IOC Founding Codirector Graham Wilson to Retire

BU TODAY: Graham Wilson, Founding Codirector of BU’s Initiative on Cities, Will Retire

CAS political science professor helped create a nation-spanning partnership between US mayors and the University

In 2014, Graham Wilson shared founding director duties at BU’s Initiative on Cities (IOC) with a marquis name. Working at the IOC with Boston’s longest serving mayor, Thomas Menino (Hon.’01), was “one of the highlights of my career,” says Wilson.

That’s quite a statement, given that Wilson’s career spans almost a half century. Yet as the College of Arts & Sciences professor of political science prepares to step down as IOC codirector July 1 in advance of his retiring December 31 after 14 years at BU, his pride in the IOC isn’t idle boasting.

In the seven-plus years since its inception, the IOC pioneered academic polling of US mayors via its annual Menino Survey, sponsored vital research, including COVID-19’s effects on vulnerable urban groups, and forged links between those running cities and scholars studying them at BU and other universities, continuing after Menino’s death from cancer just nine months after joining the IOC […] Read the full story by Rich Barlow at BU Today.