Strengthening Our Community Connections

On a gray, windy, and rainy day last month, I saw signs of spring at the University of Massachusetts Boston, as elected officials, UMass President Robert Caret, members of the Board of Trustees, and our campus community joined me to break ground on the newest state-of-the-art academic building to be constructed on our campus.

When it is completed in 2015, this new building will house teaching laboratories, studio space and recital venues for the fine and performing arts, a theater, study and lounge areas, a café, and 26 classrooms. The building will follow the opening in fall 2014 of a new Integrated Sciences Complex, which will provide classroom, laboratory, and research space for our students and faculty.

What these buildings mean to our community is nothing less than the fulfillment of a promise we made to our students, faculty, and staff to provide them with facilities that match their talent and potential. They are steel-and-concrete symbols of our continuing growth and ever-increasing excellence.

Now is a wonderful time to join the community of nearly 16,000 students and more than 1,000 faculty members at UMass Boston.

If you’re planning for college, or know someone who is, I’d like to remind you that UMass Boston’s application deadline for new freshmen is April 1. (The deadline for transfer students, excluding some programs, is June 15.) And if you’ve applied and been accepted already—congratulations!—our annual Welcome Day for accepted students will be held on April 6 at our Campus Center.

Our students choose from among 67 bachelor’s programs and 15 undergraduate certificate programs, 44 master’s and 19 doctoral degrees, and 41 graduate certificate programs. They finance their education with the $141 million in financial aid that we award each year, including $48 million in waivers and grants, and the recently implemented Boston City Scholarship, which awards $1,000 each year to Boston Public Schools graduates who achieved a 3.0 GPA or higher in high school and maintain it at UMass Boston.

And to build their own bright futures, they take advantage of our stellar faculty, our small classes, the opportunities we provide for internships and hands-on research, our rapid development, and our commitment to diversity and access.

I hope you will become part of the buzz on campus. To learn more about applying to UMass Boston, visit umb.edu/admissions or call us at 617.287.6000.