1970s board game Mystery Date

Remember that game, ‘Mystery Date,’ we used to play in the early 1970s? It was a board game that had a little white door in the center and you never knew until the very end who your date was going to be.  Until you opened that door. Well my job in advancement recently allowed me to play my adult version of Mystery Date. Sort of.

Don’t worry. I’m happily married.

We decided that it would be interesting to figure out why some alumni decide to say “yes” to a phonathon call or letter, slightly out-of-the-blue. So Kelly Westerhouse, director of the UMass Boston Fund, pulled some excel spread sheets for me of “first-time” donors from four colleges.

Four alumni who decided to say "Yes"

I scanned the lists and just randomly started phoning alumni to see if I could get to the stories about why they decided to support UMass Boston.  After some initial conversations, I went to meet my “dates” visiting their homes or workplaces to get to know them. It was a total coincidence that they all happened to be male!

I went to Arlington and Somerville to meet graduates of the College of Science and Mathematics and College of Education and Human Development and to Quincy and Charlestown to meet alumni from the Colleges of Management and Liberal Arts. I returned from each interview convinced that the “real-ness” of a UMass Boston education was the common denominator that motivated all of them to make a gift.

These alumni gave not only because they received an excellent education, that was obvious in all four reports. The feeling that put them into the “yes” category was that  they believe that the university’s diverse community and deep relationships with the local community has prepared them exceptionally well for the professional challenges they now confront.

They all remember the exact moment when they made the decision. Jonathan Spath ’01, a master’s degree holder from the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD), was standing on his front porch in Somerville. The middle school math teacher recalls taking a phone call from a UMass Boston student asking him to make a gift in support of the university. Dave Novak ’10, a newly minted College of Science and Mathematics master’s graduate, was watching the news when he took a similar call. Ervin Cobo ’03, ’08, College of Management, and Frederick Laskey ’79, College of Liberal Arts, both responded to a letter in the mail.

The motivation to say “yes” was different in each case, but in 2011 these four alumni decided to make a gift to the UMass Boston Fund for the first time.

Jonathan Spath says that after years of building his career in the Boston Public Schools he recognized the significance of the “real-world” education he received at CEHD. Looking back, he views his teaching vocation—particularly his rewarding experiences at Fenway High and the McCormack Schools—as central to his development as a person.

The Northwestern University alumnus appreciates the range of perspectives and prior experiences of his UMass Boston classmates. “My undergraduate education, while great, was  more philosophical than practical,” Spath points out. UMass Boston, he says, provided the grounding he needed to teach successfully in the challenging context of urban schools. “I finally felt in a position to give back to a place that helped pave the way for me,” says Spath, recalling the spring evening he made his first gift to the Fund.

Dave Novak, a career changer and Vietnam veteran, says, “How could I not give back to a place that has guided me to an exciting future, blending my greatest passions?” In 2010, the 64-year-old received a master’s degree in marine science and technology, which he will use to combine a lifelong concern for protecting the ocean environment and his prior professional experience in adult education.

The benefits of alumni association membership were what motivated Novak to give, but his desire to support UMass Boston was about much more. UMass Boston gave him the solid start he needed to pursue his dream—first as he took preparatory courses in physics and advanced math, then when he engaged in formal graduate studies in marine science. “With the support of the Veterans Affairs Office,” Novak says, “I took advantage of UMass Boston’s fine faculty, library resources, ocean science research centers, and rich connections with the UMass system.”

Ervin Cobo said “no” at first. “I was less mature then, back in 2003, right after I earned my undergraduate degree in finance,” he says. When the UMass Boston student caller asked for his support, he continues, he had not “put together” what the university had done for him or for his wife, Kaltra Kamberi ’03, ’07, also a two-time College of Management graduate.

Immigrants from Albania, Cobo and Kamberi work for EMD Shared Services, a subsidiary of Merck KgA, and Fidelity Investments, respectively. “When I answered the phone last spring, I felt differently,” Cobo says. He now sees that the rigorous instruction he and his wife received in their degree programs has been instrumental to their success.

Cobo believes that great universities are not just born. Referring to the legion of strong private universities in Boston, he says that they became great because alumni and others believed in their promise, saw their potential, and chose to support them.

