Each month, we profile a graduate of Curry College for our email newsletter @Curry.  Those profile stories are listed here to demonstrate the impact Curry alumni have on their communities and professions in a wide range of career fields.  For more stories on successful Curry alumni, visit the page dedicated to our National Alumni Council.  For more information on our monthly email newsletters or to suggest a profile subject, contact Manager of Alumni and Parent Relations Christian Gordon at 617-333-2327 or alumni@curry.edu. 

Roger Allan Bump '52

On June 30, the Curry College community lost a legendary broadcaster, dedicated teacher and true friend. Roger Allan Bump served as a faculty member in our Communication department from 1960 to 1993. Over the course of those 33 years Roger touched the lives of many students and continued to do so after they had graduated and entered broadcasting by opening doors, offering advice and by using his position as the News Director at Boston's most powerful and influential Radio station to help advance their careers. Bob MacNeil '71, Senior Lecturer and Acting Co-Chair of the Communication Department contributed the piece below to remember his teacher, mentor and friend. If you have a memory or story about Roger, we welcome you to share it by email to alumni@curry.edu Watch the Alumni profile page for updates.

He was never Professor Allan, or Mr. Allan, and he certainly wasn't Professor Bump. He was always Roger or Rog. Despite the informality, Roger Allan had the respect of his students from day one, because he had done it and he was doing it, day in and day out. Roger was a practitioner and he believed that's how broadcasting should be taught.

For more than 50 years, Rog was a broadcaster whom people looked up to. He was a person of principal, honesty and great integrity. In the 40 years that I knew him, he always told me the truth. Sometimes it wasn't the easiest thing to hear, but it was meant to make me a better person. That's the way he was with all of his students during the 33 years he taught at Curry and other schools.

I was honored to know Roger in the classroom, the newsroom and in our respective living rooms. He had a special bond with his students. Roger did not mince words. He had an opinion on just about everything, and he wasn't afraid to share those opinions. On starting out in radio he told it to us straight: "You've got to go the 'tall grass' " he'd say. "That's where you can make mistakes and its okay, because you're just starting out." When you got there, there was often a call from Roger. Somehow he'd heard you and was ready to offer advice. He loved to drive, and every place he traveled to he'd take with him a list of students working in that region, with the station frequency or channel so he could listen or watch. He was one of a kind!

He startled me a few months ago when he said: "How come they only give you two minutes an hour to tell the news on that station. Do you want me to make a call to the program director?" Rog was always concerned about his students no matter how many years they'd been out of Curry!

There are so many things that I remember about him during our 40-year friendship; the years we served on the Curry Alumni Board together, and the time Curry presented him with an honorary degree. But the two things I remember the most was how he stressed the need to give something back and to never forget where you came from.

When visiting him at his home in New Hampshire last winter, he sat right in front of a big picture window so he could keep an eye on what was going on outside, while talking on the phone, usually to a student. Next to him were class directories, as well as his Rolodex, and phone books. He didn't go in much for computers. "I like to talk to people one-on-one,'' he'd say. "I like hearing their voice." He'd make endless calls, always wanting to make sure his "kids" were doing okay.

Roger never forgot his roots. He was still talking to high school students interested in broadcasting in northern New Hampshire and Vermont about going to Curry College. He also did a weekly radio show with local officials on the Lebanon, New Hampshire station, that could also be heard on the Internet.

While his voice has been silenced, his advice and guidance are still very much a part of me and hundreds of others, and always will be.

Thanks Roger!