Marcellette G. Williams was Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2001-2002.
This is an archive of the Chancellor's Web site during her tenure.



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Marcellette G. Williams
Chancellor
Professor of English and
Comparative Literature

University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

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on the Amherst Campus

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A Partnership Reborn; A Dream Renewed

Alumni Reunion Breakfast Remarks
June 8, 2002

It's good to be together with family. You are part of a big family, you know, a family of many generations, many nationalities, many colors, and many accomplishments. When I greeted the incoming class of students this past September, I welcomed them into the UMass family and now, as I prepare to conclude my service at the University, I am delighted to be here with you, as representatives of our grand and expansive clan.

Understanding ourselves as a family is partly a metaphor, but more deeply, it is a reality at the heart of our educational mission. I believe we live and learn most fully in relationship and that we discover the fullness of ourselves as members of a larger family of belonging.

Over the past year, I have been deeply impressed by so many instances in which members of the UMass family have responded to that spirit of belonging. It's been a hard year. We've lost colleagues and friends in the tragedy of September 11; we needed to lay-off 95 employees due to the budget crisis in the Commonwealth; and many more colleagues will be departing this month under various early retirement options.

But amid this loss, the UMass family has demonstrated the habit of turning toward each other. When it would have been easy to fall into despair, we have learned to ask: what can we do to help each other? What can we do now, in order to make things right?

We are a family that believes in touching each other, quite literally. You know that for babies and adults to thrive, they require touch. At the end of my remarks today, I will ask you to touch someone next to you, and to find out, in a way that you didn't know before, how you are connected.

This morning, I want you to know that I am deeply grateful to each of you, for all you've done for the family--in ways visible and invisible. Many of you contribute in direct ways, especially through financial gifts. But many more of you contribute in other ways: by attending retirement parties for a favorite professor, by helping new grads make connections for their first job; by helping someone who was layed-off find a new job; by saying a good word about UMass in your conversations with friends; and most of all, by simply thinking of us from time to time, by sharing your good will and good wishes. It is these subtle ways in which we support each other that bind us as a family.

In difficult times, we need each other more than ever. And at this juncture, we certainly face difficult times.

As many of you may have read in the newspapers or the most recent issue of UMass Magazine, this year has brought extraordinary financial challenges. In January, we faced more than $16 M in cuts for the current fiscal year. Many painful decisions had to be made. Because our main expense is in compensation, we've had to take a long, hard look at every unit, every program on campus to determine if we could continue doing what we've done in the past. In some cases, we decided that we could not, and cuts were made. More cuts may come, although in light of fiscal uncertainties in the state, we still don't know what steps may be necessary to balance the budget for the impending fiscal year.

But rather than dwelling on the details of this challenge today, I'd like to take a few steps back, to place this situation within a larger historical context. When we see the University from that perspective, we see it as a place of deep resilience and enduring promise.

Early on, the institution struggled financially, as it attempted to gain support from a sometimes disinterested state legislature. The Commonwealth, while affirming the importance of higher education for its citizens, was reluctant to pay for it. In 1878, President William S. Clark pointed out that "The principal objection to the College arises from the fact that money is required for its proper maintenance."

Although he was frustrated by the lack of state support for the new institution, President Clark did not let that be the final word. Clark saw the college of his day as a "grand experiment" that could accomplish "a vast amount of good" for the people of the Commonwealth. Even without adequate support, the experiment would go on.

In 1879, following Clark's departure, the General Court agreed to pay off the debts which the College had accumulated in its early days, but it refused the College any state funding. Thus, the College's budget was limited to its own revenues, with the provision that the trustees were to be held personally liable for any deficits. To balance the budget that year, the trustees eliminated compensation for the President. Charles Flint was elected to serve as the President, without a salary.

Fortunately, for the Presidents and Chancellors that would follow, that was a short-lived policy! What it demonstrates, though, is the intense commitment that our family has always felt toward this institution throughout its history. The importance of our mission transcends any momentary financial setback.

With Clark, I believe we have accomplished, and will continue to accomplish, a vast amount of good. Some 75% of our students come from Massachusetts, and in almost as large a percentage, they stay and contribute to the Commonwealth. The University contributes mightily to the tax base and intellectual base of the Commonwealth.

