Office Artifacts: Roz Abukasis
Sargent College academic counselor has a menagerie of lions in her office
Click on the icons above to see more of what Roz Abukasis displays in her Sargent College office.
The Wizard of Oz has held special meaning to Roz Abukasis for as long as she can remember, and especially now in her role as a Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences academic counselor. The message of the film (based on the 1900 classic children’s book by L. Frank Baum) “is you already possess what you are looking for,” Abukasis says, adding that she reminds students of that message as they navigate the challenges of classes and personal lives, striving for a healthy work-life balance.
“Tin Man had a heart, Scarecrow had a brain, and the Lion always possessed that courage,” she says. “They just needed to know that they had it within them.”
The Wizard of Oz theme carries through to Abukasis’ Sargent College office, where she has 38 lions she’s collected over 20 years, some she’s bought, and others given to her as gifts. A large lion sits on the floor, a knit one is decked out in a rainbow pattern, and smaller ones are tucked between trailing plants and books.
Before arriving at BU, Abukasis worked as a social worker in Israel and then for 13 years as an academic counselor at Newbury College, a small liberal arts school that closed in 2019 after more than half a century of serving students from all backgrounds (the college also endowed BU’s Newbury Center). She came to BU that same year.
Abukasis explains that Newbury’s enrollment was 70 percent first-gen students, and that some had little home support. “Their stories were incredible. And thinking of The Wizard of Oz, the lion wanted courage, and needed to dig deep to find it,” she says. “A lot of students don’t appreciate what they go through and the obstacles they have worked through, until all of a sudden, it’s kind of put in perspective.” Thinking of that message, she brought in one of her children’s Beanie Babies, and her collection took off.
In her role as an academic counselor, Abukasis works with a variety of students, including those who enter Sargent from the College of General Studies and transfer students, and she also advises the school’s Peer Mentor Program. One lion especially pertinent to these advising conversations is a golden lion paperweight: he sits crossed-legged in a namaste pose.
“In Sargent, working with so many students who are so hyper-focused on healthcare and medicine and dental [care], they very often need to have the namaste line ‘Just remember to breathe,’ and find balance,” she says. “I tell a lot of these human physiology students, ‘You’ve got to be able to talk about something other than cardiovascular pathophysiology at a cocktail party.’”
In our Office Artifacts series, BU Today highlights interesting artifacts professors and staff display in their offices. Have a suggestion about someone we should profile? Email amlaskow@bu.edu.
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