Boston University’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (GRS) sits at the center of BU’s research and scholarly enterprise—training the next generation of thinkers, makers, and leaders across nearly 50 fields, with approximately 2,000 graduate candidates enrolled in MA, MFA, MS, and PhD programs.
GRS has done this work for more than 150 years. Founded in 1874, it awarded its first degrees in 1877—including the PhD to Helen Magill, the first woman to receive a PhD from an American university. In 1955, Martin Luther King Jr. received his PhD in systematic theology from GRS. Today, GRS graduates continue to shape public life, discovery, and culture—from award-winning journalism to Nobel Prize–winning science.
Under BU’s “You Are Why” campaign, the University is making a public promise: our research, education, and investment must serve society. GRS is where that promise becomes reality—through graduate students who teach, discover, publish, invent, and carry BU’s impact outward.
For GRS, philanthropy is most catalytic where it removes barriers at critical moments, accelerates time-to-degree, and strengthens BU’s ability to compete for exceptional graduate talent and research outcomes.
