Arts & Sciences Magazine

When Bonnie (Turen) Feld joined the Arts & Sciences’ Dean’s Advisory Board in 2008, she saw it as an opportunity to give back to the college that had given her so much—and to continue learning from it.

“I live to learn,” said Feld, who stepped down from the Dean’s Advisory Board in June 2024. “I pick up as much as I can around me and try to figure out how to implement, make it better. I believe in the future and want to be part of the solutions that get us there and beyond.”

Feld loved her time as a college student—the big lectures, the small seminars, the freedom to choose classes she was interested in, the diversity of people she met. But her favorite part of the experience was getting to learn something new and different every day.

Feld has spent the past 18 years giving back to and learning from the College of Arts & Sciences—not just as a member and longtime chair of the College of Arts & Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board, but also as chair of the Arts & Sciences fund drive in the Campaign for Boston University, and by funding professorships and student support programs. For all of these contributions, she was honored by the College of Arts & Sciences during Alumni Weekend in September 2024 with the first-ever Dean’s Lifetime Leadership Award.

“It is amazing to come back to Boston University and look around and see how much advancement has taken place,” Feld said. “The opportunity and the growth that students can achieve is far greater than it was when I was there. Being part of a university that has made so many advances in helping students be as excellent as they can be, it’s incredibly invaluable.”

Feld came to Boston University from northern New Jersey, drawn to the vibrancy and collegiate atmosphere of Boston. She studied political science and history, thinking she would go on to law school. But she was hesitant to apply as she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a prosecutor or a defender. In the meantime, she stayed in Boston and took a job at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Soon after, while on vacation in Miami, she met her former husband, Kenneth Feld (Questrom’70). They married a year later and Feld “literally ran away and joined the circus,” she says. She spent the next fifty years working in the family business, Feld Entertainment, which produces Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, Monster Jam, Supercross, Disney on Ice, and Disney Live!

She says it took three years of working for the circus to fully learn the business and to realize that she was applying critical thinking skills she had developed in college. The circus taught her the value of experiential learning or learning by doing.

“When I joined the circus, I was so fascinated. I couldn’t learn fast enough and there was everything to learn. I didn’t know how to apply anything, how to take snatches of information that I had learned, how to organize, cut through problems because of the priorities,” she said. “Until I had enough new knowledge of the playing field I didn’t know how to utilize my earlier resources.”

That hands-on learning experience—and those she has had since then—inspired her to give a founding gift to the CAS Experiential Learning Connector, a new resource to help Arts & Science undergraduates find and access experiential learning opportunities—opportunities where they can learn by doing—find support and connection, and reflect on how their experiences might impact future educational and professional decisions.

“In college, I was just collecting information that I thought was interesting. The ability to understand the usage of the courses that I took, to think about them in terms of application, just wasn’t a thing. Now the Connector is there as a guide to help,” she said. “It’s the connective tissue that I wish I’d had at BU because the university was not easy to navigate when I was in school. When you can navigate better, you actually learn and retain a lot more from every class.”

Feld’s experiential learning has continued throughout her career. She studied photography at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at The George Washington University, and went on to take photos of boxer Muhammad Ali, SuperCross motorcycle racing, Monster Jam events, Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus, endangered Asian elephants, and more.

She was also involved in the Feld Family Foundation, which supports higher education, the performing arts, and conservation, as well as the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation, which supported cancer research exploring the efficacy of the P53 genes in elephants. The gene protects elephants from getting cancer and research is now focused on its use in human cancer treatments. In addition, she served as a board member and president of the corporation of The Holton-Arms School, an independent girls’ school in Bethesda, Md., attended by her daughters, Nicole, Alana (COM’02), and Juliette.

And she has dedicated herself to live theater, as a member and chair of the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va.; as a coproducer of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen, and, most recently, as a coproducer of the Tony Award-nominated Broadway musical Water For Elephants. Feld said that as soon as she read the script for Like Water for Elephants, she “felt the passion.” She was amazed by how the writers truly got at the heart of the circus business and being part of the production “stirred my creative juices” and “made my heart soar.”

Feld says serving on the Dean’s Advisory Board has given her an appreciation for the countless opportunities and resources available to students today, and the ways that alumni support and mentorship can make a difference in their lives. Her family foundation established the Feld Family Career Center at the Questrom School of Business, the Feld Family Skating Center at Agganis Arena, and three endowed professorships: the Feld Family Professor in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Management & Organizations; the Feld Family Professorship of Teaching Excellence in the College of Arts & Sciences; and the Feld Family Professorship of Emerging Media in the College of Communication.

She encourages fellow alumni to follow her lead in giving back—to bring what they have learned in their lives and careers back to campus to support and enhance the experience of current students. “The University is a lot different than when any of us were there. We’re better because we have this affiliation. And we’re better because of what we learn when we get involved,” she said. “Then we can be the mentors that we ought to be, we can create internships that we ought to do, we can help students by providing a far better launch pad and guidance.”

Personally, she’s not sure what her next learning experience will be, but she is not worried because there is a lot more to learn and to do.

“Life is an opportunity; you just need to keep your eyes open and find them and use what you have so you can learn what you don’t have,” she said. “It’s important to me that whatever I do, I make the road easier for other people, whatever I can do to help crack open a door so someone else who does have the skills can go through.”