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 anxiety. As we move toward the middle of the fall semester, operating with COVID-19 in our midst, I want to focus on where we are and what the coming months may bring.

In a year of challenge, there are positive highlights worthy of mention. In March we successfully pivoted from our residential, in-person educational model to fully remote teaching. We accomplished this massive transition in a matter of days. Our success is a tribute to the extraordinary efforts of our faculty and the amazing work of our information technology staff who facilitated the transition.

Through the summer, we worked tirelessly to prepare to repopulate our campuses for in-person learning and residential life. This was an enormous undertaking, requiring sustained commitment from virtually everyone in our community. From faculty adapting to the Learn from Anywhere (LfA) mode of instruction, to the facilities team enhancing ventilation in our buildings, to the work of the task force which developed our exceptional capacity to test our students, faculty, and staff, our preparations required sustained energy and commitment from all across the University. One unheralded, but very necessary, accomplishment was the work of our housing and facilities/custodial staff to box the belongings of 6,581 students who could not return to campus in March and whose belongings were left in our residence halls. Some 49,492 boxes were either shipped to students or put in storage and then delivered to students’ rooms as they returned to campus. This formidable effort took four months and had to be completed so our residences could be prepared for the fall.

Where are we now? Throughout August we moved students onto campus in size-limited cohorts and used testing and quarantining to minimize the number of infected people in our community at the start of the fall semester. This strategy worked, with a low number of infections indicated on September 1. A month later, we are averaging (seven-day average) only 1.57 new cases per day, with the majority of these cases attributed to students, faculty, and staff bringing the infection into the BU community. Compliance with testing, attestation, and our size restrictions on gatherings has been encouraging (see the weekly reports in BU Today) and is improving as people learn the protocols. Continued diligence by all of us is critical to our success. It is too early to claim with confidence that we will make it through the entire semester, but we are off to a good start.

Even with the protocols we have put in place, there is still significant anxiety among students about returning to campus, and especially about returning to the classroom. The LfA option has given our students the choice to study remotely for the entire semester, but also has given our residential students the choice—on a daily basis (and class by class)—either to attend class in person or to participate remotely. Interestingly, our residential students have been alternating back and forth between these options. My hope is that, as we control the virus and students (and faculty) are reminded of the vibrancy of in-class engagement, we will see an increase in the in-person attendance rates.

We will continue to refine and optimize our classroom environment throughout the fall. We are already starting to plan for the spring semester. I believe our operating model for spring will need to follow the model we implemented this fall: control of the virus in our community will require all the on-campus protocols we are now using, including our rigorous testing and contact tracing regimens. There is room to improve what we are doing; I have asked our leadership to identify the changes that we should make for the spring to improve the experience for our students, faculty, and staff.

The details of our enrollments for the fall are described below. You will see that our enrollments are very strong, compared to our July estimates. The number of students living on campus is lower than we estimated, creating a budget issue, but with the positive side effect that we could easily de-densify spaces in our residence halls. Obscured by the necessary focus on COVID-related work to restore our campuses has been the fact that this year’s freshman class is the first in our history for which we meet the full financial need for all domestic students. We are projecting that our undergraduate financial aid budget for this year will be $335 million, up $36 million from last year (a 12 percent increase).

There are some notable changes in the composition of the freshman class. This year 20 percent (575) of our freshmen are Pell Grant recipients, and 17 percent (516) of our domestic students are in the first generation from their families to go to college. Our new First Generation Center will open this spring to augment our support of these students.

There remains considerable uncertainty about how the fall, and then the spring, will turn out. The University’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget will be driven by these outcomes. But I am encouraged by how things have worked in the early weeks of this semester.

All across our campuses there are discussions and activities focused on ending systemic racism. My goal—and I believe a collective objective for the University—is to build sustainable organizations to drive meaningful, long-term change. The announcements of the appointment of Andrea Taylor as Senior Diversity Officer for the University, the promotion of Crystal Williams to Vice President and Associate Provost for Community & Inclusion, and the establishment last week of the Antiracism Working Group are all steps in this direction. We also announced that the Boston University Board of Trustees is making diversity and inclusion a focus of its oversight by establishing a standing committee of the Board for this purpose.

