News
Lobstah Bots Robotics Season Recap
BUA's robotics team, the Lobstah Bots, netted some impressive accolades this year! Coco M. '26 shares the following season recap. The Lobstah Bots’ 2025 season has come to an end. After 13 weeks of engineering an entirely new robot, dubbed Beluga, Team 246 has finished its best season since 2016. Build season started on the first weekend of January, in which the whole team came together to analyze the season and brainstorm robot ideas at Kickoff. The Lobstah Bots came together to make some big decisions and get a good start on the robot. Following a long iteration and prototyping process, the team worked together to quickly design, fabricate parts for, assemble, wire, and program a functioning robot from scratch in six weeks, to make it to the Week 0 preseason scrimmage event. At the Week 0 scrimmage, we got to get an early look at the game play, get our drivers comfortable... More
Showing Up for One Another
I had the pleasure of attending BUA’s first-ever early music concert last Wednesday evening. The event was in Marsh Chapel, with its soaring ceilings and stained glass forming a beautiful and fitting setting for the music. We heard from Sonus, BUA’s early music instrumental ensemble, whose performance featured a harpsichord and several other period instruments. We heard from Vox Caeli and Polytropos, BUA’s select choral groups. We heard from a number of soloists and combinations performing pieces mainly from the Renaissance but some stretching as far back as the first century AD. There was so much to celebrate: the virtuosity that was a product of years of hard work; the incredible range of music; the blending of performance and music history; the beautiful partnership between teachers and students. I want to draw attention to another special thing about that Wednesday night: the audience. Many of the performers’ families were there, but... More
Meet Sonus, BUA’s Early Music Ensemble
On Wednesday evening, Boston University Academy hosted its first-ever Early Music Concert in the spectacular Marsh Chapel at the heart of BU's campus. The concert featured our Early Music Ensemble, Sonus, with special guests Vox Caeli, Polytropos, and our very own Dr. Kristin Jewell. The program comprised music from the 1st century AD through the early 1700’s, and was performed on historically accurate instruments such as recorders, cornetto, sackbut, harpsichord, lute, aulos, and more. According to music teacher and concertmaster Dr. Brett Abigaña, Sonus is the only early music ensemble in the country performing on historically accurate instruments. BUA singers performed madrigals from three different centuries and regions in their original dialects, and Dr. Jewell led a stunning performance of the Seikilos Epitaph, the oldest fully notated piece as yet discovered. We even heard a Colonial American tavern song popular in Boston during the American Revolution! The audience enjoyed a more intimate... More
Halls Filled with Poetry
Lockers and doorways all around BUA this month are covered with poetry. In honor of National Poetry Month, we invite students, teachers, and staff every year to post a beloved poem. As I walked down the hall this morning, I saw work from poets I know – artists like Mary Oliver, Robert Frost, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling, Percy Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Rumi, Pablo Neruda, and Langston Hughes. I came across plenty of works by poets who are new to me, too. Most of the poems are in English, but I’ve also seen pieces in Spanish, Greek, Polish, and Hebrew. There is even some original student poetry shared for all to see. I posted C.P. Cavafy’s Ithaka on my door yesterday morning. Within 30 minutes, I heard two seniors standing outside reading it out loud and discussing the poem. This is a very special place – a place that can come... More
BUA Sets New Record on Giving Day 2025
On Giving Day 2025, the BUA community showed up in full force –– and proved what’s possible when we rally around a shared purpose. While we came just shy of our 500-donor goal with 448 total donors, the generosity of our community unlocked our first four challenge levels and raised a record-breaking $121,040 for BUA’s top priorities. Small-but-mighty BUA placed second in number of total donors out of all of BU's schools and colleges, coming in behind only the much larger College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). We also secured an extra $1,000 in bonus funds by winning the “Breakfast of Champions” early giving challenge, logging the most donors between 6:00-9:00 a.m. on Giving Day. During lunch on Giving Day, BUA students wrote thank-you notes to alumni donors, earning a dumpling for each note they wrote. And Director of Athletics Dave Stone's alter ego, hockey star Mario LeStone, made an appearance on... More
