Bridgewater State University
Bridgewater State University
Dr. Jennifer Reid (photo above) is seen hosting a video recently published on YouTube by the university in which she discusses BSU's Senior College's Fall 2026 program.
The video introduces and presents commentaries by a number of instructors who will be teaching this fall, including current BSU faculty and emeriti faculty.
Bridgewater's Senior College web page notes that the program offers "lifelong learning for senior adults," specifically adults 50 and over, via Zoom courses as well as In-Person courses.
Registration is open now and there will be 72 short-term, non-credit courses offered this fall in a wide range of subjects.
To see the video, please click on the link below:
What Lies Beneath: BSU Faculty and Students Help Uncover
Hidden History at Ashland Cemetery
We're grateful to Mr. Brian Benson, G '23, of BSU's Office of Enrollment, Marketing and Communications, who authored the following story, for sharing it with us:
Bobby Hohler, ’27, is unraveling secrets that lie just below the Earth’s surface, yet may have remained hidden for almost 200 years.
Bobby is part of an interdisciplinary team of Bridgewater State University researchers using ground-penetrating radar to document the location of graves in Ashland’s Village Burial Ground, which dates to 1828.
“BSU gives lots of opportunities to its students to explore different aspects of a field besides just classwork,” said Bobby, who is studying environmental geosciences.
“It’s good to get experience outside, where there are a lot of different variables involved and you have to problem-solve.”
Team members spend field days pushing a radar that resembles a lawnmower.
Much like mowing a lawn, they walk back and forth in a precise pattern to accurately cover their study area.
The radar, which can gather data up to 10 feet down, sends high-frequency electromagnetic waves into the ground and measures the time it takes for the signal to bounce back.
The team then looks for unnatural patterns that indicate grave shafts and original walking paths.
The research is part of a larger effort by the Ashland Historical Commission to revitalize the cemetery by removing dense brush and restoring weathered headstones.
BSU’s work is essential to accurately mark the locations of graves and honor those who have passed away, said Catherine Rooney, a member of the commission’s Village Burial Ground Working Group.
“It’s wonderful,” Rooney said. “We were shocked that somebody would want to come up here and do this. … This would have cost us thousands of dollars, and we would have had to find a reputable and reliable crew to do it.”
Instead, commission member and emeritus BSU anthropology professor Dr. Curtiss Hoffman asked for assistance from his colleagues in geological sciences and anthropology.
“The archaeology program was set up specifically to be in service to municipal historical commissions and nonprofits,” said Dr. Michael Zimmerman, an associate professor of anthropology.
“The idea of creating research projects which also serve communities can be very rewarding.”
Dr. Zimmerman and his colleagues even brought geology and anthropology classes to the cemetery to lend a hand.
“We’re trying to give as many of our students as possible research experience,” said Dr. Christine Brandon, an associate professor of geological sciences.
Bobby, who is a summer volunteer on the project, appreciates how it highlights the collaboration between geologists and archaeologists.
“It’s great to get out and expand (your horizons),” he said. “It’s been a good experience meeting a lot more people.”
"BSU’s most generous benefactors, Bruce and Patricia Bartlett, have taken the cause of free speech to heart, and are providing meaningful support for this most basic of American rights,” wrote John Winters, G ‘11, in Bridgewater magazine, “when Mr. and Mrs.Bruce Bartlett announced in 2022 the estabishment of the ‘Patricia Quinn, ’67, and Bruce, ’68, Bartlett Endowed Chair in Free Speech and Expression.’"
As BSU alumni know,,the “Bartlett College of Science and Mathematics” officially opened in 2012, a year after the Dana Mohler-Faria Science and Mathematics Center opened in September 2011.
Speaking of the latest Endowed Chair given by the Bartletts, Mrs. Bartlett wrote, “Bruce and I are excited and humbled to be able to help support courses in free speech and expression at Bridgewater State University."
President Fred Clark, ‘83, said in announcing the creation of the Patricia Quinn, ‘67, and Bruce Bartlett, '68, Endowed Chair in Free Speech and Expression, '"We are so deeply grateful to Bruce and Pat for their love and commitment to their alma mater and to our country. They are proud Americans with a deep appreciation for, and knowledge of, the importance of the founding of our nation was to the world, and the enduring values on which our democracy is built."
