State of the University, Fall 2019
October 1, 2019
Dear Colleagues,
The 2019–2020 academic year at Boston University is off to an amazing start. There is activity in every corner of our campuses with undergraduate and graduate classes in full swing. The energy and enthusiasm of our students motivate us to continually seek ways to improve and advance Boston University. Since I wrote you last spring, we have reached some milestones and launched some very promising initiatives, which I know you’ll be interested to learn about:
- Conclusion of the Campaign for Boston University, which raised $1.85 billion
- Creation of a totally online MBA offered by the Questrom School of Business in partnership with edX
- Approval of the Center for Computing & Data Sciences by the Board of Trustees
- Approval of the creation of the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences by the Board of Trustees
- Starting with the freshman class of fall 2020, the University will meet the full calculated financial need of all domestic, first-time undergraduate students.
Conclusion of Our Campaign
The most notable milestone was our celebration of the conclusion of the University’s first comprehensive campaign, Choose to be Great, with a wonderful community event at Agganis Arena on Saturday night, September 21. The event featured over 200 student performers, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and professional skaters from the Feld Entertainment Group and was attended by 2,000 alumni, faculty, staff, and students celebrating the success of the campaign in raising over $1.85 billion, far exceeding the $1 billion goal established in 2012. As meaningful as the fundraising total is, the participation of over 175,000 alumni and friends will have a far longer and more profound effect. We reached out to our alumni and friends; they engaged with enthusiasm, offering both material and moral support. This large and growing body of engaged alumni and friends is the foundation for future success.
More details about the campaign will be forthcoming as we analyze its full impact. I want to highlight two immediate results that are being felt all across our campuses: (1) scholarships and fellowships for student aid, and (2) funding for new and improved spaces across our campuses. Financial aid makes it possible for the very best students to study here and is vital to our continued success as a leading private research university. Support from alumni and friends in this effort is becoming a significant component of our overall aid budget. During the campaign, we raised $161 million for student financial aid, establishing 267 scholarships and fellowships.
Undergraduate Admissions
Because of this philanthropic support and our focus on intentional and prudent budgeting for the University, we were able to announce in August that, starting with the freshman class of fall 2020, we will meet the full calculated financial need of all domestic, first-time students admitted in the September and January classes. We have been working toward this goal for almost a decade by systematically increasing our need-based aid. The move to meet full need, combined with our BU Scholarship Assurance, which guarantees stable awards across four years and indexes aid to keep pace with tuition increases, is a major initiative for us and will help make Boston University affordable for qualified students. Even with this increase in aid, students and families will still make large investments in a Boston University education, as federally insured loans and self-help (Work-Study) will remain as part of our financial aid packages, except for Pell Grant-eligible students for whom we already replace the loan portion of the assistance package with a Boston University scholarship.
Our admitted class for fall 2019 is perhaps the most academically talented and diverse in our history. We were joined by 3,190 fall freshmen who had an average high school GPA of 3.72 and a median SAT of 1430. They represent 53 countries and 42 states. This year, 24 percent of our class are international students. The number of low-income and first-generation students has remained constant, with 17 percent of the population receiving Federal Pell Grants and 15 percent who are the first in their families to attend college. There are 75 graduates of the Boston Public Schools enrolled in the fall class, and 24 percent of our domestic students are from groups traditionally underrepresented at the University.
Enhancements to the Student Experience
The campaign has done more for student success than simply generating financial aid resources. All across our campuses, you can see enhancements to the student experience that were made possible because of gifts and our intentional budgeting. The Medical Student Residence, Medical Campus Student Lounge, and welcoming student spaces in the remodeled and expanded building for the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine are examples. On the Charles River Campus, we will soon open the new home for the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground at 808 Commonwealth Avenue. The Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre opened in December 2017 and is a marvelous, state-of-the-art performance facility.
We are launching an initiative to provide targeted support to first-generation students. This initiative reflects our recognition that first-generation students arrive at Boston University with great potential but may welcome support to navigate in a new and different environment. Please watch for announcements about this program with more specifics later this fall.
