Behind the Bok: Shava Glater

Each month we will profile a member of the Bok staff in order for our friends and colleagues to learn more about us, the full range of work that we do, how we approach our work, and what is happening in the world of teaching and learning from different perspectives.

Shava Glater, Program Coordinator

Q: What is your educational background?

A: I hold a BS in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Q: What else did you do or consider doing before coming to work at the Bok Center?

A: Prior to coming to work at the Bok Center, I was a Professional Development Coordinator for Engineering is Elementary, a PreK-8 engineering curriculum created by the Museum of Science, Boston. My role was to support the Professional Development Team in providing high-quality, hands-on workshops for elementary teachers and administrators. Though my work was mostly administrative, I had many opportunities to observe my colleagues facilitating workshop activities, where they emphasized the value of active learning, scaffolding, and modeling pedagogical strategies. I was drawn to the Bok Center’s similar focus on evidence-based teaching, providing resources and support for teachers at all stages, and making learning more accessible and equitable for all students. I feel very lucky to contribute to that mission through my work as a Program Coordinator.

Q: Describe a project that you are excited about right now.

A: I manage a subset of the Bok Center’s events, which (when we’re in person) includes everything from publicity and registration to setting up spaces and ordering catering. When we began working remotely, we had to rethink many of our processes for running events. I’ve had the opportunity to work intensively with senior staff and the rest of our administrative team to create new systems for event registration, communicating with participants, utilizing web resources, and implementing all of the useful features of Zoom. It’s been a fun challenge to design new processes and continue to improve upon them over the course of the past year to make everything as seamless as possible for the community that we serve.

Q: What is one of your favorite books?

A: I really enjoyed the Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin and The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller.