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. Through his tenure at North Shore, he helped increase student enrollment from 465 to 2,000, created fifteen degree programs, courses for students with educational disabilities, and assisted in a land purchase creating a campus in West Beverely.  

While president of BHCC he created numerous programs for a growing population of students gearing the education towards real world technical service jobs some of which were related to the STEM field. He helped establish a non-traditional approach to education offering a personalized approach to education. In this model, the student would go at their own pace versus the traditional lecture-based classes. Shively advocated for an open enrollment system with students who held no high school diplomas, allowing them to attend college while 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 with some students finishing within a two-year period and others taking more time, but to Shively the result of completion was more important. Shively also assisted in the creation of Contract Learning, the Office for Women’s Services, and the Flexible Campus. 

Based in Charlestown and close to Boston, Revere, Everett, and Chelsea created cultural diversity within the student population. With an increasing minority and international student population, Shively sought to shift education towards an increasingly technological job market. Shively mentioned that 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. This diversity was assisted with the increase of foreign students coming to BHCC, students that Shively advocated for when a planned Massachusetts tuition increase on foreign students was considered.