The Three College Collaboration is pleased to announce the second round of awards in the Mellon Presidential Innovation Project Fund. We were gratified to see the number, quality, and variety of the applications. All of the proposals submitted involved all three colleges and came from across-the-campus constituencies – students, faculty, and staff.
Proposals were evaluated by faculty, staff, and student committees as appropriate. Final decisions were made by the provosts, the director and associate director of the Collaboration, and approved by the presidents. All nine of the successful projects involve participation from all three colleges. A total of $30,590.00 was awarded.
The project titles, team members and their affiliations are:
Sustainable Skill Share Day
“Our project is to organize a Sustainable Skill Share Day … [that] will actively promote skills and practices that address sustainability, pulling together faculty, staff, and Students to collaboratively share valuable and practical skills to live more sustainable lifestyles.”
Click to read an UPDATE.
- Leader: Eliana Blaine, Student, Wellesley College
- Team Members: Ellen Bechtel and Sophia Garcia, Students, Wellesley College; Alden Griffith, Environmental Studies Program Assistant Professor, Wellesley College; Jessica Hunter,Environmental Studies Program Coordinator, Ji Hyang, Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, Buddhist Community, Wellesley College; Alejandro Romo, Student, Babson College; Bradley George, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, Babson College, Vikki Rodgers, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Babson College, James Hunt, Associate Professor of Management, Babson College, Danielle Krcmar, Artist In Residence, Babson College; Celeste D. Maisel, Ben Chapman, Gabriella Waldman-Fried, Students, Olin College; Benjamin Linder,Associate Professor of Design and Mechanical Engineering, Olin College; Andrew DeMelie, Facilities Staff, Olin College
Mixcal
“Mixcal … aggregates all the events from the three college calendars, all the public Facebook events held by students at all three colleges…Students are able to search and browse all the events going on at the three colleges.”
(Mixcal no longer exists--BOW now uses the BOW Events Calendar)
- Leader: Andrew Huang, Student, Babson College
- Team Members: Janice Yellin, Professor of Art History, Babson College, Steven Gold, Senior Partner for Entrepreneurship, Babson College, Antonette Ho, Manager Entrepreneur Programs Babson College, Michael Chmura, Director of Public Relations, Babson College, Gene Begin,Director of Digital Marketing, Babson College, Jamie Weiss Doherty, Director, Campus & Community Events, Janet Strimaitis, Managing Director, Arthur Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson College; Joanne Kossuth, Vice President of Development, Olin College,Joe Hunter, Director of Communication, Olin College, Alyson Goodrow, Associate Director of Communication, Olin College; Elizabeth Gildersleeve, Associate Vice President of Communications & Public Affairs, Wellesley College, Ravi Ravishanker, Chief Information Officer, Wellesley College, Soe Lin Post, Director of Design, Wellesley College
College Mental Health and Wellness in Context: Educating the Whole Person
“First, we will focus on educating participants about mental health…. Second, we will examine a variety of mental health issues in their educational context, with special attention to mental health in the classroom. Each component of the conference will include a didactic, informational session, followed by facilitated discussion, and culminating in the development of practical tools which participants can use and disseminate.”
- Leader: Jonathan Adler, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Olin College
- Team Members: Emily Buchholz, Lang Professor of Biological Sciences, Wellesley College, Alex Prior, Staff Social Worker, Stone Center Counseling Service, Wellesley College, Megan Edwards,Staff Psychologist, Assistant Director of Group and Outreach Activities, Stone Center Counseling Service, Wellesley College, Joy Playter , Dean of the Class of 2014, Wellesley College; Brendan Quinlivan, Student, Olin College; Alison Black, Assistant Dean of Student Life, Olin College; Kate Deeb, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, Babson College: Students from the Wellesley Mental Health Educators, Wellesley Balance Health Educators, Wellesley Sexual Health Educators, Wellesley Sexual Assault Awareness for Everyone, Wellesley Active Minds, Olin Resident Resources, Babson Health Educators
Transdiscplinary cross‐campus team teaching of sustainability science and its societal impacts: Development of best practices and dissemination of lessons learned
“This project proposes to address two separate challenges. First, we wish to explore improved strategies for delivering trans-disciplinary sustainability course… we also hope to …
Capture our most successful course implementation strategies into a document, accompanied by a Wiki or other website that will be accessible beyond the three college group.”
Click to read an UPDATE.
