The recipient of the 2016-2017 Carlisle High School Band Distinguished Alumnus Award is Dr. Bridget Marshall, Carlisle High School Class of 1992.
She was a member of the Color Guard for her four years at CHS, in addition to playing the violin in the orchestra (unfortunately, marching violins weren’t a thing back then).  She also served as a Color Guard Captain.  The CHS Marching Band of the 1988 – 1992 era was particularly lucky to have won three Atlantic Coast Championships, and to have had the opportunity to perform in the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona, and in the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, California.  Bridget has many fond memories of those trips and performances.

Bridget earned her undergraduate degree at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with a double major in English and Classics. Music and collaboration continued to be an important part of her life throughout her time at college.  While at Lehigh, she performed as a violinist with the Lehigh University Orchestra, which traveled to Florida to perform at the Ca’ d’Zan, an estate of one of the Ringling Brothers. Throughout her time at Lehigh, she was a DJ and for two years she served as the General Manager of the student-run radio station, WLVR.  Bridget was particularly interested in cultivating a live music scene on campus and in the local area, and worked with a group of students connected with the radio station to organize shows on campus to feature local bands.

After graduation, Bridget worked in a corporate setting for a year, and then returned to graduate school to continue her education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she earned an MA and PhD in Literature.  Bridget was inspired by the many excellent teachers she had at Carlisle High School, including Color Guard instructor Lori Rabeler, for modeling how to be a teacher and mentor, and knew for a long time that she wanted to go into teaching.

Dr. Marshall is presently an Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, where she has worked since 2005. She teaches courses on the Gothic novel, disability in literature, and surveys of American literature.  She has published articles on gambling in Gothic novels, witch tourism in Salem, and several pedagogy-related articles on using comics in the classroom, dealing with plagiarism, and teaching literature and law.   She has published an academic book about Gothic novels, as well as a children’s book about death and dying.  She continues to be interested in all things dark and creepy.  Halloween is her favorite holiday.

Dr. Marshall currently serves as the Associate Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at UMass Lowell.  In her administrative role at the College, she is particularly interested in supporting programs that bring music and the arts to more people, both through concerts, shows, performances, readings, and lectures that engage the campus and local community, and by supporting arts- and music- educational programs, like the Lowell String Project, that allow college students to get experience with teaching music, and encourage a wide range of young people to learn to play an instrument.

Bridget and her husband Jake have a daughter named Lucy and a dog named Alice; they live in Lowell, Massachusetts.  Lucy plays recorder, ukulele, piano, and cello; we’re hoping she’ll manage to march with one of those, or perhaps with some other instrument to be named at a later date.

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