10, Saadia Ahmad Pg. 11, Drew Angerer/ The New York Times Pp. 18–19, Landscape Architects: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc. Architects: nbbj Pg. 20, back page, Ed Collier We welcome your inquiries and comments. Please direct them to: UMass Boston Magazine Office of Marketing and Engagement University of Massachusetts Boston 100 Morrissey Boulevard Boston, MA 02125-3393 Phone: 617.287.5300 Email: news@umb.edu

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Concrete gives way to grass and trees at the heart of campus

Art Director Sarah Weatherbee

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22 Pension Action Center Celebrates 25 Years of Success Ensuring people get the pensions they earned

24 Engaging Students Online

How the university community made remote learning work

26 Cagen Luse ’11

A comic strip artist illustrates the “New Normal”

27 Kush Patel ’21

A student leader reflects

Departments 2

UNews Major happenings on campus since our last issue

28 About Alumni Class notes from the ’60s to the present 32 Alumni Events and Initiatives

UNEWS

UMass Boston Earns New $1.3M Grant to Serve Asian American, Native American, Pacific Islander Students

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he university has received a new $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to advance its work as an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI). The five-year grant further strengthens UMass Boston’s capacity as the only AANAPISI-designated research university in New England and one of a handful in the country—a status held by the university since 2008.

“UMass Boston clearly plays a leadership role among AANAPISIs nationally,” said Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian

American Studies. “This designation is important in recognizing the realities facing our high-need Asian American students, many of whom come from local Vietnamese, Chinese, and Cambodian American communities and other growing immigrant populations throughout metro Boston.”

UMass Boston has now received eight AANAPISI grants totaling nearly $6.8 million since 2010 to develop, pilot, institutionalize, and disseminate a wide range of activities to increase college access, retention, and graduation for low-income, first-generation Asian American students, who comprise 14 percent of the student body.

Students participate in an activity during an Asian American Studies exhibit. As an AANAPISI-designated university, UMass Boston has pioneered programs to support and retain Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander students.

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Bookshelf Alumni and Faculty Publications Food insecurity poses one of the most pressing development and human security challenges in the world. In Feeding the Hungry: Advocacy and Blame in the Global Fight against Hunger, Assistant Professor of Political Science Michelle Jurkovich investigates advocacy around a critical economic and social right—the right to food—challenging existing understandings of the relationships among human rights, norms, and laws.

Drawing on interviews with staff at top international antihunger organizations as well as archival research, Jurkovich argues that despite international law ascribing responsibility to national governments to ensure their citizens’ right to food, there is no shared social consensus on who ought to do what to solve the hunger problem.

In Pauulu’s Diaspora, Trotter Institute Director Quito Swan gives readers a sweeping story of Black internationalism across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Ocean worlds, told through the life and work of 20th-century environmental, political, and racial justice activist Pauulu Kamarakafego.

Michael Liu, a former senior research associate at the Institute for Asian American Studies and lifelong activist and scholar of Boston’s Chinatown, charts its journey and efforts for survival in Forever Struggle: Activism, Identity, and Survival in Boston’s Chinatown, 1880–2018. Liu’s analysis covers Chinatown’s emergence during a time of immigration and deep xenophobia, the highway construction and urbanrenewal projects that threatened the neighborhood after World War II, and more recent efforts to keep commercial developers at bay.

Associate Professor of Sociology Leslie Kim Wang examines the lives of highly educated American-born Chinese professionals who “return” to the People’s Republic of China to build their careers in Chasing the American Dream in China.

Wang demonstrates how these migrant professionals maneuver between countries and cultures to further their careers and maximize opportunities in the rapidly changing global economy.

Creative Writing MFA alumna Angela Voras-Hills G’11 has released her debut collection of poetry, Louder Birds, a beautiful study of the natural world, motherhood, and the inherent desire for meaning.

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English Professor Named Semifinalist for National Book Award for Poetry

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illian-Yvonne Bertram, associate professor of English and director of UMass Boston’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, made the long list for the 2020 National Book Award in Poetry with their latest collection, Travesty Generator.

Travesty Generator is a book of computational poetry that remixes programming codes and turns them to ruminate on the intersections of race and gender. The poems pay homage to lives taken too soon— those of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Emmett Till—pulls heroes like Harriet Tubman into the present,

and offers the wisdoms spoken by Black mothers to their children.

“It didn’t come together as a book itself until the last minute, but the poems were inspired by real events: the precarity of being Black in America is something that is reiterated over and over again,” Bertram said.

“Computation is an iterative process, and codes are rules for processes.

Policing and the justice system have encoded processes that iteratively harm Black lives, and there is no neutral algorithm. I became interested in seeing what happened if I explored those codes through code itself.”

Discussions Examine Historical Roots of Structural Racism

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uring the fall 2020 semester, members of the UMass Boston community came together online for the Sankofa Conversation Series on Structural Racism to learn more about the historical roots of racism in the United States and to discuss the process of committing UMass Boston to becoming a leading anti-racist and health-promoting public research university. The sixpart event was organized, coordinated, and produced

by Dr. Tony Van Der Meer and Dr. Keith Jones of the Africana Studies Department.

“As scholars in a public university dedicated to the practice of democratic citizenship, committed to social justice,” Chancellor Suárez-Orozco said during the inaugural conversation, “we must reflect on our privileges and we must act in all we do against the systemic racism that impacts our community.”

On February 25, 2021, author Yaa Gyasi joined members of the UMass Boston community as part of a second six-part conversation series, Homegoing: A Restorative Justice Initiative Colloquium. The conversations were built around discussion of issues raised in Gyasi’s novel Homegoing. The novel traces the long history of anti-Blackness, from 18th-century European colonization in West Africa to the contemporary United States.

Series co-organizer Senior Lecturer Tony Van Der Meer said that the novel helped “our campus engage in authentic conversations about the histories of anti-Blackness and white supremacy.”

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Interim Provost Emily McDermott, a Tireless Advocate for UMass Boston, Retires

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fter more than 45 years of service to the university, Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Emily McDermott retired in January. Her expertise and steady leadership as interim provost guided the university through both growth and challenges—most recently the transition to remote learning brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

McDermott joined the UMass Boston faculty in 1974. Her substantial teaching experience spans more than 35 different undergraduate and graduate courses, and she has undertaken extensive scholarly work in Greek tragedy, Late Republican and Augustan poetry, and classical reception. Her contributions since joining UMass Boston are countless.

McDermott spent 10 years as chair of the Classics Department. She served for five years in the 1980s as assistant chancellor under Robert A. Corrigan. In addition, she devoted seven years to Graduate Studies, first as associate dean, then as interim dean. She spent three years as interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and three as associate provost and dean of the faculty. She assumed the role of interim provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs in August 2017.

“She embodies the commitment to our students, the excellence of our faculty, and the dedication to a work ethic that are hallmarks of the UMass Boston community,” Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco said.

“We thank Emily for her decades of service to our campus, congratulate her on her retirement, and look forward to celebrating her career at UMass Boston in the near future.”

Joseph Cooper Appointed Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Black Life

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n November 2020, UMass Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco announced the appointment of Associate Professor Joseph N. Cooper as special assistant to the chancellor for Black life. The newly created position is intended to bring greater focus throughout the campus community to issues of inequality, racism, and social justice.

“I am honored to serve in this new role and further the university’s mission and commitment to creating an anti-racist campus for all students, faculty, and staff,” said Cooper, the inaugural J. Keith Motley Endowed Chair for Sport Leadership and Administration at UMass Boston. “I am a proponent of collective responsibility and excellence, which means the problems we seek to solve require the talents, skills, and contributions of all who are committed to improving our university and society at large.”

In his new role, Cooper will advise the chancellor on matters of importance to Black faculty, students, and staff and work with the administration to create new structures and to develop new practices purposefully designed to put UMass Boston at the forefront of excellence, engagement, and relevance on racial justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Among his responsibilities, Cooper co-chairs the university’s new Restorative Justice Commission (RJC) with Georgianna Meléndez G’12, PhD’19, assistant chancellor for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The RJC will lead efforts to develop an anti-racist university community through the development and enhancement of policies, programming, trainings, curricular interventions, and institutional practices.

