2013-2014 Innovation Grants

During the 2013-14 academic year, the Babson/Olin/Wellesley Three College Collaboration offered two rounds of  Presidential Innovation Project Fund Grants. 

 All proposals were reviewed by the college Provosts, the Associate Director of the BOW Collaboration, and the BOW Faculty Steering Committee.

 A total of $26,300.00 was awarded.

The project titles, team members and their affiliations are:

BOW Women’s History Month Programming, 2014

March 2014

  • Orgasm Inc. film screening and Director Discussion with Liz Canner, March 5, 2014
  • Women Leading in Healthcare Panel, March 10, 2014

LeaderMarjorie Feld, Faculty Director, Babson’s Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL); Associate Professor of History, Babson College

Team Members:

Conceptualization and execution of programs:

Charlene Galarneau, Assistant Professor, Women’s and Gender Studies, Wellesley College; Claudia Trevor-Wright, Assistant Director of Health Education, Wellesley College; Susan Duffy, Executive Director, CWEL, Babson College; Linda Woods Curtain, Marketing Director, CWEL, Babson College

Conceptualization, support, and marketing of programs:

Rae-Anne Butera, Dean of Student Life, Olin College; Caitrin Lynch, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Olin College; Debbie Chachra, Associate Professor of Materials Science, Olin College; Yevgeniya Zastavker, Associate Professor of Physics, Olin College; Lynn Andrew Stein, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Olin College; Alisha Sarang-Sieminski, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, Olin College; Joanne Pratt, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Olin College; Miranda Nordell,Health Educator, Babson College; Victoria Crittenden, Professor and Chair, Marketing Division, Babson College; Wiljeana Glover, Assistant Professor of Technology, Operations, and Information Management, Babson College; Toni Lester, Professor of Law, Culture, and Society, Babson College; Susan Reverby, Marion Butler McLean Professor in the History of Ideas; Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Wellesley College

Blended Learning for Faculty Development

One goal of the project is to complement and enrich the professional and scholar development opportunities for our faculty. Another goal is to seed a faculty community of practice focused on professional development by providing a common faculty learning experience across the BOW campuses. Through participation in this project, faculty participants will gain specific advice and strategies for developing teaching strategies, increasing research productivity, building academic networks and reputations, and balancing work with personal and family life. The big idea is to see how faculty shared interest in their scholar development functions as a bridge to other scholarly activities (teaching,research, etc.) across our campuses.

Leader: Robinn Chapman; Associate Provost and Academic Director of Diversity and Inclusion; Wellesley College

Team Members:

Sadie Burton-Goss, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer; Babson College; Ellise LaMotte, Director of Academic Services, Olin College

Supporting Cross-Institutional Student Research Opportunities at the Intersection of Science and Engineering

"Through this project we hope to fund two summer research student during the summer of 2014.  These student positions will be specifically for students from Olin, Wellesley or Babson (BOW) who propose to do summer research with science or engineering faculty or research staff from another campus in the three college consortium."

Leader: Rebecca Christianson, Associate Professor of Applied Physics, Olin College

Team Members:

Robbie Berg, Professor of Physics, Wellesley College; Amy Banzaert, Visiting Lecturer and Director of Wellesley’s Engineering Program, Wellesley College

BOW Video Game Symposium: Are We Game? Video Game Beyond Entertainment!

Saturday, April 5th, 2014

"This symposium will provide a concentrated time and space for the BOW institutions to collectively reflect and discuss how video games have changed and continue to influence society. This event will also provide an opportunity for our communities to expand their understanding and appreciation of video games, particularly gaming as civic engagement, and for our faculty and students to network with other local scholars and alumni interested in this flourishing field."

Leader: Maruta Vitols, Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies, Olin College

Team Members:

Julie Levinson, Professor of Film, Babson College; Virginia Newhall Rademacher, Assistant Professor of Hispanic Literature and Culture, Babson College; Winifred Wood, Co-Director of the Cinema and Media Studies Program, Senior Lecturer in the Writing Program, Wellesley College; Maurizio Viano, Co-Director of the Cinema and Media Studies Program, Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, Wellesley College; Nicholas Knouf, Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, Wellesley College

BOW Big Ideas for Busy People

2014-2015 Academic Year

"Modeled after a similar event that happens annually at the Cambridge Science Festival, this event would consist of an evening of talks given by BOW faculty and staff in which individuals would share their “big ideas” in 5 minutes (firm) followed by 5 minutes for Q&A from the audience. BOW faculty and staff will be encouraged to submit proposals for their big idea talks by submitting a one paragraph description. Members would select 10 multidisciplinary talks from the submitted proposals. Collectively, the “big ideas” would reflect a diversity of interests that would span topics and fields of interest of the BOW community (eg. Big Ideas in teaching and pedagogy; Big Ideas in research Big Ideas in work/life balance; etc.)"

Leader: Jean Huang, Assistant Professor of Biology, Olin College

Team Members:

Verónica Darer, Senior Lecturer of Spanish, Wellesley College; Nolan Flynn, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Wellesley College; Vikki Rodgers, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Babson College; Sinan Erzurumlu, Associate Professor of Technology and Operations Management, Babson College; Yevgeniya V. Zastavker, Associate Professor of Physics, Olin College