Menu Give Now

Impactx2

A Message from Dean Cudd Undergraduate Education Graduate Education Faculty Facilities Community Global University Make Your Impact Boston University
What will you do? Irene and Thomas Kelley are giving students in the Department of Earth & Environment the tools they need to measure crucial data. David S. Katz is giving students in the CAS Astronomy program the power to quickly analyze and download data. George Bernard enables biology graduate students to travel for research, making the planet their laboratory. CAS board member Steve Karbank is bringing leading environmental philosophers to speak to the BU community. Generous supporters helped renovate our organic chemistry labs, resulting in three state-of-the-art labs in 6,000 square feet of space. Bob Hildreth and Susan Tane are bringing great poets to campus through The Favorite Poem Project. Living fully to 102, poet Ida Fasel (CAS’31, GRS’45) funded a fellowship in Jewish Studies. Benjamin Lambert is bringing chemistry to life with the gift of the department's first endowed colloquim series.

Walk Like a (Hu)man

How would you walk if you had the body of a human and the feet of a chimpanzee? A BU anthropologist reconstructs the surprising stride of a two-million-year-old species. Read more

Faculty

Finding new ways to connect

Our faculty is our core strength. Our professors and lecturers are experts, innovative thinkers, and award winners from nearly every area of higher learning. They are engaging in path-breaking research and developing new methods of teaching that take advantage of advances in technology and understanding of human cognition.

Expand Section Collapse Section

The Game Maker

Passing notes, shouting, messing with fellow students’ work: such behavior in his class doesn’t bother John Finnerty in the least; in fact, he encourages it. An associate professor of biology, Finnerty created “Passing Genetic Notes in Class,” a fun, freewheeling game, to teach the genetic code. It’s an approach he hopes will help his lessons endure. “I think there’s definitely a need to step out of the expected if you want students to hang on to what you’re going to say,” says Finnerty, who is also the director of the Boston University Marine Program.

Finnerty’s methods pay off in ways beyond getting students’ attention: they helped him win a 2013 Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching, one of BU’s highest teaching awards. Read a Q & A with Professor Finnerty

Donors who have made a difference already

  • Continuing his support of Philosophy and CAS, current board alumni member Steve Karbank (CAS’79, Parent CAS’12), extended his pledge to continue the Karbank Symposium in Environmental Philosophy for the remainder of the Campaign.
  • The Peter Paul Career Development Professorship Program, established by a distinguished BU Trustee, provides three years of financial support to allow promising junior faculty to pursue ambitious research efforts.
  • The Feld Family Foundation created a Professorship in Teaching Excellence at CAS.
  • The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation endowed a Distinguished Lecture in Archaeology.

Our impact

Recruiting devoted teachers and scholars

In his 2007 strategic plan for Boston University, President Robert A. Brown announced a new goal: to add 100 faculty positions to the College of Arts & Sciences over the ensuing decade.

It was a hugely ambitious goal—but, thanks to the support of our generous donors and the central University, we’re already halfway there. This despite a deep recession that cut sharply into philanthropy nationwide, and at a time when many other universities were reducing their faculty ranks.

As a result, today we have a critical mass of educators who are truly transforming the College of Arts & Sciences: from great to greater. Our faculty members are devoted teachers excited about educating the next generation. And they earn both high-level BU prizes and highly visible awards on the international level, including Nobels and Guggenheims, for their excellence in research and teaching.

Your impact

Equipping BU scholars for success

When you support our ability to attract, retain, and nurture the careers of our faculty, you support the heart of BU—the people who make it all happen.

It takes substantial resources to compete with other top universities for the best faculty and to make sure they have the equipment and facilities, time, graduate assistance, research support, and professional travel funding they need to remain on top of their game as educators and researchers.

There are many ways to help. Endowing a professorship is the most direct and powerful way to attract the very best scholars and teachers to BU, and to retain and support them. Gifts to the CAS Annual Fund or particular departments or programs allow us to support our faculty members’ greatest research and teaching needs with the necessary ability to move quickly and flexibly as they arise. There are needs throughout CAS for faculty support. Let your interests be your guide.

Make Your Impact
See Previous See Next