Archives Collections: Presidents

President Harold Shively was the founding president of Bunker Hill Community College whose tenure lasted from 1973 to 1987. One of the essential aims of President Shively was to cultivate a community at Bunker Hill and a key program in making this come to fruition was the Cooperative Services Program. This program was instituted to foster community in which students would do work and project based education and give academic credit to those who successfully completed them. Other programs founded during President Shively’s tenure to hone a community of inclusivity and diversity were Educational Outreach, Contract Learning, Flexible Campus, Aging Program, Alternative Learning Accreditation Program, and the Office for Women's Services. A key initiative of President Shively was to limit the amount of students in liberal arts programs in order to properly fill STEM and technical programs.

As an advocate of diversity and inclusivity, President Shively attempted to address the various needs of minority, low skilled, and low income populations. Among the programs that President Shively created for these populations was the Worker’s Assistance Program, which was founded in the 1983 to address the need for education and skills for low-skilled and laid off workers. This organization was inspired in response to the closing of a sugar plant in Charlestown where eight-hundred workers were laid off; thus, President Shively used the Workers Assistance Program to help these aforementioned workers to acquire affordable and quality skill based education so that they could be prepared reenter the workforce. Workers Assistance Center helped the laid off Revere sugar plant workers by granting them free tuition and skill based training so that upon reentering the workforce, they had more marketable knowledge and diverse skill sets. A thousand people were assisted in the first eight months of the workers program.

After the tenure of his Presidency, President Harold Shively wrote a history of the first twenty years of Bunker Hill Community College in which he details the changes and occurrences that Bunker Hill Community College has undergone including but not limited to, the creation of programs, issues and controversies, the successes and the philosophy of the College.

Dr. Piedad F. Robertson was President of Bunker Hill Community College from 1988-1991. After her tenure, she became the Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. During her tenure, the college hosted Edward Teller, who was part of the Manhattan Project, known for his advocacy for strong security and defense for the United States and the creation of the hydrogen bomb.

Kathleen E. Assar was the third President of Bunker Hill Community College from 1991 to 1992 where she served as the interim president between Dr. Piedad F. Robertson and Charles E. Stikes. 

President Dr. Charles E. Stikes was the first African American president of Bunker Hill Community College, who served from 1992 to 1995. President Stikes attempted to cultivate a more activist role for Bunker Hill Community College through his writings, speeches, and committee meetings. His activism included advocating for NAFTA at a meeting the White House and setting up for BHCC faculty to teach in Ghana.  Also during his tenure at Bunker Hill Community College, President Stikes was a member of the American College and University delegation, seeking to facilitate relations between the United States and China.

President Maurice F. O’Shea was the Interim President of Bunker Hill Community College from 1995-1997. Before his tenure as BHCC’s president, President O’Shea served as the Vice President of Academic Affairs.

President Mary Fifield was the 6th president of Bunker Hill Community College from 1997 to 2013. As the President of Bunker Hill Community College, President Fifield was advocated for diversity and inclusivity much like her predecessors, yet she brought her own unique vision and policies to empower the people of color and women students of Bunker Hill Community College. President Fifield often held events to foster diversity and affordability of the college which include “Days of Dialogue” events, started during Dr. Charles “Scully” Stikes’ administration in which faculty and students would congregate to discuss the issues they had with BHCC and how these issues could be rectified, and professional development days which facilitated the discussion and planning of new techniques and methodologies to improve research, teaching, and student success.

Through various articles and speeches, including “The Conceptual Shift Needed to Diversify Higher Education”, President Fifield specifically reached out to communities of people of color and LGBTQ to facilitate an inclusive atmosphere for Bunker Hill Community College. One of her major contributions to diversity for the Bunker Hill College Community was the creation of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion Task force advocating for faculty and staff initiatives to promote a broadened definition of diversity.

The actions this task force took were the following: to determine elements that inhibit diversity like actions and routines as they relate to discrimination based on race, ethnicity gender, sexuality and disabilities, encouraging diversity activities, like festivals, open discussions, and curricular development, and ultimately cultivating climates where people of color and women are being recognized and empowered by their achievements.

One of the key implementations of Fifield’s tenure was midnight courses that would run from 12:00AM to 2:30 AM to accommodate students who could not take classes during the day or early evening. Fifield was ultimately proactive in reaching out to the Greater Boston Area, advocating for television and radio advertisements, marketing videos and informed statistics that would encourage prospective students and benefactors to look into Bunker Hill Community College.