I often tell people that Suffolk University is in and of the city of Boston—but not bound by it.
From move-in weekend at the start of the academic year to Commencement weekend at the end (and every day in between—summers, too), Boston plays an enormous role in the life of this University and in the educational experience of our students.
The latest edition of Suffolk University Magazine is filled with examples of how this incredible University connects with this amazing city. For example, in September Suffolk was at the center of Boston’s startup community as host of Startup Boston Week 2023. For five straight days innovators, investors, entrepreneurs, and influencers swarmed Sargent Hall—learning from experts, networking, and dreaming up the next big thing.
Suffolk Theatre students are collaborating with Boston’s Front Porch Arts Collective, an award-winning Black theatre company founded to advance racial equity. With visiting guest artist Pascale Florestal, students are creating a contemporary adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which will be produced at Suffolk’s Modern Theatre in downtown Boston in November.
In July, as part of the inaugural Suffolk University Summer Public History Institute, students from area high schools made Boston their classroom. Led by History Professors Kathryn Lasdow and Robert Allison, they visited colonial, Revolutionary, and modern history sites from Old North Church to the Kennedy Presidential Library. Along the way, they grappled with questions about the nature of liberty, freedom, and a changing American identity, as well as some of the nation’s most complicated narratives.
Yet while our learning opportunities begin in Boston, they often extend around the globe. Consider international relations major Stephanie Bulega-Nasuna, who is splitting her senior year between the US and Asia. After studying this summer in South Korea, where she was the first Suffolk recipient of a prestigious State Department scholarship, she is spending her fall semester in Japan on a Boren Award scholarship.
Before receiving her MPA/MAAP degree in May, Rae’Niqua Victorine took a course on our Boston campus with David Paleologos, renowned director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. When deciding what to poll, Victorine convinced her classmates to look further afield than Boston and shine a light on her often-overlooked home territory of the US Virgin Islands, whose residents have endured damaging hurricanes, a struggling economy, and unreliable power grids. The poll found that USVI residents often feel like second-class citizens and want to vote in US presidential elections.
Another alumnus, State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, MBA ’13, embodies the idea of being in and of Boston, but not bound by it. A deeply rooted North Ender, he still lives in the neighborhood where he grew up and never misses an opportunity to help his constituents.
And yet, as the powerful chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, helping determine how state funds are allocated, Michlewitz’s reach now extends across the Commonwealth. He’s worked to address the state’s housing crisis and pushed for programs that support its most vulnerable citizens and expand access to early education, among other areas. He says he loves the idea that “you can change someone’s trajectory with a small neighborhood issue or a big piece of legislation.”
And then there are Suffolk learning experiences that are literally out of this world. Professors Melanie Berkmen and Celeste Peterson and other faculty members are expanding traditional classroom instruction using virtual reality, translating complex concepts into 4D space—an education that starts in Boston and extends to the metaverse.
In his remarks at Suffolk’s Convocation ceremony in September, Student Government Association President Clinton Oreofe, Class of 2025, told first-year students that “college is the perfect time to figure out who you are, and Suffolk is the perfect canvas to do it on.” That is a reality that goes beyond virtual, and every day our students are proving it in Boston and all around the world.
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Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
noteworthy
“College is the perfect time to figure out who you are,” Student Government Association President Clinton Oreofe told new first-year students at Convocation in September. “And Suffolk is the perfect canvas to do it on.” Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
I often tell people that Suffolk University is in and of the city of Boston—but not bound by it.
From move-in weekend at the start of the academic year to Commencement weekend at the end (and every day in between—summers, too), Boston plays an enormous role in the life of this University and in the educational experience of our students.
The latest edition of Suffolk University Magazine is filled with examples of how this incredible University connects with this amazing city. For example, in September Suffolk was at the center of Boston’s startup community as host of Startup Boston Week 2023. For five straight days innovators, investors, entrepreneurs, and influencers swarmed Sargent Hall—learning from experts, networking, and dreaming up the next big thing.
Suffolk Theatre students are collaborating with Boston’s Front Porch Arts Collective, an award-winning Black theatre company founded to advance racial equity. With visiting guest artist Pascale Florestal, students are creating a contemporary adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which will be produced at Suffolk’s Modern Theatre in downtown Boston in November.
In July, as part of the inaugural Suffolk University Summer Public History Institute, students from area high schools made Boston their classroom. Led by History Professors Kathryn Lasdow and Robert Allison, they visited colonial, Revolutionary, and modern history sites from Old North Church to the Kennedy Presidential Library. Along the way, they grappled with questions about the nature of liberty, freedom, and a changing American identity, as well as some of the nation’s most complicated narratives.
Yet while our learning opportunities begin in Boston, they often extend around the globe. Consider international relations major Stephanie Bulega-Nasuna, who is splitting her senior year between the US and Asia. After studying this summer in South Korea, where she was the first Suffolk recipient of a prestigious State Department scholarship, she is spending her fall semester in Japan on a Boren Award scholarship.
Before receiving her MPA/MAAP degree in May, Rae’Niqua Victorine took a course on our Boston campus with David Paleologos, renowned director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. When deciding what to poll, Victorine convinced her classmates to look further afield than Boston and shine a light on her often-overlooked home territory of the US Virgin Islands, whose residents have endured damaging hurricanes, a struggling economy, and unreliable power grids. The poll found that USVI residents often feel like second-class citizens and want to vote in US presidential elections.
Another alumnus, State Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, MBA ’13, embodies the idea of being in and of Boston, but not bound by it. A deeply rooted North Ender, he still lives in the neighborhood where he grew up and never misses an opportunity to help his constituents.
And yet, as the powerful chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, helping determine how state funds are allocated, Michlewitz’s reach now extends across the Commonwealth. He’s worked to address the state’s housing crisis and pushed for programs that support its most vulnerable citizens and expand access to early education, among other areas. He says he loves the idea that “you can change someone’s trajectory with a small neighborhood issue or a big piece of legislation.” And then there are Suffolk learning experiences that are literally out of this world. Professors Melanie Berkmen and Celeste Peterson and other faculty members are expanding traditional classroom instruction using virtual reality, translating complex concepts into 4D space—an education that starts in Boston and extends to the metaverse.
In his remarks at Suffolk’s Convocation ceremony in September, Student Government Association President Clinton Oreofe, Class of 2025, told first-year students that “college is the perfect time to figure out who you are, and Suffolk is the perfect canvas to do it on.” That is a reality that goes beyond virtual, and every day our students are proving it in Boston and all around the world.