Boston University will announce two top administrative positions as the semester comes to a close — a chief investment officer who will oversee the now-billion-dollar endowment and an associate provost who will work to bridge BU’s undergraduate colleges through academics.
BU has already hired the CIO, whom President Robert Brown said is a young woman, though her name cannot yet be released because she is working out the details of her new position with her current employer and clients.
The associate provost position will most likely be filled in the fall, said Brown, whose Strategic Plan cited the need for both positions.
For years, BU has struggled with a relatively small but growing endowment — which passed the billion-dollar mark this year — and a student body that identifies more with individual colleges than BU itself, Brown said in an April 27 interview.
The president acknowledged the endowment is “very small relative to where it should be for a university our size,” though he said its growth and performance has been “marvelous” in the past three to five years. However, “a big percentage of a small number is still a small number,” he said.
“We have a long way to go in terms of growing the endowment to meet the demands of a university with the aspirations we have,” Brown said.
When universities’ endowments reach $500 million to $1 billion, administrations tend to hire CIOs because it becomes “too complicated” for trustees to manage investments, Brown said.
Many private universities with endowments well over $1 billion have had long-standing CIO positions, including Harvard University, which has an endowment of more than $25 billion; Yale University, which has an endowment of about $18 billion; and the University of Pennsylvania, which has an endowment around $5 billion.
The CIO, who will take office in May, will be responsible for investing the endowment, which has traditionally been managed by the Investment Committee on the BU Board of Trustees, Brown said. The committee will oversee the CIO’s responsibilities.
The president’s efforts extend beyond boosting the university’s funds. Since Brown came to office almost two years ago, he has repeatedly said students lack a sense of identifying with BU, instead associating themselves with individual colleges. To fill that gap, Brown is looking to create a position that will academically connect students in different schools.
Though he could not give details on the job of the associate provost for undergraduate education, Brown said it will likely be filled by a faculty member.
“What are the core experiences you want to say that every Boston University student has?” Brown said. “When you meet a Boston University graduate, how would you like them to talk about being from Boston University — not from the College of Communication at Boston University, but BU itself? That discussion now will start.”
However, the creation of the associate provost position will not necessarily produce a list of required courses that all students must take, Brown said.
The assistant provost position comes as a result of Brown’s Task Force, which he said takes a “hard look bringing all the undergraduate schools and colleges together [to] talk about what is the essence of a Boston University education.”