BU Timeline

A group of Boston Methodist ministers establishes a theological school in Newbury, Vt., called the Newbury Biblical Institute, which would later become the BU School of Theology.

The Congregational Society in Concord, N.H., invites the Institute to relocate to Concord. One stipulation of the invitation, however, was that the Institute remain in Concord for at least 20 years. The charter is issued by New Hampshire and designates the school the Methodist General Biblical Institute, but commonly called the Concord Biblical Institute.

Trustees of the Concord Biblical Society purchase 30 acres of land in Brookline and move the Institute to 23 Pinckney St. in Boston, where it receives a Massachusetts Charter as the Boston Theological Seminary.BU becomes the first American university to open all its divisions to women.

Three Trustees of the Boston Theological Institute – Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin, and Jacob Sleeper, for whom the three West Campus dormitories are named – receive a charter from the Massachusetts Legislature to establish Boston University. The charter includes that no student or instructor at the university will be required to adhere to a certain religion, which was unprecedented at the time.

BU absorbs the Boston Theological Seminary, creating the School of Theology, the first school at the university.

1873 - BU establishes the School of Music, the first music school in the United States to grant degrees. The music school later became a division in the College of Fine Arts.The Great Boston Fire of 1872, Boston’s largest urban fire, breaks out downtown on Summer Street before spreading to over 700 other buildings. In the aftermath of the blaze, several major city streets were widened, including Congress Street, Federal Street and Hawley Street. The rubble left by the fire was largely used to fill in Atlantic Avenue. The fire destroyed nearly all the buildings on BU’s campus, leaving the campus facilities scattered.

The College of Arts and Sciences is established, under the name of the College of Liberal Arts. In the same year, Alexander Graham Bell gives the inaugural lecture for the School of Oratory. Bell, who was a professor at BU, created the telephone while he was part of the BU faculty.William Fairfield Warren becomes the first president of BU.BU becomes the first university to admit women to its medical school.

BU becomes the first university in the United States in 1877 to award a Ph.D. to a woman when Helen Magill White earns her doctorate degree in Greek.Emanuel Hewlett also graduates from the BU School of Law, becoming the first black law school graduate at BU and one of the first in the country that same year.

The College of Business Administration, later renamed the School of Management, opens its doors, allowing students to study a range of subjects from accounting and finance to marketing and entrepreneurship.

Students begin considering the terrier the pride of BU, five years before the animal is officially chosen over the moose as the university’s mascot. The Boston Terrier was first bred in 1869, the year BU was chartered.

A group of Boston Methodist ministers establishes a theological school in Newbury, Vt., called the Newbury Biblical Institute, which would later become the BU School of Theology.

The Congregational Society in Concord, N.H., invites the Institute to relocate to Concord. One stipulation of the invitation, however, was that the Institute remain in Concord for at least 20 years. The charter is issued by New Hampshire and designates the school the Methodist General Biblical Institute, but commonly called the Concord Biblical Institute.

Trustees of the Concord Biblical Society purchase 30 acres of land in Brookline and move the Institute to 23 Pinckney St. in Boston, where it receives a Massachusetts Charter as the Boston Theological Seminary.BU becomes the first American university to open all its divisions to women.

Three Trustees of the Boston Theological Institute – Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin, and Jacob Sleeper, for whom the three West Campus dormitories are named – receive a charter from the Massachusetts Legislature to establish Boston University. The charter includes that no student or instructor at the university will be required to adhere to a certain religion, which was unprecedented at the time.

BU absorbs the Boston Theological Seminary, creating the School of Theology, the first school at the university.

1873 - BU establishes the School of Music, the first music school in the United States to grant degrees. The music school later became a division in the College of Fine Arts.The Great Boston Fire of 1872, Boston’s largest urban fire, breaks out downtown on Summer Street before spreading to over 700 other buildings. In the aftermath of the blaze, several major city streets were widened, including Congress Street, Federal Street and Hawley Street. The rubble left by the fire was largely used to fill in Atlantic Avenue. The fire destroyed nearly all the buildings on BU’s campus, leaving the campus facilities scattered.

