The Boston College
Chronicle
Frank Curran
february 28, 2008-vol. 16 no. 12
Center on Aging & Work
to Launch States Initiative
to include demographic trends
among older workers in this year’s
political conversations.
Topics of particular significance to the institute will include
An institute to be launched the types of innovative policies
by the Boston College Center on and programs emerging in the
Aging & Work will collaborate public sector, and how state leadwith states on promoting the ag- ers partner with business deciing public sector workforce as a sion-makers to develop workforce
readiness.
potential economic asset.
“These are topics state leaders
The State Perspectives Inare
watching very carefully bestitute will gather information
cause
‘aging’ and ‘retirement’ have
and work with state leaders to
different
meanings from state to
raise awareness of the benefits
state,”
said
Assoc. Prof. Marcie
of a multigenerational workforce
Pitt-Catsouphes
in the 21st century
economy.
“These are topics state (GSSW), who
directs the cenCoinciding with
leaders
are
watching
ter along with
the institute’s launch
Prof. Michael
will be the release of very carefully because
Smyer (Psychola series of profiles on
‘aging’
and
‘retirement’
ogy). “Decisions
the multigenerational
workforce for all 50 have different meanings retirees make,
for
example,
states. Produced in
from
state
to
state.”
have
tangible
partnership with Exoutcomes
that
perience Wave – an —Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes
affect
the
type
entity dedicated to
of services and
advancing federal and
resources older
state policies that encitizens need.”
courage mid-life and
These
concerns
coalesce in the
older adults to stay engaged in
pioneering
“States
as Employwork – the profiles provide statisers-of-Choice”
project,
a collabtical synopses in areas such as age
orative
venture
conducted
with
distribution, labor force particithe
Twiga
Foundation
of
Boise,
pation, industry sector employment, and workforce education Idaho, and sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The
and preparedness.
The collaboration marks a sig- project’s aim is to increase awarenificant effort by the institute ness of the aging public sector
Continued on page 3
New institute will focus
on multigenerational
workforce’s benefits
SEEING PINK—The Boston College women’s basketball team celebrated “Think Pink” Night for their Feb. 18 game
against Georgia Tech to show support for the fight against breast cancer. Fans who wore pink were admitted free, and
representatives of the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer were on hand to accept donations and distribute pink ribbons.
Nurturing Faith in a Dark Place
For two decades, BC
has offered Norfolk
inmates the chance to
learn, and to grow
By Melissa Beecher
Staff Writer
Assoc. Prof. John McDargh
(Theology) remembers walking
inside the prison for the first time,
metal doors slamming behind him,
correction officers monitoring his
every move. His wallet and jewelry had already been locked away;
shoes and belt removed for a body
scan; clothing scrutinized.
Stepping into life at Massachusetts Correctional Institute at Norfolk presented a stark contrast to
Boston College, where McDargh
has been a faculty member for
more than 25 years.
Yet despite the alien, intimidating surroundings, recalls McDargh,
it was only a matter of minutes before he found something familiar:
eager students.
“If there was a surprise, it was
how quickly and easily we found
a sense of commonality,” says
McDargh of his first encounter
with Norfolk inmates. “That sense,
that idea of being very ‘other,’ very
different, very scary, it all gave way
when we realized we all spoke the
same language of our Christian
faith.”
McDargh is one of four members of the University community
carrying on a rarely mentioned, but
deeply felt BC tradition. For some
20 years now, BC faculty and staff
have volunteered at MCI-Norfolk,
providing classes — and company
— for the prison population.
INSIDE:
“The Jesuits and BC staff have
a way of helping (the inmates)
find the presence of God in themselves,” says Sister Ruth Raichle,
the Catholic chaplain at Norfolk.
“Volunteers share their wisdom
and draw wisdom from the experience.”
MCI-Norfolk is a medium security facility — the largest of
its type in Massachusetts — just
south of Boston with a population
that hovers around 1,500. Despite
the highlight of their week to be
the classes in philosophy, theology and scripture study taught by
McDargh, Fitzgibbons Professor
of Philosophy Marina McCoy,
Jesuit Artist-in-Residence Robert Ver Eecke, SJ, and doctoral
student Eduardo Henriques, SJ.
Other faculty and staff volunteer
on an occasional basis.
McCoy has held focused discussions and lectures on Aristotle, St.
Thomas Aquinas, Plato, Dorothy
BC Senior Lands Spot on
USA Today Academic Team
(L-R) John McDargh, Robert Ver Eecke, SJ, Marina McCoy and Eduardo Henriques, SJ, are among the members of the Boston College community who work
with prisoners at MCI-Norfolk. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
medium-security status, Norfolk
has a maximum-security perimeter
with a wall 5,000 feet long and 19
feet high, enclosing 35 acres.
Eighty percent of Norfolk’s inmates are serving time for violent
crimes. Of those, 275 inmates are
serving life sentences for murder in
the first or second degree. Felons
who have committed armed robbery and sex offenders make up the
next largest populations.
Many of these inmates consider
A day of science at BC for
Boston kids (page 3)
Day, Desmond Tutu and Henri
Nouwen.
“I view this as one of the communities where I belong,” said
McCoy. “This is a very grace place
to be. It has been a privilege for me
to witness their lives.”
McCoy has not only filled the
role of teacher, but also attends
liturgies and has sung in the prison
choir. She said a one-time visit
several years ago quickly became a
Continued on page 4
King Scholarship winner (page 4)
Senior Kuong Ly — whose
passion for helping the displaced
earned him a Truman award last
year — has won a place on the
2008 All-USA College Academic
First Team, USA Today’s recognition program for outstanding
students.
Ly is one of 20 high-achieving
students selected for the award
by a panel of judges from among
nearly 500 juniors and seniors.
Winners receive $2,500 cash
awards each as representatives of
all outstanding undergraduates.
A philosophy and studio art
major who was born in a Vietnamese refugee camp, Ly last year
was the only Massachusetts resident to receive a Truman Schol­
arship, which is given to college
students seeking to attend graduate school in preparation for careers in government or elsewhere
Heights of Excellence:
Michael Resler (page 5)
Kuong Ly
in public service.
“The son of survivors of Cambodia’s ‘killing fields,’ he has a
passion for helping displaced
people,” reads Ly’s citation in
USA Today. “He’s collected oral
histories from survivors of the
Continued on page 3
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
february 28, 2008
AROUND
CAMPUS
On the face of it
All night long
Boston College made the most
of its chance to play host for an
American Cancer Society Relay
For Life benefit.
The dusk-to-dawn relay took
place Feb. 15 and 16 in the Flynn
Recreation Complex, thanks to
the efforts of students, volunteers,
organizations and others in the
BC community.
With organizers still tabulating
donations as of late last week, the
total raised stood at more than
$106,000. Nearly 1,000 people,
many associated with BC, took
part, forming teams to solicit support for the cause. Among those
leading the way were “Eagles for
Life”, with $5,135 raised, “The
Purple Parrots” ($4,115) and
“BC: Beat Cancer” ($3,871.50).
Relay For Life marathons are
intended to evoke the experience of cancer patients’ struggle
through “the long night.” Each
team had to have at least one
member on the RecPlex track
during the 12-hour event, which
featured numerous forms of live
entertainment to provide encouragement and diversion for the
participants.
Another Relay For Life feature
is the Luminaria ceremony, which
is dedicated to those who have
passed away from cancer, and also
recognizes those who have survived.
BC has sent representatives to
University Relay For Life events
held at Harvard, Boston University, Emerson, Northeastern,
MIT and other area schools, but
had not served as a venue until
this year. A committee headed
up by Kevin Benacci, ’09, and seniors Shannon Sullivan and Jenn
Bickford worked to ensure all the
requirements and guidelines for
hosting were met.
“It’s something that we’ve
wanted to do for a few years now,”
says Bickford, also praising the
efforts of previous BC Relay For
Life co-chairs Meg Connolly and
Caitlin Graboski, who both graduated last year. “At past relays, it
was quite clear by the sea of yellow Superfan shirts that BC was a
driving force in both participants
and fundraising. Although the
students made it clear it was something they would love to have, we
started the process a bit too late to
get a BC Relay in 2007.”
But with support from BC
Health Services as well as the
American Cancer Society, Bickford says, this time around the
committee was able to stage a
Boston College Relay for Life.
“We recruited an amazing and
hard working committee, and it
was a success far beyond what we
ever expected,” she says.
