text: On March 3, 2017, Barry Mills was appointed the university's deputy chancellor and chief operating officer. On April 5, 2017, university officials announced that Chancellor J. Keith Motley would resign at the end of the academic calendar year. UMass System President Marty Meehan stated Deputy Chancellor Mills would serve as interim chancellor "until [university] finances are stabilized and the university is positioned to attract a world-class chancellor through a global search", specifically to address the university's 2017 operating budget deficit of $30 million. UMass Boston faculty publicly expressed concern that Motley was being scapegoated for the university's budget deficit while Boston City Councilors Tito Jackson and Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts State Senator Linda Dorcena Forry, and Massachusetts State Representative Russell Holmes called upon System President Meehan to reject Motley's resignation.
  On April 8, 2017, at a UMass System Board of Trustees meeting, UMass Boston faculty and students protested decisions by university administration to cut offerings of courses (many required for graduation) in the upcoming summer semester, as well as other programs and to make expense adjustments which reduced the deficit to approximately $6 million or $7 million. On July 1, 2017, Barry Mills became interim chancellor after Keith Motley's resignation. A coalition of UMass Boston administrative staff, faculty, and students formed (called the "Coalition to Save UMB") and issued a report authored by faculty calling on Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and the Massachusetts General Court to increase state funding to assist the university to service its debt from its campus renewal construction projects and increase capital investments for the university.