Lesley University

Lesley University

Lesley University was founded in 1909 as a women's college focused on preparing educators. Its president since 2019, Janet Steinmayer, joined the board in 2010. The university became coeducational in 2005 and now enrolls students across programs in Education, Mental Health and Well-Being, Art and Design, and Liberal Arts and Business. The board includes Chair Hans D. Strauch of HDS Architecture and Vice Chairs Hal Belodoff of Eastern Real Estate and Juanita James, former CEO of Fairfield County Community Foundation. The endowment strategy is anchored by a distinct real estate footprint in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Holdings include the Brattle Campus at 89 Brattle Street, the Lunder Arts Center at 1801 Massachusetts Avenue, and a collection of mixed-use properties on Mellen Street, Sacramento Street, and Massachusetts Avenue known as the Cambridge Connection Portfolio. The institution also operates residential assets at 3 and 5 Phillips Place. On the Doble Campus, Lesley houses the Riverside Outpatient Center at Cambridge, a mental health clinic run in partnership with Riverside Community Care. The endowment's total assets are estimated at $185M (Altss estimate). Beyond real estate, the university stewards the Lesley University Art Collection at the Lunder Arts Center. The institution maintains memberships in the Council of Independent Colleges and the New England Commission of Higher Education. Its athletic programs compete in NCAA Division III. Lesley's structural differentiator is its endowment's real asset concentration. President Steinmayer, an attorney by training, leads an institution where direct property ownership in a supply-constrained Cambridge market constitutes a visible share of the balance sheet — a posture that distinguishes it from the purely financial-portfolio endowments common among its private-university peers.