Spring 2019—Special Call: Initiatives in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, and their Societal Impact

 

Intellectual Community Building through Reading, Discussion, and Public Guest Lectures

This project will bring together faculty from all three institutions to read and discuss recent publications about the impact of advances in and media coverage of AI, Machine Learning, and Data Science (i.e. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff). This faculty seminar will facilitate the sharing of knowledge and ideas to be incorporated into courses across disciplines. The project will culminate in bringing the authors to one of the campuses for public lectures and subsequent conversations with members of the BOW community.

Team Leaders:  Eni Mustafaraj, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Wellesley College & Julie Walsh, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wellesley College

 

Theatrical Representations of Artificial Intelligence: The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow as a Common Text for the BOW Community

This project is aimed at fostering a shared text across all three BOW campuses. That text, centrally focused on artificial intelligence, is the play The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow, which will be produced at Babson in October 2019. The funding will be used to hire a dramaturg to produce high quality curricular materials and two speakers to lead talk-back after one of the performances. The hope is that the performances and the accompanying curricular material created by the dramaturg will support widespread connections between the play, courses, and curricular goals at all three BOW institutions.

Team Leader:  Beth Wynstra, Assistant Professor of English and Artistic Director of The Empty Space Theater (TEST), Babson College

 

BOW-Community “Future Hack” and Curated Mixed Media Installation on Artificial Intelligence

This project will bring together faculty and students from varied disciplines to explore and visualize the future of emerging AI technologies through a “Future Hack.” The “Future Hack” will result in a mixed-media installation in the Weissman Foundry highlighting the predictions and opportunities for AI in the future that were discussed during the Hack.

Team Leader: Erik Noyes, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Faculty Director of the Weissman Foundry, Babson College

Fall 2018

BOW Women’s Club Ice Hockey Team

A BOW Women’s Club Ice Hockey team will be established for women at all three colleges.  This will allow women from all three schools to gather in an athletic environment that will foster teamwork and promote the qualities of perseverance, responsibility, physical endurance, and commitment. The club will focus on both an introductory component and a competitive program, while fostering a connection between women at all three schools.

Team Leader:  Rick Burr, Director of Athletic Performance, Babson College

Refinement & Integration of Making and Fabrication across BOW (Part I)

This project will develop a visual, annotated representation of the tools available in Babson’s Weissman Foundry, the Olin Shop, and the Wellesley We-Lab & Knapp Center with consistent identity and style across the three campuses. This project will hopefully be the starting point of a deeper collaboration across the 3 campuses to align training and safety protocols.

Team Leader: Amy Banzaert, Director of Engineering Studies, Lecturer in Engineering, Weissman Foundry Faculty Fellow, Wellesley College

Care Connect

Babson College and Wellesley College Counseling and Wellness Staff will collaborate to enhance and streamline the referral process for students seeking mental health care from community providers for psychotherapy and psychiatry. Counseling center staff at Babson and Wellesley will use ThrivingCampus to pool efforts to engage more mental health clinicians in the community and bridge the gap described between our students and off-campus resources. Olin College students will also be able to access the shared directory in effort to streamline the off-campus referral program.

Team Leader:  Sandra Acevedo, LICSW, Student Care Coordinator, Wellesley College

During the 2016-2017 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, BOW administration, and the BOW Faculty Steering Committee.  

A total of $27, 090.00 was awarded.

The project titles, team members and their affiliations are:

Marie Schneider Orchestra Residency

Maria Schneider is a rarity in today’s world: female bandleader, composer, instrumentalist and entrepreneur. She came to the BOW Colleges on March 7–10, 2017, for a residency comprising of workshops and master classes at Wellesley College; an Arts & Business Conversation at Babson College; and a capstone concert at Babson’s Sorenson Center with her orchestra. Every event was open to students, staff, and faculty at all three schools; the concert open to the public. 

