Rosenberg named Senate majority leader

State Senate President Therese Murray last week named alumnus Stan Rosenberg to the No. 2 spot on her leadership team, tapping the longtime Amherst Democrat as majority leader.

 

Since 2003, Rosenberg has served as president pro tem of the Senate, the first senator in the state’s history to hold the leadership position. He previously held several other leadership posts, including four years as assistant majority leader and three years as the first western Massachusetts legislator to chair the Senate Committee on Ways and Means.

 

“As a stalwart advocate for UMass Amherst and public higher education, Stan has been a valuable ally for our campus,” said Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy. “His breadth of experience, insight and his commitment to the residents of Massachusetts will serve him well as majority leader. I congratulate him on this well-deserved honor.”  

 

In recent years, Rosenberg served as Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Redistricting and was a key lawmaker in efforts to expand gambling in the state. In January, he became “dean of the Senate,” an honorary title accorded the longest-serving member of the upper chamber. Rosenberg has been a senator since 1991.

 

An ardent supporter of public higher education, Rosenberg served as co-chair of the Senate’s Task Force on Public Higher Education, a seven-member panel charged with outlining a comprehensive multiyear strategy to address shortfalls in the Commonwealth’s higher education system. In early 2005, the task force published its report, “Investing in our Future,” which lays the groundwork for positioning Massachusetts at the vanguard of the world’s knowledge-based economies by addressing the critical goal of wedding public higher education and high-tech job creation.

 

He is a 1977 graduate of UMass Amherst, where he worked for eight years, first as director of the Arts Extension Service and then as director of the Community Development and Human Service programs in the Division of Continuing Education.