—SS
Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral, ’81, speaking at the Martin Luther King
Jr. Scholarship Award Banquet Feb. 12 in the Lyons Hall Welch Dining Room.
See story on page 4 (Photo by Suzanne Camarata)
Open for business
A new publishing enterprise,
Linden Lane Press at Boston College, will produce a range of books
on the history and attributes of
Boston College as the University
approaches its 150th anniversary
in 2013 – and beyond.
“It’s another sign of Boston
College’s maturity that we can
manage this and manage it extremely competently,” says Executive Director of Marketing Communications Ben Birnbaum, who
will head up the new publishing
effort. “Instead of going to an
outside vendor, we are fully capable of doing all the work here
– the editing, the design and the
production.
“It makes for a much more
economical process for us,” he
says. “I am sure that we will put
out an excellent product.”
Birnbaum says that books published by the new Linden Lane
Press will be limited to those works
that are of “substantial interest” to
Boston College alumni. “It’s got
to be about Boston College or
some of the important issues that
are facing Boston College.”
The first three volumes to be
published will include a brief history of Boston College written
by University Historian Prof.
Thomas H. O’Connor; Founding
Fathers, profiles of six presidents
of Boston College that had previously appeared in Boston College
Magazine; and a collection of the
key speeches of the University’s
24th president and current chancellor, J. Donald Monan, SJ.
All three books are due to be
published this spring, Birnbaum
says, and will be available through
the Boston College Bookstore.
Future projects will include a
detailed historical update that will
complement the acclaimed History of Boston College written by
Charles F. Donovan, SJ in 1990,
materials gleaned from various
oral history projects currently underway, and an illustrated history
of the University.
“We are always open to new
ideas,” Birnbaum adds.
—RO
Clippings
“The costs of this system are borne not only by those deported, but by their loved ones who are left behind, including US citizen children senselessly deprived of the presence
and support of a parent. Finally, there is a great cost to all
of us, and to our legal system itself, when the rule of law is
undermined by a system that permits such egregious errors
regularly to occur.”
—Rachel E. Rosenbloom, human rights fellow and supervising attorney with the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, testifying on erroneous deportations Feb. 13 at a congressional hearing in Washington, DC.
Each year, the Accounting Department in the Carroll School
of Management puts together a
comprehensive survey of its graduating seniors, confirming details
down to the amount of the aaverage salary for its newly-minted
accountants.
There are a few unresponsive
grads every year and it’s a challenge to track them down. This
year, department chairman Assoc. Prof. Billy Soo turned to an
unlikely tool: the social networking site “facebook” [facebook.
com], which caters to the college
crowd.
With the help of his current
students, Soo was able to find
nearly a dozen grads so he could
complete the annual report,
which he views as a unique opportunity for the department to
confirm how well it is serving its
students.
“Each year there are some
people who are hard to find or
they resist our initial request,”
says Soo. “This year we used
facebook and it helped us reach
several students. It just means that
our survey offers a more accurate
representation of what our graduates are doing.”
By the numbers, it looks like
they doing well.
At 132, the number of accounting graduates last year reached
a 10-year high, making up 26
percent of the Carroll School’s
graduating class, Soo says. By the
end of last summer, more than
three-quarters had found employment, with half joining public
accounting firms, and most of
those with the Big Four firms that
dominate the industry. Others
went into consulting or investment banking.
All told, the median salary for
the accounting department’s Class
of ’07 was $53,000, or $55,000
with signing bonuses factored in.
“If we need to, we will use
facebook again,” Soo says. “But
hopefully people don’t start to
block us out. It’s really to the benefit of our current students that
our graduates let us know what
they are doing in the workplace.”
—EH
The Boston College
There will be Baldwins
March is Baldwin Month at
Boston College — the period leading up to the Baldwin Awards,
which honor the University’s outstanding student filmmakers.
The fourth annual awards ceremony, complete with red carpet,
will take place on March 28 at
7:30 p.m. in the Heights Room
of Corcoran Commons. But from
March 10-21, you can watch this
year’s entries online at the Baldwins Web site [omc.bc.edu/baldwin/], or if you’d prefer a different
setting, you can attend a screening
of all the 2008 nominations on
March 13 at 5 p.m. in Devlin 008
(popcorn included).
After you’ve taken a look at the
films, you can cast your vote for
the Viewer’s Choice Award at the
Baldwin Web site. Nominees from
the first three Baldwin competitions are archived there as well.
A panel of faculty from the Fine
Arts and Communication departments, and students, will lead the
judging in the 13 other categories
for Baldwins: Best Picture of the
Year, Critics’ Choice Award, Beginning Film and Video, Advanced
Film and Video, Best Work by a
Nonmajor, Cinematography, Editing, Best Actor, Sound, Screenwriting, Drama, Documentary and
Comedy.
The Best Picture and Viewer’s
Choice films will also be screened
at the Boston College Arts Festival
Free Friday Flicks event in April.
The Baldwins are a joint effort of the Film Studies Program,
Communication Department, Boston College Magazine and @BC.
—Office of Public Affairs
Chronicle
Director of Public Affairs
Jack Dunn
Deputy Director of
Public AFFAIRS
Patricia Delaney
Editor
Sean Smith
Contributing Staff
Melissa Beecher
Ed Hayward
Reid Oslin
Rosanne Pellegrini
Kathleen Sullivan
Eileen Woodward
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 College, with editorial offices
at the Office of Public Affairs, 14
Mayflower Road, Chestnut Hill, MA
02467 (617)552-3350. Distributed
free to faculty and staff offices and
other locations on campus. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA
and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: send address changes to
The Boston College Chronicle, Office of Public Affairs, 14 Mayflower
Road, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.
Electronic editions of the Boston
College Chronicle are available via
the World Wide Web at http://
www.bc.edu/chronicle.
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
february 28, 2008
Stepping Up to Science
University gives Boston schoolchildren a
close-up, hands-on look at the world of science
By Ed Hayward
Staff Writer
Public Science Day Boston
2008 brought fourth and fifth
graders from Dorchester’s Russell Elementary School to campus
earlier this month for a hands-on
lesson about turtles and the work
of Boston College scientists.
Organized by the Step Up initiative – a partnership of Boston
College and the city’s four other
largest universities and the Boston
Public Schools – the students were
treated to the chance to hold,
draw, measure and weigh a dozen
palm-sized Cape Cod Diamondback terrapins, part of an ongoing
study of the turtles overseen by
Research Assoc. Prof. Eric Strauss
(Biology), who also directs the
Environmental Studies Program.
For many students, it wasn’t
just the first chance to hold a
turtle; it was the first visit to a college campus.
“It’s pretty cool,” said Namtake
Bembeleza, 11, a fourth-grader at
the Russell, which is one of two
schools Boston College partners
with through the Step Up program.
The field trip coincided with
leading scientists from across the
US convening in Boston for the
annual meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement
of Science. Public Science Day activities at Boston College and the
four other area universities are part
of the Step Up initiative’s commitment to coordinate learning
support services to assist schools in
raising academic achievement.
“Public Science Day provided
an opportunity for schools across
the city to explore the world of science in partnership with area universities,” said Catherine Wong,
director of Urban Outreach Initiatives at the Lynch School of
Education, which coordinates the
Step Up initiative in conjunction
with the Office of Governmental
and Community Affairs.
“In addition to learning about
turtle hatchlings at BC, the 4th
and 5th grade Russell School students were also able to meet and
talk with BC students about their
college experiences and career aspirations. The latter is a key focus
of the Lynch School’s Urban Outreach Initiatives, which promote
experiences beginning in the early
elementary years that nurture and
engage urban youth to imagine
themselves succeeding in college,
and pursuing careers within diverse communities.”
(Above) Jess Schmierer, program
coordinator for environmental
studies in the Urban Ecology Institute, explains facts about turtles to students from the Russell
School in Dorchester during Public Science Day. (Right) Christina
Lanzieri, ’08, talks to students
while Research Assoc. Prof. Eric
Strauss (Biology) looks on.
Photos by Lee Pellegrini
Second History of Religion
Conference Set for March
Institute to
Be Launched
Continued from page 1
workforce as well as provide assessment of the readiness of states
to be “employers-of-choice” for
the public sector workforce.
Through the development of
practice tools, the project will convene working groups to provide
states with technical assistance in
promoting workplace flexibility
practices for the public sector.
“The institute is focused on
taking the awareness of shifting
age demographics to the next
stage and helping leaders decide
what action steps are appropriate
for individual states,” said PittCatsouphes.
