Boston College Chronicle

ChronicleThe BosTon College

Chronicleapril 25, 2013 VOl. 21 nO. 16

Published by the Boston College Office of News & Public Affairs

QUOTE:

INSIDE•Boston College Venture Competition, page 2

•BC alum Byron finishes 147-mile marathon, page 2

•Cancer prevention study seeks subjects, page 2•Truman Scholarship for Luangrath, page 3

•Sesquicentennial Q&A with Doug Flutie, page 8

•Six earn NSF Graduate Fellowships, page 9

•Arts Festival kicks off today, page 3

•Conte hosts Sesquicen-tennial on the Road, page 4

•New UGBC president and VP talk, page 10

•Romero winner, page 11

•“Avenue Q,” page 12

•BC is Hartford Ctr. of Aca-demic Excellence, page 5•Clote, Ohi selected for Guggenheims, page 8

By Office Of News & PuBlic AffAirs stAff

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who has a record of al-most four decades in service to the public, will address this year’s graduates at the 137th annual Boston College Commencement Exercises on May 20.

University President William P. Leahy, SJ, will present Kenny with an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the ceremony, which will be held at 10 a.m. in Alumni Stadium, rain or shine.

BC will also present honorary degrees to: James A. Woods, SJ, founding dean and namesake of the University’s Woods College for Advancing Studies; Wayne

Budd, former US attorney and long-time BC trustee; Cornelia Kelley, headmaster emerita of Bos-ton Latin School; and Mary Lou DeLong, who served in several key administrative roles at BC.

Following the main Com-

mencement event, some 4,395 Boston College students will re-ceive their undergraduate and graduate degrees at separate cer-emonies held around campus.

Enda Kenny was elected as Taoiseach (prime minister) in March of 2011, almost nine years after being chosen as leader of Fine Gael, the largest political party in the Dáil Éireann (House of Deputies). Kenny has articu-lated a vision of Fine Gael as a party of the progressive center, focusing on the rights and respon-sibilities of all citizens, while also demonstrating his concern for so-cial justice: Earlier this year, he delivered an emotional apology in the Dáil on behalf of the state to the Magdalene Laundry survivors.

Kenny’s ascension to prime minister was the latest achieve-ment in a political career that has spanned nearly 40 years. As Min-ister for Tourism and Trade from 1994-97, Kenny was credited with overseeing an unprecedented growth in Ireland’s tourism busi-ness, and with helping strengthen its trade position internationally — thus playing a significant role in Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” era of economic growth.

A native of Islandeady in County Mayo and a former pri-mary school teacher, Kenny was first elected to the Dáil in a by-election in the Mayo constituency in 1975 following the death of his father, Henry. He was a member

By seAN smith chrONicle editOr

The Boston College commu-nity this week sought to return to familiar work and study routines following one of the most tumul-tuous periods in recent memory.

Last Friday, even as BC — along with all of Boston — con-tinued to cope with the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bomb-ings on Patriot’s Day, an intense manhunt for the surviving one

of two suspects involved in the heinous act of terrorism neces-sitated a lockdown of the city and adjacent communities. The University sent out an emergency notification early that morning cancelling classes, while most BC employees remained home and students stayed in their residence halls until Massachusetts Gover-nor Deval Patrick lifted the “shel-ter-in-place” order that evening.

BC administrators said the

Staying Strong


A proposal for renewing Bos-ton College’s undergraduate core curriculum would establish a new three-component, 42-credit struc-ture of courses encompassing nu-merous disciplines, as well as an emphasis on student formation and personal discernment.

This model, the subject of a town hall-style campus meeting held yesterday afternoon, is the latest development in the nearly year-long process to revamp the University’s core curriculum be-ing undertaken by a committee of faculty and administrators in collaboration with Continuum, an acclaimed innovative thinking

By JAck duNN directOr Of News & PuBlic AffAirs

Boston College has named Bar-bara Jones, the vice president of the division of student affairs at Miami University of Ohio, as its new vice president for student affairs, effec-tive July 1.

Jones brings extensive experience and a reputation as a nationally re-spected student affairs leader to Bos-ton College. Prior to assuming her role at Miami University in 2008, Jones served as assistant chancellor

COMMENCEMENT 2013Irish Prime Minister Kenny to Address GradsWayne Budd, Cornelia Kelley, Mary Lou DeLong, James Woods, SJ, also to be honored

Enda Kenny

Continued on page 4

Continued on page 3 Barbara Jones

Continued on page 5Continued on page 6

New Student Affairs VP Named

Committee Unveils Proposal for Renewing Core Curriculum

A student at last week’s Mass for Hope and Healing. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)

BC community leans on faith, and one another, to deal with horror, aftermath of marathon bombings

“I suggest that, as we move back into real time from surreal time, we take time to do an exa-men of this past week, that we invite the Holy Spirit to enlighten us, and that we play back the tape in our heads.”—From a homily by Center for Ignatian Spirituality Director Joseph O’Keefe, SJ, page 7

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The BosTon College

Chronicleapril 25, 2013

DIrEctor of NEWS & PublIc AffAIrS

Jack DunnDEPuty DIrEctor of NEWS

& PublIc AffAIrS

Patricia DelaneyEDItor

Sean SmithcoNtrIbutINg StAff

Melissa Beecher

Ed Hayward

Rosanne Pellegrini

Kathleen Sullivan

Michael Maloney

PhotogrAPhErS

Gary Gilbert

Lee Pellegrini

The Boston College Chronicle (USPS 009491), the internal newspaper for faculty and staff, is published biweekly from September to May by Boston Col-lege, with editorial offices at the Office of News & Public Affairs, 14 May-flower Road, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 (617)552-3350. Distributed free to fac-ulty and staff offices and other locations on campus. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA and additional mailing offic-es. POSTMASTER: send address changes to The Boston College Chronicle, Office of News & Public Affairs, 14 Mayflower Road, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.

Contact Chronicle via e-mail: [email protected] editions of the Bos-ton College Chronicle are available via the World Wide Web at http://www.bc.edu/chronicle.

The BosTon College

Chronicle

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Members of the Boston College community who are between the ages of 30 and 65 and have never been diagnosed with cancer will have the opportunity to take part in a new cancer prevention study.

The American Cancer Society is soliciting volunteers for its Cancer Prevention Study-3, or CPS-3, which over a period of 20 to 30 years will follow a diverse sample of the population and study how life-style choices affect the likelihood of developing cancer.

Enrollment for CPS-3 will take place on May 1 in the New-ton Room of Corcoran Com-mons from 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Register for an appointment at www.cancer.org/cps3NE. Dur-ing the May 1 appointment, applicants will read and sign an informed consent form; complete a survey asking for detailed information on lifestyle, behavioral, and other factors related to their health; be mea-sured for waist circumference; and give a small blood sample, drawn by a trained, certified phlebotomist.

Those who participate in the study will be asked to complete a mailed survey every few years for the next 20-30 years.

“The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention studies began in the 1950s and have involved hundreds of thousands of volunteer participants,” said University Benefits Director Jack Burke. “They have led to discoveries such as the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, and the role obesity plays in the risk of several cancers. This new CPS-3 effort will help researchers build on evidence from previous studies, and help bring us closer to eliminating cancer as a major health burden in the future.

“We at Boston College now have an opportunity to help in this very important goal.”

For more information, see www.cancer.org/cps3, email [email protected], or call 1-888-604-5888.

—Office of News & Public Affairs

Three Boston College under-graduates and their business plan for the tech start-up phyre took the top $20,000-prize at the sev-enth annual Boston College Ven-ture Competition, held April 10 at the Carroll School of Manage-ment.

The team of Matt Ricketson, Patrick Allen and Joshua Jackson, all seniors — Jackson in CSOM, Ricketson and Allen in the Col-lege of Arts and Sciences — plans to use the prize money to launch phyre, a company that will man-ufacture and market a portable data device the team designed to deliver sales and conference pre-sentations seamlessly to televisions and display screens.

For two members of the phyre team, this was their third BCVC competition. They drew on their earlier experiences to craft a busi-ness plan to market their portable device – about the size of a deck of cards – to sales personnel and oth-ers who struggle to connect to in-compatible presentation hardware and software. Eventually, phyre plans to incorporate the technol-ogy into a line of display screens.

“We think BCVC has been an invaluable experience,” said Rick-etson. “It imposes a structure on your work and it gives you a time-line and deadlines to complete

these ideas that you have. It is a lot of work and it’s time-consuming, but BCVC really pushes you.”

Now in its seventh year, BCVC has more than doubled its prize money, from $15,000 to $35,000. Winners and finalists from past competitions have gone on to earn places in some of the country’s top start-up incubators, launched tech start-ups locally

and in the Silicon Valley, and snared approximately $25 million in seed funding. BCVC faculty advisor and Associate Professor of Information Systems John Gal-laugher said this year’s group of finalists represented a broad range of ventures and benefitted from prior experience, be it through BCVC or similar competitions at institutions such as MIT and Yale.

“We just had a great mix this year,” said Gallaugher. “But it was most thrilling to see students who have essentially grown up in BCVC. They are not only mak-ing their mark here and making this an elite program for student entrepreneurs, but they are taking part in some of the leading busi-ness competitions around.”

The $10,000 second-place

prize went to BC undergradu-ates Tommy Christmas ’13 and Kevin McGovern ’14 and their high school classmates Tyler Ken-nedy and Wes Schroll, who both study at the University of Wis-consin. All four grew up in Acton and attended Acton-Boxborough Regional High School.

They impressed the judges with Fetch Rewards, a mobile

app for grocery shoppers that would offer a range of services and discounts to shoppers in real time, while collecting volumes of cutting-edge data about shoppers, products and service. The team is seeking financing to launch a beta version through a mid-west grocery chain within the next nine to 12 months.

Finishing in third place with an award of $2,500 was Knowl-edgeArena, a web-based platform for competitive test-takers that would allow users to place bets based on their knowledge and test-taking skills. The team con-sisted of freshmen Andy Lee and Tommy Tan and their partner Sean Nam.

