Message from the Dean: Associate Dean Ken Schulman Retires

RELATED:

KEN’S RETIREMENT CELEBRATION

GIVE: RUTH & SCHULMAN SCHOLARSHIP FUND

Dear BUSSW Community,

Happy New Year! As we begin this new year and decade, I want to share news about a significant change here at BUSSW – our esteemed friend and colleague Ken Schulman, associate dean for enrollment services and alumni relations, will retire from Boston University this coming June 30, 2020, after 40 plus years serving our School both as a senior administrator and as a faculty member.

Ken began his career with us as an adjunct faculty member, hired by then-Dean Hubie Jones to organize and lead Study-Travel Tours to Cuba. He soon began teaching both on- and off-campus for the next 13 years before moving fully into an administration role.

He has had an immeasurable impact in many departments and activities at BUSSW:

For 34 years, he led the School’s highly successful admissions efforts, increasing our percentage of students of color, advanced standing, dual degree, and macro practice students.

In his alumni relations work, Ken followed a “prospective-student-to-alumni lifecycle” philosophy, linking his enrollment work with an alumni relations program that created an active and engaged Alumni Association Board and alumni networks across the US, and in Canada and Europe. This network has supported student recruitment; provided peer-to-peer career consultation; and, connected current and graduating students from all our platforms with alumni and faculty – promoting and sustaining the admissions process. Roughly a quarter of each year’s new students have been referred by engaged alumni.

Ken’s work in development and donor relations included planning and implementing BUSSW’s first comprehensive fund-raising campaign—The Windows of Opportunity Scholarship Campaign from 1989 to 1992—whose goal of $300,000 was exceeded by $25,000. Over the years, his development efforts have helped raise more than $15 million for the School.

For six years, Ken supervised the expansion of our Professional Education Programs, including securing donor support, and oversaw the School’s marketing and communications efforts for 10 years, until 2018.

Ken has been instrumental in recruiting, educating, and sustaining thousands of BUSSW social work professionals over four decades and we will miss him and his dedication immensely. I want to express my sincere gratitude for his deep commitment to our School and its mission, his humor, compassion, and support of so many in the BUSSW community. And, on behalf of our entire school community, we wish him much happiness as he moves on to his next adventure – a fulfilling retirement!

Sincerely,
Jorge