During his eight years as chancellor of UMass Lowell, Marty Meehan raised the school’s profile and enrollment, and rapidly expanded its physical presence in the city. Since his promotion last year to be president of the entire University of Massachusetts system, Meehan has been trying to build on the success he enjoyed at his hometown school. But he’s also facing a new set of financial challenges as he seeks to continue growing the system’s enrollment — which reached a new peak this fall at about 74,500 — while balancing a $3.2 billion budget. Among the items on his recent to-do list: presiding over the construction of the first dorms at the UMass Boston campus, through a public-private partnership, and successfully advocating for the American Bar Association’s accreditation of the system’s law school in Dartmouth. Meehan, who spent 14 years in Congress before taking on the UMass Lowell job in 2007, spoke with Globe reporter Jon Chesto.

1Meehan got his start in the newspaper business. Among his first jobs: working at the Lowell Sun on a part-time basis for nearly 10 years, through high school and college. He was a keen observer of the way journalists worked. His own tasks weren’t always particularly exciting. They included assembling wire-service feeds and helping out as an editorial assistant on weekends.

“If the reporters wanted to get in [on Sunday mornings], and the whole place was locked, they used to call me. If something went on, [I’d make sure] that a photographer was there. If there was a big fire, I’d call the editor and make sure a reporter got there. There would be obituaries to write and things like that. I got to know the newspaper business inside and out.’’

2Meehan recently decided to buy a condo in Boston’s Harbor Towers complex, after temporarily renting an apartment in the city. He can walk to his office, which is in the One Beacon Street tower. (UMass provides a $60,000 annual housing allowance to its president as part of his compensation package.) Meehan also owns a house in Seabrook, N.H.

“I don’t think, as a practical matter, you can do this job the way it’s required to be done without physically being here. I start my day usually at 7:30 at breakfast with a CEO or a [business] breakfast. I work long days. . . . While I’m here during the week, a lot of times I’m on the campuses on the weekends.’’

3Tuition revenue is more crucial to the university’s health than many people might guess. UMass leaders met last Thursday to discuss strategies for the university system’s enrollment efforts, across its campuses. Meehan said that could mean building a stronger pipeline to the community colleges, for example, or designing more professional master’s degree programs.

“People think of ­UMass as a state-funded institution. We get state support. That allows us to offer a lower tuition than what the private [schools] do. [But] we get 17 percent of our budget from the state. The reality is most of the money to run the university does not come from the state.’’

4He nearly pursued a career in professional sports, on the management side. While he was still in Congress, about five years before he went to UMass Lowell, he met with a career consultant to help figure out what his next act should be. The consultant, New Directions, suggested two paths: higher education or professional sports.

“They said to me . . . ‘You’d really be good at running a professional sports league. You understand marketing. You understand promotion. You understand the media. You should think about that. The second thing you should think about is going into higher education, running a college or university.’ . . . I actually put a lot of time and effort into pursuing both of those.’’

5One aspect of the UMass job he didn’t expect: stadium developer. ­UMass officials are currently talking with the Kraft Group about the potential to build a new soccer arena, one with more than 20,000 seats, for the New England Revolution, at the site of the former Bayside Expo Center. UMass Boston acquired the 20-acre parcel in 2010 but currently doesn’t have enough borrowing capacity to develop the property on its own.

“It’s a potential revenue source for the university, an opportunity to enhance some of the athletics and academics by collaborating with the Kraft Group. . . . It has the potential to help transform the Boston campus. I would hope we would have an idea over the next few months of whether it’s possible.’’

Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.