Other finalists included Cam-pus Calories, a mobile app for health-conscious college diners, led by senior Jimmy Campbell, and Streak Media, an email mar-keting company run by BC se-niors David Casinghino, Andrew Flynn, Chris Marciniack, Michael Nardella and sophomore William Chamberlain.

Learn more about the Boston College Venture Competition at http://bcvc.org. For a video about this year’s finals, see on.bc.edu/ZLE-QsT.

—Ed Hayward

Lynch School of Education Teaching Fellow Elizabeth By-ron ’06 blazed a trail through the Sahara on her way to raising funds to purchase computers for students at the Gardner Pilot Academy, where she is a special education teacher.

Byron, an All America swim-mer as a BC undergraduate, finished the Marathon des Sa-bles in fine form, recording the third fastest time for an Ameri-can woman in the 147-mile ul-tra marathon. She placed 12th among all female competitors in what is billed as “the world’s toughest foot race.”

“This race just reaffirmed I’m probably too competitive,” By-ron wrote on her blog following the five-stage race in Morocco. “More importantly I hope it’s raised more funds for GPA.”

Byron had insisted she wasn’t running for time. Instead, her goal was to use the race to raise $50,000 to purchase computers for classroom use at the Gardner, which is located in Allston. So far, Byron has raised $36,000 toward her goal.

She reported that as she passed other runners from around the world, they would often shout, “Go, teacher!”

Byron’s odyssey also provided some mathematical exercises for her students, posted on her blog as “Math from the Sahara.” One problem read, “Assuming there are 862 athletes competing in the Marathon Des Sables, and 14 percent of the entrants are women, how many women are running in the race?” Another read: “By day 4 of the race (to-morrow’s leg) Ms. Byron will have run about 110 miles. If the race is 150 miles long, what fraction of the race does she have left? Show your answer in both fraction and decimal form.”

For more information about Byron’s fundraising efforts, see www.runforlaptops.org.

—Ed Hayward

The Boston College Po-lice Department will hold its annual auction to ben-efit Special Olympics Mas-sachusetts on May 4 in the Walsh Hall Function Room. Items set for auction include, electronics, jewelry, cloth-ing, sporting equipment and much, much more.

Viewing of items begins at 8:30 a.m., and the auction will start at 9 a.m.

For information about Special Olympics Massachu-setts programs and activities, see www.specialolympicsma.org.

Additional details on the auction are available from Sgt. Kevin Croke, at [email protected].—Office of News & Public Affairs

Elizabeth Byron ’06 takes a break during her run through the Sahara.

The phyre team (L-R, Joshua Jackson, Patrick Allen and Matt Ricketson) present at the Boston College Venture Competition. (Photo by Ed Hayward)

A good run

BCPD Auction

ACS study seeks subjects

Venture Competition spotlights BC entrepreneurs

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Chronicle


Narintohn Luangrath ’14 — whose family’s experiences as im-migrants inspired her interest in migration and asylum policy issues — has won a Harry S. Truman Scholarship, which recognizes un-dergraduates who demonstrate lead-ership potential and the capacity to “make a difference.”

Truman Scholars are selected on the basis of a strong record of public service, as well as a policy proposal that addresses a particular issue in society. The scholarship provides funding support for graduate study.

While a Boston College student, Luangrath, an International Studies major from Portland, Ore., has trav-eled to France to study media cover-age of that country’s burqa ban, and interned for the Irish Human Rights Commission to provide research, analysis and recommendations for the Irish government on policies concerning refugees and asylum seekers.

She has served as an Undergrad-uate Research Fellow for Political Science faculty members Professor Peter Skerry and Associate Professor Jonathan Laurence, both eminent scholars in immigration issues, and Assistant Professor Jennifer Erick-son, who studies international se-curity.

These research opportunities have fueled Luangrath’s desire to advocate for reform in US policies toward refugees and persons seeking asylum.

“The plight of people who come to the US as forced migrants and refugees is often overlooked in main-stream debates about immigration,” she said. “This is a population at the mercy of a process that is not very transparent, and which often relies on prison detention or other detri-mental practices.

“The US needs to balance its security concerns with a more ef-fective, and humanitarian, policy toward forced migrants and asylum seekers.”

For Luangrath, the issue has a deeply personal connection. The ex-periences of her father, a native of Laos, and her mother, from Thai-land, as well as other family mem-bers in immigrating to the United States made an indelible impression on her, and provided a signpost for her research interests.

“My parents had advantages other immigrants may have lacked, in that they came to the US on academic scholarships and obtained a college education,” she explained. “Although it wasn’t easy, even with

a good fluency in English, they were able to integrate into American so-ciety quite well. But other family members, many of whom were refu-gees from the Vietnam War, had a far more difficult time resettling.

“So, I found myself becoming more and more interested in these conflicting immigrant narratives, and what was behind them. Do-ing the research project in France on the burqa controversy — which provided insights into how a West-ern society integrates an immigrant population — and then working with the Irish Human Rights Com-mission — and seeing how the state deals with the ‘Travelers,’ a nomadic population — were incredibly valu-able experiences.

“Being able to do research with professors Laurence, Skerry and Er-ickson — who have been so generous with their time and advice — also has helped me learn more about the various social and political aspects re-lated to migration and asylum policy issues.”

Luangrath says the process of ap-plying for the Truman, which in-cludes spoken as well as written pre-sentations, has further benefited her.

“What I learned is, you can be pas-sionate about a policy issue, but you have to understand the costs, the ram-ifications, the related topics — you have to see the bigger picture. How might people respond to the policy? What are the competing policy inter-ests? That way, you’re better prepared to think and reason about your issue.”

Skerry praised Luangrath as “a very impressive young woman who has continually taken the initiative in her education, whether showing up at my door asking to do research or obtaining funding through Advanced Study Grants and other sources to support her work abroad. She is a

serious and dedicated student who is always finding ways to build on her classroom experiences.”

At BC, Luangrath directed the BCTalks lecture series, which show-cases the scholarly interests and achievements of undergraduates. A member of the University’s Shaw Leadership Program, Luangrath also has mentored Boston area high school debaters and volunteered through the Generation Citizen program to teach young people about the importance of participating in democracy.

Luangrath expressed thanks to Vice Provost for Undergraduate Af-fairs Donald Hafner, Political Science faculty members Kenji Hayao and Jennifer Purnell, and Founders Pro-fessor in Theology James Keenan, SJ, for their assistance in the Truman ap-plication process, as well as Kuong Ly ’07, Aditya Ashok ’12 and Amanda Rothschild ’11.

“Boston College is a very sup-portive community,” said Luan-grath, who will work this summer at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Mi-gration, and plans doctoral studies after BC. “I feel fortunate to have had so many mentors and friends at BC, who have helped me find opportunities to grow intellectually, to learn more about social and global issues of concern to me — and the role one can play in effecting change.”

But it is to her parents whom Luangrath feels the most gratitude. “They have worked hard and given back to the community — my fa-ther, for example, worked for an Indochinese refugee center in Port-land. They have always encouraged me to pursue that which interests me most, so they are very happy my doing so has led to a Truman Scholarship.”

for student affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, associ-ate vice president for student af-fairs at Ball State University, and as director of student activities and organizations at Minnesota State University-Mankato. She also served as president of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) from 2006-2007, and as a member of the National Task Force on the Future of Student Affairs from 2008-2010.

While at Miami University, Jones was credited with improving outreach to students by creat-ing an initiative to improve academic success and expand student internship opportunities. Jones also helped to en-hance staff devel-opment through a targeted series of professional de-velopment programs that focused on student retention, academic success, program assessment and alcohol education, and to foster a culture of assessment by introduc-ing both learning and program outcomes and data-driven deci-sion-making.

University President William P. Leahy, SJ, described Jones as an experienced professional with a proven track record in managing student affairs. “Dr. Jones brings to Boston College tremendous experience in higher education, particularly in the area of student affairs,” said Fr. Leahy. “She un-derstands BC’s mission, and I am convinced that that she will con-tribute in many ways to campus life and to achieving our student formation goals.”

Executive Vice President Pat-rick Keating, who will oversee Jones in her new role, offered a similar assessment. “Barbara’s combination of education, senior-level experience in student affairs, and commitment to our mission makes her an ideal choice to be the vice president for student affairs at Boston College,” said Keating. “Her career has been dedicated to the development and formation of students. She will be a tremendous contributor and member of the

BC family.”Jones said she

was delighted to ac-cept the offer to join Boston College and looked forward to beginning her new role this summer. “The people I have met at Boston Col-lege have a genuine commitment to stu-dents and to student

development,” said Jones. “BC of-fers unique opportunities to live out that commitment and to help students to grow, develop and ex-perience formation while they are with us. That is what I look for-ward to most.”

Jones said she welcomed the opportunity to work at a Jesuit, Catholic university and to help integrate the University’s distinc-tive mission in the Student Affairs division’s outreach to students. “Coming to Boston College gives me an opportunity to expose my-self to a greater depth of thinking about issues and to reflect on them through a values-based process,” said Jones. “I look forward to working in a collaborative way with students, faculty and staff all across the University.”

The 15th annual Boston College Arts Festival begins today, show-casing music, theater, dance, poetry, film, painting, sculpture and more from members of the University community.

A highlight of the festival will be public appearances by alumni guests acclaimed writer Robert Polito ’73 and award-winning pho-tographer James Balog ’74. Polito will be presented with the Boston College Arts Council Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement by Vice President for University Mission and Ministry Jack Butler, SJ.

Associate Professor of Fine Arts Sheila Gallagher will receive the faculty arts award, which will be presented — along with student awards — at a ceremony tomorrow in the Stokes Art Tent at 4 p.m.

The awards reception is free and open to the public, but regis-tration is required at http://tinyurl.com/bulbrvc. Contact Alumni Relations Assistant Director Eva Maynard at ext. 2-4757 for more information.

