What do Arts & Sciences graduates do with a liberal arts degree these days? Just about anything they set their minds to.
That’s the kind of education the College and Graduate School impart to our students: one that instills the excitement of learning, keeps a balance of breadth and depth in the best liberal arts and sciences tradition, and—at the graduate level—prepares the next generation of teachers, scholars, and researchers who will literally change the world. The full impact of that approach is clear when we see what CAS/GRS alumni accomplish once they step into the wider world.
And here on campus, another kind of impact is clear: the far-reaching kind our donors are having on students, faculty, and Boston University’s overall mission. Read just a few of many examples of Boston University’s campaign at work. What ties these gifts together? They were made by individuals who saw a need and filled it. Just like that.
Ancient Greeks, Contemporary Impact
David Roochnik. Photo by Vernon Doucette
The vibrant spirit of ancient Greece remains tightly interwoven into twenty-first-century sciences, arts, architecture, politics, and philosophy. And now, thanks to a gift from Maria Stata (CAS’62), the enduring influence of ancient Greek culture can be even more greatly appreciated and extensively explored by CAS students and scholars. Stata’s $2.5 million gift creates the Maria Stata Professorship in Classical Greek Studies, which will support a distinguished senior faculty member with scholarly and teaching expertise in the classical period of Greek history.
A former teacher with Greek heritage, Stata (who is married to Ray Stata, cofounder and chairman of semiconductor and signal processing company Analog Devices) specifically requested that her gift support a professor who would ensure that undergraduates not majoring in classics have a chance to study the mark of ancient Greece on Western civilization, according to Dean of Arts & Sciences Virginia Sapiro. She has appointed David Roochnik, CAS professor and chair of the philosophy department, as the first Maria Stata Professor.
“Ancient Greece is a living world,” says Roochnik, a Metcalf Award–winning teacher whose research focuses broadly on classical Greek political philosophy, primarily Plato and Aristotle. “It’s a world filled with spectacular ideas that are as important and powerful today as they were 2,500 years ago. No one should miss it.”
“This wonderful gift from Maria Stata will make a significant and lasting difference to our classical studies program,” says BU President Robert A. Brown. “It will ensure that students for generations to come will be able to study under accomplished scholars in this important interdisciplinary field, and I very much appreciate Maria’s recognition of the value of classical studies and her dedication to her alma mater.”
Sky-high Impact
Assistant Professor of Astronomy Paul Withers and students working on new computers funded by David S. Katz. Photo by BU Photography
When David S. Katz (CAS’80, LAW’85) discovered that students in the CAS astronomy department (one of the largest and most highly regarded in the country) were using 10-year-old computers to explore the heavens, he acted quickly. With a funding match from CAS, Katz offered a gift to underwrite the purchase of nine brand-new computers and monitors, and universal power supplies. The gift literally changed the students’ interstellar explorations overnight. Instead of dealing with the daily frustrations of indistinct images and agonizingly slow data downloads, they can now do lightning-speed data downloads and analyses, look at detailed images, and share data across programs and users in a flash. Said Astronomy Professor John Clarke, “We moved our students out of the dial-up realm and into the high-speed realm,” thanks to David S. Katz.
- Through his estate, Henry Newman created the Henry S. Newman Graduate Fellowship, which will provide a prestigious graduate award for a student pursuing a doctoral dissertation on a topic related to immigration in America, a constant theme in the nation’s history, politics, and culture.
- Former PhD students of Chemistry Professor Emeritus Richard Laursen have endowed an annual research award for an accomplished student in the chemistry department.
- Two sets of parents and one alumna have established three Century Challenge scholarships, each one a $100,000 endowment that will provide support for undergraduate students with financial need, in perpetuity.
- Board member Susan Jaffe Tane (SED’64) has made a commitment to help extend for another five years Professor Robert Pinsky’s Summer Poetry Institute—a weeklong session in which K–12 teachers from across the United States and abroad share, learn, and enhance their poetry curricula.
Generous support from friends and alumni like Maria Stata, David S. Katz, and the other individuals named in this article will have an enduring and important impact on the experience of students and faculty at the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Learn more about making your own impact. —Francie King