Mount Auburn Hospital, Led by Jeanette Clough, Named as One of the 2019 Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts by The Boston Globe;
Betsy Siggins, Folk Music Pioneer and Founder of FolkNE is awarded Club Passim’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Jeanette G. Clough
The 2019 Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts
The Commonwealth Institute and the Globe Magazine partner to name the most noteworthy companies and nonprofits helmed by women. Mount Auburn Hospital, under the helm of President Jeanette Clough, has been named 6th on the list.
How the list was created: The Commonwealth Institute, a nonprofit that supports female business leaders, examined revenue or operating budget as well as other variables, including number of full-time employees in the state, workplace and management diversity, and innovative projects. TCI then ranked organizations according to its own formula. This is the 19th* year that TCI has created the list, and the seventh year that the Globe Magazine has partnered with the group.
Upon her arrival at Mount Auburn Hospital in 1998, Clough became the first nurse to lead a Harvard affiliated teaching hospital. Partnering with physicians, employees and the community, Ms. Clough has overseen the opening of new programs and expanded services at the Mount Auburn Hospital. Under her leadership the Hospital has received numerous awards and has been named to the list of “Best Places to Work” for 8 years by the Boston Business Journal.
About Mount Auburn Hospital
Founded in 1886 as the first hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mount Auburn Hospital is dedicated to delivering healthcare services to you in a personable, convenient and compassionate manner. Their mission is to improve the health of the residents of Cambridge and its surrounding communities. They respect the dignity of you, our patients, as well as that of your families.
Mount Auburn Hospital is a top-notch teaching healthcare system affiliated with Harvard Medical School. This allows us to make significant contributions to educating the caregivers of tomorrow, thereby maximizing your quality of care. The hospital is fully accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and is a member of the American Hospital Association, the Council on Teaching Hospitals, and the Association of American Medical Colleges. They have received numerous awards in recognition of their high standard of quality care.
With 217 licensed beds in all private rooms, and comprehensive inpatient services in all medical specialties, they aim to provide you with the highest level of care and comfort. You can rely on top-level care in all treatment areas, including our Cardiac Care and Cancer Care departments, both known as centers of excellence. The hospital also offers specialized and streamlined services for men, women and seniors.
Mount Auburn Hospital is part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a new health care system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,000 physicians and 35,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.
Betsy Siggins
Betsy Siggins will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 60th Anniversary Celebration Concert for Club Passim, the venerable folk music venue in Harvard Square. Recognizing a sixty-year commitment to the folk music scene in New England, groundbreaking singer, songwriter, activist and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Joan Baez will present Betsy Siggins with the award at the the Boch Center Shubert Theatre on Thursday, November 14, 2019.
Originally known as Club 47, Passim was a destination for many of the musicians who would go on to become stars in the world of folk music, individuals like Joan Baez, Jim Kweskin, Bob Dylan and many others. As a founding member of Club 47, Betsy Siggins helped to launch the folk revival. She returned to Club Passim in 1997, serving as executive director for 12 years and created programs such as Culture for Kids, an after-school program for underserved Cambridge students, the Passim School of Music, and Passim Archives. Betsy continues her lifelong advocacy for folk music as the founder of Folk New England housed at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst
“Without Betsy, Passim as we know it would not exist today,” continued Wooster. “Her hard work has not only allowed Club Passim to thrive, but by seeing the possibility of the Passim School of Music, she has continued to inspire and educate New England musicians. We are thrilled to have her friend Joan Baez join us in celebrating her work.”
Honored with a proclamation from the City of Boston in February 2019, Betsy Siggins has mentored and promoted the folk music community of New England since the 1960s.
Betsy started her career as a pioneer of music and culture. Managing Club 47, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, throughout its seminal years at the heart of the Folk Revival, she presented some of the century’s most significant artists and broke new ground, helping to redefine what folk music was and could be for future generations.
She has advocated for the central issues of that era as well, working for human rights, equality, and peace. During a time of segregation and social unrest, noted cultural historian Ralph Rinzler hired Betsy to travel south to accompany black musicians to New England for local performances. Often unable to find them lodging because of their skin color, Betsy still found them beds, even if beds meant her living room couch.
After leading and shaping the music and culture of Club 47, Betsy next moved to New York. There, she worked in soup kitchens, food pantries, and founded programs for homeless people with AIDS. She also began to connect social programs with performing artists, drawing on the deep community she’d nurtured at the Cambridge club. Now, together, they worked to bring awareness — and donors — to the causes about which they cared. Tom Rush, Joan Baez, Odetta, Judy Collins, Taj Mahal, Lori McKenna, and many others, have participated in her fundraising pursuits.
Upon her return to Massachusetts, Betsy returned to the place it all began, becoming the executive director of the Passim Folk Music and Cultural Center. Again, and as always, she mentored new artists. She expanded the club and its contributions to the community by adding musical education, archives, and programs that brought school children into the story of folk music and the people making it.
Today, Betsy continues to advocate for her beliefs in this ever-changing world. She continues to work with the archives that emerged from her years in the music community; she has secured their safekeeping at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Never one to move far from the music, Betsy has become an advisor and mainstay among the venues and performers of her hometown on Cape Cod. She is writing her memoirs.
Passim’s 60th Anniversary Concert will be at the Boch Center Shubert Theatre on Thursday, November 14, 2019. Tickets for the show are $35 and up, and are on sale now at www.passim.org/celebrate, at the Boch Center Box Office or by calling 866.348.9738
About Passim
The mission of Passim is to provide truly exceptional and interactive live musical experiences for both performers and audiences, to nurture artists at all stages of their career, and to build a vibrant music community. Passim does so through their legendary listening venue, music school, artist grants and outreach programs. As a nonprofit since 1994, Passim carries on the heritage of our predecessors-the historic Club 47 (1958-1968) and for-profit Passim (1969-1994). We cultivate a diverse mix of musical traditions, where the emphasis is on the relationship between performers and audience and teachers and students. Located in Harvard Square, Passim serves Cambridge and the broader region by featuring local, national and international artists. Our ultimate goal is to help the performance arts flourish and thereby enrich the lives of members of our community. For a complete schedule, visit www.passim.org.
Sources: The Boston Globe, Mount Auburn Hospital and Passim
