Courtesy of Michele Schiele
Ensuring BU’s Future
Michele Schiele (’89) returns to her alma mater as senior vice president for advancement
Michele Schiele has led fundraising campaigns for major institutions in healthcare and higher ed, including one for Stanford Medicine that raised more than $1 billion. Schiele (’89) traces her passion for fundraising back to the skills she developed as a journalism student at COM.
“What I found was that I enjoyed the strategic aspects of nonprofit fundraising, [and] I still got to use all of my skills in terms of interviewing people and then turning that into aligning their priorities with [the organization’s] priorities and then codifying that into a proposal—the equivalent of writing a story,” she says.
In this moment, we want to be sure that we’re focusing on the research that will have the most impact.
—Michele Schiele
Schiele returned to her alma mater in June 2025 as BU’s senior vice president for advancement. COM/365 spoke with her about her new job and how she is grappling with the challenges facing higher ed.
Q&A
with Michele Schiele
COM/365: What brought you back to BU?
Michele Schiele: One of the major gift officers reached out and introduced me to BU in the 21st century. I realized who I am today—all of the opportunities I’ve been able to say yes to—started with BU. I made my first major gift as a result.
When I noticed that my former colleague [at the University of Chicago], Melissa Gilliam, had been named president of my alma mater, that really sparked my interest in BU’s future.
COM/365: You’ve helped launch a research-focused campaign at BU, called “You Are Why.” What inspired that?
Michele Schiele: I started in this role right when the reality of the changing dynamic of government funding for research was ramping up. In this moment, when you have to make choices about where you’re going to invest, our institution decided we are prioritizing convergent research—faculty from different colleges, schools, institutes, centers, units, coming together to solve an intractable problem—because that’s something that BU has done well.
We want to catalyze convergent research so it goes from being something we did organically to something we’re doing more often and deliberately. In this moment, we want to be sure that we’re focusing on the research that will have the most impact and that we’re continuing to educate future scientists. Our goal is to raise $50 million to support graduate students, the undergraduate research program and seed grants for science faculty and scientists who are working on convergent research ideas.
COM/365: What are some of your other priorities?
Michele Schiele: How can we be helpful in this moment? We’re answering the question with little “c” campaigns—small, focused initiatives. While the first is around research, the second is going to be around the arts, and the third focused on the student experience. When President Gilliam was inaugurated, she announced six inaugural initiatives. Research is important at BU, but so is tending to humankind, and one of the most effective and impactful ways to feed humanity is through the arts. Focusing on the student experience is also important, because, like research, it is core to our mission.
