The Boston College
Chronicle
january 31, 2008-vol. 16 no. 10
Lynch School Program
Gets $9.2 Million Boost
BostonConnects will
expand service efforts
to 14 local schools
By Ed Hayward
Staff Writer
SOARING SPIRIT—The Phaymus student dance ensemble performs during the Boston College annual Martin
Luther King Jr. Memorial Gathering, held Jan. 21 in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons. Phaymus’ dance interpretation was part of a program of music inspired by the Civil Rights Movement that was presented by “United
Voices of Freedom,” a choir comprising students from Against the Current, the Liturgy Arts Group and the Voices of
Imani. See other photo on page 2. (Photo by Frank Curran)
Counting Down to November
With the 2008 presidential campaign in full swing and the Feb. 5
“Super Tuesday” primaries looming, Chronicle asked members of
the University community for their
views on various aspects of the race.
(Comments were made prior to
Tuesday’s Florida primary.)
Prof. Alan Wolfe (Political Science), director of the Boisi Center
for Religion and American Public
Life:
Perhaps the most important
theme of the campaign in both parties is the dog that did not bark: The
war in Iraq is not being discussed in
any serious way.
CAMPAIGN 2008:
THE STORY SO FAR John Wheatley ’08, president of
the College Democrats of Boston
College student organization:
There have been plenty of surprises, especially on the Republican
side. The biggest one, for many
people, would be Mike Huckabee.
Although John McCain has been
surprising too. A year ago I would
have told you McCain would be the
nominee, then three months ago
Asst. Prof. Jennifer Steen (Political Science):
I am amazed by the campaigns’
focus on the new media, and I think
it is wonderful. This may finally be
the year in which younger voters get
engaged because the campaigns are
being waged on their turf. I loved
the submission of debate questions
via YouTube — it makes the process seem much more democratic.
I am very interested to see whether
there will be any correlation between the election outcome (or outcomes, counting the primaries) and
things like the number of FaceBook
friends or the number of views of
YouTube clips posted by the candidates themselves.
INSIDE:
THE DEMOCRATS
Assoc. Prof. Dennis Hale (Political Science):
The Democratic Party, which
Continued on page 4
Lee Pellegrini
College of Arts and Sciences Dean
Patrick Maney:
This is overall, the most unpredictable year in presidential electoral
politics. I’ve never seen an election
where so much was at stake, but
where so little is known. All these
campaigns have had to re-calibrate
after each primary.
I would have told you he’s done.
Now, I think McCain is going to
be the nominee. There haven’t been
any real surprises on Democratic
side. Maybe Hillary in New Hampshire. It’s been the nature of this
race, though.
I think, as a whole, conservatives
have become a little more disillusioned with Republicans because
they get the feeling that they are
being used. Every four years they
give their votes to the GOP and
then their issues get put on the back
burner.
Boston College got a taste of Campaign 2008 Jan. 24 when Chelsea Clinton,
daughter of former President Bill Clinton and current presidential candidate US
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), spoke to more than 400 students at Hillside Cafe.
Andrea Cabral to speak
at King dinner (page 3)
Alumni offer helping hand
to Crescent City; Kudos for
new Jesuit leader (page 5)
The Lynch School of Education’s BostonConnects program, a
partnership-driven school reform
effort that delivers a comprehensive
array of supports – such as mentoring, counseling and family services
– to Boston elementary students,
is expanding to serve 14 schools
through a new $9.2 million initiative, Lynch School Dean Joseph
O’Keefe, SJ, announced last week.
A $4.6 million grant from New
Balance Foundation, a $2 million
award from Strategic Grant Partners, $1 million from the Charles
Hayden Foundation and other
foundation, university and government support will fund BostonConnects in nine current and
five new schools for the next three
years. With the new schools, the
seven-year-old program will serve
4,000 elementary students in 14
Boston Public Schools.
