UMass Boston Magazine - Fall 2021

Fall 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

A Speaker for the Times Massachusetts Speaker of the House Ronald Mariano G’72 Also in this issue: • Commencement 2020/2021 • Maria Vasco ’20: Green Entrepreneur • Dan Rea ’70 Makes a Gift to Beacons Athletics

A Message from the Chancellor A standing question in higher education is to ask what it means to educate college students.

Certainly, one worthy outcome is cultivating a desire to serve— that is, to apply what is learned to elevate the public good.

As I have come to know since becoming chancellor, it is in UMass Boston’s DNA to educate its students for service to the community, the nation, and the world. It is in our ethos to take on the great challenges of our time, like climate change, health equity, and racial justice.

And so, as a new academic year unfolds here at UMass Boston—against the backdrop of a waning but lingering pandemic—we gather again in these complex times to prepare students to be engaged, compassionate citizens, and to lead lives of consequence.

This issue of UMass Boston magazine showcases some of the ways our alumni have made their education matter, through service.

There is service to the community.

The call to serve one’s community comes in many forms, among them, elected office. For three decades now, Massachusetts Speaker of the House Ronald Mariano G’72 has heeded that call. Our cover story chronicles Speaker Mariano’s accomplishments as an elected legislator, from his roots in Quincy to his time as a schoolteacher, to his rise to the pinnacle of power in the State House.

There is service to the nation.

We are humbled to feature Fern Sumpter Winbush ’89, a decorated military veteran of 30 years who now serves as principal deputy director for the Defense/MIA Accounting Agency.

The unparalleled experiences of military veterans grace the narrative of service by giving voice to the ideas of valor,

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sacrifice, and love of country. Fern’s poignant work to help make whole the families of missing military sons and daughters underscores her dedication to service.

There is service to the world.

In recent years, higher education has become a key contributor to resilience planning aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change. Universities like UMass Boston are aligning their teaching, research, and operations around sustainability.

As a result, new environmental champions emerge from Columbia Point—like Maria Vasco ’20, immigrant, firstgeneration college graduate, and social entrepreneur. Maria has already made her mark in the fight against global plastic pollution by forming Uvida, a startup shop featuring plastic-free, zero-waste products.

And there is, of course, service to our university.

We are thrilled that the extraordinary $50 million gift from Robert and Donna Manning—a singular act of generosity—will include a $15 million distribution to endow the newly renamed UMass Boston Robert and Donna Manning College of Nursing and Health Sciences. The funds will support student diversity and ensure that new cohorts of nursing professionals promote equitable patient care.

There are no commensurate words for a gift of this scale and magnitude—except to note that it comes from a place of gratitude to and love for our university. It is inspiring to imagine the reach of this gift—the untold lives it will change, the healing it will make possible, the human potential it will unleash.

I hope you enjoy reading about the profound and important commitments UMass Boston alumni continue to make to the public good. They are truly Beacons of progress.

Sincerely,

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco

UMass Boston FALL 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.

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IN THIS ISSUE

Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco Provost Joseph Berger

Assistant Vice Chancellor for Alumni Engagement Allison Duffy Director of Alumni Engagement Steven Whittemore Director of Communications DeWayne Lehman G’15 Art Director Sarah Weatherbee Managing Editor Ed Hazell Associate Editors Anne McLaughlin Crystal Valencia G’14 Writers Danielle Bilotta, Vanessa Chatterley, Robert Connolly ’78, Andrea Kennedy, Gray Milkowski ’18, Crystal Valencia G’14 Designers Rose Coveney, Suzanne Korschun, Wendy Lanchester ’88, Chansavanh Phanthalangsy Photo Credits Jeremiah Robinson (cover) Bill Brett (p. 22) Danielle Chudolij (pp. 16–19) Ed Collier (p. 30, back cover) DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Kathrine Dodd, USAF/Released (p. 15) Bob Durling (pp. 16–19) U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Apryl Hall (p. 15) Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images (p. 12) Janina Seibel (pp. 11, 12, 21) 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

Environmental concerns motivate Maria Vasco ’20.

11 A Speaker for the Times

Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Engagement Megan Delage Sullivan Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Adam Wise

9 Young Entrepreneur with a Mission

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Speaker of the House Ronald Mariano G’72 shapes policy on Beacon Hill.

14 A Noble Calling

For Fern Sumpter Winbush ’89, finding MIAs is more than a job.

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16 Long-Awaited Commencements

The classes of 2020 and 2021 cross the stage.

20 Center Students, Operate with

Integrity, Strive for Excellence Athletic Director Jacqui Schuman’s passion for athletics and social justice

22 Building Student-Athlete Strength

and Character Noted broadcast journalist Dan Rea ’70 endows varsity weight room.

24 Professor Denise Khor Rescues

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Rare Asian American Silent Film Preserving a lost gem of Japanese American cultural heritage Departments 2

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UNews Major happenings on campus since our last issue About Alumni Class notes from the ’70s to the present

30 Investing in UMass Boston

Philanthropy and its impact on the university 31 Alumni Events and Initiatives

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UNEWS

Beacons Make Historic Return to Campus

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he start of the academic year is exciting in itself, but Tuesday, September 7, 2021 will go down in school history as the day students, faculty, and staff were finally able to return to campus for in-person classes— a year and a half after the pandemic first struck.

The return was made possible by comprehensive health and safety protocols and the continued efforts of the entire UMass Boston community to keep the campus safe and healthy. These efforts include face coverings in all indoor spaces, testing and contact-tracing programs, and mandatory vaccination.

“We are happy to be here today, face to face, for the first time in a year and a half. It is what you, our students, need and what you deserve,” Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco said at Convocation.

“But we are not out of the woods yet, and we acknowledge the awful pain and loss that COVID-19 has inflicted on so many in our communities and around the world. We must, as scholars and engaged citizens, continue to work together to defeat this wicked pandemic.”

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PATHS Program Receives $1.2M from NASA to Help Diversify STEM Professions

Image by: John Gillooly Despite a broad consensus in the STEM field that having more people of color in the workforce leads to better outcomes and solutions, building authentic diversity in the industry remains a challenge. The pipeline of young people, students, and emerging professionals in science, technology, and math does not reflect the diversity the field is striving for, and for those who do pursue the career track, they often are missing the support to make it through.

A program at UMass Boston’s School for the Environment is working to increase the pathways to a successful career in the industry for people of color in Massachusetts, and NASA recently awarded it $1.2 million in funding to support its efforts.

PATHS, or Partners Aligned to Heighten Broad Participation in STEM, supports diversity in science from the moment a child’s interest is sparked, to the path to college, and all the way through to working professionals and their companies.

“The world’s problems are complex now,” said Bob Chen, interim dean of the School for the Environment. “They affect a lot of stakeholders, and in science, you simply make better and more robust solutions when you include more perspectives, experiences, and expertise.”

PATHS has built a coalition of private sector companies, each of which have committed to boosting diversity within their own walls and across Massachusetts. iRobot, Hack.Diversity, the Museum of Science, and the Christa McAuliffe Center have already signed on.

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UNEWS

Former Beacon Takes Home Olympic Gold

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ormer Beacons track and field standout Wadeline Jonathas became the first student-athlete in UMass Boston history to earn an Olympic medal after the U.S. Women’s 4x400-meter relay team took home gold at the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

Although she didn’t run as part of the 4x400-meter relay team that took first place, she still received a medal as a member of the squad that qualified the United States for the final. It caps off a fantastic Olympic debut for Jonathas, who reached the semifinals in the Women’s 400 meter and ran three races in her first Olympics.

Wadeline Jonathas | Getty Images

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Just five years ago, Jonathas was getting ready for her freshman year at UMass Boston. The Gonaïves, Haiti, native made her mark on the track and field program in just two seasons with the Beacons, winning nine individual Division III titles, setting six Division III national records, and leading the Beacons to the NCAA Division III Indoor and Outdoor National Titles during the 2016–17 and 2017–18 seasons.

Bookshelf Alumni and Faculty Publications Sometime in her twenties, Jennifer De Leon G’10 asked herself, “What would you do if you just gave yourself permission?” Her parents fled Guatemala over three decades earlier when the country was in the grips of genocide and civil war, but she hadn’t been back since she was a child.

She gave herself permission to return—to relearn the Spanish that she had forgotten, unpack her family’s history, and begin to make her own way. Alternately honest, funny, and visceral, White Space follows De Leon as she comes of age as a Guatemalan-American woman and learns to navigate the space between two worlds.

