Matriculation Ambassadors

On July 11, 1885, Albany Street was home to the Fire Department Shops, which were part of the Fire Department Headquarters of Boston. On August 9, 1910, they were destroyed during the Blacker and Shepard Lumber Yard fire.

In the 1970’s the Fire Department Shops building was renovated into a homeless shelter. Today, the building is occupied by the Pine Street Inn.

Notable locations on Albany Street include Boston Medical Center, BU School of Public Health, New England Infectious Disease Laboratory (NEIDL), Simulation Learning Center (AKA the SLC), Hidden Kitchen Restaurant, South End Pita Restaurant, and as of January 2019, the new address of the dental school.

He was born and rasied in rural Illinois and at the age of 17 started studying medicine with the help of his brother. In 1857, he met Dr. JC Speer who taught him the practice of dentistry.

He served as a Union scout during the Civil War and upon returning to Illinois, he began an active career and researcher in the field of dentistry, studying for 20 months and then completed an apprenticeship (common for the time.)

He conducted research on the cause of dental fluorosis and ideal cavity preparations, invented a foot-driven dental drill, and created principles for tooth preparations where he outlined the proper way to prepare teeth for fillings. Dr. Black also organized the Classifications of Caries Lesions, which is still in use today, and created the balanced amalgam formula, which would remain the gold standard in dentistry for almost 70 years.

Dr. Black was the second Dean of Northwestern University Dental School and has a statue in Chicago’s Lincoln Park. He was postumously inducted into the International Hall of Fame of Dentistry of the Pierre Fauchard Academy.

Blue Spruce’s journey begins on the Santa Fe Indian School campus with his parents’ determination that their children would excel academically and obtain college degrees. When Dr. Blue Spruce graduated from Creighton University School of Dentistry in 1956, he was the first American Indian person to graduate from dental school.
After graduating, Dr. Blue Spruce planned to return to the pueblos to treat his people. As it turned out, his destiny reached far beyond: from the wilds of Montana to New York City to San Francisco to South America and back to the United States.

Dr. Blue Spruce spent 21 years in the Indian Health Service, worked with the World Health Organization in South America, wrote drafts of legislation of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act of 1976, and served as assistant surgeon general and director of the Indian Health Service for the Phoenix area.

Throughout his journey, Dr. Blue Spruce has traveled between two cultures, succeeding in mainstream society, while keeping Pueblo tradition in his heart. Facing prejudice and conquering adversity, he reached the zenith of his career as director of the Phoenix Regional Indian Health Service and achieving the rank of assistant surgeon general of the United States.

He is currently an assistant dean at the A.T. Still University/Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health in Mesa, Arizona, and founder of the American Indian Dental Association. Throughout his career, Dr. Blue Spruce has recruited and trained other American Indian people to enter dentistry and serve those living on American Indian reservations.

At BU, Dr. Brown has emphasized strengthening the core missions of the undergraduate, graduate, and professional education, interdisciplinary work, and research and scholarship across all sixteen schools and colleges. He initiated an eighteen-month planning process that culminated in a ten-year strategic plan, “Choosing to be Great”. This plan articulates BU’s core values in a set of institutional commitments and also defines goals to be met in order to establish Boston University as one of the greatest large private research universities in the world.

In 2012, under Dr. Brown’s leadership, Boston University was invited to join the Association of American Universities (AAU), the organization of 62 leading research universities in the US and Canada.

President Case continued the post-war expansion of the University, building new dormitories and establishing the School of Fine and Applied Arts (now the College of Fine Arts (CFA), the College of Engineering (ENG), and Metropolitan College (MET). He created the African Studies program in 1953, and the same year invited the distinguished African-American theologian Howard Thurman to be Dean of Marsh Chapel.

President Case fostered a new campus atmosphere and he and his wife Phyllis won national recognition for their “University at Home” program, in which undergraduate students gathered at the Case’s home to discuss contemporary issues.

From 1890-1940, West Concord Street was home to the Bethany Home for Young Women. Operated by the Universalist Church, this home was open to single women of all faiths who paid a small entrance fee. It moved to 256 Newbury Street in the Back Bay where it is now known as Bethany Union, but to this day still provides affordable housing for young women.