New Balance Foundation, the
charitable arm of New Balance
Athletic Shoe Inc., has contributed
more than $6.3 million to support
a cornerstone of BostonConnects,
the New Balance Foundation
Health Curriculum, designed to
help students make smart choices around nutrition and overall
health.
Initial findings show students
who were recommended for extra
services made academic improvement at approximately the same
rate as peers who were not found
in need of additional supports. The
new grant funding will deepen
the research into raising student
achievement among different student groups, the program’s effects
on academic achievement, and the
impact on obesity rates, social skills
and classroom behavior.
“This kind of collaboration with
the Boston Public Schools, our
foundation partners, and community-based organizations is critical
to improving the lives and education of children, particularly those
living in poverty,” Fr. O’Keefe said.
“The Lynch School of Education
and Boston College are proud to
expand a success story like BostonConnects, which brings best-practices to bear on resolving societal
problems in our city and provides
a model for urban school reform
nationally.”
BostonConnects currently serves
the Farragut Elementary (Mission
Hill), Gardner Extended Services
School (Allston), Garfield Elementary (Brighton), Hamilton Elementary (Brighton), Horace Mann
School for the Deaf and Hard of
Hearing (Allston), Jackson/Mann
K-8 (Brighton), Mission Hill K8 School, Tobin K-8 (Roxbury),
and Winship Elementary (Brighton). The program will expand to
the Blackstone (South End), Eliot
(North End), Emerson (Roxbury),
Quincy (Chinatown) and Mason
Continued on page 3
State Reputation Survey
Ranks Boston College First
By Jack Dunn
Director of Public Affairs
Boston College has placed
first in the latest Massachusetts
Corporate Reputation Survey as
the institution business leaders
throughout the Commonwealth
respect most.
The survey, which ranks the
reputations of the state’s leading private and public organizations, solicits 200 Massachusetts
executives on their opinions of 74
well-known businesses and organizations. The respondents rate
each institution on six attributes:
overall reputation, products and
services, workplace environment,
degree of social responsibility,
ethics and corporate governance,
and financial stability.
BC author takes different
view of Irish scandal (page 6)
While BC has placed in the
top 10 in each of the five years
the survey has been conducted,
this year marks the first time the
University has been ranked number one. Rounding out the top
five were United Parcel Service,
Children’s Hospital, Blue Cross/
Blue Shield and Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
The Massachusetts Corporate
Reputation Survey is conducted
on behalf of Morrissey & Co., a
Boston reputation management
and public relations firm, and administered through Opinion Dynamics Corporation of Waltham,
a national leader in market research and polling.
“Boston College’s dedication
to academic excellence and comContinued on page 5
New McMullen show (page 8)
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
january 31, 2008
AROUND
CAMPUS
A dark history
More than 10 years later, the
failure of the international community to prevent the Srebrenica
massacre during the war in Bosnia continues to raise haunting
questions about human rights and
ethical issues, all of which is at the
core of an exhibit now on display
through Feb. 29 in the Bapst Library Art Gallery.
“The Betrayal of Srebrenica:
A Commemoration” comprises
photos and commentary by survivors and observers of the 1995
massacre, during which more than
8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and
boys were killed in the United
Nations-designated “safe area” of
Srebrenica. The exhibition is another collaboration between Visiting Asst. Prof. Lisa DiCaprio
(History) and photographer Paula
Allen, who also joined forces in
2004 to produce a retrospective of
the “disappeared” of Chile.
DiCaprio first traveled to Bosnia and Serbia in the summer of
but a means to seek accountability
and justice for the massacre.
“The photographic exhibits
that I have organized on Chile
and Srebrenica are a form of public history, which is an established
subfield in the academic profession of history,” she says. “I believe that historians, and especially
historians of human rights, can
and should provide a historical
perspective on the present, teach
about history within and outside
of the classroom, and seek creative
ways to educate students and the
general public about human rights
conventions which elaborate the
responsibilities of global citizenship.”
A series of public events will
be held in February as an accompaniment to the exhibition.
This Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 7 p.m.
in McGuinn 121, Prof. Cynthia
Simmons (Slavic and Eastern Languages) will present the lecture
“Spheres of Influence: Women in
Members and friends of the Boston College community at the Jan. 21 Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Gathering
in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons. In addition to music and dance performances, the event featured an
ecumenical worship service with a homily by Charles Stith, former ambassador to Tanzania, and reflections on
King’s legacy by students Jeremy Marks ’09 and Jacqueline Grant ’08. (Photo by Frank Curran)
Relaying hope
Boston College’s Flynn Recreation Complex will be the
setting Feb. 15 for the American Cancer Society’s annual
Relay for Life, which raises funds to help those who have
been touched by cancer.
The 24-hour event, consisting of teams whose members
alternate walking around a track, also offers opportunities
to honor and remember those who have battled cancer. All
are welcome to either come show their support or start a
team and raise money.
Information about the event is available at main.acsevents.org/rflmabostoncollege. For more details, e-mail bcrelayforlife@gmail.com.
‘Super’ BC reunion
This photo by Paula Allen, “Srebrenica Survivor Among the Coffins to be Buried
on July 11, 2005,” will be among those on display at the Bapst Library exhibition
about the Srebrenica massacre.
2003 for the eighth anniversary
of the Srebrenica massacre and
then returned to Bosnia with Allen to document the 10-year commemoration in 2005. While in
Sarajevo, DiCaprio presented her
research at the first international
conference on Srebrenica, which
was organized by the Institute for
Research on Crimes Against Humanity and International Law at
the University of Sarajevo.
For DiCaprio, the exhibition
is an apt reflection of her research
and teaching interests, among
them the history of human rights
and international justice, and the
politics of memory – including the
role of memorials, monuments,
museums, and photographic exhibits in shaping memory about
historical events, from the French
Revolution to the present. She
views her work on Srebrencia not
as a detached academic exercise,
Postwar Bosnia.”
The following Tuesday, Feb.
12, will be a panel discussion,
“The Campaign for Truth and
Justice,” with Donald Hays, the
former principal deputy in the
Office of the High Representative
in Bosnia. He will be joined by
Executive Assistant to the High
Commissioner on Human Rights
Anton Nikiforov; Judith Armatta,
who was legal liaison for the Coalition for International Justice to
the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; and
Antonia DeMeo, former deputy
registrar of the Human Rights
Chamber for Bosnia-Hercegovina. This event will take place at 7
p.m. in Cushing 001.
On Feb. 19 at 7 p.m. in McGuinn 121, there will be a screening and discussion of the BBC
documentary “Srebrenica: A Cry
from the Grave.”
—SS
Don’t be surprised to hear
a verse or two of “For Boston”
coming out of Glendale, Ariz.,
when the New England Patriots
and New York Giants prepare
to play in the National Football
League’s Super Bowl this Sunday, as each team has strong
connections to Boston College.
For the Patriots, Chairman
and Chief Executive Officer
Robert K. Kraft is a member
of the Boston College Board of
Trustees. The team’s starting
center is Dan Koppen ’02, and
the team’s strength and conditioning coach is Mike Woicik
’78.
On the Giants’ side of the
field, the team’s President and
CEO is John K. Mara, a 1976
Boston College graduate. The
Giants’ head coach is Tom
Coughlin, who was an assistant
coach at BC from 1981 through
1983 and was head coach of the
Eagles from 1991-93. He is also
a BC parent, the father of Kathleen Coughlin Snee ’04.
Two Boston College alumni
are on the Giants’ players’ roster: offensive guard Chris Snee
’04 and defensive end Mathias
Kiwanuka ’05 (currently on injured reserve). Coaching staff
assistants Dave DeGuglielmo
(offensive line), Jerald Ingram
(running backs) and Jerry Palmieri (strength and conditioning) also worked at BC during Coughlin’s tenure at the
Heights.
—RO
Clippings
“‘You can pray about anything. But I would think the
Patriots ought to practice a lot.”
