Westling's tenure came to an end in July 2002, when he resigned the presidency to return to teaching and research as a Professor of History and Humanities.
Moreover, says Towle, as provost under John Silber, he played a pivotal role in the recruitment of four Nobel Prize winners to the faculty.
[1] As a scholar and professor, Westling specialized in the histories of Medieval Europe and Tudor England, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations, early modern philosophy and political theory, the development of the European state system, and the history and contemporary state of higher education.
Beyond his tenure as president and provost, he was remembered as a professor within Boston University's Department of History and as an avid motorcyclist.
"President Westling referred to students with learning disabilities as "a plague," and an indication of "a silent genetic catastrophe," and he has made similar statements in letters to the New York Times, the Boston Globe, campus newspapers, and students' parents.