Trustee Brian O'Connell (LA '53) may not have the same name recognition as John DiBiaggio, Pierre and Pam Omidyar or Jon Tisch.
But according to many colleagues and friends who call him the "intellectual father of the Tisch College," the College would not be here today without him.
"Brian was the driving force, no question," Secretary of the Trustees Linda Dixon said.
O'Connell, who has spent his life working in public service, had been looking to expand his reach in the collegiate community.
"I had been part of the efforts of Campus Compact [an intercollegiate public service organization] but I realized that participation wasn't going to increase unless we did something," he said. "We couldn't take for granted that people would just learn [active citizenship] by osmosis."
With the help of Rob Hollister and then-President DiBiaggio, O'Connell put together a presentation on the proposed college for the Board of Trustees in November 1998.
"He said that this is an idea whose time has come and that it's just time we brought this into the mainstream," Dixon recalled. "Instead of doing active citizenship in dribs and drabs, we want to do this in an organized, systematic way."
Some people greeted the proposal with skepticism.
"It was true that some of the trustees looked at each other and raised their eyebrows," Dixon remembered.
After much discussion, the board gave the committee the approval to develop the proposal further. A year later, the committee reconvened, and the Trustees were floored when the Omidyars pledged $5 million in support.
O'Connell did not characterize himself as a particularly active citizen while at Tufts, but the seed was planted for social activism in the form of readings he completed for his English major.
"I found myself very interested in old literature, and I read a lot about social causes," he said.
After O'Connell graduated from Tufts early in 1953, he went to work in a clinic for developmentally disabled children in Worcester.
O'Connell found himself "enraged" by the way the children were treated, particularly when he saw "how they could learn to speak, with the determination of their parents."
Moved to action for social change, he attended the Maxwell School of Public Service at Syracuse University, but was frustrated at the program's lack of emphasis on community service.
"It was all about being a city manager," he recalled. "I was interested in a different kind of public service."
O'Connell has been successful in many public service leadership positions, beginning with a decade at the American Heart Association and then moving on to serve as National Director of the Mental Health Association. He has also served on numerous boards and steering committees.
He then helped found and served as President of Independent Sector, a "leadership forum" for charities and nonprofit organizations from 1980 to 1995.
O'Connell has worked for the newly renamed Tisch College in an office on the ground floor, working as a resource for students for the past 12 years. He has written 15 books on public service, including his recent memoir, "50 Years in Public Causes: Stories of a Road Less Traveled."
His work has won him widespread praise.
"No one has had more of an influence on the development of nonprofits in America than Brian O'Connell," wrote John C. Whitehead, Chairman of the Goldman Sachs Foundation in his review of "50 Years in Public Causes."
"It's absolutely great to have come this far," O'Connell said, surveying the newly unveiled "Tisch College of Citizenship of Public Service" sign outside of the Lincoln Filene center. "It's lightning-fast; it's just
extraordinary."
- Kat Schmidt