Professor of Philosophy Dr. Aeon J. Skoble was appointed the inaugural holder of the endowed chair.
“In his research, scholarship and teaching, Dr. Skoble has been a lucid and forceful exponent of the inherent value of free speech and its foundational role in democracy," continued Mr. Winters. "As chair, he will focus on four areas: teaching, scholarship, campus engagement and outreach, and mentoring and advising.”
Mr. Winters noted that the endowed chair is not the first time the Bartletts have sought to reinforce the most critical of lessons pertaining to our so-called American experiment.
“In December 2021, BSU announced the establishment of the ‘Bartlett Endowed Professorship for Civic Education and Engagement,’ which is currently held by Dr. Jo Hoffman of the Department of Elementary and Early Education," he said.
The couple also addressed the importance of free speech in the pages of a 2020 textbook they were instrumental in developing, The Massachusetts Chronicles: The History of Massachusetts from Earliest Times to the Present Day.
“The statement the Bartletts included in the publication made the point that 'free speech is the freedom that protects all the other freedoms … Free speech not only protects our liberties but also helps advance science and all aspects of our lives.' ”
We Remember Earlmira Sanborn, Class of 1865
As we do frequently in this report, we look back across the years at our former students, faculty and staff and today we've chosen Earlmira Sanborn, who graduated from Bridgewater State Normal School in 1865.
Frankly, we don't know a good deal about Ms. Sanborn, except that she was one of 23 women and six men in her class, that she taught for a year before getting married and, thus, had to leave the teaching profession (married women were not allowed to teach in Massachusetts once they wed). Records show that she went on to her greater reward in 1908.
She arrived in Bridgewater at the height of the Civiil War then raging across the country, and graduated just months after the conflict ended.
Her name was revealed to us in 1876 when Albert Gardner Boyden published the first history of Bridgewater State, and included a summary of each class up to that point. We turned to the page (below) when she
entered Bridgewater in 1863 as a member of the two-year Class #62 (her name is third from the bottom).
"Not to be Ministered Unto
but to Minister"
In Dr. Turner's classic 2010 book, Not to be Ministered Unto but to Minister: Bridgewater State College, 1840-2010, he documented the interesting life of John J. Kelly, the sixth president of what was at the time Bridgewater State Teachers College, where he served as president from 1937 to 1951 (a total of fourteen years; President Kelly died suddenly while in office to be succeeded by Clement Maxwell, professor of English):
"John J. Kelly, who succeeded Zenos Scott in September, 1937, had already been a member of the faculty for 19 years at the time of his appointment," wrote Dr. Turner.
"For most of that period, he was also the dean of men. His long apprenticeship was reminiscent of the relationship between Arthur Boyden, class of 1869, principal from 1906 to 1931 and president, 1932, and his father, Albert G. Boyden, class 1849, principal from 1860 to 1906.
"In fact, the dean’s job really meant he served as an assistant to the president under both Arthur Boyden and Zenos Scott.
"A newspaper described his selection and notification: 'Dean John J. Kelly of the State Teachers College faculty was appointed president of the college by Education Commissioner James G. Reardon Wednesday with the
approval of his advisory board. Kelly received word at his home at 58 Stetson Street in Bridgewater last evening through telephone calls from Boston newspapermen and today the popular and well-liked dean is receiving the congratulations of his many friends and associates.'
"The new president was born in Worcester," continued Dr. Turner, on July 24, 1883, where he attended the public schools and St. John's school (more, following item below)
" . . . After graduating from high school, Kelly worked for 10 years in the woodworking and metal trades, two of those years as foreman. Eventually, he enrolled in the Fitchburg Normal School and graduated in 1914. His diploma prepared him to teach practical arts, an area in which he obviously had a great deal of hands-on experience.
"Even before graduation, he had commenced a teaching career. On his resume, he listed teaching in the public schools in Littleton, Fitchburg and Springfield and between 1913 and 1918, Kelly was also the principal of evening schools Additionally, he noted that he was a supervisor and instructor in Easton before coming to Bridgewater in 1918," said Dr. Turner.
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To read a story we published in the past, please click here:
Next edition: Today, August 31, 2026