A faculty of over 700 dynamic, knowledgeable teacher/researchers is the lifeblood of BU Arts & Sciences. That is why the college’s administration, academic department chairs, and program directors work hard throughout the year to attract, nurture, and retain promising young faculty members and senior professors.

Faculty Recruitment

During the 2018/19 academic year, CAS hired 35 new faculty members, including 15 lecturers, 18 assistant professors, and two professors of the practice. Of these new hires, eight are in the mathematical and computational sciences, five in the social sciences, three in the natural sciences, 13 in the humanities, two in the interdisciplinary Core Curriculum, and four in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies.

This new group brings a wide range of expertise that will benefit both our students and our research endeavor for years to come. Paula Austin (African American studies and history) specializes in gender, social, and intellectual history and is working on a book about the urban experience of black youth and families. Anne Feng (history of art & architecture), a scholar of medieval Chinese Buddhist art and architecture, has worked at the famed Dunhuang Caves in China. Samia Hesni (philosophy) works on social and political philosophy and has been involved with projects to help prisoners and to improve the foster care system in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Jonathan Huggins (mathematics & statistics) has an interdisciplinary research profile with specializations in statistical machine learning, computational biology, and data science. Joe Larkin, a joint hire between physics and biology, focuses on biophysics and nanotechnology—two growing fields. And Kate Lindsey (linguistics) works on the phonology of the Ende language and has done extensive fieldwork in Papua New Guinea.

Faculty Diversity

Recruiting faculty members from a wide range of ethnic and racial backgrounds is a top priority at CAS. In January 2019, the college formed the CAS Diversity & Inclusion Faculty Advisory Committee (DIFAC), chaired by Associate Dean of the Faculty for the Social Sciences Nazli Kibria. It is an ad hoc committee designed to help the college implement recommendations from the Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Plan, specifically the recommendations related to faculty recruitment and diversity. So far, the eight committee members have focused on: supporting departments and programs in their outreach efforts to diversify their faculty; acting as liaisons with BU Associate Provost for Diversity & Inclusion Crystal Williams; and stewarding the creation of a CAS Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Fund, which will support faculty initiatives related to diversity, especially faculty recruitment. The college will also soon launch a search for an associate dean for diversity & inclusion.

In August 2018, BU joined the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity (NCFDD) as an institutional member for a pilot year. The NCFDD is a nationally recognized, independent organization that provides online career development and mentoring resources for faculty, postdoctorates, and graduate students. There is a long way to go to develop a faculty that is truly diverse and inclusive, but these efforts are the next step in that process.