State of the University, Fall 2021

A letter from Boston University President Robert A. Brown:

October 4, 2021

Dear Colleagues,

I write to you as we are well into the fall semester. I am proud of our staff and faculty who have worked diligently to make possible a nearly normal start to the academic year with close to 32,000 undergraduate and graduate students on our campuses. Thank you for all you have done to facilitate our return to in-person teaching and research.

COVID-19 remains a challenge. The more contagious Delta variant complicates the efforts of our great Healthway team to contain the virus. We have expanded our testing; our laboratory is currently processing nearly 40,000 PCR tests per week while maintaining a remarkably rapid turn-around time of under 14 hours, on average. Our seven-day average test positivity rate has dropped to under 0.10 percent.

These efforts could not succeed without the high vaccination rate that was achieved in our community over the last several months. As of this week, we have 97 percent compliance with a small cohort of individuals currently completing vaccination. I want to thank you for being vaccinated, testing regularly, and completing the symptom survey when you come to campus, thereby protecting your health and the health of our community.

I recognize the difficulties many members of our community continue to experience, especially those with unvaccinated children or family members who are more susceptible to serious illness from COVID-19. I also recognize that some of you may also be included in that group who are more susceptible to serious illness. I hope we can look forward soon to broad availability of vaccinations for children, as well as boosters for those with greatest vulnerability.

Even with our high vaccination rates, we will continue to see cases of COVID-19. We know from our rapid and effective contact tracing that these cases consistently arise from a combination of external contacts and participation in social gatherings (including meals) where participants do not wear masks. To date, we have not traced transmission to our classrooms, laboratories, or studios.

I encourage you to exercise caution and wear your mask indoors (it is a requirement) and consider wearing your mask at large outdoor gatherings.

There are many signs of our momentum, especially around important initiatives. Last week we shared with you the exciting news that Professor Ibram X. Kendi, Director of the Center for Antiracist Research, was named a MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Unofficially known as the “genius award,” this is wonderful recognition of the impact of Professor Kendi’s scholarship and the already growing impact of the center.

The remainder of this letter has updates on the following topics:

Undergraduate and Graduate Enrollment
Budget Update
Awards, Promotions, and Faculty Hiring
Leadership Transitions
Work Environment for Staff
Implementation of 2030 Strategic Plan

Our initiatives in diversity, equity, and inclusion are not called out separately on this list—as they are embedded in all aspects of our work and plan, as they must be, for us to have the long-term sustainable change we seek.

1. Undergraduate and Graduate Enrollment

As you can tell when you walk around our campuses, our undergraduate and graduate students are back! Our admissions for the fall freshman class yielded a much larger class than expected, with 4,080 students enrolling, compared to our target of 3,200. Why? The yield on our offers was much larger than we anticipated, and the difficulties we expected international students to encounter in returning to campus turned out to be modest. Both the yield numbers and the ease of entry give us grounds for optimism about the future.

The class is our most academically accomplished in history, with a mean high school GPA of 3.79. More than 95 percent of the class earned a high school GPA greater than 3.5, with 58 percent being above 3.75. Because we made standardized testing optional for this admissions cycle (and for admission in fall 2022), the reported SAT scores represent only a fraction of the admitted freshmen. The mean SAT score for those submitting tests was 1442.

The entering class is more diverse. The number of African American/Black students in the class increased by over 70 percent. Taken together, our under-represented minority students and those from two or more racial backgrounds represent 23.4 percent of the domestic students in the matriculated class.

The class also includes some 700 Pell Grant recipients and 550 students who are in the first generation in their families to go to college. Our focus on need-based financial aid is working. We expect this year to give $382 million in undergraduate financial aid, over a 16 percent increase from last year.

We have also recorded strong results in graduate school recruitment. Virtually all our programs met or exceeded their recruiting targets. Some of the professional schools saw large increases in applicant pools; for example, the applications for the JD program in the School of Law jumped 43 percent to 8,240 for 319 seats and applications for the MD degree in the School of Medicine increased 27 percent to 12,090 for 150 seats.

One of the most exciting developments in graduate education is the growth of the Online MBA (OMBA) launched by the Questrom School of Business in fall 2020. The program is designed as a reasonably priced option for alternative learners in mid-career who are balancing work and family obligations. As of September, there are 1,194 students enrolled in the OMBA program, with a 90 percent retention rate for students who joined the inaugural class last fall.

We are developing additional online graduate professional programs that we believe can reach the scale of the OMBA.

2. Budget Update

Our new fiscal year (FY2022) began on July 1, as we closed out the most tumultuous operating year in memory. The painful budget decreases we made in the summer of 2020 and the very tight operating conditions we enforced through last year allowed us to bring FY2021 to a close essentially on target with our projections from last summer. Total annual revenue was $2.63 billion, which was down $125 million from our original budget approved in April 2020. We generated $29.8 million in undesignated reserves, a much better outcome than the loss we predicted in September 2020. Some of this improved performance was the result of federal support we received from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF II) from which the University received $23.0 million, with $11.5 million going directly to support students and an equal amount to the University to offset specific COVID-related expenses.

We have used some of the revenue from this better-than-expected performance to fund increases in faculty hiring we plan to undertake this year. Because of COVID-19 constraints, our hiring on the Charles River Campus was limited last year. Please see more on this topic in Section 3 and in the appendix.

FY2022 is off to a better start than we projected in April 2021 when the budget was approved. At that point we were forecasting a deficit. Because of our greater-than-expected enrollments and another allocation of federal funds (HEERF III), we not only funded the special 2 percent increase for all non-represented faculty and staff, we erased the deficit and are projecting a normal capital budget. We will need to work during the year to generate reserves to fuel academic initiatives next year.

