 The Boston 2024 Olympic bid is in full swing and a key aspect to the bid is the use of college facilities. But the 2024 committee does not want to stop there. They want to get the college population involved too. With hundreds of thousands of college students attending more than 50 universities in the greater Boston area, it's no surprise that the importance of education makes the Boston bid unique. The fact that we already educate the U.S. and the world in so many respects, we thought gave us a potential edge versus other cities that just wouldn't have this confluence of major universities and colleges. So it made sense on so many levels. Gloria Larson is the president of Bentley University and co-chair of the Boston 2024 College and University Engagement Committee, a group that strongly believes that the key to securing the Olympic bid in 2024 is through the utilization of the city's colleges and universities. The pitch that we ultimately make to the International Olympic Committee will have college students and their engagement written all over it. So how does the committee and educators around Boston plan to engage the city's youth? Advisor and liaison for American universities to the International Olympic Academy, Professor Konstantin Semopoulos, is working to answer this question. We could have lived just for a second in ancient Athens, the classical Athens of 5th century BC. We could have easily talked to Plato or Aristotle and they would have probably said that if the Olympic Games is to go to any modern city, then it would have to be Boston. In good Olympic spirits, Professor Semopoulos and I spoke on Harvard's campus in front of the discobulus statue, a representation of one of the five original sports in the Olympic Games. What connection does this statue have to the Olympics? It actually has a deep connection. And I can also say that as a Greek and American, but of Greek descent, somewhere within that statue is DNA. There is a link to my DNA and between that the Olympic Games birthplace, which is Olympia Greece. Professor Semopoulos is a Greek American and one of few who has been fully immersed in all aspects of the Olympic Games, with his current passion being Olympic pedagogy. Pedagogy is really a different word for education, but the meaning of education and that of teaching and being a teacher. And it comes from the Greek word just by chance. It comes from the big word, pevi, which is the child, and agogy, which is to lead the child or to lead knowledge from within the child, which is actually a very, very nice metaphor. Professor Semopoulos plans to do just that by creating and instituting curriculums that highlight what can be learned from events like the Olympic. This time around, the one at Lesley, we're going to look into the performance dimension of the Olympic athlete's preparation. So talking about fitness or, you know, lifetime sports. What is it really that changes when an athlete prepares for the Olympic Games? There are so many things that the students, either at Lesley or other college campuses, can really get first in terms of a deep understanding of what the bid incorporates and includes and then why the Games would be a wise decision for Boston, regardless of the financial aspect. The original goal behind the Olympics is to build a better, more peaceful world. And can you think of a better mission than that connected to college? I think about every college in the Boston area. It's about creating mature, responsible young adults who are ready to enter the world and do great in their jobs, their careers to be sure, but also to work to make the world a better place. Involvement inside the classroom is not the only way the Olympics plan to incorporate college students. President Larson feels many of the 2024 volunteers can be found within the university system. I think you're going to have hundreds of thousands of young people potentially interested to serve as volunteers. Our schools are all about civic engagement. Do you know any college in Massachusetts that isn't about connecting their students with volunteer work in our region and literally all over the world? So what we'd like to do is make civic engagement a direct aspect of the Olympics when we host here in Boston. And I don't pretend to know exactly what all the civic engagement programs would be. That's where the grassroots and the student ideas will, I think, just flow perfectly. Monica Nunez is a junior at Boston University who is uncertain whether the city can handle the Olympics. Why don't you think Boston should host the 2024 Olympics? Well, I think there's numerous small reasons, but I think the main reason is that it just doesn't have the infrastructure to support such a large amount of people coming to one small area. And it's so historic that I'm just concerned that the history and the charm of downtown Boston will be compromised by all the infrastructure that's required for all of the events. Like, I know one of the, I think the volleyball court is supposed to be in the public, in the commons. And I just feel like once that's there and the Olympics have passed, the commons will never be the same. Yet she believes it would be a unique opportunity for the college students. They'd be cool. But then, like, it's a different Boston that you know. It's the Boston after the Olympics. It's not Boston before the Olympics. So there's not, like, a point of comparison as, like, living in the city prior and after. While the city may change, the ultimate goal of the Olympics will remain the same. Olympism as a movement is connected to humanity. It's a celebration of humanity. Academia is connected to doing something for humanity. These, these academic community that exists cultivates an environment in which the Boston, the Boston Olympics in 2024 could actually be realized. If Boston is not selected for the 2024 Olympics, they may still bid for the Youth Olympics and still work to incorporate education through sports into the students' lives. Reporting for the BU News Service, I'm Kali Greenberg.