THE HOGAN YEARS: - University of Massachusetts Lowell

CoverStory
“He didn’t have to do that. As a
working person, I really respected that.”
By September 1991, two years into
the recession, when Gov. William
Weld signed the bill that would give
birth to the five-campus UMass system,
it had almost become a matter of
joining forces in order to survive.
But the chancellor envisioned something
brighter than survival. The new
merger, he wrote, would offer students
“one broad comprehensive research
university [to] support the entire
spectrum of intellectual, academic,
scientific and professional programs,
giving students an opportunity to
pick from a wide array and a high level
of quality…”
Soon after came Michael Hooker’s
challenge. Already by then, though,
the first building blocks were in place:
the Council for Regional and Industrial
Development, to centralize research
resources toward the goal of economic
growth; the Institute for Plastics Innovation,
the first research center in the
U.S. dedicated solely to plastics technology.
Later would come the Center
for Advanced Materials, the Center for
Health Promotions, the Center for
Family, Work and Community, TURI,
RESD and half a dozen more.
“Bill Hogan, despite all the economic
problems and budget constraints, took
this campus and made it into a worldclass
research university,” says UMass
Lowell Provost John Wooding, who
worked closely with the Chancellor
during the final three years of his time
here. “He gave us a mission—economic
development—and a vision through
which to achieve it—the land-grant
tradition of service to the community.
And then he applied his will and
applied his focus, and made that
mission happen.
“His vision was built around [the
University’s] technical and engineering
strengths. But he understood, through
9.
9. The Chancellor sharing some laughs over lunch, with, from left, History Prof. Mary Blewett,
and Joyce Denning and Dean Bergeron, professors emeriti.
it all, that that imperative would be
fruitless without a robust social structure—that
the community as a whole,
with all its needs and problems, was far
too complex to approach with simple
technical solutions.
Dr. Hogan with his granddaughter,
Ella Tomaino, a perennial presence in the
Chancellor’s office in Cumnock Hall.
“That was Bill Hogan’s great
strength—the articulation of this
vision in focused and precise terms.”
There are two types of university
chancellors, says Interim Chancellor
MacKenzie:
“There are the coordinators, who
hold things together, who make sure
the system works—and those are valuable
functions. And then there are
the actual leaders. William Hogan
was a leader. He took charge. He had
visions, and he found ways to make
them work.
“I think this was how the Board [of
Trustees] viewed him—as being a leader,
as having a sort of CEO mentality—
and it was why they respected him so
much. He was a force. Not only for
the University, but for the region as
a whole.”
The recession of the early ’90s came
and went. Well before the turn of the
millennia, both the University and
the region were again solidly on their
feet—and William Hogan, by then
approaching his seventies, was once
again redirecting his focus. The
Tsongas Center, a joint venture with
the city, had been completed in 1998;
four years later came the campus recreation
center, a gleaming, state-of-theart,
$20 million facility that added
incalculably to the University’s drawing
power. Then, earlier this year, came the
In honor of his 25 years of leadership, the University community has created the
William T. Hogan Endowed Scholarship Fund, which will provide financial support for
students from the City of Lowell and the Merrimack Valley. Those interested in contributing
to this fund may call Danielle Covert at (978) 934-2218 or e-mail her at
Danielle_Covert@uml.edu for additional information.
20 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE WINTER 2007