As interim dean over the past year, I have come to appreciate much more fully the impact our work has on the broader world. And I have gained even greater respect for the work our faculty and staff do week by week to keep BU Arts & Sciences moving forward. Now that I have been given the privilege to lead the college and graduate school on a longer-term basis, I look forward to working with my colleagues to fulfill our mission to expand human knowledge, solve pressing problems, and educate future generations of leaders and citizens.
In the coming year, I look forward to tackling a wide range of goals. We will conduct thorough and proactive faculty searches to continue bringing the best and brightest to BU while working toward a faculty that better reflects the gender, ethnic, and racial composition of our society and student body. We will forge new partnerships with alums, parents, and others to expand support for our strategic priorities, such as need-based scholarships. We will work with academic departments and programs as well as administrative offices to strengthen our undergraduate and graduate curricula, support services, and learning opportunities outside the classroom. And we will continue to find better ways to support our faculty and student researchers as they work to address pressing global challenges from multi-disciplinary perspectives: philosophical, historical, computational, psychological, biological, etc.
This summer I held listening sessions with over a dozen administrative offices and was struck by the enthusiasm, aspiration, and commitment to the broader CAS community that emerged as a common thread. This fall I will convene listening sessions with other stakeholders, including alums. The goal is to better understand the needs of our wide-ranging college in order to best formulate goals and objectives for our next strategic plan. I look forward to reporting back on what I learn and on the major themes that emerge from these meetings.
As dean, I hope to serve as both a facilitator and a leader, and I sincerely welcome input and questions from the CAS community as we go along.
Stan Sclaroff,
Dean of Arts & Sciences
Boston University