The College of Arts and Sciences is established, under the name of the College of Liberal Arts. In the same year, Alexander Graham Bell gives the inaugural lecture for the School of Oratory. Bell, who was a professor at BU, created the telephone while he was part of the BU faculty.William Fairfield Warren becomes the first president of BU.BU becomes the first university to admit women to its medical school.

BU becomes the first university in the United States in 1877 to award a Ph.D. to a woman when Helen Magill White earns her doctorate degree in Greek.Emanuel Hewlett also graduates from the BU School of Law, becoming the first black law school graduate at BU and one of the first in the country that same year.

The College of Business Administration, later renamed the School of Management, opens its doors, allowing students to study a range of subjects from accounting and finance to marketing and entrepreneurship.

Students begin considering the terrier the pride of BU, five years before the animal is officially chosen over the moose as the university’s mascot. The Boston Terrier was first bred in 1869, the year BU was chartered.

A group of Boston Methodist ministers establishes a theological school in Newbury, Vt., called the Newbury Biblical Institute, which would later become the BU School of Theology.

The Congregational Society in Concord, N.H., invites the Institute to relocate to Concord. One stipulation of the invitation, however, was that the Institute remain in Concord for at least 20 years. The charter is issued by New Hampshire and designates the school the Methodist General Biblical Institute, but commonly called the Concord Biblical Institute.

Trustees of the Concord Biblical Society purchase 30 acres of land in Brookline and move the Institute to 23 Pinckney St. in Boston, where it receives a Massachusetts Charter as the Boston Theological Seminary.BU becomes the first American university to open all its divisions to women.

Three Trustees of the Boston Theological Institute – Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin, and Jacob Sleeper, for whom the three West Campus dormitories are named – receive a charter from the Massachusetts Legislature to establish Boston University. The charter includes that no student or instructor at the university will be required to adhere to a certain religion, which was unprecedented at the time.

BU absorbs the Boston Theological Seminary, creating the School of Theology, the first school at the university.

1873 - BU establishes the School of Music, the first music school in the United States to grant degrees. The music school later became a division in the College of Fine Arts.The Great Boston Fire of 1872, Boston’s largest urban fire, breaks out downtown on Summer Street before spreading to over 700 other buildings. In the aftermath of the blaze, several major city streets were widened, including Congress Street, Federal Street and Hawley Street. The rubble left by the fire was largely used to fill in Atlantic Avenue. The fire destroyed nearly all the buildings on BU’s campus, leaving the campus facilities scattered.

The College of Arts and Sciences is established, under the name of the College of Liberal Arts. In the same year, Alexander Graham Bell gives the inaugural lecture for the School of Oratory. Bell, who was a professor at BU, created the telephone while he was part of the BU faculty.William Fairfield Warren becomes the first president of BU.BU becomes the first university to admit women to its medical school.

BU becomes the first university in the United States in 1877 to award a Ph.D. to a woman when Helen Magill White earns her doctorate degree in Greek.Emanuel Hewlett also graduates from the BU School of Law, becoming the first black law school graduate at BU and one of the first in the country that same year.

The College of Business Administration, later renamed the School of Management, opens its doors, allowing students to study a range of subjects from accounting and finance to marketing and entrepreneurship.

Students begin considering the terrier the pride of BU, five years before the animal is officially chosen over the moose as the university’s mascot. The Boston Terrier was first bred in 1869, the year BU was chartered.

A group of Boston Methodist ministers establishes a theological school in Newbury, Vt., called the Newbury Biblical Institute, which would later become the BU School of Theology.

The Congregational Society in Concord, N.H., invites the Institute to relocate to Concord. One stipulation of the invitation, however, was that the Institute remain in Concord for at least 20 years. The charter is issued by New Hampshire and designates the school the Methodist General Biblical Institute, but commonly called the Concord Biblical Institute.

Trustees of the Concord Biblical Society purchase 30 acres of land in Brookline and move the Institute to 23 Pinckney St. in Boston, where it receives a Massachusetts Charter as the Boston Theological Seminary.BU becomes the first American university to open all its divisions to women.

Three Trustees of the Boston Theological Institute – Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin, and Jacob Sleeper, for whom the three West Campus dormitories are named – receive a charter from the Massachusetts Legislature to establish Boston University. The charter includes that no student or instructor at the university will be required to adhere to a certain religion, which was unprecedented at the time.

