PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON COLLEGE OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
FEBRUARY 29, 2024 VOL. 31 NO. 12
Latinx Leadership Initiative
Q&A
Innovative Program to Mark Its First 10 Years
When Teachers Go on Strike
The recent 11-day teachers’ strike in Newton, Mass., was the state’s largest and longest in 30 years, and the seventh in Massachusetts public schools since 2019. According to the University of Albany (NY), there have been approximately 750 teachers’ strikes across the country since 2007. Recently, Chronicle hosted a discussion on this trend with two Boston College faculty members: C. Patrick Proctor, chair of the Teaching, Curriculum, and Society Department at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, and Associate Professor of Political Science Michael Hartney, whose research and teaching interests include state and local politics, interest groups, and public policy. [NOTE: The transcript below has been edited for space and clarity. Listen to the full discussion on the Boston College Chronicle podcast at www.buzzsprout. com/2322058/14579524]
Q: The Newton strike was the latest in a series of job actions by Massachusetts teachers over the past few years, and by teachers in other states such as West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona. But the media coverage of what occurred in Newton, especially by The Boston Globe, seemed particularly intensive and multifaceted. What made the Newton strike so compelling? Proctor: I live in Newton, I’m a parent of a child who has graduated from the school district and one who is currently enrolled. I had a different kind of perspective on this that dovetails with my own professional interests around training and working with teachers. I didn’t find the Globe’s coverage particularly multifaceted so much as I felt like it was more commentary about the union approach, and settling on this idea of breaking the law versus not breaking the law. The Globe editorial board was notably anti-strike. That said, I think the strike was compelling because, in part, of the eye-popping dollar values that we were seeing with the fines being levied on the union, the union not breaking to those fines, and Newton emerges as an outlier relative to the other five strikes that have happened in Massachusetts since 2022 for its duration and I think also for its vitriol. It was a very tense set of negotiations which had been ongoing for 16 months prior to the strike, Continued on page 8
BY SEAN SMITH CHRONICLE EDITOR
photo by lee pellegrini
The Boston College Theatre Department and Robsham Theater Arts Center launched its spring season last week with a production of Melanie Marnich’s “These Shining Lives,” directed by Milly Caballero ’24 and performed in the Bonn Studio Theater.
Lynch School Professor Aiding ‘Smart Playgrounds’ Project BY PHIL GLOUDEMANS STAFF WRITER
Imagine a playground that gives young children an introduction to computer science even as they frolic and romp around. A group of researchers including Marina Bers, the Augustus Long Professor of Education at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, aims to create a first-of-its-kind school playground—one where slides, monkey bars, and swings can be programmed by kids through their interaction. And the Boston College Children’s Center will be one of the early proving grounds. Funded by nearly $3 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, the “smart playgrounds” project—a collaboration between Bers, the UC Irvine (UCI) School of Education and Tufts University’s School of Engineering—will offer early learners hands-on experience with computer science and computational thinking skills that are increasingly important at all levels of education. “In our digitally rich world, children need opportunities to become designers and producers of technologies, so they can develop computational thinking to solve problems,” said Bers. “Playgrounds are
The Boston College School of Social Work’s widely praised Latinx Leadership Initiative (LLI) will commemorate its 10th anniversary with a daylong event on March 15, “Well-Being of Latinx Communities: Social Work Response,” bringing together notable experts in social work education and practice, and other related fields. Guest speakers will include past Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders, a former BCSSW faculty member; Joy Rosen, vice president of Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts General Physician Organization & Mass General Brigham, System Behavioral and Mental Health, who will give the keynote; and University of California-Berkeley School of Social Welfare Professor Kurt Organista, who will offer the closing remarks. BCSSW Professor and LLI Founding Director Rocío Calvo and LLI Assistant Director Ximena Soto will be among the BC-affiliated speakers at the invitation-only event, which takes place in Barat House. Calvo founded the LLI in 2013, designing a cohort-based program that has prepared almost 240 bilingual and bicultural social workers to accompany Latinx communities in developing sustainable solutions to complex problems in health, education, housing, and other areas. Students Continued on page 5
INSIDE 2 Around Campus Marina Bers photo by caitlin cunningham
wonderful spaces to explore concepts such as cause-and-effect and sequencing, while learning through play, socialization, and collaboration.” The four-year effort launched in January with the first in a series of co-design sessions, where researchers learned from
Continued on page 4
2101 Commonwealth reopens; Laetare Sunday is March 10.
3 MLK Scholarship CSON student Julie Canuto-Depina wins honor. 5 Courage to Preach CSTM launches new certificate program.