Festival highlights also include the performance of the adult musi-cal comedy “Avenue Q” at BC’s Robsham Theater Arts Center [see page 12], and more than 80 public events for all ages.

For Arts Festival details, see www.bc.edu/artsfestival or call ext. 2-2787.

—Rosanne Pellegrini

Continued from page 1

Arts Festival Opens Today

Contact Jack Dunn at [email protected]

“BC offers unique

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grow, develop and ex-

perience formation.”

—Barbara Jones

Narintohn Luangrath ’14 (Photo by Sean Smith)

BC Junior Wins Truman Scholarship

Jones to Lead Student Affairs

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of Mayo County Council from 1975-1995 until his appoint-ment to the cabinet. Kenny also has served as minister for state in Education; Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht; the Islands; West-ern Development; and Youth Af-fairs and Sport.

Married to Fionnuala O’Kelly, and father of Naoise, Ferdia and Aoibhinn, Kenny climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in aid of three Mayo charities in 2003, and regularly undertakes charity cycles.

The legal career of Wayne A. Budd ’63 has run the gamut from corporate counsel to associ-ate US attorney general, from business executive to Massachu-setts’ chief federal prosecutor. Along the way, Budd has served as a mentor, advocate and advi-sor in support of education, civil rights, and the development of the next generation of business and civic leaders.

The son of a Springfield, Mass., police officer, Budd grad-uated cum laude from BC in 1963 with a degree in econom-ics. He went on to earn his law degree from Wayne State Uni-versity Law School in Detroit while working for Ford Motor Co. Budd’s ties to his alma mater have remained significant. From 1980 to 1997, Budd served as a trustee of Boston College and from 1973 to 1988 he was an ad-junct faculty member at Boston College Law School. His fam-ily endowed the Budd Family Scholarship.

Currently senior counsel at the Boston law firm of Goodwin Procter, LLP, Budd has lent his expertise to federal and state agen-cies on sentencing guidelines, civil service regulation and public health. He is a board member for the New England Innocence Project and the pre-collegiate program Squash Busters Inc., and a former chairman and board member of The Partnership, a leadership development initiative for African-American men.

Budd will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at Com-mencement.

Mary Lou DeLong NC’71 is the retired vice president and University secretary of Boston College. During her tenure, she oversaw a variety of responsi-bilities, including chairing the University’s Sesquicentennial Steering Committee; providing oversight and coordination of

Commencement exercises and activities; and serving as liaison for the Trustee Committee on Nominations and Governance, University honorary degree re-cipients and senior liaison to The Council for Women of Boston College.

From 1992 until 2004 De-Long served as vice president for University relations at BC, responsible for educational fun-draising and alumni affairs. She oversaw the University’s $441 million “Ever to Excel” campaign and from 2002-2004 managed a two-fold expansion and re-engineering of the University’s Advancement division.

In addition, DeLong — a 1971 Newton College alumna — served Boston College as execu-tive director of development, di-rector of individual gifts, director of development programs, and assistant director of the Alumni Association, as well as five years as a University trustee. She also held senior positions at Harvard Medical School, Phillips Acad-emy, and Stevens Institute of Technology. DeLong has been active with the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education at both the national and district level, and was the recipient of the CASE District I Distinguished Service award.

At Commencement, DeLong will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Cornelia Kelley became the first female headmaster of Boston Latin School — the nation’s first public school — in 1998, and during her nine-year adminis-tration the school constructed a new wing for the visual and per-forming arts, a media center that is touted as the most advanced school library in the US, and a new dining hall. In addition, Boston Latin renovated existing facilities to incorporate technol-ogy into every classroom.

Kelley pioneered a five-year,

$35 million capital campaign, Pons Privatus, a revolutionary concept for funding special pro-grams and scholarships for grad-uating seniors at a public school. A model in the US, Boston Latin was recognized as a center of edu-cational excellence by the govern-ments of China, Iceland, Ghana and Turkey.

A lifelong resident of Boston and 1969 graduate of the New-ton College of the Scared Heart, Kelley now serves as a member of the Commission on American and Independent Schools Abroad and the New England Associa-tion of Schools and Colleges.

The University will award Kelley an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at Com-mencement.

Boston College’s longest-serving dean and namesake of the University’s Woods College

of Advancing Studies, James A. Woods, SJ, stepped down in 2012 from that leadership post, which he held for 44 years. At that time, he was honored at a University “Celebration of Gratitude” for his dedication and commitment in service to others.

During his tenure, Fr. Woods oversaw comprehensive changes in the curricula at Boston Col-lege and designed and introduced a graduate degree program for part-time students. At his re-quest, the name of the Evening College was changed in 1996 to the College of Advancing Stud-ies to reflect its evolving mis-sion. In May 2002, the school became the Woods College of Advancing Studies following a $5 million gift from Katharine B. and Robert M. Devlin, which symbolized their high regard for the University and the dedication of Fr. Woods, a mentor to two

generations of the Devlin family.A native of Dorchester’s

Neponset neighborhood, Fr. Woods earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Boston Col-lege, followed by a bachelor of sacred theology degree from Weston College and a doctorate in education from Boston Uni-versity.

He has said that the Woods College helps fulfill the Univer-sity’s educational and service mission in the Boston area. He established numerous scholarship and endowment funds during his years as dean, and named them for his longest-serving faculty and staff.

At Commencement, he will be presented with an Honorary Doc-tor of Humane Letters degree.

For information on Commence-ment 2013, see www.bc.edu/com-mencement.


More than 500 Boston College alumni, along with family members, turned out at Conte Forum on April 13 — BC’s National Day of Service — to pack meals for needy families as part of the Sesquicentennial on the Road tour. The volunteers prepared 191,934 meals, which along with the tour’s stops in Miami, Los Angeles and most re-cently San Francisco comes out to almost 293,000 meals overall — far surpassing the goal of 150,000 in honor of BC’s 150th an-niversary. The tour’s three remaining stops are New York City, Dublin and Chicago.

(Right) Among the helpers in Conte were 1991 grad Patty Lavoie (second from left), her daughters Megan and Colleen, hus-band Chris, and son Mike. For more information, see www.bc.edu/150ontheroad

#WEAREBC150

Photos by Suzanne Camarata

Wayne Budd Mary Lou DeLong Cornelia Kelley James Woods, SJ

COMMENCEMENT 2013

University to Honor Kenny, Four Others

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and design consultancy.The Core Renewal Com-

mittee has held extensive dis-cussions with diverse groups of faculty, administrators, staff, students and other stakeholders in the University community in an effort to address concerns and hear views regarding the core curriculum, last revised in the 1990s.

“What’s important to know is that the footprint of the core curriculum is unchanged; the number of credits has not been reduced,” said committee co-chair Rattigan Professor of Eng-lish Mary Crane, director of BC’s Institute for the Liberal Arts. “More importantly, the University remains committed to the classic liberal arts educa-tion and the Jesuit, Catholic tradition that has been central to the Boston Col-lege experience.”

Under the new proposal put forth by the committee, core classes would be organized in three parts. Communities of Inquiry are cours-es taken in the first year, with cohorts of approximately 225 students engaging in intensive multidisciplinary study of fun-damental questions and global challenges through two six-cred-it sequences, Enduring Ques-tions and Complex Problems.

“We felt it was vital for the core to make a big impact in freshman year,” said Crane. “The committee felt this can be accomplished by creating small-er groups of about 225 students — Communities of Inquiry — where they participate in an en-gaging and intense intellectual experience.”

The Exploration phase entails 10 courses across the humanities, natural sciences, and social sci-ences that ensure students gain a rigorous education in the liberal arts while enabling intellectual engagement and exploration. Characterized as Foundations or Immersions, these courses range in level of breadth or depth, class size, and pedagogical approach.

In the Reflection component, students are given opportunities inside and outside the classroom to help them discern the mean-ing, significance and value of the work taking place in their dis-ciplinary studies and lives out-side of class. This program will involve the Student Affairs and University Mission and Ministry

divisions, as well as interested faculty.

Core Renewal Committee representatives reiterated that by adopting the proposal for a renewed core, the University would put in place “a framework for innovation” rather than “a detailed blueprint that will re-main unchanged for 20 years.” The basic structural principles contained in the proposed mod-el, they said, would be subject to periodic external reviews and will be reassessed at least every 10 years.

The proposal included some potential scenarios of how stu-dents might experience the new core. For example, in the Endur-ing Questions program, a Com-munity of Inquiry would focus

on one overarching topic, such as “Understanding the Past.” Faculty would agree on three enduring questions to cover in each class within the topic; these might include the nature of knowledge, the impact of past on future, and the influence of religious belief on society.

These questions would be ex-plored in pairs of linked courses taught be faculty from different disciplines. A list of possible paired courses – and the disci-plines they encompass – might include Lost Civilizations (His-tory and Classical Studies), Memory and Trauma (Litera-ture and Psychology), and Bos-ton’s Past (Literature and His-tory).

“The multidisciplinary char-acter of these sequences,” said Crane, “is a major point that emerged from discussions with both faculty and students as to what would make for an inter-esting and engaging experience.”

In the Complex Problems program, the cohort of students might study issues such as mi-gration and immigration, or ac-cess to water, supplemented by independent research and lab work.

The proposal also recom-mends the creation of a new

Core Renewal Committee (CRC) to spearhead ongoing in-novation and oversight of the renewed core. The CRC would be housed within the Institute for the Liberal Arts, and receive funding from the University to support core course develop-ment and administration. The CRC would consult twice a year with the Core Steering Com-mittee and the Student Advi-sory Council. The Core Steering Committee would provide over-sight, guidance and funding ad-vocacy, and administer an exter-nal program review every eight to 10 years to assess the core and recommend improvements.

The new CRC will work with departments to articulate discipline-specific learning out-

comes for individual requirements, ac-cording to the pro-posal, and to ensure that departments and faculty measure and assess student work against these learning outcomes — these in-clude understanding a discipline’s major approaches and ideas, and understanding from a scholarly per-

spective the relationship of faith and reason.