When looking for books for her daughter, Melissa Hunt ’04 found very few that speak to very young girls about the kinds of careers they can choose when they grow up.

Hunt recently published her first children’s book, Being a Princess Is So Yesterday, which focuses on women in various professions—from firefighter to paleontologist—breaking down stereotypes and teaching young girls that their gender does not define what they can be.

Combining rich archival research with insightful analysis of art and literature, Associate Professor of American Studies Aaron Lecklider G’01 explores how queerness and radical politics intersected between 1920 and 1960 (well before Stonewall) in his new book, Love’s Next Meeting: The Forgotten History of Homosexuality and the Left in American Culture.

At the end of the 1976 football season, more than 40 Harvard athletes went to Boston’s Combat Zone to celebrate. In the city’s adult entertainment district, drugs and prostitution ran rampant, violent crime was commonplace, and corrupt police turned the other way. At the end of the night, Italian American star athlete Andy Puopolo, raised in the city’s North End, was murdered in a stabbing. Three African American men were accused of the crime.

In The Combat Zone: Murder, Race, and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, Jan Brogan G’19 provides a riveting account of the murder case that made national news, laid bare the city’s racial and ethnic divisions at a tumultuous moment, and led to the eventual demise of the city’s red-light district.

For more than four decades, readers and critics have found Professor Emeritus Lloyd Schwartz’s poems unlike anyone else’s—a rare combination of the heartbreaking and the hilarious. Readers experience his mother’s piercing flashes of memory, the perverse comic wisdom of Gracie Allen, the uninhibited yet loving exhibitionists of antique pornography, and eager travelers crossing America in a club car or waiting in a Brazilian airport. Schwartz listens to these people without judging—understanding that they are all trying to live their lives, whenever possible, with tenderness, humor, and grace.

Schwartz’s Who’s on First? brings together a selection of poems from his previous collections along with eagerly awaited new poems, highlighting his formal inventiveness in tangling and untangling the yarn of comedy and pathos. Underlying all of these poems is the question of what it takes and what it costs to make art.

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UNEWS

Robert and Donna Manning Make Historic $15M Gift to Endow Nursing Program

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hairman of the UMass Board of Trustees Robert Manning and his wife, Donna Manning, have made a historic $15 million gift to UMass Boston. The Mannings’ visionary gift—the largest in the university’s history—will endow the nursing, exercise and health sciences, and urban public health programs, which will become the Robert and Donna Manning College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

The funds will be focused on supporting student diversity and ensuring that new cohorts of nursing professionals are champions of equitable patient care. The $15 million is part of a larger $50 million gift to the entire UMass system.

Donna Manning’s 35-year career as an oncology nurse at Boston Medical Center inspired the decision to focus the gift on nursing and CNHS at UMass Boston. Known for her dedication to patients, Manning donated her salary to the hospital each year.

The College of Nursing and Health Sciences is the fastest-growing college at UMass Boston and offers the only four-year public programs in nursing and exercise and health sciences in the Greater Boston area. The undergraduate and graduate population of approximately 2,100 students in the college is 19 percent Black, 12 percent Latinx, and 11 percent Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI).

“Amidst a pandemic, rampant medical disinformation, nursing shortages, and the heroism of health-care workers, we at UMass Boston are more committed than ever to cultivating extraordinary nursing talent,” Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco said. “The Mannings’ historic gift will be put to use to nurture the next generation of health and wellness scientific expertise, but also the humane heart, the empathy, and cultural awareness that define caregiving in its truest sense.”

“For the majority of my career in Boston, I was struck by the fact that most of the nurses looked like me while most of the patients didn’t,” Manning said. “UMass Boston plays a critical role in supporting diversity in Boston, and I have seen firsthand how diversity in the nursing workforce can improve patient care and address health inequities.”

Nursing students in the Center for Clinical Education and Research simulation labs

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For the sixth year in a row, UMass Boston has been ranked in the top tier of national universities, according to a report released this fall by U.S. News and World Report. The school’s undergraduate nursing program was also ranked among the best in the country in the first-ever rankings of such programs

by U.S. News, coming in strongly at No. 43.

Earning positive marks on class sizes, faculty expertise, and graduation rates, UMass Boston ranked No. 112 overall among national public universities, No. 36 in the nation for social mobility, and No. 19 for ethnic diversity.

Clockwise back left: Center for Survey Research Staff Lee Hargraves, Tony Roman, Carol Cosenza, Ebony Haley, Dragana Bolcic-Jankovic, and Kathryn Bell Brought to a young UMass Boston campus in 1971 by Robert Wood, then president of UMass, the center has measured public opinion and attitudes toward some of the region’s biggest issues, including housing, health care, and the environment.

“What the Center for Survey Research does for the research community is meant to be helpful to agencies, state organizations, and any organization that collects data,” said Floyd “Jack” Fowler, Jr., a senior research fellow at the center.

Changing Methods, Constant Purpose: Center for Survey Research Marks 50 Years

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Mass Boston’s Center for Survey Research has spent

half a century tracking people’s opinions on some of the commonwealth’s biggest challenges and informing policymakers on what they can do to solve them. Recently, the center captured evolving public opinions on the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines to help Boston officials work to stem the spread of the disease. (For details, go to umb.edu/csr/covid19-in-boston.)

Fowler knows the center’s work better than most—he co-founded it in 1971, when the university was in Boston’s Park Square, prior to moving to a new campus on Columbia Point in 1974.

“Things have evolved over 50 years, as you might imagine,” Fowler said with a slight chuckle. “Back in 1971, most of our interviewing was actually done in person or in households. We did a lot more interviewing on telephones and had a very large telephone staff.

Interviewing has declined recently, and much more of it is done by mail and on the Internet.”

The center’s recent work on COVID-19 is reflective of its broader commitment to serving the public, the very reason it was moved to UMass Boston 50 years ago, and the reasoning that continues to drive its work today.

“UMass Boston’s mission of public service and applied research made it a logical home,” Fowler said.

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UNEWS

$3.7 Million Grant Helps UMass Boston Researchers Support Elementary Educators

W Dean Tyson D. King-Meadows

University Welcomes New Liberal Arts Dean

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he Beacon community extends a warm welcome to Tyson D. King-Meadows as the new dean of the College of Liberal Arts (CLA).

Dean King-Meadows comes to UMass Boston from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), where he was the associate provost for strategic initiatives. He was credited with laying the groundwork with campus and external partners to develop new programs aimed at recruiting underrepresented minority faculty and students.

He previously served as a professor of political science and chair of the department of Africana Studies at UMBC. Earlier in his career, he was a lecturer, instructor, and assistant professor at both Middle Tennessee State University and East Carolina University. His distinctive career has been anchored by a dedication to and passion for service to each university, the community at large, and his students.

hen a student struggles with behavior in the classroom, how should an educator try to solve it? It depends on who you ask.

A researcher might say to use a research-based solution—also known as an intervention—to address the issue. A teacher, on the other hand, might say those solutions are too cumbersome and are hard to implement in the moment.

The contrast between research and practice illustrates the divide when it comes to solving behavior issues in the classroom. Educators often struggle to deliver research-based interventions consistently or completely, given everything already on their plate.

But there’s a way to bridge the divide, says a team of researchers at UMass Boston, and they’ve just received a $3.7 million grant to prove it.

The funding, which comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, was awarded to Melissa Collier-Meek and Nedim Yel, two researchers from the UMass Boston College of Education and Human Development’s Department of Counseling and School Psychology, and Lisa Sanetti, their colleague at the University of Connecticut. It will allow them to study the impacts of giving teachers the support they need to apply data-backed behavioral interventions in the classroom and implement them with students and teachers in Massachusetts and Connecticut schools.

“I am confident that Dr. King-Meadows will lead the university’s largest college as CLA builds on existing strengths to deliver the highest quality of learning experiences for our students, promote high-impact scholarship, fulfill our mission of service to the community, and contribute to our campus-wide commitment to be a leading antiracist and health-promoting institution,” Provost Joseph Berger said.

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Young Entrepreneur with a How Maria Vasco ’20 plans to reduce plastic waste

By Vanessa Chatterley

aria Vasco’s ’20 passion for environmental advocacy and sustainability started during her freshman year.

Phillips, the founding director of UMass Boston’s Entrepreneurship Center and an advisor in the Venture Development Center.

