Inside The Academy
The third cohort of The Academy—a cost-free, summer enrichment program for middle and high school students, and a pillar within Boston College’s Pine Manor Institute (PMI) for Student Success—is now on campus. The 134 participants in the residential program, which began July 14 and runs through August 3, include a new group of 44 rising eighth graders, and returning groups of 57 ninth- and 46 tenth-grade students who are at BC for one, two, and three weeks, respectively. Participants come from 52 partner schools, and represent a range of Boston neighborhoods and area communities including Brighton, Brockton, Chelsea, Dorchester, Hyde Park, Jamaica Plain, Lawrence, Mattapan, Shrewsbury, Springfield, Waltham, and Worcester.
The successful initiative—which has had an 89 percent retention rate since its launch in 2022—engages students in a dynamic program of enrichment activities and classes in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields and language arts. Electives such as 3D printing, textile arts, photography, cellular agriculture, and digital storytelling also are offered, and older students participate in field trips, overnight adventures, and volunteer experiences. Evenings include family-style dinners, small-group reflection, and quiet time before a 10 p.m. curfew. Academy programming is designed to instill core values: tenacity, courage and confidence (grade eight); identity, harmony, and companionship (grade nine); compassion, service, and solidarity (grade 10).
With The Academy now in full swing, a University Communications Q&A with Vice President and PMI Executive Director Joy Moore provides insights on goals for participants, robust programming, the team that facilitates student achievement, ongoing support during the academic year—which includes personalized coaching, tutoring, and mentorship—and future plans.
How do The Academy’s curricula and enrichment courses enhance this summer learning experience and underscore its core values to facilitate participants’ development?
Throughout The Academy’s Summer Enrichment Program (SEP), we preview academic content, facilitate skill-building, promote our core values, and provide diverse learning opportunities. The academic and enrichment programs have been designed in alignment with the Massachusetts curriculum standards for each grade level, while offering collaborative and project-based learning experiences to put our core values into practice at their respective levels.
For example, Decoding Shakespeare has eighth graders examining a Shakespeare play, connecting themes to their current experiences, and culminates with the students attending a Commonwealth Shakespeare Company performance on Boston Common (with front row seats courtesy of the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company). Through Community Awareness and Advocacy classes, rising tenth graders will experience courses and projects aimed at cultivating a deeper understanding of their personal relationships and contributions to their communities. And Cultural Literacy and Exploration, offers a rich array of arts, including photography, West African drumming, and culinary arts, which provides rising ninth grade students with opportunities to learn through different mediums and modalities.
Beginning this summer, our rising tenth graders are eligible to work. Therefore, to offset any loss of summer employment income, we will provide a monetary stipend to our students, after completing the three-week program.
What qualities do PMI staff members and summer instructors contribute to ensure that Academy participants take full advantage of the summer session—to foster its success and enrich the students’ experiences?
BC Vice President Joy Moore, executive director of the Pine Manor Institute for Student Success (Lee Pellegrini)
The Academy staff is committed to accompanying young people as they grow into who they will be in the world. From our BC undergraduate Success Coaches to full-time professional staff, PMI offers students a place to grow, explore unfamiliar surroundings, learn from their mistakes, forge meaningful relationships, and expand their world view.
Summer instructors include BC professors and graduate students, teachers from Academy students’ schools, and others recommended by BC’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development faculty. Academy SEP instructors are selected for their content-expertise, diversity, student-centered pedagogical practices, and ability to build positive relationships with students, based upon high expectations and belief in student capacity. Instructors receive orientation and engage in professional development around community-building and academic support for students.
What are the strengths of The Academy students in this cohort? What do you hope they take away from their campus experience this summer, and carry into the upcoming school year?
Academy participants are nominated in seventh grade—as students of promise, a desire to learn and grow, aspirations for college and career, and kindness towards others—by the leadership and faculty at their schools. Each student admitted through the first three cohorts has been engaged, thoughtful, and truly excited to be learning and collaborating with each other, and with BC students, faculty and staff. Our Academy students are risk-takers—willing to hike in the Blue Hills (many for the first time), learn about cellular agriculture, or how to play the Malian drums—and are extremely supportive of each other. They live in and represent a variety of historically hardworking communities, and come from public, charter, parochial, and Nativity schools across Massachusetts.
We hope Academy students will leave campus with greater academic skills (mathematical reasoning, ability to communicate verbally and in writing, reading comprehension, and the scientific method) as well as a deepened sense of commitment to continued learning and a sense of true belonging in all educational spaces. We also hope our students will carry a greater understanding of Jesuit ideals such as cura personalis, being men or women for others, composing a values-aligned life, and practicing gratitude and discernment. Finally, we hope our students leave better prepared to navigate modern life, with increased financial literacy, communication, and career skills (collaboration, networking, interviewing, resume-building) and a greater sense of their own possibilities.
In what ways do you anticipate that the newly arrived inaugural class of Messina College—also a pillar of PMI—will inspire and motivate students in The Academy?
The Messina College students—a majority of whom live in the same neighborhoods—will be instant role models for The Academy students. These connections will help to build and strengthen the students’ bonds with one another while inspiring Academy students to follow in the footsteps of Messina students. We aim to create an aspirational environment that will motivate and inspire our Messina and Academy students to build their pathways to success.
The Success Coaches are BC undergraduates who work with Academy students throughout the school year. How do they also serve as important role models?
Success Coaches are role models to Academy students, committed to a year-long mentor relationship. From October to April, they meet weekly with their mentees to offer support, tutoring, goal setting, and social-emotional guidance. The Success Coaches, chosen through an application and interview process, represent all of Boston College’s schools and an array of interests, ethnicities, and backgrounds. During the academic year, Success Coaches are enrolled in a one-credit course each semester: Cross Currents: Thinking About Student Success meets weekly to provide Success Coaches with tools to enhance their personal and academic growth, and model these skills for mentees.
For Academy middle and high school students, these matches provide proximity to postsecondary education and career education which allows them a natural pathway to learn about future academic and career possibilities through a current undergraduate student’s experiences. Success Coaches and Academy students learn from and with each other, and we look forward to the day when our first Academy graduates are able to have the opportunity to work as Success Coaches with Academy mentees of their own.
Looking ahead, what does the future hold for The Academy and its participants?
The Academy is eagerly counting down the days to our next big milestone—The inaugural Academy cohorts’ high school graduations in the spring of 2027! Between now and then, rising eleventh and twelfth grade Academy students will collaborate with staff and Success Coaches on postsecondary planning. The Academy celebrates that postsecondary journeys are as diverse as our students, and so looks forward to accompanying them through test preparation, a college road trip with Academy staff, local college visits and applications, technical or vocational preparation, and personal discernment and career reflection.
In closing, we are grateful to the donors who have been early champions of a vision that is now a thriving reality designed specifically for first-generation, and students with high financial-need in and around the surrounding neighborhoods of Boston College.
For more information about The Academy and PMI’s other components—Messina College, Mentoring & Tutoring, and Alumni Outreach—visit the program website.