I am very pleased that Boston University is moving to make antiracist research a core strength of the University, catalyzed by the recruitment this year of Ibram X. Kendi as the Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and as the founding Director of the Center for Antiracist Research. We have the opportunity to lead nationally in this critical area of research and policy.

Finally, in the midst of all the turmoil we have experienced since March, we should not forget the excellent work of Sue Kennedy, Interim Associate Provost for Undergraduate Affairs, and many others, that led to the very successful conclusion of our accreditation review by NECHE (New England Commission of Higher Education). The report of the review committee documents our progress on many fronts and validates the focused and creative work of faculty and staff in all areas of Boston University.

Fiscal Year 2020 Finances

We closed Fiscal Year 2020 in sound condition, especially considering the enormous disruption caused by the onset of the pandemic. After shuttering our campuses in March, refunding room and board revenues, and discontinuing clinical activities across the University (this does not include any Boston Medical Center clinical losses), the University was down in revenue by $60.8 million, compared to our budget forecast prior to the pandemic. But we were able to decrease expenses by $80 million because of the controls and mitigating measures we put in place starting in March. The result was that we closed with reserves of $149.9 million, down from $211.8 million last year. Overall this was a good result.

Of the year-end reserves, $56 million was either returned to schools and colleges according to revenue-sharing agreements or directed to teaching- and research-strategic initiatives, and $93.9 million went to funding capital projects that we had begun before the pandemic (and in which we have sunk costs) and that are critical for faculty hiring and retention.

Enrollments and Budget for FY2021

Our current fiscal year (2021) budget is very much a work in progress. We began the year with COVID-19 and worked in May and June to revise our budgets incorporating estimates for revenue losses from across the University, including predicted lower enrollments, especially by international students. We made many hard choices to produce a revised budget to launch the fiscal year in July.

From this revision, we spent the summer preparing for the fall and communicating with our students. Our results are encouraging. Let me begin by discussing our undergraduate students. The return of undergraduates has exceeded our expectation, with over 97 percent returning, either in person or remotely.

Our freshman class is approximately 2,900 students, down approximately 6.5 percent from our April target. They are academically excellent; their median high school GPA is 3.80 and they have a median SAT score of 1410. Academically, this class passed through two milestones. It is our first class where over 90 percent of the class has over a 3.5 high school GPA. It also is our first class where over 50 percent (actually 54 percent) have over a 3.75 high school GPA.

COVID-19 has complicated graduate enrollment in every imaginable way. Most centrally, programs that commonly have disproportionately international-student-heavy populations have suffered as a result of pandemic-related travel and visa restrictions. Master’s degree programs in Economics, Computer Science, and Engineering typically have robust enrollments, but fell short of their plans this year. By contrast, many programs in the School of Theology, the School of Public Health, and Wheelock met or exceeded their targets. Overall, BU’s graduate and professional programs (non-PhD) enrolled 87 percent of our University-wide target, despite the substantial challenges we faced.

As the fall has unfolded, the larger than expected enrollments have been offset by the lower than expected number of students in Boston University housing. Overall, our housing occupancy is approximately 67 percent, compared to our expectation of 90 percent, resulting in a decline of an additional $73 million of gross revenue over the full year.

We also are projecting approximately $71 million in one-time COVID costs. This estimate includes everything we are doing to protect our students, staff, and faculty.

There is considerable uncertainty about the bottom line for FY2021. Taking into account the impacts described above and many others and, after utilizing all the reserves designated for University use to close the gap, we still are negative by approximately $30 million, on the basis of our internal or funds accounting. This estimate assumes that we remain residential and that our estimates for enrollments, on and off campus, hold for the spring as well. As I said above, there is much uncertainty.

A bright spot in the midst of uncertainty is that our endowment return is estimated at 7.6 percent (the final numbers will not be available for several months). It appears that this return will put us near the top quartile of the endowments above $1 billion; at the end of June, our endowment stood at $2.441 billion.

Research

COVID-19 disrupted our research enterprise; laboratories and offices were shuttered for almost three months. Our necessarily cautious and systematic repopulation of laboratories still keeps them below full capacity. Progress on projects and completion of theses has (understandably) slowed, especially for laboratory scientists. And those doing field research lost the entire summer. We are still working to understand the consequences of this slowdown for our graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and faculty.

