{"id":14541,"date":"2019-12-05T10:02:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T15:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/?page_id=14541"},"modified":"2025-07-16T09:40:45","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T13:40:45","slug":"boston-now","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/writingprogram\/curriculum\/special-initiatives\/boston-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boston Now is a curricular initiative in Boston University\u2019s CAS Writing Program that focuses on outside-the-classroom experiences and place-based learning. Every semester, students in our seminars explore a variety of sites and events throughout the city of Boston.<\/p>\n

In Boston Now courses<\/a>, when students read and write about Boston\u2019s natural landscapes, public spaces, museums, and live performances in connection with traditional texts, they become more versatile thinkers, communicators, writers, and researchers.<\/p>\n

Now has a longstanding connection to the BU Arts Initiative<\/a> and is always eager to build connections with other BU faculty, initiatives, programs, and departments.<\/p>\n

We welcome emails from faculty about potential Now courses and also from anyone with ideas for collaborating with the Boston Now initiative to further incorporate experiential<\/a> and place-based learning<\/a> into curricular and extracurricular opportunities for BU students.
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History: Arts Now<\/h3>
Boston Now grew from an earlier Writing Program initiative, Arts Now, which was founded in 2012 by Master Lecturers Tony Wallace and Bill Marx. For their work, Tony and Bill were honored with the 2013 CAS award for excellence in undergraduate teaching. The two co-directed Arts Now until Tony\u2019s death in May 2018. Bill continued as co-director of Boston Now until he retired from the Writing Program in May 2019.<\/p>\n

With the support of the Writing Program, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the BU Arts Initiative<\/a>, Tony and Bill first co-created The Theater Now, a seminar in which they took their students to Boston area productions and gave students the opportunity to engage with directors, actors, artists, and scholars. The passionate response to Theater Now inspired Tony and Bill to recruit faculty to teach courses in other areas of the Arts according to the Now model.<\/p>\n

As Tony and Bill declared, \u201cWe want \u2018Now\u2019 courses to have a sense of immediacy, spontaneity, and contemporary relevance . . . \u2018Now\u2019 courses emphasize interaction with students outside the classroom in a way that is more academically substantive than simply taking them on a \u2018field trip.\u2019\u201d Based on this foundation, students in Boston Now seminars engage with a range of Boston communities and discover diverse approaches for placing these outside-the-classroom experiences at the heart of class discussions and major writing projects.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Boston Now Courses<\/h3>
Some courses that have been part of Now include:<\/p>\n