The university will provide video recordings of classes for Boston University students who miss class for religious holidays as part of a new Office of the Provost initiative.

Boston University students are passing notes, avoiding the chalkboard and staring intently at their computer screens - and in at least one class, it's all at the instructor's request.

Boston University professor Elizabeth Barker never expected her students to lose an academic link to inmates from a nearby men's prison, but when they did, she helped begin the BU Prison Education Program, offering college courses to inmates of the Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Norfolk.

Boston University College of Communication journalism professor Jack Falla, a sports writer and author of several fiction and non-fiction books, died of a heart attack Sunday in Maine. He was 62.