Welcome back to UMass to all our undergrad and grad students! And welcome to all incoming students of the class of 2024!

Fall 2020 is certainly a semester like no other. While we are all protecting ourselves and our families and friends by observing social distancing rules due to COVID-19, our classes are now offered fully remote in an online format.  This is certainly a change from previous semesters, but our faculty are committed to providing an inspiring and engaging educational experience nonetheless.

News

As we start the new semester, there is some exciting news to share:

We are welcoming Paul Wolff to our faculty! Paul is a lifelong educator and maker and has dedicated his professional career to environmental conservation, sustainable development, and experiential learning. He is located at the UMass Amherst Mount Ida campus in Newton, MA and will be teaching courses for our professional certificate and graduate programs (e.g. a graduate LEED course), as well as provide industry outreach for our undergraduate students. You can learn more about him here.

Congratulations to Ho-Sung Kim on his well-deserved promotion to Senior Lecturer! Ho-Sung is Chief Undergraduate Advisor in BCT. He also teaches our estimating, careers and LEED courses and is faculty advisor for our NAHB student group, which annually competes at the International Builders Show.
We welcome Kath McCusker to our team as our new administrative assistant. Kath will serve as main point of contact for many of our students and will support our various programs and events.

Over summer, BCT students again completed many different internships in the region and we documented several of them on our Instagram feed. Below are some of those images:

   

     

Save the Date!

We have several events planned this Fall semester. As always, you can find all of them on the BCT calendar and on our Facebook page. Don’t forget to save the date for our:

  • BCT Lecture series with the first lecture by Dan McNichol about the Big Dig on Monday, September 21st at 4pm. You can read about all the lectures here. This fall, we offer Zoom-based lectures, which are open to everyone! AIA and USGBC continuing education credits are available.
  • BCT Fall Career Fair on Wednesday, 10/7 at 10am. This fair is open to all UMass, Five College, and STCC students and will be – like so many other things this fall – virtual! Employers: Sign up for this fair by 9/18.

Some Practical Tips for Our Students

The COVID-pandemic is changing many things for us this semester. You can read all about UMass Amherst’s plan for reopening here.

The adjusted reopening rules mean for us that all of BCT’s fall courses are being offered remotely (online). And while BCT is physically located in arguably one of the nicest homes at UMass, the John W. Olver Design Building where we are roommates with the Departments of Architecture, and Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning, we will have very limited access to our physical spaces this fall.

As you are starting the new semester, keep the following in mind:

  • Students must adhere to UMass rules for reopening, testing, and on-campus access. We are trying to facilitate this as much as possible by providing educational experiences that you can attend fully remotely, e.g. online classes (synchronous and asynchronous), take-home labs, etc. Check with your instructors about course modalities if you have any questions.
  • BCT faculty and staff can easily be reached via the links on these pages:
  • Students that have campus access (because some of their courses are face-to-face), can find details about buildings that are open here.
  • Take full advantage of everything being offered remotely! You can now easily attend career workshops, career fairs, public lectures, and complete teamwork with fellow students that are located elsewhere. You can even complete a part-time internship while you study.
  • We have various ways for you to stay in contact with each other and BCT alumni. For example, current students and alumni can join these Facebook groups:

Have a great year at UMass! And don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns!