Boston University’s changes and reorganizations to the campus and university leadership last year will forever alter the landscape of its Commonwealth Avenue campus.
After a year of Chancellor John Silber acting with the duties of president, the BU Board of Trustees offered the position to ex-NASA administrator Daniel S. Goldin in mid-July. Goldin accepted the position on Aug. 17 and will take office as the university’s ninth president on Nov. 1.
The vacancy was created after the Trustees ousted BU’s eighth president, Jon Westling, during the summer of 2002. A year-long search process culminated with Goldin being named Westling’s eventual replacement.
As BU prepared to receive this year’s incoming freshmen, it experienced many other shake-ups in top administrative positions. While some resigned on their own terms, others were asked to resign because of conflicts with top administrators, according to university officials and faculty.
BU lost some of its prominent educational and administrative leaders, including College of Communication Dean Brent Baker, COM Associate Dean Marilyn Root, Dean of Students W. Norman Johnson and Associate Dean of Students Herbert Ross. Department of Film and Television Chairman Bill Lawson was asked to resign his chairmanship, refused and was removed from the position, although he will remain a professor.
But just as the Dean of Students Office was down to one remaining dean Assistant Dean of Students J. Allen Ward the university appointed former Associate Director of Residence Life Kenneth Elmore to head the department, pending approval from the BU Trustees. The Dean of Students Office will merge with the Division of Enrollment, placing both under the direction of Vice President of Enrollment Anne Shea.
While some resigned their posts, the most tragic loss of a faculty member was College of Fine Arts faculty member John Daverio, one of its most respected and loved professors. He was found dead after disappearing nearly a month before.
Daverio, a musicology professor, was last seen leaving his office on March 16 after returning from a visit with his family. The Northeastern University crew team discovered his body in the Charles River a month later. On May 4, a memorial was held to commemorate his life through songs and stories.
BU also brought in new personnel in the form of the new African president-in-residence program. Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda was the first of what BU officials have said will be four African presidents who will meet with faculty and students as well as lecture at the university. The program is the only one of its kind in the United States.
Along with several administrative changes made this summer, the campus’ physical landscape is also changing. In April, construction on a new Life Science and Engineering building and graduate student housing began.
Progress on the Student Village began in 1999 and will continue into the next few years. While the Student Residences at 10 Buick St. is already completed, two other buildings that are part of the John Hancock Student Village are nearly half completed. A new multimillion-dollar fitness center and hockey arena should be completed in 2004.
Despite more construction on campus last year, BU did not have enough housing for freshman students, leaving several hundred stuck in hotels for the first semester. Some were housed in the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge, while others stayed at the nearby Radisson.
While all the students eventually moved back to campus by the spring semester, the housing problem will continue this year as the BU-owned Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square will be home for some of this year’s incoming class.
Early on in the 2002-2003 school year, Silber enraged many students when he disbanded the Gay-Straight Alliance at the BU Academy, a private high school BU runs near the George Sherman Union.
After Silber cut the group during the first week of the fall semester, students from CFA and the School of Law each assembled petitions, while advocacy groups such as the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Organization for Women called for Silber’s resignation. None of the attempts reinstated the organization.
At the time, Silber said the law school students who wrote him a letter ‘exhibit a taste for coercion rather than persuasion,’ adding that ‘a sound argument needs no signatures, and a weak or invalid argument is not improved by the addition of hundreds.’
Some students also demonstrated their disapproval for decisions of the national government when hundreds walked out of class on the first day of bombing in Iraq. BU students joined students from other Boston-area colleges and universities in protesting the war in a massive march to downtown Boston. Smaller protests both pro-war and anti-war continued throughout the semester along with opinionated conversations about the war.
A decade worth of student grumblings about a policy closer to home finally resulted in the first relaxation of BU’s Guest Policy in 10 years.
The guest policy changes allowed less restricted travel to all the major dorms on campus and allowed students to sign themselves into another person’s dorm during certain hours. The original policy required the host to come down and sign in the guest.
The policy officially went into effect during the spring semester, leading to mixed reviews on the issues the Student Union focused on all year. Many students said they wanted more freedom and saw what was accomplished as more of a tease. The revised policy will continue this year, and possible changes could still be made in the future.
Silber’s guest policy changes came during a school year that also included two ‘open’ forums that any student could attend. Silber answered student questions regarding rape, BU’s rankings in U.S. News and World Report and the football team’s elimination in the 1990s.
‘Elie Wiesel draws more people at one of his lectures than we had at a football game,’ Silber said at the first of the two events, which occurred at the end of the fall semester.
Silber also discussed housing at BU, specifically Warren Towers, a primarily freshman-populated dorm.
‘I don’t ever want to be accused of building [Warren Towers],’ Silber said, resulting in audience laughter. ‘Beats the hell out of being homeless.’
Through all the good news and positive changes, and despite some bitter times and a particularly harsh New England winter, Boston University endured, paving the way for what should be an interesting 2003-2004 school year.