Creating and Passing on Knowledge
The two preeminent missions of a research university—the creation of new knowledge through research and scholarship and educating future thinkers, scholars, and leaders—are at the core of what the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (GRS) does. Faculty members from across the disciplines train graduate students by involving them directly in their own research and teaching. The graduate school continues to attract outstanding students and turn them into dynamic young scholars and researchers, as you’ll see in some of the success stories below. We also prepare an increasing number of master’s students for careers in finance, information technology, and other rapidly evolving career paths.
Master’s Programs
Offering quality master’s programs that prepare graduates for successful careers is a high priority of the graduate school. To that end, our MA and MS programs continue to grow. We matriculated a record-sized class of 313 MA and MS students, including 42 in the Pardee School of Global Studies. This class is 12% larger than the previous year’s class of 278. After a successful recruitment year, we expect growth of a similar magnitude with next year’s class. Applications to our master’s programs grew by over 10% this year, exceeding 4,300, with computer science having the largest number (883), followed closely by economics, creative writing, and statistics.
MFA Program
As part of its 2016–17 season, the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre presented five new plays written by the second graduating class of our MFA in playwriting. The plays were directed and designed by MFA students from BU’s School of Theatre, allowing our new playwrights the experience of working with producers, designers, and actors in staging their thesis plays, and the theater students the experience of working on a play never previously staged. This group of new playwrights has also garnered an impressive collection of awards and honors:
Livian Yeh (GRS’17) received this year’s Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival’s Paul Stephen Lim Award for her play Memorial.
Abbey Fenbert (GRS’15) and Leo McGann (GRS’17) were among a handful of playwrights nationwide whose works (Fenbert’s play Intentions and McGann’s play The Honey Trap) were selected for staged readings at the Great Plains Theatre Conference (GPTC).
The following alums/students received 2017 Elliot Norton Awards:
- Adjunct Assistant Professor Melinda Lopez (GRS’00), for her play Mala
- Current MFA candidate Alexis Scheer (GRS’19), whose Off the Grid Theatre Company took home two awards for its production of Blasted, including one for playwright alum John Kuntz (GRS’05), who won Outstanding Director—Small or Fringe Theater
PhD Programs
In September, we matriculated 206 new PhD students into 25 PhD programs, the fourth class to be admitted with the promise of five years of fellowship support. This promise of full support has had a significant effect on the quality of students we now recruit. We admitted only about 13% of those who applied, and close to 40% of those we admitted accepted our offer. Boston University is now competing with the best schools in the US for the top prospective PhD students.
New PhD programs in linguistics and in Earth & environment (replacing the separate programs in earth science and geography) were approved this year. Both programs will recruit their first classes next year. The introduction of the linguistics PhD recognizes the growing research strength and numbers of our faculty members in linguistics, who are now organized into a program.
Graduate Student Success
Here are just a few highlights of the successes our graduate students had this past year:
Tim Maguire (GRS’17) was recently featured as a Council of Graduate Schools “GradImpact Story.” Maguire, a PhD candidate in biology, is involved in high-impact research on an often-overlooked component of climate change: silica. While most climate change scientists look at carbon and its effects on our changing environment, Maguire is studying the key role that silica plays in the land-sea connection. “This is one of the first papers showing a direct connection between how we alter a climate and what that might mean for silica availability and the connections between land and sea,” says Wally Fulweiler, GRS associate professor of Earth & environment and biology and a coauthor of the paper (with Maguire). “It opens a door,” Maguire says of their research, “showing an unexpected, potentially massive impact on ecosystems that remains largely unstudied.” Learn more.
Andrea DiGiorgio studies how the past can provide insights into the challenges of today. A PhD candidate in biological anthropology at GRS, DiGiorgio studies orangutans’ diets and foraging behaviors to improve conservation of their habitats. Additionally, she says that “looking at our closest relatives, the other great apes, will provide insight as to what we evolved to eat and whether this ancestral diet is mismatched with our current diet.” By comparing these creatures, DiGiorgio hopes to find connections between the ancestral diets of our past and the current obesity issues of the present. Read more about the research being done in “Chasing Orangutans.”
Annual Report 2016/2017
From the Dean
The 2016/17 academic year was an exciting one for the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. We made tremendous progress on important fronts, including working to increase faculty and student diversity, providing enhanced experiential educational opportunities, expanding our research impact, and enhancing our academic programs.
Improving Undergraduate Education
Providing a world-class undergraduate education is no easy task, but at CAS it is part of our core mission. In 2016/17 we made curricular improvements, launched new career preparation programs, increased access to our world-class education, and gave our students a space to call their own, the CAS Think Tank.
Strengthening Graduate Education
The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences’ evolution continued in and out of the classroom, with a 10% increase in master’s applications in 2016/17 and continued high PhD acceptance rates affirming the strength of our programs.
Enhancing a World-Class Faculty
The quality of CAS’ academics and research depends on the quality of its faculty, and so we work hard to hire the best and brightest. In 2016/17, CAS hired 30 new professors across the humanities and the social, natural, and computational sciences.
Conducting Pathbreaking Research
Discoveries and innovations at CAS helped put BU at 32nd on the list of U.S. News & World Report’s top research universities in the world. Our faculty earned numerous prestigious awards and grants, helping to advance human understanding in the fields of biogeoscience, religion, computer science, and biology, just to name a few.
Building Our Future Together
In 2016/17, the seventh year of the Campaign for Boston University, numerous alumni, friends, and parents have helped to raise $121.6 million for CAS—far exceeding our aggressive goal of $100 million.
Appendix