And that’s how the idea for Uvida, Boston’s first zero-waste store, was born.

With the guidance of Phillips, a longtime volunteer and supporter of UMass Boston, Vasco launched Uvida online in 2019 with only a few eco-friendly products. It has since exploded, rapidly evolving from online retail into a storefront located in Boston’s North End. Vasco now offers more than 200 plastic-free products catering to the average consumer’s daily life. In addition to offering toiletries, a variety of plants, pet products, and makeup, Vasco also recently opened a room where customers can refill their shampoo bottles.

During her junior year, Vasco received the first-ever UMass Boston Entrepreneur Scholarship. In addition to honoring recipients with $5,000, it includes a mentorship with the scholarship’s founder, Dan

UMass Boston magazine spoke to Vasco to learn about her inspiration for opening Uvida, how UMass Boston played a role in her entrepreneurial success, and her plans for the future.

After enrolling in an environmental studies course and learning about issues that plague the planet, Vasco took action. She switched majors from political science to environmental studies in sustainability, with the mission of tackling the one environmental issue about which she felt most strongly: plastic pollution.

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Maria Vasco’s North End store offers a wide range of plastic-free products that customers can use in their daily lives.

What led you to taking the steps to open Uvida?

It was mainly when I got the scholarship because I always wanted to start the business, and I didn’t know how. But when I got the scholarship, I really felt like that was my green light. It was my first time letting other people know my idea for a zero-waste store in Boston, and they gave me the scholarship money to actually pursue it. I think that was really when I was like, “Okay, I think I’m actually going to do this because now I have $5,000 to do whatever I want with,” and that’s when I just dedicated that to buying more products to get going.

Where does the name “Uvida” come from?

Vida means “life” in Spanish, and I’m Latina; I was born in Colombia. I really like the word “life” because when you’re reducing the amount of plastic waste in the world, you’re contributing to life, so I kept the word and then I just translated it to Spanish. Then I added the “U” in front so people can know that it’s them contributing to life.

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How did your mentorship with Dan Phillips play a role in where you are today?

I was able to ask him questions about the business that I wanted to start. I asked him, “Do you think it’s a good idea? Do you think I could do it? What should be my first step? Should I start online? What are the steps I need to take to get to a store?”

It was so helpful because he led me to the path that I wanted.

What was that transition from idea to execution like for you?

It was great. I started a website, and I was building a community of people who were into zero waste and are looking to try zero-waste products. When I wanted a storefront, I was looking for an area that’s accessible to everyone. We opened during a pandemic, so obviously people were shocked….

How did UMass Boston play a role in where you are today?

[UMass Boston staff and faculty] really made me believe in myself. As an undocumented woman of color trying

to graduate—all of these obstacles—I could have just let that bring me down and stop me. But they gave me the sense of “You’re awesome” and “You should keep going.”

Whether I wanted to start a business, or I wanted to be a lawyer, or if I wanted to be a doctor—that really didn’t matter.

It’s more about how much they made me believe in myself.

What’s next for you?

I would love to grow a team now. I have the store, now I just need to grow a team of Uvida workers so we can continue to build the company. I would love to open a second location, whether that’s in Boston or New York. That’s just what I’m trying to do for the future.

What would you want other young entrepreneurs to know?

I would want them to know that they should pick something that they’re really passionate about because when things get difficult, that’s when you really need a passion. You really need to have something that you care about so you can make it through those obstacles and those challenges.

A Speaker for the Times

Ronald Mariano G’72 Leads the Massachusetts House of Representatives

By Robert P. Connolly ’78

★★★

Showing early evidence of the prodigious work ethic that fueled his rise at the State House, the young Ron Mariano is outside the gates of Quincy’s cavernous Fore River Shipyard, selling newspapers and earning a hefty $50 a week.

Fast forward to an early stage in his career and Ronald Mariano G’72, a fledgling legislative aide, feels very at home in the intensely personal culture of the Massachusetts State House.

“I fell in love with the building. You meet the best people in the world.

I have made friends I will have the rest of my life,” Mariano notes.

Time passes and the onetime aide becomes a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives—and his work ethic and network of relationships make him the perfect choice to be the House point person as state government takes on a true life-or-death issue.

The question is whether Massachusetts, known as the health care capital of the world, can provide its citizens with decent health insurance coverage.

Few disagree with the goal—but getting there is another matter.

“There were so many moving parts, so many moving pieces. You had doctors, you had hospitals, and you had insurance companies. Getting everybody moving in the same direction was a real challenge, and I loved it,” Mariano recalls.

When it was done, Mariano “felt a real sense of accomplishment, a sense of purpose.”

The epic accomplishment was passing the state’s landmark health care coverage bill of 2006—a law that served as a model for 2010’s Affordable Care Act. Today Massachusetts is the nation’s leader in health care coverage, with only 3 percent of its population uninsured, well below the national average of 9.2 percent.

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★★★ It’s a picture-perfect late-summer day, and Mariano, who had his own brief stint as a shipyard worker, is on a small ferry, bringing 24 members of the House out for a close inspection of the 600-foot-tall turbines that drive the Block Island Wind Farm.

Standing at the stern and keeping an impressive grasp on his balance as a steady chop rocks the boat, Mariano offers a brief tutorial on wind energy and its history in Massachusetts.

The former Quincy schoolteacher is not a newcomer to the issue.

Clean energy and climate change have been at the top of his agenda for many years, and a 2015 fact-finding trip to Denmark deepened his belief in wind energy.

Sketching out his priorities in a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce speech earlier this year, Mariano said: “We must … make Massachusetts the leader of our clean energy future.”

(Above) Ronald Mariano G’72 addresses his colleagues in the State House Chamber after they voted him the new speaker of the house on Dec. 30, 2020. (Photo by Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) (Previous page) Photo taken by Janina Seibel

Mariano’s work on the massive project marked him for bigger things. The UMass Boston lawmaker was promoted to assistant majority leader in 2009 and became majority leader in 2011.

Last year the former paperboy and son of a Quincy shipyard worker was elected speaker of the Massachusetts House—the first Quincy resident to hold the position since John Hancock. Yes, the John Hancock with the eye-catching signature on the Declaration of Independence.

When he was elected to the powerful and prestigious position, Mariano, a self-described “worker bee,” said the significance was not lost on him.

“I was born and raised by the shipyards of Quincy, where my father earned his living after his father left Italy with his sights set on the American dream,” he noted. “When I first took the oath of office, I did so on their shoulders.”

At the time of his election, CommonWealth magazine said the new speaker had “helped negotiate almost all of the thorniest policy compromises that have come out of the Legislature in recent years.

He has particular expertise in health care and insurance policy but has also worked on major pieces of legislation in other areas, including education, criminal justice reform, and gun laws.”

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Other priorities include helping to lead Massachusetts through the COVID-19 pandemic and positioning the state for economic recovery, ensuring access to health care with a focus on protecting community hospitals, and addressing the social and economic divides he says the pandemic has made even more evident.

“The great divide between rich and poor, black and white, rural and urban has been made all too obvious,” Mariano said after winning the speakership. “The disproportionate suffering of communities of color in particular has exposed the frailty of our safety net and the inequality that has been hiding in plain sight.”

(Below) Photo taken by Janina Seibel

★★★ Lighting a path to the future comes naturally to the former teacher. With his master’s in education degree in hand, Mariano taught in Quincy for 12 years. (Mariano earned his degree at Boston State College, which joined UMass Boston in 1982.)

Mariano, who describes himself as a UMass Boston graduate, says the university is an important institution because it provides students with a distinguished faculty and is “a place where you get to experience life.” UMass Boston has remained important to the House speaker in part because of its status as a higher-education beacon for so many of his South Shore constituents.

Though no longer in the classroom, many would say that Mariano has never stopped teaching—and learning.

Rep. Michael J. Moran ’96, who was elected to the House in 2005 and now holds a top leadership position as assistant majority leader, said that Mariano’s rise to the speakership was fueled by his instinctive willingness to mentor and help colleagues navigate the complexities of life on Beacon Hill.

“Ronnie was the guy who always had a lot of time to give,” the Brighton lawmaker and UMass Boston economics major noted. “He has mentored a lot of members for years.”

Mariano’s command of the issues and ability to find consensus make him “the perfect speaker at the right time,” Moran added.

