Michael Dennehy Receives Inaugural Boyd E. Dewey Award
Michael Dennehy Receives Inaugural Boyd E. Dewey Award
Michael Dennehy, executive director of College Access and Student Success (CASS), received the inaugural Boyd E. Dewey Award for Excellence for his exemplary service to BU Wheelock, Boston University, and the Boston community.
The award is named for Boyd E. Dewey, who was a member of the Boston University community for more than 40 years. The Boyd E. Dewey Award for Excellence honors a full-time staff member who exemplifies a profound commitment to excellence in their work and an unrelenting devotion to the creation and maintenance of an equitable and respectful community within BU Wheelock.
“I had the opportunity to work with Dean Dewey, so to be the inaugural recipient of an award bearing his name is a great honor,” says Dennehy, himself a graduate of Boston University and former Boston University Boston Scholar. “I am deeply moved by this acknowledgment and am grateful to the many wonderful colleagues and amazing students with whom I get to work.”
Dennehy has dedicated many years to College Access & Student Success, beginning as a tutor for a then-new BU program called TRIO Upward Bound and eventually working his way up to becoming director of Upward Bound and to his current role as CASS executive director.
CASS coordinates a number of college access programs, including: the Menino Scholars (formerly Boston Scholars), Posse, BPS Community Service Scholars, Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math/Science, BUILD, and Educators Rising. As executive director, Dennehy also serves as the Boston University Posse liaison and AACTE Holmes Scholar program coordinator.
“Mike has had a hand in helping thousands of students go to and graduate from college,” said Dean David Chard during the Zoom award ceremony. “Selflessly working for the needs of students, he has directly taught, tutored, reviewed college and financial aid applications, chaperoned bus trips, DJ’d dances, written hundreds of recommendation letters, and provided career and life advice.”
Dennehy’s work has previously been recognized by the Massachusetts and New England Educational Opportunity Association as their 2016 Marion Belgrave Howard Award Winner and as a Boston Celtics’ “Hero Among Us.”
“Mike has always worked hard in order to provide the best possible programming for students,” says Reggie Jean, director of BU Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math/Science. “He always strives to demonstrate cultural competency and antiracism in his practices of recruitment, hiring, training, and supervision.”