Letter From the President
One of the qualities that defines Suffolk is that we’re a forward-thinking university that also recognizes all we can learn from the past. We’re intensely focused on preparing our students for a future that is evolving by the hour—and our location along Boston’s Freedom Trail means we’re uniquely positioned to appreciate the lessons that history can teach.
That’s especially true this year, as our nation prepares to mark its 250th anniversary. Here in Boston, Suffolk alumni at the city’s major historical institutions—as well as faculty and students—are leading the charge, and our cover story goes behind the scenes as they prepare for this summer’s celebrations. At the center of it all is Suffolk Professor Robert Allison, a nationally known historian and expert on the American Revolution, who chairs Revolution 250, which has organized an ambitious series of events commemorating different historic milestones. Alumni, many of whom were inspired by Allison and other Suffolk faculty members, are now working to bring that history to life, investigating the contradictions and complex human stories behind the American Revolution and exploring the relevance those stories hold for us today.
As Lucy Pollock, BA ’22, exhibits manager for the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, puts it: “When you start to see these grand revolutionary figures as day-to-day people with their own lives and issues, you realize that you as an individual can actually be quite impactful. Learning that your voice matters—and that the challenges you see for society can be fixed by normal people banding together—is one of the most important things the American Revolutionary story can tell us.”
While the Suffolk campus is steeped in Revolutionary history, our downtown location and industry partnerships enable our students to prepare for cutting-edge careers in fields like biomedical research and cybersecurity, which you’ll also read about in these pages. And studying in what’s often described as America’s top sports city gives our students unparalleled access to immersive learning opportunities with Boston’s pro sports teams. In this issue, you can follow along as one group of 40 Suffolk students and alumni films a feature-length documentary about New England Patriots captain Marcus Jones, while a second group travels north to Portland for an intensive internship program with the Maine Celtics.
Suffolk’s location was, in many ways, life-changing for Joe Dorant, BSBA ’05, now the senior director of global expansion and events at Kraft Sports + Entertainment. Our urban campus, where students walk to class shoulder to shoulder with commuters on their way to work, gave him the sense that he was “in the center of everything,” he says. “I never had that college-campus experience that wherever you walk, you’re still on [college] property. Instead, I got to live in the center of Boston almost like a young professional. I grew up fast because of that.”
Today, Dorant is very much in the center of everything: He is the Kraft Group’s point man for this summer’s World Cup matches at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. Over the course of four weeks and seven matches, Gillette is expected to host close to half a million ticketed fans from all over the world, and Dorant walks us through what it takes to mount an event of this magnitude.
At Suffolk, our location translates into these kinds of remarkable opportunities. We’re an institution where past and present constantly inform what’s next—and where our students don’t just study change, they can participate in it. They learn to see what’s possible, and to step directly into shaping what comes next.
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spring 2026
Marisa J. Kelly, President
Selvin Backert, BA ’24, an education specialist at the Museum of African American History, helps visitors appreciate the contributions of Americans whose fight for freedom did not end with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Photograph by Adam DeTour
