Carol Sawyer Parks takes a seat as Interim Chairwoman while other Trustees resign

Article by: Alex Pearlman

Carol Sawyer Parks, vice chairwoman of the Suffolk Board of Trustees and Boston socialite and philanthropist, will step in as interim chairwoman for the rest of the semester, until the Board can appoint a new chair. Parks is the daughter of the late Frank Sawyer, for whom Suffolk’s  Sawyer Business School, as well as the Sawyer Building, is named.

At last Wednesday’s board meeting, Parks was asked by the nominating committee to lead the now 30-member Board.

Parks will replace Nicholas Macaronis who resigned earlier this month amid a wave of controversy regarding his reaction to Globe reporters and Suffolk Law School faculty about the salary of his long-time friend, President David Sargent. Many trustees have recently expressed concern about the way Suffolk’s administration is being run and, according to the Globe, “urged” Macaronis to resign.

As the CEO of Sawyer Enterprises, Parks has overseen the renovation of the new W hotel in the theatre district and was named one of the “25 Most Stylish Bostonians” by the Globe last fall.

Former congressman Marty Meehan didn’t appear at the meeting and said later in the week that he would no longer serve on Suffolk’s Board of Trustees.

Meehan, who has been suggested in a number of circles (as well as articles in The Lowell Sun and the Boston Globe) to be President Sargent’s successor when Sargent’s contract expires in 2011 said that he was “fully immersed” in his responsibilities as Chancellor of UMASS Lowell, according to the Boston Globe.

Meehan mentioned in a tentative resignation letter in November that he wanted to avoid a conflict of interest that might have arisen between his two posts, as Suffolk’s administration has been strongly opposed to UMASS’ new public law school, but Meehan waited for the UMASS Board of Education to finalize a vote on the law school decision before resigning from the Board.

Dennis Fernandez, a Suffolk Law School graduate based in California, also resigned from the Board of Trustees this month, blaming a heavier workload, according to a Suffolk official.  Jeanne Hession, Suffolk’s first female Trustee, told the Globe that she and Lawrence Cameron “decided to leave [the Board] for health reasons.”