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Boston Globe: BU builds Afro-American studies program

In an approach that Ron Richardson, a CAS associate professor of history and the director of BU's African-American Studies Program, calls "transcultural studies," BU's program views the history as a global web of connections between cultures rather than a strict focus on the black American experience, reports the Boston Globe on February 10. Richardson has steered the program on a path that explores how African-Americans have influenced and been influenced by other cultures and global trends -- part of his philosophy that the purpose of an ethnic studies program is to break down ideas about race and ethnic tribalism to promote what he calls "global cosmopolitanism." Dennis Berkey, provost and dean of Arts and Sciences, says, "There isn't a history here of a heavy ideological commitment to the more hard-core African-American ideology that dominated some of these programs early in the experience. [Richardson's approach] is a little different but I think students are going to find this kind of program very exciting."

Journal of Social Work Education: SSW ranks high in journal article publication

Articles published in peer-reviewed professional journals continue to be the single most frequently recognized, used, and reliable measure of faculty scholarship, according to a report in the Winter 2002 Journal of Social Work Education. The article, entitled "Results of the Doctoral Faculty Publication Project: Journal Article Productivity and Its Correlates in the 1990s," used productivity measures that included the number of social work journals and the number of non-social work journals in which faculty scholarship was published. Out of 61 U.S. graduate schools or departments of social work that reported active doctoral programs, 9 exceeded 100 publications in both social work and non-social work journals for the 10-year study period, with Boston University's School of Social Work ranked 10th -- with 117 publications. SSW faculty ranked 5th for articles published from 1998 to 1999, 16th in publications in social work journals, and 7th in publications in non-social work journals. According to the article, "In addition to other duties and responsibilities, these educators [social work faculties] share the specialized mission of preparing students to develop, verify, and disseminate professional and academic knowledge," and the high rate of publication by the SSW faculty would consequently reflect scholarly achievement to its students. Wilma Peebles-Wilkins, dean of the School of Social Work, says, "It was gratifying to have research confirm what I already knew about the SSW faculty. We have some of the most prolific scholars in social work education. They are excellent teachers, accessible to students, and have strong ties to the community. We are right up there with Berkeley, Columbia, and Michigan, and I am just elated."

New York Times: Backyard skating rinks new must-have

Wherever the temperature dips below freezing, backyard skating rinks have become the new outdoor craze, says the February 7 New York Times. Most rinks are made by hand with plywood, plastic sheeting, and thousands of gallons of water. For a few hundred dollars or less, manufacturers like Hammacher Schlemmer and Ice N' Go now sell do-it-yourself backyard rink kits -- and the demand is skyrocketing. "There certainly has been a lot of interest," says Jack Falla, a COM adjunct professor of journalism and author of Home Ice: Reflections on Backyard Rinks and Frozen Ponds, who has a backyard rink at his home in Natick. "It's probably because of a kind of retro, back-to-the-family trend. Maybe part of it is wanting our children to have a piece of something we had in abundance: unstructured time." In Falla's book, which includes a chapter on rink building, he says he learned "an immutable law of hydrodynamics. Namely, water seeking its own level will find it in your neighbor's yard."

Boston Globe: Nurses now have more clout

Over the past year, a frequent sight outside hospitals was hordes of picketing nurses, protesting long work hours and the responsibility of caring for too many patients. The recent turmoil in nursing and its attendant publicity have brought nurses a hard-won victory -- they are now the most sought-after workers in the health-care world, reports the February 7 Boston Globe. Pay rates are rising, some states are setting mandated nurse-to-patient ratios, and signing bonuses are becoming more common as hospitals struggle to fill vacancies. "Finally, some hospitals are starting to realize that your survival depends on having the nurses to staff those beds when the ER patients come in," says Karen Higgins, a nurse at Boston Medical Center. She is president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the state's largest nurses' union. "For years, we just accepted the fact that we had more and more and more patients and there were less of us, and it was getting more dangerous. Finally, nurses are coming out freely and saying, 'It isn't safe.' Nurses probably always had clout. They just never used it."

15 February 2002
Boston University
Office of University Relations