On June 1, the merger of BU and Wheelock College will officially take place. Inside the BU community, some are busy planning activities to integrate new students into the community; others voice their concerns towards rising problems such as housing and commuting. 

  In 2017 October, BU announced the merger with Wheelock College, a small private college in Riverway focusing on early children education. The merger will rename BU School of Education as Wheelock College of Education & Human Development (WCEHD).

According to BU Today, starting from June 1, 2018, Boston University owns all the assets and liabilities of Wheelock College, and the Wheelock campus becomes part of the BU campus. Current Wheelock students will be attending BU starting from 2018 Fall. Most of them will be in SED attending newly incorporated Wheelock programs or transitional programs enabling them to complete their Wheelock degrees, while some others go to COM and other colleges . 

Although the merger is not yet started, some BU students have already noticed or experienced the change preparing for it. Christina, a CAS rising Junior, noticed the wording of “Wheelock campus” became “Fenway Campus” in the housing page, aside from adding in the Wheelock buildings. She as a student advisor working in the summer orientation program, also mentions the training change in referring to incoming students. The new part of the training made sure she and other SAs would make the new Wheelock students feel welcomed. Ina, working in Resident Life Office, already conducted interviews for next semester’s RA(Residential Assistant) positions with Wheelock candidates. 

The Student Government of BU School of Education is considering the merger in planning new activities for next semester. 

Noelle, the upcoming president of SED Student Government, said that they want to reach out to the old Wheelock College students on their original student government traditions. “I hope we’ll pick up some new traditions from the Wheelock community that will enrich our experience,” Noelle said. “I just really want them to feel valued and that we want them to be part of our community.” She also mentioned Wheelock students could participate in the running of Senate Representative to represent SED for Big BU senate student government, which would be elected each fall. 

The SED Student Government is still working on the detailed plan of activities for next semester. 

Noelle is also one of the SED’s Transitional Mentor program’s mentors next semester. The program is open to both first year college students and Wheelock students. The program will assign the mentees an upperclassman in SED and familiarise them with school issues like courses and study resources on campus, help them out with their transitions, and “just be a friendly face on campus.” Noelle and other mentors completed the training at the end of the semester. They already have their first year mentees, but their Wheelock ones will not be assigned to them until late summer or early fall. 

As the preparation is happening, housing concerns are shared among BU students. Christina felt the incoming Wheelock students obviously made the competition much worse in choosing among the available options. The incoming Wheelock students have the choice to live on Charles River campus starting from 2018 Fall.

Every year, given the year they are in, students get their lottery number to pick their next semester’s housing. The higher up you are, the better number and housing options you will get. Upperclassmen tend to have earlier time to choose their housing as well. 

This year, Christina ended up in Danielson Hall, which is the furthest residential building to main central campus: to get there, you have to cross a highway bridge. “When it came to me there was nothing except for Danielson,” Christina complained, “Me? A Junior? Normally Juniors(in BU) could do brownstones.” Brownstones are the ones located closer to central campus and enjoy a nice view. 

The extended Wheelock campus(now “Fenway campus”) also creates extra commuting concerns. Elina worried the class schedule might need to be changed, giving that longer commuting time might be needed and she underwent a former schedule change for the same reason during her freshmen year. 

However, Ina is worrying more for the incoming Wheelock students. “I met a Wheelock kid in early March and he is so nervous about going to BU.” Ina said, “The whole Facebook meme thing does make them (feel unfriendly).”

On Facebook, after the merger news announced, several memes making fun of Wheelock students and BU became viral in the BU community. A couple of memes emphasised the big difference between the acceptance rate of Wheelock College and BU. The acceptance rate of Wheelock in 2014 is 87.5%, while that of BU in 2016 is 29% (from Facebook memes). 

“Which(referring to being nervous about the hostility) is so stupid,” Ina quickly added, “BU is such a big school that you do not know half of the faces walking on CommAve. No one is going to tell from your face that you are a Wheelock kid.” 

Wheelock College has a long reputation of early children education program, which earns the only accreditation in Massachusetts from CAEP(Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation) as higher education institutes. While BU hasn’t obtained the accreditation, Ina felt sorry that the Wheelock students who specifically chose the well-known program might get compromised professional experience attending BU SED. However, Andy, a new SED graduate of math education, does not feel that way. He is very satisfied with the program has to offer and felt the program make him “very prepared” to go into the classrooms. 

Andy is hoping the merger to give SED community a better known position within BU, since now is “so small and no one really knows SED.”

Not all the BU student body is busy preparing, hoping or worrying. “I don’t think it will impact my life too much,” Xinge said, a CAS rising Junior, “There might be impacts, but I don’t think it would be on me.” In the end, she added: “I don’t know a lot about what Wheelock College is, is it a liberal arts college?”