During the next two weeks, departments in the University’s four undergraduate schools are expected to study the pro-posed core renewal and report their findings to their respec-tive deans. These will be shared with University President Wil-liam P. Leahy, SJ, and Provost and Dean of Faculties Cutberto Garza, and a decision on the proposal will be made during the summer.

Implementation of the re-newed core curriculum experi-ence would begin on a small scale with the 2013-2014 aca-demic year and continue over several years.

Along with Crane, the Core Renewal Committee is co-chaired by College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Quigley and Carroll School of Man-agement Dean Andy Boynton. Committee members are De-Luca Professor of Biology Tom Chiles, Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sci-ences Gail Kineke, Professor of Sociology Juliet Schor, Professor of Philosophy Emeritus Richard Cobb-Stevens, and A&S Associ-ate Dean Akua Sarr, director of the University Advising Center.


Boston College will be the loca-tion for one of the first two Hart-ford Academic Centers of Excel-lence in Geriatric Social Work, pro-viding leadership, education and other resources in an increasingly critical area of social work.

BC and the University of Mich-igan were selected as the inaugural Hartford Academic Centers of Ex-cellence (ACE) by the Hartford/GSA National Center on Geron-tological Social Work Excellence, which was established through a three-year, $1.35 million grant from the John A. Hartford Foun-dation to the Gerontological Soci-ety of America (GSA) in February.

The Hartford Academic Cen-ter of Excellence at BC will be led by James Lubben, the Louise McMahon Ahearn Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work and a leading scholar in social ger-ontology whose research focuses on social support networks among older populations. Lubben is direc-tor of the school’s doctoral program and also heads the University’s In-stitute on Aging. Three aging re-search centers at BC are affiliated with the Institute on Aging, two of them housed at GSSW: the Sloan Center on Aging and Work and the National Resource Center for Participant-Directed Services, as well as the Carroll School of Man-agement’s Center for Retirement Research.

Each ACE is expected to pro-vide leadership for social work edu-cators; build bridges to local health professionals, such as those em-ployed by agencies on aging; form regional consortia of social work field agencies serving older adults and their families that will address gaps in education and training on aging; and engage in inter-profes-sional collaborations with other de-partments of the university, with other professional groups within the region, and with Hartford Cen-ters of Excellence in medicine and nursing.

“Being identified as a Hartford

Geriatric Social Work Center com-mits that university to exemplary leadership in training future gen-erations of geriatric social work practitioners and faculty, as well as to leadership in the translation of new knowledge into policy and practice,” said GSA Fellow Bar-bara Berkman, who chairs the as-sociation’s national advisory board. “This association provides a recog-nizable brand that empowers these universities to serve as models that will motivate other universities to meet the standards required of be-ing an identified center.”

The centers also will provide mentoring to Hartford-funded re-searchers based at the US Veterans Administration; create and evaluate training models that translate new knowledge into practice and policy; and seek additional support to sus-tain the social work centers.

“It is both an honor and a chal-lenge to be named a Hartford Aca-demic Center of Excellence,” said Lubben, who is founding director of the Hartford Doctoral Fellows Program in Geriatric Social Work, funded by the Hartford Foun-dation and administered by the GSA. “The honor acknowledges the leadership GSSW faculty have provided, and are providing, in ge-riatric social work. The challenge is for GSSW to remain committed to that leadership in a rapidly chang-ing environment. Hartford ACEs are expected to continue their com-mitment to training social workers capable of enhancing the health and well-being of America’s rap-idly growing population of older adults.”

GSSW Dean Alberto Godenzi added, “Being named a Hartford Academic Center of Excellence demonstrates our continued com-mitment to social work with older adults and their families. The Hart-ford Center at Boston College will provide new opportunities for the Graduate School of Social Work to share our expertise and engage the practice community.”

Ahearn Professor of Social Work James Lubben. (Photo by Gary Gilbert)

BC Will Be Resource for Geriatric Social Work

Contact Sean Smith at [email protected]


“What’s important to know is that the foot-

print of the core curriculum is unchanged; the

number of credits has not been reduced. More

importantly, the University remains commit-

ted to the classic liberal arts education and the

Jesuit, Catholic tradition that has been cen-

tral to the Boston College experience.”

—Core renewal Committee Co-chair Mary Crane

New Core Proposal Unveiled

6

The BosTon College


events of last week required Bos-ton College to be a community of faith and fellowship, as well as a place of learning and scholar-ship — and the University met the challenge.

University President William P. Leahy, SJ, in a letter published Monday, thanked the BC com-munity “for its generosity, coop-eration, and example as we and Greater Boston dealt with such unusual circumstances.”

Fr. Leahy and other adminis-trators praised BC police officers and staff from Dining Servic-es, Facilities Management and Health Services who stayed on after their overnight shifts ended because the shelter-in-place or-der prevented them from leaving and many of their replacement workers from coming to campus. Many who did make it in worked overnight on Friday until the campus returned to a normal schedule on Saturday.

Administrators also cited the work of the Emergency Manage-ment Team — whose member-ship comprises several offices and departments — for keeping the University community informed of developments on Friday and resolving several logistical prob-lems related to the lockdown. A highlight of their efforts was arranging meals for some 7,400 students on campus: Through the work of Residential Life staff, students were directed to the dining facility nearest them and given food by a skeleton Dining Services staff to carry back to their rooms.

“The cooperation of our stu-dents was greatly appreciated by everyone at BC,” said University Spokesman Jack Dunn. “The plan would not have worked as smoothly without their assistance and cooperation.”

Athletic Director Brad Bates announced on Friday the cancel-lation of the annual Jay McGillis Spring Football Game scheduled for the next day, out of respect for bombing victims and their families and not wishing to overburden the BC Police, Dining and Facilities staffs.

The days preceding Friday found the BC community shar-ing in the widespread grief, hor-ror, sorrow and bewilderment over the Boston Marathon bombings. Many at BC felt connected, di-rectly or indirectly, to the tragic event: Some 300 undergraduates ran in this year’s marathon, many of behalf of the Campus School; other members of the University community also participated, or had a family member or friend

who had entered the race; and still others at BC were spectators near the finish line where the explosions occurred.

BC in particular focused its concern and prayers for graduate students Liza Cherney and Britta-ny Loring, as well as Lynch School of Education graduate Patrick Downes ’05 and his wife Jessica, all of whom were hospitalized from injuries sustained in the bombing.

The story of the Downeses, in fact, became an international phenomenon after some of their friends launched a fundraising ef-fort via GiveForward.com to help pay the couple’s medical bills and other costs. Although the couple’s families did not give media inter-views and requested respect for their privacy, their plight — and the fundraising on their behalf — was widely reported in newspapers, TV and throughout the Internet. [As of Tuesday, “Help for Patrick

and Jess” had solicited 11,367 donations. The page can be viewed at http://bit.ly/ZzSitR.]

Similar efforts have been launched for Loring [at http://

bit.ly/11eVsEF] and Cherney [http://bit.ly/ZEqPdB]. A fun-draising website gave a progress report that earlier this week Lor-ing walked with a walker, and had received visits from Rob Gronkowski and Stevan Ridley

of the New England Patriots, and Dustin Pedroia, Jarrod Salta-lamacchia and John Farrell of the Boston Red Sox. An update for Cherney yesterday reported she

had undergone her final surgery, which had gone “really well.”

BC outreach also extended be-yond the University community. BCPD officers and students in the Eagle EMS program attended yesterday’s memorial service for

slain MIT officer Sean Collier. The Boston College Irish Dance student club volunteered to per-form at a benefit this Saturday for Jane Richard, whose eight-year-old brother Martin was killed in the bombing; Jane, who lost her leg in the blast, is a student in the Clifden Academy of Irish Dance in Milton.

A Mass of Hope and Heal-ing held in St. Ignatius Church the day following the marathon offered the BC community an opportunity to gather and offer prayers for the victims and all oth-ers affected by the bombings. The church, which the previous day had been a temporary sanctuary for stranded marathon runners, filled quickly to capacity with BC students — several wearing this year’s blue-and-yellow Boston Marathon windbreakers — fac-ulty, administrators and staff as well as St. Ignatius parishioners.

Fr. Leahy, who celebrated the Mass, urged those in attendance to draw on “a reservoir of care and good will, that will sustain us as a community.

“We come with certain hurts and a sense of confusion: Why do these things happen? How can we carry on?” he continued. “It is this very community of faith that engages us and provides us support. Tap into that reservoir of goodness around us; there is no need to be alone.”

The Mass proved a healing tonic for four BC seniors who had come close to being victims them-selves: Kara Mackintire, who was among the entrants in the mara-thon, and her friends Tommy Belton, Morgan Hiler and Caitlin Walsh, who accompanied her for the last five miles of the race.

They had crossed the finish line at about 2:45 p.m., only min-utes before the twin blasts. What had been a glorious day — an op-portunity to experience the mara-thon one last time together as BC students — dissolved into a rush for safety at Boston Common, followed by a numb trek back to campus and an anxious — but ultimately reassuring — search for news of other friends who had been at the marathon.

Outside St. Ignatius following the Mass, the four reflected on the events, and shifting emotions, of the past 24 hours.

“It was so scary for the first several hours, not being sure if someone you know might be injured, or worse,” said Belton. “We found out later on that everyone we knew was safe. But it was important to come here today, to find comfort together.”


Marathon Tragedy and Aftermath Tests University Community

Boston College held a Mass of Hope and Healing in St. Ignatius Church the day after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Lee

Pelle

grin

i

“To come over to console a freshman crying during the

tragedy at the Marathon was purely amazing. It meant so

much to me that complete strangers would be willing to do

that and not only make sure I was okay, but sit with me for

a while until I truly felt better. I can’t thank you enough

for your kindness and for giving me a reason to believe in

humanity when all my faith had been lost.”

