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Professor Emeritus Murray B. Levin, 1962 BU Photo Services |
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Professors can leave life-long impressions, and for David Solomon (COM’73, LAW’81) and Harvey Boulay (CAS’66, GRS’68,’73), and many other alums, Professor Emeritus Murray Levin is unforgettable. “When Murray walked into a room, the energy revolved around him,” says Solomon. “He was magnetic both to people who agreed with him and those who didn’t.”
An expert in political thought and behavior, Levin was a political science professor at the College of Arts and Sciences from 1955 to 1989. He taught “gigantic classes, sometimes close to 800 packed into Hayden Hall,” says Boulay, but because “Murray was such a spellbinding lecturer, it was like being in a seminar.” Outspoken, Levin was a leading figure in campus anti-war protests of the sixties and seventies.
As an undergrad at the School of Public Communication (now the College of Communication) Solomon took several political science seminars with the compelling Levin and his choice of concentration was sealed. He recalls that over the years Levin always had a circle of devoted students who also became his friends. Interested in political science since high school, Boulay says Levin galvanized his enthusiasm for the subject and he went on to become a triple Terrier, with three degrees in the field.
In 2000, a year after Levin’s death, Boulay, who is founder and principal of the consulting firm Development Directions, convened a group of friends and family of the late professor, and began planning a fitting tribute. Through the Lawrence and Lillian Solomon Fund, Inc., Solomon, a real estate attorney, has committed $250,000 to establish the Murray B. Levin Legacy Fund, 50 percent of which will be matched by Trustee Chairman Alan Leventhal’s challenge grant; Boulay also has contributed.
The endowed fund will provide annual scholarships to students majoring in political science or related disciplines “who exemplify wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, a superior work ethic, and a commitment to critical analysis of the forces affecting political, social, and economic equality, and processes of social change that most characterized Professor Levin’s teaching and scholarship.”
—Jean Hennelly Keith
More information about the Levin Legacy Fund is available from Gene Lyman, CAS director of development and alumni relations, at 617-353-5829 or glyman@bu.edu.
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