Chancellor Jean F. MacCormack
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Remarks to National Textile Center Dinner
Hilton Head, South Carolina
February 17, 2004

It is an honor for me to be here tonight just as it is an honor for the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth to be a full partner - with so many prestigious universities - in the National Textile Center.

At UMass Dartmouth, we believe the future of our own campus, and that of public higher education, depends on our ability to engage in innovative and meaningful collaborations with our friends inside and outside of higher education.

We consider our involvement with the NTC to be among our most important partnerships and we look forward to working with all of you in meeting this organization's critical mission.

The NTC mission is a critical mission to us because UMass Dartmouth is, in fact, an offspring of the textile industry.

Universities across this country often brag about launching entire industries - the biotech industry, the semi-conductor industry, the software industry. At UMass Dartmouth we are just as proud to say that the textile industry gave birth to our institution.

Let me offer you a brief history of our university, courtesy of a distinguished professor by the name of Dr. Walter Cass. The late Walter Cass was not just an eminent educator at our university.

He was among the visionaries who nurtured our institution at critical times in its development and he was a historian who put it all down on paper so that we would never forget where we came from.

At the end of the 19th century, when "Cotton was King" and the textile industry was at the peak of its great prosperity in New England, civic and industrial leaders in the cities of Lowell, New Bedford, and Fall River convinced the Legislature in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to create three public textile schools in their communities.

The goal in 1895 was to educate a workforce that would make these three booming cities the most productive textile communities in the world.

The New Bedford Textile School and the Bradford Durfee Textile School in Fall River were concerned, as were their respective South Coast cities, with the production of cotton textiles.

The New Bedford Textile School's first catalog stated that the school "shall maintain its reputation in being second to none in its special suitability for teaching the manufacture of cotton textiles."

As part of the great Industrial Revolution, textile mills were established in Fall River and New Bedford as investors recognized that the whaling industry was struggling and there was a need to establish new ventures.

Also, the European textile industry had begun developing textile schools so there was a need for a response to this new form of global competition.

In the early years, the course offering of the school changed very little and made available through four departments: Cotton Carding, Spinning, Warp Preparation, and Mechanical Drawing.

In later years, the school's machine design department evolved into our current College of Engineering.

Early Bradford Durfee Textile School

Like the New Bedford Textile School, the Bradford Durfee Textile School was established in 1895.

The first day school curriculum offered a three-year course in General Cotton manufacturing, as well as a two-year course in Chemistry and Dyeing.

A varied selection of single-topic textile courses was also offered in the evening. The evening school courses tended to be very closely associated with the various jobs performed in the mills; while the day school courses were both "practical" and "theoretical".

The evening courses were attended chiefly by workers; the day school classes attracted students who aspired to management careers.

Hear the Bradford Durfee Tech's inaugural mission:

"This school is designed to meet the needs of two distinct classes of students: One class being those who have had an academic training and wish a preliminary training in the art of manufacturing before entering into the practical work of the mill; the other being those already at work in the mill, who feel the necessity for training in the principles of the art and a broader outlook over all the departments of their chosen vocation."

These two schools helped make the South Coast region of Massachusetts, the stretch of coastline from Rhode Island to Cape Cod, an international textile-manufacturing hub.

A 1912 news item stated, "Fall River has 104 cotton mills, containing 4 Million spindles and employing 37,000 people weaving 20 miles of cotton cloth per day." For this region in the 19th century, the textile industry was high-technology.

The owners of the great mills of Fall River and New Bedford, their machinery rattling and humming day and night, were directly associated with the founding of the textile schools that ultimately formed the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Decline in Textile Manufacturing

The labor unrest in the 1920s and the depression of the 1930s sent the New England textile industry into rapid decline. Two-thirds of the region's cotton textile mills disappeared.

Soon, the two schools, born from the textile industry, began to evolve and broaden its intellectual mandate through necessity.

They sought collegiate status and achieved it in the late 1940s.

In the early 1960's, the Commonwealth succeeded in convincing the citizens of New Bedford and Fall River, rivals in many ways, to surrender their two colleges in favor of a single institution with far broader ambitions.

By the mid-1960's the Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute enrolled 2,500 commuting students pursuing four-year degrees. Just a few years later, the institution's name was changed to the Southeastern Massachusetts University, reflecting an even broader academic mission, and finally in the early 1990's the campus became part of a powerful, expansive 5-campus University of Massachusetts system.

