UMass FALL 2008 VOLUME 11 NUMBER 3 MAGAZINE Online Progr ams Boo st ‘Phenomenal’ Gro wt h of Conti nuing S tudies Page 22 A Message from the Chancellor I am grateful for your extraordinary support during my first year as chancellor. Thanks to you, the University is abuzz with good news on many fronts and there’s a genuine feeling that UMass Lowell is on the move. Enrollment is up more than 20 percent, including a 48 percent increase in students of color. These students are benefiting in unprecedented numbers from the scholarship programs funded with your support. Our hockey team is off to a strong start again, buoyed by the incredible attendance and encouragement given by alumni and friends last year. Ambitious plans are being finalized to build two new buildings to support teaching and research, renovate existing classrooms and laboratories, and expand student housing options. But in the midst of all this good news, we have financial realities to face. The troubles of the broader economy have inevitably affected the funding we will receive from the state. As I write this letter in mid-November, we face the Governor’s 9C cuts that will reduce UMass Lowell’s budget by $4 million mid-way through the fiscal year. I have asked our senior management team to avoid across the board cuts so that we maintain momentum in meeting our core mission of teaching, research and service to the Commonwealth. To ensure that we continue to move forward, I plan to launch a strategic planning initiative, UMass Lowell 2020, this spring that will provide a framework for strategic decision making into the next decade. Our new provost, Ahmed Abdelal, and Jacqueline Moloney, executive vice chancellor, will lead the strategic planning initiative with support from our new vice chancellor for Administration, Finance, Facilities and Technology, Joanne Yestramski, our new vice chancellor for Advancement, Beth Shorr, and Chief Public Affairs Officer Patti McCafferty. I encourage you to get involved in this initiative and would appreciate your advice and guidance as we shape our plan for the future. I began by expressing my appreciation for your generosity. In fact, donors have endorsed our direction by giving in record amounts to our scholarship programs and annual fund. Your help on this journey is needed more than ever. Please consider making a gift to UMass Lowell using the envelope in this magazine or online at www.uml.edu/giveLowell. Every gift strengthens our ability to help students realize their dreams and make a lasting contribution to their communities and our world. Marty Meehan Chancellor Ta bl eofContents FALL 2008 VOLUME 11 NUMBER 3 FALL 2008 Volume 11, Number 3 Campus News Arts & Sciences . 2 The UMass Lowell Alumni 28 Education . 4 Magazine is published by: Office of Public Affairs Engineering . 5 University of Massachusetts Lowell Health . 8 One University Avenue Lowell, MA 01854 Outlook . 9 Tel. (978) 934-3223 Outreach . 13 e-mail: [email protected] People . 13 Chief Public Affairs Officer Research . 16 Patti McCafferty Athletics . 35 Director of Publications Alumni Events . 37 and Publisher Class Notes . 40 Mary Lou Hubbell Alumni News . 43 Director of Programs Calendar of Events . 45 and Alumni Services Diane Earl 32 Features Director of Regional Alumni Programming The UMass Lowell-Lawrence Pa rtnership: Deme Gys 18 Building Bridges between People, Schools and Generations Editor Jack McDonough Cover Story Staff Writers Online Programs Boost ‘Phenomenal’ Edwin Aguirre 22 Growth of Continuing Studies Christine Gillette Geoffrey Douglas Renae Lias Claffey Face of Philanthropy Sheila Eppolito In Search of ‘a Simple Concept’: Jennifer Hanson 32 He Found it, After Much Questing, Morgan Hough and Made it a Career Elizabeth James Kristen O’Reilly Features Sandra Seitz 22 Graphic Design Management Event Raises $1 Million Paul Shilale 28 LIRA Program Proves to Seniors that The University of Massachusetts Learning Never Ends Lowell is an Equal Opportunity/ 34 Affirmative Action, Title IX, H/V, ADA 1990 Employer. 18 Lowell Textile School • Massachusetts State Normal School • State Teachers College at Lowell • Lowell Textile Institute Lowell Technological Institute • Massachusetts State College at Lowell • Lowell State College • University of Lowell UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 1 CampusNews The book, “Southeast Asian Refugees and Immigrants Colleges - Arts and Sciences in the Mill City,” includes essays and studies about the Cossé Bell’s Work Airs on PBS resettlement of Southeast Asian immigrants to Lowell that began thirty years ago in response to conditions in Historically, the Faubourg Tremé Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. neighborhood adjacent to the New Orleans French Quarter was home to History Department Celebrates the most prosperous and politically