In Hehir's thirty-one years of presidency, the small college grew to become a university and the seventh largest Catholic school in the United States.

[note 1] Nine months of hearings and evaluations ensued; on March 30, 1911, the petition for a change of charter was granted, and the college was reincorporated as a university.

[13] With the additional space provided by these new constructions, the university founded a School of Pharmacy, which was officially opened in September 1925.

His administration saw a sixfold increase in enrollment from 1911 to 1921, and witnessed Duquesne emerge to become the seventh-largest Catholic school in the country; this meteoric rise can be attributed largely to Hehir's pragmatism and commitment to serving the Catholic community in Pittsburgh during a time when immigrants struggled to assimilate into larger society.

Future Spiritan priest and president of Duquesne University Henry J. McAnulty, an undergraduate student at the time, served at Hehir's funeral Mass on June 11, 1935.

[20] By the end of Father Hehir's presidency he was being lauded for the positive legacy he left at Duquesne and in the city of Pittsburgh.

A Mr. Reis declared at his retirement dinner that "There is no other living man in the city of Pittsburgh who by his work and his labor has rendered so much good and has radiated such a wonderful influence over this community as [Father Martin Hehir].

"[19] Joseph Rishel, in his history of Duquesne University, The Spirit that Gives Life, writes of Father Hehir that "never, before or since, would one man be such an overshadowing figure to the school".

[2] Hehir maintained a highly visible presence in the day-to-day life of the university, participating in and supporting college events, and taking personal interest in the lives of students.