Up in one of the rooms of the Division of Student Affairs, there’s the beginning of a small forest. Potted plants of all kinds line the office windowsill, from which the plaza and students walking to and from classes can be seen.

And in the center of the Quinn Building’s third floor office sits the new vice chancellor of student affairs, Dr. J. Keith Motley, with a height of six feet and eight inches and a vigorous handshake that can knock you off balance.

As the door closes behind him, the Division of Student Affairs can be seen and heard bustling with new activity and what seems like renewed vigor.

“We’re starting to come together,” he says, laughing about the plants. “But you know, it’s temporary, because I’ll be over at the other building, the campus center.”

Across town and several train stops over at Northeastern University, where Motley was Dean of Student Services before coming to UMass Boston, Associate Dean Anthony Bajdek said it was a “great loss” for them, predicting that Motley has a “great career ahead of him.”

Bajdek has known Motley since he came to Northeastern as a student and watched as he steadily rose to the position of administrator over the course of more than thirty years.

“UMass Boston couldn’t have found a better fit, a better person,” said Bajdek. Motley is “the only right person as far as I’m concerned,” because of the urban university’s diversity.

“It started just like this,” Motley said of Northeastern. “Same problems. No green space that you could see, places like this that were open and not used appropriately,” he said, pointing to the oft-empty plaza. “Cigarette butts all over the place. You know, little things that I’ve noticed. But we’ll clean those up.”

Motley’s departure came as a shock to many in the Northeastern community. “They just assumed he’d be here,” said Bajdek. “For him, this is a great, great, great jump.”

Even though he loves Northeastern, where he graduated in 1978, where he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1999, and to which he still maintains ties (his son goes there), Motley saw the vice chancellorship as an opportunity to grow as a professional.

“I’m part of a group called the Millennium Leadership Initiative, which is a group to help folks who they think have the potential to become presidents get there,” he said.

“That’s out of Washington D.C. and sponsored by the Association of State Colleges and Universities. And what happened was I knew that I had to move to a vice presidential or vice chancellor’s level somewhere to be able to achieve my aspirations of both leading a division and then moving on at some point to become a college chancellor or a college vice president.”

Motley had previously looked at a vice chancellorship at University of Illinois in Chicago, but his and his family’s hearts were in this area.

He became interested when he heard of an opening at UMass Boston because it had a mission that he felt resonated with him. When he met Chancellor Jo Ann Gora, he got “extremely interested,” he says. Conversations with her went by quickly and made him feel like he could make a contribution. “It was sort of like talking to somebody who had been thinking about what you had been thinking about, but was saying it to you as if they were reading your mind,” he said. “I feel very fortunate to have gotten this opportunity to come here and be a part of this senior leadership team.”

Chancellor Gora says she is delighted to have Vice Chancellor Motley. “He’s only been here a few weeks, but he has already re-energized the staff and come forward with really good ideas on how to improve communications, programs, student services, and how to increase the communications between students and the student affairs staff, and I think that’s very important. I like the way he walks around campus, I like the way he engages students, I like the way he reaches out to students to give him input, seeks their advice. I think he’s going to do a great job.”

Students and quality service are at the top of the agenda for Motley. “My first act is to really get to know how much is really going on here. I don’t want to come in here making any assumptions. What I’ve done so far is: I’ve come on campus, I’ve met with my leadership team, I’ve had advances with them instead of retreats. I don’t believe in retreating,” he said. He knew that organizationally, he had to put in place an organization that offered quality services to students. “I don’t care what you do, that’s at the top of your list.”

Those who saw Motley’s having spent an entire life at Northeastern as a hindrance should be placated by the long resumé the vice chancellor wields. He serves on the board of trustees for Newbury College, has received disaster training from the Red Cross, serves on the Volunteers for American Red Cross board of trustees, and founded a Roxbury prepatory charter school, on top of serving as an Associate Dean/Director for both the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute and the Office of Minority Affairs at Northeastern.

“I’ve served on national boards and done national work,” he said. “I wasn’t just sitting at Northeastern playing tiddlywinks. I used Boston as my ground for growth.”

Motley has been seen walking and talking with students on Wheatley Hall’s fourth floor in Student Life, something that many are quick to point out that the previous dean of student affairs rarely ever did. Dean Stephanie Janey stepped down last November, reportedly because she butted heads with Chancellor Gora. Assistant Dean Angeline Lopes was filling in as interim dean until Motley stepped in this summer, following a nation wide search that yielded candidates from New York and Indiana, as well as Massachusetts’ own Framingham State College.

Student government officials have already heaped praise on the new vice chancellor. Omar Bukhari, the student trustee, said that it has been “great working with him.”

“At least somebody cares about working for students, apart from the chancellor,” he said.

Student Senate President Tuan Pham, who participated in interviews with all the vice chancellor candidates, agreed, saying, “Dr. Motley is such a refreshing figure on campus. He does what all administrators must do but most do not – work for the students. He has my one hundred percent support.”

“He was my first choice of the candidates,” says Nancy Derby, co-editor of The Watermark, UMass Boston’s literary journal, and who also participated in student sit-downs with the candidates. “The reason I liked him was because he was much more authoritative than the other candidates. He wasn’t out there to be the administration’s friend.”

“The students recruited me to come,” summarized Motley. “That’s what I’m in it for. That’s what makes me feel good.”