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PhD Student Leads Study with New England Aquarium, Finds Future Too Warm for Baby Sharks

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new study led by Carolyn Wheeler G’19, a PhD candidate

in the School for the Environment, finds that as climate change causes the ocean to warm, baby sharks are born smaller, exhausted, undernourished, and into environments that are already difficult for them to survive in.

Wheeler examined the effects of increased temperatures on the growth, development, and physiological performance of epaulette sharks—an egg-laying species found only on the Great Barrier Reef.

She studied the sharks as embryos and hatchlings, under the supervision of Dr. John Mandelman, vice president and chief scientist of the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

She was able to conduct her research in the aquarium, sourcing the shark eggs from breeding animals already housed there.

“The collaboration between the School for the Environment and The New England Aquarium was the reason I came to UMB,” she said.

“This collaboration was a great example of using existing resources in a public aquarium to conduct timely research without having to collect animals from the wild.”

Wheeler found that the warmer the conditions, the faster everything happened, which could be a problem for the sharks. They hatched earlier than usual, were smaller, and needed to feed almost immediately while lacking significant energy.

“Some of our results are alarming, but it is not necessarily all bad news for these little sharks. In our experiments, we exposed eggs and hatchlings to a constant high temperature throughout the study. In the wild, they would experience higher temperatures at midday and cool off at night. Perhaps these temperature cycles would improve their survival and fitness,” she said. “So, we need to continue investigating these questions and comparing all life stages and different species to create a better picture as to how sharks and their relatives will fare under climate change.”

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UMass Boston Hosts First Black Lives Matter Day

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ssociate Professor Joseph Cooper, special assistant to the

chancellor on Black life, delivered a powerful message to the campus community on UMass Boston’s inaugural Black Lives Matter Day: “It was and is within our human capacity to create and reproduce racism, and it is within our human capacity to end it.”

Hundreds of students, faculty, staff, and alumni came together on November 2, 2020, to reflect on systemic anti-Black racism and injustice and commit themselves to positive change. Participants engaged in virtual issues-focused seminars, a keynote address, and tour of a Black Lives Matter memorial focused on the history of the Black experience and struggle.

Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco has declared that UMass Boston will commemorate Black Lives Matter Day every year on the first Monday of November. A newly unveiled mural commemorating the movement, located in the East Residence Hall, will be added to every year.

As part of Black Lives Matter Day, the campus community raised more than $2,300 toward the university’s George Floyd Honorary Scholarship Fund.

“It is important that during these difficult times we do not let our students or commitment to a just campus community be left behind,” said organizer Pilar Nelson, community director for the Office of Housing and Residential Life.

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From Wheatley to the White H UMass Boston Prepared Gina McCarthy ’76 for National Climate Leadership

BY DEWAYNE LEHMAN

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egina “Gina” McCarthy ’76—former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama, and appointed by President Joe Biden as the first White House national climate advisor—will have you believe that she wasn’t inclined to apply herself academically before college and lacked a sense of direction.

“I had actually been at best a pretty mediocre student in high school,” McCarthy said. “I was a little bit undisciplined, I should say, and I had fun.”

McCarthy, always frank and somewhat self-deprecating when she describes her rise to top environmental positions in two presidential administrations, said the pivotal moment of her life was her decision to attend UMass Boston, although she had also been accepted to Boston College. She believed the university, with a downtown campus at the time, presented a more serious academic program and learning environment, discipline she needed for a college education.

“Honestly, it really was one of the best decisions of my life, to go to UMass Boston. It changed everything for me,” she said. “It changed my trajectory.”

When the semester started in September 1972, she chose to major in social anthropology because it was, as she said, a subject she didn’t know anything about. The decision ultimately helped to frame her intellectual approach to dealing with environmental issues and impacts during the course of her highly successful career. (And, she also met her husband that first week, while waiting for their class lists in the main administration building, the old Boston Gas building, and ended up in a French class with him.)

“Within the first week at UMass Boston, I realized what I had sort of been missing,” McCarthy said. “It was a different way of learning

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e House

(This photo) In December 2020, then appointee for National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy speaks as President-elect Joe Biden (right) and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris listen in the background.

(Left) McCarthy, former head of the EPA under President Barack Obama, now serves as senior White House advisor on climate change to President Joe Biden, coordinating climate change policy throughout the government.

for me. It was challenging my thinking. . . . Anthropology got me hooked on people perceiving their world differently and interacting with the world differently. It stopped me from being judgmental and challenged me to bridge gaps.”

In 1974, McCarthy made the transition to the Columbia Point campus along with the rest of the university and graduated from UMass Boston in 1976. She then earned a master’s in environmental health engineering and planning and policy at Tufts University in 1981. She went on to work in community health and on local health boards, including in the town of Canton, where she saw many of the recurring health issues such as asthma and lead poisoning related to pollution and other environmental issues.

Her early success led to positions of increasing responsibility at the state level, where she worked for five Massachusetts governors ( four Republicans), before taking the top environmental job in Connecticut. From there she moved to the Obama Administration as an undersecretary for the environment during his first term and, at the beginning of his second term, she received Senate confirmation to be administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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(Left) McCarthy smiles during her nomination by President Barack Obama to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

(Below) McCarthy (center) is flanked by David Cash, dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School for Policy and Global Studies (left) and Emily Reichert, executive director and CEO, Greentown Labs, (right) at “Clean Energy Is Today’s Moon Shot,” a discussion of John F. Kennedy’s vision for innovation and environmentalism and the challenges and opportunities of climate change in October 2017.

“To me it was an opportunity to have a really fun engagement across the U.S., to really learn the country and to understand what people cared about and were concerned about,” she said. “I ended up wanting to have a real engagement with people across the country, and I think for the most part we’ve succeeded in doing that, I’ve succeeded in connecting with people.”

While her Obama years were focused mostly on air quality and pollution issues, her new position of White House national climate advisor provides McCarthy with a much broader canvas to work with. It’s not just about the science of climate change, she said, but also about all the other intersectional factors and impacts.

McCarthy delivered a similar message at an event on campus in 2017, stating that climate change needs to be treated as a public health challenge, a fight for clean air and safe water not in the distant future, but now.

Today, at a time when the country is struggling to overcome economic, pandemic, and social justice issues, the challenges are somewhat different.

“Charting the future, you have to think about more than one thing at a time—communities affected, jobs, transportation,” McCarthy said. “Today we have millions of people out of work, so the last thing you want to do is tap them on the shoulder and say, ‘Hey, do you want to talk about climate change?’”

McCarthy’s vision, and task, in the Biden Administration is to make her work on the environment and clean energy central to the recovery of the American economy and from the coronavirus

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pandemic and to lay the groundwork for a broader recovery of the middle class through good-paying, union jobs, particularly for those most affected by inequities.

“I think President Biden has been really clear, and I totally agree with him, that part of the challenge the U.S. has is really to expand the middle class again,” McCarthy said. “We have lost a lot of the middle class to lower and lower poverty levels, and you cannot rebuild a country without lifting its people up into the middle class.”

Decades ago, she said, the science was evolving without foreseeable solutions. Today, we have a lot of solutions, but the challenge is how to implement them as “people want change but maybe not so much, not so fast.” McCarthy is focused on President Biden’s objectives to return to a leadership role in the international climate discussion, in clean energy, a clean infrastructure, job growth, and environmental

“ Honestly, it really was one of the best decisions of my life, to go to UMass Boston. It changed everything for me.

It changed my trajectory.”

Gina McCarthy, then head of the EPA (right,) with Pat Megonigal, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center deputy director, during a tour of the Global Change Research Wetland in Edgewater, MD, in July 2013.

justice, with a commitment to invest 40 percent of clean energy funds in the socioeconomic communities most impacted.

“I couldn’t actually be more excited about the fact that these issues are visible now, and they’re on the federal radar screen in a big way,” McCarthy said. “I’m just hoping that this enthusiasm to recognize that we have had systemic racism and that the time is now to stop it, I just hope it doesn’t wane, because it’s a long journey forward. If we don’t do it now, I don’t know when we do.”

To that end, McCarthy has high regard for college student activism and its role in motivating change.

“I think young people today are what has changed the dynamic in a way that is going to allow us to make big progress on climate.

