By Kathleen Moore
What is your educational and professional background?
Well, I am a proud alumni of Framingham State University for undergraduate – many years ago – but I am an alum and I have been in the finance and accounting field for corporations for a good number of years at this point in time as well.
Do you have any favorite memories from your time as a student at FSU?
I had a wonderful experience as far as that. I had some really dedicated professors and I was really pleased with the quality of the education I received from Framingham State. And as a result, when I was able to actually have some time to give back I have actually gotten more involved with campus starting in about 2004 I joined the Framingham State University Foundation board and became more involved with that. Besides my professional career, I’ve also had a lot of different experiences in the last 25 years in either management or leadership positions with many nonprofit or non-governmental organizations. I’ve been able to, especially with investments, and endowments, that I’ve been able to actually blend some of that some of that experience, first to Framingham State’s foundation, and then when I joined the trustees board, I have been able to bring that acumen to the benefit of the University.
Does your professional work aid with your role on the Board?
So, currently, right now, I have a lot of experience for corporate accounting areas. And so, certainly, accounting being the basis for a lot of what we do in the financial world – I’m certainly very savvy. But again, I’ve developed a lot of experience over the years from other work that I’ve done outside of my employer, and have been able to help as far as Framingham State, especially in the trustees, with governance, in leadership, as well as the financial aspects of being part of the Board of Trustees.
How did you get involved as a member of the Board of Trustees?
I was involved through the foundation. I had the foundation board, where I had joined and I had become the treasurer of the organization. And then I was the president for a number of years of the foundation board. And so through my work there and efforts and part of that leadership, I was asked to join the trustees to help them as far as with some of their subject matter expertise around the financial aspect. ... I’ve been on the Board of Trustees now for about seven-and-a-half years.
What do you enjoy most about serving on the Board?
I think being able to contribute my time, my energy, as far as to a worthy organization that I have find affinity for – I think that’s certainly a great motivating factor. I also like to say that the trustees are very active and interested and engaged board, and we want to make sure that the University – Framingham State and the students, primarily – benefit from their experience. So from an oversight and a governance, we want to make sure that we are taking a great fiduciary responsibility to be able to steward the organization – the University – from that oversight level, for the beneBt of the students for now and in the future.
What goals do you have for the remainder of your tenure on the Board?
So I think that right now in the interim, we’re going to have a change in the President, as you know, and so we’ve certainly been able to lead that eMort in the last 10 months. So we do have a great candidate that will be joining us on July 1, Dr. Niemi, and so we want to make sure that she’s successful, she onboards, that’s going to be more on my near term – make sure she is successful, and she’s getting all of her exposure and that overall support that we can get from the Board of Trustees – that’s going to be the initial. The other aspect is, I think that we’re – the trustees – are very interested as far as making sure that the University overcomes its short-term challenges as far as with the declining enrollment that we’re seeing because of the population drop of traditional college-age bound students. And so we want to make sure we navigate this timeframe where there’s going to be the pool that’s going to be declining and being able to make sure that we are adapting to that but also taking the lead in the future. So we want to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can to mitigate those drop off, to look at different, non-traditional candidates ... into the pool for the University, and so that’s what we’re going to be very mindful of.
What advice do you have for FSU students?
Enjoy your time – relish the experience that you’re having on campus. Framingham is certainly one of the great unsung types of higher education institutions that we have in the Greater Boston area. And that’s one thing that we’ve been able to keep the trustees of being very mindful of, that we don’t get enough credit as far as framing today. So I would say to the students: enjoy your time, and you’re going to have a great opportunity here to learn a lot of great values and underpinnings that can hopefully help you in your future endeavors.