Spotlight
For the past two years, the CAS Writing Program has co-hosted two large celebratory events. In the fall, the Celebration of Multilingual Writing shows the linguistic diversity of BU students, faculty, and staff, and in the spring, “Write On! The Celebration of Student Writing” honors the writing consultants, Writing in the Disciplines fellows, and students whose work is featured in campus publications. Both events feature readings of student work and offer the BU community an opportunity to read and experience some of the excellent writing that is being created–in many disciplines, genres, modes, and languages–around campus.
The Celebration of Multilingual Writing
Held in November, in conjunction with International Education Week, the Celebration of Multilingual Writing created space for students’ linguistic identities to be central and valued, and offered a challenge to the dominant language ideologies that reinforce linguistic injustice in academia and beyond.
Student involvement in all of the planning stages was key to the Celebration of Multilingual Writing. Our volunteers included several devoted undergraduates , primarily international students who have taken our multilingual writing classes. With performances, interactive activity tables, and a large central gallery displaying students’ multilingual and often translingual writing, the Celebration was a vibrant, all-day event.
After the celebration, many students who attended with their classes or on their own noted the important ways that the Celebration fostered community: “Being multilingual myself, I found this event to be meaningful,” one student reflected. “It made me realize how important it is to celebrate multilingualism and the various ways we communicate. It was a really good experience to attend this event and help out because our writing class was always held in a small classroom, but the larger space and interesting things to see made me and other classmates engage better.”
Our celebration was conceived as an occasion to make visible these community connections, and the relevance of multilingualism to faculty, staff, and students in an affirming and joyful way, and to spotlight the diverse languages and literacies that already circulate in our classrooms, but often remain peripheral to campus narratives about academic excellence. How can a single afternoon of performances, readings, and exhibits spark broader shifts in perception? How might an event initially perceived as “for others” eventually become recognized as “for us all”? These questions remain with us as we plan for future celebrations.
Write On: The Celebration of Student Writing
On the afternoon of the last day of classes in April 2026, in the Howard Thurman Center’s event space, “Write On! The Celebration of Student Writing” honored the work of undergraduate student writers who exemplify our Writing Program’s goals and values of empathy, collaboration, critical inquiry and creativity. A range of student speakers and writers included: Chloe Avilés, Lana Ghazale, and Mairead Peel – three of the award winners from Deerfield, the Writing Program’s journal of exemplary student writing; Sofia Corso, a Simpson Undergraduate Writing Fellow in the English department; Lucas Dantas Leite, a writer for The Beat – WTBU’s zine for all things Music, Art, and DIY; Skye Mada, a graduating senior who worked three years as Writing Center Consultant; and Mika Yao, a Social Science Summer Writing Internship Program member, whose Master’s thesis for the Pardee School was developed during her time as a SWIP intern.
Chloe read from her work, “The Silent Teacher: The Unspoken Impact of Code-Switching on Second-Generation Latinos in the United States,” which taps into her own experience as a second-generation Latino and applies a sociological perspective to the prevalence of code-switching that she has found in her family and community. Lana Ghazale read a powerful excerpt from her autobiographical piece, “Learning to Live,” about her experience growing up in and then leaving Beirut, Lebanon. Mairead, studying abroad in France, was unable to be present for the event; however, she recorded and shared a video describing her remarkable website, “The Wood Wide Web,” that illustrates the empathetic ecological system that fosters forest life.
The event, hosted by David Shawn, Associate Director for Writing in the Disciplines, included remarks from Writing Program faculty members Courtney Pina Miller, a co-editor of Deerfield, and Holly Schaaf, who introduced the Tony Wallace Award Winner, Betelheim Tecleab (who was unable to attend). Holly highlighted the significance of the award – named for one of the WP’s original faculty members, who was himself an award-winning author – and Betelheim’s remarkable and bold prose in her autobiographical work, “So American.”
In addition, graduating seniors who had served as Writing Center Consultants, Simpson Writing Fellows, and SWIP interns received a graduation cord at the event.
Both the Celebration of Multilingual Writing and Write On! The Celebration of Student Writing are financially supported by the family foundation of Jennifer Simpson (CAS ‘00), Psalm 103 Foundation.
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