. . . I think they’ve changed everything,” she said. “I think they are obnoxiously demanding, and I don’t want them to stop or weaken their demands at all. Do I think they’re always realistic? No. But do I think they should push for it? Yes.” Describing herself as having always been “edgy” in her professional pursuits, she reiterates her commencement message to the 50th graduating class in 2015 to use their UMass Boston education to push forward beyond their comfort zones.

“I know this sounds goofy, and people think I make this up,” McCarthy said, “but everything that I learned at UMass Boston made me think in ways that allowed me to be unafraid to explore—kind of wanting to know where the differences came from, listening before I decide the answer, and that makes you good at governing.”

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ON THE FRONT LINES OF COVID-19 RESEARCH AND OUTREACH

By Crystal Valencia

When the coronavirus pandemic shut down the country last spring, the UMass Boston community was full of individuals who sprang into action, looking for ways to help put a stop to the deadly virus.

Nursing and health sciences students were on the front lines in the hospitals and clinics treating sick patients and are now volunteering their time to administer life-saving vaccines. Several of the university’s scientists quickly pivoted their research to aid in creating COVID-19 tests and vaccines.

UMass Boston researchers are in the community, conducting studies and analyzing data in an effort to understand the current pandemic and develop better strategies and policy for dealing with future public health crises. Others are focused on community outreach, fighting misinformation and encouraging the most vulnerable populations to get vaccinated. They did this all while adhering to strict public health regulations.

“The pandemic has exacted enormous suffering, death, and economic loss for our communities,” Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco said.

“UMass Boston stands with our city. We are proud of the work we are doing in serving our communities during this time.”

Here are some of the scientists, professors, students, and staff who are helping to put a stop to the pandemic.

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Making More Effective Coronavirus Vaccines When it comes to vaccines, one size does not fit all. Professor of Chemistry Wei Zhang and his lab are working on a critical part of vaccine development—boosting the COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness in older populations who are at greater risk from the virus.

Zhang and his team are collaborating with Ofer Levy and David Dowling of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School’s Precision Vaccines Program on an Adjuvant Discovery Program.

Adjuvants are small molecules added to a vaccine to boost the recipient’s immune response.

“They approached us because we have a better capacity to make compounds than in the hospital setting. We synthesize new compounds for them to develop as adjuvant for the vaccine,” Zhang said.

“We submit compounds to be tested, and based on test results, we can modify. There are many rounds of this, and if everything works well, you end up with a patent and then a drug.”

Zhang had first started working on this project in 2019, but at the onset of COVID-19, efforts quickly shifted, making his team’s work more meaningful for the current pandemic.

“I am driven knowing that our research can be used to save lives.”

“We were excited and proud to be working on increasing the protectivity of vaccinations, but it wasn’t until the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic hit that we understood the magnitude of our research,” explained John Mark Awad ’19, PhD’23, an integrative biosciences PhD student working in Zhang’s lab along with recent graduate Kellianne MacFarlane ’20 and postdoc Wenfei Hu. “I am driven knowing that our research can be used to save lives,” Awad said.

Developing Accessible Coronavirus Diagnostic Tests Associate Professor of Engineering Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli is hoping that a tiny piece of paper can have an enormous impact in coronavirus testing. Hamad-Schifferli is designing paper COVID-19 diagnostics in partnership with Jose Gomez-Marquez, co-director of MIT’s Little Devices Lab. Unlike standard tests that require sophisticated lab equipment to process, these diagnostics work like pregnancy tests. The paper strips contain gold nanoparticles linked to antibodies that bind the

viral proteins, displaying two colored dots for a positive test and one dot for a negative result.

“We have a procedure that you can use for any disease, and what we’re trying to do now is adapt it to use it to detect COVID-19,” Hamad-Schifferli said. “A lot of people are wandering around like, ‘I don’t know if I have it,’ and this could be a way to know as a precautionary step.”

The paper tests take minutes to run and only cost a few dollars. The simple, easy-to-use format could be mass produced, dramatically increasing accessibility and preventing testing bottlenecks that leave positive cases undetected for days. She hopes that these tests will be in use within a year.

“Even though there are vaccines now, not everyone is vaccinated, so you still need diagnostics to tell if people are infected,” HamadSchifferli said. “Even when we reach the goal of vaccinating everyone, there are still instances of people getting reinfected, so diagnostics can help with that.”

Paper-based COVID tests developed by Associate Professor of Engineering Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli give quick results and are less expensive than lab tests.

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Researchers Assess Vaccination Hesitation

COVID-19 Impact on Massachusetts Latinos

As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout began earlier this year, UMass Boston researchers revealed some alarming findings from their survey work: 1 in 5 Bostonians did not plan to get vaccinated.

Nearly half of Black Bostonians said they have little or no interest in receiving the vaccine when it became available. More than a quarter of Hispanics said the same.

Latinos’ share of COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts is 30 percent, more than double their 12.3 percent share of the state’s population.

The Mauricio Gastón Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy investigated the unequal distribution in a report released last summer. A team of researchers in public health, psychology, education, sociology, and economics collaborated on the report, looking to better understand Latinos’ vulnerability to COVID-19 infection and predictive factors.

“One in five people would say that they’re probably or definitely not going to get the vaccine,” Professor of Sociology Russell Schutt said.

“You say that’s a small number. But if only 80 percent of the population gets the vaccine, we’re still going to have problems.”

The findings were part of a six-part series, Living in Boston During COVID-19, a collaborative research project among the Boston Area Research Initiative at Northeastern University, UMass Boston, and the Boston Public Health Commission. Interim Director for the Center for Survey Research Lee Hargraves and Schutt served as lead authors.

“This information may help identify people who are reluctant to get vaccinated and assist efforts to tailor messages to Boston residents who have reservations about the coronavirus vaccine,” Hargraves said. “The intent is that these results will be useful for community and public health leaders who are encouraging Boston residents to get vaccinated to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.”

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“The report identified some key social determinants of health that are critical to understand the rapid spread and differential rates of COVID-19 among Latinos in Massachusetts,” said Lorna Rivera, director of the Gastón Institute. “The COVID-19 pandemic is magnifying existing economic and social inequalities.”

The main factors appear to be higher poverty rates, population age, household size, occupational segregation, chronic health conditions, and access to health care, she explained. Disparities in these areas have devastating consequences in a pandemic.

“Latinos are more likely to have to leave their homes to work in essential occupations during the COVID-19 crisis, like food services and health care support,” said Phillip Granberry, a senior data analyst at the Gastón Institute. “They are more likely to use public

“I wanted to be part of this historic time and give back to all of these frontline workers who are out there working so hard.” transportation. Once they return home, they live in both larger-sized households and more densely populated cities and towns.”

The report has made a series of recommendations to protect the Latino community, such as universal health care for all, including immigrants and their families.

Testing and Vaccinating for COVID-19 University Health Services (UHS) conducted approximately 1,000 tests per month over the past year as part of a protocol to keep faculty, staff, and students on campus safe, with a positive rate of less than 1 percent. With the assistance of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences (CNHS) and other campus departments, UHS conducted two vaccination clinics for campus and community frontline workers.

In addition, dozens of CNHS students are volunteering at vaccination clinics across the state, gaining hands-on experience while helping to end a global pandemic.

“I wanted to be part of this historic time and give back to all of these frontline workers who are out there working so hard,” said nursing master’s student Mirna Flores Raudez G’21. “It’s been an amazing experience.”

Flores Raudez and eight other graduate students volunteered at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center every week this past semester, administering vaccinations and using the skills they’ve learned at UMass Boston to ensure proper post-vaccination monitoring and care.

Ariane Theriault ’08, G’23 a nursing master’s student who works in a local hospital, said it was a great opportunity to be able to approach fighting COVID-19 from a different angle.

“It’s been interesting speaking to the patients,” Theriault said. “A lot of them have a great story. They tell me how they haven’t been out and want to see their grandkids, or they want to be able to hug their mom. . . . They’re happy to be there.”

CNHS Dean Linda Thompson said she was proud of her students, many of whom are from the communities most impacted by the pandemic and wanted to serve in any capacity to help and heal.

“When the pandemic of COVID-19 limited students’ access to clinical sites, many agreed to work as patient-care technicians in every hospital in the region. When the vaccines became available, our students volunteered to vaccinate,” Dean Thompson said. “They saw this challenge as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be part of the solution to a major public health crisis.”

