Providing our Humanities Students with the Resources They Need to Be Successful
Generations of BU students can attest to it: CAS has deep and broad expertise across the many branches of the humanities. That has never been more true than it is today.
For example: Carrie Preston was recently named director of the Kilachand Honors College at BU; for a decade, she has brought into CAS classrooms highly original scholarship on modernist literature, gender theory, and modern drama and performance. Kecia Ali teaches classes on Islam, and conducts research focusing on Islamic law, women and gender, ethics, and biography. Classicist James Uden writes and researches Latin literature and is an expert on the cultural history of the Roman Empire. Contemporary poet and novelist Ha Jin, director of our creative writing program, brings to the classroom a deep knowledge of Chinese cultural history (with China an important international demographic for BU). Susan Mizruchi, director of the Boston University Center for the Humanities, works between disciplines in the humanities, focusing on the intersection of social, religious, and literary studies.
A Partnership Opportunity
Our immediate goal here is to raise $3 million to support the BU Center for the Humanities (BUCH) by enabling us to establish and renovate a physical space on campus for the humanities—a benefit that CAS has long sought and can now look forward to enjoying—and by providing fellowships to graduate students and faculty in the humanities. CAS offers an education at the highest levels of quality, an expensive standard to establish and sustain. We need to do all we can to minimize the debt burdens of our graduating humanities students, to help them go on to do great things in whatever field they pursue.