Our endowment performance this past year was spectacular, despite the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Although the precise value of the return is not yet finalized, our current estimate is a 41 percent return for the year, giving us $3.35 billion of endowment as of June 30, 2021. This increase in the endowment will phase into our calculation of the annual income over several years, enhancing important resources for our faculty and students. Our excitement over this growth is tempered by the knowledge that, due to the University’s large scale, the income from the endowment only supported 4.1 percent of our expenses in FY2021.

3. Awards, Promotions, and Faculty Hiring

In the appendix to this letter, we list as we do each year those faculty members who have achieved particular distinction with promotions, invitations to join learned societies, and major awards.

As I indicated above, faculty hiring in the last year was limited on the Charles River Campus because of uncertainty caused by COVID-19. In total we hired 21 tenure-track faculty members compared to 35 in a more typical year.

4. Leadership Transitions

In the last year, two important administrative positions have been filled by talented leaders. Erika Jordan joined us as Vice President for Alumni Relations and Amanda Bailey started in August as Vice President for Human Resources.

I want to thank Ken Freeman, Dean Emeritus of the Questrom School of Business, who served admirably as Interim Vice President for Human Resources from April 2020 through July 2021. His work with the entire HR team was vital to our successfully navigating the pandemic.

October 1 also marked the retirement of Martin J. Howard, our longtime Senior Vice President for Financial Affairs, CFO, and Treasurer. Marty oversaw a period of tremendous growth of the assets of Boston University and has been responsible for a concomitant growth in the sophistication of our financial operations. As I announced in August, Marty’s retirement, along with other personnel changes within Financial Affairs, triggered a set of internal promotions in our administrative leadership. These are:

Gary Nicksa to Senior Vice President for Financial Affairs, CFO, and Treasurer. Gary has served as Senior Vice President for Operations since 2012.
Derek Howe to Senior Vice President for Operations. Derek was named as Vice President for Budget & Planning in 2011 and added the Business Affairs portfolio in 2018.
Ines Garrant to Vice President for Budget, Planning & Business Affairs. Ines was previously Associate Vice President of Budget & Planning.
Patricia O’Brien to Vice President and Associate Provost for Academic Budgets & Planning. Pat was previously Associate Provost for Budget & Planning in the Office of the Provost.
Nicole Tirella was promoted to Vice President for Financial Operations and University Comptroller.

With this experienced and capable group, I believe our financial operations are in good hands.

In June Professor Amie Grills, Associate Dean of the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, was named Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs. We were able to resume the search for this position which had been paused during the pandemic. We’re very grateful to Suzanne Kennedy who served most ably as ad interim Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs. Sue has been promoted to Associate Provost for Special Projects & Emerging Priorities.

Searches are underway to fill several other key leadership positions. First, with the departure this summer of K. Matthew Dames, a search has begun to identify the next University Librarian. We are grateful to Mark Newton who is serving as University Librarian ad interim.

Professor Adil Najam, the founding dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, has announced that he will step down from the deanship when the search for a new dean (now underway) has concluded. Dean Najam has shaped the vision and mission of the Pardee School since its founding in 2014. He will leave big shoes to fill.

5. Work Environment for Staff

Two trends are reshaping our work environment. The first is a desire of all to have a much more diverse and inclusive environment for all staff, faculty, and students. Our initiatives to build and nurture this environment have converged with the understanding—created by the pandemic—that remote work is both feasible and desirable for many in our community. We are moving forward in both areas; working to diversify our workforce and to offer expanded work flexibility through our new remote work policies.

Our remote work policies were announced in August. To date, approximately 40 percent of our staff members have applied to take advantage of the option to work remotely at least one day per week. I believe the emerging shift to remote work significantly changes the rhythm of work across campus. We need to think creatively about how we foster a workplace culture that helps us continue to recruit and retain the most talented and dedicated staff members. Workplace culture is defined in myriad ways, but we consider it to be the environment that reflects institutional values, norms, and shared beliefs that guide our collective work. To build this culture we must ground ourselves in the University’s mission, define our principles, and articulate and consistently apply these principles.

I am establishing a Task Force on Workplace Culture at Boston University. The Task Force will be co-chaired by Andrea Taylor, Senior Diversity Officer, and Amanda Bailey, Vice President for Human Resources, and will be composed of staff from across the University. The membership of the Task Force will be announced soon.

6. Implementation of 2030 Strategic Plan

Despite our necessarily intense focus on navigating through the pandemic, we were able to sustain momentum on laying the groundwork for implementing our Strategic Plan for 2030. University Provost Jean Morrison has led these efforts. The plan is well developed, and implementation has begun. I will mention several highlights.

First is the very visible progress on the construction of the Center for Computing & Data Sciences on Commonwealth Avenue. The steel frame for the 19-story tower was completed last week, and construction is on schedule for occupancy before the end of 2022. This new space is critical to our ambitious plans for expanding computing and data sciences both in key departments and by means of joint appointments with the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences. The Faculty is off to a very fast start with recruitment of faculty members, the launch of a doctoral program, and sponsorship of an undergraduate degree program in data sciences that will enroll students in fall 2022.

There are many other signs of progress on the Strategic Plan. In alignment with our commitments (as outlined in the plan) to build a more diverse, inclusive, and accessible community, we opened the doors of the Newbury Center, the new resource for students who are in the first generation in their families to go to college. We also established the LGBTQIA+ Center as a resource for faculty and staff. The center is housed at 808 Commonwealth Avenue, where the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground is also located.

Let me conclude by thanking you for your perseverance and creativity during what has been the most trying time in our professional lives for many of us. It is an honor for me to work with you.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Brown
President

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