‘The Heart and Soul of NESA’: Alumni Celebrate a Shared Legacy

With balloons and red lighting, cocktail tables and a live violinist, catered dinner and a DJ, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) campus in Boston was transformed into a banquet hall to celebrate the New England School of Acupuncture’s (NESA) 50th anniversary.

Alumni and their guests joined MCPHS leadership, faculty, and staff on Saturday, November 8, to honor NESA’s legacy and share in the excitement for its future. More than 100 NESA alumni attended, hailing from 15 states and representing graduates from 1977 to 2025.

The event began in the lobby, which was filled with chatter, laughter, and hugs as old classmates reunited, some for the first time in decades. Then, guests were invited upstairs to White Hall to continue the celebration over dinner.

“When I look around this room tonight, I see the heart and soul of NESA,” Dr. Dennis Moseman, Dean of NESA, told the crowd. “I see a community connected by a profound belief in the body’s capacity to heal in the power of human connection and in a medicine that has been passed with care and intention from teacher to student for generations.”

For NESA, that tradition began in 1975 when Dr. James Tin Yao So started the first acupuncture school in the United States.

“What began as a small diploma program in a modest building in Watertown has grown into a nationally respected center for learning,” said President Richard J. Lessard during remarks at the event. “This transformation is remarkable, and every person in this room has played a part in that success.”

Dr. So’s presence was the centerpiece of the celebration. His portrait, featuring a wide smile and thick-framed glasses, was prominently displayed throughout the event. His wife, Isabel So, attended as an honored guest, and many alumni reflected on his impact in the early days of NESA.

“We were in Dr. So’s last class,” said Jim Martin, ’83, who traveled from Oregon to join the celebrations. “It was very special to be able to take his classes and spend time with him.”

Changing Times

Martin remembered being among the first students to take the acupuncturist licensure exam. While some of his classmates were hesitant or unsure of the benefits of licensure, he remembered a lesson from his travels in Asia before studying acupuncture.

“I learned from the Tibetans, ‘Everything must change,’” he said, citing the same mantra when he heard about NESA becoming a part of MCPHS. “It was essential for the survival of the school, and I’m happy to see it for myself. I wouldn’t have missed this.”

Most of the alumni at the celebration graduated before 2016, so this event was their first experience with MCPHS.

“It just feels so much more formal and fancier,” said Marilyn Yohe, ’04, as she and her guest admired the columns of the White building, now encapsulated in the lobby. “It was strange to try and imagine an established medical entity absorbing an acupuncture school, but it’s clearly turned into a very positive thing.”

Many Memories, One NESA

Over the decades, NESA had many homes at different locations across Watertown before building its custom facility in Newton. Although they gathered to celebrate the same alma mater, alumni experienced slightly different versions of NESA.

“The desks were from the 1940s with the ink wells,” recalled Martin, who enrolled in 1980. “They weren’t bolted to the floor, so when you fell asleep, they’d fall over.”

When Yohe went to NESA, it was in the former home of a Catholic elementary school. “It had child-sized toilets and there was always a feeling that someone was going to come and yell at you for being out of class,” she said.

For Medelise Reifsteck, ’23, the pandemic defined her NESA experience. Classes were split into small groups with a live lecture to reduce risk, and students completed clinical rotations under full safety protocols. While intense, it brought her classmates closer.

“I lived with a few other students, and we created this amazing community, especially during such a tumultuous time,” she said. “We’d get together, stay up late studying for big exams, and support each other. It’s the people that really stay with me.”

Starting a New Chapter

While the event celebrated NESA’s 50-year legacy of educating acupuncture leaders, it also marked the beginning of the next chapter in the school’s story. This fall, NESA opened a second Acupuncture Treatment Center in Boston, the primary campus for undergraduate students. Alumni took tours of the facility.

“It’s a beautiful space, and I love that they have community acupuncture,” said Reifsteck. She said the center reflects her own practice, which offers private and community acupuncture. “The education system is very stressful, so it’s amazing that students have an affordable way to take care of themselves, physically, mentally, and emotionally.”

Starting next fall, NESA students will also be able to take classes in Boston, creating new opportunities for interprofessional collaboration with other MCPHS programs.

“All of this momentum and hard work has allowed us to achieve success and a path forward to a very bright future,” said Dr. Caroline Zeind, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost.

In the final moments before turning the reunion and dinner into a party, Dean Moseman proposed a toast. “To our history, to our future, and to the healing work that connects us all.”

Visit our Flickr album to see more photos from the celebration. Photography by Brian Malloy.