And the people of Massachusetts know this. They knew it in 1880, when an unsuccessful proposal that the state abandon its college aroused the "latent friendship and sympathies" of the public. Writing in his annual report of 1881, President Levi Stockbridge made a remarkable observation about this event:

This effort to settle, or unsettle, the status of the College, resulted in giving it strength. And it may be reasonable to conclude that just this struggle was required to permanently establish its relations to the State, and to show that there must be a union of public and private duty and responsibility, if it would attain the highest prosperity and usefulness.

With Stockbridge, my reading of our history is one of great resilience. By now, our importance to the state is long established, yet in each generation we find ourselves engaged in a familiar struggle–a struggle by which we renew what Stockbridge called "the union of public and private duty" and thereby renew our strength to meet the demands of our time.

Today we find ourselves with another historic opportunity to renew the "union of public and private duty." Over the coming years, by welding individual passion to an awakened public commitment, this university, and all the dreams it represents, will be built anew.

In terms of physical infrastructure, we anticipate the opening in September of the Harold Alfond Management Center in the Eugene Isenberg School of Management. This $16 M facility will feature new classrooms, state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities, student service resources, research centers, a computer lab, and a student center. I invite you all to visit soon!

On the other end of campus, the College of Engineering recently broke ground on its Engineering Lab II, a facility which will provide much-needed lab space for faculty and students in chemical engineering and civil and environmental engineering, departments at the forefront of applied research nationally.

New buildings are vital to our mission of research and service in the land-grant tradition. Yet the rebuilding we look toward is ultimately less about the physical infrastructure than it is about the human infrastructure of this campus. Some 500-600 (?) employees–faculty and staff–will be retiring in the coming weeks. Many of those people are the very ones who built the university–you will find their names printed on the covers of textbooks and etched in the memories of countless alums.

We cannot deny that, without them, the University will be different and, in some ways, diminished. Yet this time of change opens, I believe, an unprecedented opportunity for partnership. The "union of public and private duty" is all the more essential–we need each other; we belong to each other in ways we must embrace and celebrate as never before.

As all good families know, we need each other to thrive, especially in difficult times. The level of internal reflection caused by the current budgetary crises has reminded us of our interdependence and provided a new opportunity to invite our alumni, the business community, and leaders throughout the Commonwealth into a new partnership for the renewal of the dreams this University embodies.

One manifestation of a fresh spirit of partnership is our Executive Conference Center and Alumni House. Over the past year, in consultation with consulting firms and many constituencies, the university has consolidated plans to create a hybrid facility to house the conference center, an alumni center, and a training facility for students in the highly ranked Hotel, Restaurant, and Travel Administration program.

Although plans have not been finalized, we envision the alumni center as a gathering place for alumni when they return to campus. The vision includes providing a welcoming living room with a fireplace and overstuffed chairs. The Alumni House will also include small conference rooms, an athletic hall of fame, a communications center, a small library, and a patio for outdoor gatherings. It will share a banquet room and large meeting spaces with the other centers.

While realizing synergies from shared spaces and functions, we imagine the Executive Conference Center and Alumni House as a new home for the extended UMass family, a meeting place for alums, prospective students, friends of the University, and community leaders. The facility will be a place for the renewal of relationships, a living room that will enable us to know each other better, and build new connections as we reach toward the future together.

I'd like to leave you with a brief vignette. It's part of a much larger story, a story which continues to unfold in my life. On a visit to South Africa not long ago, through a series of fortuitous events, I came to meet Ahmed Kathrada. You may never have heard of Ahmed Kathrada, but you most certainly have heard of one of his prison-mates on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela. Kathrada and Mandela spent more than 20 years on Robben Island, waiting for their freedom and the freedom of their people.

On a visit to South Africa nearly two years ago now, I was with a group of higher education leaders from the US. Our group was talking with Kathrada, and one person asked if all those years in prison had made him angry or embittered. Kathrada looked at the person and responded without hesitation. "Those are negative emotions;" he said, "we have a country to build."

During this challenging time for the University, we have much to learn from Kathrada's response. We have a University to build. We have a dream to renew. Negative emotions will only hold us back and separate us from each other.

We have a University to build. We need each other.

We have a dream to renew. We need each other.

Now, knowing that, and knowing we are a family, I invite you to open your hands and touch someone at your table. Find out who they are; find out something new about what connects you.

And thank you for being a contributing member of the UMass family.

Dr. Marcellette G. Williams
Chancellor