Category: Community
BU-Supported Wind Farm Generates Clean Electricity
BU is buying clean energy from the South Dakota wind farm that the University enabled, fulfilling a goal of our Climate Action Plan. BU will buy 205,000 megawatt hours of electricity annually for 15 years from wind farm developer, builder, and operator ENGIE North America. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says BU has the largest single, active, clean power purchase agreement out of the 126 colleges and universities in the EPA’s Green Power Partnership, a consortium of organizations that voluntarily commit to clean power.
Newbury Center Will Support First-Generation Students
BU announces a new support hub for first-generation students from matriculation through graduation. The Newbury Center is named for and endowed by a contribution from Newbury College, which closed in 2019 after more than half a century serving students of all backgrounds, 70 percent of whom were first in their families to go to college. At BU, about 17 percent of undergraduates and 18 percent of the freshmen are first-generation college students.
New Trustees Committee on Diversity and Inclusion
The Board of Trustees has created a new Diversity and Inclusion Committee to further the University’s antiracism agenda. The committee’s creation comes in a year of racial introspection for the University, and the country.
Pain, Anger, and Hope as BU Comes Together to Talk Race and Racism
Amid a charged national climate, almost 5,000 students, faculty, staff, and alumni logged on for the BU Day of Collective Engagement: Racism and Antiracism, Our Realities and Our Roles—an array of webinars held following weeks of national protests over recent, high-profile police killings of Black people across the country. While the current protests were front of mind for many, conversations also focused on effecting change in hiring, curriculum, and other areas within the academy.
BU to Set Up COVID-19 Testing for Students, Faculty, and Staff
Boston University announced plans to set up its own COVID-19 testing program this fall for faculty, staff, and students—a critical step toward repopulating its residential campus. Samples will be tested for the coronavirus at a lab inside the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering. Specialized robots will help speed the process, and results will be delivered electronically.
Expanded Thurman Center Gets a New Look on Campus
The relocated and expanded Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground (HTC) opens at 808 Commonwealth Ave., the latest addition to a culture and arts city block that includes CitySpace, the Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre, and CFA’s Production Center. With windows looking out on Comm Ave and the BU Bridge, HTC’s increased visibility - both literal and figurative – is wholly intentional, redoubling the University’s commitment to frank discussion and the cross-pollination of ideas. Balancing public spaces like a performance venue and open floor plans with private spaces like a tech-free meditation room, the new, larger HTC comforts and invigorates students in ways impossible in its former space.
A New Venue in a New Hotbed for Culture
WBUR, Boston’s National Public Radio station, housed at Boston University, opens a new cultural events space. In an area that is fast becoming a hotbed for the arts, CitySpace—on Comm Ave near the College of Fine Arts and new Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre—will produce up to 200 programs a year, including debates, interviews, readings, theatrical performances, and family programming, with all events streamed live and archived for on-demand access.
BU Boosts Effort to Recruit Low-Income Students
BU joins American Talent Initiative (ATI), an alliance of colleges and universities with a shared commitment to improve opportunities for accomplished students from low- and moderate-income households. ATI hopes to expand its membership to all US colleges and universities with six-year graduation rates consistently above 70 percent.
BU Awards Merit Scholarships to BPS Grads
For Thomas M. Menino and Community Service Award Scholars, BU grants four-year support to Boston public high school graduates matriculating at the University, covering the full cost of tuition without loans. More than a third of incoming Menino and Community Service scholars are the first in their families to attend college, and almost half of those are first-generation Americans.
BU-Wheelock Merge to Create New College
BU and Wheelock College join to become the Wheelock College of Education & Human Development. BU’s newest college combines the doctoral programs and research capabilities of BU’s School of Education with the early childhood expertise of Wheelock’s School of Education, Child Life and Family Studies.
