The Right Equation for Leadership

After a decade serving as the dean of an East Coast university, Maura B. Mast, PhD, stepped down in 2025 for a year’s sabbatical to catch her breath—before eventually being named president of Seattle University.

“Anytime you transition away from an intense position like that, where you’re on the go all the time, you’re responsible for so many things, you need that time to step back, to decompress and to reflect on what’s next,” she says of her time at Fordham College at Rose Hill in the Bronx, a Jesuit undergraduate liberal arts college of 4,000 students that is part of Fordham University.

Dr. Mast, who officially began the presidency on September 1, arrives at Seattle University during a time of momentous change. Waiting for her is the shift from quarters to semesters, starting in summer 2027, as well as the ongoing priorities outlined in the Reigniting Our Strategic Directions, due to be completed in 2027, and the integration of Cornish College of the Arts following its official acquisition in 2025. Also hanging over higher education is the so-called “enrollment cliff,” a shrinking pool of college students due to declining birth rates during the Great Recession of 2007-09, which Dr. Mast notes is keeping college presidents awake at night.

Moving across the country wasn’t something she originally considered but she knew she wanted to take on the challenge of a presidency—taking on challenges is a theme for Dr. Mast.

“It took a long time, I’ll be honest, to admit that to myself because it’s a very challenging role, especially these days,” she says of seeking the presidency and becoming SU’s 23rd president and the first woman to hold the office. “But some of the work and reflection I did … helped me to be more open to that.”

In April, a search consultant reached out over LinkedIn and let her know SU was looking for a president.

“It really sparked my interest,” she says, of the opportunity to lead SU and thinking back to a 2015 visit when she attended an Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities conference held on campus. She also toured the areas that are part of the Seattle University Youth Initiative, an experience that has stayed with her.

“That commitment to justice is really important to me. I value the liberal arts and the Jesuit history and approach to education and I enjoy the vibrancy of a city. So as I was thinking about my next steps in my leadership and what type of institution would be a good fit for me, I wanted to be at a place that had a really strong community.”

A trailblazer in math & leadership

Growing up in South Bend, Indiana, Dr. Mast, an accomplished mathematician in the field of differential geometry, called herself a “geeky high school student.” She was already taking regular calculus but she had a free period and wanted to hang out with her friends in the Honors section, so she signed up.

“When you see something twice a day, you really learn it,” she says “So I learned it.”

Essential to Dr. Mast’s success was the encouragement of her parents. Her father Cecil, a physicist by training, taught mathematics at the University of Notre Dame, and her mother Mary, a gifted woman through whom Dr. Mast gained her dual Irish citizenship, gently pushed her to reach her potential. But at a pivotal moment even Dr. Mast wasn’t aware of that encouragement.

At the start of her first year at Notre Dame, she met with an advisor who took the opportunity to nudge her into math.

“You could take this abstract mathematics major and it would be really challenging, but you might really enjoy it,” the advisor said.

“He had me at ‘challenging,’ because I just love a challenge,” says Dr. Mast.

This led to her taking on a double major, mathematics and anthropology.

“The mathematics part of me is this analytical problem solver, taking in all sorts of information, looking at things systematically,” she says. “But the anthropology background is what pushes me to be attentive to the culture, to what’s going on that I’m not seeing, the humanity. As a leader you absolutely need both of those.”

Later in her career she ran into that advisor, who let her in on a secret. He had spoken to Dr. Mast’s father Cecil prior to meeting with her and he had leaned on the advisor.

“Tell her to do mathematics,” Cecil told the advisor.

“He tricked me,” Dr. Mast says with a laugh. “But my dad knew. My dad knew that I would be interested in the challenge and that I could do it.”

In 1992, Dr. Mast earned her PhD in mathematics from the University of North Carolina. She recalls returning from her defense of her dissertation, Closed Geodesics in 2-step Nilmanifolds, to find her parents waiting in her office with flowers, balloons and champagne.

