Jean Morrison is a metamorphic petrologist, someone who studies how the Earth’s crust evolves over time. Before she became BU’s provost and chief academic officer in 2011, she taught at the University of Southern California and was an administrator there. Her large, white-paneled office on the eighth floor of One Silber Way offers glimpses of her earlier life—rare crystals, textbooks, and reference guides. One rock even does double duty as a book end. A pristine inscribed tool sits on a shelf.

“That’s a rock hammer I was given when I left the University of Southern California,” Morrison says. “You use it out in the field to break off weathered surfaces of rock. My regular rock hammer is all beat up and worn.”

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