Establishing the institute represents a new direction for the
center, founded in 2005 with a
multi-million dollar grant from
the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
to partner with workplace decision makers in research on employer and employee responses to
the increasingly multigenerational
workforce. Its primary focus has
been on flexible work options in
the business sector as a means of
highlighting innovative employer
responses to the aging workforce.
However, the impact of key demographic, economic, social and
political trends has highlighted
the need for comparative research
on quality of employment in business, public and non-profit sectors. Center administrators say the
Center on Aging & Work directors Michael Smyer and Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes
with center staff members (rear, L-R) Tay McNamara and Michelle Wong.
institute will broaden the center’s
consideration of employment experiences as well as extend the
dialogue on the multigenerational
workforce into the public policy
arena.
“Many issues related to aging
and work cut across various domains,” said the center’s senior research associate, Tay McNamara.
“Through the State Perspectives
Institute we have the potential to
address workforce issues on multiple levels in various projects.”
Information on the State Perspectives Institute is available
through the Center on Aging &
Work Web site, at agingandwork.
bc.edu/states.
—Office of Public Affairs
Ly Earns USA Today Honor
Continued from page 1
1994 Rwandan genocide, created
workshops to educate Rwandan
youth about the history of genocide and research mental health
issues for repatriated refugees.”
Ly — who last year studied
at Beijing University in China
— is conducting research with
the Harvard Program in Refu-
gee Trauma, and developing a
guide in Khmer and English
as a means to improve mental
health resources for Cambodians in the United States and
abroad. He also has been ac­tive
in neighborhood revitalization
efforts in Boston’s Chinatown
com­munity.
—Office of Public Affairs
Boston College graduate students are organizing a sequel to
a major 2006 conference on the
history of religion, one that now
promises to be a regularly occurring event.
The Biennial Boston College
Conference on the History of Religion, which takes place March
14-15, will gather graduate students and established scholars from
around the country to converse
and discuss major methods and
themes tackled by historians of religion. The organizing theme for
this year’s conference is “Religious
Identities.”
Highlights of the conference
include an opening keynote address by Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at
Brandeis University and author of
several works on American Judaism. A series of panel discussions,
many of them chaired by BC faculty members or graduate students,
will comprise most of the schedule:
Titles include “Lay Catholic Piety and Action,” “Public and Private Religion in the British Isles,”
“Catholic Identities in Germany,
1871-1933,” “Accessing the Sacred
in Latin America” and “Memory
and the Miraculous: Lived Religion
in America.”
“We chose ‘religious identities’
as the major organizing theme of
this year’s conference to highlight
the creation of both institutional
and personal religious identity, but
also to see how religion interacts
with other categories of one’s life to
inform their identity,” said doctoral
candidate Sarah K. Nytroe, who is
the conference committee chair.
“Moreover, this theme allowed our
conference to gain greater breadth
both geographically, as well as
greater breadth chronologically and
denominationally.”
Colleges and universities represented at the conference will
include Bowling Green, Antioch,
Seton Hall, Brigham Young, Lethbridge, Redlands, Cornell, Florida
and the University of Chicago and
Vanderbilt divinity schools.
The 2006 conference grew out
of regular meetings of graduate students in the History Department
who were drawn to research involving religion-related topics. Their
particular area of interest involved
examining the religious experience
of ordinary men and women living
out their faith in the modern world,
a topic not often covered by traditional historical scholarship.
Nytroe notes that this year’s
conference received nearly 100
paper proposals, necessitating the
addition of an extra panel for each
session. Even with the expansions,
she says, it was impossible to logistically fit all the proposals into the
conference format.
Information about the conference is available at www.bc.edu/
schools/cas/history/about/religion_
conference.html.
—Sean Smith
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship winner
At Home in ‘A Different World’
By Melissa Beecher
Staff Writer
When University President
William P. Leahy, SJ, announced
junior Eric Asuo-Mante as the
winner of the Martin Luther King
Jr. Scholarship at the annual King
Scholarship Banquet, the 21-yearold Ghana native jumped from his
seat, embraced his sister, Harriet,
and trotted up to the stage. Staring wordlessly out to the crowd
of more than 300 people, AsuoMante said later, he struggled to
find the right words to express his
gratitude.
“To be the recipient of such
an honor, I was absolutely blown
away,” said Asuo-Mante in an
interview after the Feb. 12 ceremony, held in the Welch Dining Room of Lyons Hall. “I have
gone from knowing nothing about
Martin Luther King Jr. to being
part of this legacy. He sacrificed
his life so future generations, my
generation, could hold their heads
up high.
“I spent the whole night trying
to wrap my head around what
happened. I still feel like it’s part
of a dream.”
The King Scholarship, which
pays 75 percent of the winner’s
senior-year tuition, is awarded
to students who, through their
achievements, extracurricular activities and service, exemplify the
life and work of the late civil rights
leader. Kristi Scriven and Shadiyah Curry also were finalists for
the award (see sidebar).
Speakers at the scholarship
banquet spoke of the need for African-Americans to write the next
chapter of their collective history.
Andrea J. Cabral, ’81, the first
female elected sheriff in Massachusetts history, challenged those
in attendance to put education
in the forefront, because “black
America is losing its history one
uneducated child at a time.
“Education is the only path
forward for black Americans,”
said Cabral. “We knew the truth
then and we know the truth now:
education equals freedom.
“Today my prison is full of
yesterday’s truants, children that
dropped out of school,” Cabral
said. “We have much more work
to do.”
In his remarks, Fr. Leahy
agreed that continuing educational pursuits is the best way for
all students to carry on King’s
dream. Lasting change — at BC
and beyond — has been made by
“individuals who have passion and
a vision, nurtured by knowledge
and a willingness to commit and
serve.”
That message held especially
true for this year’s recipient. AsuoMante was 16 years old when his
family moved from Ghana, in
West Africa, to New York and a
few months later to Manchester,
Conn.
“It was like we landed in a
different world,” Asuo-Mante remembers. Adjusting to life in the
United States was made easier by
his focus on education, specifically
science, he says. “In Ghana you
must learn facts, memorize them.
When I started attending school
here, it was much more focused
on the practical application of
what you studied.”
During his senior year of high
school, Asuo-Mante said he also
got a crash course in the US
education system. He had always
wanted to attend college, but
when most of his friends started
talking about acceptance letters
he realized he would have to act
fast. He started studying various
schools and soon became familiar
with BC.
“I was e-mailed so much material from different schools, one of
them Boston College. I remember
flipping through a magazine of
the top 100 colleges and universities and saw Boston College
among them,” said Asuo-Mante.
“I realized what a good school this
was and sent in my application.
Suzanne Camarata
february 28, 2008
At the time, I had no idea how
competitive it was.”
Being among the top 20 in
his high school class, Asuo-Mante
was admitted and started making
plans for yet another move — to
Boston.
Today, Asuo-Mante is a sociology major with a pre-med concentration, with plans to study in the
department’s fifth year master’s
program and then pursue medical
school. At BC, Asuo-Mante has
held a position on the executive
board of the AHANA Collective
Theater, Dance Marathon and the
African Student Association.
“I want to return to West Africa, maybe with Doctors Without
Borders, and bring the message
back,” says Asuo-Mante. “Martin
Luther King Jr. never stopped
fighting to advance his cause. As
minorities, it is our responsibility
to take up that message and stand
up, in any way we can.”
A look at the two other finalists
for the Martin Luther King Jr.
Scholarship.
Shadiyah Chardae Curry
During an introduction,
Shadiyah Chardae Curry, ’09,
proudly states she is from Brooklyn. She is equally proud of her
plans to return to New York after graduation next year and help
other young women discover life
beyond her beloved borough.
“Where I came from is such
a big part of who I am,” says
Curry, a political science major. “I am interested in going
back to the neighborhood and
helping girls who simply don’t
know about the opportunities
out there for them.”
Curry said her career path
became clear at a very early age.
From the time she was a child,
Curry was teased about her ability to argue her way out of anything.
“Anytime something would
BC Offers Outreach to MCI-Norfolk
Continued from page 1
Some 300 inmates attend relimonthly commitment.
gious services at MCI-Norfolk each
“I was drawn to the openness, week. In the Catholic community,
the authenticity, the deep spiritual- a Spanish Mass is held on Sundays,
ity that is alive there,” said McCoy. an English service on Mondays and
“I kept coming back and now, I re- communion is given two times a
ally look forward to my visits.”
week. Once a month, Asian Mass
McCoy said her group
is celebrated, which
– usually between 35 to
is attended by the
“For these men,
40 men — often relate the
smaller Vietnamese
philosophical or scripture prayer and the life of population.
lesson to their own lives.