A Tradition of Public Service Having its graduates serve in the Massachusetts legislature and in other public positions has become a tradition for Boston’s public research university.

UMass Boston alumni currently serve in the Massachusetts House and Senate, following in the footsteps of the many who made the trek from Columbia Point to Beacon Hill. This list includes current House Speaker Ronald Mariano G’72 and two former presidents of the Massachusetts Senate: Therese Murray ’84 and Robert Travaglini ’74.

Social activist and former State Representative Mel King ’52, H’14 and Steven Tolman ’00, a former state representative and state senator who now serves as president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, are among the UMass Boston graduates known for their distinguished legislative careers.

Beyond Beacon Hill, alumna Janet Mills ’70 is the first woman to be attorney general and governor of Maine. The late Thomas M. Menino ’88, mayor of Boston for a record 20 years, earned a degree on Columbia Point, as did White House national climate advisor, Gina McCarthy ’76, former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly ’76, and former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II ’76, H’09.

House Assistant Majority Leader Michael Moran ’96 says two factors helped to build the public-service wave: UMass Boston’s attracting students who understand that government can change lives and who augment this recognition with “a strong work ethic.” Students who fit this profile become graduates who succeed in the public sector, the Brighton lawmaker noted.

Joyce Linehan ’96, G’04, who served as chief of policy for Mayor Martin J. Walsh, credited the faculty with playing a major role. “The faculty understands what it is to serve with a commitment to public education, and that inspires students to work toward a better commonwealth. It’s no wonder that such a large number of people who study there go into public service.”

Jeffrey Sánchez ’06, the former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee who worked with Speaker Mariano on issues including the 2006 health care bill, said it’s because “community is in the school’s DNA.” It’s clear that the founding vision of an urban public research university that works to create a better world endures today.

“I was born and raised by the shipyards of Quincy, where my father earned his living after his father left Italy. . . . When I first took the oath of office, I did so on their shoulders.”

“The University of Massachusetts Boston will endeavor to be the university of and for the city, and the university of and for the times,” notes Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco.

“UMass Boston was created to lead the way to a better future,” said UMass President Marty Meehan. “Given its ethos, it makes perfect sense that its graduates would imagine a better world and say, ‘Why not?’”

“It has a special mission,” Mariano agreed, “And I think it stayed true to its mission. There’s something going on there that is unique.”

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Fern Sumpter Winbush ’89 dedicates herself to recovering Dept. of Defense personnel missing in action.

A Noble Calling

BY VANESSA CHATTERLEY

Colonel (Retired) Fern Sumpter Winbush ’89 enjoyed a distinguished 30-year career in the U.S. Army, during which she rose from private first class to commander before retiring in 2015.

Today, she serves in a different capacity. As a member of the Senior Executive Service and principal director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), she works to provide families and the nation with the fullest possible accounting of personnel missing from past conflicts. With more than 81,000 U.S. military and civilian personnel still unaccounted for, Winbush said, “I take immense pride in being a part of this mission…. Right now, we’re the only agency in the Department of Defense that has this mission, so we can’t give up, we won’t give up.”

Winbush sees her army leadership experience as critical preparation for her current job.

“I was a commander a couple of times,” she said. “Commanders not only inspire and lead the service members, but they also take care of families. I think families are critically important. We talk about soldiers being the backbone of the army. But the family, they are really the backbone supporting their soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine.

“I’m still helping soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who gave the ultimate sacrifice,” she continued. “But it’s really the families who survived that tragic loss of their loved one that I’m serving.

It gives me great joy to be a part of this noble mission.”

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Winbush meets with families of lost military and civilian personnel around the United States every year.

“When I first started this mission and the families first met me, someone said to me, ‘What I need you to know is this just started for you, but this tragedy that happened to my family, it happens every single day since we first learned that he was lost. Families are really relying on you.’ So it’s not just a mission. It’s a calling, a dedication and frankly a moral imperative that continues to shape me to this day.”

By any account, Winbush’s service in the military has been a great success. The Boston native began her ascent through the ranks as a private first class in the Army Reserves. Over the decades, she served in positions of increasing responsibility, culminating with a deployment to Operation Enduring Freedom in Kabul, Afghanistan. She subsequently served as the commander of Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. She earned numerous awards and decorations and obtained a master’s in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Prior to this outstanding track record of success, Winbush said, “Failure brought me to UMass Boston.”

She began her higher education quest on a full scholarship to another university. By her own admission, she was not ready for college.

                   …it’s really the families who survived that tragic loss of their loved one that I’m serving. It gives me great joy to be a part of this noble mission.

“I had an awesome social life that first year but a horrible academic year,” she said, adding that her scholarship was consequently rescinded. “It was a wake-up call, and it made me realize that, frankly, I just wasn’t ready to go to school.”

After learning that the National Guard would fund 100 percent of her tuition, Winbush enrolled at UMass Boston. The university did not have an ROTC program at the time, so she also enrolled at Suffolk University for that component.

She took a gap year to reflect on where she wanted to set her sights next. In 1983, she began her military career in the Army Reserves and transferred to the Massachusetts Army National Guard shortly thereafter.

She was determined not to make the same mistake twice and earned her undergraduate degree with honors in business management information systems from UMass Boston in 1989. “Between that determination and the discipline that ROTC gave me—sort of reinstilling that former high school student who was very focused on academics, focused on the future, focused on doing well—and the education I was receiving at UMass Boston, it was a perfect marriage. I would like to thank UMass Boston and the staff at the time who helped me. I thank them for helping me get back on the right track.”

“I learned quickly that I was not going to progress to the level that I thought I was capable of without a degree,” said Winbush. “I’m not from a prosperous family, and surely no one was going to give me a scholarship at this point. I had to figure out how to finish my degree.”

Right: Fern Sumpter Winbush ’89 gives gifts to local landowners during a recovery mission in England, August 5, 2019. Winbush extended her gratitude to the Robarts family for allowing DPAA personnel to conduct the first-ever recovery mission in the United Kingdom. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Apryl Hall)

Left: Fern Sumpter Winbush ’89, left, assists Kyle McCormick, DPAA forensic anthropologist, during her visit to recovery operations in Xekong Province, Laos, Feb. 2, 2016. During her visit, Winbush toured excavation operations of the recovery team’s search for a U.S. Air Force pilot and navigator lost in an F-4D aircraft crash in the spring of 1971. (DoD photo by Tech. Sgt. Kathrine Dodd, USAF/Released) All photos reproduced courtesy of the DPAA.

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LONG-AWAITED COMMENCEMENTS:

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2020 and 2021 Grads Return for In-Person Ceremonies

By Crystal Valencia G’14

At long last, the classes of 2020 and 2021 had their moment.

More than 7,500 graduates were honored on August 26 at the TD Garden as UMass Boston held in-person commencement ceremonies for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Kristyne Donnelly ’20 was thrilled to finally celebrate the bachelor’s degree in early childhood education that she’d worked toward for years.

“It’s just great to get the chance to walk … after such a long wait and going to school for so long, and then waiting yet another year,” she said. “But now that we’re actually celebrating, it’s a big accomplishment for me and my family.”

seats. Thousands more watched the celebration on their computer screens.

Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco applauded the remarkable achievements of the two graduating classes of Beacons, praising their resilience, determination, and ability to improvise.

“You are the generation that took the battle to the front lines of the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism.”

“You are the generation that took the battle to the front lines of the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism. You persevered in the face of tremendous odds,” he said.

“The world needs you. We need your energy, we need your passion, we need your commitment to the common good.”

–Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco

The university conferred degrees to 3,860 members of the class of 2021 and 3,727 in the class of 2020. Graduates hail from more than 140 countries around the world, speak 100 different languages, and more than 50 percent are first-generation college students.

While everyone remained in masks, face coverings couldn’t hide the excitement as graduates crossed the stage in their caps and gowns and friends and family cheered them on from the arena

A virtual portion of the celebration—viewable at www.umb.edu/commencement—features keynote addresses by Secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Kathleen Theoharides G’07, and Boston Globe columnist Adrian Walker, who both received a Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Service.

Undergraduate JFK Award winners Maurice Roberson ’21 and Maria Vasco ’20, and graduate student speakers Anthony C. Martin ’21, Christie Towers ’20, and Marta Pagán-Ortiz ’20 also offered words of advice for the two classes.