The Booth Theatre is only one of our investments in the arts at Boston University. New gallery space is being created as part of the renovation of the first floor of 808 Commonwealth Avenue. Across Comm Ave, the renovation of the first floor of 855 Commonwealth Avenue—the home of the College of Fine Arts—also has begun; this project includes restoration of the ground floor windows that long ago were closed in. The renovated facility will present a more welcoming and open face to Commonwealth Avenue.
The BU Arts Initiative is a program managed by the Provost’s Office with the aim of building student engagement in the arts—across all our campuses. Because of enhanced support, the program managers have arranged for a wide range of eclectic and sometimes provocative performances. The initiative is sponsoring the University’s second annual Global Music Festival. Francisco Alarcon is currently the Computational Artist in Residence at the Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering. These and many more offerings can be found on the Arts Initiative website.
Center for Computing & Data Sciences
This fall we also formally launched two major initiatives to expand the University’s footprint in computing and data sciences. After almost a year of work with Boston planners, our design for the new Center for Computing & Data Sciences on Commonwealth Avenue was approved by the city. Our Board of Trustees advanced the project into construction at their September meeting. This 345,000-gross-square-foot, 19-story center at the heart of campus will both transform our campus and be the home for many of the faculty, staff, and students who will lead our efforts in computing, machine learning, expert systems, and data sciences.
At the same meeting, our Board of Trustees approved the formation of the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, the new academic unit recommended last spring by the Task Force to Envision Data Science. I communicated to you about the recommendations of the Task Force in June. With the center under construction and the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences forming, the University will be well positioned to lead in this important area, engaging faculty all across the University.
The organization of the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences as an all-University academic unit, reporting to an Associate Provost, is an important step toward connecting our academic programs in nontraditional ways. I believe these new academic structures are needed for us to quickly adapt in our approaches to research and teaching in response to accelerating changes in society.
Research Enterprise
We also are establishing stronger interconnections between life sciences, medicine, physical sciences, and engineering. These connections are being fused first with support from the Kilachand Center and the Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences and Engineering, and, most recently, with the launch of the Provost’s Faculty Hiring Initiative for collaborative hiring between the Charles River and Medical Campuses. Last month, we announced the first research awards from the Kilachand Fund to three outstanding interdisciplinary programs. The call for proposals for the next round of awards has also been issued.
Led by our faculty, our research enterprise is thriving on many fronts, especially in securing external support. Last year the University received $579 million in new research awards, an increase of 19 percent from the previous year. It was gratifying that this increase was distributed across the University, with the School of Public Health (38 percent), College of Engineering (27 percent), School of Medicine (26 percent), and the College of Arts & Sciences (23 percent) showing the greatest gain over last year’s tallies.
Faculty Awards
The year also was a banner year for faculty awards. There is a more complete listing of these in the Appendix, but I would like to highlight a number of very significant examples.
Three faculty were elected to the prestigious national academies:
- Professor David Bishop, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and of Physics and Director of the NSF Engineering Research Center in Cellular Metamaterials, was invited to join the National Academy of Engineering.
- Professor Leonid Levin, Professor of Computer Science and expert on a range of subjects from complex algorithms to information theory, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
- Professor Ann McKee, School of Medicine Professor of Neurology and Pathology and Director of the BU Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
School of Law Professor Danielle Citron was named a MacArthur Fellow.
Several of our junior faculty also received important external recognition:
Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences Associate Professor of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences Cara Stepp and College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences Steve Ramirez were named winners of a 2019 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Computer Science Emily Whiting was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship.
And four of our faculty were awarded William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professorships, Boston University’s highest honor bestowed on our colleagues. They are:
- Christopher Chen, Professor of Biomedical Engineering and of Materials Science & Engineering, College of Engineering, and Director of BU’s Center for Biological Design
- Michael Hasselmo, Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences, and Director of the Center for Systems Neuroscience
- Xuefei Jin (pen name Ha Jin), Professor of English/Creative Writing, College of Arts & Sciences
- Ann McKee, Professor of Neurology and Pathology, School of Medicine, and Director of the BU Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) Center
This brings the number of active Warren Professors to 13.
