She’s Got It

The student was sitting on a bench outside the ballroom in Coburn Hall, crouched over a laptop. Frowning at the screen, he typed furiously, his concentration broken only by the sound of footsteps making their way toward him across the lobby’s shiny tiled floor. 

As he looked up, the student’s face lit up and he waved enthusiastically. “Chancellor!” he called. “I got it! I know what I want to do. I’m going to be a special ed teacher! I got it.” 

He was alluding to a comment Julie Chen had made a few weeks prior at Convocation, the annual ceremony that welcomes the incoming class of first-year and transfer students to UMass Lowell. In her first remarks as chancellor, she had told the 2,500 students gathered in the Tsongas Center that day to use the phrase “I got it” when they see her on campus, so she knows they’re exploring new paths and pushing the boundaries of their comfort zones. 

“Your time here will be one of discovery—a time when you will figure out who you want to become and how to get there,” said Chen, who previously served as UML’s vice chancellor for research and economic development. 

As she settles into her tenure as chancellor, Chen is also in a period of discovery. 

Leading the university was not her longtime goal, she says. After earning bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering at MIT, Chen spent six years as an assistant professor at Boston University. She joined the UML faculty in 1997. 

Chen was appointed vice provost for research in 2009 and was promoted to vice chancellor in 2016. By targeting partnerships with industry, government agencies and top-tier universities, she has helped increase research expenditures by over $40 million since taking on oversight of the area. Today, research expenditures are poised to top $100 million. 

Her plan was to remain in the vice chancellor role and continue to grow the research enterprise, but when former chancellor Jacquie Moloney announced her intention to step down, Chen’s thinking shifted. 

“At first, when Chancellor Moloney asked me what I was interested in, I said, ‘Oh, no, I don’t think “chancellor” is the direction I’m going to go in,’” she says. “But the more conversations I had with her and others about the impact of that role, the more I started to change my mind. I had—and have—a lot of ideas and strong opinions on how the university can grow and succeed, and I knew I could bring value.” 

Chen knew she could bring some other things, too—including inspiration for a generation of students used to seeing a specific, and homogenous, model of a leader. As the university’s first Asian American and first LGBTQ+ chancellor—and only the second woman in the role—she feels an obligation to normalize diversity in leadership. 

“If I’m going to talk about why there should be more women in engineering, or why there should be more people of color in leadership roles, or more LGBTQ+ people at the table, then I should embrace the opportunity to represent that.” -Chancellor Julie Chen

“It’s an important piece of why I decided to apply to be chancellor,” she says. “If I’m going to talk about why there should be more women in engineering, or why there should be more people of color in leadership roles, or more LGBTQ+ people at the table, then I should embrace the opportunity to represent that. And if it makes a few more students think, ‘Hey, I could be a chancellor of a university one day,’ then that is an important part of what I can do to help the next generation.” 

And that’s just for starters. As the university wraps up its first strategic planning process since 2010, we asked Chen to talk about the priorities guiding the process—and how her background has prepared her to lead the university. 

JC: Both the city and the university are going through times of transition, and there’s a lot of opportunity to support each other. There’s no question Lowell is a vibrant Gateway City. With its many cultural, culinary and entertainment opportunities, the city is one of UML’s best assets. But it goes both ways. Most of our students stay in the region when they graduate. And not only does the university offer a gateway to a better future for local students, but UMass Lowell is also an important workforce development and innovation pipeline for numerous companies in this region. 

If we can continue to get companies interested in our students, we might also get them to relocate to, or have a presence in, Lowell. It’s a short trip from Boston to multiple smaller urban centers like Lowell. There are ways to leverage the advantages and resources of these more affordable, urban communities and their higher educational institutions to benefit companies and the commonwealth. It becomes a virtuous cycle, helping both the university and the city. 

SC: Presumably, it also helps students get valuable career experiences before they graduate. 

JC: Definitely, and that’s a very important priority for me. We have a very hands-on, experiential learning environment at UML. We’ve had a co-op program for years, and we also have what we call a co-location model, where a company has staff on campus working side by side with faculty and students. One great example is the Raytheon-UMass Lowell Research Institute, a joint facility on campus that’s focused on the advancement of innovative technologies like flexible and printed electronics. Partnerships like this help our faculty work on interesting research projects, and students have hands-on experience within the boundaries of the university itself, reducing their commuting time and expenses. 

But we really want to scale that program, and by partnering with more companies and nonprofits with offices close to campus, we can ensure that paid internships and other career-exploration experiences are available to all of our students. And I do mean all. I’m determined to make paid, career-connected experiences a component of every student’s experience here at the university, no matter what their major is. And we’re very close to that being the case. 

SC: Does research also continue to be a top priority for you? 

JC: Absolutely. We’re on the precipice of being designated what’s called a Research 1 doctoral university—or R1—by the Carnegie Classification of the nation’s leading research universities. Being in the top echelon of U.S. research universities is important to UMass Lowell’s reputation, which in turn is key to recruiting the best faculty, corporate partners and students. As an R1 university, we’ll offer students the highest levels of discovery and impact. 

SC: As you think about the challenges facing higher education right now, what keeps you up at night? 

JC: There are a few things. The first is something every university leader thinks about: enrollment. Because only about 26% of our budget is funded by the state, enrollment is critical to our revenue. So we’re watching demographics, as the number of young people will continue to decrease in coming years, and putting a real focus on reaching and appealing to prospective students in innovative and authentic ways. 

But another big challenge we’re facing is that incoming students are not as prepared as they were pre-COVID. There’s been a real dip in areas like math and analytical skills, so we are having to think about how we can help students get where they need to be, specifically within STEM majors. 

The last thing keeping me up is the mental health of our students. It’s a real crisis across the country, and addressing it will continue to be a priority for me in the coming years. We have a great team in place, and are addressing it holistically, working with students on getting enough sleep, eating right, developing great friendships, financial wellness and other tools. The message I keep relaying is that it’s not just the job of our counselors—everyone on campus, from faculty to staff to students’ peers, has to get involved and make it part of their job. 

JC: It’s very much a core to who I am. I think of everything from the perspective of being part of a team, and bringing different skill sets together to achieve something better. That mentality has been ingrained in me since my early junior high and high school years playing on teams. And sometimes, I don’t have the shot, so I’ll feed it to someone else—and celebrate when they make it. 

SC: What’s kept you at UML for so long? 

JC: The biggest thing is the sense of having an impact here. About 40% of our students are first-generation, and about the same percentage are students of color. When you interact with our students and see what an impact you have on their lives—that’s what UMass Lowell offers. Could I make more money elsewhere? Yes. But I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Our students as a whole are so bright, and so unentitled. They’re hard workers, and they care—and you just want to help them. And it may sound trite to say it, but it’s in the DNA of our faculty and staff to want to help these students be successful. We’re not the only university that does that, but it’s very much core to UML.