Greetings from President Melissa Gilliam
July 1, 2024
Dear Members of the Boston University Community,
I am delighted to write to you on my first day as president of Boston University. Since being named president, I have had the opportunity to meet current and former trustees, families, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and many of our city’s residents. These meetings have taken me across the country and around the world. I also dove into Boston University’s history and the writings of past presidents, from William Fairfield Warren to Robert A. Brown, and deans such as George Makechnie and Howard Thurman. We have such a proud legacy. But one of the best ways to have learned about the Boston University of today has been getting to meet our outstanding students. While I have many more people to meet and much to learn, already I am in awe of this institution—its history, people, and impact.
There is remarkable strength in our origin story. We trace its history to the Newbury Biblical Institute in Vermont, founded in 1839 by abolitionist Methodists. Boston University, as we know it, was then chartered in 1869, to provide high-quality graduate and undergraduate education and excellence in theology, medicine, and law, and to be open to women when few other institutions provided these opportunities. In 1872, our survival was threatened by the Great Boston Fire. Having lost our fortunes, William Fairfield Warren, upon becoming president in 1873, committed BU to being an urban university integrated into the city of Boston. While our endowment was lost, our fierce commitment to openness and rigorous education never wavered and has carried us to this day.
We have become a great urban research institution, evidenced by the gleaming Center for Computing & Data Sciences towering over the Charles River and groundbreaking research being conducted across our campuses. We remain deeply committed to the city of Boston, while rising as a top global university. In fact, I think among this institution’s most defining characteristics is the fact that BU is both tremendously rooted in its home city and known widely around the world for its international connectivity.
These achievements have been made possible by our people: the faculty, staff, and students, and our leadership. Bob Brown was president for nearly 20 years and led this institution through a tremendous transformation. Ken Freeman and Ken Lutchen have steered the institution adeptly over the past year. I am grateful for Bob’s support and Ken Freeman’s wisdom and friendship throughout this transition. And I am pleased that I will continue to work closely with Ken Lutchen in his new role as senior advisor to the president.
Building on this momentum, over the coming decade my goal is to ensure that Boston University will claim its place as one of the most consequential universities in the world. Our scale, location, mission, values, and can-do attitude are unmatched. Yet, as I have learned over the past six months, the real “secret sauce” is our people, who are ambitious but humble and deeply committed to our mission. President Warren described the university as a society “founded by lovers of wisdom and virtue” and dedicated to “realizing the highest known ideals in individual and social character and life, and of propagating these ideals from one generation to another, and from one land to another, so long as the world shall stand.” Today, this University and its people continue to have tremendous societal impact.
I am grateful to the Board of Trustees for this opportunity and their partnership, and I am filled with optimism and excitement for the future. Thank you, to all of you, for your warm welcome. And thank you to the many students who have stopped me on Comm Ave to say hello. I am so proud to be a Terrier!
Sincerely,
Melissa L. Gilliam
President
*7/1/24 This message was sent to students, faculty, staff, and alumni.