Decked out in scarlet and white, BU’s Class of 2029 hails from 47 states and 68 countries. The message, from University officials, faculty, and their fellow students throughout the ceremony, was loud and clear: Welcome home. You belong here.

Student Life

Boston University Matriculation 2025: Welcome Home, New Terriers!

“This institution will challenge you in new ways, it will introduce you to new people and ideas,” President Gilliam tells new students

As the summer winds down and the calendar flips from August to September, thousands of new students—from all over the world—make their way to Boston University. This year’s freshmen class comes from 47 states and 68 countries, arriving by plane, train, and automobile to BU’s campuses. They bring backpacks, mattress toppers, dorm room decorations, of course. 

But these newest members of the Boston University community also bring their dreams and plans to this new place, hoping to forge lasting friendships and make an impact that extends beyond their years at BU. 

Many of the 3,400 freshmen, joined by new transfer students, jangly nerves cloaked proudly in scarlet and white, gathered together for the first time for the University’s Matriculation ceremony and events on Friday, August 29. The message, from University officials, faculty, and their fellow students throughout the ceremony, was loud and clear: Welcome home. You belong here. 

“Welcome, Class of 2029!” BU President Melissa Gilliam said. “Today you officially become members of Boston University. This institution will challenge you in new ways, it will introduce you to new people and ideas and further your understanding of what it means to be a citizen of our complex world. Welcome to this community, this family, this home.” 

Gilliam, presiding over her second Matriculation since she became BU’s 11th president in 2024, described how the University’s core values, its “enduring openness to all people” has been the foundation for some of its greatest accomplishments. 

Under BU’s founding president, William Fairfield Warren, “Boston University admitted students from all backgrounds, because he believed that higher education should be accessible to all, regardless of their identity,” Gilliam told the Agganis audience. 

In 1873, BU became the first American university to exchange professors with European counterparts, and the first US university to admit women to a medical college. In 1877, Helen Magill earned a PhD in Greek from Boston University, becoming the first woman in the United States to earn a doctorate. And the same year, Emanuel Hewlett was the first Black graduate of the BU School of Law and one of the first Black degree recipients of a major US law school. 

“We claim as members of our community some of the great thinkers of our time,” Gilliam said. In addition to one of BU’s most prominent alumni, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS’55, Hon.’59), “we can look to Elie Wiesel [Hon.’74] or Howard Thurman [Hon.’67], people who also faced significant adversity, and yet went on to create positive change in the world,” she said.

“This commitment to openness means that we have a commitment to, and value, each of you. In fact, we delight in the fact that you come from different countries, hold different political viewpoints, practice different religions, and express your identity in different ways. You are now part of this community, and we are better for your presence. We are beholden,” Gilliam added, reiterating a phrase from one of King’s lesser-known speeches. 

While at BU and within the broader University community—one that boasts nearly half a million alumni worldwide—Gilliam urged the new students to try new things, learn from one another, and be willing to make leaps across academic fields of study in order to unlock new ideas. 

“Let me give you some advice: cross disciplines,” she said. “You do not have to choose between the arts and sciences—cross disciplines. You can be a musician and a neuroscientist—cross disciplines. We want you to study broadly and be true Renaissance people who enjoy the humanities, arts, and sciences. That is what Boston University is about.”

A host of other speakers joined Gilliam during the ceremony. Dean of Students Jason Campbell-Foster emceed the event; the Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, dean of Marsh Chapel, delivered the invocation; Neela Agarwal (CAS’25, SPH’28) welcomed the new students on behalf of their peers; Louis Chude Sokei, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of English and the George and Joyce Wein Chair in African American Studies, welcomed them on behalf of the faculty; and University Provost Gloria Waters introduced and formally matriculated the members of the Class of 2029. 

Matriculation is one of the oldest collegiate traditions, with roots in medieval Europe, and students participated in the ceremony to recognize the special status they held in the society of that time. BU faculty and members of the administration wear academic dress and banners representing the University’s undergraduate schools and colleges are displayed. The Matriculation ceremony marks the beginning of the academic year and is the first of only two occasions when an entering class will gather together (the other is Commencement).

Agarwal, who is currently enrolled in a School of Public Health graduate program, was a resident assistant as well as a Scarlet Speaker and Senior Student Admissions Representative for the Undergraduate Admissions office during her undergraduate years. She offered some advice from her vantage point as a recent graduate. 

“First and foremost, say yes. Yes to club meetings, to spontaneous adventures with people on your floor, and especially to opportunities that push you out of your comfort zone. Often, those spontaneous ‘yes’ moments can lead to the best stories, or even lifelong friends,” she said. “Next, let go of the pressure to know everything. Everyone here is figuring it out—one day, one class, one question at a time.”

Agarwal’s last piece of advice? “Ask for help. People here are so excited to help and share resources.”

Chude-Sokei, director of BU’s African American & Black Diaspora Studies program, acknowledged the turbulent national and global environment during which the University’s newest students were beginning their journeys. 

“This may sound like bad news, or daunting,or heavy, but I don’t think it is at all. Certainly not for you. The great thing about beginning college and being fired up with promise and possibility is that you are less likely than we are to be crippled by this historical moment and this cultural climate…. You will—and must—find your way through, as many have done before you, often under harsher circumstances and with far less resources and support. We’re counting on you to do just that, to find a way through. Not a way back, but through,” Chude-Sokei said. 

In a world that is divided and isolated, he championed universities broadly, and BU specifically, as places “that require us to be physically in each other’s presence, that require us to work with each other in person over time as we process new information.” 

That proximity can be messy and disorienting, especially in a society increasingly mediated by screens and technology, Chude-Sokei said, but he encouraged students to push through anyway. 

“Embrace the discomfort. Embrace the awkwardness, and the sense that you are sometimes just embarrassingly wrong. Of course there will be immense joys and pleasures, but you don’t need me to tell you how to deal with joys and pleasures. Accept the mistakes and errors and misunderstandings and rejections and acknowledge that everyone around you is going through the very same thing—even your professors,” he said. “Those feelings are the primary evidence that learning is happening.

Toward the end of the ceremony, the new students from BU’s various schools and colleges were introduced by Waters and their respective deans. Groups of students stood as their school was called, slowly filling Agganis Arena with a crescendo of cheers and applause. Waters then presented the new class to Gilliam for their official introduction to BU. 

“On behalf of Boston University’s Board of Trustees, I hereby formally admit you to student status and declare you matriculated members of the Boston University Class of 2029,” Gilliam said to thunderous applause—and more than a few tears—in the audience of families and friends. “Congratulations! Study hard, and good luck.”