For the Times: Health Equity

At the height of the 1960s civil rights movement, UMass Boston was founded to democratize access to higher education. Today we are embarking on a new 10-year strategic planfor the university that enhances and expands our long-held values ofacademic and research excellence, upward mobility, and socialenlightenment and leadership. The plan will enable our students toflourish as engaged citizens, accomplished professionals, civic leaders,and members of the global family working for the common good. As partof our efforts to advance research and scholarship that transforms, wehave identified four topic areas of focus: health, climate, justice, andeducation. How do we know we can make a difference in the key issues of the times? Because—as you’ll see in the following pages—we already are.

An extraordinary $15 million donation from two UMass alumni will transform UMass Boston’s commitment to fighting inequities in health and health care workers. The goal: better health care for all.

High school sweethearts Robert and Donna Manning grew up in Methuen in the late 1970s. Commuting from their hometown to classes at UMass Lowell, they were the first in their families to complete college.

After receiving her nursing degree in 1985, Donna began a career as an oncology nurse at Boston Medical Center, where she was known for her dedication to patients. As Robert rose through the ranks at MFS Investment Management in Boston to become chief executive and chairman of the board, Donna began donating back her salary to support the hospital.

Thirty-five years of nursing at the largest safety-net hospital in New England have given Donna deep insight into the challenges of urban nursing and the imbalanced health outcomes experienced by impoverished patients and patients of color.

“For the majority of my career in Boston, I was struck by the fact that most of the nurses looked like me while most of the patients didn’t,” she said. “I have seen first-hand how diversity in the nursing workforce can improve patient care and address health inequities.”

With Robert, Donna is a philanthropist as well as a nurse. The Mannings have contributed more than $11 million to UMass Lowell and the UMass system, of which Robert is the chairman of the Board of Trustees. So in fall 2021, they decided to tackle the health inequities they saw with a stunning $15 million dollar gift to the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at UMass Boston.

THE MANNING COLLEGE OF NURSING AND HEALTH SCIENCES

Their gift—the first piece of a historic $50 million donation to the five campuses across the University of Massachusetts system—endows the newly renamed Robert and Donna Manning College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

The gift is “transformational,” said UMass Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, noting that it will serve to “foster a culture of healing and health equity in Boston and beyond. It will enable UMass Boston to take the education of the next generation of nurses nobly serving as caregivers to the next level of excellence and engagement.”

The goal is for Manning College graduates to excel not just in scientific expertise, Suárez-Orozco noted, but also in “the humane heart, the empathy, and cultural awareness that define caregiving in its truest sense.”

A NEW LEADER

“Totally, totally transformational” echoed the college’s new dean, Bo Fernhall, a renowned scholar who studies exercise physiology, especially for people with disabilities. “It’s huge.”

With Greater Boston’s only four-year public programs in nursing and exercise and health sciences, the Manning College’s ultimate purpose must be to improve the health of the community, the city of Boston, and the state, Fernhall said. So the college is focused on “providing access to an excellent education for our talented students, addressing health inequities, and making new discoveries leading to improved health and quality of life.”

“The Mannings’ vision for this gift is to create a more diverse workforce, who are going to take better care of

the patients and provide better care to the community. The gift is there to strengthen our programs so that we can improve our already high-quality programs, graduate more students, and do whatever we can to contribute to exceptionally prepared health professionals entering the workforce.”

Fernhall came to UMass Boston in August after spending 11 years serving as dean for the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago. There, under his collaborative and team-oriented approach, the college added five new academic programs, nearly doubled undergraduate enrollment, and increased overall enrollment by 50 percent—all while diversifying the student body in significant ways. As a result of his efforts, the reputation of the College of Applied Health Sciences shot up, with eight academic programs nationally ranked in the top 10—and four of those in the top five.

Now he is eager to see the Manning College make similar advances.

“I want our college to be recognized as the best in New England—and beyond,” Fernhall said. “We want to provide the public health workforce for the City of Boston and for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We want to provide more students to enter the workforce in fields that are truly needed—there’s a huge need for all these students once they graduate. We want to increase our research in the health sciences, which is extremely important because it’s going to help people.”

FRESH FOCUS ON URBAN PUBLIC HEALTH

One key step is the creation of a new Department of Urban Public Health at the college. Its goal: to prepare students for jobs in the public health field that are uniquely focused on improving the health of diverse urban populations. Starting fall 2023, students will be able to declare BA and BS majors in urban public health, focusing on urban populations, the social determinants of health, and health equity challenges across the lifespan.

The new degree programs come just in time: More than two-thirds of the world population is predicted to be living in urban areas by 2050, according to the United Nations. Communicable diseases spread quickly in urban settings, which have greater exposure to pollutants, allergens, and toxicity. Chronic and behavioral health issues are also more prevalent than in less densely populated areas.

“For these reasons, among others, there is a significant burgeoning need for highly skilled diverse professionals and thousands of new job opportunities will emerge in public health and related fields,” said UMass Boston Provost Joseph Berger, calling the forthcoming graduates “the future leaders in the full range of health care agencies and organizations.”

These degrees will prepare students for a wide range of careers: state and local health departments, non-governmental organizations, health care organizations, the private sector, and federal agencies, said Rosanna DeMarco, associate provost at the Manning College.

“The urban public health department will be a leader in educating students to be innovative thinkers, strategizing to find public health solutions to the enduring problems of health inequity in diverse urban populations in our state and beyond,” she said.

Donna and Robert Manning

"I HAVE SEEN FIRST-HAND HOW DIVERSITY IN THE WORKFORCE CAN IMPROVE PATIENT CARE AND ADDRESS HEALTH INEQUITIES.”

REACHING FARTHER TOGETHER

The Mannings’ gift will also allow the college to expand its footprint in the community, Fernhall said. “We want to grow that footprint. We want to be a permanent fixture in our community, to serve the community in meaningful ways.”

His next step, the new dean said, is to work with the donors and the college’s faculty, staff, and students to identify specific goals and develop programming and resources. He’s very inspired. “Our ability to reach our goal is going to be so greatly enhanced because of this gift. It is going to allow us to get there much, much faster, and to be more influential, to have a greater reach.”

“UMass Boston plays a critical role in supporting diversity in Boston,” Donna said. “We look forward to actively working with the college on these important goals.”

As Robert told The Boston Globe, “We don’t want to die with a lot of money in the bank. We want to see the impact on students and faculty while we’re alive.”