Team Leaders:
Sandra Graham, Faculty Director, Sorenson Center for the Arts /Associate Professor of Music,  Babson College;
Isabel Fine, Concert Manager, Wellesley College 

Design For America

Design For America is an award-winning nationwide network of college students using design to create local and social impact in the areas of Health, Education, Economy and the Environment. This organization highly encourages interdisciplinary teams and emphasizes the fact that anyone studying any major, can be considered a designer. The project the studio will be working on this year is in collaboration with Sustainable Wellesley. The goal is to tackle the problem of how many of the students who attend Wellesley Public Schools drive to school individually. This results in high traffic congestion as well as health and safety concerns.

Team Leaders:
Isaac Vandor Olin College
April Chen, Babson College
Rachel Dodell Wellesley College

Knotty Problems in Research 

The goal of this program is to provide a space for faculty to chat with each other about issues in their research. The meetings are modeled on the successful “Knotty Problems Roundtable” that has been run for the past four years at Wellesley College. The meetings are held during breakfast or lunchtime while the participants have a "micro-research" conversation.  One at a time, a person presents his/her dilemma and gets feedback from the others in the group. If time remains once the formal activity is over, the conversation can continue naturally in any way that the participants choose.

Team Leader:
Lori Parmet Associate Director of Sponsored Research, Wellesley College

TechGen Start Up

Babson, Olin and Wellesley Colleges  joined forces to connect Boston area Tech Start-Up Companies with business, engineering, and liberal arts talent. The
goals were to:

• stimulate connections between start-ups and student entrepreneurs
• educate students about the variety of opportunities in the Boston Tech Start-Up community
• tap into TechGen’s strong brand and extensive network within the Boston/Cambridge innovation community
• provide Start-Ups with top level talent
• expose students to summer 2017 internships and potential full-time opportunities
• build the brand of the BOW collaboration in this sector

The event took place on 4/12/17, 5:30-7:30 pm, on Babson’s Campus. Students and employers (with current job postings) engaged in small groups of 8-10 at round tables for approximately 10-15 minutes. Students had the opportunity to sit with at least four companies. At the conclusion of the event, students attended an open networking reception to mix with all employers. This small group format was used to successfully encourage the opportunity for more intimate/in-depth conversation.

Team Leader:
Brenda Kostyk Career Adviser & Relationship Manager, Undergraduate Center for Career Development

Bandaloop

Bandaloop, a unique “vertical dance” company will be in residence at Wellesley in October 2017. This weeklong residency and the culminating six performances, with live music played by Music Department faculty, will occur on the sides of the newly opened Arts addition and in the completely renovated Art Department. Bandaloop’s performances and workshops will anchor a community-wide celebration of a vital new collaborative and cross-disciplinary direction in the arts at Wellesley. The celebration will also include the premiere of a commission by renowned composer Augusta Read Thomas, various art and new media installations, site-specific music performances, and other activities yet to be planned, both inside and outside the buildings.

Not only does this effort represent collaboration between and among the arts, but between institutions as well. This will be the second time that Wellesley College’s Concert Series works closely with Babson and Olin to bring unparalleled performers to our campuses at little to no cost to the public.  A unique benefit to the three-campus students/staff/faculty is the opportunity to participate in experiential workshops with Bandaloop, educational opportunities that address not only innovation in engineering, creativity, and design, but also challenging limitations and transcending boundaries, as individuals, in teams, and as a society. Workshop participants will also be included in a public lecture demonstration of Bandaloop’s work.

Team Leaders:
Diana Dabby, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Music Program Director, Olin College
Steven Maler, Director, Babson Sorenson Center

21st Birthday Social 

Students attending Wellesley, Babson, and Olin who have turned 21 within the last year will be invited to a BOW semi-formal 21st birthday social in the Fall of 2017. The event will focus on celebrating this milestone birthday while messaging about lowering the risk of harm due to alcohol consumption in personal and professional environments. The event will also provide an opportunity for administrators, staff, and faculty from the three institutions to model abstention or moderate alcohol consumption. There will be socializing and structured engagement between the students and professionals. The purpose of this portion of the event is to allow students to engage with alcohol in a controlled and professional setting.

