State of the University, Fall 2022

A letter from Boston University President Robert A. Brown:

October 14, 2022

Dear Colleagues,

We are approaching the halfway point of the fall semester, and to date we have had a very encouraging start. Even with COVID-19 still present, our highly vaccinated (and boosted) community has returned to near-normal activity in our classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and cocurricular settings.

We also have begun the year by naming the School of Medicine with a splendid $100 million endowment grant from Edward Avedisian (CFA’59,’61). What is most remarkable was Ed’s selfless intention to name the school in honor of his childhood friend, Dr. Aram Chobanian (Hon.’06), past dean of the School of Medicine and president emeritus of the University. Ed and Aram grew up on the same street in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, as children of Armenian immigrants. Ed graduated from Boston University and studied performance music and went on to a distinguished career as a clarinetist for the Boston Pops and Boston Ballet orchestras. Aram graduated from Brown University and received his MD from Harvard. He joined the Boston University faculty in 1962 beginning a career as a renowned cardiologist and pioneering researcher in hypertension. He was dean of the School of Medicine from 1988 to 2003, stepping down to serve as interim president of the University at a critical point in our history. In 2005, the Trustees named Aram the ninth president of Boston University in honor of his service.

The income from the endowment established by Mr. Avedisian will support future generations of medical students through need-based financial aid, support our faculty through professorships, and fund new education and research initiatives. We are deeply grateful for this gift and pleased to announce that from now on the school will bear the name: the Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine. Aram worked hard to persuade his friend and our benefactor to allow us to honor his philanthropy by placing his name on the school.

For Fiscal Year 2022 (ending June 30, 2022) we recorded $242 million in cash donations, the largest amount in our history. The continued growth of philanthropic support is an encouraging indication of the momentum that will drive our next comprehensive campaign. As you can tell from our growing fundraising totals, we are building the foundation for this important initiative, with the public launch of the campaign awaiting the new president and a clearer view of the economy.

Alumni Weekend

At the beginning of the month, nearly 2,000 alumni from around the world descended on our campus for Alumni Weekend 2022. After several years of truncated, hybrid, or remote activities, our alumni were delighted to gather in Boston as we were just beginning to savor the crispness of autumn. Events included a 70th anniversary celebration for the College of General Studies, 150th anniversary of the School of Law, and the BU Alumni Association Alumni Awards, as well as various alumni awards ceremonies at the school and college level.

Undergraduate Admissions

The freshman class we welcomed in early September is the most academically accomplished and diverse in our history, coming to Boston University from across the country and around the world. The class also is a bit larger than anticipated as, once again, our yield on offers of admission increased. The class was selected from nearly 81,000 applicants with only 14.4 percent receiving an offer of admission.

A quick summary of the 3,612 freshmen in the Class of 2026 shows that they have an average high school GPA of 3.9. Submission of standardized tests was once again optional; 42 percent of our matriculating students submitted test scores and the average of those scores was 1433.

Our expanded need-based financial aid continues to have a positive impact on access and diversity. The freshman class has 700 Pell Grant recipients (25 percent of the domestic students) and 701 first-generation students (19.4 percent of the class). Students from under-represented groups (including those identifying with two or more races) constitute 24.2 percent of the class or 31 percent of the domestic portion of the freshman class.

These numbers demonstrate our commitment to diversity and ensuring access to the socioeconomic escalator of a high-quality undergraduate degree from Boston University.

Budget and Finances for FY2022 and FY2023

The last academic year, corresponding to Fiscal Year 2022, was complicated by the lingering challenges associated with COVID-19. Because of the efforts of our entire faculty and staff, we successfully navigated the year without significant disruption. These efforts, combined with robust undergraduate and graduate enrollments, led to our concluding the fiscal year in much better position than we expected. We began the fiscal year with a budget approved in April 2021 projecting a deficit of $32 million. We ended the year on June 30, 2022, with $90.9 million in undesignated reserves. In addition, in accordance with our revenue sharing agreements, $98.6 million was returned to schools, colleges, and other units.

For the first time since FY2019, the undesignated reserves allowed the University to return to our established practice of funding capital projects and academic initiatives from these resources. Funding set aside for capital projects totaled $62.2 million, including a special fund for laboratory renovation needed for faculty hiring on the Charles River Campus. Returning to the normal cadence for funding capital projects is especially important because we need to continually improve the nearly 15 million square feet of space that make up the 343 buildings on our campuses. In addition, approximately $17 million was set aside for faculty hiring across the University.

We need to temper the optimism that we might feel about these strong financial results with the recognition of the most significant inflation we have seen in a quarter of a century and the indicators that the economy could be headed for a recession. The recessionary headwinds are evident in the downturn and volatility of the capital markets. Following the endowment’s Fiscal Year 2021 return of 41 percent, the first impact of the recession felt in Fiscal Year 2022 was our endowment recording a loss of approximately 12 percent, ending the year just under $3 billion. By design, we mitigate the volatility of endowment returns with multi-year averaging that we use to determine the distribution rate from the endowment to academic units. We anticipate being able to continue to increase the distribution in the coming year to partially address inflation, even with a decrease in the value of the endowment.

