UMass Boston - Winter/Spring 2007-2008 - (Page 8)

July, Motley, who first came to UMass Boston in 2003 as vice chancellor for student affairs, spent two years as a vice president of the University of Massachusetts system, with responsibilities in business, public affairs, and marketing. In that post he tackled a wide range of duties, from development to community relations to a variety of strategic planning roles. “That job helped me learn about all the different pieces that make this university so great,” he says. “I’m better equipped as chancellor because now I know how the entire university functions.” Motley also knows how he wants his own part of the system to function, and a big part of that entails building an “ethic of care” into all aspects of campus life. People cannot be deemed to be truly educated, he says, unless they can add both “value and values” to the “multi-bordered, overlapping communities” in which they live. Motley utters those words with the conviction of a man who not only believes them but who has lived them. As one of five children raised in a single-parent household, Motley grew up in an area of Pittsburgh that presented its share of challenges. But it also offered innovative opportunities; one, in fact, changed his life. As a high school freshman, Motley entered the fledgling Upward Bound program, which placed him on the University of Pittsburgh campus. The mentoring and college prep he received there reinforced a message he had heard often from his mother, that education was the key to success. Motley listened. He came to Boston in the mid-’70s and earned two degrees at Northeastern University—a BS and an MEd—and ultimately a PhD at Boston College, climbing the ranks of academic administration along the way. While Motley’s own career has had the kind of trajectory best tracked by NASA, he remains deeply empathetic to those whose life paths haven’t risen so steadily upward. During his convocation address, in fact, he paused for a moment to describe the importance of “renewal” in the context of university life. A college, he said, undergoes a predictable renewal each year as one class graduates and another enters. But far more important is the role that an urban public university can play in facilitating renewal among a cross-section of students who may need to suspend their academic pursuits for any number of reasons—from financial concerns to family obligations to anxiety or uncertainty or even fear regarding their own capabilities. By remaining a “I can’t remember a time,” says Motley, “when someone didn’t have their arms around me, wanting me to succeed.” welcoming and accommodating presence in the lives of such students, Motley argues, the student-centered, urban public university becomes “potentially the most powerful agent of social and cultural change” imaginable. While Motley remains deeply committed to the philosophical underpinnings of an urban, public university, he is also quick to acknowledge that UMass Boston must act quickly on both tactical and strategic matters. As he says, talk of “values and vision” has to be complemented by a frank look at pressing matters of “bricks and mortar.” He quotes former University of California president Clark Kerr, who once remarked that, “I have sometimes thought of the modern university as a series of individual faculty entrepreneurs held together by a common grievance over parking,” and adds that what was a solid laugh line for Kerr is for Motley a very serious matter. He pledges to lead a “methodical and consistent effort” to address problems in the university’s physical facilities, which include not only widespread deterioration of the substructures under campus buildings but also a need for better classrooms, laboratory technology, and IT systems. There is a certain irony in the school’s infrastructure woes, for even as it labors to literally reposition itself on its foundation, Motley says that it’s critical for UMass Boston to also reposition its academic offerings, emphasizing interdisciplinary studies and the development of a broader skill set among all graduates. The ability to “observe, reason, criticize, analyze, understand and act upon information from increasingly diverse sources” is fundamental to creating graduates who can take their places as fully involved citizens in society. And that role of “citizen,” Motley makes clear, goes well beyond doing one’s minimum civic duty as a taxpayer and occasional voter. Motley believes that the essence of citizenship is engagement, and to be fully engaged in society requires not only the inclination and interest, but “the knowledge, technological skills, and conceptual and theoretical breadth to identify, predict, broker, or solve challenges.” No one can accuse Motley of setting an example he himself does not follow. His list of civic and volunteer commitments and achievements is vast and amply demonstrates that his view of academic life is anything but Ivory Tower. In fact, while many leaders routinely tout an “open-door policy” as part of their management style, few pledge it with as much enthusiasm as Motley. A key part of that policy will be a continuing focus on n umass boston

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of UMass Boston - Winter/Spring 2007-2008

UMass Boston - Winter/Spring 2007-2008 Contents U News Values and Vision, Bricks and Mortar An Inauguration to Remember An Expedition to Iceland An American Original Reciprocal Dedication About Alumni Alumni Calendar A Report on Private Giving Generous Friends

UMass Boston - Winter/Spring 2007-2008

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