—Boston College student Facebook post

Continued on next pageMarquette University students gathered to show their support for Boston College by running five miles — the dis-tance from BC to the Boston Marathon finish line. (Photo contributed to Boston College Facebook)

The BosTon College


7

“I was really impressed by how many people showed up for the Mass,” said Hiler. “It made me feel how lucky and blessed we are to be at BC.”

“We’ve replayed those mo-ments in our heads, and how ev-erything could have been so differ-ent if we had been a few minutes later,” said Mackintire. “Today, I felt thankful for the BC commu-nity, and that we could be together to thank God.”

Social media also provided evi-dence of the generosity of spirit and fellowship at BC in the wake of the tragedy. One student’s Face-book posting expressed apprecia-tion for a “senior girl in Ignacio” who had provided help in a time of anxiety over missing friends: “I have no idea who you are but you took the time to talk to me and give me a hug to comfort me.”

“To come over to console a freshman crying during the trag-edy at the Marathon was purely amazing,” read another Facebook post. “It meant so much to me that complete strangers would be will-ing to do that and not only make sure I was okay, but sit with me for a while until I truly felt better. I can’t thank you enough for your kindness and for giving me a rea-son to believe in humanity when all my faith had been lost.”

More than 800,000 people were reached by the BC Facebook page alone.

One Boston College story from Marathon Monday had a happy, if

Center for Ignatian Spirituality Di-rector Rev. Joseph O’Keefe, SJ, offered his thoughts on events of the past week in his homily during last Sunday’s Mass in St. Ignatius Church. The full version is available at http://on.bc.edu/Y1vwzJ

I have been on this earth for 3,159 weeks. And I have never experienced anything like the week that we just went through, my 3,160th week. How to describe the week that was?

In today’s Boston Globe “Ideas” section, columnist Ben Zimmer cap-tures the experience with a word I have recently used often and that I have often heard from others. The title of his piece is: “How Surreal.” Zimmer recalls that the word comes from the early 20th-century art move-ment with which you are familiar, called Surrealism. He writes, “Sur-real is no longer merely an aesthetic: Now, we turn to it most often when our mundane day-to-day experiences of life seem to move into some other dimension that our rational minds cannot account for.”

He goes on, “When there are no words, ‘surreal’ ends up as a proxy for more complex, inchoate emo-tions that are difficult to verbalize. ‘Surreal’ says: I saw it, but I don’t understand.”

The week that we just endured, the week that made us fearful, sad, and baffled — surreal: “I saw it, but I don’t understand.” As Christians, how do we come to understand what seems incomprehensible? How do we fathom our inchoate emotions? I suggest that we take time to engage in the prayer that is at the heart of the Ignatian experience. I suggest that, as we move back into real time from surreal time, we take time to do an examen of this past week, that we invite the Holy Spirit to enlighten us, and that we play back the tape in our heads.

The first images that will probably come to mind are the horrific ones – scattered limbs, scarred lives, horri-fied looks on faces, terrified children, weirdly deserted streets, text messages from frightened friends and relatives across the world. Yes, scenes of deso-lation indeed.

But you see, our lives are a mix of desolation and consolation. We need to face our desolations head on and with courage, we need to learn to deal with the harsh realities of the world of 2013, we need to bring perpetrators to justice and we need to protect our loved ones, but we also need to look for consolation. When our faith in human goodness has been challenged and our innocence lost, we turn to God. In the midst of darkness, Chris-tians look for the glimmer of light.

Where is the glimmer of light? In some ways, with hindsight, I wonder if God hadn’t been preparing us for this surreal week. All of these events have taken place during the Easter season, when we collectively ponder the meaning of the resurrection.

I want to take you back to a “real” week – three weeks ago Saturday. When the ancient announcement of

Christ’s resurrection was proclaimed in this church, with only the dim glimmer of candles, faint light in the darkness, the deacon proclaimed in the exultet, “The power of this holy night dispels all evil and restores lost innocence.” This surreal week has, in many ways, robbed our city of its innocence. At Easter, God promised to restore it.

I want to take you back to last Sunday, when we were still in real time. Our gospel echoed the sheep/shepherd metaphor that we hear again today. To paraphrase, Jesus said to Peter, “If you love me, feed my sheep; if you love me, tend my lambs; if you love me, be a good shepherd.”

Earlier that week, on Thursday, April 11, I was deeply moved by the awarding of the Congressional Medal of Honor to Rev. Emil J. Kapaun, an Army chaplain who died a prisoner in the Korean War for his lifesaving ministrations to his fellow prisoners. I vividly recall watching the interviews with his fellow soldiers, now men in their 80s, who spoke through their tears. Father Kapaun’s example of self-giving changed their lives.

Mike Dowe, one of the veter-ans recalled the scene when Father Kapaun was being led away to his death. He said, “Father Kapaun told everyone to stop resisting and not to ‘fight them on my behalf.’ I was in tears,” Dowe continued, “And then he turned to me and said ‘Mike, don’t cry. I’m going where I’ve always wanted to go. And when I get there, I’ll be saying a prayer for all of you.”

During this surreal week, we have seen horror, we have felt the fear, and we have lost our collective innocence. But — and this is so crucial and I can-not emphasize it enough — we have seen good shepherds in our midst, good shepherds in combat boots, good shepherds in running shoes, good shepherds in nurses’ shoes, good shepherds in flip-flops, good shep-herds in high heels, good shepherds in wing tips. We have seen the bystand-ers who chose not to run away from danger but run into danger because the sheep were wounded, and fearful, and lost. My friends, these are the examen images that dispel all evil and restore lost innocence.

It is time to move from surreality back to reality. It is time to adjust to a new normal. As individuals and as a civic community, how do we regain our innocence? How to we come to realize anew that life wins out over death, that love conquers hatred, and that hope displaces despair?

Let us remember the promise that we, and especially those who suffer from violence and terror, shall not hunger or thirst anymore, nor will the sun or any heat strike us, for the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd us and lead us to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.”

incomplete, ending.David Evans, a resident of

Maidstone, England, and a civilian investigator for the Surrey Police Department, entered the Boston Marathon to raise funds for Men-ingitis Trust [his fundraising page is at http://www.justgiving.com/daves2013page]. He had reached the top of Heartbreak Hill when officials halted the race, and was directed to St. Ignatius.

Evans and the other runners were met by Eagle EMS volun-teers, who provided bagels, fruits and drinks, cooked pasta and gave medical treatment to Evans and other participants who had begun cramping up.

“They were awesome,” said Ev-ans in an e-mail sent to a BC office.

At one point, Evans said, a

female student wearing “a black top and white blouse” lent him her cellphone so he could call his girlfriend and let her know he was safe.

Although he thanked the stu-dent, Evans said, “I really don’t think she will ever fully understand how important that 30-second call was.”

More to the point, Evans said he would like to pay for the call he made.

“I knew nothing about BC be-fore the marathon,” said Evans, who arrived back home safely. “As they say, first impressions count, and you guys and girls made a fantastic impression on me.”

—Office of News & Public Affairs staff contributed to this story.

Lee Pellegrini

A photo taken on Marathon Monday by Boston College freshman Sarah McNamara. (Photo by BC Instagram)

“We come with certain hurts and a sense of confusion: Why do these things hap-

pen? How can we carry on?” said Fr. Leahy at last week’s Mass of Hope and Healing

(above). “It is this very community of faith that engages us and provides us support.

Tap into that reservoir of goodness around us; there is no need to be alone.”

‘Where is the glimmer of light?’

8

The BosTon College


Few Boston College alumni are as well-known as Doug Flutie ’85, Heisman Trophy winner, long-time professional football player and cur-rent NBC television college football analyst.

But Flutie – the diminutive quarterback who captured the nation’s heart as he led the Eagles to a Top 5 ranking in his senior year, capping off the magical season with the famous “Hail Mary” touchdown pass in Miami – might have wound up at Harvard if newly-hired BC coach Jack Bicknell hadn’t offered him BC’s last remaining scholarship for that year.

Flutie went on to become the most prolific offensive player in major college football his-tory, accounting for more than 11,000 yards of offensive yardage. He also excelled in the classroom: He was the University’s sole can-didate for a Rhodes Scholarship in 1984 and won virtually every scholar-athlete honor and acclaim available.

In addition to his long and successful play-ing career — including 21 years in profes-sional football — Flutie and his wife Laurie have founded the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism that funds advocacy programs and provides educational, therapeutic and recreational opportunities to improve the lives of people and families liv-ing with autism. The Fluties have helped to raise more than $13 million for the foundation, which is named in honor of their son, Dougie, who is autistic.

The former BC quarterback – who is forever remembered in a life-sized bronze statue outside of Alumni Stadium - shared some memories of his Boston College experience with Chronicle correspondent Reid Oslin in a recent telephone call from the Flutie home in Melbourne Beach, Fla. The full interview is available at www.bc.edu/chronicle.

How did you wind up at Boston College?When I was at Natick High, I was a 1-AA type player being re-

cruited by the Ivy League and 1-AA schools. BC’s coach at the time, Ed Chlebek, had decided not to recruit me. Then Chlebek resigned, and Jack Bicknell came from University of Maine to take over. Late in the recruiting season, BC realized they were not getting either one of their top quarterback recruits. BC kept in touch with me, but I was in the last round of guys who visited the school. They did not have a quarterback coming in. I think they saw me as an athlete who could potentially play elsewhere and brought me in, saying “We’ll let you start out as a quarterback then you will probably wind up playing somewhere else.”

Who were your favorite teachers at BC?My No. 1 was Rev. Leonard Mahoney, SJ. He was a history profes-

sor, but he was always there as a chaplain with the football team. He realized that in the first semester of my freshman year I was living by myself, and so he would always stop by to check in with me. He was very caring, he worried about everyone. I loved Fr. Mahoney. He re-ally looked after me when I needed it.

The other would be Professor Marilyn Matelski in the Commu-nication Department. I had switched into a communication major [from computer science]. I had several courses with her, but I really appreciated how she went out of her way to help me out with my own public speaking, interviews and television appearances.