Leadership Transitions

The last year saw several transitions in the senior leadership of the University. Two of our colleagues, Kenneth Elmore, who served as our Dean of Students and Associate Provost for over 19 years, and Crystal Williams, Vice President and Associate Provost for Community & Inclusion, left us to become college presidents. Crystal became president of Rhode Island School of Design in April, and Kenn became president of Dean College in July. We are very proud of Crystal and Kenn and wish them the best success in their new roles; they leave big shoes to fill at Boston University.

This past week University Provost Jean Morrison announced the appointment of Victoria Sahani as Associate Provost for Community & Inclusion at Boston University. Victoria comes to us from Arizona State University, where she is a professor of law and has fulfilled multiple demanding administrative assignments, including university-wide efforts to foster a climate of inclusion. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

This summer also saw the retirement of our longtime colleague Peter Smokowski, who, as Vice President of Auxiliaries, oversaw student dining and housing and managed Agganis Arena and other University properties. Peter was an accomplished leader whose focus on the quality of experience for our students and guests was apparent in everything he did. We are about to conclude the search for Peter’s replacement, and an announcement will be forthcoming.

Two other new leaders joined the University this fall. Wendy Colby joined us as our first Vice President and Associate Provost for BU Virtual, our newly named unit that, in collaboration with our schools and colleges, produces and markets our recent initiative in large-scale, online graduate degrees and certificate programs. The first such program was the Online MBA in the Questrom School of Business, which now enrolls over 1,700 students and has achieved a student retention rate of over 96 percent. The Online Master of Public Health degree program is currently accepting enrollments and will start classes in January. More programs will follow. Wendy joins us with extensive experience in the development of online education; most recently she served as chief executive officer of UMGC Ventures/AccelerEd in College Park, MD, a portfolio of education technology and services businesses affiliated with the University of Maryland Global Campus (serving over 90,000 students) and the broader University System of Maryland’s 12 regional campuses.

Another very important leadership position for the University has been filled. As announced last month, Dr. Nancy J. Sullivan will join the University to become director of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL). She has 23 years of experience in research on the deadliest of infectious diseases and most recently served as chief of the Biodefense Research Section at the Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Nancy will be the first Edward Avedisian Professor of Microbiology in the Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine and Professor of Biology in the College of Arts & Sciences.

The normal rhythms of the terms for leadership have led to the announcements that two deans are planning to step down at the end of the academic year: Jorge Delva, Dean of the School of Social Work, and Christopher Moore, Dean of the College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College. Searches have begun for their successors.

Faculty Awards and Promotions

In the appendix to this letter, we list as we do each year those faculty members who have achieved particular distinction with promotions, invitations to join learned societies, and major awards.

Capital and Software Projects

After the hiatus caused by the pandemic, we are starting several large-scale renovation projects needed across our campuses. On the Charles River Campus, work began this summer on Kilachand Hall to update the 100-year-old brick façade, modernize the elevator, and fully renovate the imposing top-floor common space that was constructed when this building was a premier hotel in Boston. The entire project will take 16 months and is to be completed by September 2023.

The staging on the plaza of the Metcalf Science Center is the first step in upgrading a large portion of the air-handling system for this building. A similar but more extensive project will start soon on the Medical Campus with a total renovation of the air-handling system for the Center for Advanced Biomedical Research (CABR) laboratory building at 700 Albany Street. Although not glamorous, these two projects will contribute significantly to our meeting the goals in our Climate Action Plan (CAP); laboratory buildings are our largest producers of greenhouse gases and our largest energy consumers. We estimate the reduction from upgrading the CABR building to be nearly 2,300 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Several other major projects are also beginning. We are working toward a staged, total renovation of Warren Towers (our biggest undergraduate residence, housing over 1,800 students). This project will take three years to complete and, in addition to many other improvements, includes installation of air-conditioning.

Finally, the long-awaited opening of the Center for Computing & Data Sciences is on schedule for the spring semester, with academic units expected to begin moving into the building in late November in preparation for a January 2023 opening. This remarkable addition to the Charles River Campus will be BU’s first fossil-free, carbon neutral building, adding zero greenhouse gas emissions, providing additional public and classroom space, and serving as the home for our growing initiatives in computing and data sciences.

The development of our new Student Information System (SIS) continues, and we expect the first modules of the system (for student recruitment) to enter into use starting in fall 2023. The new system is scheduled to become the system of record for all our students in June 2024.

Looking Ahead at the Academic Year

It is clear to all that this academic year will have special importance as the Board of Trustees identifies your next president. I am very optimistic about the success of this transition, given the strength of our faculty, staff, and student body; our strong financial foundation; and the ever-increasing stature of the University. I have great confidence in the future for Boston University.

Although the long-term prospects for the University are bright, this year and the next promise to be fiscally challenging. Inflation is taking its toll on everyone in our community, faculty, staff, students, and their parents. As I wrote in April, the University is caught in the vise between rising costs for salaries and benefits—especially healthcare—and the pressure to moderate tuition increases. This combination of inflation and the looming recession will force us to be conservative as we move through this year and launch the budget process for Fiscal Year 2024, which begins on July 1, 2023.

Finally, we have just received the report of the Task Force on Workplace Culture and the results of the Remote Work Survey administered during the summer. Together, these recommendations and survey results will influence our efforts to improve the work environment for staff, while balancing the needs of our students and faculty to create a vibrant and effective residential research university.

I appreciate all your efforts on behalf of Boston University and wish you a great second half of the semester.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Brown
President