In the face of these challenges our faculty successfully competed for externally sponsored research support. In Fiscal Year 2020 faculty members were awarded $574.1 million. In addition to the continued research activity all across our campuses, I want to highlight the enormous effort by our faculty, especially in the Boston University School of Medicine, to pivot to COVID-19 research. Early in the pandemic, faculty in the NEIDL (National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories) began research using the live virus. The investigators engaged in COVID-19 research are making an impact; over 270 publications related to the virus have been produced on the Medical Campus.

Awards, Promotions, and Faculty Hiring

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.

Of particular note are the two faculty members named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: College of Arts & Sciences Professor of African American Studies and History Linda Heywood and College of Arts & Sciences Professor of African American Studies and History John Thornton. And many of you will have read about the work of Professor Ibram X. Kendi, who—as mentioned earlier—heads our new Center for Antiracist Research. In July, he was named the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Professor of History, College of Arts & Sciences.

Development and Alumni Relations

It seems like ages ago that we completed the University’s first-ever comprehensive campaign, but it was just last September, when we celebrated raising $1.85 billion, a result that well exceeded our original $1 billion goal. The impact of the campaign has been well documented throughout the year and especially in last year’s Annual Report.

As expected following a long campaign, we saw a significant drop in Fiscal Year 2020 in new pledges to the University; $118.4 million in new pledges was received compared to $208.4 million the year before. The University received the largest amount of cash in its history, $179.2 million, BU’s best-ever fundraising cash year.

Karen Engelbourg took the reins as Senior Vice President for Development & Alumni Relations last October and is working with her team to prepare us for an aggressive fundraising future. There are other leadership changes in Development & Alumni Relations. Beth McDermott joined us in the spring from Harvard Business School as Vice President for Development, taking on Karen’s previous role. And earlier this fall Steve Hall, Vice President for Alumni Relations, announced that he will retire in January. A search is underway to fill his position.

Capital Projects

Our plans for physical improvements to our campuses have been slowed by COVID-19 and by the pressure created on our budget. Before COVID-19 struck in March we had opened the new Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground in renovated space at 808 Commonwealth Avenue; we were just learning how the expanded program for the Thurman Center would function in this open and welcoming space. The adjacent space for the CFA art gallery is currently a testing collection site for our COVID-19 testing effort.

The renovation of the first floor of 855 Commonwealth Avenue, the home for the College of Fine Arts, was stalled by the pandemic shutdown and was only completed during the summer. In addition to the improvements in program space for CFA, the restoration of the windows on the Commonwealth Avenue side of the building brings in more natural light and makes the building more open and inviting.

The expansion and renovation of the building for the Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine was also delayed, but has begun again, with completion scheduled now for July 2021. The exterior of the expanded building is complete, with the school’s entrance now on Albany Street.

Finally, although contracting and purchasing for the Center for Computing & Data Sciences was well along in the spring, the pandemic delayed the start of construction by three months. The project is now well underway, with excavation scheduled to be completed this fall, followed by construction of the core of the high-rise portion of the structure. By this time next year, the exterior of the building should be complete.

I will conclude by expressing my gratitude to everyone who has with imagination, patience, good humor, and plain hard work, made it possible for us to navigate the stormy and uncharted waters of a year fundamentally disrupted by a global virus and unsettling national events. It’s a privilege for me to work with you.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Brown
President

Faculty: New Appointments, Honors, and Awards

A number of outstanding senior faculty have joined the University, including:

• Ibram X. Kendi, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, Professor of History, College of Arts & Sciences
• Jasmine Gonzales Rose, Professor of Law, School of Law
• Christopher Robertson, Professor of Law, School of Law
• Bin Gu, Professor of Information Systems, Questrom School of Business
• Abraham Seidmann, Professor of Information Systems, Questrom School of Business
• Alan Moss, Professor of Medicine in Gastroenterology, School of Medicine
• Ala Nozari, Professor of Anesthesiology, School of Medicine
• Edwin van den Heuvel, Professor of Medicine in Preventive Medicine & Epidemiology, School of Medicine; Professor of Biostatistics, School of Public Health
• Sushrut Waikar, Norman G. Levinsky Professor of Medicine in Nephrology, School of Medicine
• Stephen Wilson, Professor of Family Medicine, School of Medicine
• Lan Zhou, Professor of Neurology, School of Medicine
• Philip Stashenko, Professor of Translational Dental Medicine, Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine
• Gregory Wellenius, Professor of Environmental Health, School of Public Health