I remember watching an interview of me after the high school all-star game and realizing how shy and quiet I was; I wouldn’t even look at the camera. Between taking courses, Marilyn’s help, and just by doing all of those interviews, the difference from freshman to senior year was amazing.

What has Boston College meant to you over the years?I have always liked being around campus. My brother Darren was

there right after I left, so I enjoyed being able to watch him play. I always loved going to BC basketball and hockey games, too. I always felt I was a part of BC. It’s been a big part of my life.

PERSPECTIVESon the Heights

Celebrating THE

SesquicentennialBy rOsANNe PellegriNi ANd

ed hAywArd stAff writers

The John Simon Guggen-heim Memorial Foundation has awarded 2013 fellowships to two Boston College faculty members, Professor of Biology Peter Clote and Professor of English Kevin Ohi.

Guggenheim Fellowships rec-ognize professionals who have demonstrated exceptional capac-ity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts. A diverse group of 175 scholars, artists and scien-tists were chosen for the fellow-ships — out of nearly 3,000 applicants — on the basis of prior achievement and excep-tional promise.

Clote, whose current research into synthetic biology draws on a career spent melding the disci-plines of mathematics, computer science and biology, will work as a visiting professor in applied mathematics and bioengineer-ing at California Institute of Technology in the fall and next spring at the University of Vi-enna, the Bioinformatics Insti-tute of the University of Leipzig and the Max Planck Institute of Berlin.

Clote’s distinguished career includes publishing approxi-mately 100 research articles, co-authoring two books and co-editing three books, as well as editorial roles at several journals, including his current post as as-sociate editor of the Journal of Mathematical Biology.

“This is wonderful news for Peter,” said DeLuca Pro-fessor and Biology Department Chairman Thomas Chiles. “The Guggenheim recognizes Peter’s scholarly contribution and in-novative approach to RNA and synthetic biology. It also speaks to the caliber of our faculty at Boston College.”

“I feel very fortunate,” said Clote, who holds a courtesy ap-pointment in the Computer Sci-ence Department. “I’m indebted to Tom Chiles, who has helped to create an excellent research infrastructure within our depart-ment. That support has fostered a lot of great research in our department.”

Clote moved into the field of computational biology more than a decade ago, coming from a background in mathematics and computer science. In addi-tion to his post at BC, where he has worked since 1984, Clote has held professorships at uni-versities in France and Germany.

His varied and accomplished

background has led him into the area of synthetic biology, specifically an effort to design RNA molecules for particular purposes.

“The focus I have is on RNA computational biology, which concerns the biophysics of RNA molecules, their structure, evo-lution and design,” Clote said. “So this project, building on the recent work of my lab, concerns the design of RNA molecules for certain specific functions.”

Ohi, who joined the Boston College faculty in 2001, spe-cializes in literary and cultural theory. He has taught a number of courses at both the under-graduate and graduate levels,

among them William Faulkner, Virginia Woolf, Queer Origins, and Studies in Narrative. His writing and teaching interests include queer theory, aestheti-cism and decadence, Victorian and modernist literature, 20th-century American literature, and film.

He is the author of the books Innocence and Rapture: The Erot-ic Child in Pater, Wilde, James, and Nabokov and Henry James and the Queerness of Style, and has published essays in edited collections and in such journals as ELH, Criticism, Camera Ob-scura, Victorian Literature and Culture, and The Henry James Review.

The fellowship, awarded to Ohi in the category of humani-ties and field of literary criticism, will enable continued work on his book Dead Letters Sent: Queer Literary Transmission.

“In any project there comes a time when one needs to give sustained, uninterrupted atten-

Clote, Ohi Are Guggenheim Fellows

Kevin Ohi

Peter Clote

tion to one’s writing, and I am grateful that the Guggenheim Foundation, with BC’s support, will allow me to take a year off from teaching to finish my book,” he said. “It is a tremen-dous honor to receive a Gug-genheim Fellowship. I’m doing my best not to look too carefully into the question of whether I deserve to be on a list with such accomplished people.”

Ohi noted that, at a time when higher education is un-der increasing financial pressure, “people tend to talk about re-search as if it came at the expense of undergraduate teaching. In my case, it certainly doesn’t. I can’t imagine my teaching with-out my research, and I believe my research has made my teach-ing more vital and relevant.”

Information on fellowships and other programs of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation is avail-able at http://www.gf.org.

Guggenheim Fellowships

recognize professionals

who have demonstrated

exceptional capacity for

productive scholarship

or exceptional creative

ability in the arts.

The Athletics Association and BC2Boston program will host a charity golf tournament at Newton Commonwealth Golf Course this Saturday, April 27, to benefit the ALS Founda-tion in honor of Athletics’ Pete Frates and Dick Kelley, who are both combating the disease.

Teams registering as three-somes will be completed by a student-athlete of their choice from a pool of volunteers. A raffle will be held in conjunc-tion with the event.

For more information, see the Facebook event page at http://on.fb.me/11hh3fR.—Office of News & Public Affairs

Golf Tourney Benefits ALS Foundation

Gary Gilbert

Read the full interview at www.bc.edu/chronicle

Just

in K

nigh

t

The BosTon College


9

graduate students conduct first-rate research, work closely with our un-dergraduates and really enrich the department.”

•A visit to the Kennedy Space Center when he was in elementary school inspired Nathan Nesbitt to pursue a career in the sciences. Today, the graduate student in the Physics Department is searching for innovative energy solutions he hopes will one day help solve the problem of climate change.

His NSF fellowship will sup-port graduate study and a project to develop highly efficient solar panels that combine the innova-tive nanocoax receptor technology – developed by BC faculty – with benign, readily available, and highly absorptive coatings.

A graduate of Worcester Poly-technic Institute, Nesbitt said his senior thesis explored a similar coat-

ing scheme – namely Porphyrin, an organic dye similar to chlorophyll – that proved to be a highly effec-tive absorber of sunlight. His goal is to apply that and other coatings to the nanocoax, a highly efficient converter of sunlight to energy.

Nesbitt works in the lab of Fer-ris Professor of Physics and Depart-ment Chairman Michael Naugh-ton, a member of the BC faculty team that developed the nanocoax.

Nesbitt said his focus on re-newable energy and sustainability was prompted by his concern over climate change. Nesbitt, who has been a vocal advocate for sustain-able energy policy, said he’s excited by the challenge of putting his skills as a researcher to use in an effort to

By ed hAywArd ANd kAthleeN sullivAN

stAff writers

Six members of the Boston College community have received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, which support graduate education for individuals who have demon-strated their potential for significant achievements in science and engi-neering research.

•Graduate student Ashley Bier-nesser, in her second year in the lab of Assistant Professor of Chemistry Jeff Byers, is working toward her doctorate and conducting research in the area of organo-metallic chemistry. The Pennsylvania na-tive, who earned her bachelor’s de-gree at Duquesne University, said the three-year, $90,000 fellowship will support her study and work on a project to create a new class of biodegradable plastic.

“We’re trying to create a new type of biodegradable plastic that is more economical than current alternatives,” said Biernesser. “If we’re able to make this type of bio-degradable plastic, it would allow us to modify the life of the polymer and tailor it to particular applica-tions. We could make it degrade quicker or last longer.”

To do that, Biernesser is de-veloping new catalysts capable of building a degradable product and giving chemists the responsiveness to “tune” the material to the desired use.

Biernesser credits Byers with encouraging her to revise and re-submit her application after NSF reviewers gave her positive com-ments last year. In addition to her skills as a researcher, Byers said Biernesser played an instrumental role in setting up his lab when he first arrived on campus and that her community outreach efforts high-light her commitment to making science and scientific discovery ac-cessible to the public.

“This is a well-deserved honor for Ashley that speaks to the high caliber students the Department of Chemistry attracts to our grad-uate program,” Byers said. “Our

find new solutions that could po-tentially curb climate change.

“I think we all have a respon-sibility to reduce the impact of climate change,” said Nesbitt. “Per-sonally, I want to focus my work as a graduate student and a researcher on areas that can potentially have a significant impact on reducing fossil fuel use and stop the damage that’s being done to the climate on a global scale.”

•Senior Lisa M. Piccirillo, a math major from Greenwood, Me., with hopes of becoming a research professor, plans to pursue a doctorate in pure mathematics, studying topology at the University of Texas at Austin, considered a powerhouse in this area.

“She is the first BC undergrad-uate in mathematics to win this award since I came to the Univer-

sity in 1996,” said Mathematics Professor Solomon Friedberg, chair of the department.

As an Undergraduate Research Fellow under the supervision of Assistant Professor of Mathematics Elisenda Grigsby, Piccirillo worked on a computational problem in knot theory.

“Lisa is an impressive young mathematician and I am thrilled that she was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship,” said Grigsby. “When she began, she had absolutely no background in knot theory and no mathemat-ics training beyond linear algebra. Within a week, she was successfully performing calculations that give many graduate students trouble. By the end, she had obtained suf-ficiently interesting results — using a computer program she had writ-ten — to be invited to present her work at competitive undergradu-ate research conferences across the country. I look forward to follow-ing her career in the years to come.”

Piccirillo was chosen to partici-pate in the Women and Math-ematics program at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intel-lectual inquiry. As part of the inti-mate and research-focused mentor-ing program for undergraduate and

graduate women in math, she took courses in symplectic geometry and Legandrian knot theory.

Last summer, she was one of 18 undergraduates from around the world to participate in the NSF’s Research Experience for Under-graduates (REU) at Cornell Uni-versity. She worked closely with

faculty advisor Bob Connelly and co-authored a forthcoming paper, “On Unit Triangle and Square Til-ings.”

Last fall, Piccirillo gave a talk at the Shenandoah Undergraduate Mathematics and Statistics Confer-ence at James Madison Univer-sity. She gave a report talk and poster presentation at the Young Mathematicians Conference at The Ohio State University in 2012 and 2011, respectively, as well as a talk at the 2012 Nebraska Confer-ence for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics. She also spoke and presented at the Joint Math Meet-ings — the world’s largest math conference — in 2013 and 2012, respectively.

