Dean’s Faculty Leadership Fellows Begin Work
Bunch and Farny are first recipients of new fellowship
By Patrick L. Kennedy
Two mechanical engineering faculty members are undertaking curriculum projects with the support of the new Dean’s Faculty Leadership Fellows program. Associate Professor Scott Bunch (ME, MSE) is leading a review of the course sequence for graduate student teachers, while Master Lecturer Caleb Farny (ME) is working to tie the engineering curriculum to public infrastructure challenges in the Boston area.
“The goals of the Dean’s Faculty Leadership Fellows program are to initiate and advance projects aligned with our educational and research mission, and to provide additional ways for faculty to develop their leadership skills for future opportunities at the department or college level and beyond,” says ENG Dean ad interim Elise Morgan. “I am excited about working with Caleb and Scott on these projects.”
A clear line from coursework to the Green Line
Farny is working with fellow engineering faculty and with BU’s Initiative on Cities to identify local engineering systems and problems with clear connections to ENG courses, and to incorporate these cases into the curriculum in ways that enhance students’ technical education while advancing the college’s commitment to societally driven engineering.
The first system Farny will focus on is one that students rely on every day: transportation. “We can study it across multiple courses, from many different aspects—mechanical and electrical elements and so on—so that by the time students graduate, they understand the system really well,” says Farny.
Eventually, Farny would like to connect students with community partners to tackle real-life challenges as their Senior Design projects. “It could be a way to give back to the city that we live in,” Farny says. “The more we can make ourselves relevant to the surrounding community, the more helpful it’s going to be for BU as a university.”
Farny, who is also associate chair for undergraduate programs, has long imagined such a program, and provisions for it exist already in the college’s latest strategic plan. Now, launching it as a Dean’s Faculty Leadership Fellow, Farny is receiving more feedback and ideas from fellow faculty than he would otherwise, he says. “Just having the dean’s office amplify this as something that is important to support helps make the connections.”
A meaningful TA experience
For Bunch’s fellowship project, he is revamping—in collaboration with students, faculty, and other stakeholders—the 801/802 course sequence, which is taken by all ENG graduate student teachers (GSTs).
Over seven years of teaching the sequence himself, Bunch has made various tweaks in response to anecdotal and formal feedback from students, but now he is leading a thorough review, conducting interviews and incorporating the perspectives of other instructors and past GSTs as well as the expertise of the BU Center for Teaching & Learning.
“Having the structure of this dean’s fellowship provides me with the opportunity to talk to all these people that otherwise I probably wouldn’t have reached out to,” says Bunch.
Engineering GSTs supervise lab sessions, hold office hours, lead discussion sections, and grade papers and tests. “You learn a lot by teaching,” says Bunch. “If you have to teach the material, you really have to understand it.”
Indeed, Bunch’s overarching goal for the overhaul is for the students to understand the enduring value of serving as a GST.
“Teaching is an important part of their professional development, even if they don’t go into teaching,” says Bunch. “As engineers at companies, they’ll still need to know how to communicate effectively, how to evaluate and supervise as they become more senior. Being a GST isn’t just a box to check; it should be a more meaningful experience for them.”