Fr. Henriques
In one ongoing series on spirit is not an add started celebrating
reconciliation and forgive- on, it’s life itself.”
the weekly Mass
ness, inmates talked about
with Spanish-speak—John McDargh
parallels in their own lives
ing inmates in
to the Biblical passage
2004. The prisonof the prodigal son. The
ers are responsible
conversations also focused
for selecting readers,
on lost family members, coming to playing music, singing the hymns,
terms with crimes and mistakes of and bringing the offertory gifts to
the past, and asking for forgiveness the altar. Fr. Henriques, a native of
from both families’ victims and Brazil, said he was never afraid of
God, McCoy said.
the men he came in contact with.
“You have everyone and everybody on the other side of the wall,”
said Fr. Henriques. “They can be
young or old, smart, vivacious, interested and interesting.”
Fr. Henriques said his interactions are mostly with drug offenders, many who come from broken
homes or were gang members. In
prison, many learn different behaviors quickly, Henriques said.
“Maybe for the first time in his
life, he has a place, a community,
room among those who are seen as
the good ones. There is something
so real, so adult, so honest and respectful of the men I have seen.
“They have obviously done bad
things and lived messy, sometimes
violent lives. But they need compassion and healing and that is
where religion plays a very liberating role,” said Fr. Henriques.
The volunteers’ visits are usu-
“I have gone from knowing nothing about Martin Luther King
Jr. to being part of this legacy,” says Eric Asuo-Mante, the 2008
Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship winner (shown in photo above
with his sister Harriet, left, and friend Anne Andorse, ’09, at the
Feb. 12 King Scholarship Banquet). “He sacrificed his life so future
generations, my generation, could hold their heads up high.”
happen, I would defend people
(from authority figures). My family always said ‘our little lawyer’
so a little pressure has always been
on,” said Curry.
A Thea Bowman Scholar and
member of the National Black
Law Students Association, Curry
has been a member of the dance
group FISTS (Females Incorporating Sisterhood Through Step),
which also participates in community service projects for local girls.
Kristi Scriven
Soft-spoken Kristi Scriven, ’09,
becomes animated for two topics:
world culture and mentoring.
The Piscataway, NJ, native with
an Hispanic Studies major and
International Studies minor says
an art show at Boston College she
attended as a high school sophomore was what brought her to the
BC campus for the first time. She
hasn’t looked back since.
During her freshman year
ally a four-hour long process. After
driving to Norfolk, they must go
through a rigorous check-in. For
each visit, they walk through metal
detectors, undergo pat-downs, and
must adhere to a strict dress code.
Once inside, the volunteers must
abide by an equally strict confidentiality agreement, never accept gifts
or give anything to inmates and are
forbidden to transmit messages to
family or friends.
What the volunteers can bring
is knowledge of their subject area.
Fr. Ver Eecke, for one, has taught
liturgical dance and sacred movements. The prisoners have incorporated the dance into Holy Week
services, Masses that have become
immensely popular with prisoners, correction officers and visitors
alike.
McDargh works as a facilitator
of a monthly prayer group where
many of the members are “second
degree lifers” — men who have
been sentenced to life for second-
at BC, Scriven was part of the
Emerging Leader Program and a
dancer in the Philippine Society.
She is treasurer of the FACES
program, a campus group that
aims to educate the community
on cultural issues through discussions, social interactions and
academic forums. As an upperclassman, Scriven became a mentor for the FACES First Year
Program.
“Having been a mentee, I
really enjoyed having that relationship, that type of connection
here on campus,” said Scriven.
“Now, I am glad to be able to
help new students in the same
way.”
Scriven plans to participate
in a summer abroad program
this year and aspires to become
a Spanish teacher. To that end,
she has already applied for the
Lynch School of Education Fifth
Year Program.
—Melissa Beecher
degree murder. The group holds
discussions about forgiveness and
reconciliation, spirituality, friendship and their distinctive service
as mature Christians to the wider
Norfolk community.
Though many in his group will
most likely die in prison, they seek
spiritual resources that will enable
them to live vital, contributive and
meaningful lives even in the face of
that possibility.
Like so many of the volunteers,
McDargh said although he tries to
serve the inmates, what he walks
away with is often times immeasurable.
“I find my faith confirmed,”
said McDargh. “I have seen lives
changed, people finding the courage and resilience and capacity to
continue to believe in life amid very
difficult circumstances.
“For these men, prayer and the
life of spirit is not an add on, it’s
life itself.”
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
february 28, 2008
HEIGHTS
OF
EXCELLENCE
‘A Youthful Sense of Discovery’
Photos by Lee Pellegrini
Michael Resler works his students hard — and shares his sense of play in the process
“Heights of Excellence” profiles faculty
members who, through their exemplary teaching and research, contribute to the intellectual
and spiritual life of Boston College
youthful sense of discovery that keeps us forever young,”
says O’Connor. “He never becomes jaded. As a colleague, you always want to meet the standards he sets.”
O’Connor says that students rise to the high standards
Resler demands and more often than not walk away betBy Melissa Beecher
ter from the experience.
Staff Writer
“As a parent, you always look for professors to do for
your children what you would do for them in the intelHe sits atop a desk, legs dangling. In his lap is a copy
lectual sense,” says O’Connor. “He is a master teacher,
of Erec, a poem penned circa 1185 about King Arthur’s
in the broadest sense of the term, who treats students as
knights. In his hand he holds a text of the same story,
his own.
this one of his own translation. Rapt students sound off
“One thing that makes for a good teacher is to underon the topic: Which version of the tale is more violent,
stand play, in its proper and noble sense.”
gory and vivid?
Resler grew up in Florida in the 1950s and 1960s. His
As Prof. Michael Resler (German Studies) bounds
father was German-Austrian, but Resler readily admits
off the desk, students begin to scribble notes and flip
that his early exposure to the language was “children’s
through pages. He talks about dragons and jousts,
German” from his grandmother, as his father had
quickly pacing around the 30 desks in a U-formastopped speaking his native tongue, given anti-German
tion. Pausing in front of a student, Resler falls silent as
sentiment of the time.
the young man timidly observes that the story’s tense
An interest in language in high school propelled Rechanges during fight sequences.
sler to study German, and in 1965 he started attending
“I hadn’t noticed that before,” Resler nods, then
Universität Salzburg in Austria. He earned a bachelor’s
smiles, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe we have a paper
degree in German from The College of William and
topic? Certainly you haven’t forgotten about the paMary in 1970 and quickly returned to Europe. While on
per!”
a Fulbright Scholarship he studied at Ruhr-Universität
For 68 of his students, “paper topics” have transin Bochum, Germany, and Johannes-Gutenberg-Unilated into senior theses and, ultimately, Fulbright
versität in Mainz.
Scholarships with the opportunity for State DepartWhen Resler returned to the US, he headed north to
ment-sponsored post-graduate study.
attend Harvard University for his master’s and PhD, and
Not bad for the smallest department at Boston
soon found a home in Boston. After a four-year teaching
College.
fellowship at Harvard, in 1976 he was hired at BC as an
Only about 50 majors and minors enroll in German
assistant professor of what was then Germanic Studies.
Studies each year, making the number of Fulbrights
He has chaired the German Studies Department since
awarded to students in the department all the more
1992.
impressive. To draw from a broader pool, Resler has
Resler was the founding director of the Fellowships
started cross-listing courses like King Arthur in GerProgram in 1995 and has served as a member of the
man Literature with the English Department. Other
University’s Fulbright Committee since 1985. In 1997,
students seek out the courses based on the department’s
he earned the University’s Phi Beta Kappa Teaching
reputation.
Award.
Over the last three decades, Resler has quietly
A prolific Medieval philologist – a scholar of lanestablished himself as a master teacher and helped to
guages within their historic, cultural context – Resler speaffirm the German Studies program as an unlikely
cializes in the 12th and 13th century German Arthurian
powerhouse. Colleagues, students and alumni sing his
romances. Resler
praises both for his endless
brings the same
enthusiasm and his demand
intensity to his
for excellence in the classrole as translator
room.
and re-construcTalking with a reporter on
tionist of “dead
a recent day in his Lyons Hall
language” literaoffice, Resler — between
ture as he does to
checking e-mails and answerhis role as teacher.
ing a knock on the door from
“The power a
a CIA agent checking up on
translator holds in
a former student interested in
his or her hands
working for the government
must be used re— brushes off the Fulbright
sponsibly,” says
accolades.
