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UMass Boston Beacons

University of Massachusetts Boston
UMASSBOSTON ID blue.v2.png
Type Public
Established 1852 Boston State College
1964 UMass Boston
Endowment $78.9 million (2015)
Chancellor J. Keith Motley
President Marty Meehan
Provost Winston E. Langley
Deputy Chancellor Barry Mills
(Chief Operating Officer)
Academic staff
1,243 (2016)
Students 16,847 (2016)
Undergraduates 12,847 (2016)
Postgraduates 4,000 (2016)
Location Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
42°18′48″N 71°02′18″W / 42.313432°N 71.038445°W / 42.313432; -71.038445Coordinates: 42°18′48″N 71°02′18″W / 42.313432°N 71.038445°W / 42.313432; -71.038445
Campus Urban, 175 acres (0.7 km²)
Newspaper The Mass Media
Colors      UMass Boston Blue
     White
Athletics NCAA Division IIILittle East, ECAC East
Nickname Beacons
Mascot Bobby Beacon
Affiliations UMass System
APLU
AAC&U
AASCU
Urban 13/GCU
CUMU
Website umb.edu
University rankings
National
Forbes 525
U.S. News & World Report 220
Washington Monthly 210
Global
QS 551-600
U.S. News & World Report 553

The University of Massachusetts Boston, also known as UMass Boston, is an urban public research university and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Massachusetts system.

The university is on 177 acres (0.72 km2) on the Columbia Point peninsula in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. UMass Boston is the only public university in Boston. Students are primarily from Massachusetts but some are from other parts of the U.S. or different countries.

The University of Massachusetts Boston was established by vote of the state legislature in 1964. Freshman classes started for 1,227 undergraduate students in September 1965 at a renovated building in the Park Square area of downtown Boston. The Founding Day Convocation was held December 10, 1966, at the Prudential Center in Boston. John W. Ryan was installed as the university's first chancellor. UMass Boston is part of the Greater Boston Urban Education Collaborative, In 1982 it merged with Boston State College (est. 1852).

In 1974, it opened its new campus at the Columbia Point peninsula on Dorchester Bay. The university originally occupied five buildings: McCormack Hall, Wheatley Hall, the Science Center, Healey Library, and the Quinn Administration Building.

The original Harbor Campus buildings were said to have had sparse and unattractive interiors, with odd mazes of hallways; the campus was known as "the fortress" or "the prison" colloquially. They were rumored to have been designed by architects who were primarily familiar with prisons, although the library was designed by the Chicago modernist architect Harry Mohr Weese. At one point in his career, Weese designed the Metropolitan Correction Center in Chicago.

McKee-Berger-Mansueto, Inc. (MBM), the company contracted to supervise construction of the campus, came under fire after its contract with the Commonwealth was criticized in a series of newspaper articles for being abnormally favorable towards MBM. A special legislative committee was formed to investigative the contract. A scandal erupted after it was learned MBM paid State Senators Joseph DiCarlo and Ronald MacKenzie $40,000 in exchange for a favorable report from the committee. DiCarlo and MacKenzie were convicted of extortion.


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