Team Leaders:
Vanessa Britto/ Claudia Trevor-Wright
Director, Health Service/ Assist. Director of Health Education

Grant Writing Workshop 

The Grant Writing Workshop took place on June 16, 2017. The Sponsored Programs Offices at Babson, Olin & Wellesley have a common need to provide the skills and framework necessary for faculty and center directors to apply for external grants.  This workshop was led by Pattie McNulty, a research administration veteran with 25+ years of experience.

The topic was an overview of grant writing essentials, including:

• Finding funding opportunities
• Determination of project resource needs
• Overview of the core components of a proposal

Team Leader:
Sandra Castaldini, Manager, Faculty Sponsored Research,  Babson College

BOW Rock Climbing Club

Climbing fun for everyone! The BOW Climbing Organization Team is founded on several key tenets:

• Diversity - BOW, All Skill Levels, All Backgrounds
• Consistency - practices on a weekly basis
• Lowering the Barrier of Entry for Beginners   (Discounted Passes to Start)
• Helping Fund and Kick start a Climbing Career
• Fueling the Competitive Fire for Aspiring Climbers
• Focuses Strength and Skill Training

The BOW Climbing Organization team goals are to get many BOW students to engage with each other over a common passion, strengthening connection between the colleges.

The Team has coordinated four practices a week, and occasional extra events such as, recreational competitions, social events, and on-campus workouts throughout the semester. The  practices take place on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings along with Saturday afternoons. Tasters for new members will be held 1-2 times each semester

Team Leader:
Izzy Harrison

During the 2015-16  academic year, the Babson/Olin/Wellesley Three College Collaboration offered two rounds of Presidential Innovation Project Fund Grants—one in the Fall, the other in the Spring.

All proposals were reviewed by the college Provosts, BOW administration, and the BOW Faculty Steering Committee.   

A total of $17,856 was awarded.

The project titles, team members and their affiliations are:

BOW Ballroom Dancing

The BOW Ballroom Dance Club wants to unite interested dancers at Babson, Olin, and Wellesley to host and participate in professional ballroom lessons twice a week. The purpose of the club is to promote enthusiasm for and knowledge of ballroom dance, and to facilitate social interactions between students from the three colleges.  The project hopes to use BOW funds in an effort to create a solid base of student participants which will then allow the project to be self-sustaining.

Team Leader:

Xiaofan Wu, Wellesley College

Team members:

Emily Purdom, Co-president at Babson

Claire Beery, Co-president at Olin

Michelle Wang, Tri-College liaison at Wellesley

Catrina Sun-Tan, Public Relations at Wellesley

Yuanzhen Pan, Event coordinator at Wellesley 

Riyaaz Qawwali

Riyaaz Qawwali is the only South Asian ensemble in the US focused on qawwali, the most popular genre of Sufi music in South Asia and globally that is celebrated for its long (more than 700 years) association with inclusive spirituality. While Riyaz Qawwali reinterprets the genre musically and in choice of lyrics in ways that reflect the contemporary sensibilities, it continues the spirit of the tradition in promoting interfaith dialogue through their interactive and engaging performances as well as workshops.

Using Riyaz Qawwali’s performance as a platform, our campuses can get a glimpse into the cultures of South Asian and facilitate a deeper discussion about cultural and religious diversity at Babson, Olin, and Wellesley area. With the interactive and energetic quality of their music, they have enjoyed great success on many other campuses (Princeton University, Cornell University, Columbia University, University of Texas at Austin and University of Houston).

The performance would not only be enjoyed by faculty, students and the larger community, it can serve as a channel to create greater awareness about diversity and foster dialog. 

Team Leader: Subhash Gubba

Title: Olin Indian Club President

BOW Institution: Olin College

Email Address: subhash.gubba@students.olin.edu

Team Members:

Babson coordinators: Shahriar Mazumdar and Irfaan Kazi - Muslim Students Association; Rooni Mehta - AMAN (South Asian activities)

Olin coordinators:  Jessica McCarthy – BOW; Subhash Gubba - Olin Indian Club; Rae-Ann Butera - Dean of Student Life

Wellesley coordinators: Vaishali Gupta and Amira Quraishi - Religious Life; Neelima Shukla-Bhatt - South Asian Studies; Madhu Gupta - WASAC (Activities of South Asia Committee); Disha Okhai - Darshana (Hindu Community); Houda Khaled - Al Muslimat (Islamic Community)

All parties will be responsible for marketing and publicity of the event. Wellesley will facilitate the venue, Olin will coordinate interaction with the artists, and Babson will help plan the event logistics.