Piccirillo is enrolled in an ad-vanced, graduate-level topics course on knot theory taught by Assistant Professor of Mathematics Joshua Greene, who also serves as Pic-cirillo’s thesis advisor.

“[For her thesis] Lisa is studying a problem in knot theory [that] deals with simplifying a very inter-esting family of knots into unknot-ted curves by a specific sequence of moves. Lisa surprised me with her early progress on this problem -- she quickly saw the ‘right’ approach to it, whereas I had been envision-ing something much more compli-cated. She is now in the process of writing up her result, and I expect it will lead to interesting directions for further study. I am looking forward to seeing how she develops from a bright undergraduate stu-dent into a researcher through her graduate career.”

“[The BC Math Department] has been a great department in which to be an undergraduate,” said Piccirillo. “Many undergrads have to compromise between ap-proachable faculty and current and inspiring researchers. My advisors at BC have all been both incred-ible mathematicians and fantastic

teachers. I don’t know any other undergrads going into math who can say the same.”

•Psychology Department re-searchers James Dungan, Lily Tsoi and Halle Zucker round out BC’s NSF Graduate Research Fellow-ship winners.

“These fellowships are highly selective, and the fact that three students mentored in our labs have received NSF fellowships is a testa-ment to our terrific faculty and to the excellent doctoral students they attract,” said Psychology Depart-ment Chair Professor Ellen Win-ner.

Dungan and Tsoi are research-ers in Assistant Professor of Psy-chology Liane Young’s Morality Lab, where they study moral psy-chology and the neural process of people making moral judgments. Dungan was awarded a fellowship for continued graduate studies at BC, where his research looks at the cognitive and neural basis of distinct moral domains, specifically morals targeting one’s self versus another. He recently presented his research at the Society for Personal-ity and Social Psychology’s annual meeting.

Tsoi is completing her second year as the full-time manager in Young’s lab. Her fellowship will support her transition from lab manager to graduate student at BC this fall. Her area of study is the role

of brain regions in moral judgment. She recently gave a poster presenta-tion on “Brain Regions for Theol-ogy of Mind Distinguish Between Cooperative and Competitive In-teractions in a ‘Rock, Paper, Scis-sors’ Game” at the annual meet-ing of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society.

“We’re really thrilled for James and Lily,” said Young. “We are very proud of them. They’ve worked re-ally hard and are worthy recipients of this recognition.”

Zucker, a research assistant in Associate Professor of Psychology Elizabeth Kensinger’s Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab, will use her fellowship to support graduate studies in cognitive neu-roscience at the University of Cal-ifornia-Davis.

Ashley Biernesser

Nathan Nesbitt

Lily Tsoi

Halle Zucker

James Dungan

Lisa M. Piccirillo

Six Earn Prestigious NSF Graduate Research FellowshipsAll photos by Lee Pellegrini except Lisa Piccirillo

10

The BosTon College


Juniors Matthew Nacier and Matthew Alonsozana were recently elected Undergraduate Government of Boston College president and vice president, respectively, the “Matt and Matt” ticket garnering 58 per-cent of the student vote earlier this month. Chronicle staff writer Me-lissa Beecher recently sat down with the team to talk about plans for the upcoming year. For the full inter-view, see www.bc.edu/chronicle.

Did you have political am-bitions before coming to BC? Why did you get involved with UGBC?

Matt N.: I’ve always been at-tracted to business and industrial design — politics never crossed my mind as something I would be well suited for. But I’ll admit during the campaign this ques-tion came up a lot and maybe the political bug might have bitten me. We’ll see.

I got involved in UGBC be-cause I wanted to make a differ-ence. I wanted to give to the com-munity and do everything in my power to be a positive addition my environment. Matt and I both love BC. As a matter of fact, every candidate that ran loves BC; our visions were just different. Our goal has always been to better the BC experience and in that process help our school become the premier Catholic university in the world.

Matt A.: Prior to coming to BC, I had envisioned myself serv-ing the community by becoming a top expert and advocate on mat-ters of health care law and policy, but I had wanted to do so in the context of medicine.

As I became more involved in policy and political activities during my BC career, my focus began to shift to the legal and political field until I found this year that what got me out of bed in the morning was having the ability to advocate for vari-ous members of the community, through the Asian Caucus and UGBC. I ended up spending this entire year on campaigns: in the fall with the Romney and Brown campaigns and in the spring with my own. Now, I envision myself moving more towards being an effective legislator. (Perhaps the first Asian-American senator from Maryland?)

I got involved with UGBC because I truly believe that it is the organization best placed to serve the undergraduate community and act as a catalyst for change. I had mentors who encouraged my involvement, and luckily, by the skin of my teeth, I won a senate seat last year. In senate, I founded and now chair the UGBC Policy

Matthew AlonsozanaHometown: Baltimore Major: Economics and biology; Pre-law

Matthew NacierHometown: Highland Village, Tex.Major: Economics and philosophy

Caucus that acts as a coordinating forum, think tank, and resource for policy advocates in the BC community for many different is-sues, from health to sustainability. I also joined UGBC because I wanted to encourage the Asian and Asian-American community to step out of its comfort zone and become more involved with larger on-campus organizations.

Who came up with the cam-paign slogan “Forward with U?” and why do you think it resonated with students?

Matt A: Coming up with the slogan was a team effort. The orig-inal slogan “Standing with You, Moving Forward” was somewhat cumbersome, but after honest ad-vice, we found a simple slogan that people could remember and fit well with our innovative aspi-rations.

You have an extensive plat-form that the student body obvi-ously appreciated. What are the top three issues you will tackle as president/vice president?

Matt N.: Our platform began with introduction of the three Cs: Community, Clarity, & Creativ-ity. Our biggest goal is to imple-ment that into the way UGBC is run next year. With the new structure, community is more important than ever so that all groups in UGBC feel included. This sense of community would reach to other offices and orga-nizations so that we can work to help each other overcome cam-pus-wide issues.

With a community this large there has to be a sense of clar-ity. We need to be clear in our di-rection and vision and we need to be able to communicate better not only with the new organization but also with students and faculty. This clarity would make UGBC a bridge between the concerns of faculty and students where we can find ways to jointly solve problems.

Lastly, we need to be creative. Matt and I wish to work towards a

more proactive UGBC that works harder in advocating students’ needs and finding ways to in-clude students’ input. Too often we find ourselves repeating things year after year in UGBC when we should be asking “How can we make this better? Does it better the BC experience? How can we better appropriate our resources?”

What advice would you give to an incoming student who may have an interest in UGBC?

Matt N.: I would tell them to apply and learn as much as you can about the BC community. More importantly, I would assure them if you have enough passion and drive, you don’t need to be in UGBC to make a change.

Matt A.: Get involved with something early, and reach out to us. Matt and I got involved by having great mentors to show us the way, and we want to learn with you and pass on this legacy that we have inherited since we arrived at BC.

Your YouTube campaign videos were very entertaining. How much of a role does social media play in today’s UGBC campaigns?

Matt N.: Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed them. We couldn’t have done it with out the help of Joseph Baron and James Pet-tigrew. I most certainly will say that social media plays a huge part during campaigns. A strong social media presence can get you more exposure. Although social media is nice, nothing can compare to speaking face to face in the resi-dence halls. Matt and I absolutely loved knocking on doors and get-ting to meet and hear so many dif-ferent stories from our BC peers. Without any interaction with one another, campaign season would be so boring if you took away chances to meet with students and share your vision.

By kAthleeN sullivAN stAff writer

Junior Jessica Vallejo, who cred-its her experiences in the Arrupe International Immersion trip to Mexico and a fellowship program on the legal profession with shap-ing her personal and world views, is this year’s Archbishop Oscar A. Romero Scholarship recipient.

The scholarship, which covers 75 percent of senior year tuition and is awarded to a Boston Col-lege junior who demonstrates a commitment to the values and ideals reflected in the life of Arch-bishop of El Salvador Oscar Rome-ro. Vallejo, was honored with the award recently in a ceremony hosted by the Romero Scholarship Committee.

Vallejo, from Queens, NY, is a political science major with a double minor in International Studies and women and gender studies. Since her freshman year, she has been active in the stu-dent group Organization of Latin American Affairs (OLAA) and serves as editor of Sabor, its Latin America literary/art magazine. She also is involved in the AHANA Leadership Council and the Wom-en of Color Caucus.

Vallejo cites her Arrupe Inter-national Immersion trip as “one of the most transformative experi-ences” of her BC career. “In many of the young women I met in Cu-ernavaca, I saw myself. I could have easily been them had I been born — by sheer luck — in a different part of the world or had I not been provided with the support and op-portunity to attend college.”

Witnessing social, political and economic injustice, she said, “al-lowed me to see that not only do I have a duty to, but that I could, through my education, do some-thing to help achieve a more just system.”

Vallejo, who plans to attend law school, was a participant in the Lindsay Fellowship Program — a summer educational program for college students interested in careers in the law — where she worked hands-on with both judges and law clerks, took an intensive

legal research and writing course taught by a law school professor and interned at the US Attorney’s office. At the conclusion, she par-ticipated in a moot court before a federal judge.

“Learning about the law’s pow-er and significance was vital, as it helped me realize that through the law I can work to uplift the Latino community working in a variety of areas and issues that affect our community,” said Vallejo.

In addition to support from friends, Vallejo praises her parents and her mentor, Carroll School of Management part-time faculty member Arivee Vargas ’05, JD ’08 — the 2004 Oscar Romero Scholar — for fueling her passion and work ethic.

“I owe everything I am today to [my parents’] hard work and dedication,” she said. “They have given me more than I could ever ask for, in love, values and motiva-tion. [Arivee’s] guidance, instruc-tion, encouragement and example have given me the assurance that it is possible to succeed as a Latina, and to work to achieve social jus-tice through the law. She has been an incredible support and a huge source of inspiration.”

