The Voice

Issue date: 11/9/06 Section: features

Media Credit: Photo courtesy of http://bloomsburgasd.schoolwires.com

One of Bloomsburg University's former graduates has remained in the area and maintains a great partnership with the Bloomsburg school district and his alma mater. Joseph Kelly, a 1973 alumnus, is currently the superintendent of Bloomsburg Area schools. Kelly is originally from the suburban Philadelphia area and went to high school at Pennsbury High School in Fairless Hills, PA. He has a German degree from the Bloomsburg.

In an email conversation, Kelly said he was drawn to Bloomsburg because of the size, reputation and cost. He wanted to major in secondary education because he was exposed to many of the University's secondary education majors who were student teaching while he was in high school. He also applied and was accepted at West Chester and Penn State, but admits he was a typical high school senior because he did not "put a whole lot of thought and research" into choosing a college.

At Bloomsburg, he got involved with foreign language honor societies and intramural sports teams. "I remember my college days, especially my junior and senior years, as being great times." Kelly said. "We were young, we knew all the answers, and I felt the future would just take care of itself." He recalls major differences in how students lived and passed time during his years at Bloomsburg and what students do today. On campus residents did not have in-room luxuries such as telephones and televisions; the only places those were present were in residence hall lounges, and the phones were pay phones.

When he entered college, it was the fist time women were allowed to wear pants to class and they still had a curfew for what time they had to be back in the dorms. "Men had to sneak girls into the dorms." he said. Sports programs were just as prevalent, but unlike today, the football team did not get as much publicity. "Basketball was on the way up and wrestling was king." The values he upheld in his college days are not much different from what students find most important today. "I think that college students of the 1960s and 1970s are far more familiar to today's students than they are different. We were just trying to get an education and have a little fun along the way."

In December of his senior year, he was drafted and was required to report to basic training after graduation. However, in January, the Vietnam War ended as did the draft. He instead got a Fulbright grant and went to Germany for a year to teach German. Once he returned to the U.S., he resumed his job at Central. While he was still there, he obtained his certification as a school administrator and worked his way up, serving as a middle school principal, then a high school principal. Today, he is in his eighth year as Bloomsburg superintendent.

Kelly resides in Bloomsburg with his wife of 25 years Nikki, an accountant with a local management company, but they do not have any children. He plans to keep a permanent home in town, but says that he and his wife would like to move away for an extended period of time to live somewhere "very different from Bloomsburg, for example, Europe or Hawaii." His advice to today's college students is this: "I graduated from college in 1973. I could not have envisioned the direction that my life would take. Neither can today's students. The years and then the decades will speed by, so if you have the chance to do or try something that interests or excites you, do it while you can."

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