Ceremonial passing of the gavel takes place
The final meeting of the House of Delegates for the 2011-12
association year took place at the University of Massachusetts
Boston on May 17. Among the business at the meeting, the delegation
voted to accept a report from the MBA's Task Force on Law, the
Economy and Underemployment entitled "Beginning the Conversation."
Delegates also heard from Massachusetts Judges Conference on a
long-overdue salary increase proposal for members of the bench. The
meeting concluded with the ceremonial passing of the gavel from MBA
President Richard P. Campbell to MBA President-elect Robert L.
Holloway Jr.
Eric Parker and Radha Natarajan, co-chairs of the Task Force on
Law, the Economy and Underemployment, summarized the comprehensive
report put together by the 14-member group that first met last
fall. Delegates voted to accept the report -- "Beginning the
Conversation" -- that explores the causes of and potential
solutions for the underemployment of recent law school graduates in
Massachusetts. To read the full report, click here.
The Hon. James Collins, president of the Massachusetts Judges
Conference, was on hand to address the MBA HOD on the topic of
judicial compensation. HOD voted to endorse the plea of the MJC in
implementing the recommendations of the Advisory Board on
Compensation for Honorable Judicial Salaries (a.k.a. Guzzi
Commission) issued in 2008. Currently, according to the National
Center for State Courts, the 2011 salaries of the Massachusetts
judiciary ranked 47th among its national peers after
accounting for cost of living.
Collins was joined by the Hon. Peter W. Agnes Jr. of the Appeals
Court and the Hon. Thomas C. Horgan from the Boston Municipal
Court. According to Agnes, judicial salaries only account for 1.8
percent of the state budget.
Following Agnes, Professor Andrew Kaufman, presented on behalf
of the MBA Ethics Committee. Delegates voted to approve the three
opinions presented. These included:
- an opinion involving client consent related to the reporting of
misrepresentation to the Board of Bar Overseers by a peer
attorney;
- an opinion related to the distinction between the Massachusetts
Rules of Professional Conduct and ethics rules of a tribal court
relative to a contingent fee agreement in a tribal lands personal
injury case; and
- an opinion about the electronic storage of confidential client
information using an Internet-based platform.
For more comprehensive summaries or full text of the opinions
described above, click here.
Immediate Past President Denise Squillante announced the 2012-13
Nominating Committee Report. Aside from Robert L. Holloway Jr.
automatically succeeding to the officer of president on Sept. 1,
2012, the 2012-13 officers, regional delegates and at-large
delegates are listed below.
Officers:
President-elect: Douglas K. Sheff
Vice President: Robert W. Harnais
Vice President: Christopher P. Sullivan
Treasurer: Marsha V. Kazarosian
Secretary: Martha Rush O'Mara
Regional Delegates include Michael I. Flores, Scott D. Peterson,
Miriam H. Babin, Veronica J. Fenton, Kyle R. Guelcher, Donald R.
Bumiller, Walter A. Costello Jr., Timothy V. Dooling, Lee J.
Gartenberg, Patricia A. Metzer, Alan Klevan, David A. DeLuca,
Denise I. Murphy, Catherine E. Reuben, Kenneth B. Walton, Paul E.
White, Christopher A. Kenney and James G. Reardon Jr.
At-large delegates include Anthony J. Benedetti, Stephen Y.
Chow, Francis J. Riccio, Gloria Tan, Alice B. Braunstein, Radha
Natarajan and Michael P. Sams.
HOD also approved the appointments of Kyle R. Guelcher, Roy A.
Hammer, Denise Squillante and Richard P. Campbell as MBA Delegates
to the American Bar Association HOD.
Delegates then carried a motion to support the Initial
Discovery Protocols for Employment Cases Alleging Adverse
Actions to be used by individual judges across the country in
a pilot program. Protocols provide a new pretrial procedure
(creating a new category of information to be exchanged by parties)
for certain types for federal employment cases. Individual judges
throughout the United States District Courts will pilot test the
protocols and the Federal Judicial Center will evaluate their
effect.
HOD members also voted to send a letter to the Supreme Judicial
Court stressing the MBA's concerns over proposed amendments to Rule
12 and 29 of the Massachusetts Roles of Criminal Procedure. As
explained in the proposed letter by the Criminal Justice Section
Council, "The MBA believes that the proposed amendments are
unnecessary and has concerns about the unintended consequences they
will have on plea negotiations, the role of judges in sentencing
and the fair and efficient case management of cases."
The meeting came to a close with the ceremonial passing of the
gavel. Campbell handed over the gavel to Holloway, who Campbell
described as a "true consensus builder and team player." Holloway,
who begins his term as president on September 1, 2012, accepted the
gavel and pointed to the successes of Campbell's term. "I'm
extraordinarily honored," said Holloway.
Delegates were greeted by UMass Boston Provost Winston Langley,
who also offered some remarks about the public university. "Our
goal is to be the best public research university in this country
with urban roots," he said (see related sidebar article).
Currently, UMass Boston enrolls 16,000 students annually; however,
according to Langley, by 2025, it aims to grow its student body to
25,000.
May 17 marked the last official HOD gathering for the 2011-12
association year.
Provost Langley welcomes delegates to UMass Boston campus
The following greeting was provided by University of Massachusetts
Boston Provost Winston Langley to the MBA House of Delegates prior
to its business meeting on May 17.
Good afternoon, and thank you for having me in your midst. Before
I begin a few comments to you, please allow me to recognize
President Dick Campbell, who is one of UMass Boston's most
distinguished alumni, and to thank him for his service as a
University trustee and member of the UMass Building Authority, and
the UMass Boston Board of Visitors. We also want to recognize his
leadership in taking the initiative to host this year's
Massachusetts Bar Association House of Delegates meeting at each
of the campuses and to provide an opportunity for members to learn
about the university, and for us to learn about you.
Welcome to all of you -- welcome to the University of
Massachusetts Boston, Boston's only public research
university.
UMass Boston is a public research university with a dynamic
culture of teaching and learning, and a special commitment to urban
and global engagement. Our vibrant, multi-cultural educational
environment encourages our broadly diverse campus community to
thrive and succeed. Our distinguished scholarship, dedicated
teaching, and engaged public service are mutually reinforcing,
creating new knowledge while serving the public good of our city,
our commonwealth, our nation and our world.
UMass Boston is the second-largest campus in the UMass system;
has nearly 16,000 students and 900 faculty members; 50 percent of
undergraduates are first generation college students; it is
nationally recognized as a model of excellence for urban public
universities; and eight colleges and graduate schools offer over
150 academic programs for undergraduates, graduate and non-degree
seeking students.
What distinguishes our teaching and learning environment is that
we are a research university with a teaching soul. UMass Boston
combines a student-centered education in small classrooms with the
vast resources of a major research university.
With more than 30 research centers and institutes, UMass
Boston contributes substantially to public policy discussion and
formulation in such areas as economic development, social
well-being, environmental affairs and health care.
The 2012 edition of the Princeton Review recognized the
university as one of the nation's Top 25 "Best Value" public
colleges and universities in the country. UMass Boston is the
only public college or university in Massachusetts named to
the list.
With regard to the university's strategic plan, we envision a
university with:
● 25,000 students who will receive an
education that prepares them to succeed in a
transnational world;
●
Firmly committed to teaching modest-income and first- generation
students from urban areas;
●
Residence halls;
●
Faculty pursue deeply engaged research, teaching, and service;
and
●
External research funding has increased by at least 300 percent,
enabling university to rise within the Carnegie Foundation's
Research/high ranking.
Our overall ambition is to have achieved national standing and an
international imprint comparable to the best public urban
universities in the country.
Between 2010 and 2011, university planners have been engaged in a
long-term strategic planning process, releasing their report last
year. University administrators are now implementing a new
strategic plan to realize this vision.
