McKenna is the first woman to lead Suffolk, which sits in
the shadow of the State House and has traditionally enjoyed a close
relationship with the powers that be on Beacon Hill. It’s a neighbor-to-neighbor thing, but also
an alumni-loyalty thing: last time I
counted (in December, 2012), 18% of the 200 members of the Massachusetts legislature
were Suffolk grads. In any given year, a
significant number of legislative staffers will be pursuing law or graduate degrees
in Suffolk’s evening division. It’s just
so easy for staffers to dash across the street at the end of the day to catch a
class. Lawmakers are famously lenient
for letting staff go early, especially during exams.
Among the many current legislators who’ve graduated from
Suffolk are House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Rep. Angelo Scaccia, the
longest-serving member of the House. Secretary
of State Bill Galvin is also a Suffolk alumnus, as is former U.S. Rep. Marty
Meehan, outgoing president of UMass Lowell and incoming president of the entire UMass system.
Meehan is rumored to have turned down the Suffolk presidency
when it was offered to him. If that was
the case, McKenna was the second choice of the Suffolk board of trustees, a
30-member group filled with Boston super-achievers and power brokers. Come on down, Dan Conley, Bill Hogan and Jen
Nassour! And you, too, Jim Morris,
Damian Wilmot, Roger Berkowitz, Julie Kahn, Marshall Sloan, John Fernandez and
Bob Sheridan!
To her credit, McKenna took head-on the question of whether
the board loved Marty more, and turned it with fun to her advantage. In an interview with the Boston Business
Journal’s Mary Moore in early May, McKenna said, “Was I first, second, third or
whatever? Marty Meehan is an alumni and
he’s definitely going to be one of my fundraising calls.” (Meehan is savvy enough to write McKenna a
big check, and to call Bill Brett in for a photo when he presents it to McKenna
on the Boston Common, State House gleaming in the background.)
Speaking of the Suffolk trustees, they obviously felt they
made the wrong choice last time they chose a new, permanent president of the
university. President James McCarthy was
let go last August with a year remaining on his first contract. McCarthy is a brilliant man, a Ph.D. from
Princeton with an impressive list of professional accomplishments, but he never
moved up to the exalted role of Boston big shot created and left for him by David
Sargent, who ruled the Suffolk roost for 21 years.
Suffolk board chair Andrew Meyer told the Boston Globe that
McCarthy’s departure was amicable, saying McCarthy had “accomplished what he
felt he could.” I think that translates as: McCarthy was tired of butting heads with us, and vice versa.
Back to McKenna: this lady is a force of nature! She’s an attorney with a law degree from
Southern Methodist University, and has served as a vice president of Radcliffe
College, a civil rights lawyer in the U.S. Department of Justice, a deputy
counsel in the White House, and as an undersecretary of the U.S. Department of
Education. She was hugely successful at
Lesley, which had 2,000 students when she started in 1985 and 10,000
students upon her departure in 2007.
Another big reason to feel optimistic about the Suffolk
presidency of Margaret McKenna: she’s a graduate of the frequently underestimated Emmanuel College,
in Boston's Fenway district. She has that in common
with Mary Beth Cahill, once Ted Kennedy’s chief of staff and John Kerry’s presidential campaign manager, and with Middlesex District
Attorney Marian Ryan.
At 70, McKenna projects the energy and drive of a person 30
years younger. To the Boston Business
Journal, she hinted strongly that she’s going to be an aggressive fund raiser. “You ask for money,” she said. “You can’t get money unless you ask for
it. We’ve got a great, large alumni
base. We need to engage them and get
them excited about what Suffolk is today and go after them.”
A lot of that engagement, the “going after them,” I predict,
will take place on Beacon Hill. Most every
legislator has an enviable list of donors. 
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