BOW Toastmasters Membership Development

The primary goal of the international Toastmaster’s organization is to improve public speaking skills and to inspire self-confidence and develop leadership. With an executive board of members from the Babson, Olin and Wellesley Colleges, collaboration between all three campuses is a critical part of this chapter’s mission. During our Toastmasters meetings, we develop personal and professional relationships, working together to foster public speaking and communication skills, a regularly scheduled opportunity to build relationships with members from other schools, and more. 

Our goal is to build and maintain a strong membership of 36 members from the Babson, Olin, and Wellesley communities. Our meeting formats allow attendees to network, collaborate, and help each other, and we’ve already seen students form friendships and partnerships through Toastmasters. We’re also the only club to have an officer from each of the three schools, allowing for a true BOW collaboration.

Team Leader: Christina Xiao

Title: Toastmasters President

BOW Institution: Babson College

Email Address: cxiao1@babson.edu

Team Members:

Christina Xiao, President, – Babson College representative

Lorna Wu, VP Education – Wellesley College representative

Shrinidhi Thirumalai, Secretary – Olin College representative 

BOW Rock Climbing

Our goals are to get many BOW students to engage with each other over a common passion, strengthing relationships between the colleges. 

Why choose rock climbing as the activity that bonds people together? Rock climbing is a sport where individuals try to climb to the top of their goals (literally). The obstacles facing them (the climbing route) is shared amongst all climbers tackling that route. The nature of the sport is extremely supportive, as everyone is encouraging and wants to help tackle the problem together. The mental and physical challenge makes the sport very rewarding, and climbing together is very synergistic.

We’ve coordinated 3 practices a week, and occasional extra events like outdoor climbing events, competitions, social events, and on campus workouts throughout the semester. 

Team Leader: Ryan Louie, Student

BOW Institution: Olin

Email Address: ryan.louie@students.olin.edu

Team Members:

Olin: *Ryan Louie, *Greg Coleman, *Izzy Harrison, Ankeet Mutha, Patrick Huston, Jasper Chen, Cecilia Diehl, Nick Lapin, Audrey Lewis, Chris Beck, Cesar Santana, Emily Wang, Rahil Dedhia, Thuc Tran, Chloe Blazey, Chloe Grubb

Babson: *Michael Losi, Jian Suh

Wellesley: Elaine, Adriana Rathjen, Mieke Bovbjerg, Jacqueline Zheng, Elizabeth Olson, Melody Gao, Linlin Chen, Rosaline Pyktel, Dalila Stanfield, Yu Rong Lim

Babson, Olin and Wellesley College Design For America

Design For America is an award-winning nationwide network of college students using design to create local and social impact in the areas of Health, Education, Economy and the Environment. This organization highly encourages interdisciplinary teams and emphasizes the fact that anyone studying any major, can be considered a designer.

To establish the presence of BOW Design For America’s studio, the first project includes the implementation of maker spaces or tool libraries as a compliment to a local public library. This would increase the number of "maker" projects being done in that community and fulfill a need within communities of every socioeconomic level. 

An important aspect of this project will be hosting the BOW Design For America Workshop. Two national leaders from Design For America will be flying in from Chicago to Olin College to introduce students to a high-level, fast-paced overview of the DFA human-centered design process, exemplify the process expected to be conducted during the one-month project and allow students to get to know one another and learn about DFA Network and values.

Bringing together the engineering strength of Olin College students with the business and entrepreneurship strength of Babson College students and the liberal arts strength of Wellesley College students presents a unique opportunity to accomplish everything DFA stands for (applying human-centered design to local, social challenges and to students' lives as innovators) with the resources and backing of three of the best schools for their respective fields and a nationwide network of mentors and studios. 