Our strategic goals consist of:
● Advance student success and development;
●
Enrich and expand academic programs and research;
●
Improve the learning, teaching, and working environment;
●
Establish a financial resources model consistent with the
university's vision statement; and
●
Develop an infrastructure supportive of the preceding goals.
With that in mind, the university also holds itself to a master
plan to be realized by 2025. UMass Boston's 25-year Master Plan is
the physical realization of the university's strategic vision:
becoming a model student-centered, urban public research
university of the 21st century. The recommendations of this bold
and innovative master plan serve as a flexible blueprint and
framework for a campus infrastructure and landscape that reflects
UMass Boston's highest academic ambitions, its urban mission, and
its commitment to enhancing the student experience and improving
connections with its neighbors.
Plans call for renovating and redeveloping the Columbia Point
campus with new academic facilities, improvements to existing
space, residence halls, green spaces, parking garages, new
roadways, and pedestrian and bicycle pathways.
Phase One through 2017 calls for more than $500 million in new
facilities and infrastructure construction on the campus including
the following priority projects:
●
Integrated Sciences Complex;
●
General Academic Building (No. 1);
● Space
Allocation Plan; and
●
Utility Corridor and Roadway Relocation.
Regarding the Integrated Sciences Complex, UMass Boston broke
ground in June 2011 and the complex is scheduled for opening in
Fall 2013. This will serve as the first new academic building on
campus in nearly 40 years. The complex is a $155 million structure
funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the UMass Building
Authority, and MassDevelopment. The structure includes 220,00 gross
square feet of space featuring:
●
Research lab and support space (for biology, chemistry,
environmental sciences, physics, and psychology);
●
Undergraduate introductory biology teaching laboratories;
●
Interdisciplinary undergraduate sandbox teaching lab;
●
Infant cognition lab;
● The
Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy - a collaborative
initiative of the University's partnership with Dana-Farber;
and
● The
Developmental Science Research Center.
We'll break ground on the General Academic Building # 1 later this
year. It will serve a large cross-representation of students,
faculty, and staff through diverse programming that includes
state-of-the-art general purpose classrooms, specialized teaching
and performance spaces, faculty and staff offices, a café, and
student lounge and study spaces.
Additionally, in spring 2011, construction began on Edward M.
Kennedy Institute for the Study of the U.S. Senate, situated on
land owned by UMass Boston.
And, in May 2010, UMass Boston, in conjunction with the University
of Massachusetts Building Authority, purchased the 20-acre Bayside
Exposition Center site, which is located a half-mile from the main
campus. It offers great potential for future redevelopment.
In the near term, UMass Boston will use the Bayside site to:
●
Support construction of the new academic buildings;
●
Replace faculty, staff, and student parking lost to construction;
and
●
Provide staging space for construction workers.
In the long term, UMass Boston is working with the city of Boston,
the state, neighbors, and the surrounding communities to develop a
plan that furthers the university's mission, realizes the potential
of the site, stimulates economic activity, creates jobs, and
brings greater activity and opportunity to Columbia Point and the
region.
The university convened 11 charrettes in 2011 for the purpose of
gathering input into the planning process from a cross-section of
stakeholders including members of the university community,
representatives from the public and private sector, and experts in
education, development, and government. Meetings generated a wide
variety of suggestions for land use, programmatic, and urban
designs. Reports from these meetings are available on the
university web site.
We should thank you, for your work -- as you use your judicial
thinking to wrestle with the many conflicting interests of groups
and individuals in our society, although as I understand it, you
are not being well compensated. Higher education, also, often takes
a backseat, although we do not want to compare our experience to
your. But we might want to pursue some joint efforts.
Research universities are not the sign of knowledge accumulation;
of information transmission; or even the sites of thinking -- this
is done by many other forums. What we do is to think in a manner
characteristic of disciplines. We think philosophically,
mathematically, historically. In order for you to do your work, you
must think judicially. What we do here is to provide students with
a universe of the modes of thinking. As we educate students we
should endeavor, as you do, to help them to think judicially, also,
so that we can, together, help in the renewal of societies.
Welcome to campus and to the activities of the afternoon.