Category: Campus
Thurman Center Turns Up Volume on Cultural, Racial Conversations
After meeting with numerous students, including leaders of groups representing communities of color and LGBTIQ students, President Brown establishes a task force to raise the profile of the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground and make it even more impactful when it comes to cultural and racial discussions. To kick off the initiative, a series of community listening sessions is launched.
University Commits $50 Million for CFA Renovations
The University is bringing the theater arts program back to Comm Ave after a 33-year residence at the Boston University Theatre on Huntington Avenue. To that end, a new studio theater and a production facility will be built on the 808 block and a makeover of 855 will replace its forbidding street-level concrete façade with arched windows.
New Military Health Center Up and Running
In light of the still largely unmet health needs of US service members and the breadth of expertise at BU, the School of Medicine launches the Center for Military & Post Deployment Health, which will coordinate the University’s many and various military-focused research and service projects.
University Sells BU Theatre
In a move that concludes a mutually rewarding 33-year partnership with the highly regarded Huntington Theatre Company, the University decides to sell the 890-seat theater on Huntington Avenue and move College of Fine Arts production, design, and black box facilities to the Charles River Campus.
Welcome the Questrom School of Business
The School of Management is renamed the Questrom School of Business in recognition of a $50 million gift to the School from Allen Questrom (Questrom ’64), retired chief executive officer of several of the nation’s largest department and specialty stores, and his wife, Kelli. The gift, given through the Allen and Kelli Questrom Foundation, is the largest in Boston University’s history, endows 10 faculty chairs, and enables planning to establish a new graduate program facility.
New Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation
President Robert A. Brown announces a new, state-of-the-art Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering (CILSE) to give science a more prominent address on the University’s main thoroughfare. Breaking ground in spring 2015, this $140 million, nine-story research facility, scheduled to open in 2016, will bring together life scientists, engineers, and physicians from the Medical and Charles River Campuses. The building will be dedicated to systems neuroscience, cognitive neuroimaging, and biological design. With shared, flexible lab spaces, meeting rooms, and other common areas, CILSE is being designed to encourage the kind of collaborative, interdisciplinary research that will be the hallmark of 21st-century science. The center will contain lab space for approximately 160 researchers, postdoctoral students, and staff, 270 graduate students, and additional space for future faculty.
Center for Systems Neuroscience
As brain science takes a prominent position on the nation’s research agenda, BU launches a new interdisciplinary research center to explore the roots of psychiatric diseases and neurological impairments.
The Center for Systems Neuroscience (CSN) is led by Michael Hasselmo, a College of Arts & Sciences professor of psychological and brain sciences. The inaugural director, Hasselmo says the center’s researchers will work to further enhance the understanding of how brain systems mediate behavior. “We plan to build on the exciting research of neuroscience faculty at Boston University,” he says. “And we will foster new collaborations to generate experimental and computational advances in the field.”
New Pardee School of Global Studies Opens
The Pardee School of Global Studies is BU’s newest college and has the simple yet monumental mission of improving the human condition around the globe. It was founded with the $25 million donation of Frederick S. Pardee (Questrom’54, ’54, Hon.’06) and offers five majors: international relations, Asian studies, Middle East and African Studies, European Studies, and Latin American studies.
BU to Launch Joint MD/JD Program
Boston University will offer a joint Doctor of Medicine (MD) and Doctor of Law (JD) degree program starting in fall 2014, becoming only the second New England university, along with Yale, to offer the dual degree. The new program will be highly selective, initially accepting two students a year.
Citing the increasing interaction between the fields of health and law and recent changes to government regulations and health policy, MED and LAW administrators believe that the program will appeal to students interested in health care administration, health care legislation, medical licensing, and intellectual property issues focusing on medical research.
EPIC Welcomes Industry to BU
Companies like Apple and GE are bringing high-tech facilities back home from overseas. While a positive development, the problem is now there aren’t enough engineers trained in highly technological methods. The Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC) helps fill that void.
Funded through the University, ENG alumni and friends, and a $18.8M gift, the College of Engineering is transforming its curriculum so that all students, regardless of major, will graduate with a thorough understanding of how to develop new products, from concept and design through manufacturing and delivery. EPIC’s 15,000-square-foot space houses a computer-aided design (CAD) studio, demonstration areas, fabrication facilities, materials testing, and project management software. The facility has a flexible design and offers students supply chain management software, 3-D printers, robotics, laser processing, and around-the-clock digital access to the studio’s online resources.
“We’re hoping to set a standard for the training of engineers for the future manufacturing economy in this country,” says EPIC Director Gerry Fine, an ENG professor of the practice.