One word sums up why Frederick Laskey decided to make his gift: “quality.” The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) executive director traces his success in public service back to the quality education he received at UMass Boston and a State House internship that the university facilitated for him. “The opportunity to do legislative research as an undergraduate offered a precious real-world experience,” he says, adding that it launched his career. His UMass Boston education is constantly put to the test, he adds, especially when the drinking water system is in any way threatened.

“The university served a vital niche in the education marketplace when I was a student, and it continues that tradition today,” Laskey says. Having held the top posts at both the Executive Office for Administration and Finance and the Department of Revenue before becoming head of the  MWRA, Laskey has a “bird’s-eye view” of our state’s need for a highly skilled workforce. “It is critical for the Commonwealth’s future,” he says, “that we continue to provide access to first-rate higher education that will not saddle our young people with a lifetime of debt.”

After a little retro “Mystery Date,” I’m more convinced than ever that the people behind that little white door, alumni from U Mass Boston,  are individuals who have been remarkably enriched by their public higher education. In turn as they leave the “game” of university studies, they are making a tremendous difference in society.

People can make charitable gifts anywhere:
here’s why your investment to public higher education “reaches  higher.”

Nan Cormier is director of advancement communications at UMass Boston.

Currently, 18 million children in the United States want and need a mentor, and three million have one.

MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership is a national organization and is working to close that “mentoring gap” so that every one of those 15 million children has a caring adult in their life.

UMass Boston is now working more closely with them to ensure an open and efficient exchange of evidence-based youth mentoring research among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, with an ultimate goal of improving the lives of the nation’s underserved youth.

MENTOR chair Willem Kooyker, Mentee Dineen Borner, and First Lady Michelle Obama at Summit.

Chancellor J. Keith Motley, PhD announced the new UMass Boston/MENTOR Research Alliance at the National Mentoring Summit on January 25. Michelle Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan were on hand to hear about this powerful new collaboration whose research director will be Professor of Psychology and globally renowned mentoring research expert, Jean Rhodes.

The generosity of the MENTOR Board of Directors has made the Alliance possible, through an initial gift to endow the MENTOR/National Mentoring Partnership Chair to be held by Rhodes. Upon this foundation UMass Boston and MENTOR will collectively work together to disseminate the most cutting edge knowledge among organizations supporting mentors.

A grateful university says thanks to MENTOR.

People can make charitable gifts anywhere:
here’s why your investment to public higher education “reaches  higher.”

Philanthropic gifts have a way of rearing their pretty little heads every now and then and that is just what  happened at UMass Boston’s Commencement a few weeks ago. In 2007 retired UMass Boston professor Joel Blair and his friend Peter Moulton made two commitments to UMass Boston, one was an an outright gift that endows travel fellowships for graduating seniors in the Honors Program and another was an estate gift that will endow the directorship of the Honors Program.

Gifts such as these quietly enrich the very fabric of daily life for UMass Boston’s students, but when Honors Program student and J.F.Kennedy award recipient Thao Xuan Do delivered her address to the thousands of guests, she highlighted the transformative role of her travel scholarship.

Thao, who plans a medical career to devote her life to national and global health problems such as theHIV/AIDS epidemic, had this to say about her recent trip to South Africa :

There were so many moments in the trip when tears and feelings could not be kept suppressed no matter how hard I tried. The trip allowed me to step outside of my environment and become fully aware of the power and the privilege associated with the groups and labels to which I belong. It also taught me an important lesson about HIV/AIDS: In order for human beings to conquer this virus, contributions across multi disciplines are required, and all the personnel involved in this fight must possess a self-motivation, leadership characteristic, and solid commitment. This trip continues to have huge impact on my outlook about life as well as my future career plan.”

Philanthropy. Most of the time it quietly, but powerfully infiltrates the hopes and dreams of UMass Boston students, but two weeks ago Thao gave us a big loud look at its ultimate force. Thank you, Thao.

“I was very lucky to end my undergraduate career with another profound experience, when I had an opportunity to travel to Cape Town in January with the University Honors Program to learn about the social, economical, and political aspects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. Growing up just outside of Saigon, Vietnam, I had witnessed many cases where young people were involved in drugs and prostitution, which led to HIV and AIDS.”