Our faculty members continue to garner external recognition. Awards and honors bestowed on them over the past year include:

• College of Arts & Sciences Professor of African American Studies and History Linda Heywood and College of Arts & Sciences Professor of African American Studies and History John Thornton were elected as members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
• Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities Ibram X. Kendi was named to Time’s 2020 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
• College of Arts & Sciences Associate Professor of Chemistry Ksenia Bravaya was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship.
• College of Engineering Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Ahmad ‘Mo’ Khalil was appointed as a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow by the US Department of Defense.
• Six faculty members received Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation: Jennifer Balakrishnan, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics; Samuel Bazzi, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Economics; Manuel Egele, College of Engineering Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering; Wanzheng Hu, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Physics, Materials Science & Engineering; Xi Lin, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science & Engineering; Gianluca Stringhini, College of Engineering Assistant Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering.
• Xin Zhang, College of Engineering Professor of Mechanical, Biomedical, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, was elected as a National Academy of Inventors Fellow.
• Vivek Goyal, College of Engineering Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, was named an Optical Society Fellow.
• College of Engineering Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering Roscoe Giles was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
• College of Engineering Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering Muhammad Zaman and College of Arts & Sciences Creative Writing Lecturer Sigrid Nunez received Guggenheim Fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
• David Coleman, John Wade Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, received the Robert H. Williams, MD, Distinguished Chair of Medicine Award from the Association of Professors of Medicine (APM).
• Shoumita Dasgupta, Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, was awarded a Fulbright Specialist Award to Egypt at Ain Shams University.
• School of Medicine Professor of Pediatrics Deborah Frank received the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Special Award for Excellence in Medical Service.
• Ann McKee, William Fairfield Warren Professor of Neurology and Pathology and Director of the BU CTE Center, School of Medicine, was named a 2019 Service to America Medalist and received the Paul A. Volcker Career Achievement Medal from the Partnership for Public Service.
• School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Medicine Joshua Barocas received the Herbert W. Nickens Faculty Fellowship, an annual award by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for a junior faculty member demonstrating leadership in addressing disparities in medical education and healthcare.

Boston University granted many faculty awards and honors over the past year, which include:

• The 2020 Metcalf Cup and Prize recipient was Sarah Sherman-Stokes, School of Law Clinical Associate Professor of Law. The 2020 Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching recipients were Courtney Goto, School of Theology Associate Professor of Religious Education, and Seth Blumenthal, College of Arts & Sciences Senior Lecturer in the Writing Program.
• School of Medicine Professor of Ophthalmology Stephen Christiansen was named Helen L. and Sherwood J. Tarlow Chair of Ophthalmology.
• College of Fine Arts Professor of Music Martin Amlin was appointed Mildred P. Gilfillan Professor of Music.
• School of Law Professor Danielle Citron was selected as the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Law.
• School of Medicine Associate Professor of Medicine Weining Lu was named BU Innovator of the Year.
• The University Lecture in fall 2019 was presented by Muhammad Zaman, College of Engineering Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health, titled “The Quest for Ethical Solutions for the Global Refugee Crisis.”
• College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College Clinical Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy Nancy Lowenstein was the recipient of the 2020 Undergraduate Academic Advising Award for Faculty.
• A Peter Paul Career Development Professorship was awarded to Jessica Petrick, School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Medicine.
• A Moorman-Simon Interdisciplinary Career Development Professorship was awarded to David Horacio Colmenares, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Spanish.
• A David R. Dalton Career Development Professorship was awarded to Emma Lejeune, College of Engineering Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
• An Innovation Career Development Professorship was awarded to Joseph Larkin, College of Arts & Sciences Assistant Professor of Biology and Physics.
• Abbas Attarwala, College of Arts & Sciences Computer Science lecturer, received the 2020 Gerald and Deanne Gitner Family Award for Innovation in Teaching with Technology.
• School of Public Health Professor of Epidemiology Matthew Fox received the 2020 University Provost’s Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award.

