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A Message from Dean Cudd Undergraduate Education Graduate Education Faculty Facilities Community Global University Make Your Impact Boston University
What will you do? Irene and Thomas Kelley are giving students in the Department of Earth & Environment the tools they need to measure crucial data. David S. Katz is giving students in the CAS Astronomy program the power to quickly analyze and download data. George Bernard enables biology graduate students to travel for research, making the planet their laboratory. CAS board member Steve Karbank is bringing leading environmental philosophers to speak to the BU community. Generous supporters helped renovate our organic chemistry labs, resulting in three state-of-the-art labs in 6,000 square feet of space. Bob Hildreth and Susan Tane are bringing great poets to campus through The Favorite Poem Project. Living fully to 102, poet Ida Fasel (CAS’31, GRS’45) funded a fellowship in Jewish Studies. Benjamin Lambert is bringing chemistry to life with the gift of the department's first endowed colloquim series.

Green Growing

City Fresh Foods CEO Glynn Lloyd (CAS’90) is reshaping his community with better food. Read his story

Community

An urban university

Boston University has deep roots in the city of Boston. Since our founding, this institution and many of its staff, students, faculty, and alumni have given their time and passion to local causes they believe in. We have been enriched, in return, by the connections we have formed with local people and communities.

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Voces Hispánicas/Hispanic Voices: a jewel of urban outreach

The first language classes were Jewelle Anderson’s (CFA’84) idea. A community activist and former Boston schoolteacher, she was approached in 2008 by a group of senior citizens at the Women’s Service Club of Boston who wanted to learn Spanish. With determination but a very tiny budget for a class, Anderson approached BU Romance Studies Professor James Iffland to see if he could provide a few volunteer teachers from among his graduate students. He could, and did. Twenty eager students showed up for the first class, drawn by flyers and newspaper ads, and the BU students were ready for them. It was the start of a beautiful thing.

Those language classes, held today at Camfield Estates in Roxbury, are now part of a larger BU program called Voces Hispánicas/Hispanic Voices, aimed at educational outreach activities highlighting the Spanish language and Hispanic culture. The program has blossomed. The language classes now enroll up to 70, and cultural events are offered to the public and held on the Charles River Campus.

Thanks to support provided by Sovereign Bank and its Spain-based parent company Banco Santander for these activities, Voces Hispánicas/Hispanic Voices is now developing a Spanish-language theater program for high school students, to facilitate their language learning.

Donors who have made a difference already

  • Bob Hildreth and Susan Tane (SED’64) funded The Favorite Poem Project, which has included renowned poets like former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky. Read more

Our impact

A symbiotic relationship with the city

We are committed to engaging the world—starting with our own urban backyard. Boston offers a wealth of learning opportunities, and CAS students and faculty have never hesitated to grab them and run. Our own curriculum contains an astounding array of CAS courses, programs, and independent initiatives designed to enhance this commitment.

Why is engagement so important? Because Boston is a great laboratory for learning. We have woven engagement with the city right into our curriculum. Our students study the urban environment and issues related to air and water quality. Both the American & New England Studies Program and the History Department incorporate study of Boston history into their curricula. The Writing Program integrates first-class Boston arts experiences into the “Arts Now” sections of its first-year course. And BU’s new Initiative on Cities, led by Political Science Chair Graham Wilson, is bringing leaders from around the world to find better ways to tackle the most pressing challenges facing urban centers.

We also give back to the city, in part through our research, service, and outreach. Hundreds of BU undergraduates begin their college experience with FYSOP, the First-Year Student Outreach Project, in which they give a week’s service to the city where they are about to undertake their college education.

Your impact

Limitless opportunities to shape the world around you

Your opportunities for strengthening the linkages between CAS and Boston are limitless. What are your interests, and how do they overlap with our ongoing work?

In recent years, donors have supported such community-centered programs as the Sustainable Neighborhood Lab at BU, which brings together partners from the community to work on improving sustainability, resilience, and quality of life in the urban environment. And Arts Now, part of our first-year Writing Program, integrates local arts experiences into the writing seminars.

There are many other possibilities. Consider providing support for faculty who want to include Boston opportunities in their students’ learning experiences, or support for students who choose to do research on topics that will benefit Boston, its people, and its environment. You can help us expand students’ access to Boston’s worlds of art and science, or support student efforts to give back through community service internships and volunteer work. You can invest in CAS programs and facilities that are resources for the people of Boston—Boston Playwrights' Theatre, the Coit Observatory, and partnerships or fellowships that encourage our graduates to invest their careers in Boston after graduation.

Make Your Impact
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