People can make charitable gifts anywhere:
here’s why your investment to public higher education “reaches  higher.”

www.umb.edu/giving

Something’s been on my mind awhile, so I’ll share it as University Advancement’s first official blog post.

About a year ago, in time for commencement, I purchased a “flip” camera at the behest of the IT department that had been badgering me about the need for more dynamic content on the university’s web site. “We need more video,” they said. Never afraid of a challenge, I brought the new camera to a special tree planting ceremony in honor of the UMass Boston Charter Class of 1969′s late president, Michael Ventresca.  Camera shaking and knuckles white trying to get the perfect stillness, I realized that the red “recording” light wasn’t lit. Ooooops. Beginner’s unluck? Fortunately, I captured some of the ceremony.

A few triumphs in a young videographer’s career later, the “flip” as it is known, became my soul mate. The stories I traditionally had word processed and illustrated with still images, were entirely lack luster next to those incorporating real live people talking about what matters to them. A new assignment surfaced: to interview a bequest donor about the motivations behind her gift for the Lampas Society (Planned Giving) Newsletter.

I didn’t think a member of the Boston State Teachers College Class of 1958 would be so hot on new media or have any willingness to be a part of the YouTube generation, no matter how excited I was about my new toy and its power to make stories palpable.  But I  wanted desperately to video tape the donor, Mary T. Mroz and so tucked my flip and a small tripod in my briefcase.

All bets were off when I arrived at her Burlington ranch and she answered the door in her pink bathrobe and slippers. O.k., this is going to be a traditional interview. That’s o.k. I saw her plastic covered Corona typewriter on her desk. No, there was no “high-tech” here. “I’ll stick to the notepad.”

But as we started talking over the plate of Italian biscotti she had set out she told me remarkable stories about her Italian immigrant family’s gas station in North Cambridge and how, were it not for Boston State, she would have begun and ended her career there.  But instead, through the gift of education she received for about $200 a semester, Mary fell in love with learning and devoted her life to the Cambridge Public Schools for over 40 years as a teacher and principal. She mentored generations of students from all walks by igniting in them a passion for education.

I’d bitten into only half of a biscotti and I was almost in tears. This was too good. These stories too powerful. “I have got to get this on video!,” I said to myself. So I found the courage to ask, — and Mary’s one of those tough love types — “I have this little video camera in my bag . . . would you mind if I filmed our conversation . . . what you are saying is so interesting and I’d love to make a movie. “A movie,” she guffawed. At least I tried, I thought. “Well I’m hardly dressed for that,” she said as she got up to get changed. Five minutes later, with red lipstick and a sweater to match (and a string of pearls), Mary was ready for the movies.

Our recorded conversation stretched into nearly two hours — until my batteries died — and we talked about her life of service to the kids of Cambridge and how the values instilled in her at Boston State Teachers College fueled the charisma she injected into her teaching through both the tough and triumphing times. A passion for learning, respect for all persons, and a sense of humor got her through and got through to generations of kids.

Returning home to the university , I made a video of Mary, finding it hard to choose the best parts, but ultimately proud of my creation which was made for Reflecting Possibility, University Advancement’s Report for 2010.  Eager to share it with Mary, I decided to wait until I returned from a long awaited trip to Paris. But when I got home it was too late. My colleague shared that Mary  was found dead in her home the day earlier.

Stunned, I thought, wow. I was one of the last people who talked to Mary about what really mattered to her. I was privileged to share a sunny autumn morning with her as she traversed the path of her life and reveled in her accomplishments. I was honored to see in one woman the life of service that her UMass Boston education had inspired benefitting decades of children in Cambridge. Mary is one of many Boston State Teachers College graduates — mostly women — who took the gift of education and truly made a life of it. For two precious hours I allowed Mary to deliver her own eulogy. And now we can share it with the world through film — all because I took the risk to ask, “would you mind . . .” The video– Time to Give Back: Mary T. Mroz ’58

People can make charitable gifts anywhere:
here’s why your investment to public higher education “reaches  higher.”

Nan Cormier is director of advancement communications