Publications by ‘Excellent Scholars’ active black community in North America. Five years ago, before In the space of a year, three UMass Lowell history Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, professors have published books, demonstrating the UMass Lowell History Prof. Caryn significant abilities and achievements of the department. Cossé Bell began work as research Department Chair Joseph Lipchitz describes them as “the latest achievements of three excellent scholars who director on a film project chronicling Caryn Cossé Bell the neighborhood’s rich culture. The have multiple books to their credit.” completed documentary, “Faubourg Tremé: The Untold The authors and their books are Asst. Prof. Chad Story of Black New Orleans,” produced by Pulitzer Prize- Montrie, “Making a Living”; Assoc. Prof. Michael Pier - winning musician Wynton Marsalis and filmmakers Dawn son, “Mutiny at Fort Jackson”; and Asst. Prof. Christophe Logsdon and Lolis Elie, will appear on public broadcasting Strobel, “The Testing Grounds of Modern Empire.” stations across the country beginning in February 2009. Montrie’s book examines work as a central part of Americans’ evolving relationship with nature, highlight - ing connections between worker’s rights and the rise of environmentalism. Pierson’s latest book tells the story of a group of Confederate soldiers in Fort Jackson, New Orleans who rose up against their officers and used the fort’s heavy guns on their commanders, resulting in the surrender of the fort to Unionists. Strobel’s most recent book examines the creation of colonial “racial order” on the American and South African frontiers, comparing efforts by white people to undermine Native American and African sovereignty. The editors of “Southeast Asian Refugees and Immigrants in the Microsoft Chooses Holly Yanco’s Mill City,” are, from left, Sylvia R. Cowan of Lesley University, Lan T. Pho and Assoc. Prof. Jeffrey N. Gerson of UMass Lowell. Project for Research Funding Southeast Asian Influence and Microsoft Corp. has selected Assoc. Prof. Holly Experience Honored Yanco’s robotics project as one of eight proposals that will share $500,000 in research funding and advanced With a population of 20,000, Lowell’s Southeast Asian software applications. community is second only to that of Long Beach, Calif. The influence of this population — which numbers a fifth of the Yanco, who directs the Robotics Lab in the Computer city’s total — and its significant cultural contributions have Science Department, was selected by Microsoft from a been chronicled in a new book by author/editor Lan Pho, field of seventy-four researchers from twenty-four coun - director emerita of the Center for Diversity and Pluralism, tries. The company had requested proposals to examine and co-edited by Political Science Assoc. Prof. Jeffrey Gerson. the growing role of robots in society, from serving as human-operated tools to becoming “social” partners More than one hundred people attended a May book signing working with and alongside people. and recognition event at the Mogan Center in Lowell, includ - ing former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was UMass Lowell is sharing the funding with the honored for his work with immigrant groups. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University, 2 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 CampusNews University of California Researcher’s Work Ensures Safety Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon of Space Station Crew University, McGill Universi - ty, United Arab Emirates Dr. Ivan Galkin, head of the University and University UMass Lowell Center for Atmospheric of South Florida. Research’s Software Systems Section, has been helping NASA and Boeing, Yanco’s project, entitled the prime contractor for the Interna - “Multi-Touch Human-Robot tional Space Station (ISS), decide Interaction for Disaster whether it’s safe for astronauts to ven - Response,” came about after ture outside the Space Station, orbiting Hurricane Katrina exposed Ivan Galkin some 220 miles above the ground. technological gaps that, despite the prevalence of As the 270-ton complex travels through Earth’s tenuous satellite imagery, left many ionosphere, its huge solar-panel arrays continuously pick up emergency responders and accumulate free electrons, a process known as “spacecraft resorting to hand-drawn Assoc. Prof. Holly Yanco, right, and charging.” NASA and Boeing are concerned that when this student Amanda Courtemanche charge becomes too high, astronauts performing “spacewalks” paper maps to search for sur - demonstrate a prototype of the vivors in the aftermath of tabletop multi-touch panel display. could get zapped by the ISS, potentially damaging the the 2005 storm. Although robot cameras were in use, they astronauts’ sensitive communications