Person:Jean Mather (1)

Jean Paul Mather, 92; helped expand UMass as president in '50s By Bryan Marquard, Boston Globe Staff, June 26, 2007 Even when he was the acting president of the University of Massachusetts, Jean Paul Mather used his facility with colorful imagery to prod state government into action.

"Cattle on the university farm are being better cared for relatively than the young ladies of the Commonwealth," he said in 1953, demanding swift action to replace aging buildings in Amherst that housed female students and many classrooms. "These buildings cannot be classified under any concept new or old of 'Yankee Thrift.' Instead, they approach the descriptive category of 'criminal negligence.' "

From then until Mr. Mather left in 1960, quitting in a dispute with the Legislature over salary increases for faculty, he helped transform what had been the state's agricultural college to a university with a national profile. Mr. Mather died in Lenox on Thursday after a period of declining health. He was 92.

Anticipating demands the Baby Boom would place on public education, Mr. Mather pressed state officials for larger budgets and increased educational autonomy. When he took over, the school was under the control of the state Division of Personnel and Standardization, which set faculty salaries and could create or abolish jobs.

In a 1956 interview with Time magazine, Mr. Mather said the arrangement meant the best teachers often went elsewhere. "What can I get?" he asked. "Intellectual zombies."

That changed by the time he left. Mr. Mather's relentless lobbying prompted the Legislature to give the university control over its faculty. And the college's annual budget, which had not topped $800,000 before he became president, rose to $6 million.

During his tenure, major buildings rose on campus, among them Bartlett Hall, the Durfee Conservatory and Garden, Machmer Hall, the Morrill Science Center, and the Student Union. The Mather Building was named in his honor.

"His passion for higher education was really heartfelt," said Mr. Mather's daughter, Barbara L. Johnson of Hartland, Vt.

Mr. Mather was 39 when he was appointed president in 1954. Though his parents had been educators, his road to academia was unusual. Born in Del Norte, Colo., "he grew up in a log cabin with a dirt floor," his daughter said. The Mathers were direct descendents of Cotton Mather, the Puritan minister whose writings were influential in Boston in the late 1600s and early 1700s.

"His dad had a calling to go to Colorado," Johnson said. "Ministry was something that was just part of their heritage. His father was a minister preaching to miners from the back of a mule."

The third of five sons, Mr. Mather was singled out by his father to be groomed for higher education. He attended the Colorado School of Mines in the early 1930s, supporting himself by working nights at a J.C. Penney department store. Mr. Mather had left college to work for J.C. Penney full time when he met Marie Lorraine Wick.

"She insisted that I go back to school," Mr. Mather told the Globe in 1954. "That was a condition of our marriage. I doubt if I ever would have if I hadn't met Marie."

Mr. Mather finished his bachelor's degree at the University of Denver in 1937 and taught economics at the Colorado School of Mines. Mr. Mather studied economics at the University of Chicago and served as an ensign in the Navy during World War II.

After the war, he received a master's in business administration from the University of Denver, then went to Princeton University, where he received another master's degree and completed everything but his dissertation for a doctorate.

"We are rapidly moving into an era when a collegiate bachelor's degree will be only comparable to the high school diploma of only 15 years ago," he told the Globe in a May 1954 interview. "We've simply got to have bigger and better public educational facilities here in Massachusetts."

A few months later, during his inaugural address as president, he warned that "a tidal wave" of students was passing through the state's elementary and secondary schools. "We cannot afford to make either a rental agency or a diploma mill of the University of Massachusetts," he said.

While Mr. Mather was president, enrollment rose by nearly two-thirds, to 6,000 by 1959. Also, the College of Arts and Sciences was founded, and the Schools of Education and Nursing were created. Throughout his tenure, Mr. Mather kept an open-door policy in his office and at home, which meant that students often stopped by to speak with the president after dinner.

"Dynamic as he was, one on one he was very accessible," his daughter said. "He made a real connection with people." Some lawmakers in the Commonwealth may have wished he was less compelling. In August 1959, he announced he would resign the following year after the state Senate killed a bill that would have increased pay at the university. At a public hearing in the State House two weeks later, he praised the Legislature for appropriations that allowed the university to add buildings, but said "these are nothing compared to the teachers that teach in them."

"It will profit us nothing to build a lot of bright new tin cans and fill them with half-baked beans," Mr. Mather said.

The pay increase bill was subsequently resubmitted and approved. After leaving Massachusetts, he served as president of the American College Testing Program and president of the University City Science Center in Philadelphia. He launched the mineral economics program at the Colorado School of Mines and retired in 1980, about a year after his wife died.

In 1981, he married Harriet Roberts Pepper, and they moved to Lenox to be closer to his two daughters. Three years later, a luncheon was held in Amherst to honor Mr. Mather on his 70th birthday.

"It was exciting and it was worth the fight," Mr. Mather told the Globe of his tenure at UMass, which began inauspiciously when he learned that the governor had proposed to cut the college's funding. "I raised hell."

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Mather leaves two stepdaughters, Phoebe Pepper of Pittsfield and Pam Lacy of Colorado; five granddaughters; two grandsons; one great-grandson; and one great-granddaughter.

A memorial service will be held in Amherst on Aug. 18. The time and location will be announced. Burial will be in Wildwood Cemetery in Amherst, next to the grave of his other daughter, Shirley.

Mather was born December 11, 1914 in Del Norte, Colo., to John B. Mather, an educator and minister, and Leona C. Mather, an educator. He later married Marie L. Wick. The couple had two daughters, Shirley Jeanne and Barbara Lorraine. He is survived by his daughter, Barbara L. Johnson of Hartland, Vt., his second wife, Harriet Roberts Mather of Lenox, Mass., and her daughters, Phoebe Pepper and Pam Lacy, both graduates of UMass. Mather is also survived by seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

(Barbara L. Johnson, Hartland, VT b. June 1943 - Knox Johnson 1939)

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