Detris Adelabu, BU Wheelock College of Education & Human Development clinical professor of counseling psychology and applied human development, leaves the podium after accepting the 2026 Undergraduate Academic Advising Award in the faculty mentor category, May 4. Photo by Morgan Danna

Accolades

Academic Advisors Celebrated at Annual Ceremony

Wheelock’s Detris Honora Adelabu and CGS’ Melissa Feuerstein honored for helping undergrads find their way

Growing up in under-resourced Pointe Coupee Parish in rural Louisiana, Detris Honora Adelabu still found a path to academic success with support from her family and community and teachers who believed in her potential. That support continued when she went on to historically Black Southern University in Baton Rouge, where devoted mentors introduced her to a wider world of higher education and research.

“I felt seen,” says Adelabu, now a clinical professor of counseling psychology and applied human development at Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. “I felt loved. I felt known. I felt cared about.”

Now, she tries to offer that same support to her own students, especially those from underserved populations, through both one-on-one support and her role as faculty director of the Sankofa Scholars Undergraduate Research Program for all BU students, with an emphasis on first-generation students. She also helps support the students of Wheelock’s Conscious Educators of Color, who like to call themselves “sankofa-adjacent.”

In her words, the West African term “sankofa” means, “It’s OK to go back for those who’ve been left behind.”

For her efforts, Adelabu was recognized with this year’s BU Undergraduate Academic Advising Award in the faculty mentor category. Melissa Feuerstein, an academic advisor in the College of General Studies, was honored in the staff category. Each received a certificate and a $1,500 honorarium at the Advisor End-of-Year Celebration on May 4.

Students may not always recognize the wealth of knowledge, skills, and abilities they bring with them to college, Adelabu says, especially first-generation students for whom higher education is a whole new world. “I didn’t know what research was,” she says, until a Southern University mentor nudged her toward a research program that brought her north to Syracuse University for a summer. 

At BU, Sankofa Scholars work on research projects with faculty members who have, for example, produced scholarly presentations and publications, set a Guinness World Record, and even filed a patent or two.

“It’s important that students see and have the opportunity to live up to their full potential,” says Adelabu, who teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on research, educational psychology, and African American school achievement.

Her academic career also includes graduate degrees from Purdue University and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She taught at Southern University and North Carolina State University before joining historic Wheelock College as faculty, eventually becoming its dean of arts and sciences and co-dean for academic affairs, and directing its emerging scholars program.

“I’ve been a faculty advisor my entire career,” Adelabu says. “And so, when I think about my role as an advisor, it’s, ‘How can I provide students with the tools, the resources that are going to help them to live out their best lives?’”

Her research focuses on factors that support school achievement for rural and urban African American adolescents. Among her projects is one collecting oral histories from retired educators about their experiences and strategies teaching in the era of segregated schools—all right back in Pointe Coupee Parish.

And that’s not her only connection to home. For several years, she has run a summer K–12 program there, which offers everything from classes in math and science to free meals and the occasional waterslide. Everything is donated, often including the faculty’s time. “I get emotional when I talk about it,” she says.

Adelabu also lives out her deep, personal connection to helping students from all academic backgrounds in her role as faculty in residence at StuVi I. Sankofa Scholars and others are always visiting, she says, whether for a quick drop-in or for regular group chats. That sense of community reminds her of life back in the parish.

“It’s a full circle moment for my career,” she says.

Feuerstein came later to advising.

She got her PhD in comparative literature from Harvard and spent 20 years teaching there and at Skidmore College and in the BU Writing Program. She loved working with students, but found other parts of the job stressful. “I really loathed assigning grades,” she says with a small smile. “It felt like sort of a violation of the student-teacher relationship.”

When a temporary advising position opened up at CGS four years ago, thanks to a colleague’s maternity leave, she threw her hat in the ring, and it opened a new career path.

“What I always loved the most about teaching writing is the one-on-one work with students, with their drafts, really getting to know them, forming some lasting connections,” she says. “This seemed like it could be a great fit.”

And it has been. The student-advisor relationship, while full of challenges, also provides plenty of rewards. “Often and only half-jokingly, I’ve wished I could give my advisees awards—for growth, or resilience, or courage, or delightfulness,” says Feuerstein.

She notes that students come to CGS for only two years before leaving for their choice of other schools at BU (except for the College of Fine Arts). That means an advisor’s input may be needed at CGS more than ever.

A lot of the students, she says, will come in with a clear sense of what they hope to major in, and some may have even more than that—a family tradition of going into medicine, say, or a cultural heritage that encourages a clearly defined career success.

“But there’s a lot of room to explore and change your mind. And for advising, I think it makes for very rich conversations about personal interests,” Feuerstein says. “Maybe a student’s not being successful or just isn’t enjoying their intended major, and you can brainstorm with them. ‘What did you think you were going to like about major X that you’re actually not finding there?’ Sometimes it’s not what they thought it was going to be. Maybe they want something more creative. I love when students come in and they say they’re undecided.

“I have sort of an old-fashioned perspective on college education as involving a lot of exploration, not just projecting ahead to ‘What career do I want, and then what major do I need to get there?’” 

Feuerstein says she realizes that this is also a privileged perspective, and she works hard to understand how some students feel they need to pick a major that will produce a good income soon after graduation.

“I’m saying to them, ‘You’re going to be successful when you’re doing something that you love,’” she says. “It’s a fun puzzle to figure out: What do they feel good about doing with their college education, aside from the—these days—very understandable anxiety about making a living? I try to advise the whole person. I really shy away from providing simple, straight answers.”

Whatever she does, apparently it works. Students even want to know what she thinks long after they leave CGS.

“I have my juniors. I have someone who’s graduating, and she still meets with me regularly,” she says. “I make clear that while I’m not sort of officially their advisor, I’m still here, because I think it’s really important to have someone who has seen them from the start, to know how they grew.

“I think there’s an element of pride for them in terms of, ‘Look what I’m doing now, and I want to share it with you.’ I think they know that I want to celebrate them.”