Few students know the president of the University of Massachusetts personally. Nonetheless, Jack M. Wilson (the 25th president of UMass) has influenced every single student since September 2nd 2003.
After over seven years of service, Wilson has decided to step down. Robert L. Caret is going to take Wilson’s place officially on June 30th this year as the new president of the University of Massachusetts school system.
“He intends to remain in Massachusetts and work more closely with students, through teaching or research in an as-yet-undetermined capacity,” Tracy Jan (the higher education reporter of the Boston Globe) wrote in an article announcing the news.
“I feel that I’ve accomplished the work I set out to do, and now is the time for a change,” he said in the interview. Although Wilson is most known for his presidency he has worked as a professor of physics, a department chair, a research center director, a dean, vice president and provost. With these experiences behind him, he is prepared to take almost any position within the UMasses.
President Wilson has accomplished a great deal during his installment as president and these accomplishments have not gone unrecognized. His pioneering projects gained not just national, but international recognition. In September of last year, for example, the UMass system was ranked 56th globally, 33rd out of the 72 US institutions recognized, 14th among the US public institutions ranked, and 4th in Massachusetts.
“This ranking is a testament to the hard work of our outstanding faculty and to the efforts of students who come to us with impressive credentials and talents and graduate prepared to change the world,” Wilson said in response to the news. He was undoubtedly happy that a sometimes stigmatized public school system was so highly regarded.
Such recognition could not have been achieved if it were not for President Wilson’s hard work. For, despite cuts in public funding (down to around 20 percent according to various estimates) overall spending has gone up – this is one of many indicators for how a college is going economically.
Since his induction, President Wilson has overseen (according to his website, www.jackmewilson.com) a tripling of the endowment (from 140 million to 457 million in June 2010.) Also, despite the cuts in capital support from taxes, there have been 1.6 billion dollars spent on various projects on the campuses (including the purchase of the Bayside Expo Center and UMB.) Almost 500 million dollars are spent annually on research alone – putting the UMass system in third, behind MIT and Harvard, for research spending.
“During his time in office, the university generated more federal research funding, intellectual property income, and donations that more than tripled its endowment,” Tracy Jan of the Globe reported in her piece.
Beyond money, the overall standards of the five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and the medical school in Worcester) have risen considerably. Student enrollment is up 15 percent (between the years of 2003 and 2009), from 57,853 to 65,923 while yearly degrees awarded upon graduation have risen 18 percent, from 10,701 to 12,630. Even the average GPA of incoming students has risen 10 percent. Spending on financial aid has gone from 36 million in 2003 to 104 million in 2010, enabling many more students who wouldn’t normally be able to afford school to enter into the UMass system.
Because he was a teacher and not merely a politician looking for a position of power, Wilson was equipped with a better understanding of students’ needs. This understanding enabled him to be an incredibly effective and compassionate president who always held the students’ best interests in mind.