Arts & Sciences’ reach gets broader every day.
You’ll find fellow graduates in nearly every corner of the world. Many are steady and generous donors to the College and, while individual philanthropic goals may vary, the collective focus dovetails with the Arts & Sciences mission: attracting and engaging the very best students, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The impact of the gifts highlighted on this page—and the many others that are not—is enormous. Check out the progress of the campaign at www.bu.edu/cas/impactx2—and, if you haven’t already, consider joining these great friends of CAS.
In charge of our future
Ruth Moorman (CAS’88, SED’89,’09) and Sheldon Simon. Photo by David Frey, David Michael Photography
One day, doctoral students will help end health disparities in Boston, raise education standards in America, or reduce the impact of natural disasters across the globe. But first, they have to study, teach, and pay bills.
Ruth Moorman (CAS’88, SED’89,’09) and her husband, Sheldon Simon, have made a gift they say will support the “people in charge of our future.”
The Moorman-Simon Civic Fellowships provide financial support for PhD students whose research and scholarship involve vigorous engagement with civic life and aim to solve critical problems—locally, regionally, and globally. The two-year fellowships are open to doctoral candidates across BU.
Moorman and Simon say that today’s increasingly interdisciplinary universities—and especially BU—present excellent philanthropic opportunities. While clearly needed bricks-and-mortar projects attract many donors, they see supporting PhD students as a fruitful long-term investment in intellectual capital.
“You invest in students who are working at BU, who may not be making industry-level salaries but who are working toward solutions to really tough social problems,” says Moorman, a BU overseer. “These are the people who are in charge of our future, and the more we can support them, the more we’ll move toward solutions to the problems facing our world. The hope is that when they go out into the world, they’ll continue to give back, too.”
Moorman remembers the doctoral students who were teaching assistants in her undergraduate classes at BU. “I didn’t fully understand or appreciate then what they were going through.” While being role models for undergraduates, these students were working, at considerable financial sacrifice, to complete their own academic work.
“A lot of the funding that comes into universities today is aimed at undergraduates,” says Simon. “But you don’t have that same level of support at the doctoral level. It’s a group we want to target so these brilliant people can go out into the world and pursue their passions with less worry about their school debts.”
The 2014 Moorman-Simon Civic Fellow is Kira Sullivan-Wiley (GRS’16). Her research in Uganda examines the effectiveness of information transfer in disaster risk reduction.
Digging deep
Photo courtesy of Maria L. Vecchiotti
For BU’s student archaeologists, classes and field trips are an opportunity to help preserve human history, from Iron Age settlements in Turkey to ancient harbors in Egypt.
When Stephen Tanico (CAS’13) studied with Assistant Professor Michael Danti, an expert on the ancient Near East, he found the work inspiring. Tanico’s enthusiasm soon rubbed off on his mom, Maria L. Vecchiotti: In 2013, she established the Vecchiotti Archaeology Fund at BU. It provides support for faculty and student field research projects in the Middle East that involve survey, excavation, conservation, materials analysis, and heritage management initiatives.
Vecchiotti says the gift fits with her family’s love of history and world travel; it also honors what she’s learned about CAS as a leadership advisory board member. “I see what it really takes to run a university—from the thought given to every single department by its chair, to the amazing courses,” she says. “When I look at the course offerings in archaeology, I honestly want to sign up for every one of them.”