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Adrian Walker 2020 Commencement Speaker Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Service “If there’s one thing that defines UMass Boston, in my eyes, it’s the conviction that everyone willing to work hard, sacrifice, and commit to learning, belongs. That is something to hold onto even as you move on. It’s something you can all be proud of. … UMass Boston stands nearly alone as a mirror of the city we are becoming, truly diverse, a place of challenges, yes, but opportunities, and a hub of innovation.”

Walker’s complete remarks are available at www.umb.edu/commencement.

Kathleen Theoharides G’07 2021 Commencement Speaker Chancellor’s Medal for Distinguished Service “You are our newest problem solvers, our newest vaccine developers, our newest teachers and authors, politicians and athletes, community leaders and environmental champions, health care workers and counselors, scientists and artists. And as the sun breaks through the clouds after this very dark year, I can’t help but reflect on your graduation and the graduation of your peers around the country and the world … as a down payment on hope.”

Theoharides’ complete remarks are available at www.umb.edu/commencement.

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Mortarboard Art Brightens Ceremony Many graduating students decorated their mortarboards with messages of thanks that enlivened the sea of black caps and gowns with splashes of celebratory color. Here’s a sample of them.

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Center Students, Operate with Integrity, Strive for Excellence Jacqui Schuman takes the helm of the Beacons athletics program.

By Gray Milkowski ’18

A

year ago, Jacqui Schuman was torn about what her next career move should be. With two decades of building high-performing, student-focused athletics programs under her belt, the natural next step seemed to be a position as an athletics director. But the choice wasn’t that clear to her.

Giving her pause was her headstrong advocacy for social justice.

It was not that she would be unable to lead the charge against inequality as an athletics director, but her passion for diversity and inclusion might go further if she pursued a career path centered on equality.

“A lot of people wanted me to go after the athletics director positions that were out there,” Schuman said, reflecting on her career process. “But at the same time, I knew that there just are not enough people doing this DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] work, and suddenly everyone has realized what a few of us have known for a while—that it’s work we all need to be doing.”

Then she came across the Beacons. In a city known for champions, the teams were built to win, and they played for one of the most diverse universities in the country. On Columbia Point, Schuman saw a place where her passions for athletics and social justice could be maximized equally and authentically.

“I knew there was something here,” she said. “I really felt like this was a place where I could take all of my skill sets and make an influence that matters—one that can shape this university, the city of Boston, and the lives of our student-athletes, all for the better. . . .

It just really fit.”

Now, five months into overseeing UMass Boston’s 18 varsity athletic teams and expansive recreation program, Schuman has settled in and taken stock of the athletics and recreation framework.

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“This university has had great success in athletics,” she said. “From where I’m sitting right now, I can see this really strong foundation that’s been built. We have coaches who’ve built their teams from scratch, and many of them have competed for national championships. All of our coaches compete with consistent success and drive for excellence.”

Applying her expertise to that foundation, she is ready to chart a path forward for the division, and for her it begins with a simple philosophy.

“Be student-centric, operate with integrity, and strive for excellence in everything we do as one team,” she says.

On the field, that begins with taking an approach toward a collaborative performance model that supports student-athletes’ holistic well-being, including both physical and psychological training and data-informed decision making. This model leads to care for the student-athlete that builds strength, endurance, and health so that they are ready for competition and thriving in their day-to-day lives.

“A holistic performance model will make our student-athletes healthier, and they will be more successful,” she says, having been responsible for successful models at prior institutions. “Their performance can skyrocket from here because they know that they will be taken care of by our program.”

Her mission also applies to what happens off the field. Having received her EdD from Vanderbilt University earlier this year, Schuman understands more than most that truly successful student-athletes have just as many academic and career resources at their disposal as they do athletic resources.

“We have resources within this institution that we have yet to capitalize on and maximize,” said Schuman. “If we’re able to partner, collaborate, and leverage them, I honestly think the sky’s the limit.”

At the top of that list is the Sport Leadership and Administration Program, which was established in 2019 and has deep connections to the Boston sports world. In Schuman’s words, it’s a “massive opportunity.”

“That partnership can help yield resources that will help grow what we’re able to do for our student-athletes, for our coaches, and for the community. We can leverage that to build and structure an internship program and resources that can help further the things we’re trying to do to create efficiencies and help us be more effective.”

The dual potential of the Beacons athletics program and the soon-to-be-tapped resources within the university’s academic programs are eye catching and exciting, but it only takes a brief conversation with Schuman to remember why she came to UMass Boston in the first place: to help showcase the strengths of diversity and be an advocate for social justice.

“We can be leaders around sport and social justice, and I think we are uniquely positioned to be that.”

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BUILDING STUDENT-ATHLETE ST AND CHARACTER Dan Rea ’70 endows new varsity weight room.

Photo taken by Bill Brett

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TRENGTH

By Andrea Kennedy More than 100 cheering student-athletes greeted Boston broadcast journalist Dan Rea ’70, H’08 at UMass Boston’s Clark Athletic Center on September 27 as he arrived for the ribbon cutting of the university’s newest student space: the Dan Rea ’70 Boston State College Varsity Training Facility. With a generous gift to the facility in December 2020, Rea and his family empowered an overhaul of the varsity teams’ weight room. They also established a permanent endowment—the first in Beacon Athletics history—that will ensure the facility stays state of the art for generations of Beacons.

Amid balloons, shining weight racks, and pristine treadmills, Rea gathered with nearly 200 friends, students, and staff to celebrate what Director of Athletics Jacqui Schuman called the tools “for training our athletes to the highest levels of performance.” But the space is intended to build more than students’ bodies. Schuman pointed to a quote from Rea emblazoned on the training-room wall: “Athletics improve our world,” it reads, “because, whatever our differences, fair competition fosters mutual respect both on and off the fields of play.”

“Athletics improve our world.”

Rea believes deeply in the transformative power of sports. Growing up an athletic kid in Boston’s Readville neighborhood, he chose to attend Boston State College (BSC) largely because of BSC’s athletics programs. (BSC merged with UMass Boston in 1982, making Rea and his former classmates UMass Boston alumni). Though he had what he laughingly describes as an “unexceptional college sports career” on the freshman hockey and varsity baseball teams, he found it an important formative experience.

“Sports is the great American commonality,” Rea said. “One of the things I learned from sports, growing up in the city, is that all sorts of people from different backgrounds enjoyed the same thing.

Sports has probably done more to break down barriers in this country than virtually any other aspect of our society.”

The level playing field Rea found in sports became an ideal that he has pursued throughout his professional life, through both law and journalism. After a brief stint in the military, Rea enrolled in Boston University’s law school. There, at a classmate’s suggestion, he launched a weekly talk show on the university’s radio station and rekindled a childhood fascination with radio’s power to connect people.

When he heard that Boston’s WBZ NewsRadio was looking for a Saturday night talk show host, Rea applied and got the position. He hosted the show while practicing law for several years until WBZ-TV began tapping him for on-air legal analysis. He asked for a shot at reporting, and a new career was born.

Rea broadcast to Boston for WBZ-TV for 31 years, winning two regional Emmy Awards and interviewing some of the most prominent figures of the day, including every U.S. president from Gerald Ford to Barack Obama (as well as then–Vice President Joe Biden).

But he loved covering small stories, too, especially those that could help Bostonians in need, such as a boy with spina bifida in Dorchester who was collecting cans to buy himself a $2,000 adaptive bike. “To be able to use the power of television to help someone? There was no greater high,” said Rea. Rea helped no one more than Joe Salvati. Salvati and three other men were framed for a 1965 murder they didn’t commit by FBI agents protecting their guilty sources. Over 15 years of investigative reporting, Rea exposed their wrongful imprisonment. When their conviction was overturned, he retired from television. “The day the judge awarded the four of them $101 million was my last day on TV…. I started my talk show that night.”

That show, WBZ’s NightSide, airs political discussion every weeknight, reaching audiences in 38 states. Rea visualizes the show as “North America’s back porch”—a place to put your feet up and talk. “All points of view are welcome,” Rea says. “NightSide is a place where reasonable people can disagree reasonably. I mean, do you not talk to your family because you are a Red Sox fan and they like the Yankees? No!” He laughs. “It always comes back to sports with me!”

Back at the ribbon cutting for the Dan Rea ’70 Boston State College Varsity Training Facility, surrounded by former BSC teammates, Rea admitted to being “blown away” by the moment.

“Dan knows firsthand the role that sports play in developing the character of young people,” said UMass Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco. Cutting the ribbon at the ceremony, Rea—avid athlete, crusading newscaster, mayor of America’s back porch, and champion of fair play—dedicated the facility to the student-athletes whose characters he hopes it will shape.

“Never have I conducted a more important ceremony than this,” he told them. “This is for all of you.”

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A

merican Studies Assistant Professor Denise Khor is on a mission to preserve the early history of Asian American cinema.

Professor Denise Khor Rescues Rare Asian American Silent Film

BY DANIELLE BILOTTA

In 2016, Khor was researching for her book, Transpacific Convergences: Race, Migration, and Japanese American Film Culture before World War II ( forthcoming from University of North Carolina Press), when she received a surprising email: The only surviving print of the 1914 film The Oath of the Sword had been found at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York.

Japanese actors play the leads in the film, and it was made by the Japanese American Film Company, a company based in Los Angeles and led by Japanese immigrants. A three-reel silent drama about an ambitious young man leaving behind his beloved in Japan to study abroad at the University of California, Berkeley, the movie is a rare surviving

example of early Asian American filmmaking.

“The film was really interesting, and it’s so powerful to have,” Khor said. “It’s very much a Western story of the East, with the fallen Japanese woman and this interracial romance.”

Khor, along with the George Eastman Museum and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California, recently received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation to preserve The Oath of the Sword and give it new life.

“We all worked on the application together in this beautiful, amazing collaborative process that I think is going to yield such an important and significant development in terms of American film history, Asian American film history, and of the legacy of filmmaking, independent filmmaking, and filmmaking at large. It’s just so exciting,” Khor said.

The George Eastman Museum will oversee the preservation process, restoring the film’s original tinting and producing a 35mm restored print with a digital master copy. Copies will be archived at the George Eastman Museum and the Japanese American National Museum, which also has plans to incorporate it into their core exhibit.

“I’m so looking forward to being able to engage new audiences around the film,” Khor said. “To see it on the big screen is going to be amazing. I can’t wait to screen the film on campus here at UMass Boston.”

A rare example of early Asian American filmmaking, Oath of the Sword was produced in 1914 by the Japanese American Film Company and features Japanese cast members in starring rolls.

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ABOUT alumni 1970s Eduardo Crespo ’72 is one of nine local business and community leaders recently appointed to the Northern Essex Community College Foundation Board. Crespo emigrated to the U.S. from Ecuador and earned his bachelor’s in economics from UMass Boston.

Barbara Adams Hebard ’75, a conservator at John J. Burns Library at Boston College, had her collages and book cover designs inspired by Ignatian spirituality on display in an exhibition entitled Encounters: Inspiration & Conversion.

Bruce Hughes ’77 recently retired as community planner from the Old Colony Planning Council with over 30 years of service. He is now working as a part-time principal planner with the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission.

Cynthia Swain ’77 announced her retirement from Cutter Consortium, where she worked for 16 years, most recently as a managing editor. Swain earned her bachelor’s in French and Spanish from UMass Boston.

1980s Carlene Hill Byron ’81 recently wrote a book on spiritual and mental well-being. In Not Quite Fine: Mental Health, Faith, and Showing Up for Each Other, Byron reviews cultural factors undermining mental health, including isolation, materialism, and various kinds of moral injury.

Ronald Connors ’80 celebrated 40 years with Merrill Lynch. Connors started as a financial advisor in 1980 in Oakland, CA, and is now managing director-market executive for Merrill Lynch in the Silicon Valley market in San Jose.

Kathleen Dunn ’83 had her painting “Eastern Sky” included in the Sea and Sky exhibition at the Hull Lifesaving Museum. The museum features work celebrating the timelessness of the coastal environment and the history of the U.S. Lifesaving Station at Point Allerton in Hull, MA.

Stan McLaren ’89, a longtime Dorchester resident and community health center leader, is the new president of Carney Hospital. He comes to the role after nearly four years as the president and CEO at Harvard Street Neighborhood Health Center on Blue Hill Avenue.

Elizabeth Paden ’81, G’87 announced her retirement after 36 years with the City of Cambridge in Zoning and Land Use Planning.

Paden earned her bachelor’s in anthropology and her MBA from UMass Boston.

Sheila Rosanio ’82 was named the national Choreographer of the Year at the Starpower Battle of the Stars national competition in Uncasville, CT. It was the second time that Rosanio had captured the award in her distinguished 37 years in dance.

Rosanio owns Sheila Rosanio’s School of Dance and Gymnastics in Revere, MA.

1990s Bethany Brown ’94 has taken a position as an investigator at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Brown served as a disability rights paralegal in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office for more than 18 years.

Dianne Finch ’91 published Big Data in Small Slices, which explores data visualization for communicators, covering everything from data collection and analysis to the creation of effective data visuals.

Julie Gray ’99 was among those named 10 Outstanding Women Leaders in Commercial Real Estate

by Boston Real Estate Times. An executive vice president at McCall & Almy, Gray is one of the leaders of McCall & Almy’s strategic advisory team.

Richard Bagge ’93 Earlier this year, the Boston Business Journal named Richard Bagge ’93, the CFO of Manning Personnel Group, a 2021 Boston Business Journal CFO of the Year for small private companies. The annual award recognizes chief financial officers who make a difference in their companies, organizations, and communities. Bagge joined Manning Personnel Group in January 2016 and oversees all aspects of the finance, accounting, IT, and administration for the firm. Prior to joining Manning Personnel, he was the CFO for Hearthstone Partners, the Boston-area franchisee for Cosi. As CFO, Bagge oversaw finance, accounting, human resources, information technology, and real estate for all 14 restaurants. He earned his bachelor’s in political science, history, and economics from UMass Boston.

Lois Hamill G’97 recently published her third book, Archives 101, a practical reference for people who, regardless of their professional education or institution type, care for historical records, photographs, and collections. She is the university archivist at Northern Kentucky University and has recently been promoted to professor.

Michael James ’95 was recently named chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at Cambridge Health Alliance.

Jeanne Regis ’98 earned her master’s in public administration from Suffolk University in May 2021.

Anthony Tsougranis ’91 received NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal for his contributions to the mission of NASA. He is a member of NASA’s Office of International and Interagency Relations. In 2020, he was elected vice president of the International Astronautical Federation.

2000s

Makeeba McCreary ’97 was recently named president of the New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund. A Boston native who has been a top executive at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Boston Public Schools, McCreary took office in September 2021.

Stephen Lavery ’08 earned an MBA from McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management in May 2021, with concentrations in strategy & global leadership and business analytics. He will begin the next chapter of his career as philanthropy technology project manager at Grantbook.

Ligia Noriega-Murphy ’90, CER’04 officially assumed her role as Malden’s superintendent of schools this past summer. She comes to Malden with 26 years of experience in the Boston Public Schools as a teacher, department leader, principal, and assistant superintendent.

Yves Salomon-Fernández ’01 has accepted a position as senior vice president at Southern New Hampshire University. She was previously president of Greenfield Community College.

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A B O U T alumni Kaili Turner ’03 was awarded an SNL Scholarship to study comedy at The Second City. A partnership between The Second City and Saturday Night Live, the scholarship grants comedians the opportunity to further their professional development at the legendary comedy improv theater.

2010s Kristen Dowling G’16 Kristen Dowling G’16 was named the 2020–2021 Saint Louis Public School District Educator of the Year in a surprise ceremony at Carnahan High School of the Future, where she has taught for the past four years. The mission of the program is to honor, promote, and celebrate excellence in the teaching ranks. Dowling teaches general and honors chemistry, along with the Project Lead the Way Biomedical Science Pathway. She earned her bachelor’s in biology from Yale University and her master’s in secondary education from UMass Boston.

Glennys Sanchez ’09 Gov. Charlie Baker appointed Glennys Sanchez ’09 as trustee of Northern Essex Community College (NECC). Sanchez is a community activist and leader in K–16 edub cccxcation and research. She is currently a senior associate with the Great Schools Partnership, a nonprofit school support organization working to redesign public education. In that role, she coaches schools and school districts throughout New England on equity-centered and anti-racist approaches to reimagining public education. A native of the Dominican Republic, Sanchez is also active in the Lawrence community, currently serving as a trustee of the Lawrence Public Library; vice president of the Lawrence History Center; and clerk of the Board of the Bread and Roses Heritage Committee, of which she is a former president and vice president. She graduated from NECC with high honors and an associate degree in business in 2005. She went on to earn a bachelor’s in economics from UMass Boston and a master of education in community engagement from Merrimack College.

Joseph Bagley G’13 published Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them, which surveys 50 Boston buildings that predate the 1800s. Bagley is Boston city archaeologist, a historic preservationist, and a staff member of the Boston Landmarks Commission.

Julianne Michelle Falzarano CER’18 has taken on the role of assistant principal at Revere High School. Falzarano has been a mathematics teacher for the past 14 years.

She holds a certificate of graduate studies in educational leadership from UMass Boston.

Daniel Hartford ’13 has joined Morgan Stanley as a financial advisor. In his role, Hartford is responsible for portfolio management, securities risk analysis, and trading.

William Heineman PhD’11 was unanimously approved by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education as the fifth president of North Shore Community College.

Din Jenkins ’12 was recognized as a Black Excellence honoree by the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus during the Black Excellence on the Hill event on February 26. He received the honor for his work both as an administrative sergeant in the Stoughton Police Department and with his company, Supply the Why.

Michael Maloney ’13 released a new album earlier this year called January Hopeful. The album is a compilation of Maloney’s work, spanning over 10 years of his life, starting in high school. Maloney also plays with his Irish band, The Boston Harbor Bhoys.

Tanya Mitchell G’18 joined the Davis Companies firm as director of human resources and DEI initiatives. She will also play a leading role in advancing the firm’s environmental, social, and governance agenda.

2020s Fatema Abdoo ’20 is among the inaugural cohort of Behavioral Health Service Corps scholars at William James College in Newton, MA. Abdoo said her future work will likely involve advocating for inclusive and accessible mental health care for underserved communities.

She earned her bachelor’s in criminal justice from UMass Boston.

Nora Fitzwilliam ’20 was recently accepted to the Tufts University School of Medicine Physician Assistant Program for the class of 2024.

She graduated from UMass Boston with her bachelor’s in biology.

Les Jordan ’20 was named vice president of product management and strategy for MobileSmith Health, a health care-focused software vendor specializing in patient engagement and adherence.

Amanda Tokash-Peters PhD’20 recently became a faculty member in the Science Department at Centenary University, a small liberal arts college in New Jersey.

To send us your news, please visit alumni.umb.edu/shareyournews, email alumni@umb.edu, or write Office of Alumni Engagement, 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

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

Edwin George Fein ’67

Arlene Kalick Altman ’83

John Anthony Feloney III ’83

Joseph A. Bage ’61

Robert E. Field ’69

Henry F. Barry G’83

William J. Fitzgerald G’94

Joseph Robert Birolini ’20

Michael C. Fitzpatrick ’94

Steven V. Boeri ’68

Carole J. Flanagan ’79

Rev. Walter R. Braman G’68

Margaret M. Flint G’51

Raymond J. Buckland ’86

Ann F. Foley ’64, ’89

Joseph E. Burke ’54

Doreen Parker Freeman ’87

Kathleen A. Mccabe

John Godfrey ’75

Casey ’56

Timothy P. Goguen ’71

Robert L. Casey ’56

Joann L. Goldberg ’77

Arleen M. Chapin ’06

Emily M. Gregory G’55

Michael S. Chappelle ’92

Charles M. Grimley ’61

Anthony P. Cirignano ’73

Julia M. Guilfoyle ’60

Stephen J. Clegg ’74

Allan R. Gullicksen ’72

Kathleen M. Codair ’95

David C. Hawkins G’01

Claire Jacobson Cohen ’48

Susan G. Hayes ’74

Alicia Dunn Coletti ’54

David F. Hayward ’69

Edward Donald Connelly ’62

Margaret L. Heavey ’68

Joseph G. Contrada ’73

Aileen Kerr Hegarty ’59

Kevin S. Counter ’91

William F. Henderson III ’70

Michael J. Crowe ’74, ’81

William F. Hennessey G’48

Ellen K. Curran ’69

Eileen Robinson Holey ’92

Elizabeth R. DeBlois Yale, PhD’09

Gary Albert Horton ’82

Paul E. Deschenes ’69 John P. DiBenedetto G’63

Barbara K. McKinley Keeping ’81

Thomas M. Donahue ’80

Kenneth G. Kelley ’71, G’79

Sister E. Julie Donovan, SNDdeN G’76

Richard J. Kelley ’76

Frances T. Doyle ’83

Ledwith ’51

Mark B. Dunay ’71

Paul J. Linehan ’68

Justin A. Dunleavy ’84

Carl Gerard Lyman ’60

Murtonda A. Durant ’89

Richard P. Mackin ’85

Margaret E. English ’91, G’95

Richard A. Macklin ’80

Patricia J. Feeney ’88

Theodore A. Marakoulos ’81

Joanne J. Kaczan ’90

Cecelia A. Hufnagel

Professor Xiaogang Deng Professor Xiaogang Deng was an exceptional scholar and a generous and caring human being. During his 26 years at UMass Boston, Professor Deng was a vital and highly valued member of the Department of Sociology as well as a role model for other Chinese and Asian professors and students on campus and throughout Massachusetts.

He helped develop and served as director of the department’s large Criminal Justice Program, bringing to it the same sociological sensibilities that shaped his scholarship. He was a significant contributor to the College of Liberal Arts, regularly teaching well-received seminars on research methods, crime, and criminal justice. Together with his wife, children, and grandchildren, colleagues and friends established the Xiaogang Deng Graduate Paper Award in his honor and dedicated a memorial bench on UMass Boston’s harbor campus.

Jane E. (Monahan) Milano ’55 Jane E. (Monahan) Milano ’55, beloved and proud alumna, passed away peacefully on March 6, 2021. A graduate of State Teachers College at Boston, Jane earned her bachelor of science in education in 1955. After graduating, she taught first grade for 23 years at Holy Parish School in West Roxbury, MA. Jane was a passionate volunteer, having cofounded the Boston Teachers College Scholarship Committee with good friend Marie Fox ’52 and served as treasurer for many years. Jane was a generous supporter of the BTC Scholarship Fund, contributing annually to the fund and motivating her classmates to do the same. Jane will be fondly remembered for her beautiful smile, her caring heart, and her wonderful personality.

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A B O U T alumni

Betty Taymor Betty Taymor, a trailblazing force who brought women’s concerns and voices to prominence in the Democratic Party in Massachusetts, passed away this June at the age of 100. Founder of UMass Boston Graduate Certificate Program for Women in Politics and Public Policy, and cofounder of the university’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy, Ms. Taymor began her foray into politics in the late 1940s. In addition to being the Massachusetts coordinator for the campaigns of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, and Congressman Robert F. Drinan, Ms. Taymor was an eight-term delegate to the Democratic National Convention and a member of the U.S. National Commission of UNESCO. She detailed her life in politics in her memoir Running Against the Wind: The Continuing Struggle of Women in Massachusetts Politics.

Her legacy includes the more than 900 women who graduated from the certificate program and two endowed funds at UMass Boston named in her honor: The Betty Taymor Scholarship Fund and the Betty Taymor Distinguished Public Service Fellowship.

IN MEMORIAM Continued from previous page

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Leonard J. Mariani ’82

Eleanor K. Pimentel-Swierk ’76

Barbara Visnet Quinn CER’93

Michael J. Meyer

Julia A. Mariano Testa ’95

Frank J. Pulera ’73

Richard F. Walsh ’73

Professor Perry Miller

Mary Rhinelander McCarl G’82

Stephen M. Robinson ’72

Nancy B. Butler Wilson ’69

Harryman A. Moe

William F. McCarthy ’79

Mary A. Rooney ’81

Jane C. McNamara Wood ’57

Rita Staropoli McDonald ’59

Phyllis E. Schlosberg ’60

Professor Emeritus Robert A. Morris

John J. McGinty ’88

Josephine A. Sgroi ’89

Faculty and Staff

Clare Carr McLaughlin ’53

Barry E. Shannon ’68

Professor Arthur C. Barry

Professor Emeritus Lois R. Rudnick

Michael A. McLean ’78

Fred Shporer ’76

Professor Quentin Chavous

Julie Donlan McNabb ’76

John W. Shyne, Jr. G’69

Jonathan L. Crawford

Arthur W. Mellace G’74

Margaret Teresa Norton

Professor Maurice J. Eash

Robert A. Mickiewicz ’77

Silverio ’72

Professor Gina Feuerlicht

Leslie E. Rinaldo Mili ’78

Adam H. Spiro ’99

Professor Thomas G. Fratto

Ann Sullivan Morris ’50

Tobias B. Stover G’09

Professor Delores B. Gallo

Peter B. Murray ’69

David Dale Strimple

Christian Goldy

Albert C. Nolan, Jr. G’90

Father Jerry Hogan

Kelly A. Worrall Nutwell ’82

Linnea Elise Lemasurier Sturdy ’18

Edward T. Odonnell ’98

John M. Sullivan G’93

Lieberman

Elena Adele Oxford ’78

Sheila M. Sylvester ’78

Professor Richard S. Lyons

Edward L. Paderson G’98

Claudett C. Tice ’77

Professor Susan S. McGinley

Josephine G. Trocchio Pero ’52

Robert E. Tippo ’69

Ian S. Menzies

UMass Boston Fall 2021

Annette B. Brounstein

Betty Taymor Robert L. Turner Professor James F. Ward

Friends David Eylath Dr. William A. Gamson Dr. Vartan Gregorian Annebelle Harris Jeanica K. Julce Joseph Tucker

