As a student, it's impossible to pass through the 150 North Street doors and not leave changed in some way. But these four NBSS students and recent grads experienced a major life challenge during their time at school—or took a daring career leap to enroll in the first place. Here's how they found their footing. Coming to NBSS confirmed that this is what I love and that I can make a living doing it. Ariana Rutledge worked in the U.C. Berkeley Library's Preservation Department as an undergraduat

“There’s this idea that hackathons are about cyber hacking,” explained Endicott College professor Hank Feild and faculty sponsor of the Computer Science Club, “but hackathons are almost exclusively about hacking together a prototype to do something cool.” A team of Endicott computer science majors and club members recently did just that, entering their first hackathon and developing a cutting-edge prototype for ALive, an app that can be used to witness and document police violence. Their entry

Olivia Mersicano ’22 clutched the steering wheel as she drove back to Endicott from a local farm. It was easily the scariest 30-minute drive of her life. In the backseat sat two loosely sealed wooden boxes containing around 2,000 bees each—and they were angry. She could hear the high-pitched whining of their wings rubbing together and their muscles contracting. “It was the most stressful drive,” she remembers, shaking her head...

“If you talk to anybody that knew my husband they will tell you, ‘My goodness did that man like to talk about the Boston Architectural College,’” says Maria Latimore of her late husband, Bobby G. Foster. “In social settings, he’d introduce himself and immediately it would morph into, ‘I went to the BAC because I always wanted to be an architect.’” She chuckles recalling how she’d often have to intercept these conversations just to get new acquaintances out of Bobby’s clutches. “He’d go on and on

“It’s become my thing to make memorial paintings of people,” said Hailey-Jade Araujo ’22. Growing up in Dighton, Mass., on Boston’s south shore, Araujo began drawing and painting in high school at the insistence of an art teacher. These days, the Endicott senior is a psychology major, an art therapy minor, and an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa tribe. Her maternal grandfather (whom she calls Dadu) was raised on the Sioux Sainte Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa Reservation in Michigan

Endicott’s new Associate Director of Sustainability Carly Thibodeau is “on a mission for us to make Endicott into a living lab for sustainability,” she said. A “one-woman department,” Thibodeau’s portfolio includes managing Sustainable Endicott—a suite of initiatives by the College that includes efficient and renewable energy efforts, recycling, sustainable building operations, and sustainability education. But she’s especially passionate about the latter: “It’s so important for our students,

Boston College doesn’t offer a design degree. Still, there must be something stylish about the Heights: Four of Boston’s leading interior designers—Lisa Tharp ’84, Cecilia Walker ’90, Katie Rosenfeld ’90, and Dee Elms ’95—graduated from BC. Interior designers source everything from flooring to window treatments and collaborate with architects and tradespeople to conceive and create spaces that are tailored to a client’s needs. Image: Tony Luong

Jorge Gomez-Gonzalez arrived at SMFA at Tufts University in 2020, outspoken about their identity as a gay-Mexican activist artist and how it guides their practice. “All my work is about how trauma looks and changes and how it can appear differently from one person to another,” they said. Their photography and performances center around the aftershocks—the scars, bruises, and weighty burdens that marginalized individuals carry as a result. Image: Jorge Gomez-Gonzalez

A native Californian, Andrew Cain shivered in his boots and coat one winter 2021 night, tinkering with his projector in a snow-covered baseball field in Jamaica Plain, MA near his apartment. “I find ways to introduce myself to people through weird, fun projects and this was one of them. I invited some other students to bring their work out that night to experiment with projecting it onto the snow,” he said. Image: Courtesy of Andrew Cain

Born in the United States but growing up in the village of Edde El Batroun in Lebanon, Rebecca Wakim, MFA ’22, threw herself into painting, but never considered seriously pursuing the visual arts. “I always convinced myself that art should be a hobby—because that's what everyone tells you in many parts of the Middle East where it’s regarded as more of a craft than a field,” she explained. Image: Courtesy of Rebecca Wakim

Judy Nitsch has been newly elected and installed as Chair of the Boston Architectural College (BAC) Board of Trustees, succeeding Richard Martini, B.Arch ’84. Marilyn Swartz-Lloyd was appointed Vice Chair. “Both Richard and Judy have been deeply committed to seeing the BAC evolve and flourish,” says BAC President Mahesh Daas, acknowledging how nimbly the College has navigated major leadership transitions and the pandemic in recent years—all with the Board’s close support and guidance. Although

Despite the pandemic, North Bennet Street School (NBSS) Retail & Exhibit Manager Kristen Odle couldn’t stand to cancel the Annual Celebration of Craft: Student & Alumni Exhibit, a favorite tradition in which students and alumni display and sell their strongest work from the past year. Instead, she ambitiously reshaped the exhibition into a series of unique studio portraits of NBSS students, staff, and faculty.

When Kristen Odle, the Retail & Exhibit Manager at North Bennet St School (NBSS) logged onto Zoom to be interviewed about her latest project she confessed, "I actually feel nervous this morning." For a second, she flashed back to preparing to take the stage to perform solo cello concerts as a teenager and feeling "all red and itchy." The tables had turned, and the one who usually poses the questions was now being asked to answer.

Mark Lee, principal and founding partner of the Los Angeles–based architecture firm Johnston Marklee, is completing his first year as chair of the department of architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). Final exams loom, and to reach his office, one has to scramble up steep stairs past students’ desks—"trays" in GSD speak—at Gund Hall, a five-story open-plan beehive where bodies hunch over cutting mats and rulers with equally palpable panic and pleasure. A word play on Bauhaus,

As Sarah Whiting, the new dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, prepares to publicly meet her community for the first time, her chosen anthem, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” blasts through the school’s Piper Auditorium. Students and professors pour in through the doors, a sea of black jeans and Moleskine notebooks. Whiting takes the stage with her old friend architectural historian K. Michael Hays—a virtual fireplace video crackling behind them—and the muscular banter begins. A stage

The Collective Futures Fund, a grantmaking initiative bent on directly supporting artists and incubating experimental, artist-run activities throughout the greater Boston area, is currently accepting submissions for the first round of grant applications for project funding, due by June 15, 2021. Artists, curators, and collectives based in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Middlesex counties are eligible to submit applications. SMFA alumni are encouraged to apply. However, those at all career stages w