The town of Concord, Massachusetts, located about 20 minutes from Boston is also very famous. On April 19, 1775, it was the scene of the first battle of the War for Independence—the American Revolution.

During the middle of the nineteenth century, a period aptly called “The Flowering of New England,” Concord was home to some of the greatest minds in America. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Bronson Alcott, and his daughter Louisa May Alcott, lived, talked, and wrote in Concord.

A child of slaves, he eventually entered Harvard University and graduated only four years after the end of the Civil War in 1869. His formerly enslaved parents took the surname “Freeman” as did countless other people after gaining their freedom from bondage.

As a child, Robert befriended Henry Bliss Noble, a local white dentist in the District of Columbia. Freeman began working as an apprentice to Dr. Noble and continued until he was a young adult. Dr. Noble encouraged young Robert to apply to dental colleges.

With the encouragement of Dr. Nobel, Freeman applied but was rejected. After a petition by Dr. Nathan Cooley Keep, the first dean of Harvard School of Dental Medicine, to end the school’s historical exclusion of African Americans and other racial minorities, Freeman was accepted into dental school in 1867 and became one of “the first six” to study at Harvard Dental. He was 21 years old. On March 10, 1869, Robert Tanner Freeman graduated dental school and became the first African American dentist in the United States.

Dr. Freeman returned to his place of birth in Washington, D.C. after his graduation to open his own practice. He became a pillar in the District’s black community because of his commitment to mentoring other African American youth interested in the medical profession. Unfortunately, his death came in June 1873, only four years after he received his dental school degree. While working in Washington, D.C. he contracted a water-borne disease although the records are unclear as to the specific disease.

Dr. Freeman’s legacy extends beyond his short life. He was honored by the National Dental Association, the all-black dental group which was founded in 1913 and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Association adopted the mission of Dr. Freeman to extend dental treatment and education to the impoverished, the disabled, and people of color as well as those who may not seek proper care due to age. In 1907, the predecessor organization to the National Dental Association (NDA) called itself the Robert T. Freeman Dental Society.

Dr. Goldman attending Boston Latin School and graduated from Brown University in 1931. He received his DMD degree from Harvard Dental School in 1935 and began a career that spanned over 50 years.

World War II interrupted his budding career and he served at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology from 1943-1945 as the first Chief of the Dental Pathology Section for the U.S. Army.

After the war, Dr. Goldman returned to Boston and became the Chief of Dentistry at Beth Israel Hospital (BIH). He created a graduate program in Periodontics and Oral Pathology and in 1955, established a collaborative program with BIH and the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Medicine, serving at its Professor and Chair of the Department of Periodontology.

In 1960, the program became part of the Department of Stomatology at Boston University School of Medicine and this served as the beginning of the world’s first school of graduate dentistry. As its founding Dean, Dr. Goldman later began an undergraduate curriculum admitting pre-doctoral students. This became one of only two private dental schools to open in the post-war period. In 1977, the school was renamed in honor of Dr. Goldman.

During his career, Dr. Goldman was a prolific writer, authoring influential dental texts that were translated in multiple languages and contributed to more than 120 articles, many of them that strongly influenced the practice of periodontology as we know it today.

Born in March 1867 in Tennessee, Gray was orphaned as a teenager when her mother died. Gray went to live with an aunt in Ohio and found work as a seamstress and dressmaker, before she found her way to the office of Dr. Jonathan Taft.

Dr. Taft, the former dean of the Ohio College of Dentistry, was an early advocate of women being trained as dentists. Dr. Taft was recruited by the University of Michigan to help established their dental school, but kept his office in Cincinnati, which is where Gray worked for about three years. There, she learned enough to take and pass the entrance examinations for the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, and enrolled on October 1, 1887.

In June 1890, Gray graduated and became the first African-American woman dentist in the United States.
Gray’s accomplishment was widely published and she opened an office at 216 Ninth Street in Cincinnati. In her practice, she serviced both white and black patients, children and adults, though her reputation was for her gentleness with children. She was a role model for many, include one of her patients, Olive Henderson, who became the second black woman dentist in Chicago.

