long racial reckoning in America. At the ugly end of a presidency that seemed to embrace white supremacy. And just days after a violent insurrection on Capitol Hill that saw the Confederate battle flag waved in the halls of Congress.
“For me, it makes MLK Day feel like more than just our annual celebration,” says Katherine Kennedy, director of the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground, which is hosting the event. “It’s a true remembrance of what MLK stood for, fought for, died for. And, especially for those of us who have lived long enough to have been a part of that, it’s a pretty emotional time.”
23 December 2020
by: Andrea Korte Jane Willenbring shares her story of harassment in science in the documentary Picture A Scientist. | Sharon Shattuck & Ian Cheney Jane Willenbring shares her story of harassment in science in the documentary Picture A Scientist. | Sharon Shattuck & Ian Cheney
A recent documentary shines a light on the discrimination and harassment faced by women in science – and affords the chance to explore just how much more work remains to make the scientific enterprise equitable, said participants in a Dec. 9 virtual panel organized by AAAS on the film “Picture a Scientist.”
“We can put data down on a piece of paper and we can look at statistics and we can show you graphs over time,” said Cyndi Atherton, director of science at the Heising-Simons Foundation, which provided principal funding for “Picture a Scientist.” The film cites a report on sexual harassment in STEM released in 2018 by the National Academies of Sciences,
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In response to a snowstorm hitting just two days before Boston University’s fall semester ends, officials announced Wednesday evening that while undergraduate and graduate final exams will go on as scheduled Thursday but remotely the Charles River Campus will be closed, as will the University’s COVID-19 testing labs and collection sites.
“All exams scheduled for Thursday should proceed remotely,” says Jean Morrison, BU provost and chief academic officer. “All academic work (term papers, group projects, etc.) that is due Thursday should be submitted as scheduled.” Professors who have course-specific instructions should be in touch directly with their students, she says. In-person exams will resume, as scheduled, when the University reopens on Friday.
Lorraine Bracco and COVID-19 testing make for a different moviemaking experience in Memphis John Beifuss, Memphis Commercial Appeal
Lights, camera, nasal swab action!
The old filmmaking battle cry has been updated for the age of COVID-19, as writer-director Waheed AlQawasmi abetted by an almost entirely local crew and the star power of The Sopranos actress Lorraine Bracco is demonstrating with Jacir, now in production in Memphis under health guidelines intended to inhibit exposure to the novel coronavirus.
Cast and crew members are required to be tested every three days, to ensure they are not carrying the virus. Visitors including a newspaper reporter and photographer have to be tested and cleared before being allowed on set.
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Azer Bestavros, recently named BU’s first associate provost for computing and data sciences, sat in a Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground conference room overlooking the Charles River last February and listened as antiracism scholar Ibram X. Kendi laid out his bold vision: bringing antiracist investigators together with data scientists to tackle racial inequities, he would establish Boston University as the nation’s leading academic institution for data-driven antiracist research. Kendi, who was visiting from American University, had been in talks with BU about joining the faculty but this was his first in-person meeting with Bestavros.
Bestavros, who had been charged with embedding computing and data science across the University in every discipline, from the humanities to engineering to medicine, was impressed. “I was struck by the scale of what he was envisioning and by his conviction that data is essential not only in exposing racial inequities