Service in Boston School
Earlier this week, I traveled with ten BUA students and a faculty colleague to a local Boston public school as part of BUA’s pilot service initiative. The idea is to have BUA students volunteer at partner schools in Boston – specifically helping out in the after-school programs with younger students and with anything else those partner schools need. The BUA students fanned out across the school. Some played spirited games of Uno with 3rd and 4th graders; I’m told our younger friends mostly won! Others assisted with math and language-arts worksheets for elementary students and middle schoolers. Some built Lego houses on the gym floor with second graders. Some worked through and organized donated products and other classroom supplies to assist teachers. I got involved too with some math homework help exploring halves and wholes – I couldn’t help myself! That same group of BUA students will travel back to... More
Global Travel: Spring Break Trip Recaps
Over March break, 51 students and 9 adults traveled to Roatán, Greece, and Arizona as part of BUA's Global Travel Program, which emphasizes hands-on, experiential learning, and relevance to the BUA curriculum. View complete photo albums from the 2025 spring break here: Roatán | Greece | Arizona Home base for the Roatán trip, led by BUA biology teacher Dr. Colleen Krivacek, was the Roatán Institute for Marine Sciences (RIMS), surrounded by over 30 miles of fringing and barrier reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves, and pristine shoreline – a living laboratory and part of the second largest barrier reef system in the world. Student travelers experienced a deep dive (literally!) into marine biology: their classrooms included the Caribbean Sea, with twice-a-day snorkeling sessions, and the wet and dry labs of RIMS. Throughout the week, students had the opportunity to work alongside marine biologists, participating in cutting-edge research projects and conservation programs aimed at... More
Learning Beyond the Classroom
Over the past few days, I have heard so much wonderful feedback from our students who participated in the school’s global trips over break. Some traveled to the Roatán Institute for Marine Sciences in Honduras, where they worked alongside marine biologists and used the barrier reef as a living lab. Some were in Greece exploring the ancient sites they have read about in classics and history, as well as the roots and realities of modern Greek democracy. Some traveled to Arizona where they took in the region’s natural beauty, learned about indigenous history, and investigated climate change and water issues. The programs were chosen and designed by BUA faculty, who added their expertise and learned alongside the students. The guiding vision behind all three trips was to create rich, hands-on learning experiences tied to BUA’s curriculum, but which could only happen outside our walls. Many of the students I’ve talked to reflect... More
School Sports vs. Sports School
As the winter athletic season comes to a close and the spring season is set to begin, I’ve been thinking a lot about sports and how proud I am of our athletic culture. BUA is not a “sports school” according to the conventional meaning of that phrase in New England independent schools. This is not a place students and families choose because our teams will face elite competition and be visited by scouts. We offer a limited menu of two or three interscholastic sports per season, competing against similar-sized schools in the sports our kids are most excited about. As our long-serving athletic director, Mr. Stone, likes to quip, our football team remains undefeated since the school’s founding – because we have never had one. And I wouldn’t change a thing. What we have is precious and increasingly unusual. There is a vibrant and healthy sports culture characterized by joining. Students... More
Celebrating our Cultures – Together
This morning, we were all greeted in the lobby by students in the Middle Eastern and North African Student Association, who had brought dates, figs, and other treats for the community in celebration and anticipation of Ramadan, which begins next Friday. Last week, students from the Black Student Union hosted a fun, cookout-themed evening event, which was open to the whole community and featured personal testimonials by students and some excellent food. In the same week, the Jewish Students Organization organized a beautiful Tu Bishvat seder – an important moment for sharing and connection. All of this was fresh off some lovely and well attended cultural events through the fall and early winter: a Lunar New Year celebration sponsored by the East Asian Students Association, where the gym was filled with a delicious buffet, games, and good cheer; a school-wide breakfast hosted by the Latin American Student Association; a garba... More