Adobe Catalyst Program: Meet the 2021 Mentors

Launched in 2019, BU’s Adobe Catalyst Program (ACP), a Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL) and Digital & Learning Innovation (DL&I) partnership welcomes its third cohort this month. The ACP provides a virtual learning space for experienced Adobe users (catalysts) to mentor colleagues who wish to implement multi-modality into their teaching and assignments, and use Adobe Creative Cloud as a tool to make this happen.

“Sharing” is the key word for this program. Nine faculty mentees—from a range of colleges, departments, and programs—will share their pedagogical goals for incorporating digital design into their teaching and student projects. Three catalysts—from QST, BUMC, and CAS Writing Program—will share their expertise with specific Adobe applications and multi-modal assignments to help their mentees reach these goals. The faculty partnership and collective learning is a strong component of this program, one in which both catalysts and mentees learn together and from one another. 

At the end of the semester, mentees will showcase their projects and reflect on what they have learned throughout the program. 

Stay tuned to hear more about the accomplishments of this group through updates on the DL&I and CTL website. 

Pary Fassihi (CTL) and Caterina Scaramelli (CAS-Anthropology)
Co-Coordinators of the Adobe Catalyst Program

Meet the Adobe Spring 2021 Mentors

Christopher McVey (CAS Writing Program)

Dr. Christopher McVey is a Senior Lecturer with the Boston University Writing Program and Kilachand Honors College, where he teaches courses in academic writing and research. He contributed to the revision of research writing courses for the BU Hub and has advised the Hub Council on a variety of matters related to portfolios and digital / multimedia projects. His own research and publications explore a variety of modernist and contemporary poetry and literature, especially the poetry of T. S. Eliot. He is currently working on a book project concerning post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction and film.

“We must teach students how to be critical and responsible consumers of information, but the digital environments we all now inhabit demand a greater kind of literacy and skill-set to be critical and responsible content creators.”

• What, in your mind, are the benefits of faculty-to-faculty learning? Teaching can be a strangely isolating experience, so faculty-to-faculty collaboration and learning helps us to reconnect, which is essential not only for sharing practices that have worked well, but for creating a cohesive and unified curriculum.
• What is a powerful mentoring experience, and how will you pay it forward to your group of mentees? Many of my own mentors in the Writing Program have introduced innovative pedagogical practices in their classrooms, and I hope to encourage others to experiment with new ways to engage their students as well, even if those experiments do not always work. Sometimes a new approach or teaching strategy, however, can make the classroom a truly transformative experience.
• How have digital implementations transformed your own teaching and research over the past years? We must teach students how to be critical and responsible consumers of information, but the digital environments we all now inhabit demand a greater kind of literacy and skill-set to be critical and responsible content creators. Assigning digital and multimodal projects gives students both the practice and confidence they need to succeed in these new digital landscapes.

Gregory Stoller (Questrom School of Business)

Gregory Stoller is actively involved in building entrepreneurship, experiential learning and international business programs at the Questrom School of Business. He also mentors student teams which participate in business plan and venture capital competitions. His areas of expertise are Business Planning, International Entrepreneurship, Experiential Learning, and Global Strategy.

Since 2013 Gregory and his team have also been producing a newsmagazine television program and podcast called The Language of Business.

“Not only have digital tools become extremely powerful over the past few years but there are also so many resources online to learn how to use them effectively.”

• What, in your mind, are the benefits of faculty-to-faculty learning? This is a unique opportunity to teach and learn peer to peer. So much of traditional mentoring usually involves a superior and a subordinate, and is often unidirectional, so it will be really nice to have everyone at the same level.
• What is a powerful mentoring experience, and how will you pay it forward to your group of mentees? For the past couple of years I’ve been spending more and more time learning the idiosyncrasies of television production before each of our episodes drops. Watching this from the inside out has been educational yet quite sobering, and I can’t wait to begin paying it forward.
• How have digital implementations transformed your own teaching and research over the past years? Not only have digital tools become extremely powerful over the past few years but there are also so many resources online to learn how to use them effectively. As a result, you can quickly and easily implement them into courses piece by piece as opposed to through a one-time soup-to-nuts overhaul. Online tracking statistics have also enabled us to quickly gauge what best resonates with our students.

Carla Romney (Boston University School of Medicine)

Dr. Carla Romney is a STEM education researcher who studies implementations of high impact best practices in pre-college, undergraduate, and graduate school settings with a focus on reducing disparities in STEM retention, persistence, and achievement. Carla is passionate about designing, planning, implementing, and assessing interventions that are grounded in an understanding of local and national data to improve talent development in STEM. Her research and practice focus on bolstering the talent pipeline and supporting workforce development efforts in STEM, particularly in the biomedical/biotechnology fields.

“The biggest benefit of faculty-to-faculty learning is the spirit of camaraderie that comes from learning together with colleagues.”

• What, in your mind, are the benefits of faculty-to-faculty learning? The biggest benefit of faculty-to-faculty learning is the spirit of camaraderie that comes from learning together with colleagues.
• What is a powerful mentoring experience, and how will you pay it forward to your group of mentees? Mentoring is shared empowerment and I hope to inspire my mentees to integrate Adobe applications into their classes.
• How have digital implementations transformed your own teaching and research over the past years? I incorporate technology as a means to engage all learners and bring the “real world” into class.

View all posts