BU Wheelock announces the recipients of the BU Wheelock Alumni Awards. The awardees will be honored in a ceremony on Thursday, September 19. The ceremony is part of BU Alumni Weekend, and all are welcome to attend.

Vicki Milstein (Wheelock’72), the Lucy Wheelock Award

Vicki Milstein has been the administrator of the Brookline Early Education Program (BEEP) for the past 22 years. In her tenure, she has demonstrated exemplary service in her profession and to the community of Brookline, Mass., where she was named Woman of the Year in 2008.

As an advocate for social justice, systemic change, and diversity, Milstein has fostered excellence in the field of early childhood education. She has been recognized for her outstanding work with the Sperber Award for Excellence in Administration (2011) and Wheelock College’s Anniversary Award for Outstanding Alumna in the 1990s.

Takeru Nagayoshi (Wheelock’16), the Young Alumni Award

Takeru Nagayoshi, who teaches AP English at New Bedford High School, is the 2020 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year. He believes in using his personal perspective as the son of Japanese immigrant parents and an LGBT teacher of color, to advocate for education equity and community-based ed reforms. Over 92% of his students passed their AP exams in 2018, helping his district lead the state in the number of AP Certificates awarded. He also piloted a research-based AP Capstone program in his district.

Outside of school, Nagayoshi writes op-eds on education issues, coaches developing teachers through Teach For America, and has taken part in fellowships such as the Harvard Education Redesign Lab, Teach Plus, and New Leaders Council. This year, he helped launch an educator leadership program, SNEALI, which focuses on developing local capacity and organizing skills for teachers in the Southern New England area.

Rebekah Roulier (CAS ’06 Wheelock’10), the Young Alumni Award

Rebekah Roulier, LMHC, is a nonprofit executive leader and licensed mental health clinician who focuses on driving innovation in the global and local mental health professional communities. She serves as the chief operating officer of Doc Wayne Youth Services, a nonprofit whose goal is to re-imagine therapy through the lens of sport. As a former NCAA Division 1 student-athlete and women’s college soccer coach, Roulier discovered her passion for the performance arena early on in life. Those experiences contributed to her awareness of the prevalence of mental illness symptoms in athletes, and led her to seek out professional training, earning both an EdM and CAGS in counseling with a sub-concentration in sports psychology from BU Wheelock.

In 2018, the City of Boston recognized her dedication to the city’s youth, naming her winner of the Mayor Martin J. Walsh Youth Advocate Award. Roulier is also an alumna of Boston University’s Institute for Nonprofit Management & Leadership program at the Questrom School of Business. She is a frequent public speaker and guest blogger, providing burgeoning insight on mental health, continuously working towards decreasing stigma and increasing accessibility for all.

Toni Crowell-Petrungaro (Wheelock’97), the Global Impact Award

A graduate of Wheelock College’s master’s program in Child Life & Family-Centered Care, Toni Crowell-Petrungaro has been an active member of the child life profession and community. Her interest in international service began in Wheelock’s Hospitalized Child in London course.

Since 2000, Crowell-Petrungaro has volunteered on Operation Smile’s cleft lip and palate surgical missions in over a dozen different locations throughout Central and South America, Asia, Africa, and specialized missions to Belarus and Chechnya. In 2013, she accepted a position as manager of Child Life Services at Sidra Medicine, a state of the art women’s and children’s hospital in Qatar. There, she developed the licensing requirements and successfully advocated at the government level for licensure of child life specialists in Qatar. She now holds the role of manager of Child Life Services at Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, RI, which was also the location of her traditional child life internship during her studies at Wheelock.

Rebecca Shangraw (Wheelock’05,’13), Distinguished Contribution to the Alma Mater & Alumni

Rebecca Shangraw earned an EdD in curriculum & teaching and EdM in human movement education from Boston University, and a BS in exercise & sport science from Colby-Sawyer College in New London, NH. Currently, Shangraw is a lecturer and program director for the Applied Human Development program at BU Wheelock. She has also served BU Wheelock as interim associate dean for student affairs.

Shangraw’s research interests involves identifying and investigating recommended teaching practices to use when instructing physical education students or athletes who have specific learning disabilities, ADHD, or autism spectrum disorders. In November 2017, Shangraw was elected to a four-year term on the Weymouth School Committee and currently sits on the school committee’s policy subcommittee and labor negotiations subcommittee.