Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
As in much of the country—and the world—Boston University has been reckoning with issues of diversity, inclusion, and racial justice on campus and beyond, but the events of 2020 imparted new urgency to our task. Our efforts to deepen diversity and ensure equity at BU include the ongoing work of our associate provost for community and inclusion and the appointment of a senior diversity officer to probe systemic issues within University operations. We also opened a center for first-generation college students in 2021 and saw our Center for Antiracist Research track racial inequities during the COVID-19 pandemic and team up with the Boston Globe to launch an online antiracist multimedia platform.
Antiracism Center’s Bold Moves
Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities Ibram X. Kendi, one of the nation’s leading scholars of racism and a professor of history in the College of Arts & Sciences, last spring teamed up with the Boston Globe to publish The Emancipator, an independent antiracist multimedia platform inspired by Boston’s 19th-century antislavery broadsheets.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Meet BU’s First Senior Diversity Officer
Andrea Taylor’s parents attended Boston University because a segregated West Virginia kept them from enrolling in graduate school.
Later, Andrea attended BU herself and, in 1968, joined other African American students who occupied the administration building, protesting the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59). By 2009, she was a Microsoft executive—and a University Trustee.
But it’s her latest role that may offer the biggest potential impact—and challenge.
How the Pandemic Exposed Racial Disparities
Financial Aid Boosted to 100% With AffordableBU
Easing the Burden for First-Gen Students
Boston University President Robert A. Brown knows that first-generation students are a remarkable bunch—motivated, resilient, high-achieving. After all, he was the first in his family to attend college, too. But he also knows their experience at BU is different from that of peers whose parents went to college.