In 1895, she relocated her practice to Chicago, after marrying James Sanford Nelson in March of that year. Gray became a widow in 1926 and retired from dentistry in 1928. In 1929, she married her second husband, William Rollins.

In addition to her dentistry, Nelson was involved in several clubs and her social activities were widely reported in the black press. She served as vice president of the Professional Women’s Club of Chicago, vice president of the Eighth Regiment Ladies’ Auxiliary and was a member of the Phyllis Wheatley Club, a group organized to maintain the only black women’s shelter in Chicago.

Harrison Avenue contains several notable landmarks and some of Boston’s best restaurants. Rosie’s Place, founded in 1974 as the first women’s shelter in the United States, is located at 889 Harrison Avenue. The SOWA Artist Guild, which contains galleries and working artist studios, is located at 485 Harrison Avenue. Every Sunday from May until October, SOWA hosts a Farmer’s Market as well as a Food Truck Court, where all the food trucks from the city gather in one location. Standout restaurants are Gaslight, Cinquocento, Bar Mezzana, Yellow Door Taqueira, Shojo and Estragon.

If you follow Harrison Avenue downtown, it will take you right into the heart of Boston’s Chinatown, the only surviving Chinese area in New England. Boston’s Chinatown is the 3rd largest in the United States and one of the most densely populated residential districts in the city, with over 28,000 people per square mile.

She was born in New York and worked as a teacher in Michigan for 10 years, before moving to Cincinnati with every intention to become a dentist. When she was refused admission, she started studying privately with a professor from Ohio College of Dental Surgery. In 1861 she started her own practice in Cincinnati before moving to Iowa and gaining acceptance to the Iowa State Dental Society in 1865. In November 1865, she was allowed to enter dental school and graduate in 1866.

She married in 1867 and along with her husband James Taylor, practiced dentistry in Kansas, until his death in 1886. She did not practice much after James’ death, but became politically active, campaigning for women’s rights until her death in 1910.

By 1900, almost 1,000 women had followed Hobbs Taylor into the profession, inspired by her accomplishments. In 1983, the American Association of Women Dentists created the Lucy Hobbs Taylor Award, which is presented annual to members recognize professional excellence and achievement in advancing the role of women in dentistry. GSDM’s own, Dr. Kady Rawal, was named 2016 Woman to Watch.

Newton Street has two parts – East Newton Street and West Newton Street. East Newton Street begins at Biosquare Drive and runs up until Washington Street, where it switches to West Newton Street and becomes a one way going to other way. Newton Street has a street level bus station on the MBTA Silver Line at the intersection of Washington Street. The South End branch of the Boston Public Library is located on the corner of West Newton St. and Tremont St.

Blackstone Square and Franklin Square are public parks located at the intersections of Washington Street and Newton Street. Charles Bulfinch, who created the plan for the South End, originally intended the two squares to be one, calling it Columbia Square. Franklin Square opened in 1849 and Blackstone Square subsequently opened in 1855.

The St. James Hotel, now the Franklin Square House Apartments, served as the exterior backdrop of the popular 1980’s NBC hospital drama series, St. Elsewhere.

In 1979, after years of neglect, local resident Brian Davidson began an effort to clean up the squares. He personally picked up trash and after several years the city of Boston began a revitalization project that included new fences, fountains, benches, and trees.

If you walk up E. Newton St toward the city, you will come to a connection to the Southwest Corridor, a linear urban park. It extends almost 5 miles (8 km) from Forest Hills section of Jamaica Plain to the South End & Back bay and features tennis courts, basketball courts, playgrounds, and walking, jogging, and biking paths.

Shawmut is a term derived from the Algonquian Native American word Mashauwomuck referring to the region of present-day Boston and the peninsula on which the city was built. It appeared very early in print in the history of New England – as far back as 1630! The meaning may refer to the salt water around Boston or to the fresh water springs found nearby.

This word appears in several place-names, not all of which can be traced with certainty to the Mashauwomuk place name.