BU absorbs the Boston Theological Seminary, creating the School of Theology, the first school at the university.

1873 - BU establishes the School of Music, the first music school in the United States to grant degrees. The music school later became a division in the College of Fine Arts.The Great Boston Fire of 1872, Boston’s largest urban fire, breaks out downtown on Summer Street before spreading to over 700 other buildings. In the aftermath of the blaze, several major city streets were widened, including Congress Street, Federal Street and Hawley Street. The rubble left by the fire was largely used to fill in Atlantic Avenue. The fire destroyed nearly all the buildings on BU’s campus, leaving the campus facilities scattered.

The College of Arts and Sciences is established, under the name of the College of Liberal Arts. In the same year, Alexander Graham Bell gives the inaugural lecture for the School of Oratory. Bell, who was a professor at BU, created the telephone while he was part of the BU faculty.William Fairfield Warren becomes the first president of BU.BU becomes the first university to admit women to its medical school.

BU becomes the first university in the United States in 1877 to award a Ph.D. to a woman when Helen Magill White earns her doctorate degree in Greek.Emanuel Hewlett also graduates from the BU School of Law, becoming the first black law school graduate at BU and one of the first in the country that same year.

The College of Business Administration, later renamed the School of Management, opens its doors, allowing students to study a range of subjects from accounting and finance to marketing and entrepreneurship.

Students begin considering the terrier the pride of BU, five years before the animal is officially chosen over the moose as the university’s mascot. The Boston Terrier was first bred in 1869, the year BU was chartered.

A group of Boston Methodist ministers establishes a theological school in Newbury, Vt., called the Newbury Biblical Institute, which would later become the BU School of Theology.

The Congregational Society in Concord, N.H., invites the Institute to relocate to Concord. One stipulation of the invitation, however, was that the Institute remain in Concord for at least 20 years. The charter is issued by New Hampshire and designates the school the Methodist General Biblical Institute, but commonly called the Concord Biblical Institute.

Trustees of the Concord Biblical Society purchase 30 acres of land in Brookline and move the Institute to 23 Pinckney St. in Boston, where it receives a Massachusetts Charter as the Boston Theological Seminary.BU becomes the first American university to open all its divisions to women.

Three Trustees of the Boston Theological Institute – Isaac Rich, Lee Claflin, and Jacob Sleeper, for whom the three West Campus dormitories are named – receive a charter from the Massachusetts Legislature to establish Boston University. The charter includes that no student or instructor at the university will be required to adhere to a certain religion, which was unprecedented at the time.

BU absorbs the Boston Theological Seminary, creating the School of Theology, the first school at the university.

1873 - BU establishes the School of Music, the first music school in the United States to grant degrees. The music school later became a division in the College of Fine Arts.The Great Boston Fire of 1872, Boston’s largest urban fire, breaks out downtown on Summer Street before spreading to over 700 other buildings. In the aftermath of the blaze, several major city streets were widened, including Congress Street, Federal Street and Hawley Street. The rubble left by the fire was largely used to fill in Atlantic Avenue. The fire destroyed nearly all the buildings on BU’s campus, leaving the campus facilities scattered.

The College of Arts and Sciences is established, under the name of the College of Liberal Arts. In the same year, Alexander Graham Bell gives the inaugural lecture for the School of Oratory. Bell, who was a professor at BU, created the telephone while he was part of the BU faculty.William Fairfield Warren becomes the first president of BU.BU becomes the first university to admit women to its medical school.

BU becomes the first university in the United States in 1877 to award a Ph.D. to a woman when Helen Magill White earns her doctorate degree in Greek.Emanuel Hewlett also graduates from the BU School of Law, becoming the first black law school graduate at BU and one of the first in the country that same year.

The College of Business Administration, later renamed the School of Management, opens its doors, allowing students to study a range of subjects from accounting and finance to marketing and entrepreneurship.

Students begin considering the terrier the pride of BU, five years before the animal is officially chosen over the moose as the university’s mascot. The Boston Terrier was first bred in 1869, the year BU was chartered.