(Editor’s note: This is the sixth installment in an occasional series of interviews with the region’s new wave of higher education leaders.)
Mark Fuller acknowledges the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth isn’t big, particularly when compared with the state university system’s flagship Amherst campus in western Massachusetts.
In fact, the UMass Dartmouth chancellor sees its size as a big plus.
“We are one of the smallest public research institutions in the country,” Fuller said of the Dartmouth campus of more than 7,000 students. “And I think that creates an intimacy that’s a little different from some of our partners” in the UMass system.
He can speak with some authority about the matter. Before stepping into his leading role at Dartmouth in January 2021 – initially on an interim basis – Fuller, 62, led the UMass business school in Amherst. Now he sees no lack of opportunity in UMass Dartmouth’s potential to provide students with the tools they need to curb rising education expenses, while in turn invigorating the local economy.
Apparently, others see opportunity, too. Fuller says admission applications are at a three-year high and research expenditures are on the rise, too.
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GETTING AN EDUCATION: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Chancellor Mark Fuller acknowledges he didn’t know too much about UMass Dartmouth when he was serving as dean of the UMass business school in Amherst. More than a year after taking the chancellor position, he knows much more. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO[/caption]
Did you always know you wanted to be an educator, and eventually a university leader? My brothers and I were the first in our family to go to college, so like maybe many people do, you head off to university and look at traditional options, like being a doctor. I studied biology and chemistry as an undergraduate, and I was working my way through school, trying to help out the family. We didn’t have tremendous means, which is how I ended up in public higher education. The process was one of discovery for me as I worked my way through college.
My pathway was really not preplanned in any way. It was really people influencing me throughout my life that tracked me into that, and it’s obviously been a great choice and a great career for me because as a first-generation college student, I know the impact education has on people’s lives. So it’s really a passion as much as it is a job for me.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing higher education today, and what needs to be done to overcome this obstacle? One of the challenges is the changing demographics of the nation, fewer people graduating from high school, etc. Fifty percent of our population is first-generation college students, over 40% are Pell [Grant]-eligible students, so many of them aren’t familiar with the transformative effect that college can have. So one of the challenges we have, that other institutions have as well, is telling people about the value proposition of higher education.
Students have changed with many of the social issues we face now, with the pandemic, that may not have been there a few years ago, so we have to be prepared to provide the coaching, the mental health, the counseling, that infrastructure that helps mold a student into being successful throughout their college career and beyond.
UMass Dartmouth has steadily raised its academic profile in recent years, including being designated a National Center for Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity in 2020. How do you see a still small, relatively isolated state school continuing to build on that progress in the coming decade?
I view the location as a strength. Many people do not want to be in a city center to get their college education – I think UMass Amherst is a perfect example of that in the western part of the state. I think the other thing that’s unique about us is that we’re one of the smaller public research institutions in the nation. Most research schools tend to be larger than this – 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 students. We’re more in the range of 7,000 students. So it’s a nice balance of accessibility and still being a public research university.
Another unique thing about UMass Dartmouth is we have the full gamut of not only the liberal arts, which are strong here, but we also have the School of Law, the College of Nursing, the College of Engineering, all of those professional degree programs. Those are all here, as opposed to a small liberal arts school, which may not have the same breadth of programs that we have.
[caption id="attachment_406866" align="alignright" width="300"]
GAINING MOMENTUM
The number of research grants awarded to the University of
Massachusetts Dartmouth over the last five years peaked in fiscal 2018
at 280, but university officials say the total dollar amount of grants
remained nearly level, then climbed in 2021 because
UMass Dartmouth has been able to garner larger awards.[/caption]
What are the biggest challenges facing UMass Dartmouth, and how do you plan to address them? In a way, I think we’re a little bit unknown in the system. Having spent 12 years at UMass Amherst, the flagship, you sort of think of this smaller school that’s down on the south coast. So I believe part of what we have to do is tell our story because it’s a powerful story. We have the only school of marine science, and we have the unique capabilities to look at coastal economies, renewable industry, the fishing industry, coastal tourism. We’re at the heart of that, in addition to those other professional programs. We need to emphasize and differentiate and show the quality here, and I think we’re starting to do that, and we’re starting to see results with the applications we’re experiencing now.
What do you see as the role of the UMass Dartmouth Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and how has this evolved over the course of the pandemic? What services does the center offer to students and startups? The individuals involved in the CIE, many of whom are graduates or students, adapted [to pandemic measures] just as entrepreneurs always do and are back there now in their workshops, designing new ways to study the ocean or designing 3D printing to create tiny parts of certain devices. The CIE is a great place for students to get hands-on learning experiences, and I look forward to increasing those experiences because it’s part of our DNA, especially in the areas of engineering and the blue economy. Those areas have really started to emerge along the south coast, and we’re going to play a key role in those developments.
