Thank you for considering to advise a Kilachand Keystone Project. All Kilachand students complete a substantial work of empirical or scholarly research, creativity, or invention by the close of their senior year under the supervision of a Keystone Project Advisor.
What is the Keystone?
The purpose of the Keystone Project is to provide students with a sustained experience of intellectual discovery and an opportunity to share their work with a broader audience. This process begins in the junior year, when students learn to balance the excitement of imaginative approaches to their intellectual interests with the rigor of field-specific methodologies and begin to work on the design of their thesis or project in KHC HC451: Keystone Proposal Workshop.
It continues in the senior year, as students conduct their research, write their thesis or produce their creative project, and assess the significance of the work they have done. The research thesis or project can take a variety of forms, but students must aim for the highest standards of the discipline or interdisciplinary area they select.
More information about the Keystone Project can be found here.
Keystone Courses
Kilachand students may follow a variety of pathways to fulfill the Keystone Project.
If a student has contacted you to be a Keystone Project Advisor, they are likely following the Keystone Pathway through Kilachand. This means that the your advisee would enroll in KHC HC 503 and KHC HC 504 each semester of the senior year with you. These are two-credit directed study courses offered through Kilachand. We expect students to earn a B or better in these directed study courses to fulfill the Keystone Project requirement and imagine that students will be graded on progress in the fall, and their final project in the spring
Keystone Deliverables
Because Kilachand students are enrolled in majors across the BU schools and colleges and norms and standards vary by discipline, we do not have broad guidelines for what these projects should entail and what their deliverables should be. Projects range from writing and producing films to working in wet labs and publishing journal articles. The only firm requirement is that all Keystone Projects be rooted in research.
We ask students to work with their Keystone Project Advisors to agree upon the scope of their project, the project deliverable, and the frequency of meetings throughout the year.
The Keystone Project is delivered only to the Keystone Project Advisor. At Kilachand, we ask that all students present at the Keystone Symposium and submit a one-page précis at the close of the senior year.
We encourage you to review past Keystone Projects for a sense of project breadth and an idea of the opportunities for creative project deliverables.
Keystone Funding
All Kilachand students are eligible for up to $2,000 in research funds. We ask students to adhere to various University and Kilachand-specific guidelines when creating their budget proposals.
Keystone Project Advisors who are advising Internal Pathway Keystone projects (i.e. instructing KHC HC503 and KHC HC504) are eligible to apply for up to $1,000 in the form of a research grant. You may find the grant application here. *Please note these funds are not available for new project advisors starting Fall 2025*
Keystone Advisor Workshop
This short workshop covers the basics of Keystone advising, offers perspectives from seasoned Keystone advisors, and addresses common questions and challenges. (Fall 2023)