Dr. Mast landed her first full-time faculty position at the University of Northern Iowa, then took on visiting professorships at Northeastern University and Wellesley College before moving to the University of Massachusetts Boston. It was in Boston, during her time at Northeastern, when she met her husband, Jack Reynolds, with whom she had three children, now all adults. It was also in Boston, through Jack’s influence, that she switched her baseball allegiance from the Oakland Athletics to the Boston Red Sox.

In addition to her research and work in the classroom, Dr. Mast’s publications include co-editing a book honoring a century of contributions by women to mathematics and a quantitative reasoning textbook, Common Sense Mathematics, honored by the Mathematical Association of America with its Daniel Solow Author’s Award. The Association for Women in Mathematics named her a fellow in 2019.

Dr. Mast is also a member of the Clavius Mathematics Group, an international association of Catholic mathematicians, founded by three Jesuits in 1963, that meets annually to explore God while doing mathematics.

Dr. Mast gave an example of how we can use the concept of infinity to try to understand God.

“The easy way to do it is to think about infinity,” she says. “Infinity is unimaginable, literally, because it goes on and on and on, just as God is unimaginable. We can use our mathematical ideas to try to think about God.”

As she went through her career, she repeatedly felt a tap on her shoulder calling her to take on leadership roles: chairing committees, spearheading initiatives or implementing strategic planning projects. And when she came on board to a professional organization, especially those advocating for women in mathematics, her ideas and willingness to organize naturally led to taking on leadership positions.

The leap from mathematics research and classroom instruction into administration came in 2009 when she was asked to fill the role of associate vice provost for undergraduate studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Six years later she landed the job of dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill at Fordham University, the first woman to hold that job.

Taking a Leap into Leadership

For Dr. Mast, what it means to being the first woman in a role is a tough question to answer.

“Because on the one hand, I’m just me,” she says. “But I know it has been important to push those boundaries. When I studied mathematics in undergrad and grad school, there were not very many women doing mathematics and that’s still the case. It’s better, but it’s not great.”

She knows that having a woman serve in leadership positions, be it in the field of mathematics or university administration, serves as a powerful example.

“People have innate gifts and talents that should be nurtured, this is part of Catholic social teaching,” she says. “And it is our responsibility to invite them to find ways to help them nurture those gifts. It’s the same with institutional leadership. I want people to know that most people have leadership within themselves.

“We have this idea that there are the people who are born leaders and then there is everyone else. Well, we know that that’s not true, but still, that’s what’s perpetuated. My hope is that by being an actual human being and helping people see themselves in leadership, I can inspire them.”

Perhaps no one is more excited for SU to have a leader steeped in the STEM fields than Professor John Carter, chair of the SU Mathematics Department.

“Having that math background allows people to make data-informed decisions more easily,” he says. “You can look at data from a broader mathematical perspective, which not completely, but ideally, removes all of the biases one might have.”

Moving beyond the status quo

Dr. Mast’s first priority in taking office is to listen and get to know the community in-person, saying there is no substitute for being there.

“When I am in a room with others, walking across the campus with students, having one-to-one or group conversations, I pick up so much more than when I pick up in an email or on a Zoom call,” she says. “In person, I can encounter the humanity of the individual in a more powerful way.”

Dr. Mast sees a balanced approach. First, maintain the momentum and make sure that the changes at SU already underway are successfully completed, while taking time to carefully consider what’s next. And second, move toward the future with a willingness to reevaluate and change.

“We need to think strategically and creatively about the future,” she says. “It’s pretty much always the case that you can’t keep doing what you’ve been doing, but it is really the case now in higher education.”

Dr. Mast points to Cornish as an example of SU’s commitment to positioning itself for a new higher educational environment.

“It’s a bold move in that regard because it opens up a new opportunity,” she says. “With Cornish, we can expand our arts programs and reach new student talent, while strengthening cross-disciplinary options for students studying in areas such as business, engineering and the social sciences."

In the short term, Dr. Mast says it’s vital for her to acknowledge and recognize the work that faculty and staff have done.

“We need to acknowledge how much our community has already put on the line,” she says. “We will achieve our objectives, but we have to stay focused. My goal isn't to pile on new initiatives—it’s to support our teams in finishing what we’ve set out to accomplish. By crossing these finish lines together, we create extraordinary possibilities for our future.”