Becker's Johnson calls UMass appointment 'greatest joy'

Photo | WBJ | File Robert Johnson

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By State House News Service

Robert Johnson became emotional as he addressed the University of Massachusetts Board of Trustees on Tuesday morning, just after having been appointed as the first African-American chancellor of UMass-Dartmouth.

"This is an honor for me for a number of reasons, most importantly my dad. When I was a young boy, he used to talk about the University of Massachusetts," Johnson told the board. "And the greatest joy in my life was when I called him last night and told him I was coming here."

Johnson, the president at Becker College in Worcester, was chosen Tuesday as the next chancellor of UMass-Dartmouth by a unanimous vote of the Board of Trustees. Addressing the board after its vote, Johnson promised "to leave the place better than the way I found it."

"UMass-Dartmouth, the best is yet to come. It's possible," he said. "Any organization, any entity out there, that thinks that we're not going to step up to the plate and make a difference on the South Coast, well, I've got news for you. It's possible. We're going to do great things down there with the help of everybody."

Johnson said UMass-Dartmouth has both "a lot of opportunity and a lot of runway in front of us," but Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Manning suggested before the board's vote Tuesday that opportunity and time may not be enough to revitalize the former Southeastern Massachusetts University.

"The Dartmouth campus's mission is very critical to the South Coast and as you walk around and look at all the campuses of UMass, it just pops that it's the campus that has not had resources invested," Manning said. "I think what we need to do as a board is to assist the new chancellor by making some strategic investments in deferred maintenance and making the place attractive and a place where students want to go to school."

One of the problems with UMass-Dartmouth is an enrollment issue, Manning said, exacerbated by campus buildings and facilities that are not on the same level as those on other UMass campuses.

While enrollment across the five-campus UMass system shot up 27 percent over the past decade, the trend has differed at UMass-Dartmouth. System-wide enrollment surpassed the 74,000 mark for the first time in 2016, and university officials have described their system as "one of the fastest-growing universities, public or private, in the nation."

But at UMass-Dartmouth, enrollment has decreased each of the last two years, leaving the school with slightly fewer students last fall -- 8,716 -- than in the fall of 2006, when enrollment stood at 8,756.

"We will be asking the trustees, once we get together a strategic plan for the Dartmouth campus and we have our financial house in order, to raise some debt and maybe go to the governor and ask him for help to put some money into the Dartmouth campus and fix some of the structural problems that exist there," Manning said. "In order for Dartmouth to be successful -- which we really want it to be -- that investment needs to be made."

UMass President Marty Meehan praised Johnson as "an accomplished, visionary leader with an entrepreneurial spirit and a proven commitment to student success" who has the skills necessary to see UMass-Dartmouth through a revival.

"He's a change agent and he has the ability, I believe, to inspire the UMass-Dartmouth community," Meehan said. "Having met with Dr. Johnson and discussed his vision for UMass-Dartmouth, I am extremely confident in his ability to confront challenges and to set the campus on a path for new heights."