Online Harold Shively Display

Personal Life 

While we do not have much information on Shively’s personal life prior to his tenure at Bunker Hill, we do know some details about his personal life. We know that he was born in McComb, Ohio in 1918 and that he got a degree in Meat Science from Ohio State University before America’s involvement in World War Two. We also know that he enlisted during World War Two as a pilot for the United States Army Air Corps from 1942 until 1946. The full extent of his service as a pilot is not shown within the documents in the archive, however we do know that he flew supplies into mainland China and Taiwan which is mentioned through a Night Times profile as being a formative experience to his concern with assisting internationally. The Night Times profile further highlights his past educational experience such as becoming the Dean of Continuing Education at Orange County Community College in New York before founding North Shore Community College in Massachusetts. It is unknown to us if Shively was previously married, but what we do know is that he married Dr. Beverely Anderson on March 20, 1982. Not much information is found in the archives surrounding Dr. Anderson, but we do know that she was a professor and eventual chairwoman of the behavioral science department at BHCC. They were married from 1982 until Shively’s death in 2000. 

Community 

Positioned in Charlestown, there are notable instances where Shively utilized BHCC’s location as a force for good within the community. For the 350th anniversary of the founding of Charlestown, Shively and BHCC established the Community Leadership Award and gave out twenty-five awards for people in leadership roles within the Charlestown community that would have gone unnoticed. In the realm of education, Shively and Roxbury Community College’s president Kenneth Haskins collaborated to create the Bridges program that would assist Boston high school students from economically underrepresented communities in mentoring and providing college assistance. 

One of the more notable events of Shively assisting the Charlestown community is during the 1984 closure of both the Revere Sugar Refinery and the Schrafft’s Candy Company factory. The initial closing of the Revere Sugar Refinery displaced hundreds of workers, in response and to assist the displaced workers Shivley and BHCC worked with local and state legislatures to create the Worker’s Assistance Center housed on BHCC’s campus. The Center provided two different approaches for the workers, a short-term approach that involved educational and career counseling to assist the workers such as G.E.D preparation and unspecified skill training programs based on the worker’s interest.  The long-term approach involved providing free tuition for the Summer 84, Fall 84, and Spring 85 semesters for both the displaced workers and their spouses. These benefits were also offered to the displaced workers from the closure of Schrafft’s factory when the factory closed in June 1984. The items included below show Shively’s message to administrative heads from both factories to encourage the workers to utilize their services. 

Education 

Bunker Hill was the second community college that Shively was the founding president for, the first being North Shore Community College which he opened in 1965 and remained on as president until 1972 when he resigned to be one of the founders of BHCC. Through his tenure at North Shore, he helped increase student enrollment from 465 to 2,000 and assisted in a land purchase to create a campus in West Beverely. He also helped create fifteen-degree programs including a series of medical programs, and courses for students with educational disabilities. 

While president of BHCC he created numerous programs of studies for a growing population of students as he wanted the college to be geared towards real world technical service jobs. With the creation of Bunker Hill, he helped establish a non-traditional approach to education by offering a personalized approach to education, in this model, the student would go at their own pace versus the traditional lecture-based classes. Shively also advocated for an open enrollment system with students who held no high school diplomas allowing them to attend college working with the learning center at their own pace. Shively stressed that the individual student’s educational path is not a one size fits all model and is more nuanced as some students may finish within a two-year period and others might need more time, but to Shively the result of completion was more important.  

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 create and fill STEM and technical programs. 

Based in Charlestown and close to Boston, Revere, Everett, and Chelsea creates a mixing of cultures within the student population. With an increasing minority and international student population Shively sought to gear the education towards an increasingly technologized job market. A concept he mentions briefly, the increasing cultural diversity in America needed to be viewed through the understanding of people and their cultures, in addition the function of the community college is then a vessel for the individual students’ success and ability to enter the job market with at least the bare minimum for success. 

As will be examined, Shively was drawn to international education, namely with foreign students coming to BHCC and providing them with the same education as American students. He staunchly advocated against the tuition increase on foreign students within Massachusetts as he viewed that this would be detrimental to the student population as a form of cultural exchange, but to the institutions themselves as it would cause established relationships to be cut or changed.  

Challenges in Education

Being president for fifteen years, Shively faced some challenges throughout his presidency. A primary and constant thorn throughout his tenure was the issue of student parking. Initially, Bunker Hill opened with no student parking but were able to get a state parking lot in 1975, which was quickly closed due to pavement issues. Issues are further compounded with the state owning the lots and constant repairs being needed for the lots, the issue with parking lots continued for the rest of his term. Additionally, the late 70s were a difficult time in the early years of the college as state appropriated funds were cut back. This caused issues within the faculty and student body due to the lack of funding for payroll, additionally the resignation of a professor due to a contract dispute caused sixty students from the class to protest the resignation in front of Shively’s office. A follow-up meeting was scheduled with Shively for the following day; however, he was not present and sent another administrative Dean in his place.  

