UMass Medical School receives Master Mechanics Award for community leadership
At the 167th annual meeting of the Worcester County Mechanics Association – the organization that created and maintains Mechanics Hall – Chancellor Michael F. Collins delivered the keynote address to the members of the association and their guests on Monday, Sept. 27, and accepted a Master Mechanics Award on behalf of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The award is presented annually to “those whose leadership and example of achievement influence” the community and pursue excellence. Preservation Worcester, the venerable organization dedicated to historic preservation of sites and structures significant to the culture, history and architecture of the city, was also honored.
In his remarks, Collins noted that “in the 40 years since the first class of medical students matriculated at our state’s only public medical school, UMass Medical School can now safely be called another Worcester success story. We are the descendents of the Ichabod Washburns and Philip Moens, the Wymans and the Gordons: Like the storied companies those men founded, we take seriously our role to have a substantial impact on the economy, intellectual vitality and community spirit of Worcester and beyond. But instead of producing wire or airplane parts, we are generating new ideas, knowledge, clinical and scientific discoveries, as well as educating the skilled workforce—the physicians, the nurses and the scientists—prepared to turn those novel ideas, that new knowledge and these pioneering discoveries into tangible benefits for our communities.”
Collins also called attention to the role that UMMS plays in the community, noting, “similar to the Worcester County Mechanics Association, our medical school understands the importance of engaging with the community and leveraging our institution’s areas of expertise for the benefit of those we serve. We have a considerable portfolio of longstanding community programs and projects that address particular health, mental health, educational and social needs or concerns in the area. Beyond the thousands of volunteer hours that students, faculty and staff contribute in clinics and programs throughout their communities, the Medical School itself supports a number of projects.”
Mechanics Hall is regarded as one of the nation’s great concert halls, and has hosted a number of dignitaries and historical figures on its stage: Presidents Clinton, Ford, Wilson, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and McKinley, as well as writers, lecturers and performers as diverse as Henry David Thoreau to Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Mel Torme.