Lisa Allen and DeWayne Lehman contributed to this article.

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MBA President Denise Murphy ’80 Turns Words into Action

By Vanessa Chatterley

ven before UMass Boston alumna Denise Murphy ’80 In addition, the Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on was sworn in as president of the Massachusetts Bar Lawyer Well-Being, which Murphy currently co-chairs, recently hosted Association (MBA) in September 2020, she had a vision several town hall meetings with underrepresented members of Masof the impact she wanted to make on the legal commusachusetts affinity bar associations to learn about their experiences. nity and beyond. Murphy and her team are taking steps to make her vision a reality by “We need to take substantive, concrete steps “We need to take substantive, providing new resources for attorneys in to eliminate systemic racism, systemic bias, to the commonwealth to help them address eliminate feelings of isolation and despair. The concrete steps to eliminate social justice reform and attorney welfare, only way to do that is to actually take action,” systemic racism, systemic bias, diversity, and equity. said Murphy.

to eliminate feelings of isolation

“One of my greatest frustrations in underThe MBA’s Tiered Community Mentoring taking these efforts is encountering so many and despair. The only way to do Program is one example of the kind of action she people who just talk about it. They are willmeans. It connects students from various backthat is to actually take action.” ing to expound and vocalize, but that time grounds with practicing attorneys and judges has passed. We need action,” said Murphy, in the commonwealth, creating a pipeline. who has been a partner at Boston-based law firm Rubin and Rudman LLP since 2003 and is also co-chair of its Labor and “[Students] can see people who look like them, who act like them, Employment Department. who have their frame of reference in positions of power so they are provided with the opportunity to see into the legal world and enviOne of her actions has been the creation of a well-being toolkit, sion themselves not only being there but staying there,” Murphy said. which the MBA released in February 2021. The toolkit provides legal professionals with resources and programs to promote a healthy With only a few months left in her presidency, Murphy continues and productive balance of work, personal life, and wellness. to lay the groundwork for a more inclusive and responsive legal community. She calls the work “rewarding and never-ending.”

“It’s to our mutual benefit to make sure we get this message to as many people as possible, because we want to ensure our community “I have just one year to make a real impact, and so I want my legacy is safe and healthy and responsive, given all the stresses they have on to be that,” said Murphy. “To put words into action, and to make a normal day, let alone in COVID times,” Murphy said. what words are there, meaningful.”

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PACE

The Program Prepares Students for Career Success

By Andrea Kennedy

n January 2020, UMass Boston launched the innovative Professional Apprenticeship and Career Experience (PACE) program, a bold initiative to supercharge students’ professional prospects. One year in—even conducted remotely—it’s a game changer for students and their on-campus employers.

The PACE program employs paid, long-term, on-campus apprenticeships as a means of giving students a competitive boost in the job market after graduation. As early as freshman year, students apply for PACE positions in the field they aspire to join, working with faculty and staff supervisors who act as mentors. Over months or years of increasing responsibility, students amass career-specific experiences of value to outside employers.

“In our 2,300 employees, we have a treasure trove of expertise across a huge range of professions, right here on campus,” says UMass Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco. “PACE allows our students to tap that expertise in a structured, guided way that I think will be transformative for them.”

The program, created with a visionary $2.25 million gift from Ralph and Janice James, launched with 12 apprenticeship positions and has doubled that number each semester. Today, 51 students are in the program, working in apprenticeships ranging from information-security analyst to sustainability research associate. Each cohort also completes an eight-week, one-credit PACE Success course focused on career exploration, workplace-readiness, and personal-branding skills like résumé writing.

“We have an engaged group of 44 supervisors, many of whom have participated more than one semester. We have gotten overwhelmingly positive evaluations from students about the experience and the course as well,” says PACE Program Manager Amy Weinstein.

“The program is on a great trajectory and that’s really exciting.”

“I think we’re going to look back ten years from now,” says founding donor Ralph James, “and see this program as a model for other schools.”

The relationship between students and mentors is central to the success of the program. Prabin Tamang ’20 calls the PACE experience “priceless” and parlayed it into a system administrator job with Draper, a Cambridge engineering innovation company.

His mentor, Senior Information Security Specialist Alison Murray says, “We were interested in the PACE program because we knew it would be valuable for everybody. It would be helpful to our department, and it would help a student experience real-world security scenarios.”

As it matures, PACE will help apprentices expand their professional networks and develop the connections they need to find external internships, co-ops, and jobs.

“I think we’re going to look back ten years from now,” says founding donor Ralph James, “and see this program as a model for other schools.”

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CAMPUS QUAD

Is Taking S

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The centerpiece of UMass Boston’s 25-year master plan when it launched in 2007 was the development of a central, green campus quadrangle to enhance open space and access to the campus. Today, the project is beginning to take shape.

Construction on the Substructure, Science Center Demolition, and Quadrangle Development project (SDQD) has progressed substantially during the past academic year while most campus operations were conducted remotely. The old Science Center and those areas of the expansive concrete plaza that are not being repaired have been demolished, along with the two levels of garages underneath. These demolition projects have brought the center of the campus to ground level in preparation for construction of the quad. Substructure reinforcement work below Wheatley and McCormack Halls is expected to be completed this summer.

Shape

The university community should be walking the new quad’s shaded pathways by 2022.

Follow the progress of the SDQD live on webcam at: app.oxblue.com/open/gilbane/UMASSBostonSDQD UMass Boston Spring 2021

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New Provost, New Approach Joseph Berger Communicates a Clear Agenda

By DeWayne Lehman

J

oseph Berger likes a challenge. When he came to the University of Massachusetts Boston in September 2017 to become the 11th dean of the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) in 18 years, the university was in the throes of a budget crisis and had a new interim chancellor. When he became UMass Boston’s 13th provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs on February 1 this year, he did so in the midst of a pandemic that forced the university to move to a vastly changed operational model, with almost all classes and administrative functions conducted remotely.

schools on Mt. Vernon Street. The advisory board, he says, responds to Chancellor Suárez-Orozco’s call for UMass Boston to “endeavor to be the university of and for the city and the university of and for the times.”

Soon after beginning as provost, Berger launched a new biweekly email to the campus community called “The Quad,” because each issue touches on four updates. In his second issue, he announced a plan to form the Columbia Point Community Advisory Board to deepen the university’s partnership with the community, including engagement in the development of Dorchester Bay City and the work that the CEHD is leading in the Dever and McCormack public

With new technology, possibly funded by federal stimulus money, the hope is to use the data from the pilot to expand it in the fall, and possibly ramp it up further in the spring.

Berger also believes that UMass Boston is in one of the best positions to push forward and champion the effort to address historical racial and social injustice, not just in Boston but also far beyond.

“I take very seriously this idea that we want to become a leading anti-racist and health-promoting institution,” he says, citing the foundational work of the Academic Continuity Task Force he “I dropped in [here] in the middle of a $30 million budget deficit, but chaired last summer at the height of the pandemic. “All institutions there are really good people here doing really good work,” he says. of higher education have equity problems. . . . [T]hat’s in the DNA “It was just clear almost from day one there is nothing but upside in of higher education,” he says. “I think, historically, because of our terms of where we could go from here.” commitment to social Prior to his arrival at UMass justice here, we’re actually Boston, Berger served as further ahead than most “We now can really clearly see the the senior associate dean institutions. On the one in the College of Education light on the horizon,” Berger says. hand, that’s something to be at UMass Amherst, where “[T]his is an important pivotal moment in history.” proud of, and on the other he was on the faculty for hand, we have no laurels to nearly 20 years. For much rest on.” of that time, he served in While the coronavirus pandemic has been a particularly vexing administrative positions working to revitalize the university’s higher challenge for academic institutions across the country, Berger sees education program. He was previously on faculty at several univera silver lining for UMass Boston. Since moving to remote teaching sities, including the University of New Orleans. He earned a PhD in and learning in March 2020, Berger says, he and his colleagues have education and human development-higher education administrabeen taking a hard look at the university’s pedagogy and curriculum, tion at Vanderbilt University and an MA in college student personnel and “learned a lot.” One area of thought, and action, has been to at Bowling Green State University. draw from the lessons of remote teaching and learning to explore Having specialized in higher education administration and ways to provide students with greater flexibility moving forward. leadership, he describes a clearly defined approach to his new job: A new Beacon Flex pilot program in seven classrooms has half of be visible and communicate. its students in person and the other half streaming in on Zoom in real time.

