UMass Chan Medical School chancellor to step down after nearly 20 years
The turmoil around federal funding did not influence his decision to leave, Collins said.
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'It's been obvious to me that my 70th birthday was coming,' Collins said. 'I feel a responsibility to the institution that, if you're good at the job you do, you should also be good when you decide you're going to go.'
Collins will stay as chancellor through 2025-2026 school year to give the UMass Chan time to select his successor. He alerted UMass President Marty Meehan of his intentions a few months ago.
'The medical school has far exceeded expectations when it first opened with a small number of students,' Meehan said. 'No one could have imagined how the medical school has grown or the impact it's had, and Michael Collins' fingerprints are on so many of its achievements.'
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As much as the 2024-2025 academic year was marked by low lows for the state's only public medical school, it has also been defined by the highest highs.
UMass Chan researcher Victor Ambros
UMass Chan Medical School researcher Victor Ambros, PhD, (right) was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Media, He was joined by colleague and fellow Nobel Prize winner Craig Mello.
Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff
Then, in February, UMass announced a
Collins is also responsible for the largest-ever gift at UMass:
graduate schools were renamed after the parents of billionaire investor Gerald Chan.
Under Collins, enrollment at the school has grown nearly 50 percent to about 1,500 in 2024 from about 1,000 in 2007. The incoming medical school class has more than doubled from 100 to 233 students, producing more doctors to combat a national physician workforce shortage.
Collin's also added 55 new endowed chairs, prestigious, permanent professorships
funded by donors. They're part of his strategy to recruit and retain top-notch faculty. The team he's built, he said, is the legacy he's proudest to leave behind.
Kate Fitzgerald, now vice provost for basic science research at the school, recalled that
in 2015 she was being recruited to other medical centers in her home country of Ireland. Collins found out and summoned Fitzgerald to his office and laid out his vision of a leading medical research center that would make an impact locally, nationally and globally.
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'He said, 'We're not done yet here. There's still a lot more to do and this is a place where you can have an impact,'' Fitzgerald said. 'He saw it in me, that leadership potential and really helped me realize it.'
The uncertain times as Collins prepares to exit mirror those at the beginning of his tenure. Collins saw the institution through the uncertainty of the Great Recession after he was tapped to serve as interim chancellor of the medical school in June 2007 and appointed to the position in September 2008 -- the same month the global financial system plunged into crisis.
Before arriving at UMass Chan, Collins served as CEO of Caritas Christi Health Care for 10 years, followed by a two-year stint as chancellor of UMass Boston. He is a tenured professor of population and quantitative health sciences and medicine and serves as senior vice president for health sciences for the UMass system.
Collins, an internal medicine physician by training, emphasized that he's 'not really leaving' when his chancellorship ends. He plans to teach, mentor and continue to raise money for the school.
'He's been a trusted advisor,' said Gov. Maura Healey 'I'm glad that he's not going far.'
The Education and Research Building at the UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester.
Faith Ninivaggi
In this final year, Collins is advocating for federal grants and finding alternative funding.
He said he believes the school will eventually receive the funding already allocated by the National Institutes of Health. The funding has sat in limbo as the NIH navigates new priorities and staffing changes under President Trump.
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That sense of hope is a hallmark of Collins' leadership, said UMass Chan Provost Dr. Terry Flotte, who has worked with Collins for 18 years.
'I value the approach that he's taught really all of us, which is to be prepared for difficulties' Flotte said, 'but at the same time be planning for success.'
Marin Wolf can be reached at
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