• Shawmut Peninsula is the promontory on which Boston is built. Due to land reclamation efforts throughout the 19th century, the peninsula is now over twice its original size.
• Shawmut MBTA station is a subway station on the MBTA Red Line in Dorchester, Massachusetts that opened in 1928.
• Shawmut Bank was established in Boston in 1836 and its logo, the stylized bust of Sachem Obbatinewat, became widely recognizable in Greater Boston over the next century and a half.
• Shawmut Design and Construction is a large national construction management firm with headquarters in Boston and offices in New York City, Providence, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, West Springfield, and New Haven. Founded in 1982, the name Shawmut comes from the company’s first office which was near the Shawmut MBTA station mentioned above.
• MV Shawmut was a steel commercial trawler, built in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1938, which later served the U.S Navy as the USS Goldcrest (AM-80) during World War II.

Notable foodie spots on this city street are El Centro and Orinoco, serving excellent Mexican and Latin American foods, the South End Buttery Bakery, Coppa, and Kava, a new Mediterranean restaurant.

John Silber was the president emeritus and former chancellor who led the transformation of Boston University from a commuter school to a renowned research institution.

A strong-willed man, he was outspoken, and often controversial, but his work ethic, capacity for knowledge, and determination to improve both BU and the city of Boston made him well known in academic as well as political circles.

During his tenure at BU, he greatly expanded the campus, recruited top-notch faculty, including two future Nobel Prize winners, and established the University’s long-running partnership with the Chelsea Public School system, which began in 1988 and continued for 20 years. The University he served for so long awarded him an honorary degree at the 1995 Commencement. He also ran (unsuccessfully for governor of Massachusetts in 1990).

Silber, who came to the University in 1971, was BU’s seventh president, serving for more than three decades, as president until 1996, then as University chancellor from 1996 to 2003. He also was a College of Arts & Sciences professor of philosophy and of international relations, a University Professor, and a School of Law professor of law.

This street is lined with beautiful old brownstones and cobblestone sidewalks (so watch your step if you’re out for an afternoon stroll). At the corner of E. Springfield and Harrison, you’ll find Blunch, a sandwich spot that features the best bagel sandwiches in Boston.

The city of Springfield, Massachusetts, is also very famous. The Eastern States Exposition (“The Big E”) is located there and serves as the New England states’ collective State Fair. It is the 6th largest agricultural fair in America and features rides, music, exhibitions, and serves the most famous food from all six New England states.

Springfield, MA was the first in the New World and the largest city in Western New England. It is nicknamed the City of Firsts, because of its innovations, the City of Homes, because of its Victorian residential architecture. But Springfield is probably most famous as the Hoop City as the sport of Basketball was invented there by James Naismith in 1891.

The two smaller peaks, Cotton Hill (what is now Pemberton Square) and Mt. Vernon, (formerly at the location of the modern-day Louisburg Square) no longer exist. The central peak, now called Beacon Hill, with its single peak, is all the remains of the Trimountain. It is smaller than the original peak, which reached approximately to the height of the top of the State House.

The street is unique among streets in Boston in that the name zigzags across several physical streets, much like Francis Lewis Boulevard in New York City does. Sites of interest along Tremont Street, from northeast to southwest, include Government Center, King’s Chapel, Granary Burying Ground, Park Street Church, Boston Common, Masonic Grand Lodge, Boston Theater District, and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica.

Tremont Street Subway in Boston’s subway is the oldest subway tunnel in North America, opened on September 1, 1897. It was originally built to get streetcar lines off the traffic-clogged streets. It now forms the central part of the Green Line, connecting the Boylston, Park Street, and Government Center stations.

The majority of it was built as the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike in the early 19th century. Washington Street was the first street that connected peninsular Boston to the mainland and as a result, it serves as the divide where a number of cross streets change names.

The part of Washington Street between downtown Boston and Dudley Square in Roxbury was the first road connecting Boston to the mainland, carrying the Boston Post Road to New York City. The city of Boston has four additional Washington Streets.

The Washington Streets in the Dorchester neighborhood and Allston-Brighton neighborhood are two of the other significant streets, while the ones in Hyde Park and Charlestown are two additional minor streets.

Notable spots on Washington Street, near the South End include Toro Restaurant, Jaho Coffee Shop, Flour Bakery & Café, Foodie’s Market, Franklin Square & Blackstone Square, and Myers & Chang.