Our history reminds us that we have an obligation to serve our community in tangible, meaningful ways.

It is that history that challenges us to be ever more innovative in the ways we do business, just as the textile industry has been.

And it is that history that reminds us that our University is in a constant state of change and that we must embrace change if we are to continue to meet our mission.

As part of the UMass system

Becoming a full partner in the UMass system has ignited an era of rapid physical and intellectual growth at our campus. It has been so much more than a name change. It has been an aspirational change. Our sights are set higher than ever. Our horizon is wider.

Since joining the University in 1991:

• Our research enterprise has grown from less than $1 million to nearly $20 million. We have achieved national recognition in textile sciences, but also in the marine and biological sciences. We are the fastest growing research enterprise in the UMass system.
• As a result of our UMass affiliation, we are part of a comprehensive partnership with the Natick Army Labs, located just west of Boston. Along with the other UMass campuses we are assisting the U.S. Army in its development of the next generation of clothing to be used by soldiers and civilian public safety officers.
• Our enrollment is at 8,500 now and will reach 10,000 by 2008, up from 6,000 just five years ago.
• Our student profile is consistently improving and each year we enhance our intellectual climate on campus by adding brilliant new faculty to our existing base of academic excellence.
• We have recently returned to our roots, opening a new College of Visual and Performing Arts in downtown New Bedford as well as continuing education and research centers in Fall River.
• Our teaching faculty is winning national recognition in disciplines ranging from math to literature.

In relation to textile sciences, we have been fortunate to recruit top notch faculty, I believe, in part, because people are attracted to the idea that their teaching and research is having a powerful impact on the communities around them.

They drive by the mills on the way to work. They shop for groceries in the same stores in which immigrant and native textile workers shop.

Just recently we hired Dr. Paul Calvert as chair of the Textile Department. As you probably know, Dr. Calvert is a nationally recognized expert in bio-mimicry and we are excited about the directions that are emerging under his leadership.

So we are on the move.

Today, UMass Dartmouth is much more than the merger of two textile schools. Yet we continue to focus on what got us here. Just as our 19th century partnerships created innovative design, dying and manufacturing processes, our 21st century partnerships will produce the next generation of fibers, fabrics, advanced composites and nano-materials - the future of textiles.

This is not just some romantic allegiance to a bygone industry. It is good business for the University and the region it serves. While many policy makers and big economic thinkers discard textiles as part of the past, we know it must continue to be fundamental to our communities and our nation.

A recent study by Dr. Clyde Barrow of UMass Dartmouth revealed that in 2000, nearly 25 percent of Fall River's employment base is related in some way to the textile and apparel industries - 12 percent of the New Bedford workforce.

We know that a tireless pursuit of innovation can keep the American textile industry competitive.

Consider the story of Quaker Fabric Corporation of Fall River, also captured in Dr. Barrows' study:

Quaker's upholstery fabric production facility has been running in Fall River since 1941. It was recognized as a solid company until 1988 when the Massachusetts economy collapsed and the company lost $7.5 million. The company seemed on a road to bankruptcy when it was sold in 1989.

The new owners, however, refused to lose and executed a bold turnaround strategy.

They invested $25 million in new technology and they spent money on worker retraining so that the technology could be used to its fullest potential.

Within three years, Quaker introduced 600 new fabric designs, quadrupled its production capacity, and penetrated the upscale retail market and office furniture upholstery market.

Its annual sales doubled in the first seven years of new ownership and exports grew from 5 percent to 25 percent.

Quaker now owns more than one million square feet of manufacturing space in Fall River. Its work force grew from 1,700 to 2,400, and they are still growing.

And they are doing this in a state that has relatively high costs of doing business.

Quaker is proof that bold management plus aggressive R&D plus the uncommon work ethic common to the industry, can result in prosperity for this bedrock of American manufacturing.

UMass Dartmouth is proud to be a partner of Quaker Fabrics.

This relationship is central to our mandate: To be a catalyst for regional commerce through innovation, and to continue to prepare our students to shape the economic and cultural life of the communities along the South Coast of Massachusetts.

We started over a century ago as two schools focused on textiles. As that industry has changed, so has UMass Dartmouth and the region it serves as you will see in this brief film. Thank you.

 Last Updated On: 3/22/06