Keystone Project Resources

All Kilachand students, regardless of Keystone Pathway, are required to submit a one-page Project Statement and are invited to submit a budget proposal via the Keystone Project Information Form.

Project Statement Guidelines

The Project Statement is a crucial piece of writing because, along with your Budget Spreadsheet and Justification, the Project Statement will be read and evaluated by the Kilachand Keystone Committee. Excellent Project Statements and Budgets will be approved by the committee, whereas materials that need work will be sent back for revision, preventing you from moving forward on your Keystone work.

Successful Project Statements typically have these features:

• Topic: What is your Keystone about?
• Methods: What methods will your project use?
• Stakes: Why is your project important? What impact do you hope to make?
• Product: What will you produce at the culmination of your Keystone Project in addition to your Symposium presentation or poster? A scholarly paper? An object/design? A piece of literature, artwork, film, or performance?

Students enrolled in KHC HC451 are asked to prepare a Keystone Project Proposal that articulates their research question, methods, and anticipated deliverable. Below are examples of successful Keystone Project Proposals.

A book for children in preschool classrooms about children with sensory processing disorders or autism spectrum disorders.

A narrative proposing program improvements and changes that could be implemented by Behavioral Health at Boston University.

A period sitcom set in 1860s England that uses comedy and satire to bring to light the inequality of coverture laws and addresses the inherent sexism of the period.

All Kilachand students, regardless of Keystone Pathway, are required to submit a one-page précis by May 1 of the senior year. 

The Keystone précis is a concise summary of the project and reflective statement on the work you have done. Most Keystone précis will describe the project’s main topic or question, the methods used to explore that question, and any findings or realizations that the project produced. The format should follow the best practices in your field or interdisciplinary area.

Students whose projects comprise a creative work, such as a film or series of paintings, may submit an Artist’s Statement as their précis.

BU researchers are responsible for the ethical conduct of research with human subjects. An institutional review board (IRB) is the committee that reviews, monitors, and approves human subject research. The purpose of the IRB is to protect the rights and welfare of human subjects and to assure clinical research is conducted according to federal regulations, state law, and IRB policies.

Do you need IRB Approval?
Submitting to the IRB
Contact the IRB

If you will be working with human subjects, your Keystone Project Advisor should be familiar with the IRB and should be able to guide you through the IRB process.

Kilachand students may follow the Keystone Pathway Map to understand their Keystone deadlines, deliverables, and course requirements during the junior and senior year.

We invite all Kilachand students and Keystone Faculty Advisors to view the following to gain a better understanding of the Keystone processes throughout the junior and senior years.

For juniors:

For juniors & seniors: