Policy & Leadership

BU Wheelock is helping to create real transformation in many areas. But there’s one overarching priority that we believe can drive change throughout education systems: our focus on policy and leadership.

We prepare educators to assume leadership positions in K–12 schools and higher education. But we also offer a Master of Arts in Educational Policy Studies, which provides a comprehensive grounding in the skills and knowledge that equip our graduates to analyze policies, craft better ones, and advocate for reform.

We also help improve policy through our collaborations with community institutions. Our Wheelock Educational Policy Center partners with state and local education systems and nonprofits, analyzing data and helping them use it to write policies aimed at making systems more equitable. At the same time, we incorporate our partner organizations’ experience into future research, creating a mutually beneficial ecosystem of knowledge.

Meagan Comb (Wheelock’07), the center’s executive director and Wheelock’s assistant dean for executive affairs, came to BU after serving as the director of educator effectiveness in the Massachusetts Department of Elementary & Secondary Education. She knows exactly how wide the gap can be between researchers and policymakers.

Comb is determined to help narrow that gap by building partnerships between BU researchers and policymakers, both locally and nationally. “Part of what we often bring to the partnership is some additional guidance about what good research questions could be and how research could support a policy agenda,” she says. “We help navigate those two worlds, which often don’t immediately intersect.”

The BU Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences (CDS) will be of immeasurable help in our work. We are already forging partnerships to leverage our combined expertise in education and data analytics, and we are excited to see where this collaboration will lead.

How You Can Lead

• Endow the Wheelock Educational Policy Center
• Create a doctoral fellowship focused on policy research
• Establish a Policymaker in Residence program
• Provide essential staff support for managing partnerships and research assistance
• Help support a particular research project or projects of interest to you