“If you study effective leaders in higher education, one of the things they do well is they set really constructive positive tones,” Berger “We hear from the majority of our students that they can’t wait to be says. “They help make sense of all the complexity that is going on in back, face to face,” Berger says. “But we also hear from some of them the university. You can’t do that if you’re not visible, if you’re not out wanting to continue to have some of the flexibility that they have giving consistent messages. . . . With all the transitions we’ve gone now. That makes their life a lot easier, not to have to commute and through, it’s really important.” leave their job, which they need to continue to go here.”

“We now can really clearly see the light on the horizon,” Berger says. “[T]his is an important pivotal moment in history. We’re not going back. . . . We’re going to go forward to where we get to define normal.”

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Pension Action Center

Celebrates 25

YEARS OF SUCCESS

BY ANNE MCLAUGHLIN

G

race French had quite a shock when her husband showed her a letter from the company they’d both worked for before retiring—it was a letter of condolences to him on Grace’s death! In a bizarre case of mistaken identity, an employee at her former company happened to be vacationing in another state, saw an obituary for a different Grace French, and reported it to the company, which then sent the premature condolences. It was a strange set of circumstances, but it prompted Grace to check on the status of her pension at her former company.

As it turned out, the company had no pension records for Grace or her husband, even though they had worked for the Massachusetts-based firm for a total of 17 and 14 years, respectively.

After months of fruitless effort to get help, Grace learned about the Pension Action Center (PAC) at UMass Boston through a relative. PAC staff successfully convinced the company to award Grace her pension.

“I have to credit PAC; they are the best!” said French. “They helped me and stayed with me . . . and kept me going in the right direction.”

Just over 25 years ago, attorney Ellen Bruce founded PAC to provide free legal assistance to people having difficulty locating and accessing their hard-earned retirement benefits. Bruce had long been concerned about the number of elderly people living on or near the poverty line, and she realized that helping them obtain their retirement funds was something concrete that could make a real difference in some of their lives. Today, PAC has assisted more than 10,000 people and recovered more than $64 million in earned benefits.

“Getting people money in their pockets that they earned but could not get themselves is incredibly rewarding,” said Bruce.

Many challenges can make searching for—and fighting for—a longlost retirement benefit a complicated undertaking. Often a retiree or spouse will struggle to obtain earned benefits from a company that has closed or merged with another company. A pension benefit may have been transferred into an IRA or an annuity.

Sometimes a simple paperwork error can cause rejection of a retirement benefit. Often it is difficult to get calls returned or to locate the necessary documents to prove one’s claim.

THE PENSION ACTION CENTER HAS NOW assisted more than

10,000 people

and recovered more than

$64M in earned benefits

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Fortunately, PAC’s dedicated attorneys, staff, and volunteers have good insights on where to look and what questions to ask, and they relentlessly pursue leads, guiding their clients through a confusing morass of retirement laws, financial regulations, and detailed documentation. They work with their clients for the duration of the case, with the typical case taking 6 to 18 months to resolve.

Breaks in service are a common source of retirement benefit errors. Grace and her husband each had a break in their service, but Grace distinctly remembered that the company at one point improved its pension policy to connect

Engaging

Students Online How UMass Boston Made Remote Teaching and Learning Work

BY DANIELLE BILOTTA

Engaging Students in the Remote Classroom In March 2020, life changed for everyone in the United For Senior Lecturer Dr. Milko Ivanov, student engagement was at States, including the students, faculty, and staff of UMass the top of his mind going into the new semester, especially when Boston. The initiation of coronavirus precautions meant teach-ing two classes of more than 100 students. Data analysis tools the university had to reinvent almost everything it does help him compare how much time students spent on the learning in real time and without disrupting the delivery of a quality educaplat-forms with their academic performance in the class. Using the tion to its students. It was a tightrope act without a net; there was data from the first two weeks of the semester, along no room for failure. From providing necessary with his own surveys and assessments to learn about technology, to offering the support that both Faculty and staff were his individual students, he has been able to adjust faculty and students need to succeed, to seamtrained in using virtual his courses and reach out to students who may need lessly engaging with prospective and admitted extra help or access to university resources. students virtually, the university rose to meet tools like Zoom and the unprecedented challenges of education Microsoft Teams to bring “It gives me the ability to prioritize,” he said. “I can during the pandemic. proactively approach those who are struggling back “face-to-face” instead of waiting until the end of the semester.”

Gearing Up the Technology When the university announced its transition interactions...

He also integrates various types of assignments like to remote work, the IT department wasted no writing, quizzes, group work, and projects that best time establishing a trusted support network. suit different learning styles. He said providing students with more Through six strategic initiatives—communications, loaner devices, choices on how they can prove their subject knowledge helps them feel security, ticket management, remote access, and live person chat— ownership of their education while keeping coursework interesting. the department faced any, and all, challenges head-on.

Over the last year, the IT department has approached the demands of higher education with innovation and understanding. In order to prioritize student accessibility, they launched the Loaner Chromebook Initiative and partnered with Library Services to ensure easy access to these devices. Faculty and staff were trained in using virtual tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams to bring back “faceto-face” interactions that are so integral to the college experience.

These tools allowed for classes, webinars, and events such as town halls and virtual yoga classes to keep the campus together, apart.

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Dr. Ivanov stressed the importance of having a unified system across the university that provides the tools that students, faculty, and staff may need before a semester begins. The Instructional Design team helped integrate his ideas for his classes, and he said programs like the Loaner Chromebook Initiative help students concentrate on their coursework from the beginning.

Director of the RN-BS Program and Clinical Associate Professor Christine Salvucci has been working as a digital health mentor for faculty by providing technology assistance and offering teaching

Illustration by Allison Gross

strategies for online learning. She said both faculty and students have felt more comfortable with their remote learning environments over the last year thanks to the eLearning and instructional design teams.

Salvucci is also teaching the freshman clinical nursing course, which meets for three hours each week. With over 120 students enrolled in the course, Salvucci says student engagement is critical. By using the ECHOplatform, she integrates polling questions, patient case studies, Zoom breakout rooms, videos, and other engaging activities that help reinforce the class content.

“I stress to students the importance of taking time for themselves and recognizing the difficulties they may be facing with online learning,” she said. “It’s key for students to hear that we are here for them.”

Attracting New Students For prospective and admitted students, the university’s move to remote learning meant a sudden stop to campus events and visits. To avoid any disconnect, Director of Enrollment Management Corey Ford said that within a week of moving to remote work, the enrollment team had shifted their events and resources online, including a campus walking tour video and a virtual “Welcome Day.”

The team has since refined their approach to virtual engagement.

They created an online space that features prerecorded videos and live programming using a new tool called PlatformQ and integrated a system where people can schedule one-on-one appointments with different university representatives. For those who want to visit the campus in person, but safely, they rolled out a new Campus Driving Tour that ties in virtual elements along the route.

Ford credits the different modes of technology, the university’s commitment to transparency, and the unversity’s concern for the health and safety of the campus and local community for last year’s increased numbers in both new and continuing enrollment. Ford said they will continue to use virtual tools, noting the flexibility they provide students and families to engage with the university in a meaningful way.

“It’s been nice to break down barriers of entry,” he said. “From that standpoint, we will continue to look to improve on some of our virtual offerings so that students can engage with us and get a sense and feel of the campus without necessarily having to come here.”

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Cagen Luse ’11 Illustrates “New Normal” in Comic Strip Series

By Vanessa Chatterley

UMass Boston alumnus Cagen Luse ’11 is providing comic relief for those whose lives are filled with uncertainty. The Boston-based artist and entrepreneur dedicates his lunch break at the Massachusetts State Lottery to creating a comic series. Aptly titled LunchTime Comix, the series is an autobiographical rendering of Luse’s life as a self-proclaimed “racially ambiguous” person and touches on various topics, from life, love, and family to issues that people of color face in the world today.

Luse has always enjoyed reading and making comics, but it wasn’t until he worked as production manager for UMass Boston’s student newspaper, The Mass Media, that he began experimenting with creating comics for a larger audience.

