Over the next two weeks, The Daily Free Press will explore the recommendations of the One BUTask Force Report in an eight-part series. Today, we take a look at the philosophy of the plan and the student concerns it addresses.
On a campus with 17 different schools and colleges, some Boston University students may have noticed a lack of accessibility across myriad administrative barriers.
However, starting this fall, administrators are looking at adopting a “change in culture and philosophy” through One BU, a strategic plan intended to unify BU by overcoming the obstacles between schools.
“Our students come in admitted by different schools and colleges,” said BU President Robert Brown in an interview with The Daily Free Press. “They cross-register because they take classes in different schools and colleges. And yet we have never had either a common structure or a convening of the schools and colleges to think about undergraduate education holistically.”
Administrators said One BU will help students become exposed to other fields and paths to academic success at BU.
A task force was convened under Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education Victor Coelho to bring faculty from all the undergraduate schools and colleges together to ponder what BU could do to take what is good about undergraduate education in these different schools and colleges and make it better in a holistic way, Brown said. The task force released their findings this semester in a report titled “Unlocking the Undergraduate Experience.”
“The most overhauling part of the report is something that for me doesn’t seem very surprising or unusual at all and that’s something where everything comes from the middle,” Coelho said.
“How can students access the wealth of resources around BU?” he said. “And at the same time, move and progress through their degrees but take advantage of the interdisciplinarity, the co-curricular advantages that Boston can offer, and the exposure to different fields, particularly fields that they’re interested in.”
Many students said they have not heard of One BU but think it will be effective.
“As a student in College of Fine Arts who wants to double major in College of Communication, I feel like there is a huge divide between colleges,” said CFA freshman Jacqueline Jané. The only way I can graduate within four years is if I take about seven summer courses. . . I think it should be easier.”
“Changing the system would relieve stress and allow more students to do the [Boston University Collaborative Degree Program],” said COM freshman Lewis Smith.
Smith, who hopes to BUCOP in the School of Management, said the current 3.0 GPA requirement for BUCOP “adds extra stress to an already intensive course load” and One BU may lighten students’ loads.
Similarly, School of Education sophomore Amanda DoAmaral wanted to BUCOP but said she doesn’t have time to fulfill all the requirements.
“I think that more interdisciplinary options that span across colleges would be interesting,” she said.
There are many different aspects to the report, each with the goal of unifying BU in mind.
“There are a lot of things that you do under the banner of trying to knit the place together that that report hits on,” Brown said.
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