Bridgewater State University

Bridgewater State University offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate, graduate, and evening degree programs. Centrally located and widely respected, Bridgewater is committed to making a challenging, high quality education accessible and achievable for students in the region and beyond.

Founded in 1840 by Horace Mann, Bridgewater is one of America's first teacher preparation institutions. Today, Bridgewater provides a broad range of graduate and undergraduate degree programs through its School of Graduate Studies, School of Arts and Sciences, School of Business, and School of Education and Allied Studies. Three hundred full-time faculty lead more than a hundred undergraduate and graduate academic programs at the college, which has an enrollment of approximately 10,000 full-time and part-time graduate and undergraduate students.

Bridgewater State University seeks to educate its students to think critically, communicate effectively and act responsibly within a context of personal and professional ethics. Therefore, the college actively recruits faculty and staff who are, first and foremost, committed to the development of the individual student.

Bridgewater's trajectory of excellence has endured since the time of its founding in 1840 as one of the first normal schools in America. Now a premier public university of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the community of students, faculty, staff and volunteers who propel Bridgewater State University ever forward is united behind a common vision and purpose. These values are embodied in the five overarching goals of the university's strategic plan - a beacon of opportunity during the best of times, one of invaluable clarity during moments of challenge.

As the comprehensive teaching university of Southeastern Massachusetts, Bridgewater State University has a responsibility to educate the residents of Southeastern Massachusetts and the commonwealth, and to use its intellectual, scientific and technological resources to support and advance the economic and cultural life of the region and the state.

The Bridgewater State University Strategic Plan propels the institution along a bold trajectory of excellence and aligns decision-making around a clear agenda. Much more than a static document, the Strategic Plan identifies a dynamic process by which the University's forward progress may be managed, monitored and maximized.

One piece of our Strategic Goal is to increase global and cultural awareness and encourage a diversity of perspectives on campus and in the region. BSU is an active participant in The Leading for Change Higher Education Diversity Consortium which is a voluntary collaboration of higher education institutions in Massachusetts and New England committed to identifying student and employee diversity best practices through uniform and transparent use of data, institutional benchmarks and reflective practice.

Employees of BSU are encouraged to utilize the resources of the Diversity Inclusion Resource Institute, whose mission it is to support the diversity and inclusion-oriented research, scholarship, creative endeavors and other practices in higher education. The Office of Institutional Diversity also sponsors dynamic book clubs, trainings, and workshops that provide campus members an opportunity to thoughtfully dialogue with one another about issues of diversity, inclusion and social justice.

The Institute for Social Justice was launched in fall 2012. It comprises the Community Service Center, the Friends and Mentors (FAM) for Change program, Jumpstart, the President's Task Force to End Homelessness, and two Residential Learning Communities.

The Bridgewater State University campus defines social justice as promoting fairness, equal access and equal opportunity, ensuring basic human rights, supporting diversity, and working to end prejudice and discrimination. The mission of the ISJ is to build a continuum of opportunities through which the campus community can address equity issues and work towards solving social problems.

One of our primary goals as a university is to serve as a transformative resource as well as a facilitator of reciprocal partnerships within our regional, national and global communities. Bridgewater encourages and supports civic and international engagement, strategic collaborations, public service programs and a variety of outreach measures, all of which emphasize and strengthen our relationship to our region and the wider world around us.

The Office of Human Resources at Bridgewater State University offers information about employment opportunities and an overview of benefits at the region's comprehensive university, and new employees with information they need to begin their careers.