“My editor said, ‘Why don’t you put in a comic?’ I started to really love the format of the strip comic,” said Luse. “A couple of years later, I’m at work. I feel like I’m not drawing enough, so I started doing comics on my lunch break, and it turned into Lunch Time Comix. It’s kind of grown from a little idea of ‘draw more.’ Four years later, I’ve been taking it as far as I can, and I’m going to keep pushing it forward.”

In the midst of the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic and current events, Luse has expanded LunchTime Comix

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into a new series called The New Normal. The series takes a humorous approach to life during what has become a stressful time for many.

“It was a dual purpose. Not only was it relatable to people, but it was also helpful to me,” said the comic artist. “We’re in such an uncertain time. We could hardly move forward with anything because the future was so uncertain, so it was really helpful to me to kind of examine my life and what was going on and be in this moment. And it helped me to work through those first couple of months of quarantining where we were all trying to figure out how life was going to move forward.”

Luse’s comics have appeared in alt-weekly Dig Boston and across social media. He has also self-published four collections of comics: This is Boston (2016), Joy & Pain (2018), The Racially Ambiguous Guidebook (2019), and The New Normal (2021). Additionally, Luse has served as a panelist at several comic book conventions and has participated in workshop sessions at the Boston Book Festival. Luse is a member of Comics in Color, a networking group for comic artists of color in Boston.

Meet Student Leader

Kush Patel ’21 Student trustee Kush Patel ’21 first discovered his passion for public service and leadership at UMass Boston. Recently serving his second term on the UMass Board of Trustees, Patel says his current responsibilities on the board include “bringing the student perspective of UMass Boston students to their meetings.” He currently sits on three committees under the board: Academic and Student Affairs, Administration and Finance, and Advancement.

His career in student government has followed a zigzag path, with each stepping-stone along the way leading to greater leadership roles. It all began in 2017 when he learned about an opportunity to join the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) through a special election. Patel, who had wanted to participate in student government since high school, jumped at the chance to get involved.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do within student government and what passions I would find from it, but that definitely helped me find the passions I have right now,” said Patel, a senior who is due to graduate this year with a bachelor’s in political science and a minor in economics.

By Vanessa Chatterley

“So many students come from different financial backgrounds. Adopting OER on campus would help alleviate some of the cost and stress that are already on them as students,” said Patel. “It’s been a long battle that we’re trying to fight, but we’re making progress.”

As Patel approaches graduation, he said he’ll enter the alumni community with the hope of staying connected to UMass Boston.

“I’ve built so many great relationships over these past few years, and that’s just something I want to continue fostering.

Hopefully I’ll come back to speak to the students. They can see what you can do at UMass Boston,” said Patel. “A lot of people go to classes and come back home, but I want to show them what UMass Boston has to offer that you can take advantage of while you’re here.”

Under USG, Patel served on the Student Events and Organization Committee (SEOC), first as senator, then as chair.

The committee handles funding and budget allocation for all student clubs and organizations, and Patel said it offered the opportunity to meet other students and expand his network.

“Talking to different clubs and meeting new people helped me be more confident and want to be more involved,” said Patel, adding that he was surrounded by like-minded individuals who enjoyed what they were doing for the university.

At the end of his freshman year, Patel was elected student representative for the Board of Higher Education for Massachusetts, a role that allowed him to weigh in on issues like funding priorities for the public higher education system and the quality of academic programs. The following year, he was elected student trustee of the UMass Board of Trustees for the 2019–2020 term.

Although he’s accomplished a lot since arriving at UMass Boston, Patel has one more goal he’d like to reach before graduating. He urges the university to consider adopting open educational resources, or OER, which would make learning resources more accessible for students.

“There’s been a lot of research done where student retention actually increases,” Patel said. He explains that students who can’t afford to buy new textbooks sometimes resort to purchasing older, outdated versions of the book; struggle through the class without purchasing the textbook; or drop the class entirely.

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ABOUT alumni 1960s

1980s

Reverend Louis H.G. Bier G’62 celebrated the 60th anniversary of his ordination. He served Trinity Lutheran Church of Boston for 38 years. Bier also earned the Education for Service Award from UMass Boston in 2016.

Kathleen Dunn ’83 retired from the Boston Public Library, where she worked as an archival center supervisor. Dunn earned her BA in art from UMass Boston and is currently pursuing her interests as a fine artist.

Arthur Mabbett ’69 was recognized in the Boston Business Journal in 2020. He is the CEO and chair of Mabbett and Associates, Inc., which was a finalist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2020 Dream Big Awards. The award celebrates the achievements of small businesses and honors their contributions to America’s economic growth.

Stacey Isles-Brako ’85, G’91 retired after 33 years as an educator in the Boston Public Schools. Most of her career was spent as a first grade teacher at the John D. Philbrick School in Roslindale, MA. In 2001, she was named a Boston Educator of the Year.

For many years, she mentored student teachers from UMass Boston and other local universities during their pre-practicums. She is currently a volunteer literacy tutor in Boston.

1970s Laurence Donoghue ’77, an attorney at Morgan, Brown, and Joy LLP, was named to The Best Lawyers in America 2021 listing for Employment Law – Management; Litigation – Labor and Employment. He was also named The Best Lawyers’ “Lawyer of the Year” in the area of Litigation – Labor and Employment.

Russell DuPont ’71 published two poems in JerryJazzMusician online magazine: “Corona 1” and “Corona 2.”

JJM featured a broadside and a short story of DuPont’s last fall. Three of his poetry broadsides were displayed in an exhibition at the TILL-Wave Gallery in Watertown, MA. Wilbur Evans, Jr. ’78 retired from the insurance industry after more than four decades. He began his career at Aetna Life & Casualty Insurance Company and went on to receive his insurance adjuster’s license in 28 states. In 2003, he joined American International Group, where he supervised adjusters nationally and specialized in public entities, health care, and higher education.

Jane Rose ’85 became chair of the Florida Board of Bar Examiners in November 2020. A senior assistant county attorney with the Hillsborough County Attorney’s Office, Rose previously served on the Florida Bar’s Judicial Nominating Procedures Committee and the Judicial Administration and Evaluation Committee.

She has also received a gubernatorial appointment to the Statewide Judicial Nominating Commission for Judges of Compensation Claims.

Jain Ruvidich-Higgins ’88, G’94, who earned her bachelor’s in accounting and her master’s in human service administration, received the Distinguished Alumna Award at the William Joiner Center’s 2020 Virtual Celebration of Service in September.

1990s Robert Brock G’93, who received his master’s in public affairs from the McCormack Graduate School, was promoted to deputy director of Connecticut Landmarks, a statewide network of 11 historic sites and gardens that celebrates four centuries of Connecticut history.

Talita Guerrero ’15 Talita Guerrero ’15, who founded Right Key Mortgage LLC after graduating from UMass Boston’s College of Management, was recently named to the Scotsman Guide’s annual list of lead brokers in the mortgage industry. She was the only female broker in Massachusetts to be named to several categories. Founded in 1985, the Scotsman Guide publishes an annual ranking of the top mortgage originators in the United States. The rankings are broken out by volume of loans and types of mortgage. Mortgage lenders are invited to submit performance data to Scotsman Guide and are vetted by staff for accuracy.

James W. Hunt, Jr. ’80 James W. Hunt, Jr. ’80, a leader in the national movement to bring highquality, low-cost health care to underserved neighborhoods, is retiring after 41 years as chief executive of the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers. Hunt played a pivotal role in creating the network of 52 community health centers, with nearly 325 locations, that provide care to 1 million mostly low-income residents across the state. He was also instrumental in incorporating community providers into the state’s groundbreaking universal healthcare law and establishing two organizations that help plan and finance capital projects for the centers.

To send us your news, please visit www.alumni.umb.edu/shareyournews, email alumni@umb.edu, or write Alumni Office, UMass Boston, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125. We’ll include everything that space permits, edited for length and style.

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A B O U T alumni Ayanna Cooper ’96 published two books in September 2020: And Justice for ELs: A Leader’s Guide to Creating and Sustaining Equitable Schools and Black Immigrants in the United States; Essays on the Politics of Language, Race, and Voice. She owns the education consulting firm ACooper Consulting, an advocate for culturally and linguistically diverse learners.

2000s Abigail Dudley G’08 was named assistant principal at Monomoy Regional Middle School. Previously a special education coordinator and dean of students at Evergreen Middle School, Dudley taught in special education for 13 years. She earned her MEd from UMass Boston.