——Vice President and Special Assistant to the President
William B. Neenan, SJ, interviewed by the Patriot Ledger for story
on area clergy’s stance on using sermons to pray for a Patriots’ victory in the Super Bowl.
The Boston College
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
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biweekly from September to May by
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Electronic editions of the Boston
College Chronicle are available via
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www.bc.edu/chronicle.
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
january 31, 2008
Suffolk Sheriff to Speak at MLK Dinner
By Melissa Beecher
Staff Writer
Andrea J. Cabral, ’81, the first
female elected sheriff in Massachusetts history, will be the featured speaker at the 26th annual
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
Committee Awards Banquet on
Feb. 12.
More than 400 people are expected to attend the dinner, which
will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the
Welch Dining Room of Lyons
Hall. As is traditional, University President William P. Leahy,
SJ, will present the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship. Each
year the award — which offers
75 percent of senior year tuition
— is given to a BC junior whose
achievements and aspirations embody the essence of the slain civil
rights leader.
This year’s finalists are Shadiyah Curry, Eric Asuo-Mante and
Kristi Scriven.
Cabral, who was sworn into office as the 30th sheriff of Suffolk
County on Jan. 5, 2005, is head of
operations for the Suffolk County
House of Corrections, the Suffolk
County Jail, the Suffolk County
Community Corrections Center
and the Civil Process Division.
She oversees more than 1,000 employees, 2,400 inmates and an annual budget of $130 million.
Acting Governor Jane Swift
Andrea J. Cabral, ’81
had appointed Cabral as interim
Suffolk County sheriff in 2002,
following the resignation of her
predecessor Richard J. Rouse. In
September 2004, Cabral beat out
her primary opponent, Boston
City Counselor Steve Murphy,
and ran unopposed in the general
election.
An East Providence native
whose parents are Cape Verdean
and African-American, Cabral —
passionate about reading and education from an early age — graduated from BC with a bachelor’s
degree in English and earned a law
degree from Suffolk University
in 1986. In that same year she
started working as staff attorney
for the Suffolk County Sheriff’s
Department at the Charles Street
Jail.
Cabral moved to the Middlesex
County District Attorney’s Office,
where she litigated felony cases in
Middlesex Superior Court. From
1991-93 Cabral worked in the
state Attorney General’s office
where she investigated six cases of
alleged police misconduct.
She also has worked as director of the Roxbury District Court
Family Violence Project, chief of
the Domestic Violence Unit at the
Suffolk County DA’s office and
chief of the District Courts and
Community Prosecutions, where
she developed policy and provided
case management and administrative training in Suffolk County’s
eight district courts.
Cabral has published works
including Obtaining, Enforcing
and Defending .209A Restraining
Orders in Massachusetts and coauthored Same Gender Domestic
Violence: Strategies for Change in
Creating Courtroom Accessibility.
She has also participated in several legal forums sponsored by
the American Bar Association, the
Massachusetts Bar Association,
the Massachusetts Continuing
Legal Education and the Boston
Bar Association.
For information on purchasing
tickets for the Martin Luther King
Jr. event, contact Mary Ellen Devlin at ext.2-4991.
By Reid Oslin
Staff Writer
Michael J. “Mike” Holovak, an
All-America football player at Boston College, a World War II naval
hero, head football coach for both
Boston College and the Boston
Patriots and a long-time NFL executive with the Houston Oilers
and Tennessee Titans, died Sunday
in Reskin, Fla.
Mr. Holovak, who was 88, was
a resident of Wimauma, Fla., at the
time of his death. A memorial Mass
will be celebrated for Mr. Holovak
at St. Ignatius Church on Saturday,
Feb. 9 at 10 a.m.
“It was a great experience to
have played for Mike,” said John J.
Burns Jr., a 1953 Boston College
graduate who was a member of the
football team under Mr. Holovak.
“Not only was he a great football
innovator, each player was an individual to Mike and he treated
everybody with great respect. He
would never yell or scream – even
if it might have been needed.
“Mike was a great influence on
everybody who played for him,”
Burns said.
Burns and many other Boston
College players from Mr. Holovak’s
era established the Mike Holovak
Endowment Fund at the University in 1999 to support a graduate
assistant coach who aspires to a
football coaching career.
Mr. Holovak was born in Lansford, Pa., on Sept. 19, 1919, the
son of Czechoslovakian immigrant
parents. When his father died while
University Archives
BC Football Legend Holovak Dies at 88
Mike Holovak ’43
Mr. Holovak was in high school,
he took a job as a church sexton to
help support his family and figured
that his promising football career
had ended.
But Mr. Holovak won an athletic scholarship to Seton Hall Prep
School in New Jersey where he
caught the eye of future Boston
College football coach Frank Leahy. Leahy talked the young man
into attending BC and he became
the starting fullback on the Eagles’ undefeated 1941 Sugar Bowl
champions.
As a senior in 1942, Mr. Holovak was a consensus All-America
selection. In that season’s Orange
Bowl game against Alabama, Mr.
Holovak scored three touchdowns
and averaged 15.8 yards every time
he touched the ball – a rushing
record that has stood for more than
six decades.
Following graduation from BC
in 1943, Mr. Holovak served as
the skipper of a PT boat operating
in the South Pacific war zone, an
honor reserved for the most physically fit and courageous young officers. “He rarely spoke of it, but he
was so proud of that service to his
country,” recalled his widow, Pauline Scudder Holovak. “They were
shot at the first night they were in
the Pacific.”
Mr. Holovak retired from the
Navy as a lieutenant commander.
After the war, Mr. Holovak
played professional football for the
Chicago Bears and Los Angeles
Rams before beginning his coaching career as freshman football
coach at Boston College in 1949.
His teams didn’t lose a game in the
two years that he held the post.
He was named head coach at
BC in 1951 and over the next nine
seasons led the Eagles to a record
of 49-29-3, highlighted by an 8-1
mark in the 1954 campaign.
In 1960, he was appointed the
first director of player personnel for
the newly-founded Boston Patriots,
and was named the Patriots’ second
head coach in the 1961 season.
Over the next eight years, Mr. Holovak’s teams compiled a 53-47-9
record and his Patriots reached the
1964 American Football League
championship game where they
lost to the San Diego Chargers.
Later in his career, he served as
vice president for player personnel
and general manager of the NFL’s
Houston Oilers and worked for the
Oilers, now the Tennessee Titans,
in various front office positions
until his retirement from football
Some of the BostonConnects program leadership at a classroom in Brighton’s Garfield
Elementary School: Asst. Prof. Eric Dearing (LSOE); Megan Davidson and Molly Santry,
representatives of New Balance and The New Balance Foundation; Garfield School
Principal Victoria Megias-Batista; Matthew Ottaviani, BostonConnects site coordinator; and program director Kearns Professor Mary Walsh. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)
New $9.2 Million Initiative
Strengthens BostonConnects
Continued from page 1
(Roxbury) elementary schools.
Teachers report that expanded
support services have allowed them
to increase the number of students
they can screen to determine if
they need additional help. The
number of external agencies assisting schools grew from 18 in
1999 to 62 in 2006. Students
say they have higher levels of selfconfidence, pay closer attention to
the foods they eat, consume more
fruits and vegetables, and drink
less soda.
“We see this as an opportunity
to support health and physical education in Boston with a particular interest in positively affecting
the issue of childhood obesity,”
said Anne Davis, managing trustee
of the New Balance Foundation.
“Funding the health education curriculum within BostonConnects
offers a critical component in the
healthy development of children
and families. We are delighted to
support the BostonConnects program for another three years.”
By leveraging resources of
schools, service providers, community groups and the university,
BostonConnects addresses “nonacademic barriers” to success, said
Kearns Professor of Urban Education and Leadership Mary Walsh,
who directs the program.
“Addressing the achievement
gap and academic achievement
with schoolchildren requires an
intensive focus on teaching and
learning,” said Walsh. “Closing
the gap also requires a focus on
supports and services that will enable every child to achieve at a high
level. That requires collaboration
between schools, families, community agencies, universities and
businesses in partnership.”