We also should congratulate the 40 faculty on the Charles River Campus and 35 on the Medical Campus who were promoted last year; they are listed in the appendix to this letter.
BU Hub and Questrom Online MBA
Our faculty also continues to innovate in education. Notably, this fall marked the implementation of the second year of the BU Hub, our University-wide general education program with 600 new courses currently being offered under the banner of the program, with more to come. In graduate professional education, the Questrom School of Business announced that it will offer the Online MBA degree program in partnership with edX, the online consortium founded by MIT and Harvard University, of which we are a member. With tuition of only $24,000, this totally online program will, I believe, be recognized as shifting the paradigm in MBA education by making a high-quality option available to alternative learners.
Strategic Planning
Almost everything we do to advance the University requires funding and involves difficult tradeoffs. To make progress, we must be intentional in our actions and careful in our execution. This is why strategic planning is so important to our future. The recommendations of the Strategic Planning Task Force led by University Provost and Chief Academic Officer Jean Morrison will be the basis of much discussion over the coming months as we prepare to take the plan to the Board of Trustees for endorsement. The plan will shape our priorities over the next decade and be the guidepost for our next major fundraising effort. I look forward to the discussions that will define our final plan.
Budget and Capital Planning
Finally, last year proved to be another very good financial year for the University. Through careful budgeting and great execution across the University, we were able to generate $127.6 million of undesignated reserves allocated at year-end to many academic and research initiatives in addition to the $84.2 million we designated as part of the budgeting process. The budgeted designated reserves included $40.0 million returned directly to schools and colleges as part of revenue sharing agreements and $10 million for the University Provost for one-time academic initiatives, such as faculty hiring.
Included in the above allocations was a total of $126.0 million to our capital reserves to fund ongoing projects, such as the renovations at 808 and 855 Commonwealth Avenue and the beginning of the construction of the Center for Computing & Data Sciences.
Fiscal Year 2020 has begun well, with an all-funds budget of $2.65 billion for the entire University. With our fall enrollments at or above targets for the majority of our programs, we are hopeful that we will have another good financial year.
As we move toward the halfway point of the fall semester, I want to thank you for everything each of you do for Boston University, our students, and our community.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Brown
President
Faculty: New Appointments, Honors, and Awards
A number of outstanding senior faculty have joined the University, including:
- Sally Sedgwick, Professor of Philosophy, College of Arts & Sciences
- Fernando Zapatero, Richard D. Cohen Professor in Management, Professor of Finance, Questrom School of Business
- Andrew King, Allen Questrom Professor in Management, Professor of Strategy & Innovation, Questrom School of Business
- Danielle Citron, Professor of Law, School of Law
- Gregory Melchor-Barz, Director of the School of Music, Professor of Music, College of Fine Arts
- Susan Mickey, Director of the School of Theatre, Professor of Theatre, College of Fine Arts
- Toby Chai, Chair of the Department of Urology, Professor of Urology, School of Medicine
- Robert Davey, Professor of Microbiology, School of Medicine
- Peter Weber, Professor of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, School of Medicine
Our faculty members continue to garner external recognition. Awards and honors bestowed on them over the past year include:
- Professor Danielle Citron of the School of Law was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow.
- School of Medicine Professor of Neurology and Pathology, Director of the CTE Center, and Associate Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Center Ann McKee was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
- College of Engineering Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering David Bishop was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
- Leonid Levin, College of Arts & Sciences Professor of Computer Science, was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
- College of Engineering Dean Kenneth Lutchen and Professor of Biomedical Engineering John White were elected Fellows of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering.
- College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Computer Science Emily Whiting was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship.
- James Uden, College of Arts & Sciences Associate Professor of Classical Studies, was selected for a New Directions Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- The Biomedical Engineering Society selected Christopher Chen, College of Engineering Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering, to receive the 2019 Robert A. Pritzker Distinguished Lecture Award.
