Alumnus and member of the Tufts Board of Trustees John Dowling (LA '59) passed away Tuesday, May 4 from a heart attack due to complications of melanoma. He was 66.
"He had such a love affair with the school," Chair of the Trustee Administration and Finance Committee Erwin Heller said. "He was as much a fixture on the board [of Trustees] as Jumbo the elephant is to the school. It's hard to believe he won't be there."
Trustees, peers, and friends knew of Dowling's battle with cancer, but did not anticipate his death so soon. "It's unusual to have a sitting trustee die," Trustee Secretary Linda Dixon said. "This was a shock."
Dowling was a "big guy, with a big deep voice, and a big personality," Dixon said. He "couldn't stand double-talk" and was notorious for his piercing questions.
According to Heller, Dowling was "extremely outgoing and extremely insightful at the same time. He shared his opinions willingly and made us confront arguments that we might not want to have thought about."
"He never stopped asking questions 'til the day he died," Dixon said. "It was his modus operandi."
According to his obituary in the New York Times, Dowling was the number one real estate broker and adviser in the United States at the height of his career in the 1970s and '80s.
"He knew a lot of the wheelers and dealers," Dixon said. "He was a mover and a shaker."
After graduating from New York University Law School, he spent 38 years at Cushman and Wakefield, one of the most prominent national companies in commercial real estate, working with well-known clients such as IBM, General Electric, Texaco, and MCI. In 1999, he started his own company, Dowling and Co.
When nominating and selecting Dowling for the trustee position, Dixon said that Tufts - a university with "three campuses interested in development" - really needed Dowling's expertise as it looked to expand the scope of its facilities.
Dowling worked on a variety of development projects at Tufts, the most prominent being the effort in the late 1990s to overhaul student services.
The project resulted in Dowling Hall, a brand new building that brought together offices that were previously scattered around campus.
When Dowling first joined the board, Dixon said, he wanted to make a substantial gift to Tufts but was unsure of what form he would like it to take.
At the time, Career Services was also "in dire straits" due to lack of space and difficulty of coordination between two divided offices.
With the construction of the Gantcher Sports and Convocation Center, Tufts also lost a large parking lot. An idea was devised to place a newly consolidated Student Services on the top floor of a new garage. The project "lacked a donor to make a lead gift to make the building possible," Dixon said.
Dowling took on the project, pledging his financial support and utilizing his development and real estate expertise to assist in the design process. "Rather than just putting up something functional, he planned something functional, attractive, and with reasonably low maintenance costs," Heller said.
Dowling also spent "untold hours," according to Heller, on plans for an office tower in the South Station area for the Boston campus that is still in progress. "He drove that project really himself," Heller said.
Dowling also helped with the development and design of Sophia Gordon Hall, which has not yet received approval for construction from the City of Somerville.
According to University Chaplain Rev. David O'Leary, Dowling was responsible for bringing Catholic Mass to Tufts in the 1950s. He supported a complete renovation of the Catholic Center.
He was "very generous, very committed, very Catholic," O'Leary said. "He was always interested in the faith life of the students, he always thought that spirituality issues needed to be addressed."
Dowling served as chairman and director of Tufts Development Corporation and was a member of the Board of Overseers for the School of Arts and Sciences.
He was also involved in a number of social organizations outside of Tufts, serving as a member of the executive council for the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, a Knight of Malta, and as a trustee for St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, where his funeral was held May 10.
Dixon said the church was full of representatives from the 12 to 15 philanthropic organizations on which Dowling had made an impact. "It was quite a tribute," she said.
Dixon said the Tufts trustees will need to find someone to fulfill Dowling's duties, but that the Board should be able to continue in their work without significant trouble.
At the same time, this does not diminish the reality of the loss of a unique person.
"John Dowling was one of a kind," Dixon said. "The Board will eventually fill his vacant position, but they will never replace him."