Danielle Knight ’02 joined Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) as chief financial officer. She has more than a decade of NGO financial leadership experience, spanning climate change research, international development, and community-driven conservation.

Knight will lead CPI’s global team for financial and accounting functions across all programs.

Christopher Lewis ’09 has been named an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School. His research explores how law, particularly criminal law, can be more fairly administered in response to social and economic inequality in the United States. He earned a BA in Africana studies and philosophy from UMass Boston.

Bhartiben Patel G’06 passed her Psychiatry Board Certification examination in Daytona Beach, Florida. One of nine board-certified psychiatrists in her city, she is also one of three female psychiatrists in a population of 100,000. Patel recently accepted a fellowship with Health Care of America in Florida for July 2021 to continue her work in public service. She thanks Dr. Ellen Birchander for giving her an opportunity to learn at UMass Boston.

Alexis Trzcinski ’02 was promoted to director of the Animal Care and Control Division of the Boston Parks and Recreation Department. Trzcinski has worked for Boston Animal Care and Control since 2004 and served as the division’s assistant director since 2015.

David Turcotte G’04, who has an MEd from UMass Boston, has been named the new principal of Canton High School.

2010s Caitlin Carey G’17, PhD’20 who received her master’s and her doctorate in public policy from McCormack Graduate School, was named a postdoctoral scholar with the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California San Francisco. Carey will continue her research on Housing First programs, and expand her research on the ways that cities attempt to remove people experiencing homelessness from public view.

Catherine Christenson CER’11 is currently a family nurse practitioner in orthopedics and regenerative medicine. She earned her doctor of nursing practice degree in 2015 from Chatham University in Pittsburgh.

Igor Silva DaCruz ’11 was appointed director of life sciences in the SW Division of Silicon Valley Bank. He earned his degrees in finance and economics from UMass Boston.

Erik Diedrichsen ’14, who studied business management and marketing at UMass Boston, celebrated his 11th anniversary at Volume 11 Marketing Inc. The company specializes in 3D marketing and the creation of trade show exhibits and corporate environments.

Ronald Mariano G’72 Ronald Mariano G’72 was recently elected Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives after serving as majority leader since 2011.

The longtime Quincy Point resident was elected to the House of Representatives in a special election in December 1991 to represent the 3rd Norfolk District, which comprises Quincy, Weymouth, and Holbrook. He holds a master’s degree in education from UMass Boston, taught in the Quincy Public Schools for 12 years, and served as a member of the Quincy School Committee for 18 years.

Anna Svetchnikov ’10, G’14 Anna Svetchnikov ’10, G’14 was named one of the Boston Business Journal ’s “40 Under 40” for 2020. The award annually highlights Boston’s brightest young professionals who aim to better their communities. Svetchnikov is the executive director of Longwood Care, a family therapy and behavioral center with offices in Swampscott, Lynnfield, and Danvers, MA. Svetchnikov earned her bachelor’s in psychology and her master’s in family therapy from UMass Boston.

Ijeoma Julie Eche G’10, PhD’18, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Phyllis F. Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and Patient Care Services at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was awarded the 2020 Journal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing Writing Award. Eche joined Dana-Farber in September 2019 after earning her PhD in nursing from UMass Boston.

Her research focuses on improving psychosocial outcomes in minoritized pediatric oncology families.

Kristie Ferrantella G’16 has stepped down as president and CEO of the Nantucket Chamber of Commerce to become director of finance at Island Energy Services, the parent company of Harbor Fuel and Yates Gas. Pamela Lomax G’16 was named executive vice president at Roxbury Community College. She was formerly administration and finance deputy at the MA Office of the State Auditor.

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A B O U T alumni David Lun ’11 has been named Salve Regina’s women’s hockey coach. Lun spent the previous three seasons as an assistant coach for the men’s ice hockey team at Wesleyan University. While at UMass Boston, he was a four-year standout forward and played in the Federal Hockey League for four seasons.

N’Dia Riegler G’12, a teacher at the Eliot K–8 Innovation School, has been named the 2020 Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year, an award presented annually by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Riegler received her MEd from UMass Boston.

Gloribel Beatriz Rivas ’18, a legislative aide to Rep. Adrian Madaro, was recognized by the Boston Foundation for her leadership, social justice advocacy, and public service in Boston. While at UMass Boston, Rivas was a volunteer at the East Boston branch of City Life/ Vida Urbana. She also volunteered on the campaign of Boston City Councilor Lydia Edwards.

Maria Servellon ’12 was honored as one of the 2020 “Ten Outstanding Young Leaders” by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and City Awake. The award recognizes the most prominent and influential young professionals across all sectors who strive to make the Greater Boston region a place for businesses and people to thrive.

2020s Nora Fitzwilliam ’20 was hired to work full time as a clinical care technician on the Mother-Infant Unit at Tufts Medical Center. She earned her BS in biology from UMass Boston.

Kyéra Sterling G’20 was named executive director of the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus. Sterling formerly served in the Massachusetts House for the last five years. She previously supported former councilor/current congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and helped foster the early stages of the 2015 Pay Equity Coalition in the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women.

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IN MEMORIAM Since our last issue, it has saddened us to learn of the passing of the following members of the UMass Boston community.

Alumni John Aherne ’71 Maryanne Akins ’80 Marion Antonellis ’86 Elizabeth S. Asher ’15 Bernadette M. Aylward ’52 James Ashley Baker ’83, G

’87 Ingrid A. Banks-Filzer ’85 Sarah Nehemie Berlus ’20 Kathleen M. Boynton ’66 Peter Francis Brady G’63 Janet A. Branch G’71 Carol L. Bright G’89 Romus Broadway ’78 Gerald R. Brown ’61, G’68 Carol A. Bugala ’62 Robert F. Burke ’74 James K. Burns ’81 Marcia J. Byrne ’72 Dorothea Riley Byrnes

CER’95, CER’97 Mary Ellen Cafferty ’68 Richard Allan Carle Joan C. Carson ’78 Sandra N. Cassidy G’99 Richard T. Caves ’78 Katherine R. Chadwell G’91 Robert J. Colannino ’69, G

’70 Mary Holderried Conlin ’64 John F. Connor G’82 Margaret Mensoian Conrad ’69, G’70 Professor Emerita Theresa

M. Corcoran G’51 Kerry A. Corriveau ’90 Edward J. Cotter ’72 John Francis Cronin ’71 John J. DeMarco ’69, G’71 Bernadette Keish DiGiovanni ’95 Arthur Dirks EdD’01 Joan M. Doherty ’74 Peter F. Dolan ’74 William P. Dooling ’65 Brian P. Dorsey ’70 Jean L. Doyle G’95 Vincent P. Eddy ’87 Kristine M. Esposito ’94 Robert F. Falite ’71 David L. Fitzgerald ’78 Lawrence K. Foti ’59 Meredith A. Franck ’69

Natalie Fultz CER’97, CER’98, ’01 Francis M. Gill ’73 Lorraine Connolly Giumetti ’61, G’68 Dennis Peter Green ’74 Alice Marie Guiney ’80 Lorraine Frances Hamilton ’59 Captain Richard C. Harris ’78 Michael W. Harron ’73 Andrea V. Haye-Lewis ’88 Kelly S. Herlihy ’95 Carol Kropiwnicki Holland ’65 James E. Howley ’84 William F. Hudson ’64 David A. Hurd ’72 Timothy Hurley ’61 Maureen Hurney ’73 Joanne Marina Jeffers ’58 Mimi Jones ’71 Harry Kamataris ’75 James W. Keenan ’63, G’70 Mary Heiser Kelly ’59 Michelle K. Kindred ’88 Leonard H. Kroll ’07 Robert J. Lawrie ’78 Thomas F. Lee ’70 Andrea L. Leiblein Marie-Christine Costa

Leon ’74 Margaret R. Lockwood ’73 James J. Lynch G’71, P’86 William A. MacGregor ’84 Marcia H. MacMillan ’63 Josephine Mattina ’84 Judith A. McCarthy ’92, G

’95 Martina F. McCormack G

’93 Margaret Reis McCormick G

’61 Paul J. McGillicuddy ’62 Joseph T. McGrath ’94 James A. McKay ’77 Joseph G. McLaughlin ’81 Jane E. Milano ’55 Mary Jane Mudge ’88 Maureen E. Murphy ’73 Richard Nakashian ’93, P’12 Professor Emerita Irene A.

