Prof. Uden featured in BU Today for Humanities Summer Program for High School Students
Associate Professor and Department Chair James Uden was featured in BU Today for co-teaching a three-week summer program hosted by the Boston University Center for the Humanities (BUCH) and The Teagle Foundation. The program introduced local Boston area students to the college experience and the humanities while strengthening their writing, analytical, and public speaking skills.
Each week was taught by a different BU professor and focused on a different area within the humanities. Professor Uden taught the first week focusing on classical texts and art. Paula Austin, Assistant Professor of History and of African American Studies, taught the second week about the history of Black social movements. Marisa Milanese, Master Lecturer in the CAS Writing Program, taught the last week about documentary filmmaking.
Students appreciated the academic rigor, depth of analysis, and passion that the professors brought to the material. Likewise, the professors noted how skilled and thoughtful the students were. Susan Mizruchi, Director of the BUCH, said “… many of these students could walk right into a college class and be ready to discuss any number of humanities subjects.”
Professor Uden spoke about the impact that a program like this can have on high school students saying “I think it’s a great thing for the University to be appealing to a broader body of high school students. I hope in the future it might broaden the kind of high school students who are applying to BU, who get a sense they might be able to study successfully at the university level, and that we instill that confidence in them.”
“And certainly from the perspective of a Classics professor,” he said, “if we see a more diverse range of students in our classes interested in classical texts, that would be a wonderful thing.”
Read the BU Today article here.