- Siddharth Ramachandran, College of Engineering Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, was appointed as a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow by the Department of Defense.
- Wheelock College of Education & Human Development Assistant Professor of Science Education Eve Manz received the 2019 Early Career Research Award from the National Association of Research in Science Teaching.
- Six faculty members received Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation: Brian Walsh, College of Engineering Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering; Michelle Sander, College of Engineering Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering; Sahar Sharifzadeh, College of Engineering Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering; Lei Tian, College of Engineering Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering; Wen Li, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Astronomy; Ting Zhang, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Mathematics & Statistics.
- Stephen Christiansen, School of Medicine Professor of Ophthalmology, received a Senior Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
- Babak Eliassi-Rad, School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, received an Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
- James Traniello, College of Arts & Sciences Professor of Biology, was elected an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow.
- Vinod Sarin, College of Engineering Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering, was elected as a National Academy of Inventors Fellow.
- Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences Associate Professor of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences Cara Stepp and College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences Steve Ramirez were named winners of a 2019 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).
- Xin Zhang, College of Engineering Professor of Mechanical Engineering and of Materials Science & Engineering, was elected an American Physical Society 2019 Fellow.
Boston University granted many faculty awards and honors over the past year, which include:
- William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professorships were awarded to College of Engineering Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering Christopher Chen; College of Arts & Sciences Professor of Psychological & Brain Sciences Professor Michael Hasselmo; College of Arts & Sciences Professor of English/Creative Writing Ha Jin; and School of Medicine Professor of Neurology Ann McKee.
- The 2019 Metcalf Cup and Prize recipient was College of Arts & Sciences Earth & Environment and Biology Associate Professor Robinson “Wally” Fulweiler. The 2019 Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching recipients were Goldman School of Dental Medicine Clinical Professor Neal Fleisher and Questrom School of Business Strategy & Innovation Senior Lecturer Gregory Stoller.
- Swathi Kiran, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College Professor of Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, was appointed the James and Cecilia Tse Ying Professor in Neurorehabilitation.
- Linda McClain, School of Law Professor of Law, was appointed to the Robert B. Kent Chaired Professorship in Civil Procedure.
- School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Pathology & Lab Medicine Dennis Jones received the Nancy L. R. Bucher Assistant Professorship in Pathology.
- College of Engineering Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering Xin Zhang was named BU Innovator of the Year.
- The University Lecture in fall 2018 was presented by Karen Warkentin, College of Arts & Sciences Professor of Biology and Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, titled “Diversity and Plasticity of Life: A Biologist’s Journey from Embryo Self-Defense to Sexual Behavior.”
- College of Arts & Sciences Associate Professor of English Anna Henchman was the recipient of the 2019 Undergraduate Academic Advising Award for Faculty.
- Anne Feng, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of History of Art & Architecture received the East Asia Studies Career Development Professorship.
- The Reidy Family Career Professorship was awarded to Robert Metcalfe, Questrom School of Business Assistant Professor of Markets, Public Policy & Law.
- Sanaz Mobasseri, Questrom School of Business Organizational Behavior Assistant Professor, received the Isabel Anderson Career Development Professorship.
- Dennis Jones, School of Medicine Pathology & Lab Medicine Assistant Professor received the Ralph Edwards Career Professorship.
- Hebatalla Gowayed, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Sociology, and Chandramouli Chandrasekaran, College of Arts & Sciences Psychological & Brain Sciences/School of Medicine Anatomy & Neurobiology Assistant Professor, received Moorman-Simon Interdisciplinary Career Development Professorships.
- The University Provost’s Career Development Professorship was awarded to Derry Wijaya, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Computer Science.
- A Peter Paul Career Development Professorship was awarded to School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Microbiology Florian Douam.
- Rosina Georgiadis, College of Arts & Sciences Associate Professor of Chemistry, received the 2019 Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology.