Team Leaders:

Isaac Vandor - student, Olin College

Sara Ballantyne - student, Olin College

Lisa Truong - student, Wellesley College

April Chen - student, Babson College 

CarbonZero Competition

Given the unprecedented rate of Global Climate Change and the immense danger it poses to humanity, we are behooved to engage BOW students to create viable solutions to lower our carbon footprint. As three innovative and prestigious schools, BOW schools would pool talented students together to create projects that would lower our carbon footprint. Project submission requirements would favor teams that consist of students from all three schools who harness their unique skills. Throughout the competition workshops, building sessions, and networking events will be held at Babson. A panel of 9 judges, consisting of 3 professionals from each BOW school, will judge project plans and will hear each team’s presentation. In order to implement action, the winning project will receive $2000 in funding and a pledge of a fully developed website. The project will be implemented next fall; projects that prove to be truly scalable will be referred to the Butler Accelerator Venture.

Team Leader: Eagle Wu Founder, Community of Developers and Entrepreneurs

BOW Institution : Babson College

College Address : 231 Forest Street, Babson Park, Wellesley, MA 02457

Email Address : ewu1@babson.edu 

Team:

(Babson Club)

Eagle Wu, Arpit Bansal, Gabe Ficht, Jared Silver, Xudong Zheng, Geraldine Sistos

SLAC (Olin Club)

Patrick Huston, Keenan Zucker, Ben Kahle, Evan Dorsky 

Wellesley Computer Science Club

Karina Chan, Nina Broocks

Also From Babson:

Professor Adam Sulkowski Law Professor & Expert in Sustainability Reporting

Professor Vikki Rodgers Sustainability Professor & Ecologist

Alex Davis Sustainability Office Manager, also representing Sustainability Department @Babson College

Rocket Pitch Club at Babson

Spark Tutors for Financial Accounting at Babson

BOW DataFest

Babson, Olin, and Wellesley are jointly planning the first BOW American Statistical Association DataFest, to be held at Olin, April 13, 2016.

This event is coordinated at locations all over the country and is similar to a computing hackathon, where teams of students work throughout a weekend to solve a problem. At DataFest, students gather for 2.5 days to explore and develop insights about a large, complex data set that is kept a secret until the event. Approximately 40 students will begin on a Friday evening, work throughout the day and evening on Saturday, and finish on Sunday. Throughout this time, faculty and staff from all three colleges circulate to provide advice and support. At the end of the event, each team of students briefly presents their work to a panel of judges, who award prizes for “best in show,” “best visualization,” and other categories. 

The goals of the BOW DataFest are to promote statistics and data science; to foster students’ data analysis, statistical, and computational skills; to recognize excellent student work; and to connect the data science and statistics communities at our colleges. Our participation in this national event also brings visibility to the BOW Collaboration. After this first trial, we hope to repeat this event in future years.

 Further information about DataFest is available at this link:

http://www.amstat.org/education/datafest/

Leaders:

Allen Downey, Professor, Olin College

allen.downey@olin.edu

Davit Khachatryan, Assistant Professor of Statistics/Analytics, Babson College

dkhachatryan@babson.edu

Cassandra Pattanayak, Guthman Director of the Quantitative Analysis Institute, Wellesley

College

cpattanayak@wellesley.edu

Additional coordinator:

John McKenzie, Associate Professor Emeritus of Statistics, Babson College

mckenzie@babson.edu 

Holi and Spring Mela

Holi is a religious and cultural festival observed in Hinduism and India in which colors are used to celebrate Spring and new beginnings. The act of throwing colors signifies embracing community and diversity by joining hands, coloring the world, and making peace with friends, family, strangers, and enemies. The event is held throughout college campuses all over the nation, as it gives students an opportunity to be playful while creating a sense of equality between individuals of different backgrounds and faiths.

Spring Mela, meaning Spring Festival or Spring Carnival, is a celebration of Spring and spring-related traditions from around the world. The outdoor celebration on the chapel lawn of Wellesley brings together a wide variety of multifaith and multicultural organizations, offering a space for reflection, celebration, food and crafts in general, an opportunity for stress relief in the busy weeks before finals for students from all three colleges. Past activities have included painting, a flower planting station, easter egg decoration, henna, short cultural dance performances and a variety of food stations from around the world. 

Team Leader: Priyanka Ram

Title: Darshana President

BOW Institution : Wellesley College

Email Address : pram@wellesley.edu

Team:

Wellesley College: Darshana Executive Board: Priyanka Ram ‘17, Chetna Mahajan ‘18, Harshita Yerramreddy ‘18, Keertana Anandraj ‘18

Babson College: Hari Mahesh ‘19, Arpit Bansal ‘19, Harshit Garg ‘19

Olin College: Saarth Mehrotra ‘16, Subhash Gubba ‘17

During the 2014-15 academic year, the Babson/Olin/Wellesley Three College Collaboration offered two rounds of Presidential Innovation Project Fund Grants—one in the Fall, the other in the Spring.

All proposals were reviewed by the college Provosts, BOW administration, and the BOW Faculty Steering Committee.  

A total of $20,098 was awarded.

The project titles, team members and their affiliations are:

Mix and Stir: Trios, composers, poets, actors in concert (AY 2015-16)

Mix and Stir connects an ensemble of musicians, composers, poets, and actors from Babson, Olin, and Wellesley to create two exciting performances during AY 15-16 to be held at Olin College.   In 2013-14, Olin acquired a Steinway B concert piano in Milas Hall and initiated the Ann Schaffner Concert Series.   Babson and Wellesley have hosted 3-College concerts in the past, and now Olin can offer an event to the 3-College Collaboration that will involve participation from multiple constituencies:  students, staff, and faculty.  These performances will introduce the BOW community, as well as our neighbors in Needham and Wellesley, to a new concert venue, a new concert series, and two cross-disciplinary musical/literary/theatrical events. 

The project is self-contained and even contributes financially to its budget by tapping $1000 from the Ann Schaffner Concert Series Fund.

The assessment plan has been designed so it not only evaluates the effectiveness of Mix and Stir, but also encourages others in the BOW community to step up with their own project ideas that they can then bring to fruition.

In short, by producing two multidisciplinary concerts as tangible outcomes, Mix and Stir provides access, opportunity, and creative channels for those who work, teach, and learn at Babson, Olin, and Wellesley, while enabling them to collaborate in a new venue, as part of a new concert series, and with a new Steinway B concert piano.

Project team
Team Leader:  Diana Dabby
Title:  Music Program Director and Associate Professor
BOW Institution:  Olin College of Engineering
College Address:  MH 269, Olin Way, Needham, MA 02492
Phone Number:  (781) 292-2551 (Olin)   
Email Address:  diana.dabby@olin.edu

Trio:  
Triple Helix Trio (violin, cello, piano).  Lois Shapiro, Piano Faculty, Wellesley (BOW contact)

Composers:  
Martin Brody, Catherine Mills Davis Chair, Wellesley
Diana Dabby, Music Program Director, Olin 
Jenny Johnson, Assistant Professor, Wellesley

3 student composers (to be mentored by the above faculty composers)

Poets and Actors from the Babson-Olin-Wellesley communities.  

Joint Development of Common Technology (AY 2014-15)

The purpose of this grant fund joint development of a technology that in support of faculty and student research in multiple colleges and in multiple disciplines.   Our goal for the project itself is to focus initially on the research needs of faculty at two colleges, but to frame the project reviews as open BOW events to engage all members of the BOW community.  

The particular technology we are planning to produce is an inexpensive GPS system with improved positional accuracy for use in faculty and student projects.

Team leaders:
Alex Morrow, Olin College
Katrin Monecke, Wellesley College

Team members:
Zhecan Wang and Ziyi Lan, students, Olin College

Problem Solving Showdown (Spring 2015)

 Problem Solving Showdown aims to inspire creative thinking among high school students through mentorship of college students from BOW colleges. Students will need to find a solution to a common social problem, such as the lack of access to clean water globally. This twenty-four hour competition will focus solely on the ideation process and help promote BOW colleges to prospective high school students, while allowing BOW students to collaborate with each other. Our aim is to bring a diverse group of high school students to BOW colleges to learn more about the college experience and develop important life skills.

