A Welcome from Mary Jane England '59, MD
President of Regis College

1927-2007, Celebrating 80 Years

Welcome to Regis College, a growing Catholic university sponsored by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Boston. This academic year, 2007-2008, Regis College celebrates its eightieth birthday. The year promises to be path-breaking.

In January, we started our first doctoral program, the doctorate in nursing practice. In September, our freshman class will include men (several male transfer students are already matriculating). In addition, our faculty is undertaking curricular reform so that our two schools, the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Nursing and Health Professions, can continue to meet the developing academic and professional needs of all our students, undergraduate and graduate alike, at the level of excellence for which Regis has always been known.

Yes, 2007-2008 promises to be path-breaking at Regis College. A growing sense of excitement surrounds our effort to unite a rich heritage of academic excellence with a vital personal interest in the diverse students of the twenty-first century—you—and a deep legacy of striving to build a more just society.

Regis College is, was, and will be a significant part of the world and of the Church.

Looking at 1927, the year of our founding, provides a glimpse of the spirit that inspired Mother Domitilla Buttimer, CSJ, to charter the College in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. That was a year in which the first transatlantic telephone call was made from New York City to London, and Charles Lindbergh made the first solo, nonstop voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. Buster Keaton's great silent film, The General, produced the first great chase sequence in cinema. Henri Bergson won the Nobel Prize for literature. Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs in a single season. In the summer and early fall, the heartland of the United States survived the great flood of the Mississippi River, which was comparable in effect to Hurricane Katrina and displaced more than 700,000 people. In 1927, the U.S.Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) began to regulate the use of radio frequencies.

Now we are communicating with iPods, with Blackberries, and on the Internet. Path-breaking, not limited to 1927, still calls out to us in 2007. At Regis College, leadership, excellence, and service are our hallmarks, our legacy, and our future. Whether you are looking for an undergraduate degree or a graduate program, a certificate of special training or the intellectual companionship of lifelong learning, your Regis education will recognize you as an individual yet bring you into a community of seekers with whom you can progress along your path with conversation and challenge.

Come and take part—not only in the College's birthday party but also in a personal and academic transformation!