GPI: Maria Bolletino, History department Chair and CELTSS director

Adrien Gobin / THE GATEPOST

By Bella Grimaldi

News Editor

What is your academic and professional background? 

I studied history as an undergraduate at Brown University. After graduation, I went to New Orleans, and I taught high school for two years at a public high school through the Teach for America program. And then I went to graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin, where I studied history but really focused on colonial American history and the history of race and slavery in the Atlantic world. 

What drew you to Framingham State?

I really appreciate the mission of Framingham State and the people who are here enacting it. So I knew [what] I wanted because I was working through Teach for America in a public school. That was what I liked about that - what I liked about Teach for America at the time. Teach for America has some issues as an organization, so I’m not going to be a cheerleader for it. … What compelled me to be a part of it was my conviction that all people should have access to an excellent education, a free and accessible, excellent education, and Framingham State allows me to enact that conviction, that mission, at the higher-education level. And that is what drew me to it, and I knew I wanted my colleagues to be people who shared that mission, and I have found that to be the case. It was a good choice. It was my job out of graduate school, and this is my 16th year. I always forget, but I’ve been here a long time. 

What led you to teaching history? 

I have a passion for history. I believe everyone should have a passion for history. What I love about history is it decenters me, and it denaturalizes things that we take to be natural or given. So it provides a sense of perspective on the present by giving us a sense of what came before that shaped what we are experiencing today. But it also helps us to see that the way we are living now is not the only way we can live, that other people have lived in radically different ways. … There are some things that are kind of universal, like the impulse to love and the impulse to exploit - I’m very sorry to say as a historian of slavery. But people have enacted those things in really different ways. It can be off-putting for some, but for me it’s enlivening, because it gives us a sense that we could remake the world. It’s up to us, in fact, to remake the world - that’s our job. And I think history provides, first of all, the sense that we can do that, because things have not always been the way they are now. They don’t have to be the way they are now. … I think that’s what’s fascinating to think about. Plus, I just think human beings are fascinating. They’re incredibly complex and contradictory and interesting. History is the study of complex and contradictory and interesting human beings.

What are your hobbies or something students wouldn’t expect about you?

I love to travel. This is one of the things I always tell my students - I try to push everyone to study abroad. We at Framingham State have done a really great job making study abroad accessible to students - all students. Just like why I wanted to become a historian, I love to see different people and how they’re living in the world. I also really love to eat a really wide variety of foods. So I like to go where I can do that. … I’m also a runner. I love to run in new places in the world, to explore them. And I run for a long time, like miles and miles, to explore new places. I also just like to walk all day long. I have maxed 21 miles in a day to just wander new places. That is my favorite thing to do in life. I also have two kids, and I love to hang out with them. My kids are fabulous human beings, and they are a joy to me.

What advice do you have for students at Framingham State?

I’m going to try to say something people don’t normally say, because I’ve read a lot of these [interviews]. I’m going to say - read books. More and more people are not taking the time to read books, but I really and firmly believe in the power of literature and history to open up the world to people in a deep and transporting way. You have to retrain your brain to do it, because frankly, it’s not easy to read, and we have trained our brains to scan because we read mostly on screens. It takes time, and it takes effort, and it takes attention, and all of those are in short supply, especially for students. I understand that because you’re working jobs, you have family responsibilities, and you have activities you’re doing. There’s not a lot of time in your lives, and I totally and utterly understand and respect those boundaries and those limitations. But there is an unparalleled pleasure that comes from losing yourself in the world that a book creates. It’s deep, and I don’t think it can be gotten elsewhere. I’m passionate about it, and I want other people to lose themselves in books, too.