Theme: What is Our Future?

Our event looks to explore the question of what is our future? The speakers we have selected will try to tackle this question and answer it in their own unique and creative way.

131 Summer Street
Bridgewater, Massachusetts, 02324
United States

Amma Marfo

Amma Marfo is the thoughtful yet incurably silly Assistant Director of Student Activities for Involvement and Assessment at Emmanuel College in Boston, MA. As a writer, higher education administrator and popular culture enthusiast, she's dedicated to the idea that our leisure pursuits can inform and enrich the work we do.

Ed Cabellon

Ed Cabellon has 18 years of progressive experience in Higher Education administration & is a leader in digital technology & social media integration, education, & assessment. He currently serves as the Assistant to the Vice President of Student Affairs at Bridgewater State University. The focuses of his work are around student technology integration, strategic marketing & communication efforts, & management of divisional budgets. His research interests include 1st generation student retention through social media & digital identity development.

James Hayes-Bohanan

James Hayes-Bohanan has been part of the Bridgewater State community since 1997, when he was hired to teach courses in environmental geography and the geography of Latin America. These interests began almost immediately to converge around a growing interest in the many geographies of coffee as an environmental , economic, social, culinary, and artistic subject. Through the generosity of coffee farmers and others in the industry, he continues to learn about the many ways in which we are connected to coffee - even if we do not drink it. Known as the Coffee Maven, he has come to view our relationship to coffee as a strong indicator of our relationships with the wider world.

Jenny Shanahan

Jenny Olin Shanahan is Director of Undergraduate Research at Bridgewater State University, where she oversees a multidisciplinary program of over 1,400 students a year conducting high-impact scholarly work. Previously she was Director of the Honors Program and Associate Professor of English at St. Mary's University of Minnesota. Dr. Shanahan holds a Ph.D. in Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States from Marquette University. She and her husband Michael have two hilarious teenaged sons. They live in Easton, Massachusetts. Giving a TEDx talk is right yp there with some of the most exciting opportunities of Jenny Shanahan's 21-year career in higher education.

Lisa Boragine

Lisa Boragine holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Vermont in Environmental Studies (’94) and a Master of Arts degree in Speech Communication from Syracuse University (’95). Ms. Boragine has taught Communication related courses and administered and coached academic debate for over 20 years at a variety of institutions, both public and private. In addition to holding a visiting lecturer position at BSU, Ms Boragine founded a nonprofit, Dump & Run, an organization dedicated to college reuse and recycling, and she has appeared in over 40 news articles related to her recycling work. Ms. Boragine currently works as a Digital Content Designer for Cengage Learning, an educational content, technology and services company for the higher education and the K-12 market. She is a life-long fan of Dr. Who and all things timey-wimey. She is currently writing a novel about time-travel.

Madhavi Venkatesan

Madhavi Venkatesan is a faculty member in the Department of Economics at Bridgewater State University. Her present academic interests are specific to the integration of sustainability into the economics curriculum and she is currently pursuing scholarly interests in sustainable development. Prior to re-entering academics, Madhavi held senior level positions in investor relations for three Fortune 250 companies. In this capacity she was a key point of contact for investors and stakeholders and was instrumental in the development of socially responsible investing strategies and corporate social responsibility reporting. Madhavi started her financial services career after completing her post-doctoral fellowship at Washington University in St. Louis. She has a PhD in Economics from Vanderbilt University.

Mia Holland

Dr. Mia Holland is a passionate advocate in the field of eating disorders and body image issues. Her philosophy emphasizes education, advocacy, and the development of self-acceptance in the battle against these afflictions and their causes. Dr. Holland's educational credentials include an Ed.D. in Child and Youth Studies from Nova Southeastern University, an M.Ed. in Counseling from Bridgewater State University, two years of additional graduate training in Clinical/Behavioral Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She is a Certified Personal Fitness Trainer and has studied nutrition and holistic wellness. Dr. Holland serves as Chair of the Studies in Human Behavior programs at Capella University in Minneapolis and is also Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology for Bridgewater State University.

Queen Butahe

Queen was born in 1993 in Tanzania, East Africa and is currently a current Bridgewater StateUniversity student studying communications media journalism. She is also a motivational speaker and an author of her autobiography, "The Luckiest Bustard." I am interested in story telling, and using the power of words and life experiences to help people.