In Boston, a New Focus on the Local
By PATRICK HEALY.NYT – February 16, 2010

BOSTON — Before Peter DuBois even began his duties here in 2008 as artistic director of the Huntington Theater Company, the city’s largest, he had dinner with one of the area’s most prominent young playwrights, Lydia R. Diamond, to discuss ways of fostering relationships between the Huntington and local writers.

Like many cash-hungry, nonprofit regional theaters, the Huntington has long depended on producing reliably popular classics (Shakespeare, O’Neill) and works by well-known modern writers (Tom Stoppard, Wendy Wasserstein) to make money from ticket sales. Since 2003, too, the Huntington has offered area playwrights fellowships that include readings, feedback and $3,000 honorariums, and Mr. DuBois told Ms. Diamond that he wanted to deepen those collaborations and produce more of those writers’ works.

“The fact is, the artistic and business models of the regional theaters in the 20th century are over, given the costs of creating theater and the competition for people’s time, so I needed to rethink our relationship with our home community,” Mr. DuBois said during a recent interview in one of the Huntington’s rehearsal studios. “To thrive, we need a theater with work and audiences that look more like the city of Boston in terms of class, age, race, background. And you have to talk to people here to learn how to do that.”

Boston library branches could close amid cuts
By Andrew Ryan – Globe Staff / February 17, 2010

Steep cuts in state funding for the Boston Public Library are forcing officials to contemplate the most drastic cost-saving measures in decades, including the possible closing of neighborhood branches.

The library board of trustees has called a special meeting at 8:30 a.m. today to discuss what city officials say is a potential $3.6 million budget shortfall, which stems in large part from a proposed 73 percent cut in state funding. State assistance for Boston’s libraries has dropped from $8.9 million in 2009 to a proposed $2.4 million in 2011.

Amy E. Ryan, library president, is expected to outline potential cuts today, but said no financial decisions will be made.

“It’s very serious,’’ Ryan said of the budget crunch, stressing that the figures are preliminary. “But I owe it to the citizens of Boston to think about how we deliver their library services in a new, reduced funding environment. We have to find a balance.’’

As the library faces a budget gap, officials are rethinking how they deliver services and are exploring the surging popularity of their electronic offerings, from the website to downloadable audio books.

Spreading MIT’s knowledge beyond the ivory tower
By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff  – February 17, 2010

MIT President Susan Hockfield says the knowledge produced by MIT faculty should be disseminated widely, beyond university boundaries and into the science classrooms of the nation’s public schools.

In a wide-ranging speech at a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast this morning, Hockfield noted that the university publishes course materials for 1,900 MIT classes in the Internet, for free, though OpenCourseWare, reflecting nearly all the subjects taught at the university.

The site has attracted more than 65 million visitors since its 2002 launch, many of them high school students and teachers seeking to supplement Advanced Placement courses. This prompted MIT to start a “Highlights for High School” site three years ago, Hockfield said, linking the materials tested on several AP science exams to corresponding MIT faculty lecture notes and assignments on OpenCourseWare.

Hockfield said she met with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino last year to discuss helping to beef up science, technology, and engineering education in the Boston public schools. MIT already has a partnership with the city’s John D. O’Bryant School of Math and Science, training teachers at the public exam school to better prepare its graduates for entry into elite universities like MIT. Three O’Bryant graduates have enrolled at MIT in recent years, she said.