Resler. “You have
“The students do the
a responsibility
work, I just help them along,”
– personally and
said Resler. “Although I will
professionally —
admit that the success of the
to make that work
program is boldfaced recruiting. I’ll sit down with fresh- Colleagues and students alike praise Resler’s ability to groom Fulbright schol- available to those
man and say ‘This is not a arship winners. Above, Resler meets with Fulbright hopefuls, including (L-R) who might not be
joke, these years are going to seniors William Keene, Karen Kauffman (partially hidden), Nate Staudinger, exposed to it.”
fly by faster than a dream. It’s Kevin Conroy and Paul Astuto (back to camera).
A “tour-de-force”
not too early to start thinking.’
Nathaniel Campbell, ’07, says it was Resler’s en“Then I kick in with the f-word. Of course, the ‘fcouragement that laid the groundwork for his Fulbright
word’ around here is ‘Fulbright.’”
Scholarship and acceptance to a PhD program at the
Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame.
Understanding play
As a sophomore, Campbell said, he was encouraged
College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program
by Resler to apply for an Advanced Study Grant to
Director Mark O’Connor has known Resler professtudy Medieval Latin literature and paleography. While
sionally and personally for many years. When asked
in Germany, Campbell became enamored with St.
to describe his friend, O’Connor quotes Johann WolfHildegard von Bingen. A footnote within a text at St.
gang von Goethe’s Faust.
Hildegard’s Abbey, knowledge of German and Resler’s
Old Age does not make childish, as they claim,
constant reminders about Fulbright led him to his topic:
It merely finds us genuine children yet.
Hildegard’s prophetic and apocalyptic thought in the
“I think of Michael in that way. Not that he is child13th century.
ish – he is brilliant – but he has been able to maintain a
Campbell says his admiration for Resler goes far beyond academia. He recalls Easter Sunday of his senior year,
when he couldn’t afford a plane ticket home to Colorado.
Resler invited a couple of students to his New Hampshire
cabin for dinner, a trip made all the more eventful when a
problem with the sewer line prevented Resler from cooking, sending the small party searching for a deli. Campbell
said after hours of food and conversation, he left feeling
that someone he respected valued his opinions.
“The key to understanding the remarkable relationship
that Professor Resler has with his students is to understand
that he takes an actual and legitimate interest in our lives,
and has the deepest respect for our experiences,” says
Campbell.
“It distinguishes him from most other professors: The
fact that we’re still undergrads does nothing to diminish
his interest and respect for us. If anything, he likes us even
more because we don’t have PhDs after our names — we
don’t have all of the baggage that an academic career and
the pursuit of tenure seem to accumulate.”
Not that Resler is a pushover. By Resler’s own admission, “I feel I have to justify the tuition they are paying. If
it doesn’t challenge them, I’m cheating them.”
As a staff member and Catholic issues editor of the
conservative BC student newspaper The Observer, Campbell said he often was at odds politically with Resler,
whose office sports a collection of anti-George W. Bush
memorabilia.
Despite such differences, he says, “I was, and remain,
one of Professor Resler’s most devoted fans. The reason
behind this is that, unlike many professors who disdain
the muddle of undergraduate-level political discourse,
Professor Resler revels in it. He has the utmost respect
for the political beliefs of all of his students, and it was for
this reason that I felt completely comfortable asking him
to write a guest column for The Observer last year — and
why he felt completely comfortable writing it.”
That Feb. 6, 2007, column takes to task the traditional
Catholic position on homosexuality. Resler, an openly gay
man, writes, “How I live out my sexuality — with what
degree of justice, honesty, compassion and responsibility
— is certainly a valid moral question. But that I am born
with a same-sex propensity is, in my view, inherently no
more a legitimate moral concern than is left-handedness.”
As he does in the classroom, according to Campbell,
Resler keeps students’ feet to the fire during the Fulbright
application process, helping them through drafts and
rewrites. The letters of recommendation Resler writes for
students are powerful and well-tailored to each individual,
says Campbell, who describes the one Resler wrote on his
behalf as a “tour-de-force.”
“I only hope they say things like that at my funeral,”
he says.
“The cruelest month”
Beyond his work, Resler has found a hobby that he calls
equally exhilarating: snowboarding.
“I have been snowboarding for the past 12 years,” says Resler. “My friends joke that maybe, after all this time, it wasn’t
Continued on page 8
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
february 28, 2008
Postings
“Never Perfect” screening,
discussion tonight
The Women’s Studies Program,
Vietnamese Student Association,
ALC Women of Color Caucus, and the
AHANA Leadership Council will sponsor a screening at 7 p.m. tonight of the
documentary “Never Perfect,” which
explores the historical, cultural and
social issues surrounding the increasing
popularity of cosmetic surgery in the
United States.
“Never Perfect” focuses on the experiences of a young Vietnamese-American
woman, highlighting not only the issue
of body image and self-perception but
also the stigma of racial self-hatred and
American standards of beauty.
Following the film, which will be
shown in Cushing 001, will be a discussion with the director, Regina Park. For
information, see www.bc.edu/schools/
cas/ws or e-mail hesse@bc.edu.
Deadline for New Media Awards
nominees Friday
Nominations are due tomorrow, Feb.
29, for the New Media Awards, which
honor Boston College faculty for innovative and imaginative use of digital,
Internet and other forms of technology
in their teaching.
Students may nominate faculty members at idesweb.bc.edu/ides/twin/twinnominations.html.
Fr. Byron to speak at
Winston Forum March 10
The Winston Forum on Business Ethics will host a talk on March 10 at 7
p.m. in McGuinn 121 by former Catholic
University President William J. Byron,
SJ, who will discuss his recent book The
Power of Principles: Ethics for the New
Corporate Culture.
Fr. Byron, who is on leave this year
from the Loyola College Sellinger School
of Business and Management to serve
as president of St. Joseph’s Preparatory School in Philadelphia, writes a
syndicated bi-weekly column (“Looking
Around”) for Catholic News Service.
For information, see www.bc.edu/
schools/csom/leadership/events.html,
call ext.2-9296 or e-mail winston.center@bc.edu.
Immigration is focus
of March 11 talk
Richard Pineda, a researcher on issues
involving political communication and
Latinos, will present the lecture “Flag
Waving and Border Patrolling: Two Perspectives in Immigration Discourse” on
March 11 at 6:30 p.m. in McGuinn 121.
Pineda, a faculty member at the
University of Texas, El Paso, Sam Donaldson Center for Communication, will
discuss the arguments presented by
proponents or opponents of immigration
reform.
The event is sponsored by the Communication Department, Latin American
Studies Program, Organization of Latin
American Affairs, and Latinos/as @
Boston College. Call ext.2-4280 or e-mail
stanwood@bc.edu.
Caribbean writer Frederick
to speak March 12
Assoc. Prof. Rhonda Frederick (English)
will present a talk on her work in Caribbean and African American literatures at
noon on March 12 in Lyons 301.
Lunch will be served at the event,
which is part of the The Works in Progress Lecture Series. See www.bc.edu/
schools/cas/aads/events/wipls.html or
e-mailandrewma@bc.edu.
Career Center Grant Program a Gateway to the World
By Melissa Beecher
Chronicle Staff
Last summer Megan Green
’08, traveled to Nairobi, Kenya,
expecting to lead a small drama
troupe performing educational
skits on HIV/AIDS. Imagine her
surprise when she arrived to find
more than 100 teenage girls standing in a field anxious to learn
about acting.
“The girls were curious to find
out what I was all about. For
many of them, I was the first
white person they had ever seen,”
said Green, who worked as an intern for the Kenya US Relief and
Development in association with
Chemi Ya Ukweli, Social Justice
NGO.
After convincing teachers to
reduce the class to a more manageable size — about 30 students
— Green, a theater major, began
her work.
“Every day I would show up
and the field would be the classroom,” said Green, who ultimately produced three 10-minute-long
skits with the girls and helped start
another community theater group
that allowed high school dropouts the chance educate the larger
populace about HIV/AIDS.
During her three-month internship, Green stayed in a convent with seven nuns who had
been overseeing community
health for 40 years. Green was
on hand when the nuns held a
forum with religious leaders to
attempt correct misinformation
and quash the stigma surrounding
HIV/AIDS in Africa.
