Eric Turner, newly elected President of Lasell University, has been Lasell University’s Provost since 2020 and has been involved in its management for thirty years, under its two previous Presidents, Tom DeWitt and Michael Alexander. Mr. Turner is the tenth President in the school’s 172-year history and has been engaged in Lasell’s evolution from a two-year junior college to a university. The Lasell campus — including the University, Holway Early Childhood Centers, and Lasell Village, a unique senior living community — have all prospered under his leadership. Underscoring Lasell’s comprehensive educational components, Mr. Turner said, “We’re educating people from infancy to their hundreds.”
Among his many roles at Lasell, Mr. Turner was a trustee of both the University and Lasell Village, and chair of the Lasell’s Board of Trustees. He will become President Turner on July 1.
Thirty years ago, Lasell was a small private junior college in the high-powered academic Massachusetts universe. Apart from Harvard, MIT, Tufts, Wellesley, Boston College, Brandeis University, Boston University, and Northeastern, there were many other smaller colleges and junior colleges within the same geographic area. Establishing a competitive academic institution in the Greater Boston area seemed an insurmountable challenge. Among Lasell’s visionary initiatives was the creation of Lasell Village, a retirement complex built on Lasell’s property, requiring residents to participate in 450 hours of educational programming each year.
Mr. Turner is both an innovator and pragmatist. As the school continues to expand its scope, Mr. Turner continues to promote and lead an array of programs not found in any other local college setting. As the school went from a two-year to four-year institution, and now offering graduate-level, constantly evolving coursework, Mr. Turner explained, “We serve a population of students with career readiness and cooperative learning.” Lasell’s Fashion Design and Production is one of its most popular four-year B.A. programs, with internships at a number of well-known companies, including New Balance. As part of Lasell’s emphasis on community engagement, students in the Fashion Program made masks to distribute to the community during the pandemic.
“Learning by doing,” is an essential part of every Lasell model. The University offers a surgical technology certificate in cooperation with Newton Wellesley Hospital’s Surgery Department. Students learn surgical support techniques, earning a certificate in the first year and the opportunity to continue onto a degree program. Not only does the program provide essential skills, it also addresses a critical shortage in trained surgical technicians.
Among its many hands-on degrees, Lasell offers programs in Forensic Science, Cybersecurity, Communications, Business, and Health Science, as well as a diverse array of academic subjects. In addition, Mr. Turner noted that Lasell offers Massachusetts police officers opportunities to take courses as part of the Police Career Incentive Pay Program – known as the Quinn Bill – allowing them to secure higher paying jobs on the force.
Students graduate with at least one internship program in their field. In a market of very high costs of education, Lasell recently lowered its tuition by $20,000 per year. “We found that 60% of college-bound students won’t look at high-sticker-price colleges,” Mr. Turner explained. In addition to attracting students from the Northeast, Lasell’s “learning by doing” curriculum brings students from California, Florida, Hawaii, and from other countries.
In his role as Provost, Mr. Turner was responsible for creating nearly thirty new programs and professional partnerships. “We’re here because of projects and programs developed years ago,” he said, but the school continues to evolve as the world in which students work evolves. A firm believer in the benefits of a strong partnerships, Lasell has established academic partnerships with Regis College and Massachusetts community colleges to allow students to complete their Bachelor degree requirements.
Among the many challenges for Lasell was Covid-19 containment on campus. Lasell continued programming remotely in 2020, but with the lifting of bans on public gatherings, the school offered students the option to take in-person or remote classes. Working with the Broad Institute, Lasell offered twice-a-week testing before scaling back to once-a-week testing, in total administering more than 60,000 tests. With these measures in place, Lasell’s positive case rate was well below the average in Newton, in Massachusetts, and at other educational institutions.
Mr. Turner is determined to expand opportunities where Lasell University’s students intersect with Lasell Village residents. “We should be doing more in intergenerational living and learning,” he suggests, offering Japan as an example. Nonetheless, the educational requirement for Lasell Village residents is unique among retirement communities, with two Lasell Village residents serving as members of Lasell University’s student government. The collaboration of the two entities allows Lasell Village residents to complete degrees or take courses in areas for which they did not have time in the past. Frequently, Village residents serve as mentors and career advisors for undergraduate students. As an example of the cross pollination, two university professors conducted AI programs for Village residents.
Eric Turner’s professional career embraces a wide range of experience. He came to Massachusetts from Memphis to earn a BA and MBA at Harvard. He worked as a strategic advisor to corporate executives and non-profits in New York and Massachusetts — where he was a senior vice president at the State Street Corporation. In New York, he was a Wall Street investment banker and worked at IBM. In his public career, Mr. Turner served as executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission and as the Commonwealth’s Deputy Treasurer, under Joe Malone, a Republican. The Massachusetts Democratic Party also benefitted from Mr. Turner’s financial abilities when he served as the State Committee’s treasurer.
Mr. Turner and his wife, Wanda Whitmore, have made Newton their home for thirty years.