How has the number of startups served by the center trended over the past several years, and what are some of the companies that stand out to you that recently went through or are currently working with the center? We have a waiting list for the space in the center, so there’s more demand than we have space to offer. One company that stands out is the L3 OceanServer [Inc.]. They build autonomous underwater vehicles for the military and commercial research applications.
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FACETIME: University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Chancellor Mark Fuller, second from the right at the table in the foreground, attends a gathering to recognize the successes of research faculty members at the university in April. / COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS DARTMOUTH[/caption]
The university has emphasized involvement with the blue economy. How do you plan to continue facilitating ties with this sector? We’re always designing new programs to address this, but we have people in key positions in the university who are working, for example, with renewable energy companies and trying to meet their needs. Because of the type of institution we are, we are a vital piece for the blue economy development. You need jobs along the whole spectrum. You need research looking at the impact of offshore wind. We do that. You need people studying soil along coastal economies. We do that. You need people who are looking at new ways to generate renewable energies or supply chain issues. We have people who do that.
Prior to your move to UMass Dartmouth, you worked at UMass Amherst for over a decade. Does this move within the system change your previous administrative approach? If so, how and why? I was able to enact what I like to think of as positive, persistent change [at the UMass Amherst Isenberg School of Management], so really trying to move the institution forward. We did that through honing our academic programs, our student services, working on the brand. And in a way, many of those same activities are what we’re involved with now [at UMass Dartmouth]. So I think in many cases there are similarities. Obviously, the scale is bigger because it’s a university, though the Isenberg School had around 5,000 students when I left. UMass Dartmouth is about 7,000 or 8,000, so the number of students is not that dissimilar. However, the variety of academic programs we have here obviously dwarfs what one college has. But a lot of the same issues are being addressed.
As the chair and dean of the UMass Amherst Isenberg School for much of that tenure, how will your experience leading business programs influence your approach to UMass Dartmouth offerings? We always need to be looking at the market. Where are the new, emerging jobs coming in, in STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] disciplines, computer science, game design? So we have to be externally looking, then we design our academic programs to try to put our students in the best possible position to meet those. We’re also seeing an increased number of students who are coming back to school, so we’re designing not just master’s-based programs for those folks but also certificate degrees, programs that can allow people to upscale very quickly.
In what ways did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the university, and how have these changes evolved throughout the course of the pandemic? Taking over this job in the midst of a pandemic, it’s amazing how every challenge seems to be novel. We had a vaccination requirement to attend and really followed the science. If infection rates rose, we tightened down the interactions or put indoor mask requirements in place. As the pandemic waned, we would loosen the requirements to try to give students the full experience they expected of college. There is no particular formula because the virus changes, but we always try to follow the Mass. Board of Health and be at least that conservative, and sometimes more.
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THE GREETER: Chancellor Mark Fuller, second from the right, chats with the family of a first-year student as they move items into a dorm on the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus in September 2021. / COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS DARTMOUTH[/caption]
At this stage in the pandemic, many universities are attempting to strike a balance between rapidly shifting public health policies, with restrictions rolling back in many areas, and managing periodic surges as new COVID-19 variants arise. What is your approach to handling guidance and regulations at this point? We meet regularly as a university, and especially our Pandemic Emergency Response Team, to continually analyze infection rates on campus, trace where those infections are coming from and follow appropriate isolation protocols. A silver lining of this horrific pandemic is we’re much better equipped to operate remotely, so if we have to do remote classes, some remote meetings for a short period of time, we can do that very effectively. Technology doesn’t solve all problems. There is a true richness to the experiences that happen in the classroom, so whenever possible, our goal is to provide the richest environment for that social and academic learning. But we want to keep people safe, so we’re vigilant.
How is the university addressing affordability barriers to higher education in a part of the state where income levels traditionally lag other parts of the UMass system, and as tuition rises across the UMass system? Public research universities have always been a high-value option for students and families. Do students leave with a level of student debt? Yes, but nowhere near the student debt that would often accumulate in a private institution. Then what we try to do is to counteract that with good jobs. Ninety-seven percent of our graduates have jobs or are in grad school within six months of graduation, and their average salary might be $50,000. But the high-end jobs, in many cases such as in the engineering and computer science fields, exceed $100,000. Our advancement team is also constantly working on getting more scholarships for students.
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Voghel@PBN.com.