Plans for Commencement 2021
February 25, 2021 Dear Prospective May 2021 Graduates and Families, We have begun the spring 2021 semester with signs of hope after the protracted disruption and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am proud of how well our students have adjusted and adapted, sometimes on short notice, to remote and hybrid learning, to our testing […]
Vaccine Distribution at Boston University
January 14, 2021 Dear Members of the Boston University Community, The new year is with us. I, like many of you, have never been so pleased to turn the page on the calendar. We are starting the spring semester after a holiday intersession like no other we have experienced. Many have spent the holidays isolated […]
Yesterday’s Events in Washington
January 7, 2021 Dear Members of the Boston University Community: January 6, 2021 will go down in history as one of the darkest days in the United States since our founding. Yesterday’s violent occupation of our Capitol in Washington by a mob was an attack on our democracy. I condemn it, as should all Americans […]
Establishment of Community Safety Advisory Group
December 7, 2020 Dear Boston University Community, In a letter to the community on June 23, I took the first step toward establishing a Community Safety Advisory Group to advise me, our Chief of Police Kelly Nee, and University leadership on how members of the Boston University Police Department and the University’s public safety officers […]
A Thanksgiving Message from President Brown
November 25, 2020 Dear Members of the Boston University Community, We face a Thanksgiving Day like no other we have seen in our lifetime. During a holiday when we look forward to being with family and friends, sharing a wonderfully American meal, and counting the blessings of friendship, peace, and good health, we will have […]
Approaching the Presidential Election
October 26, 2020 Dear Friends, We are fast approaching a presidential election that is, I believe, the most consequential in a century. I know many of you are deeply immersed in the issues and concerned about the challenges we face as a nation. And you see deep divisions, driven by inequities in our society, and […]
COVID-19 Responsibility and Compliance
October 20, 2020 Dear Boston University Students, We are writing to reinforce the importance of complying with all the testing requirements and distance and gathering protocols we have put in place to keep our community safe from COVID-19. If you look at our dashboard, you will see a very worrisome increase in the daily numbers […]
Election Day, Guidance for Supervisors
October 14, 2020 Dear Colleagues, We are approaching one of the most important elections in American history, one that will determine our direction and leadership during a time of national emergency and world disruption. It is critically important that all of us take the opportunity to vote. Although I expect that many of us have […]
Planning for the Spring Semester
October 13, 2020 Dear Colleagues, As you receive this letter, we are well into the fall semester. We have returned to our campuses after months away and we are learning—perforce—to teach and conduct research with the presence and risk of COVID-19. The many months of hard work needed to redesign almost every element of campus […]
State of the University, Fall 2020
October 2, 2020 Dear Colleagues, Each fall I write to you to recap the preceding academic year and to offer a preview of the coming year. It is difficult to do this in early October of 2020. From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have—as a community—had to deal with disruption, uncertainty, and understandable […]