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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.

Ecosystems and Us

Professor Les Kaufman and his team voyaged to Cambodia to model the ecosystem around Tonle Sap Lake, the country’s primary source for fish, rice, and protein. Read more

Global University

The world is our laboratory

BU is truly a global university. The London Times rates us a top-50 global research university, due in part to our strong international connections. Our faculty members and graduate students conduct research in every field and on every continent. And our undergraduates can choose from dozens of study abroad programs and courses in over 20 foreign languages.

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Maize, mosquitoes, and malaria

In the 16th century, Africans began planting a crop from maize seeds imported from the New World. Today, maize accounts for more than half of the calories consumed in Africa and is rapidly supplanting historic native grain crops. But to what overall ecological, political, economic, and cultural effect? It’s a complex question that has consumed BU Professor James C. McCann for the last decade.

McCann is a well-known scholar on the history of the food, ecology, and agriculture of Africa. He is also director of a five-year Rockefeller Foundation research collaboration among BU’s African Studies Center, Addis Ababa University, and the Harvard School of Public Health.

The interdisciplinary research team has found a direct relationship between intensive maize cultivation and the incidence of malaria. McCann has spoken of his intensive research interest as an investigation into the connections between “the world’s deadliest infectious disease and what is about to become the world’s most popular crop.”

McCann was awarded a 2012 Guggenheim Foundation fellowship and a 2012 Fulbright Fellowship.

Donors who have made a difference already

  • Frederick S. Pardee donated $25 million to endow a new global studies school to support interdisciplinary research aimed at advancing human progress. Learn how
  • Living fully to 102, poet Ida Fasel (CAS’31, GRS’45) funded a fellowship in Jewish Studies. Her gift of $1.1 million made possible the establishment of the Drapkin-Fasel Graduate Fellowship Fund in Jewish Studies, named in memory of her parents, her sister, Ruth Drapkin, and her husband, Oscar. Learn how
  • The Ernestine O’Connell Memorial Scholarship provides support to juniors and seniors majoring in chemistry, geology, physics, biology, astronomy, or math who are in need of financial assistance. As with other scholarship funds, you could contribute to this fund, designating your support for students wishing to study overseas.

Our impact

Engaging globally, on many levels

After today’s students enter the workforce, their success will depend on assuming leadership in a global world. We are shaping their education at Arts & Sciences to prepare them for that future.

Arts & Sciences engages globally on many different levels. International Relations is our largest major, and we are invested in teaching over 20 world languages—more than most liberal arts colleges. Our faculty and students study and work around the globe, from the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the Eastern Ecuadorian Amazon. Over 40 percent of CAS students participate in one of our study abroad programs in more than 30 cities on six continents. Some students even travel with CAS geologist David Marchant to do research in Antarctica.

This fall, we are launching one of our most exciting initiatives in years. Made possible by a $25 million gift from Frederick Pardee, the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies will be housed in CAS. The Pardee School will stimulate and support new interdisciplinary research and coursework aimed at tackling the world’s pressing problems. It will be structured into two main units: international studies and area studies. The area studies unit will bring together experts from our strong regional studies programs, such as African Studies and European Studies, to form new collaborations on issues that are common to different regions. The ultimate goal of the School is to advance global human progress.

Your impact

Helping students engage with the wider world

Want to introduce a student to the wider world? There are dozens of opportunities to do it, all in keeping with BU’s campus-wide emphasis on global education. More than 40 percent of CAS students take part in study abroad programs, and we welcome support that could enlarge this number. There are several forms such support could take. For example, consider setting up a gift challenge, matching each gift of, say, $100 or more dollar-for-dollar until the challenge fund reaches a certain level.

Or contribute to an existing scholarship fund, like the Ernestine O’Connell Memorial Scholarship, which provides support to juniors and seniors majoring in chemistry, geology, physics, biology, astronomy, or math who are in need of financial assistance. You can designate your fund specifically for students wishing to study overseas. If you’re determined to change the world, we can help.

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