Woodprofessorship - UMass Boston

Robert C. Wood Visiting Professorship in Public and Urban Affairs

About the Visiting Professorship

Each year, the Robert C. Wood Professorship brings a distinguished public leader to campus for a lecture and conversation to engage students, faculty, and community members in discussions of public policy and public service.

The Robert C. Wood Visiting Professorship in Public and Urban Affairs was established in 1998 at the now John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies. Conceived as a vehicle for bringing distinguished public leaders to lecture and engage on topics such as race, education, and government efficiency, the professorship links the scholarly pursuits of the McCormack Graduate School with practical problems and policies of the larger society. The selection of each year’s speaker is tailored to objectives developed by the McCormack Graduate School in consultation with the honoree, faculty, staff, and others.

The lectureship is named for Robert Wood, who served as president of the UMass System for seven years and was one of the nation's leading public intellectuals in the last half of the 20th century. His multifaceted career in public service also included was also a senior fellow and professor at the McCormack Institute, secretary of housing and urban development in the Lyndon Johnson administration, head of the Harvard-MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies, Superintendent of Schools in Boston, and General Manager of the MBTA. He wrote and edited several books on topics related to politics and public policy, the presidency, and local affairs.

Following is a list of the Wood Visiting Professors beginning from the program's inception. Their titles are those which they held at the time of their appointed professorship.

Wood Professorship Committee Members

Rita Kiki Edozie, Interim Dean & Professor, McCormack Graduate School
Marcy Murninghan (Chair), Senior Advisor, Outreach & Engagement, McCormack Graduate School
Christopher Graham PhD '20, Manager, Student Success & Undergraduate Advising, McCormack Graduate School
Franny Wood, Daughter of Robert Wood
Margaret (Peggy) Wood, Wife of Robert Wood
Erin O'Brien, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Liberal Arts
Timothy Cronin, MPA '22 Student, Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs
Michael Johnson, Professor, Department of Public Policy and Public Affairs
Susan Crandall, Director, Center for Social Policy

Wood Professorship Lectures

	2022 Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH is a practicing physician and renown global and national leading voice on pandemics and public health. He was in 2022 appointed the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. He is also the Dean of The School of Public Health and Professor of Health Services, Policy, and Practice at Brown University. Lecture Title: The Role of Public Service in Transitioning to a Post-COVID Era
	2021 Yamiche Alcindor is an American journalist who is the White House correspondent for the PBS NewsHour and a political contributor to NBC News and MSNBC. In the past, she has worked as a reporter for USA Today and The New York Times. Alcindor writes mainly about politics and social issues. Lecture Title: Reporting Truth Amid a Pandemic and Racial Reckoning Media Coverage: UMB News
	2020 Christiana Figueres, Former Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; Founding Partner, Global Optimism, and Convener, Mission 2020 Lecture Title: The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis in the Age of COVID-19 Media Coverage: Nature Book Review
	2018 Reuben E. Brigety, II, Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University Lecture Title: America, Heal Thyself: Political Polarization and the Rebuilding of American Soft Power Media Coverage: UMass Boston News
	2017 Peniel E. Joseph, Professor of Public Affairs and Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values at the Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas Austin Lecture Title: The Struggle for Black Dignity in the Age of Trump and the Era of Black Lives Matter Media Coverage: UMass Boston News
	2016 Maggie Hassan, Governor of New Hampshire, Daughter of Robert Wood, and Current Junior United States Senator from New Hampshire Lecture Title: What I Learned from my Father about Public Service Media Coverage: UMass Boston News
	2015 William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University Lecture Title: Reflections on Issues of Race and Class in the 21st Century: Revisiting Arguments Advanced in The Declining Significance of Race (1978) Media Coverage: UMass Boston News
	Spring 2014 Paul Grogan, President and CEO of The Boston Foundation Lecture Title: Where Boston Can Lead: The Urban Education Crisis and What To Do About It Media Coverage: UMass Boston News
	Fall 2014 Garrison Nelson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont and Author of John W. McCormack, A Political Biography Lecture Title: Promises Kept: John McCormack, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid Media Coverage: UMass Boston News
	2013 Shelley Metzenbaum, Associate Director for Performance and Personnel Management at the White House Office of Management and Budget Lecture Title: Performance: Delivering Effective, Accountable, Trusted Government Media Coverage: UMass Boston News
	2011 Gordon A. Martin, Jr., Adjunct Professor of Law at New England School of Law and former judge and chief of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination Lecture Title: The Right to Vote: Access to the Polls from the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to the Elections of 2012 Media Coverage: UMass Boston News
	2010 Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University Lecture Title: Barack Obama and American Politics
	2009 Barbara Nelson, Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Founder of The Concord Project Lecture Title: Building Social Capital in Divided Societies: Lessons from The Concord’s Work in Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the United States
	2008 Keith Wailoo, Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University and Author of Dying in the City of Blues and Drawing Blood Lecture Title: How Cancer Crossed the Red Line: Race and Disease in America
	2007 Alejandro Portes, Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Sociology and director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University Lecture Title: No Margin for Error: Disadvantage and Success in the Immigrant Second Generation
	2006 Gerald Torres, Bryant Smith Chair in Law at the University of Texas School of Law Lecture Title: Democracy Means the People Make the Law
	2005 James Morone, Professor of Political Science at Brown University Lecture Title: Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in America
	2004 Michael Keith Lecture Title: Globalizing Culture: Multicultural Cities and the Future of Racism
	2003 Edi Rama, Mayor of Tirana, capital of Albania Lecture Title: Artful Democracy: Urban Government and Planning After Communism
	2002 Mary Frances Berry, Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and Former Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Lecture Title: Homeland Defense, Economic Security, and Civil Rights in the U.S.
	2000 Xavier de Souza Briggs, Vice President for US programs of the Ford Foundation Lecture Title: Community Building: The New (and Old) Politics of Urban Problem Solving in the New Century
	1999 Charles Hamilton Lecture Title: The Role of Government – the Perennial Debate
	1998 Kick-off Lecture at UMass Boston and Dinner at JFK Library Lecture Title: Bob Wood as a Public Intellectual