On a recent Tuesday evening, Bridgewater College graduate student Hayley Savage stood before her classmates in Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship and pitched a proposal for a new volunteer program at Grand Caverns, a tourist attraction located in and owned by the nearby Town of Grottoes, Va. She explained the need for the program, how it fit with the mission of the caverns and detailed the work that volunteers would do, such as cleaning cave algae and improving hiking trails.
For Savage, this was not just a classroom exercise to complete for a grade; it is a program that she hopes to actually implement. In addition to being a full-time graduate student in BC’s new Master of Arts in Nonprofit Management (MNPM) program, the 23-year-old also works at Grand Caverns as a Park Ranger II—a role that encompasses organizing special events, developing museum exhibitions and leading a variety of cave tours.
“I get to do a little bit of everything, which really makes it awesome,” Savage said. And, hopefully, that everything will eventually include launching a volunteer program for Grand Caverns, the oldest continually operating show cave in the United States.
According to Dr. Sandy Zook, Assistant Professor of Business Administration and co-coordinator of the graduate program, this explicit connection between classwork and the real world is fundamental to all the courses in the MNPM program. Launched in summer 2025, this 30-credit-hour program is designed to prepare graduates to enter or advance in careers in the nonprofit world: education, social services, government, etc. Classes can be taken either in person or virtually and can be completed on a full-time or part-time basis.
For those not ready to commit to a full master’s degree, Bridgewater also offers a 12-credit-hour certificate in nonprofit management. The curricula of both programs are designed following the recommendations of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council, an international membership association of academic programs at accredited colleges and universities.
While Zook’s Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship course focuses on ways that nonprofit organizations can support their missions through paid programs, other classes focus on nonprofit governance, human resources, marketing and fundraising. At the core of all the courses, however, is a focus on building experience and skills through hands-on projects. Last semester MNPM students developed an internship program for a nonprofit organization in Colorado and this semester they worked with BC’s own Alumni Relations Office to develop a social media tool kit for an upcoming fundraising effort, the Day of Giving.
“I want them to be able to pull what they are encountering in their jobs into class and then push their projects back out into the world,” Zook said.
Savage said she’s been able to do just that and credits her MNPM courses with giving her the skills and confidence to advance from a part-time tour guide job at Grand Caverns to her current full-time position, which she began in January.
“It has really been a practical program,” she said of her coursework. “We’re working on projects that have a real-world impact.”
Savage is also a BC alum (class of 2025), with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science. She grew up in a small village on Chincoteague Island in eastern Virginia and came to Bridgewater because she liked being in a small town and a tight-knit community. Her connection to Grand Caverns began when she was a first-year student and took a late-night tour of the caverns on a field trip with other BC students.
“I was just in awe as soon as I entered,” she recalled.
Grand Caverns, originally discovered in 1804, is notable for its large collection of shields, a type of cave formation that is fairly rare, earning it recognition as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service. Savage said she visited Grand Caverns a few more times over the next four years and then when a part-time tour guide position opened last summer, Savage applied and was hired. Coincidentally, her boss was a fellow Bridgewater alumnus: Austin Shank ’12.
Shank traveled to Grand Caverns on a very different career path. He grew up in the Shenandoah Valley and dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. He came to BC because he wanted a “small, intimate college experience,” and majored in biology.
After graduating from BC, Shank landed a marine biology internship at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., and launched a career that took him from Disney to the Greensboro (N.C.) Science Center and a wildlife park in Washington State. Along the way he met and married his wife, and the pair eventually found their way back to Virginia, where Shank took a position as Director of Parks and Tourism with the Town of Grottoes, which includes managing the staff at Grand Caverns.
Shank said he was impressed with the knowledge and skills Savage brought to Grand Caverns both from her graduate and undergraduate courses.
“Hayley is a go-getter. She has the right aptitude and attitude, and her BC education was highly relevant to where we were and are going,” Shank said. “It was kind of a magical connection.”
Shank and Savage are not the only ones with Bridgewater connections working at Grand Caverns. Visitors may also find themselves on a cave tour led by Kayla Borchert, a junior biology major from Grottoes who has been a part-time guide for the past two years.
“I’ve surrounded myself with good people,” Shank said of his team.
For more information on BC’s MNPM program, visit bridgewater.edu/mnpm.
– Heather Cole
3/23/26
