UMass Lowell Unveils Award-Winning Coburn Hall

10/01/2021

Contact for media: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu

LOWELL, Mass. – UMass Lowell Wednesday celebrated the reopening of Coburn Hall, the oldest academic building on campus reborn through a nationally acclaimed $47 million restoration, renovation and expansion project. 

The building, which dates to the 1890s, was constructed as the Lowell Normal School, one of UMass Lowell’s predecessor institutions, which was founded to train teachers for the growing mill city during the American Industrial Revolution. Now, Coburn Hall returns to and advances its mission preparing teachers for their careers as the home of UMass Lowell’s School of Education. The building also includes academic classrooms and laboratories for faculty and students in UMass Lowell’s Psychology Department, along with other meeting and community spaces.

Planned as part of the celebration of UMass Lowell’s 125th anniversary, the Coburn Hall renovation was completed in 2020 but the building’s official reopening was delayed due to the pandemic. Financing for the project was made possible through the UMass Building Authority and a state deferred maintenance grant, with $1 million in private donations to UMass Lowell’s recently concluded “Our Legacy, Our Place” campaign, which raised $165 million for the university, surpassing its original goal of $125 million.

The building has already been recognized with an American School and University Award for outstanding design of a renovation/modernization project and is also pursuing a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Joining in today’s celebration were university, state and local leaders; students, faculty and staff; and alumni and other donors who helped make the new Coburn Hall a reality. 

“At UMass Lowell, education is at the heart of everything we do and Coburn Hall is the anchor of who we are,” UMass Lowell Chancellor Jacquie Moloney told the crowd. “I’m so proud so many of you are here with us to see this magnificently restored building that now includes cutting-edge classrooms and technologies alongside historic artworks and architecture, all to enhance our students’ experience and enrich our engagement in the greater Lowell community.” 

Among the event’s guests were local K-12 school superintendents, many of whom are UMass Lowell School of Education graduates. Moloney is one such graduate, who as a “double River Hawk” took classes in Coburn Hall while working toward her bachelor’s degree in sociology and went on to earn a doctorate from the UMass Lowell School of Education. In July, Moloney announced she would step down as the university’s chancellor at the end of the academic year to return to a first love – teaching – and will do so in Coburn Hall. 

“Whether the Lowell Normal School in 1894 or UMass Lowell today, the tie to this city and this region has always been inseparable from this university’s mission. Coburn Hall was the birthplace of that mission,” said UMass President Marty Meehan, a UMass Lowell graduate who, as chancellor of UMass Lowell from 2007 to 2015, appointed Moloney as executive vice chancellor and worked with her to transform the institution into a national powerhouse. 

The rebirth of Coburn Hall is the latest measure of UMass Lowell’s success. Designed in the high Beaux Arts style by architects Frederick Stickney and William Austin, the building opened its doors in 1897. Leading Coburn Hall’s renewal project was CBT, the Boston firm known for its inventive approach to historic preservation. The firm restored the building to its full architectural glory while creating modern, collaborative spaces, including a light-filled, 15,000-square-foot addition to a reconfigured structure than now totals almost 79,000 square feet. 

New building features include a makerspace, a design and discovery center, a model classroom where aspiring educators can learn their craft, seminar rooms and laboratories where psychology faculty members can conduct collaborative research on topics ranging from autism spectrum disorder to women’s health and stress. 

“A restored Coburn Hall gives us state-of-the art teaching facilities and allows us to continue pushing forward scholarship and practice in the fields of education and psychology,” said UMass Lowell’s Luis Falcon, dean of the College of Fine Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, which includes the School of Education and Psychology Department. 

One jewel among the refurbished spaces is a ballroom that includes a remarkable Works Progress Administration-era mural that was painted in the 1930s but had been covered under coats of beige paint since the 1980s. Rediscovered in 2015 by UMass Lowell Art Prof. Marie Frank, the mural’s restoration emerged as a priority in the Coburn Hall project. Leading that effort was Gianfranco Pocobene, the chief conservator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, who worked painstakingly to uncover and repair the mural, which depicts iconic scenes of the city of Lowell and its people. 

“In the 1890s, when Frederick Stickney designed the original blueprints of what we now call Coburn Hall, he had no idea of the legacy he was creating and the teachers he was paving the way for. In the building he designed, young women and men are now training to become teachers – even during a global pandemic – working to bring love and inclusion to those who need it the most,” said UMass Lowell student Michael Aloisi, an education major from Townsend who is the president of the university’s chapter of the Student Education Association and a member of the School of Education’s advisory board. 

Several UMass Lowell alumni and friends provided generous support to the project. 

“It is a proud moment for UMass Lowell to open the doors once again to Coburn Hall – 123 years young, rich in history and bursting with promise as the center for educational impact,” said UMass Lowell alumna Joan Marchessault, a 2000 graduate who holds a doctorate in leadership in schooling. The co-founder and principal of Strategic Leadership Group Inc. in New Castle, N.H., Marchessault serves on the Chancellor’s Advisory Council and was recognized during the event with the unveiling of Coburn Hall’s new Marchessault Family Doctoral Suite Foyer.

Showcased during the event was a wall engraved with the names of donors, while still other contributors were recognized with the unveiling of other building spaces named in their honor. They included:

• The Marchessault Family Doctoral Suite Foyer;
• The Riley Classroom in loving memory of Philip F. Riley ’86;
• The Raguin Design and Discovery Center;
• The FitzPatrick Family Conference Room;
• The Lanseigne-Case Classroom;
• The Dean’s Suite Pierson Foyer;
• The Dean Bergeron and Joyce Denning Classroom;
• The Krysiak Meeting Room; 
• The Meyer Study Group Room;
• The Olson Faculty Office.

UMass Lowell is a national research university offering its students bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, humanities, sciences and social sciences. UMass Lowell delivers high-quality educational programs and personal attention from leading faculty and staff, all of which prepare graduates to be leaders in their communities and around the globe. www.uml.edu