Welcome to the Start of a New School Year

September 4, 2025

Dear Members of the Boston University Community,

Welcome to campus. I hope that you have found time to rest and restore yourselves. This summer, our campus has been abuzz with classes and preparations for this academic year.

Please join me in welcoming our newcomers. The Class of 2029—some 3,400 people from across the nation and around the world—represents 47 states and 86 countries. Our more than 800 transfer students call 38 states and 28 countries home. I’d like to extend a special welcome to our international students—you are a vital part of who we are at Boston University. We are glad you are here.

I am delighted also to greet our newest graduate students, faculty, and staff. I look forward to seeing how our community will make a tremendous impact in the coming year—through research, teaching, learning, and service.

Building Community

This year, we embarked on efforts to enhance the student experience, by providing more opportunities for students to connect and form bonds that will last throughout their time at BU and beyond. We know that new friendships and engagement in activities are key to student success and enhance the Boston University experience in myriad ways.

  • Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in new immersive orientation programming and to meet some of our incoming students. In the spring, and at the end of August, new students took part in community-building activities, information sessions, as well as opportunities to connect over meals and meet with staff and faculty. I am energized by their enthusiasm. Congratulations to the Dean of Students and Orientation offices on the successful implementation of this new Orientation, and thank you, to the students, faculty, and staff who made it possible.
  • We are also launching a program called Common Read for incoming undergraduate students, to provide an enjoyable opportunity to engage with one another in shared reflection and conversation. For our inaugural book, University librarians chose Orbital, by Samantha Harvey, which incoming students can order online, free of charge. Orbital follows six astronauts from around the world and their experiences over the course of a day in their lives aboard the International Space Station. This book is about finding connections to other people in a world full of so much possibility—and, at the same time, marked by turmoil and change.

In the coming weeks, we will share results from our Living Our Values Initiative. This initiative aims to identify core principles and values that unite our community and guide our decisions, behaviors, and actions. Over eight months, a steering committee of faculty, staff, and students has convened members of the Boston University community, including conducting more than 90 focus groups. These values will serve as a compass for Boston University as we build community and navigate significant change.

Supporting Research, Scholarship, and the Arts

Of course, we find ourselves today in the midst of a time of change. As the financial and technological structures that support higher education continue to shift, we must find innovative ways to work together to continue to pursue excellence.

We have much to be proud of. During Fiscal Year 2024, we saw a new peak in sponsored research awards, $579.5 million, supporting innovative and impactful projects across many disciplines.

During the past academic year, faculty, staff, and students continued their groundbreaking research and scholarship. Six Boston University researchers were awarded Guggenheim Fellowships; Hallie Baker, an archaeology student, became the sixth Terrier in history to receive a Marshall Scholarship; the DIAGNOSE CTE Research Project-II received $15 million from the National Institutes of Health to find biomarkers for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, to detect the presence of the brain disease; BU’s LEXI telescope landed on the moon. And the list goes on.

Building upon these successes, the University will soon launch an effort to highlight the power of Boston University scholarship and research, to encourage continued partnership with federal agencies as well as novel partnerships with industry leaders, corporations, foundations, elected officials, alumni, and supporters in Boston and around the world.

Delivering on Strategic Initiatives

Given the many headwinds our institution and higher education on the whole have faced over the past year, strategy and focus are more important than ever to achieve our University’s mission of working toward solutions that benefit society. Last year, I laid out a framework for our continued excellence, eminence, and societal impact. Its strategic pillars include: supporting a global intellectual and academic destination, a world-class community of talent, and operational excellence.

We have made progress on initiatives, launched last year, that serve these objectives, and soon we will share early results, including:

In addition, as part of our efforts to increase cohesion between our campuses, the Medical Campus will no longer have its own provost. The School of Public Health, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, and Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine will now report directly to the Office of the Provost.

Finally, our new student orientation, mentioned above, has already incorporated early recommendations and programming from our initiative in the Arts.

Being Beholden to One Another and Our Values

I will leave you with a quotation from Boston University alumnus Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which I shared with our incoming first-year students last week at Matriculation. In a sermon delivered on multiple occasions, he mused on the global origins of the foods we eat, and items we use, every day:

We are everlasting debtors to known and unknown men and women… Before we leave for our jobs, we are beholden to more than half the world.

In this spirit, let us remember that our community is interconnected and let us be beholden to one another. So many good things are happening at Boston University. Let us support and encourage one another as we pursue our goals, and let us aspire to the very best of what is possible—for the benefit of all.

Together, we can accomplish so much.

Sincerely,

Melissa Gilliam

President

*9/4/25  This message was sent to students, faculty, and staff.

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