The Weekly Recap

News and Updates from Across BU Wheelock SPACE This Week

Welcome to this week’s recap! This week we share community events, provide details on faculty engagement, and highlight news mentions, updates in U.S. higher education, and recently published research.

New Announcements

• Mayor Wu’s State of the City: Mayor Michelle Wu delivered her 2025 State of the City address at the MGM Music Hall, highlighting the achievements of her administration and outlining her priorities for the next four years. During her speech, she took a defiant stand against the current federal administration, stating, “Tonight, I can say that the state of our city is strong. And we have to be.” She continued, “All over the country, people are feeling the weight of a federal administration that’s attacking our sources of strength — the same people and purpose that make Boston great: public servants and veterans; immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community; the institutions that conduct groundbreaking research and provide lifesaving care.”

Out and About

• New England Council: Cara Mattaliano (Asst. Director, SPACE) attended the New England Council’s Centennial Celebration, which featured remarks from House Minority Whip Katherine Clark.

Faculty Engagement

• Franco-American Commission: Mary Churchill (Assoc. Dean, SPACE) presented on the current state of higher education in the US at the Franco-American Commission/Fulbright France office in Paris, France. She shared insights on a recently published book that she edited, The Conversation on Higher Ed, which features contributions from 55 authors and offers a critical analysis of the tenuous future of higher education.

In the News

• Implants can help deaf kids hear—but many still struggle with spoken language, Science (Assoc. Professor Naomi Caselli featured), March 13, 2025

Research That Matters

• Mindfulness and Cross-Country Athletes: One mile at a time: the relationship between mindfulness, self-talk, and psychobiosocial affective states in collegiate cross-country athletes (co-authored by Assoc. Professor Edson Filho)

  • Researchers examined the relationship between mindfulness tendencies and various factors in cross-country running, including state and trait anxiety, perceived pain, exertion, performance satisfaction, attention, self-efficacy, and negative thinking. Thirteen collegiate athletes participated in either a 3 or 5 km race, depending on their primary event. Prior to the race, they completed surveys on mindfulness and anxiety, and after the race, they reported on their perceived exertion, pain, attention, self-efficacy, and performance. Descriptive and inferential analysis revealed that (a) athletes with higher mindfulness reported greater levels of pain and more instructional self-talk about pain than those with lower mindfulness, and (b) moderate-to-strong correlations were found between perceived exertion, pain, attentional focus, and somatic anxiety. These findings suggest that unpleasant affective states are inherent to running, and practitioners should help athletes develop personalized coping strategies to improve both performance and well-being.

• Social-Emotional Health and COVID-19: The impact of COVID-19 on students' social-emotional well-being (chapter co-authored by Professor Jen Green, Professor Melissa Holt, and doctoral student Ruchi Mendiratta Khanna).

  • During the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple federal agencies raised concerns about worsening mental health among U.S. youth. However, limitations in available data made it difficult to fully understand the pandemic's impact on young people's social and emotional well-being. In this chapter from the Handbook on Inequality and COVID-19, researchers review studies on how students' social-emotional well-being changed during the pandemic and use two data sources to estimate changes in bullying and depressive symptoms. Authors provide recommendations for improving data collection to more effectively monitor changes in youth mental health during crises and to better address inequities. Key findings include:

    1. Google Trends Data: The researchers found a decrease in online searches related to school bullying during and after the pandemic, but a rise in searches for cyberbullying.

    2. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey Data: Replicating their findings using data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey, the researchers found that depressive symptoms were on the rise before the pandemic and continued to increase in the year following it.

    3. Researchers found that the gender gap in depressive symptoms widened, with females experiencing more significant increases.

Important Updates in US Higher Education

• Closing the Department of Education: On Thursday evening, President Trump signed an Executive Order instructing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “begin eliminating the federal Department of Education once and for all.” The announcement immediately raised concerns among state leaders, including Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, who issued a statement warning that the state receives more than $2 billion in annual federal education funding—resources that would be impossible to replace at the state level.

• How Should Colleges Respond to a Threat to the Humanities? In an article published in The Chicago Tribune, Harvey Young, Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Boston University, highlights the growing dangers federal funding cuts pose to higher education—including to the humanities, which he argues are often overlooked in these discussions. He urges university leaders to recognize that these threats extend beyond the sciences and calls on senior leadership teams to ask themselves: How representative of the entire university community are the voices at the table? He concludes by emphasizing the importance of broadening perspectives before making critical decisions and advises colleges to push back strategically, knowing when to stand firm rather than yielding to political pressure. Read the full article here.

Upcoming Events

• March 27-28 - BU Wheelock Forum: Thriving in the Middle School Years. Each year, the BU Wheelock Forum brings together scholars, educators, policymakers, and others to discuss pressing issues in education and human development. The 2025 Forum will examine the deficit narrative of early adolescence that has resulted in youth ages 10–15 being overlooked, undervalued, and minimized in research, policymaking, and investment. Join us to explore the complexity of this pivotal time in adolescent development and the ways in which systems and strategies can be refocused to help students thrive. The keynote speakers include Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of novels and poetry for young adults and middle-grade audiences; Wendi Williams, psychologist, advocate, and educator; Tina Durand, Clinical Assoc. Professor at BU Wheelock; and Michael Medina, Asst. Professor at BU Wheelock. Learn more and register here.

  📅 Date: March 27-28, 2025

• April 17 - How Advocacy Works: Advancing Early Education and Care in the Commonwealth. How Advocacy Works, a new webinar from the BU Wheelock SPACE Office, will spotlight strategic and effective advocacy efforts that advance equitable policy in education and human development. Join us for the opening webinar of this series, where a distinguished panel of early childhood education leaders will explore key strategies—including advocacy, research, community organizing, and strategic communication—that they use to drive meaningful change in the Commonwealth. The panel will feature Amy O'Leary, Executive Director of Strategies for Children, kate warren barnes, Head of Massachusetts Strategy & Partnerships at Jumpstart for Young Children, and Felicia Billy, Director of BU’s Children’s Center. The conversation will be moderated by Kyle DeMeo Cook, Research Assistant Professor at the Center on the Ecology of Early Development (CEED) at BU Wheelock.

  📅 Date: Thursday, April 17th

  🕒 Time: 12:00 PM - 12:45 PM EST

  📍 Location: Webinar, Register here.

• April 19 - BU Curiosity and Learning Conference. Following the success of last year’s dynamic, STEAM-focused sessions, the 10th Annual Curiosity and Learning Conference will include hands-on activities, innovative workshops, and inspirational talks from incredible leaders in education—highlighting how curiosity drives learning across disciplines. Check out a summary of last year's conference and register here.
  📅 Date: April 19th, 2025
  🕒 Time: 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM EST
  📍Location: BU Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences (CDS)

• April 26 - 1965 Freedom Rally. This year marks the 60th Anniversary of the 1965 Freedom Rally led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ruth Batson, Alan Gartner, Reverend Virgil Wood, and Dr. Ralph Abernathy. The rally took place on April 23, 1965, with over 20,000 people marching on Boston Common to protest racial imbalance in housing and schools. On April 26th, from 12:00 to 2:30 PM, Embrace Boston calls upon over 10,000 voices to unite in solidarity for hope and action. As Dr. King urged in 1956, Boston must “be the testing ground for the ideal of freedom.” This rally serves as a testament that Boston continues to be a powerful force for freedom, equality, and human dignity.

  📅 Date: April 26th, 2025
  🕒 Time: 12:00 PM - 2:30 PM
  📍The Embrace at Boston Common