Bruce is a true ‘Jersey Boy’, coming to us from Millburn High School in northern New Jersey along with Larry Eron and Bruce Furie. He warmed the bench on the swimming team, co-managed the Tiger Band, ate at Elm, and graduated with a love of history and Princeton.

Inspired by the Great Society, Bruce chose education as a career. A PhD from Johns Hopkins in history of education led to an appointment at Brockport, a rapidly expanding campus in Nelson Rockefeller’s booming SUNY system. That led to a very rewarding half-century career in public higher education. In addition, he taught in the Leslie’s Scottish motherland, held a Fulbright Scholarship in Denmark, and is a Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, Cambridge.

For two decades Bruce climbed the well-worn academic path of scholarly publication while dodging the perils of public higher education employment in difficult times. Then he turned to “public history”, writing for a broader audience, particularly to win the hearts and minds of New Yorkers for SUNY. He retired in 2021 as a SUNY Distinguished Service Professor.

Bruce’s Princeton and ’66 connections abound. In particular, he chaired both the Princetoniana Committee under Henry von Kohorn’s leadership of the Alumni Association and the Friends of Princeton University Library assisted by several 66ers. Bruce also marked our alma mater’s recent anniversary with a pictorial history titled Princeton University: The First 275 Years. Look for complimentary signed copies at Reunions. Gentlemen and Scholars: College and Community in the “Age of the University,” 1865–1917, published in 1992, traces the development of four eastern colleges (Princeton, Bucknell, Swarthmore, and Franklin & Marshall) during that period.

Bruce cannot stop being a historian. Next is a study of Henry Fine (think Fine Hall), who created the mathematical powerhouse that attracted Einstein to Princeton. This interdisciplinary project draws on the expertise of several classmates in the GREAT CLASS of ‘66. Stay tuned.