- Leaders: Dan Brabender, Associate Professor of Geosciences, Wellesley College; Rob Martello, Professor of the History of Science & Technology, Olin College
Catalyzing a Change in STEM Classrooms through Discourse Analysis: Disseminating the Efforts of BOW Pedagogical Research and Training Program (PRTP)
“Through the support of 2011-2012 Mellon Grant, a collaborative effort … has resulted in the development and initial implementation of a Babson-Olin-Wellesley Three-College Pedagogical Research and Training Program (PRTP)… to improve the teaching and learning practices through a rigorous study of classroom interactions using discourse analysis. … [including]: inclusion of this material … in the Teaching and Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering course that …is open for students from all three campuses… .”
- Leaders: Verónica Darer, Senior Lecturer of Spanish, Wellesley College& Yevgeniya Zastavker,Associate Professor of Physics, Olin College
Mathematics in Context
“Last year a team of mathematics faculty across the three-colleges created the Applicable Mathematics Lecture Series (AMLS) with funding from the first round of Mellon Presidential Innovation Fund grants. … In this proposal we aim to build on the success of the AMLS by leveraging the connections to business, industry, and government currently enjoyed by the mathematics departments at Wellesley College, Olin College, and Babson College in order to create the Mathematics in Context program.”
Click to read an UPDATE.
- Team Leader: Oscar Fernandez, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Wellesley College
- Team Members: Stanley Chang, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Wellesley College; Aaron Hoffman, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Olin College; Nathan Karst, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Babson College
BOW Teaching & Learning Faculty Group
“The purpose of the seminar series is to bring together BOW faculty and the community throughout the year to discuss innovative teaching and learning curricula and pedagogical
practices. Following each event there will be a reception to facilitate greater communication as well as an informal idea sharing on the topic of teaching and learning between faculties across our three campuses.”
- Team Leader: Jean Huang, Asst. Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Olin College
- Team Members: Nolan Flynn, Associate Professor of Chemistry & Faculty Director PLTC, Wellesley College, Verónica Darer, Senior Lecturer of Spanish, Wellesley College; Vikki Rodgers,Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Babson College, Erik Noyes, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, Babson College; Yevgeniya V. Zastavker, Assistant Professor of Physics, Olin College
Federated Identify Management: A Readiness Assessment for the BOW Colleges
“The goals of this proposal are the following: Provide training to one or more IT leaders at each campus to gain a better understanding and foundation of federated identity management; what it entails and where it could best be utilized; document each institution’s current identity management environment(s); identify elements that may be necessary for a federated identity management framework, and design and propose a new or upgraded identity management framework with accompanying policies and processes that could be incorporated into a federated identity management framework.”
- Team Leader: Manuel Amarel, Associate Director of Information Management, Olin College
- Team Members: Brad Alexander, Assistant Director of Systems & Networks, Wellesley College;Andrew Lymburner, Director Architecture and Development, Babson College
International Corporate Responsibility & Human Rights (ICRHR)
“The combination of a semester-long focused examination available to a defined group of students and a single day event during which the members of the three communities could come together around a topic would be a pilot for explorations of similar complex topics that benefit from a multi-disciplined examination. … Using International Corporate Responsibility & Human Rights as a model … [to] test this framework by running a beta seminar series and summit ... .”
- Team Leader: Dianna Magnoni, Library/Knowledge Lab Director, Olin College
- Team Members: Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg, Associate Professor of English, Babson College; Kent Jones, Professor of Economics, Babson College; Cheryl Y. Kiser, Executive Director, The Lewis Institute & Babson Social Innovation Lab, Babson College; Caitrin Lynch, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Olin College; Helena de Bres, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wellesley College; Smitha Radhakrishnan, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Wellesley College
Ad-hoc Funding for Three-College Collaboration Activities
Fall 2012 Program to promote student thriving in the classroom, transitions and our communities.
The leadership in the divisions of student affairs at Babson, Olin and Wellesley Colleges desire to offer a joint professional development opportunity for student affairs staff, student leaders, faculty and academic leaders related to student thriving. The nationally recognized expert in this area, Dr. Laurie Schreiner from Azusa Pacific University will present her research and facilitate dialogue with our staff, students and faculty to identify opportunities to promote student thriving in the classroom, transitions and our communities.
- Leaders: Debra DeMeis, Dean of Students and Michelle Lepore, Associate Dean of Students, Wellesley College; Rod Crafts, Dean of Students, Nick Tater, Associate Dean of Students, Olin College; Betsy Newman, Vice President for Student Affairs and Program Strategy, Shannon Finning, Dean of Students, Babson College
- Participants: All staff members from the divisions of student affairs/student life at Wellesley College, Olin College and Babson College will participate in this event. Student leaders from all three campuses will be invited to participate in this event, including but not limited to resident assistants, student government representatives, peer mentors, and peer health educators. Faculty who work most closely with students in transition will be invited to participate as will leadership from the Provost/UG Dean’s Office from each campus.