“The students didn’t know the
basic facts, so we really had to
start from scratch,” said Green.
“So many people there don’t talk
about it and don’t get tested because if they are suspected to have
HIV/AIDS they get stigmatized.”
Green was one of four students
selected for the 2007 Summer
Nonprofit Internship Grants for
Social & Human Services through
Boston College’s Career Center.
The $3,900 stipends are open to
juniors who plan to accept unpaid
summer internships in a nonprofit
field in the summer before their
senior year.
Through the program, BC
undergraduates have been able
to land opportunities across the
county and throughout the world.
In recent years students have traveled to internships in Africa, South
America and Asia to help in clinics, orphanages and schools.
Another summer intern, Connell School of Nursing senior Breana Patterson, served with the
Peace Corps, working as a student
nurse with the Solai Medical Clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. Patterson
was often assigned to a maternity/child health ward where she
would help deliver babies, give
vaccinations and provide pregnant
women with routine checkups.
In letters to the Career Center,
Patterson discussed not only her
work but also wrote at length
about her living situation, detailing a friendship she forged with
Njeri, a housegirl in her host family’s home. In one particularly
compelling letter, Patterson described how she spent a few cents
on chocolate cookies for Njeri.
“I gave them to her and she
gave me the biggest hug. For the
next hour or two, she kept telling
me how sweet they tasted and
how happy she was,” Patterson
wrote.
The next day Njeri brought
Patterson to church, where Njeri
gave her minimal wages to the
offertory.
“Njeri’s heart continuously
WELCOME ADDITIONS
•Assoc. Prof. Kenneth Williams (Biology)
PhD, McGill University
Fields of Interest: The biology of monocytes and macrophages – the large
white blood cells formed in bone marrow – AIDS pathogenesis and other
neurodegenerative diseases.
Courses: Graduate seminar in Cell Biology and Immune Pathogenesis in
HIV Infection, Cell Biology of the Nervous System.
Williams spent 11 years at Harvard Medical School before joining BC. His
lab uses viral infection models, histology and confocal microscopy to study
tissue pathogenesis of AIDS, particularly in respect to the debilitating effects
of the disease on the brain. Williams’ research program has been consistently
supported by the National Institutes of Health, which last year awarded him
and collaborators at the universities of San Francisco and Hawaii a $10 million
grant to conduct human clinical trials for two new drugs, which have been
proven to reduce inflammation and kill HIV-infected white blood cells.
•Asst. Prof. Dunwei Wang (Chemistry)
PhD, Stanford University
Research Interests: Material chemistry, nanotechnology.
Courses: Physical Chemistry, Solid State Chemistry.
A native of China’s Jiangsu Province, Wang’s research focuses on nanotechnology and new materials in this pioneering field. His lab explores novel synthetic methods for developing high-quality nano-scale semiconductor materials
at low cost, as well as innovative applications for scientific and technological
developments. Wang says new materials can ultimately pave the way toward a
wide range of applications, including clean and highly efficient energy generation, storage and utilizations, disease diagnostics, and treatments. A post-doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology from 2005 to 2007, Wang
earned the 2006 Prize for Young Chemists from the International Union of
Pure and Applied Chemistry.
leaves me in awe,” wrote
Patterson.
According to Patterson, she has a unique,
and heartfelt, legacy of
her time in Kenya: A
mother whose baby she
helped deliver named
the child in Patterson’s
honor.
Janet Costa Bates, associate director of career
counseling and education, says the center’s
nonprofit internships
have evolved over time
and become as much a
life experience for the
young recipients as a
way to bolster their resumes.
“It’s not just helping
find students jobs, but
rather helping students
understand their skills,
understand their interests and see how those things fit
together in the working world,”
Bates said.
The nonprofit summer internship program began in 1989, when
AHANA’s Career Expo funded
the program as a way to encourage
students of color to pursue career
opportunities in the nonprofit sector. Hailed as one of the first
service-learning programs in the
country, in 1990 the program was
lauded as an example of innovation with the Philip J. Brockway
Award by the Eastern Colleges
Personnel Officers Association.
As the program grew and students university-wide became
eligible, funding sources changed.
Currently, AHANA Career Services and the Career Center’s Job
Fair receipts fund summer internship grants.
“The goal is to open students’
eyes, to have them go out and
(L-R) Seniors Megan Green, Stacy
Brown and Timothy Moriarty are among
the BC students who have gained valuable experience through Career Center
Summer Nonprofit Internship Grants.
(Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
do the extraordinary or incredible
things they are capable of doing,”
said Bates, who adds that the center hopes to expand the number
of program grants. “The service
component works well with the
Jesuit mission of the University.”
The two other 2007 recipients
were A&S senior Stacy Brown,
who organized Vecinos Sanos/
Healthy Neighbors, a non-profit
foundation that offered mobile
medical testing in Santa Rosa,
NM, and A&S senior Tim Moriarty, who distributed food and
clothing at the St. Francis House
in Boston.
“I said to the students, ‘you
may never know how many lives
you saved, but you did’,” said
Bates. “They saved lives this summer. We’ll just never know how
many.”
•Asst. Prof. Jianmin Gao (Chemistry)
PhD, Stanford University
Research interests: Biological chemistry, protein folding and misfolding,
protein engineering.
Courses: Principles of Chemical Biology, Physical Chemistry for Biology
Majors (spring 2009).
Gao’s research concerns the intimate details of how proteins fold and misfold; the latter occurrence has been implicated in a wide array of diseases, such
as Alzheimer’s disease and Type II Diabetes. Gao, from China’s Shandong
Province, was a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute between
2004 and 2007 and this year was one of seven recipients of the Smith Family
Foundation New Investigator Award, a $200,000 grant to support scientists
engaged in basic research in the areas of AIDS, cancer, cardiovascular disease,
diabetes and neuroscience.
•Assoc. Prof. Jeff Bloechl (Philosophy)
PhD, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.
Research Interests: Phenomenology and psychoanalysis, philosophy of religion and meta-philosophy.
Courses: The Philosophy of Levinas, Heidegger and Marcel on the Sacred,
Perspectives on Western Civilization.
Bloechl joined the BC faculty after eight years at the College of the Holy
Cross, where he was an assistant and associate professor. He describes much of
his work as responding to questions of human nature at points where religious
and more secular accounts meet and conflict. Bloechl is book series editor of
Levinas Studies: An Annual Review and Thresholds in Philosophy and Theology,
and a member of the editorial boards of Continental Philosophy Review and
Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. He is also a past president
of the Philosophers in Jesuit Education.
—Ed Hayward
“Welcome Additions,” an occasional feature, profiles new faculty members
at Boston College.
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
february 28, 2008
PEOPLE
Newsmakers
•Assoc. Prof. John Gallaugher
(CSOM) spoke with the Boston
Herald about the relationship between the Internet and politics.
(Romance Languages) offered remarks to The Language Educator for
an article on the Alliance Française
network and its support of French
programs in the United States.
•Undergraduate Admission Director John Mahoney was interviewed
by WBZ-TV News about the current overall admission climate, and
in light of record-breaking numbers
of applications to Boston College.
•Adj. Assoc. Prof. Michael C. Keith
(Communication) was interviewed
by French magazine Nouvel Observateur regarding a new type of radio
in Chicago called “Volcano.”
•Prof. Peter Skerry (Political Science) discussed the civil rights
movement and Barack Obama’s
place in history with US News &
World Report.
•Assoc. Prof. Joseph Tecce (Psychology) gave the New York Daily News
his analysis of body language and
other indicators of Roger Clemens’
emotional state during the pitcher’s
testimony before Congress.
•Monan Professor of Higher Education Philip Altbach warned of a
sub-prime style crash for international higher education, in an oped he published in the UK’s Times
Higher Education Supplement.
•In an interview with Fox Business
News network, Carroll School of
Management student Scott Atha
’08, president of the Boston College Investment Club, and faculty
advisor Assoc. Prof. Harold Petersen (Economics) discussed the
club’s success: At its quarter-century
mark, the club has a $360 thousand
portfolio and some 500 members
who say they’ve consistently outperformed the benchmark S&P 500.
•Prof. Emerita Rebecca Valette
Publications
•Prof. Robert Bloom (Law) wrote a
chapter on drug testing in the book
Education Law Stories, by Rona
Schneider.
•Prof. Christine N. O’Brien
(CSOM) co-published “Adverse
Employment Consequences Triggered by Criminal Convictions:
Recent Cases Interpret State Statutes Prohibiting Discrimination” in
Wake Forest Law Review.