In the same timeframe, the construction of the E building faced controversy as it was being constructed while the budget cuts and lack of funding occurred. The articles from Bunker Hill Community College’s Student Newspaper Third Rail featured a running theme mentioning that the state appropriated funding for the E building could have gone to paying faculty and assisting in the repairs for the parking lots. We are including images from some of these articles, however if you would like to examine them in greater detail the Third Rail newspaper has been digitized up until the year 2001 and are available through the following link below. 

Additionally, a strange incident occurred on October 1980 when a travel agency dispute between BHCC was escalated when the travel agent dropped around 5,000 ping-pong balls from a helicopter. The reasoning given was that the agent was barred from advertising their company due to an incident involving BHCC students in a Montreal hotel the previous fall.  

To view the digitized Third Rail, you can go through this webpage, https://bunkerhill.advantage-preservation.com/ to view more articles and issues that were discussed. 

His International Education efforts abroad and at BHCC 

International education and the importance of Community Colleges were important to Harold Shively, which is why in 1976, along with Brevard Community College’s (BCC) President Maxwell King, they co-founded the Community College for International Development (CCID). CCID sought to assist other nations in creating their own community college networks, in turn they would learn the educational philosophies popular at the time and help provide transnational connections between CCID member colleges and those around the world. 

Before his work with CCID, Shively had been an educational consultant to Israel in 1970 assisting them by forming a master plan for their own Community College system. The archive at this point is unaware of a definitive timeframe of when he assisted Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Venezuela’s educational systems, however we know that he assisted as an educational consultant in some way in each country. 

What is known to the archive is Shively’s work in establishing relationships between Bunker Hill Community College and Taiwanese colleges in the late 70s and early 80s. Most of the items we have relating to this relationship consists of newspaper articles with the articles featuring Shively’s opinions regarding what he witnessed in Taiwan’s educational system. From what is available in the archives he took two trips to Taiwan, the first with CCID as part of a conference on Junior College Education in 1978, and a second in 1983 where he spent a semester as a guest lecturer at the Taipei Municipal Teachers College with his wife fellow BHCC Professor Dr. Beverley Anderson. The first trip is mentioned by Shively as being a net positive as he sought to increase student exchange programs to Taiwan. The second yielded the creation of sister-school relations between the Taipei Municipal Teachers College and Bunker Hill Community College. Shively was also awarded a plaque from the Minister of Education honoring Shively’s contributions in cultural and educational cooperation between Taiwan and the United States.  

Both, the sister-school agreement, and the plaque awarded to Shively are viewable below, as well as newspaper articles about his time abroad with CCID, and independently. Also included are photos and memorabilia from both of his visits to Taiwan including the nametag worn during the conferences, a dinner invitation from the head of the Palace Museum in Taiwan, and photos showing Shively with his family in Taiwan during the 1983 visit. Photos from 1983 additionally show the signing and presentation of the sister-school agreement and the plaque. There are additional items showing Shively’s dedication to expanding international education both within BHCC, and internationally, whether it’s Shively giving a conference talk to Latin American educators in BCC or his expansion of the foreign student body.  

Awards  

Prior to and during his tenure as president of BHCC Shively was the recipient of several distinctions and awards. A brief list of awards received available to us in the archives are as follows. In 1973, he was named Man of the Year by the National Council on Community Services for Community and Junior Colleges. In 1978, Suffolk University awarded him an honorary Doctorate in Education due to his contributions in education for Massachusetts and the Greater Boston Area. Shively was honored at Boston’s 350th Jubilee with the Bostonian award for his educational contributions to Boston in 1980. 

Towards the end of his presidency, he was given an award by the Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) group during their 13th annual Community Awards dinner on October 23, 1987. This award was in recognition to Shively’s work with BHCC and the impact BHCC had on the community during his 15-year presidency. The impact included offering study abroad programs, increasing the minority student population by 40% during his tenure and creating the second largest English as a Second Language (ESL) program in New England. 

Below we present the documents listed above, including the honorary degree nomination which lists in greater detail the full extent of Shively’s accomplishments during his time in Massachusetts higher education up until 1978. Additionally, some award letters are provided to add additional context, or in the case of the Leadership Medallion to highlight that he received the commendation as we do not have the physical award within the archives. 

Retirement 

On September 22, 1987, President Shively announces his retirement which would come into effect August 1, 1988. By the time he retired he had spent fifteen years with BHCC as its founding president, and he was the last remaining founding president within the Massachusetts Community College System to retire. Shively sought to retire and focus primarily on educational consulting and on international education projects.  

Before his presidency ended, a retirement party was held in Shively’s honor on April 16, 1988. Some pictures from the event and the program are included below to examine. In addition to these items, Shively received letters from Governor Dukakis, Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, President Reagan, and Ann Coles who helped establish the Higher Education Information Center (renamed the Boston Area Education and Career Planning Center) at the Boston Public Library – Copley Square location, all of which can be viewed along with the retirement photos below. 

Shively spent the remainder of his life doing educational consulting assisting other educators in their international projects. Shively died at the age of 82 in the year 2000, he was survived by Dr. Beverley Anderson and her daughter.