Partnerships

BU Wheelock’s location at the heart of a great research university, in a city that has led the way in education for more than a century, bolsters our commitment to combining rigorous scholarship with community engagement.

Our wide-ranging research informs our understanding of best practices; our long-standing partnerships with local schools and organizations help us see the promise and challenges of adopting those practices in real-world settings. And we’re now expanding our vision of community partnerships to support education leaders around the world, with programs like the one we launched in fall 2022 with Bahrain Teachers College.

Our work with community partners includes helping to evaluate their programs and apply for grants to improve them, offering technical assistance and research, and forging thought partnership on policy. “We’re always making sure the research we do has real-world application,” says Mary Churchill, associate dean for strategic initiatives and
community engagement. “We conduct research with an eye toward informing policy.”

Boston offers many particularly rich opportunities for such research, and our decades-long partnership with Boston Public Schools (BPS) informs much of our work. Because
we know these schools so well, we know what some academics too often forget: that trying to improve schools will never work without a deep understanding of everything around
schools that affects learning, from poverty to trauma to systemic racism.

These aren’t just Boston problems; they play out in school systems across the country. And so the research we do with our partners here can make a difference for students everywhere.

The programs we support for Boston’s schools can also serve as a model for systems elsewhere. BPS educators receive a 33 percent scholarship in our programs, for example, and we place a special emphasis on recruiting future leaders from underrepresented groups. We also develop projects aimed at improving students’ future lives, such as the Boston Career and College Pathways Partnership.

Our community engagement isn’t just about what’s happening at BU Wheelock. It’s about what we want to see happen in communities around the world.

How You Can Lead

• Endow a graduate scholarship for teachers and education leaders
• Support mentoring and internship programs for students
• Fund a research project in partnership with a community you care about