Why the BU Hub?

Boston University’s founding president William Fairfield Warren was dedicated to global engagement, lifelong learning, and uniting the liberal arts and sciences to professional training—commitments that still animate undergraduate education at BU today.

The BU Hub builds on these commitments by giving students the opportunity to develop the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind that will enable them to be lifelong learners and leaders in a rapidly evolving global community. It reflects Boston University’s mission to educate students who are “reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world.”

In the BU Hub, all undergraduate students, regardless of the academic program in which they are enrolled, develop six essential capacities that:

  • expose students to a broad range of knowledge and disciplines
  • cultivate a set of widely applicable habits of mind
  • equip students to engage with complexity, diversity, and change
  • develop the ability to apply knowledge in diverse settings
  • encourage a sense of social responsibility and engaged citizenship

In addition to developing these capacities, the BU Hub creates a distinctive educational experience that:

  • fosters intellectual exploration by encouraging students to take courses in schools and colleges across the University
  • promotes cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary thinking by allowing students to work across–and bring together–multiple fields of knowledge
  • allows students to create their own pathways while pursuing their interests
  • is interwoven throughout a student’s undergraduate education
  • allows students to create stronger personal and intellectual connections with other students and faculty across the University
  • provides innovative educational opportunities for students, including the Cross-College Challenge (XCC) and cocurricular learning experiences
  • draws upon the rich array of opportunities afforded by the city of Boston, a major international center, in such fields as technology, the arts, health sciences, communication, finance, and education

By offering students the opportunity to develop essential capacities, the BU Hub prepares Boston University graduates to thrive in their professional, civic, and personal lives–and to create and lead in a fast-changing, interconnected world.