Nichols ’52 Mary Virginia O’Brien ’58, G’61

Professor R. Patricia O’Grady G’89 Paul K. O’Leary G’61 Thomas A. Palli ’76 Nora C. Pelrin ’84 Mary B. Pender ’59, G’63 Bruce Peters ’74 Ann Marie Reade ’73 Janet M. Reid ’77 Catherine M. Riva CER’88, ’91 Robert F. Rodick ’94 Leo J. Ronan ’83 Jeanne Ronayne, SDN, ’85 Irene A. Rosenthal ’72 Alice T. Ryan ’05 Benjamin Slomoff ’93, G’97 Anne L. Smead ’77 Helen Tenney Smith G’95, C

ER’97 Karen M. Souza ’02 Joanne Sullivan ’88 Kathleen M. Sumera G’95 Suzanne Tabasky ’73 George T. Talbot, MD, ’68 Grace Adele Thomson ’82 Phyllis E. Tobin ’70 Joseph Richard Valle ’81 Eileen F. Weaver ’66 Milton J. Wolk CER’98 Paul F. Zeolla ’65, G’69 Faculty and Staff Christian C. Agunwamba,

Former Faculty Harry Brill, Retired Faculty Dennis L. Byrnes, Retired Faculty Frank Caro, Retired Faculty Marilyn A. Cirafice, Retired Staff Brian R. Clarridge, Retired Staff Edith G. DeAngelis, Retired Faculty Xiaogang Deng, Retired Faculty William J. Fitzpatrick, Retired Faculty Murray W. Frank, Retired Faculty William R. Hamilton, Retired Faculty

Sari Kawana, Former Faculty J. Theodore Klein, Retired Faculty Alice W. LeBlanc, Retired Staff Mariah McGill, Former Faculty Michael G. Mensoian, Retired Faculty Bernard E. Michels, Former Faculty Joan M. Moon, Retired Faculty Ronald N. Perry, Former Staff Jean Prendergast, Former Faculty Fuad Safwat, Retired Faculty Melissa Shook, Retired Faculty Robert H. Spaethling, Retired Faculty David G. Terkla P’07, P’16, Former Faculty Friends Adele P. Ames Sophia Barrera Maxine Bontrager Norma A. Crowley Anne Marie Cussen Linda Finstein Thomas P. Fitzgibbon Anna Bell Foster Na-Jae Josephs Tunney F. Lee Giovanni Lopez Luz Maria Lopez Yuriko Mah James E. Mahoney Antoinette K. Mamish Dorothy J. O’Connell Sumner Redstone James Savicki Richard A. Smith Raymond J. Stockless Don Stoddard Marjorie Southwick Thurlow Linus Travers John Winske

A B O U T alumni Irene A. Nichols ’52, proud alumna and philanthropist, passed peacefully on November 1, 2020. She attended Boston Teachers College for her undergraduate degree and briefly taught in the Boston Public Schools as an elementary teacher. She attended Harvard University for both her master’s and doctoral degrees in education. A professor of psychology in education at Northeastern University for 35 years, Professor Nichols mentored many students, including J. Keith Motley, who went on to become the eighth chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston. Irene was a passionate UMass Boston volunteer, serving as a founding member of the Board of Visitors. She was pleased to establish a scholarship fund at UMass Boston in her mother’s name, the Jessie A. Nichols Early Education Scholarship, to support future teachers. Irene was a generous benefactor of the arts and education, contributing annually to a number of causes, including the Boston Teachers Scholarship Fund at UMass Boston.

Benjamin Slomoff ’93, G’97 passed peacefully at his home on December 5, 2020, having celebrated his 107th birthday just weeks before. Ben will be fondly remembered by generations of UMass Boston students and alumni as the benefactor behind the annual Benjamin and Sylvia Slomoff and Judith Green Loose Lectureship in Conflict Resolution, an event he sponsored for 21 years. The lectureship brought the greatest thinkers in mediation, international relations, diplomacy, and dispute resolution to our campus for an annual dialogue. Ben will be remembered for more than this generous lectureship, however. He will be remembered for embodying the belief that education is a lifelong pursuit. He enrolled at UMass Boston at the age of 78 to earn his bachelor’s, and finished with a master’s degree in dispute resolution in 1997 at age 85. Prior to joining UMass Boston as a student, Ben served in the United States Air Force from 1941 to 1957, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. After the military, he had a long career in the shoe industry, including as CEO of Milford Shoes Incorporated.

David Terkla P’07, P’16, dean of the College of Liberal Arts, passed on October 21, 2020, after a yearlong battle with cancer. Dean Terkla became a highly respected and influential campus leader after joining UMass Boston in 1987 as an assistant professor of economics. His contributions in academia and to the campus led to promotions to associate and then full professor before he became an associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts in 2010. In 2014 he was appointed dean of the college. Dean Terkla’s academic approach was interdisciplinary before that term came into common usage.

He was a professor of economics, with a joint appointment in the Department of Economics and the School for the Environment. He held several formal and informal leadership positions at UMass Boston thanks to his deep understanding of and informed approach to complex issues in environmental management and economic development. Most importantly, his students and colleagues remember him fondly as a leader who always used his voice to lift others.

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A L U M N I E V E N T S A N D I N I T I AT I V E S

Virtual Beacon 5K Brings Together UMass Boston Community The Office of Alumni Engagement and UMass Boston Recreation teamed up last October to launch the university’s second Virtual Beacon 5K. Participation in the three-day event grew to more than 350 members of the UMass Boston community. Virtual 5K runners represented 17 states, 1 U.S. territory, and 4 countries, including Pakistan, Singapore, and Ireland.

The event raised a total of $3,570 for the Beacon Student Aid Fund.

Director of Alumni Engagement Steve Whittemore said the initiative was a fun way to unite the UMass Boston community and help everyone feel more connected.

“During these trying times, it’s imperative that we, as a community, come together and be a beacon of hope to those who may be struggling around us,” said Whittemore, who launched the first virtual 5K in April 2020, shortly after social distancing measures and mask mandates made in-person alumni events difficult to implement. “I’m incredibly grateful for the overwhelming support and interest in the Virtual Beacon 5K, and I offer my sincere gratitude to all those who participated and helped organize the event.”

A third Virtual Boston 5K took place in April 2021.

Photos: (right) Erica Perry ’22 and her younger sister Alexis participated in the Beacon 5K last fall. (below right) Run for Krystle team members Jennifer Kanyugi G’10, ELP’19; Dina Scarpelli; and Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance Kathleen Kirleis after completing their 5K. (below) Senior Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions Sharon Gringeri Giroux and her family show off their school spirit in UMass Boston blue and white!

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We are grateful to the over 400 alumni and friends who participated in our Sponsor a Mask Initiative.

So far we’ve distributed 600 masks to students in need and raised over $11,000 for emergency student aid!

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Masks are still available— join this opportunity by visiting umb.edu/maskitup or use your phone camera to scan:

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1 Sherri Siegel CER’16 received her post-master’s certificate in gerontology/adult nurse practitioner and resides in Boise, ID. 2 Gregory White ’83, workforce educator/ corporate delivery specialist and HR consultant in Beaumont, CA, and member of the San Diego Regional Alumni Committee. 3 Majid Dawood ’70, CEO of Yasaar Ltd., in London, UK. 4 UMass Boston students Eriq Gassé ’21 and Flavia Martins ’22 on the campus Harborwalk. 5 Marco Curnen G’08, assistant principal at the Escuela Amigos School in Cambridge, MA. 6 Lisa DiVasta ’89, owner of Plymouth Cards, and husband Vincent DiVasta ’89, principal consultant at Citisoft in Riverview, FL. 7 Jennifer Kanyugi G’10, ELP’19, VP at Eastern Bank in Boston, MA, and member of the Run for Krystle marathon team.

Office of Marketing and Engagement University of Massachusetts Boston 100 Morrissey Boulevard Boston, MA 02125-3393

Success Your gift, to any area of campus, will support current and future Beacons. Please make your gift

by June 30. umb.edu/gift

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