Category: Learning
BU Data Platform Will Help Massachusetts Track, and Work to Close, Wage Gaps
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts selected Boston University to develop a data platform that will underpin new wage equity legislation in hopes of closing the Massachusetts wage gap. To help in the creation of aggregate wage reports, a group of researchers within the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences has developed an encrypted program that anonymizes demographic and salary information as well as enables anyone to query the database to see high-level trends.
BU Ramps Up Strategy on AI
Boston University is creating the Artificial Intelligence Development Accelerator for Academic and Administrative Excellence, an initiative designed to coalesce the long-standing and widespread investment in AI at BU. Informed by the findings of two interdisciplinary task forces that investigated the matter, the initiative will foster collaboration across BU. Faculty and staff can share best practices, coordinating the University’s adaptation of AI as a tool to make BU more innovative, efficient, and creative.
After Five Years of Planning, Pardee’s New Home Will Unite Global Studies School
Boston University is building a new home for the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at 250 Bay State Road. Plans for the 12-story, 186-foot-tall building indicate that it will be the largest-mass timber tower on the East Coast.
BU Helps Massachusetts Expand Access to AI Computing
Boston University will play a major role in the AI Hub, a Massachusetts entity that will drive collaboration in cutting-edge artificial intelligence among state government, academia, and business. The Massachusetts Green High-Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC)—a 12-year-old supercomputing facility that opened with funding from BU and others—will provide “leading-edge, AI computing infrastructure in support of the AI Hub.”
Boston University Climbs to #41 in U.S. News Rankings
Boston University climbed two places in U.S. News & World Report‘s annual Best College Rankings of national universities. BU tied with Ohio State and Rutgers, among a field of 434 national universities offering a full range of undergraduate majors, master’s, and doctoral degrees, according to U.S. News methodology.
The Winners of the 2024 Metcalf Awards, BU’s Top Teaching Honors
Yuri Corrigan, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of Russian and comparative literature, has earned this year’s Metcalf Cup and Prize, the University’s highest teaching award. He was honored at the 2024 Commencement ceremony on May 19 alongside two other faculty members—Veronika Wirtz, a School of Public Health professor of global health, and Alexis Peri, a CAS associate professor of history—the recipients of this year’s Metcalf Awards for Excellence in Teaching.
Created in 1973, the Metcalf Cup and Prize and the Metcalf Awards for Excellence in Teaching are a gift from the late Arthur G. B. Metcalf (Wheelock’35, Hon.’74), a BU Board of Trustees chair emeritus and a former professor. The program gives $10,000 to the Cup and Prize winner and $5,000 each to the Metcalf Award winners. A University committee selects winners based on statements of the nominees’ teaching philosophy, supporting letters from colleagues and students, and classroom observations of the nominees.
Two BU Faculty Honored with Outstanding Teaching Awards
Professors Bobak Nazer and Fallou Ngom have each been honored with outstanding teaching awards.
Bobak Nazer, a College of Engineering associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and associate department chair for undergraduate programs, is being honored with the 2024 Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. The award recognizes the faculty member or team that best exemplifies innovation in teaching by use, development, or adaptation of technology. It celebrates innovation that results in positive learning outcomes for undergraduate students and that is recognized or adopted by faculty colleagues within or outside BU. The award comes with a $10,000 stipend. Nazer was mainly recognized for transforming a course into 50 short videos containing animations with narrated explanations, which the student would watch before a lecture. This enabled lectures to guide further discussion and leave time for activities and games.
Fallou Ngom, a College of Arts & Sciences anthropology professor, won the Provost’s Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award—an honor that recognizes scholars who excel as teachers inside and outside the classroom and who contribute to the art and science of teaching and learning. Ngom’s research has helped to uncover an ancient writing system used by communities in West Africa. One of Ngom’s achievements was altering his sociolinguistics class, which relied heavily upon European languages (Dutch, French, Portuguese), to address a class who studied and spoke various African languages. This enabled the students to apply the complex sociolinguistic theories to languages that were familiar to them.
Travis Roy Foundation Endows Sargent College Scholarship
The Travis Roy Foundation has given $1 million to Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences to create the Travis M. Roy Endowed Scholarship Fund. The fund will provide annual scholarships to one or more graduate students studying occupational or physical therapy at the College. Paralyzed by a crash into the boards during his first BU hockey game, Travis Roy (COM’00, Hon.’16) devoted his life to helping those with similar injuries.
Wheelock’s Grace Kim Named Provost’s Scholar-Teacher of the Year
Grace Kim was awarded the 2023 Provost’s Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award. The award recognizes scholars who excel as teachers inside and outside the classroom and who contribute to the art and science of teaching and learning. The award recognizes Kim for helping her students create meaningful connections by “making psychology, itself, more relevant for a dynamic, racially diverse society.”
CAS’ Renato Mancuso Wins Gitner Family Award
Renato Mancuso was awarded the Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology. Mancuso received the award for designing a system that enables students to submit their coding assignments via a web-based interface and then view how their submission performs and compares to classmates’ work.
