The UMass President’s Office, helmed by UMass President Marty Meehan, provides leadership, financial management, and oversight to the university and its campuses, spearheads joint academic and financial initiatives, and provides shared services in order to drive maximum efficiency and effectiveness on behalf of our 75,000 students.
The UMass President’s Office has more than 300 employees across two offices in Boston and Westborough.
President Marty Meehan
Marty Meehan is the first undergraduate alumnus to lead the five-campus University of Massachusetts system. On July 1, 2015, he became the university’s 27th president after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and as chancellor of UMass Lowell.
Meehan has an abiding belief in public higher education’s power to transform lives. At his presidential inauguration on Nov. 12, 2015, Meehan pledged to fight for UMass, which he called “the most important institution in Massachusetts in the critical areas of social mobility and economic growth.”
Under President Meehan’s leadership, the University of Massachusetts has continued to break records and excel in its mission.
In the past year, UMass has reached record highs in university-funded financial aid, endowment growth, and research funding. President Meehan also embarked on an ambitious expansion of the UMass Early College program and established an innovative scholarship program for Massachusetts community college students who plan to attend UMass.
Affordability and accessibility
President Meehan has long been a champion for affordability and accessibility. Under his leadership, UMass has made record investments into university-funded financial aid, increasing it by $173 million, or 73 percent, to a new high of $409 million since he became UMass President in 2015. President Meehan also recently announced that all four undergraduate campuses will fully cover the costs of tuition and mandatory fees for students coming from households earning $75,000 or less per year through a combination of federal, state and university aid.
Early College
Early college programs allow high school students to earn transferable college credits for free, with some students earning up to two years’ worth of college credits before they graduate high school. Since the launch of the UMass early college programs in Fall 2022, the number of students served has continued to grow considerably. President Meehan announced plans to triple Early College enrollment to 2,000 in five years at his 2024 State of the University Address.
Community College Partnerships
Massachusetts community colleges are the single-largest source of UMass transfer students, accounting for 44 percent of all transfers. Now, with the launch of MassEducate - which provides free community college to all residents of Massachusetts - President Meehan has directed the University of Massachusetts to double-down on our commitment to these students. That is one of the reasons that he launched the UMass Community College Advantage Scholarship last year, which provides at least $10,000 in scholarships to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class at a Massachusetts community college and transfer to a UMass campus.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility
President Meehan believes deeply that the UMass student body and its leadership must authentically reflect the diversity of our state. Under his leadership, UMass has become increasingly successful at recruiting, retaining, and graduating students from underrepresented backgrounds, and 50% of this year's incoming class are students of color. President Meehan also established an expanded UMass President’s Office Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Team. Diverse supplier spending at UMass has also risen to more than $100 million, doubling as a percentage and in real dollars over the last five years.
Sustainability
All five UMass campuses have made a collective commitment to be “good stewards of resources” including not only fiscal resources but also a commitment to be environmentally responsible in their areas. Each campus' programs and services work to help UMass, as a whole, become a more sustainable entity.