Reducing Disparities and Promoting Well-Being in Boston: The Role of the BU Community

On Wednesday, October 26, 2016, as part of the Reducing Inequity series, the Boston University (BU) Initiative on Cities hosted Reducing Disparities and Promoting Well-Being in Boston: The Role of the BU Community, the second in a series of events aimed at exploring race and equity in the city. Representatives from the Boston University School of Law Campus to the School of Public Health showcased the work they lead both on and off campus, including student-led initiatives and decades-long partnerships with the Greater Boston community. The programs and activities featured during this event were only a handful of University initiatives designed to support vulnerable populations, close achievement gaps, and promote community well-being in the Greater Boston community.

School of Law

Associate Dean of Experimental Education and Clinical Professor of Law, Peggy Maisel, began our program by emphasizing the critical role of fieldwork in the education of BU Law students. The School of Law has over twenty externships and clinical courses offered every semester that teach students about cultural competency, challenge them to confront systematic biases, and give them the skills to address real-world inequality.

For over 50 years, BU Law students have committed millions of hours of service to the Greater Boston community. They represent clients facing eviction and discrimination in the Housing, Employment, Family & Disability Rights Clinic; work as both public defenders and prosecutors in the Criminal Law Clinical Program; participate in the Wrongful Convictions Clinic in partnership with the Innocence Project; and collaborate with their peers in the School of Social Work in the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic; in addition to other programs.

School of Social Work

Trudy Zimmerman, Assistant Dean for Field Education and Director of the Dual Degree Program in Social Work and Education at the School of Social Work (SSW), echoed the importance of using fieldwork as an opportunity for service and for hands-on learning.

Over 700 students in the Masters of Social Work program annually engage with over 800 clinical and macro-level organizations each year. Over the course of their education, students become fully embedded in Boston institutions, from local schools to government agencies, and perform thousands of hours of service (over 180,000 in the last year alone) in the form of individual counseling, case management, grant-writing and legislative advocacy, policy development and more. Dean Zimmerman highlighted the experience of students who have contributed to strategic planning and advocacy for Boston area organizations.

Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine

In addition to her role as a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Health Policy & Health Services Research at the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, Kathy Lituri also serves as the Director of Oral Health Promotion where she oversees programs that serve the dual purpose of enhancing the education of students and improving quality of life for patients. The office supports a variety of programs, including over 80,000 visits dental students made last year to public schools across the country, where they provided free dental exams, cleanings, and other services to grade school students. Last year, more than two-thirds of Dental students participated in 117 initiatives, not all of which were oral health related. “Students like going to St. Francis House or the Greater Boston Food Bank,” said Lituri. “Students learn things in these programs that they can’t learn in the classroom.”

School of Public Health Activist Lab and Blackstone Community Center

On the Boston University Medical Campus, the School of Public Health (SPH) seeks to create a “culture of activism,” said Joanna Brown, Program Manager at the SPH Activist Lab. The Activist Lab is the newest initiative from the School of Public Health that embodies their mission of education, innovation, and advocacy and stems from the School’s commitment to equipping students with the tools to create positive change.

For example, advocacy boot camps, now in their second year, teach students valuable skills for working with community organizations, including how to identify stakeholders and testify before a legislature. Initiatives as simple as the “water squad”, which was responsible for handing out water to the homeless population near Boston Medical Center, gave students a daily opportunity to engage with the vulnerable populations they will serve as practitioners.

Beyond student engagement, SPH also has a robust relationship with the Blackstone Community Center in Boston’s South End neighborhood. Boston University built and now operates a gym that serves over 850 people in the community, which includes two affordable housing developments. SPH practicum students regularly work with the community to identify needs and create programming to improve the mental and physical health of residents.

Community Service Center

Director of the Community Service Center (CSC) Zach Hobbs is a self-identified space-maker. “I create the space, but students build the partnership,” he explained. The CSC is the vehicle by which students volunteer in the Greater Boston area. CSC staff work continuously to break down barriers between BU students and the community. “Coming to this school is about becoming a citizen of the city,” Hobbs said. “We want to work with the community, not for them.” Thus far, the CSC has been successful at educating Boston University students in becoming more engaged citizens. Twenty percent of students begin their college career with FYSOP (First Year Student Outreach Project), a weeklong service program, and over two-thirds will visit the CSC during their time on campus to engage with more than 150 organizations in the Greater Boston area.

College Access & Completion, School of Education

Michael Dennehy, Director of College Access & Completion at the School of Education, is the mastermind behind more than half a dozen programs that seek to positively impact educational outcomes for high school students in Boston Public Schools (BPS) and schools across Massachusetts. Since the 1970s, Boston University has led programs focused on literacy, STEM college access, teacher preparedness and diversity focus, and in 2015 even introduced an initiative focused on supporting underrepresented students seeking PhDs. Last year alone, BU contributed over $4 million to these programs, which included four-year merit-based tuition scholarships to BPS students—called Menino Scholars after the late Boston Mayor Thomas Menino. In addition to the Menino Scholars, BU also provides generous scholarships to students committed to community service: close to 250 BPS students now attend BU as Community Service Scholars. Either as college advisors, after-school tutors, or administers of more focused programs (like Upward Bound Math & Science), “our students and staff are in every BPS high school,” said Dennehy. These programs stem from our roots as an educational institution, he explained, and we will continue to support these initiatives and explore new avenues for investment as we move forward as a leader in the Greater Boston community.

Prison Education Program

The Boston University Prison Education Program was founded in 1972 by Professor Elizabeth Barker after inmates from MCI Norfolk trounced her University quiz team. Since then, BU faculty have donated thousands of hours teaching at both the men’s and women’s correctional facilities at Norfolk and Framingham for inmates pursuing advanced degrees, including PhD candidates. In addition to educational opportunities, said Criminal Justice Assistant Professor Danielle Rousseau who also serves as the program’s Faculty Coordinator, volunteers have seen a profound change in program participants. They become supportive of their peers and upon their release, these individuals are very successful, often becoming community leaders, she explained. Boston University is currently the longest standing prison education program in the country.

Criminal Justice Diversion Program, Boston Medical Center

Lauren Sneider serves as the Program Manager for the Criminal Justice Diversion Program for the Boston Emergency Services Team at Boston Medical Center. Their mission is two-fold: to divert individuals struggling with mental illness from arrests and to funnel those who have been arrested into treatment-focused courts. “Mentally ill individuals are overrepresented in our criminal justice system,” said Sneider, “so we train officers on the signs and symptoms of mental illness and also partner with police departments to send mental health counselors with officers while out on patrol.” The program extends beyond arrest to support individuals who are navigating the criminal justice system. Since its creation in 2008, the Criminal Justice Diversion Program has served over 1,000 clients.

The presentations above highlight the fruitful combination of education and service at Boston University. Founded in the Methodist tradition, Boston University has a longstanding legacy of commitments to social justice and inclusion. As we move forward with this series, we look forward to exploring opportunities for the University to build on its incredible portfolio of community work to reduce disparities in Boston and beyond.

Presentations from this event are available here.