Letter to the Boston University Community
September 7, 2022
Dear Members of the Boston University Community,
Earlier today, President Bob Brown announced his intention to retire at the end of the 2022-2023 academic year. Bob has been an inspirational and transformational leader for Boston University throughout his 17 years, and we are filled with gratitude for his exemplary service. As part of future planning, we have been in discussions with Bob about the appropriate time to consider a leadership change. Given the powerful momentum of the University and the recent completion of the framework for the next phase of the 2030 Strategic Plan, Bob felt we were at the right juncture to plan for his successor. His tenure has been a remarkable period full of achievements—impacting students, faculty, and the community at large.
At the outset in 2005, Bob set Boston University on an upward path that was focused, creative, and ultimately transformative. His leadership has elevated Boston University’s stature in the most essential areas that augment the quality of higher education and research and establish a culture of excellence across the board. Bob’s many accomplishments importantly include:
- Building an infrastructure to support world-class research, resulting in our 2012 admission to the Association of American Universities (AAU) and a record-breaking $630 million in federal research expenditures in fiscal year 2022.
- Unprecedented resourcing of need-based financial aid, resulting in a transformational increase in the number of Pell Grant students and underrepresented minorities attending BU.
- Leading BU’s first capital campaign, which brought $1.8 billion to support teaching, research, and financial aid.
- Promoting interdisciplinary focus through faculty appointments, special awards, and the creation of collaborative centers such as the Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering, the Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, as well as the construction of cutting-edge facilities for their work.
- Driving innovation in undergraduate education exemplified by the BU Hub, a new and unique vision for undergraduate general education, and Innovate@BU, with its singular focus on providing an undergraduate experience that is immersed in the techniques of innovation and entrepreneurial thinking.
- Enhancing the University’s presence in Boston through the addition of the Fenway Campus, resulting from the merger of Wheelock College into BU’s School of Education, with a mission of training new generations of scholars and teachers to pursue community-building, equity, and justice-oriented education to benefit the City of Boston and beyond.
- Furthering our historical commitment to social justice and racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity by launching the Center for Antiracist Research with founder and Director Ibram X. Kendi, opening the Newbury Center for first generation students, and investing heavily in the new Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground.
Bob also put the University at the forefront of fighting new and dangerous infectious diseases. He led a years-long effort which, in 2017, led to the approval of bio-safety level 4 research at BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, a move that solidified the University’s place as one of the leading worldwide centers for the research of infectious diseases. And in 2019, his leadership made BU a role model in its response to COVID-19. He opened our own COVID-19 testing lab and put in place unprecedented processes that included PCR testing, contact tracing, mandated masking, and vaccination requirements—a well-coordinated effort that kept safe the students, faculty, and staff who returned to campus.
Most of the BU community is familiar with such examples of Bob’s higher-profile accomplishments, but many of Bob’s most transformative endeavors never made the headlines. He empowered the faculty in unprecedented ways; he enabled and encouraged them to pursue research and creative work in ways that are consistent with the best AAU universities. He brought the best of higher education management principles to BU, applied them in consistent, creative, and ambitious ways. In doing so, he transformed the University into one of the leading urban research and teaching institutions in the world today. Our academic and administrative leadership teams are strong, our finances solid, our student body superb, and the 2030 Strategic Plan remains our North Star.
Later this week we will share details about the upcoming presidential search. We look forward to engaging the participation of the BU community in that process.
Sincerely,
Kenneth J. Feld
Chair
Board of Trustees
Ahmass L. Fakahany
Chair-Elect
Board of Trustees