Congratulations on finishing the fall semester, and thank you for a great year. We have accomplished much and have plans to make next year even better for the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Boston University. For a fact-filled and entertaining review of what we accomplished in the past year, I highly recommend you read our Annual Report. It will fill you with pride.
Next year will bring many challenges and opportunities to make our College even better–more diverse, inclusive, and cohesive. As you know from our discussions in faculty meetings over the past semester, we will be working hard in 2017 to:
- implement the BU Hub and create a distinctive arts & sciences path for CAS undergraduates;
- update our bylaws, which date from the mid-nineties;
- create a diversity and inclusion strategic plan for CAS;
- come to terms with new unions.
Meanwhile, our ongoing work of educating students, making discoveries and creating new knowledge, hiring and mentoring new faculty and staff, and growing our financial and capital resources continues apace. I look forward to working with all of you to build on our successes in the year ahead.
I also want to bring to your attention an exciting project that will start to take tangible form during Intersession. We are building, with donor funding, a beautiful and functional space where our undergraduate students can gather, study, collaborate, and relax. The CAS Think Tank will be located across from the Dean’s Office in 725 Commonwealth Avenue, where the BU Center for the Humanities (BUCH) has been housed. This location lies along a bustling thoroughfare for students between classes and for Admissions tours. CAS students have been asking for just such a space to call their own—and it’s clear, when you see them sitting on the corridor floors between classes, that they need it. BUCH will relocate effective December 23rd, 2016 to B02 and B03 with a private conference room in B01 at 725 Commonwealth Avenue (CAS), while we engage in a long-term fundraising project to develop a signature building to house their growing mission.
Our successes are collective successes. None of this would be possible without the hard, intelligent work and commitment of our faculty, staff, and students. It is a privilege to be your Dean. Thank you for all you do and Happy Holidays.