On Wednesday April 4, the University of Massachusetts hosted the annual Impact Reception. This event was organized by the five student trustees of UMass, including UMass Boston’s Student Trustee Gray Milkowski. Their main goal for the event was to display research and policy being studied by students on each of the University of Massachusetts campuses and show what incredible impact students have had on the economy of the Commonwealth as a whole.
Legislators and senators from around the state were invited to see the work and the impact UMass has had on the Commonwealth. The Boston campus had the best turnout out of all five campuses of the system, with almost 40 people in attendance, including Interim Chancellor Mills, Vice Chancellor Edward Lambert, McCormack Graduate School Dean David Cash, Associate Dean of Students Shelby Harris, and Sean Thompson, the newly hired director of orientation. Students from several student groups also made an appearance to the event. This included students from the Undergraduate Student Government, Graduate Student Assembly, Phi Delta Epsilon Pre-Medical Fraternity, and the Student Arts and Events Council. In total, about 75 students from all of the UMasses showed up to display their research, and 25 of those students were from UMass Boston.
UMass Boston researchers included: Nichole Wissman-Weber, who did research on how urban settings must adapt to climate change in the 21st century, using Boston as a case study; Christine San Antonio, who has done research on how climate change via ocean warming affects shell development on the American lobster, which has the potential to affect the Massachusetts lobster industry; and Bianca Ortiz-Wythe, who is doing work exploring pathways for young people of color in low income communities to find opportunities in the creative economy, using Dudley Square as a case study.
Each year, the state of Massachusetts invests over $110 million into UMass Boston and the nearly 17,000 students that come here each year. Legislators emphasized several points, such as the $1.1 billion dollars in economic activity around the Commonwealth from the Boston campus alone. UMass Boston educates students from 146 different nations around the world, 56 percent of whom are first generation. UMass Boston is host to the Venture Development Center, which has created 909 jobs in Massachusetts and has totaled $173 million in economic output. The UMass Boston College of Nursing and Health Sciences has graduated 1,564 Registered Nurses since 2004 and is the largest educator of minority nurses in the Northeast. Since 2004, the College of Nursing has contributed 2,175 jobs and over $314 million in economic output.
During the program, UMass President Martin T. Meehan made brief remarks about how imperative sate investment in UMass is and will continue to be in an age where higher education becomes more and more important for young people around the state. He was followed by Samantha Reid, the student trustee from UMass Dartmouth, who highlighted that UMass impacts not only the Commonwealth, but also on the tens of thousands of people who are impacted every day, specifically for each of the nearly 100 people in the room.
Overall, the program put on was very successful and seemed to make a high impact on the University of Massachusetts as a whole. Student Trustee Milkowski stated: “I think this was a fantastic evening. The research and statistics are one thing, but to really be able to see the enthusiasm of everyone in the room being proud of their institution is amazing. With Boston having the biggest turnout of all the campuses, I think it also speaks really well to the great things happening on Columbia Point and the excitement that comes with being the only campus in the greater Boston area.”