Seattle University announced the appointment of Maura Mast as its 23rd president. She will be the first woman—and, as she puts it with a smile, the first mathematician—to hold the post. Mast will begin her duties on September 1, succeeding Eduardo Peñalver, who stepped down to lead Georgetown University.
Before this appointment, Mast spent ten years as dean of Fordham College in Rose Hill, New York—and was also the first woman to serve in that role. She began her career as a professor of mathematics, earned her doctorate in differential geometry from the University of North Carolina, and wrote the award-recognized textbook Common Sense in Mathematics. As an administrator, she has bet on solving problems that help students reach graduation.
At Fordham, Mast carried out a reform of academic advising. She realized that faculty could not keep up with the volume of questions, and she created a staff of professional advisors to help students with choosing a major, academic performance, and any other difficulties. She also actively secured funding to launch paid internships for students in the humanities.
Mast’s new presidency will require addressing several major challenges: completing the integration of Cornish College of the Arts, shifting the university from a quarterly to a semester system, and launching a teaching museum that will come to life thanks to a landmark donation of works of art. The Cornish integration began in 2019, when the private college faced financial difficulties and was absorbed by Seattle University. This allowed Cornish’s academic programs to be preserved and strengthened the city’s cultural scene: students gained access to the resources of a larger university. And the donation, made by businessman and philanthropist Jack Blitzer and his wife in 2023, includes works by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat and is valued at millions of dollars—it is intended to create a new gallery on campus. Her appointment is part of a notable trend: Jesuit universities increasingly choose lay people, rather than priests, as their leaders.
Mast was raised in a Catholic family, graduated from Catholic Notre Dame, and is part of the international network of Jesuit mathematicians “Clavius.” She is convinced that mathematics helps us understand the divine: “God is infinite—he is in the molecules of this table, in the trees outside the window, and in the birds. I can’t grasp it, but mathematics gives a way to come closer, at least.”
Mast says her post in Seattle was a “divine coincidence.” A call from a search consultant came while she was finishing a decade-long term at Fordham, during a world tour of Jesuit universities. Seattle University appealed to her because of its commitment to social justice—especially in a city with vast wealth inequality. The rapid growth of tech giants Amazon and Microsoft drew high-paid professionals to Seattle, driving up housing and rental prices and pushing out low- and middle-income residents, especially communities of color, from central neighborhoods. Mast believes that Jesuit institutions have a duty to bring together people with different viewpoints and to teach students to address urgent social problems constructively—above all, poverty.
A clear example of this kind of work is the Sandburg Center for Community Engagement, where students and faculty, through class projects and volunteering, help surrounding neighborhoods. Last year, the center launched a half-million-dollar program to educate and develop young people in Yesler Terrace—a public housing area right beside the university. Yesler Terrace was founded in 1941 and became one of the first public housing projects in the United States where residents of all races could live—something that was rare amid racial segregation. Today, it is undergoing a major redevelopment aimed at creating a mixed-income community while preserving its historic social roots.
In the first few months in her new role, Mast plans to focus on getting to know the campus and the city: meeting with students, faculty, and staff so that everyone knows what she looks like and knows she is ready to help. And she also wants to find the best cup of coffee in Seattle—and judging by her upbeat energy, that will be only a matter of time.
Based on: Seattle University names a new president - The Seattle Times