•Prof. James R. Mahalik (LSOE)
co-authored “Does masculinity
moderate the relationship between
sexual functioning and men’s experience of well-being for prostate
cancer patients?” in the American
Journal of Men’s Health.
•Assoc. Prof. Mary Ann Hinsdale,
IHM (Theology), published “What
Young Catholic Women Want
(from Their Church}” in New Theology Review and “Jesuit Theological Discourse since Vatican II” in
The Cambridge Companion to the
Jesuits.
•Adj. Assoc Prof. Michael Noone
(Music) released a new CD, a world
premiere recording of the Canticum Canticorum Salamonis (1549)
Nota Bene
Lynch School of Education endowed chairholders Dr. Anderson J. Franklin and Janet Helms have been named recipients of the Distinguished Elder
Award given by the National Multicultural Conference and Summit.
Dr. Franklin, the Honorable David S. Nelson Professor, and Helms, who
is Augustus Long Professor, are being honored for their outstanding lifelong
contributions to the advancement of multicultural psychology and, according
to the organization, as “courageous pioneers who challenged existing paradigms within psychology and who blazed a path for multicultural researchers
and practitioners.”
They will be recognized at the National Multicultural Conference and
Summit to be held in New Orleans.
Dr. Franklin focuses his research on understanding resilience and the psychological well being of African Americans, particularly men.
Helms is director of The Institute for the Study and Promotion of Race
and Culture at Boston College, and has written more than 60 empirical and
theoretical articles and four books on racial identity and cultural influences on
assessment and counseling practice.
Student Services Credit and Collection Manager John Brown was honored for Outstanding Community Leadership by the Barry L. Price Rehabilitation Center in West Newton. Brown was a founding member of the board
of directors and president of the organization for a number of terms. The
award was presented by US Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), JD’76.
Assistant to the President Rose Mary Donahue was named one of the
“Top 10 People” of Wellesley, Mass., for 2007 by The Wellesley Townsman
for her work on the town’s planning board, of which she is the current vicechair (and ex-chair) as well as its longest standing member. The newspaper
quoted a planning board member as describing Donahue as “very dedicated”
and possessing “an inordinate amount of experience with the town,” and
who is “very welcoming and very approachable, and really hears what you
have to say.”
by Gioseffo Zarlino on the Glossa
label and iTunes.
Honors/Appointments
•Asst. Prof. Mary-Rose Papandrea
(Law) was named treasurer of the
National Security Law Section of
the Association of American Law
Schools and secretary of the Mass
Media Law Section of the AALS.
•Law School faculty members Prof.
James Repetti and Prof. Marjorie
Kornhauser were elected to leadership roles in the Association of
American Law Schools Tax Section.
Kornhauser will serve as the chairwoman of the group and Repetti
was elected to the Executive Committee.
•Prof. Mary Bilder (Law) was
named co-editor of Blackstone in
America: The Essays of Kathryn
Preyer, which will be published by
Cambridge University Press.
Time and a Half
•Prof. Paul Tremblay (Law) presented “Migrating Lawyers and the
Ethics of Conflict Checking” to
the American Bar Association Firm
Counsel.
•Prof. Diane Ring (Law) recently
gave presentations to the International Law Association annual
meeting on sovereignty and international tax policy, and to Mexican
tax officials on transfer policy.
•Assoc. Prof. Christopher Baum
(Economics) presented “Securities
fraud class actions and corporate
governance: New evidence on the
role of merit” at the Conference
on the Future of Securities Fraud
Litigation, Claremont McKenna
College.
•Physics faculty members Prof. Ziq-
E x L i br i s
The GAMBLING DEBATE
By Adj. Assoc. Prof. Richard McGowan, SJ (CSOM)
The gambling debate is not only a divisive issue in Massachusetts,
since Governor Deval Patrick’s proposal
last fall to license three resort casinos;
it also is the title of a new book by an
authority on the public-policy aspects of
gambling and other “sin” industries.
Whether benefit or bane, gambling
permeates American culture in unprecedented ways, says Fr. McGowan. Its
newest venues, Native American tribal
casinos and the Internet, draw gamblers
in vast numbers and generate spectacular
profits — and, inevitably, social, legal and
political controversies.
The Gambling Debate reveals the new,
contentious dynamics of gambling and
frames the ethical and practical questions it poses. Among them:
Does gambling prey on human weakness, Fr. McGowan asks, or is it
a vehicle of the American dream — an engine of personal enrichment,
enormous public revenue and economic development?
“How should public policymakers — in Massachusetts and elsewhere across the nation — approach expanded gambling? Government has been the gatekeeper, as regulator of the gambling industry;
its role and responsibilities remain central to the gambling debate,
even while it stands to reap huge windfalls from the very industry it
is regulating.”
—Rosanne Pellegrini
iang Wang and Asst. Prof. Vidya
Madhavan have been invited to
give talks about their research on
superconducting materials next
month at the 2008 annual meeting
of the American Physical Society in
New Orleans.
•Assoc. Prof. Mary Ann Hinsdale, IHM (Theology), presented
“It Comes From the People: Local Theology in Appalachia” at St.
John’s University in Minnesota, in
connection with the “How Hope
Inspires” photo essay from the Appalachian Institute at Wheeling Jesuit University.
Chemist Fiebig Earns Prestigious
Sloan Research Fellowship
Asst. Prof. Torsten Fiebig
(Chemistry) has been awarded the
prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, intended
to enhance the careers of the very
best young faculty members in
specified fields of science.
A total of 118 Sloan Research
Fellowships – which were established in 1955 to provide support
and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars – are awarded
annually in seven fields, including
chemistry. Selection procedures are
designed to identify researchers who
show the most outstanding promise
of making fundamental contributions to new knowledge.
“It’s a great honor,” said Fiebig,
who joined the BC faculty in 2003.
“I feel fortunate to be among those
recognized by the foundation. We
pursue a level of excellence at Boston College, so I think this is as
much a reflection on my research
Spotlighting recent
faculty publications
group, the Chemistry Department
and my colleagues here at the university.”
Fiebig works in the areas of
photophysics – the transport and
processing of light – photonics,
where researchers are probing the
potential uses of DNA in nanotechnology, as well as laser technology with potential applications to
minimally invasive surgery.
Currently, the Fiebig research
group investigates the interaction
of ultra-violet radiation with DNA
on the ultra-fast time scale in order
to address the question of how
excess energy dissipates in nucleic
acids. The research addresses a
long-standing issue in DNA photophysics and could provide new
insight into the damaging effects of
sunlight on DNA – damage that
is often a precursor to cancer and
other diseases.
—Ed Hayward
Jobs
The following are among the most
recent positions posted by the Department of Human Resources.
For more information on employment opportunities at Boston College, see www.bc.edau/offices/hr/:
Administrative Assistant, Annual
Giving, Development
Director of Development (parttime), St. Columbkille Partnership
School
Assistant Director, Programs &
Events, Development
Griller/Fryer, Dining Services Lower Campus
Training and Communication
Specialist, Information Technology Services
Associate Director, Merchandising, BC Bookstore
Art Director, Office of Marketing
Communications
Managing Editor, Center for Catholic Education
Dean, Connell School of Nursing
Resident Director, Residential Life
Grant Manager, Graduate School
of Social Work
HVAC Mechanic, Facilities Management
Administrative Assistant, Leadership Gifts, Development
Director, Annual Giving, Gasson
Society & Special Gifts, Marketing
& Regional Development
Director, Capital Planning & Engineering
Assistant Director, Residential Life
Director, Admissions and Recruitment, STM Administration
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
february 28, 2008
LOOKING AHEAD
READINGS • LECTURES •
DISCUSSION
February 28
•“Women in Diplomacy,” with
Tara Foley, ’02, Elena Poptodorova,
Simona Petrova and Dorothy Zur
Muhlen-Tomaszewska, 5 p.m., Devlin 008. Call ext.2-4170, e-mail baileyk@bc.edu.
March 1
•Winston Forum on Business Ethics:
Rev. William J. Byron, SJ, discusses
his book The Power of Principles:
Ethics for the New Corporate Culture,
7 p.m., McGuinn 121. See www.
bc.edu/schools/csom/leadership/
events.html.
March 11
•“Flag Waving and Border Patrolling:
Two Perspectives in Immigration
Discourse,” with Richard Pineda,
Sam Donaldson Center for Communication, University of Texas,
El Paso, 6:30 p.m., McGuinn 121.