The following faculty members were promoted to the rank of professor:

Linda Doerrer, Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences

Abigail Gillman, World Languages & Literatures, College of Arts & Sciences

Cheryl Knott, Anthropology, College of Arts & Sciences

Mark Kramer, Mathematics & Statistics, College of Arts & Sciences

Timothy Longman, Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences

Cathal Nolan, History, College of Arts & Sciences

Merav Opher, Astronomy, College of Arts & Sciences

Zhongjun Qu, Economics, College of Arts & Sciences

Nancy Smith-Hefner, Anthropology, College of Arts & Sciences

Ian Sue Wing, Earth & Environment, College of Arts & Sciences

Maciej Szczesny, Mathematics & Statistics, College of Arts & Sciences

Evimaria Terzi, Computer Science, College of Arts & Sciences

Alice Tseng, History of Art & Architecture, College of Arts & Sciences

Sean Andersson, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Vivek Goyal, Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Rhetoric, College of General Studies

Gael Orsmond, Occupational Therapy, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College

Tamar Barlam, Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine

Gerald Denis, Medicine and Pharmacology, School of Medicine

Rachel Fearns, Microbiology, School of Medicine

Yang Jin, Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care, School of Medicine

Judith Linden, Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine

Elizabeth Stier, Obstetrics & Gynecology, School of Medicine

Dawne Vogt, Psychiatry, School of Medicine

Renda Wiener, Pulmonary, Allergy, Sleep & Critical Care, School of Medicine

Wendy Qiu, Psychiatry, School of Medicine

Andrew Shenton, School of Theology

Beth Warren, Language & Literacy, Wheelock College of Education & Human Development

The following faculty members were promoted to the rank of associate professor:

Kimberly Arkin, Anthropology, College of Arts & Sciences

Ksenia Bravaya, Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences

Charles Chang, Linguistics, College of Arts & Sciences

Ian Davison, Biology, College of Arts & Sciences

Katherine Einstein, Political Science, College of Arts & Sciences

Catherine Espaillat, Astronomy, College of Arts & Sciences

Kirill Korolev, Physics and Bioinformatics , College of Arts & Sciences

Siu-Cheong Lau, Mathematics & Statistics, College of Arts & Sciences

Christopher Laumann, Physics, College of Arts & Sciences

Alexander Nikolaev, Classical Studies and Linguistics, College of Arts & Sciences

Juan Ortner, Economics, College of Arts & Sciences

Ana-María Reyes, History of Art & Architecture, College of Arts & Sciences

Michelle Amazeen, Mass Communications, Advertising & Public Relations, College of Communication

Christopher Wells, Journalism and Emerging Media Studies, College of Communication

Chuanhua Duan, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Emily Ryan, Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering

Michelle Sander, Electrical & Computer Engineering, College of Engineering

Kirsten Greenidge, Theatre, College of Fine Arts

Brenda Heaton, Health Policy & Health Services Research, Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine

Canan Gunes Corlu, Administrative Sciences, Metropolitan College

Jeremy Menchik, International Studies, Pardee School of Global Studies

Pnina Feldman, Operations & Technology Management, Questrom School of Business

Tyler Perrachione, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College

Michael Alosco, Neurology, School of Medicine

Nahid Bhadelia, Medicine in Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine

Sarabeth Broder-Fingert, Pediatrics in General Pediatrics, School of Medicine

Laurie Douglass, Pediatrics and Neurology, School of Medicine

Neil Ganem, Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics and Medicine, School of Medicine

Joel Henderson, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine

Karen Jacobson, Medicine in Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine

Caroline Kistin, Pediatrics in General Pediatrics, School of Medicine

Vyacheslav Labunskyy, Dermatology, School of Medicine

Allison Larson, Dermatology, School of Medicine

James McPhee, Surgery, School of Medicine

Jesse Mez, Neurology, School of Medicine

Karen Mitchell, Psychiatry, School of Medicine

Suzanne Pineles, Psychiatry in General Psychiatry, School of Medicine

Jose Romero, Neurology, School of Medicine

Teviah Sachs, Surgery in Surgical Oncology, School of Medicine

Thor Stein, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine

Chadi Tannoury, Orthopaedic Surgery, School of Medicine

Ludovic Trinquart, Biostatistics, School of Public Health

Monica Wang, Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health

Yoonsook Ha, Social Welfare Policy, School of Social Work

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