The following faculty members were promoted to the rank of professor:
Japonica Brown-Saracino, Sociology, College of Arts & Sciences
Wiebke Denecke, World Languages & Literatures, College of Arts & Sciences
Adela Pineda, Romance Studies, College of Arts & Sciences
Marcel Rindisbacher, Finance, Questrom School of Business
Anita Tucker, Operations & Technology Management, Questrom School of Business
Yanhang Zhang, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
Paul Gugliuzza, School of Law
Amie Grills, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development
Ching-Ti Liu, Biostatistics, School of Public Health
Steven Pizer, Health Law, Policy & Management, School of Public Health
Christopher Andry, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine in Anatomic Pathology, School of Medicine
Megan Bair-Merritt, Pediatrics, School of Medicine
Lawreen Connors, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine
Shoumita Dasgupta, Biomedical Genetics, School of Medicine
Suryaram Gummuluru, Microbiology, School of Medicine
Andrew Henderson, Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine
Joanne Murabito, General Internal Medicine, School of Medicine
Thanh Nguyen, Neurology, School of Medicine
Robert Saper, Family Medicine, School of Medicine
Minh Tam Truong, Radiation Oncology, School of Medicine
The following faculty members were promoted to the rank of associate professor:
Aaron Beeler, Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences
Peter Blake, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
Yuri Corrigan, World Languages & Literatures, College of Arts & Sciences
Daniel Erker, Linguistics, College of Arts & Sciences
Jonathan Foltz, English, College of Arts & Sciences
John Marston, Anthropology, College of Arts & Sciences
Alexis Peri, History, College of Arts & Sciences
Deborah Perlstein, Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences
Anthony Petro, Religion, College of Arts & Sciences
Trevor Siggers, Biology, College of Arts & Sciences
Amanda Tarullo, Psychological & Brain Sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
Tal Gross, Markets, Public Policy & Law, Questrom School of Business
Scott Robertson, Finance, Questrom School of Business
Andrea Vedolin, Finance, Questrom School of Business
Georgios Zervas, Marketing, Questrom School of Business
Theresa Ellis, Physical Therapy & Athletic Training, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College
James Bird, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
Mary Dunlop, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Douglas Holmes, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
Ahmad Khalil, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Alexander Olshevsky, Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Milos Popovic, Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering
Darren Roblyer, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Wilson Wong, Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Kaija Schilde, International Studies, Pardee School of Global Studies
Michael Woldemariam, International Studies, Pardee School of Global Studies
J. David Decosimo, School of Theology
Leslie Dietiker, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development
Christopher Salas-Wright, School of Social Work
Linda Sprague Martinez, School of Social Work
Karin Hendricks, Music, College of Fine Arts
Ketty Nez, Music, College of Fine Arts
M. Patricia Fabian, Environmental Health, School of Public Health
David Jones, Health Law, Policy & Management, School of Public Health
Christina Borba, General Psychiatry, School of Medicine
Markus Bosmann, Pulmonary, School of Medicine
Camron Bryant, Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, School of Medicine
Sandra Cerda, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine in Anatomic Pathology, School of Medicine
Tracey Dechert, Surgery in Trauma & Critical Care, School of Medicine
Michael Esterman, Psychiatry, School of Medicine
Hui Feng, Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics, School of Medicine
Natasha Hochberg, Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine
Hasmeena Kathuria, Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care, School of Medicine
Christina LeBedis, Radiology in Body Imaging, School of Medicine
Jessica Levi, Otolaryngology, School of Medicine
Honghuang Lin, Computational Biomedicine, School of Medicine
Suzanne Mitchell, Family Medicine, School of Medicine
Margaret Parker, Pediatrics, School of Medicine
Lisa Quintiliani, Medicine, School of Medicine
Elissa Schechter-Perkins, Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Jeffrey Schneider, Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
Alcy Torres, Pediatrics in Neurology, School of Medicine
Neelam Vashi, Dermatology, School of Medicine
Elisha Wachman, Pediatrics in Neonatology, School of Medicine
Katharine White, Obstetrics & Gynecology, School of Medicine