Call ext.2-4280, e-mail stanwood@
bc.edu.
March 12
•Reading for Pleasure book discussion: The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot
by Angus Wilson, led by O’Neill
Reference Librarian Sonia Ensins,
noon, O’Neill 413. E-mail perrypd@
bc.edu.
•Works in Progress Lecture Series:
Assoc. Prof. Rhonda Frederick (English), noon, Lyons 301. See www.
bc.edu/schools/cas/aads/events/wipls.
html, e-mailandrewma@bc.edu.
•Chambers Lecture Series: “The
Art of Leadership” with Manchester Bidwell Corp. CEO Bill Strickland, 7 p.m., Murray Room, Yawkey
Athletics Center. See www.bc.edu/
schools/csom/leadership/programs/
chambers.html.
March 13
•“The Catholic University in the 21st
Century,” with Rev. Jon Sobrino,
March 11
•Reception for opening of “Reflections of Ireland: Music and Landscapes” exhibition, with live music,
4:30 p.m., Burns Library. Call ext.23282, e-mail elizabeth.sullivan.3@
bc.edu.
•Music at St. Mary’s: “Marian Music for Lent,” performance by the
Seraphim Singers, 8 p.m., St. Mary’s
Chapel. Call ext.2-6004, e-mail concerts@bc.edu.
“Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics
from the Roman Empire” continues at
the McMullen Museum.
SJ, University of Central America,
respondents Assoc. Prof. M. Shawn
Copeland (Theology) and Murray
and Monti Professor of Economics
Peter Ireland and moderator Prof.
Roberto Goizueta (Theology), 4:30
p.m., Fulton 511. Call ext.2-3260.
UNIVERSITY EVENTS
March 3-7
•Spring break. No classes.
March 15
•Oscar Romero Memorial Scholarship Banquet, 7 p.m., Murray Room,
Yawkey Athletics Center. Call ext.21996, e-mail reyese@bc.edu before
March 3.
MUSIC • ART • PERFORMANCE
February 28
•Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance,
Workshop and Lecture Series: workshop and recital with Fulbright-Culture Ireland Visiting Professor in Irish
Studies James O’Brien Moran, singers
Bridget Fitzgerald and Mary Lee Partington, 6:30 p.m., Connolly House.
See www.bc.edu/centers/irish/gaelicroots/.
•Film and discussion: “Never Perfect,” with director Regina Park,
7 p.m., Cushing 001. See www.
bc.edu/schools/cas/ws.
WHERE THERE’S WILL
ATHLETICS
February 28
•Women’s basketball: BC vs. Virginia, 7 p.m., Conte Forum.
February 29
•Men’s hockey: BC vs. Providence, 7
p.m. Conte Forum.
March 1
•Men’s basketball: BC vs. North Carolina, 3:30 p.m., Conte Forum.
March 7
•Men’s hockey: BC vs. Northeastern,
7 p.m., Conte Forum.
ONGOING EXHIBITIONS
•“Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics
from the Roman Empire,” at the
McMullen Museum of Art, through
June 6. See www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/
cas/artmuseum/.
•“Boston Through the Eyes of Brehaut,” material from Ellerton J. Brehaut Bostonia Collection of Boston
and Boston history, Burns Library,
through March 30.
•“The Betrayal of Srebrenica: A
Commemoration,” photo exhibition,
Bapst Art Library Gallery, through
Feb. 29.
•“Reflections of Ireland: Music and
Landscapes,” paintings and drawings
by Richard Toomey, Burns Library,
March 1-31.
For more on Boston College events, see
events.bc.edu or check BCInfo [www.
bc.edu/bcinfo] for updates.
BC SCENES
BC Exhibition Spotlights
Local Irish Musicians
The John J. Burns Library will host an exhibition next month that
features portraits of Boston’s “Greatest Generation” of Irish traditional
musicians, including Boston College Sullivan Artist-in-Residence Seamus
Connolly, director of BC’s Irish music programs.
These portraits are the work of Norwell artist and Boston Irish music
scene habitué Richard Toomey, who also will display his paintings of Irish
landscapes at the exhibition, which runs from March 1-31.
An opening reception “Reflections of Ireland: Music and Landscapes”
will take place on March 11 at 4:30 p.m., with live Irish music. The exhibition and reception are co-sponsored by the Center for Irish Programs and
Burns Library.
Toomey, a South
Boston native who
teaches art in Scituate Public Schools,
says he considered
himself more of a
landscape artist —
particularly maritime
scenes — but was inspired to undertake
the portrait project
after a trip to Ireland
several years ago.
Seeing so many
talented young people playing the traditional music of their This painting of fiddler Brendan Tonra is part of the
“Reflections of Ireland” exhibition.
homeland inspired
him to reconnect with the music, Toomey says. It also reaffirmed his respect
in particular for those musicians in Boston who had helped preserve and
pass on the music, as performers, teachers, organizers and mentors.
Besides Connolly, Toomey points to figures such as Larry Reynolds,
founder and long-time head of the Irish cultural organization Comhaltas
Ceoltóirí Éireann Boston branch; accordion virtuoso Joe Derrane, a National Heritage Foundation Award winner; and the late Jimmy Hogan, a
popular flute and whistle player who played in many informal music sessions around the city.
“People like Seamus, Larry, Joe and Jimmy have done so much to keep
alive the music so that younger generations can continue to enjoy it,” he
said.
“We put a high premium on athletic celebrities, like a Larry Bird or a
Bobby Orr, but they are only able to do what they do for a relatively short
time. There are musicians here still playing into their 70s and 80s, even 90s,
and helping provide the continuity between generations.”
Toomey’s subjects also include two BC alumni, accordion players John
Conroy, ’54, and Tom Sheridan, ’64.
“I felt it was important to recognize this ‘Greatest Generation’ in some
way — not as a eulogy, but as an appreciation of a still active, dynamic force
in Irish music.”
Burns Librarian Robert O’Neill said, “Burns Library has a tradition of
sponsoring exhibitions of Irish interest, especially in the month of March.
‘Reflections on Ireland’ definitely fits in with the library’s mission of
presenting facets of Irish life, music and art; the fact that there is a strong
Boston connection makes it all the more appropriate.”
—Sean Smith
Resler Excels at Work and Play
Before he and his “Semi-Pro Comedy Tour” took the stage Feb. 13 at Conte Forum, movie star-comedian Will Ferrell met briefly
with the Undergraduate Government of Boston College Campus Entertainment department, the event’s organizer. So, Chronicle
wondered, what do you say to celebrity like Ferrell when he’s only a few feet away? Heidi Jordan, ’08 (with Ferrell in photo):
“He was very friendly and of course, naturally funny, and was very gracious and thanked us for having him. When he was signing posters I swooped in and just said, ‘Oh, would you not mind not signing this too?’ — majorly flubbed my one line, but I said
it fast so I don’t think he noticed. I have no idea what he said back to me, but I know he smiled and said something like, ‘of
course’ or ‘absolutely.’ Even though we only met him for five or 10 minutes, it was enough to know that he truly is a very nice
and extremely funny man who deserves all the fame that has come to him over the years.” (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
Continued from page 1
just a midlife crisis. If it was, than it
was a hell of a good one.”
Resler says he frequently invites
colleagues and students – even if they
are skiers — to his New Hampshire
cottage to enjoy the winters, his favorite time of year.
“April is the cruelest month, but
I don’t believe I am using that in the
same way T.S. Eliot meant it,” Resler
smiles. “When the snow melts away I
go into a kind of depression knowing
another season has passed.”
Economics Department chairman Prof. Joseph Quinn can attest
to Resler’s abilities on the slopes.
“He looks forward to the first
snow of the season more than anyone else I know,” said Quinn. “In his
cabin there is a plaque that I bought
for him in Sun Valley that reads:
‘Snowboarders – Annoying skiers
since 1984.’”
Quinn said Resler approaches
snowboarding like teaching: with
enthusiasm.
“His dedication to his students
and his willingness and eagerness to
work so hard on their behalf inspires
them to do the same,” said Quinn.
“His enthusiasm for his subject and
for the opportunities abroad that
await our students is contagious. He
is the epitome of whatever the German for ‘cura personalis’ is.”
Resler acknowledges that his
“work hard, play hard” credo has
served him well.
“You got to love what you are
doing. If you’re faking it than they
know right away,” said Resler.
“What fun is it if you’re faking
it?”