Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll to Deliver Keynote Address at Bunker Hill Community College 2025 Commencement
Monday, April 28, 2025
Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll will deliver the keynote address at Bunker Hill Community College’s 51st Commencement exercises on Thursday, May 22, 2025, at the MGM Fenway Music Hall in Boston.
"In Massachusetts, education is our calling card – it’s what brings people here and elevates our workforce, attracts employers, and puts us at the forefront of the global economy," said Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll. "As a public higher education graduate myself, I know just how life-changing our state's public higher education system can be — especially our incredible community colleges like Bunker Hill. It's why Governor Healey and I have prioritized investing in our community colleges and making them free for everyone. The Bunker Hill Class of 2025 graduates are a great example of why these investments are so important. Each and every graduate is going to make a positive impact on our communities and our economy. I'm excited to congratulate them and celebrate them all in person at the Bunker Hill Community College’s 51st Commencement speaker!"
“Lieutenant Governor Driscoll knows the power of public higher education to transform the lives of individuals and communities,” said Bunker Hill Community College President Pam Eddinger. “As Mayor of Salem, she worked to ensure pathways to opportunity and economic mobility were available to all residents, and now, as Lieutenant Governor, she and the Healey-Driscoll Administration have led the most significant expansion of access to higher education in our state’s history. We are so happy that she will be our 2025 Commencement speaker.”
BHCC graduates approximately 1,000 students each year from associate degree and certificate programs. Most BHCC alums go on to complete a bachelor’s degree at four-year colleges and universities in the Boston area and across the country. The five largest institutions where BHCC alumni complete their degrees are UMass Boston, UMass Lowell, UMass Amherst, Northeastern University, and Lesley University.
Kim Driscoll is the 73rd Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She was sworn in on January 5, 2023, joining Governor Maura Healey in an historic series of firsts: Governor Healey is the first woman and first openly LGBTQ person elected Governor of Massachusetts, and together, Healey and Driscoll are the first all-women executive team to lead Massachusetts.
Prior to taking office as Lieutenant Governor, Driscoll served as the City of Salem’s first woman Mayor. Elected in 2006, she turned deficits into record surpluses and saved taxpayers’ money by strengthening city services, revitalizing Salem’s downtown, leading a vast improvement in Salem’s K-12 schools, reforming city pensions and health insurance programs to protect employee benefits, bidding public contracts, and bringing transparency to City Hall. Under her leadership, Salem became one of the first communities in Massachusetts to adopt the expansion of free, high-quality early education opportunities starting at age four.
The daughter of a Navy chef from Lynn and an accountant’s assistant from Trinidad, Driscoll spent her childhood in a number of states, before attending Salem State University where she studied government and became a stand-out athlete on the women’s basketball team. Like so many Salem State students, she fell in love with Salem and made it her home after graduation, pursuing a career in municipal government, and married her college sweetheart, a second-generation union bricklayer.
In addition to Lieutenant Governor Driscoll, Bunker Hill’s commencement will feature student and faculty speakers. For more information on BHCC’s commencement, visit bhcc.edu/commencement.