Team leaders:
Dan Coley, student, Babson College

 Prabha Dublish, student, Babson College

Team members:
Nijanth Velmanikandan, Jamie Traverso, Michael Rothstein, Students, Babson College; 
Shaina Ma, Student, Wellesley College; 
Melissa Manwaring, Professor, Babson College, 
William Huss, Professor, Babson College

Cross-Campus Club Funding (Spring 2015)

Requested funding to support events sponsored by clubs from different campuses and to incentivize cross campus club events. We’re hoping that this will both show students that collaboration can be easy and rewarding and to plant seeds for further collaboration in the future. While extra funding would work, we’d also like to host an event that attracts club leaders from the three campuses to come and meet each other and see if there is potential for collaboration.

Team Leader: Shane Skikne, Olin College

Team members: 
Christopher Maddox, VP of Campus Activities, Babson
Charlotte Harris, College Gov’t VP, Wellesley
Mitch Ciemenski, Organizer and Campus Promoter, Olin
Arjun Rajesh, Organizer and Campus Promoter, BOW student ambassador, Babson

Three College Collaboration Weekend Shuttle (Spring 2015)

The Three College Collaboration Weekend Shuttle is an effort to better the communication
between the students at Babson, Olin, and Wellesley. The initiative’s main focus is to
promote interactions between the students of the three institutions by making it easier for
students to visit the other colleges. We believe that this will result in sustained collaboration
at the student level, thereby enhancing the Babson-Olin-Wellesley relationship.

View the new shuttle hours HERE.

Team leaders:
Ian Hill and Arjun Rajesh, BOW student ambassadors, Olin and Babson Colleges.

 

BOW Big Ideas for Busy People 2 (AY 2015-6)

This proposal is for the second running of a BOW event called “Big Ideas for Busy People”. The event consists of an evening of talks given by BOW faculty and staff in which individuals share their ideas with the community in the form of short talks. The “big ideas” presentations reflect a diversity of interests across fields of the BOW community. The purpose of this event is to highlight community ideas and perspectives and to bring the community together around the discussion of innovative ideas and to develop points of connection across a wide range of disciplines. Due to the overall success in bringing faculty and staff together for lively discussions at the first "Big Ideas for Busy People” last year, this proposal is for support of a second running this year.

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

Team members:

 Verónica Darer, Senior Lecturer of Spanish, Wellesley College 
Oscar Fernandez, Assistant Professor of Math, Wellesley College 
Sinan Erzurumlu, Associate Professor of Technology and Operations Management, Babson College 
Rick Cleary, Professor and Chair of Mathematics and Science, Babson College 
Yevgeniya V. Zastavker, Associate Professor of Physics, Olin College 
Jean Huang, Assistant Professor of Biology, Olin College

Engineering Consulting for Technology Ventures (Spring 2015) 

The goal of our project is to encourage collaboration between Babson and Olin students by
offering a platform that matches business and engineering students based on similar interests or
advice needed in a certain technological industry. Olin students would provide consulting advice
for Babson students and assist with developing venture ideas.

Team leaders: 
Christina Gee, student, Babson College
Janie Harari, student, Olin College

 

Rethink Education (March 2015)

Rethink Education is a weekend workshop crafted to give local undergraduates the opportunity to think critically about revamping the K-12 education space through user-oriented design. Under the mentorship of top New England designers, educators, and innovators, students will collaborate to bring their ideas for change closer to reality. With skill-building design workshops held throughout the weekend, students will leave with the design tools and thinking process that will enable them to tackle large problems and create meaningful change. With any luck, a few of the raw ideas and teams formed over the course of the weekend will continue on in the form of longer term projects for education reform, and the simple act of thinking through these problems will spark important conversations at Babson, Olin, and Wellesley.

Team leaders:
Celine Ta & Liani Lye, students, Olin College

Team members:
Madison May, student, Olin College
Michael Ninh, student, Babson College

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

Leader: Marjorie 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

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.