After more than seven years leading the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Dean Virginia Sapiro is stepping back to resume her scholarly career. She leaves a strong legacy: 184 new faculty members, 17 new undergraduate majors, significant investments in programs and research, and a culture of openness and transparency. More than 20,000 students received degrees from CAS/GRS during her tenure. She spoke with arts&sciences about her time as dean, the opportunities that await the College, and her own plans.

You talk a lot about making a difference, having an impact. What are the areas of your biggest impact?

The most profound and lasting change is surely the changed population of the faculty—more than one-third of our current faculty was not here when I arrived. This new generation is an incredibly impressive group of scholars and teachers by every measure. They will ultimately take their place as the leadership of this University. We have also given better support to our faculty. We created better opportunities for research across the disciplines, for example by transforming the BU Center for the Humanities into a real research center and working with the provost to become full partners in the Discovery Channel Telescope. Many faculty tell me that I have made the CAS culture more open, transparent, and respectful.

We have made a huge difference in the undergraduate experience by improving pedagogy and our curriculum, especially at the gateway level; creating a much better and more responsive advising system; supporting the travel needs of students for their research; and creating the CAS First Year Experience—a crucial move to ensure our undergraduates get a great start. The success is in the numbers: both demand for places in CAS and retention have risen beautifully. We have launched important new graduate degree programs and worked hard to modernize and improve those that we have.

We have successfully closed in on our goal in the Campaign for CAS, largely because we have engaged CAS alumni as never before. This is so important for the future of CAS. There are many other changes, too numerous to name, all based on our careful strategic planning of 2010 and the ongoing discussions and academic program reviews. And I’ve tried to add some fun and humor into our work.

The College of Arts & Sciences is huge—23 departments, over 40 programs and centers, a theater, 38 buildings. How did you keep up with this, let alone keep moving it forward?

You have to love to learn in order to take on this job—both because learning is CAS’ core mission and because success requires constant learning and stretching for better understanding. I have a few favorite routes to success. I ask lots of questions, listen carefully, then ask more questions. I study research and writing on national and international trends and debates in higher education and the fields CAS covers. But probably most important, I built a strong college leadership structure at the central, department, and program levels and filled it with fabulous people. Bunches of brains are better than one. Teamwork is a crucial part of excellent leadership.

Of course, it is a joy to devote so much time to educating myself about the many fields of CAS and working with so many smart people in so many disciplines. In a way, being dean is the epitome of a liberal arts education. But I don’t have to be an expert in a field to make wise decisions as long as I know what questions to ask, how to listen, and have good decision-making processes in place. If that were not true, it would be impossible for any human being to be a good dean of a college of arts and sciences anywhere.

“YOU HAVE TO LOVE TO LEARN IN ORDER TO TAKE ON THIS JOB—BOTH BECAUSE LEARNING IS CAS’ CORE MISSION AND BECAUSE SUCCESS REQUIRES CONSTANT LEARNING.” —Dean Virginia Sapiro

If you had decided to keep going longer, what might you have done next?

There’s so much more to be done to continue notching up the quality and impact of all aspects of our mission, especially undergraduate and graduate education and research, and there are so many ways that can be accomplished. Luckily, CAS will be an engaging place for a very long time to come, leaving much for the next dean—and the next, and the next—to do.

What’s next for you?

While on sabbatical next year, I am going to rebuild my scholarly career. I have many ideas for research projects. Some I started before I came here, for example on a history of forms of political action in the US, and on generational differences in how people understand our political parties. A big one is new, and might come first: I have some hypotheses about how our unique system of higher education developed—it’s pretty original in the first place to call it a “system”—and its implications for the future of education in the US. I will also be developing my repertoire of courses to teach in the future. Stay tuned in 2016 for my Election Campaign Practicum and maybe my Traditions of Feminist Theory. But with my life somewhat more my own, there’s also a lot of gardening, cooking, travelling, paying attention to my family and friends and—oh, my goodness—reading real books.