Eaden Marti ’20 Fights for the Environment

By Vanessa Chatterley

Eaden Marti ’20 was only a few months away from graduating with his bachelor’s degree in theater arts from UMass Boston.

But all his plans for the future were thrown off kilter when the global pandemic swept the nation.

A seasoned magician and mentalist who had been performing live shows since high school, Marti already had a steady lineup of appearances scheduled in and around the Boston area after receiving his degree.

However, the pandemic forced him into rewriting his shows—which were largely interactive, relying on audience participation and engagement—to accommodate a virtual platform. So he took a step back from the stage to pursue another personal passion: firefighting.

Marti’s father and sister are firefighters, and he wanted to follow in the family tradition.

When he was 14, Marti joined the fire department in his hometown of Warwick, Massachusetts, as a junior volunteer and remains an on-call firefighter to this day.

“As a little kid, my dream was always to be a wildland firefighter,” he said.

He discovered that the AmeriCorps St. Louis Emergency Response Team (ERT) did a large part of its work in wildland firefighting, so he signed up with them and moved

to Missouri. Not only do ERT volunteers respond to natural disasters, they also take on conservation projects. Marti found himself battling fires in national forests and other locations in California, Missouri, Illinois, and Montana. He also worked maintaining and restoring land on the Continental Divide Trail and spent a week with a U.S. Forest Service crew in the Tobacco Root Mountains in Montana.

“I think I visited almost every state in the West in the past year,” he said.

His day-to-day life during his yearlong stint was unpredictable. “There is no consistency in your life,” he said. “Every day you’re sleeping somewhere else, you’re doing different jobs, you’re always working in a crew of at least five to eight people, often larger. It’s a very different lifestyle than what I had been used to before.”

Marti recently completed his volunteer term with ERT and is back to booking online and in-person magic shows—but he has pledged to volunteer with another fire crew this spring.

“I feel incredibly lucky that I am able to pursue both my passions of performing as well as firefighting,” he said. “The education I got and the connections I made at UMass Boston helped me continue on this path.”

Photo by Derek Yang

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Vincent G’89 and Robin Loporchio Launch Summer Internships on the Hill

By Andrea Kennedy As an intern for Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis’s administration, “I loved going into the State House,” Vin Loporchio G’89 recalled. “Walking up those stairs every day, I used to take them two or three at a time.”

degree in public affairs from UMass Boston’s John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies while working in the Mass. Office of Economic Affairs during the day. “And these internships are critical.”

Loporchio, who recently retired as senior vice president of corporate communications at Fidelity, said the connections he made during that internship “pretty much made my career possible.” But he couldn’t have taken the position if—like most legislative internships today—it had been unpaid. “Not everyone can participate in an unpaid internship if they’ve got to pay their bills or put food on the table or pay for tuition,” said Vin, who earned a master’s

That’s why, when the university approached Vin and his wife, Robin—a patent attorney with Raytheon who also got her start working in government—about funding a paid internship program at the Massachusetts State House, they jumped at the chance. Together, the Loporchios and the McCormack Graduate School launched the Robin and Vincent G. Loporchio Internship “On the Hill” Fund, which will send two UMass Boston students to the State House for full-time, paid summer internships each year for five years.

In summer 2021, the program sent its first two interns to the Hill (remotely, due to COVID restrictions). Natalie Shellito G’18, PhD’23, a student in gerontology studying how policy impacts elderly citizens, joined the office of Senator Adam Hinds. There, she prepared a report on intergenerational research and care models for a special committee chaired by Senator Hinds.

Violet Acumo PhD’23, a PhD candidate in public policy from Uganda, helped Representative Daniel Hunt develop a bill supporting racially inclusive and gender-responsive distribution of COVID stimulus funds for an equitable recovery.

The Loporchios are thrilled—and impressed.

“We are excited that our interns are able to partake in some really enriching work and learning experiences without having to worry about whether they are short-changing their ability to fund their academic careers,” said Robin.

“When Natalie and Violet sent us updates on the work they were doing—really good policy work—which they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, that was such a great feeling,” added Vin. “The pleasure is really ours to be able to do this.”

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Alumni EVENTS he Office of Alumni Engagement continues to host a variety of events and initiatives that bring our Beacons together in pandemic-safe ways year-round. Looking to stay connected with your alma mater and fellow alumni? We’ve got you covered.

Visit our calendar at alumni.umb.edu/events for more information about dates and details of upcoming events. As we continue to broaden our alumni engagement and outreach, we’d like to hear from you! For questions or suggestions, please email alumni@umb.edu.

s The UMass Boston Alumni Association hosted its annual scholarship reception earlier this year to recognize and celebrate its 2021 student scholars. Each year the event gives scholarship recipients the opportunity to meet with members of the Alumni Association board and thank them for their unwavering generosity and support.

s Alumna and longtime supporter of UMass Boston, Norma Ross Casey ’57, chats with Chancellor Suárez-Orozco at the Cape Cod Alumni and Friends Reception this past summer.

s We invited alumni and friends to our Cape Cod reception earlier this summer to meet Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco (pictured above) and network with each other.

t

This October, we hosted our first in-person Beacon 5K and were thrilled to see how many members of the UMass Boston community joined us to walk or run the Boston Harborwalk!

s Fakisha Fabre ’17, G’17; Karen Mulloy ’17; Nikki Herook G’14; and Jinal Shah ’16 catch up at the New York City reception this past October.

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Members of the Run for Krystle Boston Marathon Team also attended our in-person Beacon 5K, which raised more than $8,000 for the Krystle Campbell Scholarship Fund and the Young Alumni Council Scholarship Fund.

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Young Alumni The Young Alumni Council has more than doubled in size in just this past year with the addition of seven new members. The following members began their term on July 1, 2021.

Natalie Belflower ’15

Haydy George ’14

Daniel Gibbons ’19

Chhenlee Ly ’15, G’18

Political Science, College of Liberal Arts

Biology, College of Science and Mathematics

English, College of Liberal Arts

Management, College of Management

Assistant Residence Hall Director, University of Connecticut

Internal Audit Manager, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Office Management Specialist, Department of State

North Bethesda, MD

Office Management Specialist, Biotech Pre-clinical Operations Consultant, Avrobio, Inc.

Braintree, MA

Storrs, CT

Leominster, MA

Joseph Miller ’14

Andréia Soarés ’15

Elizabeth West ’19

Exercise and Health Sciences, College of Nursing and Health Sciences

Psychology, College of Liberal Arts

History, College of Liberal Arts

Client Success Manager, Panorama Education

JD Candidate, Suffolk University Law School

Providence, RI

Braintree, MA

Study Designer, New England Survey Systems

Hanover, MA

The Young Alumni Council adds new members twice a year but accepts membership applications on a rolling basis. If you're interested in joining the YAC, submit an online application at umb.edu/YAC.

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ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT

Awards Mass Boston recognizes that our success is a reflection of the accomplishments of our alumni. That’s why we are excited to announce the first-ever Alumni Achievement Awards. The awards will recognize the accomplishments of outstanding alumni of UMass Boston and its legacy schools who have made an impact in their community and on the university.

For complete details of the nomination process, as well as award descriptions and eligibility criteria, go to umb.edu/AAA.

Nomination Deadline: February 15, 2022

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