Meet Melissa L. Gilliam, Boston University’s 11th President
Photo by Janice Checchio
Boston University Names Melissa L. Gilliam 11th President
Scholar and physician (and arts-loving ceramicist) Dr. Gilliam brings a passion for the arts and humanities along with two decades of higher education leadership
On Wednesday, October 4, 2023, Boston University trustees announced that Dr. Melissa L. Gilliam, the executive vice president and provost of The Ohio State University and a distinguished educator, scholar, research scientist, and physician, will be Boston University’s 11th president. She will assume the post on July 1, 2024.
A national leader in faculty recruitment and student success and a champion of diversity and inclusion, Gilliam is also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and of pediatrics whose scholarship focuses on developing interventions to promote adolescent health and well-being. Beyond her background in science and medicine, Gilliam, who studied English literature at Yale and got her Master of Arts in philosophy and politics from University of Oxford, says she was raised to embrace the societal importance of arts and culture. Her late father was a pioneering abstract painter who was known for a career of continuous experimentation and innovation. And her mother was a trailblazing journalist and the first Black female reporter hired by the Washington Post. Her parents instilled in her an intellectual curiosity and a firm belief in the importance of civic engagement and public service.
I was immediately drawn to her warmth, her humanity, and her focus on the students and the importance of a university president really developing rapport and a connection with the rich and diverse student population at Boston University. What I was taken with immediately was her accessibility. Her answers to questions were thoughtful. And very reflective to who she is as a doctor, a mother, a leader, and someone with vision. She never gave pat answers. She engaged with the committee. Her credentials speak for themselves, but having the opportunity to meet her face-to-face and see how genuine a person she is was really moving and profound.
In a letter to the College of Fine Arts community, Dean Harvey Young wrote, “Our next President has a deep familiarity with and appreciation of the arts and humanities. She was a literature major in college at Yale (prior to earning her MD at Harvard). President-elect Gilliam is the daughter of world-renowned painter Sam Gilliam (and trailblazing journalist Dorothy Butler Gilliam) and the sibling of media artist L. Franklin Gilliam. In addition, she maintains a studio practice in ceramics. In April, she became a Trustee of the Mellon Foundation, one of the largest private foundations supporting the arts and humanities.
“I believe in marking milestones. President-elect Melissa Gilliam is the first woman and the first Black/African-American person to be named President of Boston University. Boston University was founded in 1839. 184 years ago.”
Welcome to BU, Dr. Gilliam!
Get to know Melissa L. Gilliam…
She does ceramics—and sees it as part of her scientific career
“I have a ceramics practice,” she tells BU Today. “I am always making art as well. The more I learn about ceramics, the more I have to read about chemistry and what temperatures you’re using and thinking, This was also very true of my father. He [understood] materials. You can paint something in 1970, and it’s still around 50 years later. Science and art as a dichotomous relationship. And I actually think they’re quite related.”
Science and art as a dichotomous relationship. And I actually think they’re quite related.
Her parents are important cultural figures
Gilliam’s mother, Dorothy Butler Gilliam, was the first Black woman reporter hired by the Washington Post (in 1961), graduating from the city desk to a popular column on politics, education, and race that ran 19 years (and occasionally mentioned her three daughters). Her father, Sam Gilliam, who died last year, was an acclaimed abstract painter. Global art gallery Pace says this of him: “Widely recognized as one of the boldest innovators of postwar American painting, Gilliam produced hard-edge abstractions that energized the Washington, D.C., scene in the mid-1960s.” Pace is exhibiting a retrospective of work from Sam Gilliam’s last five years at its New York location through October 28.
Music and sports have helped her decompress during her high-powered career
She played soccer with her kids while they were young. She also competed with them (gently) at piano playing. But she knew when she was beaten at the keyboard: “At first, by willpower alone, I leapfrogged over my kids, but my son has since just trounced me. He looks at me in the rearview mirror. He’s good, you know? I’m like, how do you move your fingers so quickly? How do you do this?”