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Commencement speaker Jon Westling to celebrate student accomplishments, honor September 11 victims
Soon after the Class of 2002 began its final year at BU, it witnessed
on television, along with the world, several horrific acts that none will
ever forget: the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington,
D.C., and Shanksville, Pa.
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Jon Westling at BU's 1999 Commencement exercises. Photo by Albert L'Etoile |
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"In light of this year's tragic events," said BU President
Jon Westling, the featured speaker at Boston University's 129th Commencement
exercises on May 19, "the University's Board of Trustees and its
administration have sought to make our Commencement exercises a reflection
on the strength of our community. This is a year to consider the principles
and prospects for the very civilization that we as members of a university
are bound to uphold. We began this year together in shock at the events
that touched us as a community, and we will conclude it united, both in
memoriam to those we lost, and in affirmation of the principles we uphold."
The main Commencement ceremony will take place at 11 a.m. on Nickerson
Field. More than 20,000 people are expected to attend.
Westling, who became BU's eighth president in 1996, was born in Yakima,
Wash., in 1942. In 1960, he received a General Motors National Scholarship
to Reed College, in Portland, Ore., where he studied history and economics.
While at Reed, Westling served as president of the student body. He was
awarded his B.A. in 1964.
In 1963, Westling left a summer job in Washington, D.C., to take part
in the civil rights movement. He was arrested in southern Virginia for
demonstrating against racial segregation laws, and spent two weeks in
jail. All the laws under which he had been arrested were subsequently
declared unconstitutional, and the charges were dropped.
In 1964, Westling was elected a Rhodes Scholar, which provided him with
the opportunity to study for three years at Oxford University, where he
did historical research under the supervision of the late renowned medieval
historian K. B. McFarlane. He also studied with W. P. Ker, Pierre Chaplais,
and Sir Richard Southern.
Westling began his teaching career as an instructor at Centre College
in Danville, Ky., in 1967. He taught courses in ancient and medieval history
as well as modern European history. The next year, he joined the faculty
of his alma mater, Reed College, as an assistant professor of history
and humanities. He taught in Reed's highly regarded interdisciplinary
humanities program, as well as courses in medieval history and the history
of the Reformation.
In 1971, he continued his postgraduate studies at UCLA under the supervision
of Eleanor Searle, an eminent American historian of the middle ages. He
also studied with Gerhardt Ladner, Lauro Martines, and Hayden White. During
this period Westling continued to teach medieval and modern European history
at UCLA and at the University of California, Irvine.
In 1974 he was recruited to Boston University by President John Silber
as associate director of Boston University Productions. His duties were
to serve as a historical consultant and writer on a project funded by
the National Endowment for the Humanities that traced the influences of
various immigrant groups on the development of American law, culture,
and society. In 1976 he was appointed assistant to the president. In 1979
he became associate provost. Upon the retirement of Provost Robert Mayfield
in 1984, Westling was asked by Silber to serve as provost ad interim.
In October of that year he was elected provost by the Board of Trustees.
As the University's chief academic officer, Westling oversaw the development
of major new initiatives in the physical sciences, including the transformation
of the CAS physics department into a nationally recognized center for
research in high-energy particle physics. He also began the process that
led to the introduction of a core curriculum in CAS.
In the fall of 1987, when Silber took a sabbatical leave, Westling was
chosen to serve as BU's acting president. Upon Silber's return in January
1988, Westling was promoted to the position of executive vice president
for administration and academic affairs, with broad responsibility for
the day-to-day operations of both the academic and administrative programs
of the University. In January 1990, Silber took a leave of absence to
run for governor of Massachusetts, and Westling was appointed BU's president
ad interim.
When Silber returned in January 1991, Westling resumed his position as
executive vice president, and on June 1, 1991, he was appointed executive
vice president and provost. He was named president-elect in January 1995
and became BU president on June 1, 1996.
In 1978, Westling married the former Elizabeth Wuthrich of Los Angeles,
a graduate of Scripps College in Claremont, Calif., who also did postgraduate
work in history at UCLA. She is a cofounder of the charitable organization
Books for South African Children. The Westlings live in Brookline, Mass.,
with their three children, Emma, Matthew, and Andrew.
16 May 2002
Boston University
Office of University Relations