Also honored at the ceremony was Alberto Vasallo III ’89, the 2013 Rev. John A. Dinneen, SJ, Hispanic Alumni Community Service Award winner. Last year, Vasallo was named president and CEO of El Mundo, New England’s premier Latino newspaper, where he has worked since 1981.

The other Romero Scholar-ship finalists were Andrea Lopez, a nursing major who is a member of the Voices of Imani gospel choir and president-elect of the Mas-sachusetts Student Nurses Asso-ciation; Andrea Roman, a political science major who serves as a men-tor for the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston; and Victoria Torres-Vega, an applied psychol-ogy and human development ma-jor who serves as site leader for the Lawrence Recreation Department and advocate for the Lawrence Ju-venile Courthouse.

New UGBC Team Ready for Work

Lee

Pelle

grin

i

Contact Melissa Beecher at [email protected]

Contact Kathleen Sullivan at [email protected]

Jessica Vallejo ’14 hears the applause after being announced as the Romero Scholarship winner. (Photo by Caitlin Cunningham)

Vallejo Wins Romero Honor

The BosTon College


11

NOTA BENE

JOBS

BC BRIEFING

The following are among the most recent positions posted by the De-partment of Human Resources. For more information on employ-ment opportunities at Boston Col-lege, see www.bc.edu/offices/hr/:

assistant Director, aHana Stu-dent programs

Fiscal Manager, auxiliary Service Center

Grant proposal and Contracts ad-ministrator, Office of Sponsored programs

administrative assistant, Boston College law School advancement

associate Director, Capital & Spe-cial Gifts, athletics Department

Head librarian, Social Work li-brary

Manager, Human resources Ser-vice Center

associate Director, Diversity and inclusion, Office of institutional Diversity

Senior associate Director, De-velopment, BC law advance-ment

Technology Manager, Office of residential life

research Economist, Center for retirement research

The Edgar Allan Poe Foundation of Boston, chaired by Professor of English Paul Lewis, has received a $5,000 do-nation from Stephen King, acclaimed author of contemporary horror, sus-pense, fantasy and science fiction.

The gift from King and his wife Tabitha put the foundation’s cam-paign to fund artist Stefanie Rock-nak’s life-sized bronze sculpture “Poe Returning to Boston” over the one-third mark toward raising the $175,000 needed for the project.

Organizers have targeted May 2014 for unveiling the artwork in Poe Square, a plaza opposite the entrance to Boston Common at the corner of Boylston and Charles streets. It will be a permanent commemoration of the city’s influential writer, who was born in 1809 in Boston.

For more information, email Lewis at [email protected].

The McMullen Museum of Art’s groundbreaking fall 2012 exhibition “Paul Klee: Philosophical Vision; From Nature to Art” was chosen as one of five finalists for the 2012 Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) Award for Outstanding University Exhibition.

The critically acclaimed, exclusive exhibition was the first to focus on the relationship between philosophy and Klee’s prolific artistic oeuvre, and to reveal the broad impact the artist has had on recent philosophical thought.

“In a year in which we received an incredible number of nominations this is a wonderful achievement,” according to the AAMC Prize Committee Chair Georgiana Uhlyarik.

McMullen Museum Director Nancy Netzer, professor of art history, called the AAMC selection a “wonderful rec-ognition,” and noted that the exhibition was nominated by John Wilson, director of the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego.

The winner will be announced at the AAMC conference in New York in May.

Carroll School of Management Associate Professor of Accounting Sugata Roychowdhury has won the 2013 Distinguished Contribution to Accounting Literature Award

from the American Accounting As-sociation for his article “Earnings Management Through Real Activities Manipulation,” which was published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics in 2006. The award rec-ognizes a work of exceptional merit published more than five but not more than 15 years ago. Roychow-dhury will receive the award at the August 2013 AAA Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif.

A team of Carroll School of Management graduate stu-dents placed second out of a field of 20 teams at the recent ninth annual Minority MBA Student Case Competition in Cleveland. The team of Jeff Song MBA ’14, Jamie Shim MBA ’14 and Lucy Cheng MSA/MSF ’14 advanced to the final round, where they were runner-up to a team from UCLA.

Newsmaker s

Prof. James Bretzke, SJ (STM), and Assoc. Prof. Rev. James Weiss (Theology) gave comments to the Boston Herald on the appointment of Boston Archbishop Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM, Cap., to the eight-cardinal Vatican Advisory Council. Fr. Bretzke also was in-terviewed by WBZ-AM, WCVB-TV and, with BC students, by WHDH/WJAR-TV. Lynch School of Education Bren-nan Professor Andy Hargreaves, a featured speaker at this month’s National Forum on School Im-provement, discussed sustainabili-ty in a Q&A with Education Week.

The ways in which people interact with their mobile devices open up all sorts of opportunities for fresh uses of language to capture the ef-fect on their experiences and inner lives, wrote Director of American Studies Prof. Carlo Rotella (Eng-lish) in the Boston Globe. Improving Americans’ retirement security requires a three-pronged

approach: work longer, preserve Social Security and save more, Carroll School of Management Drucker Professor Alicia Mun-nell, director of the Center for Retirement Research wrote in an op-ed for Bloomberg News.

Asst. Prof. Peter Krause (Political Science) discussed the North Ko-rean situation in an interview with New England Cable News. KPCC-FM (Los Angeles) and KCBS-AM (San Francisco) inter-viewed Adj. Assoc. Prof. Richard McGowan, SJ (CSOM; Econom-

ics), about the advent of Powerball in the state of California.

An article published in C21 Re-sources by Burns Library Conser-vator Barbara Adams Hebard, “God’s Mercy in the World,” was reprinted in the Osservatore Ro-mano and cited by Vatican Radio.

Prof. Maxim D. Shrayer (Slavic and Eastern Languages) was in-terviewed by The Jewish Advocate and Runyweb.com about his new book I SAW IT, and by The Voice of Russia about the recently pub-lished Russian translation of his book Waiting for America.

Publ ica t ionsAdj. Assoc. Prof. Michael C. Keith (Communication) pub-lished a new fiction collection, Everything is Epic.

Prof. Maxim D. Shrayer (Slavic and Eastern Languages) published English translations of Ilya Selvin-sky’s Shoah poems in Four Centu-ries: Russian Poetry in Translation.

Honors /Appoin tments Hyunjung Chang ’14 was se-lected as a finalist to participate in the third annual “Chinese Bridge” Speech Contest for University Stu-dents in New England, hosted by the Confucius Institute at the Uni-versity of Massachusetts-Boston, winning third place. As a result, she earned the International Ex-change Scholarship from the Edu-cational Center in Heilongjiang, China, for a free 20-day cultural trip to Northeast China. Her es-say, “Tianjin—The Place Where I Developed My Dreams,” was pub-lished in a local Chinese-English newspaper, Bostonese.

Medieval studies colleagues from Boston College, the US and abroad will pay tribute at a conference next month to Ro-mance Languages and Literatures Professor Matilda Bruckner, who joined the BC faculty three de-cades ago.

The 48th International Con-gress on Medieval Studies in Ka-lamazoo, Mich. (May 9-12) will feature three sessions in honor of Bruckner’s outstanding contribu-tion to the field.

This professional homage fol-lows the publication of a 2013 festschrift in honor of her distin-guished career, Shaping Courtli-ness in Medieval France: Essays in Honor of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, co-edited by her de-partment colleague Associate Professor Laurie Shepard and for-mer student Daniel E. O’Sullivan PhD ’00, now an associate pro-fessor at the University of Mis-sissippi. Both also contributed essays to the volume.

The festschrift focuses on works written in the Franco-phone world between the 12th and 15th centuries that examine courtliness as both an historical privilege and a literary ideal, and as a concept that operated on and was informed by complex social and economic realities.

Bruckner’s areas of research include Medieval French litera-ture, which she said continues to raise questions for readers in the 21st century. Her particular fo-

cus is on 12th and 13th-century romance, verse and prose nar-rative, troubadour and trouvère lyric. She has taught a variety of introductory level literature courses – narrative, poetry and drama, and masterpieces of French literature – in addition to those for graduate students and advanced undergraduates on Medieval French literature.

Bruckner, whose achieve-ments include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies, described her response to the tribute as “Speechless, moved to tears — my first reactions don’t easily translate into words; a gift of such overwhelming generosity filled my heart.

“When Dan first told me about the sessions at Kalama-zoo in my honor, I felt incred-ible gratitude that my work had evoked such a beautiful response from students, colleagues and friends,” Bruckner said. “When he told me that he and Lau-rie had organized a festschrift as well, I was truly astounded. Many people kept the secret so well that I was totally surprised.”

To have “the opportunity to learn that my work has made a difference, to hear a response from those who share my desire to make the past and present speak to each other in fruitful exchange — that is a privilege,” she added.


Colleagues to Fete Romance Lang. Professor Bruckner at May Event

12

The BosTon College


Boston College theatre students are fin-ishing up a unique learning experience with the staging of “Avenue Q,” which opened at the Robsham Theater Arts Cen-ter yesterday and runs through a Sunday matinee performance.

The contemporary musical comedy tells the timeless coming-of-age story of young adult puppets living in tenements on the fringes of New York City — the rundown “Avenue Q.” And while several puppets are parodies of “Sesame Street” regulars, they are in their 20s and 30s and face adult problems. Despite the fuzzy faces, organiz-ers note, it is an adult show, not suitable for children.

Professional puppeteers Brad Shur and Roxie Myrhum – artist-in-residence and artistic director of the Puppet Showplace Theatre in Brookline, respectively – col-laborated throughout this academic year with BC students in preparation for the production. Nine students participated in a fall workshop with Shur to construct the puppet actors. Throughout this semester, Myrhum has served as puppetry coach for the student actors.

Tickets for “Avenue Q” are available via the Box Office or via the web site: www.bc.edu/robsham.


Strolling Down ‘Avenue Q’ Photos by Lee Pellegrini

Boston College Chronicle

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