BU Today: For Academic Advisor Award Winners, Students Are at the Heart of It All
Excerpt from BU Today | By: Molly Callahan | May 6, 2025 | Photo: Jackie Ricciardi
For many students, academic advisors offer a helpful touchpoint during their college careers—someone they check in with periodically to make sure they’re on track to graduate (while likely also juggling a host of activities and extracurriculars).
But for some students, the advisors at Boston University serve as something more like a safety net: they help students bounce back when things go sideways. Maybe they connect a student to critical resources, or offer a lens through which a student can see a new path forward. Advisors can be the difference between a successful career (college and beyond) and an unfinished one.
John “Chip” Celenza and Molly-Kate MacLeod know these stakes well. Both academic advisors, they are this year’s winners of BU’s Undergraduate Academic Advising Awards, the University’s annual honor recognizing advisors who have engaged students in the collaborative process of creating a rich undergraduate education and have had a significant impact on students’ academic careers.
MacLeod, director of student academic experience in the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, echoes his sentiment.
“To be recognized for something that you just do because it’s your job is so special. You don’t realize you’re doing such a great job until you hear what your students have to say about you and your colleagues; you’re just doing it, day in and day out. So I think being recognized for the time and energy it takes to allow students to have a successful academic experience is really special,” she says.