Through its $2 million grant,
Strategic Grant Partners, a coalition of family foundations focused
on education and family services
in Massachusetts, played a crucial
role in the expansion of BostonConnects.
“The BostonConnects model
efficiently provides professional
coordination of already existing
services,” said Joanna Jacobson,
managing director of Strategic
Grant Partners. “The program has
provided the mechanism to connect students to the wide range of
services and opportunities around
them. We think measuring the
impact on student success can not
only inform the BPS and researchers, but school districts across the
country.”
Boston Public Schools Superintendent Carol R. Johnson said, “BostonConnects is a unique and
powerful strategy that properly
identifies the needs of students and
directs them and their families to
the services available across the
city.
“We recognize that in order for
all students to exceed expectations
and perform at ever higher levels,
they must be properly supported
before, during and after the school
day.”
in 1998. He remained a special
consultant and scout for the Titans
until shortly before his death.
“Mike was the quintessential
‘football guy,’” said K.S. “Bud”
Adams Jr., founder, owner and
president of the Tennessee Titans
franchise and a long-time friend
of Mr. Holovak. “He had such
a passion and knowledge of the
game. It is rare when you see a
person excel in all three areas of the
sport — a great player in college,
a successful coach and great talent
evaluator — but Mike was one of
those special people. He had a real
gift for evaluating talent; and in my
opinion, he was one of the finest
and most effective evaluators of
playing talent in the history of our
organization.”
In addition to his wife, he is
survived by his daughters, Michele
Harrison and her husband David
of Gloucester, Mass., and Cindy
Oatess and her husband Michael
Oatess of South Tampa, Fla.;
granddaughters Lisa M. Harrison
of Boston and Stephanie Pizarro of
Tampa; and grandson Michael J.
Harrison of Gloucester. Mr. Holovak was predeceased by another
daughter, Terrie Anne Holovak.
Contributions in his memory may
be made to the Mike Holovak Endowment Fund, c/o Boston College Advancement Office, 140 Commonwealth
Ave., Chestnut Hill, Mass. 02467.
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
BC Voices: Campaign 2008
Patrick Maney:
The remarkable thing about the South
Carolina primary, as well as other primaries,
is the unprecedented turnout, especially on
the Democratic side. There is a level of excitement and interest that simply hasn’t existed
in my mind since 1968. It was clear in South
Carolina that Obama did succeed in drawing
to the polls a lot of younger people who were
not part of a traditional political organization.
There were a lot of people who were likely
voting or participating for the first time. So
that was the big story in South Carolina.
Assoc. Prof. Lisa Cuklanz (Communication):
There is a lot of coverage on Hillary
Clinton in relation to her husband, a lot of
coverage of Bill’s efforts on her behalf, a lot of
speculation about what his role will be if she
becomes president, and a lot of discussion of
them as a package deal. Some of this coverage
can be chalked up to the novelty of the situation and the historical precedent it would set. However, much of it also relegates Hillary to
ancillary role or depicts her as being carried
by her husband. It would be refreshing to
see more coverage of Hillary that does not
mention Bill.
As with most female political candidates,
we continue to see certain kinds of coverage for Clinton that are far less common
for male politicians. Stories that mention
clothing, hairstyle, favorite recipes, and other
characteristics related to appearance and the
domestic sphere are more common with
female politicians including Clinton. Stories that focus on or mention traditionally
feminine characteristics such as emotionality
are more common for female politicians as
well. Women candidates are placed in the
position of having to show that they are not
too feminine and not too masculine for a role
that usually is thought to require extremely
masculine characteristics. There is a narrow
range of behavior and personality that these
candidates must follow to be acceptable in
Lee Pellegrini
Lisa Cuklanz: “Hillary Clinton
really has to define what ‘being presidential’ might mean for a woman.”
media coverage. Clinton has for the most part done a good
job with this, but has at times been depicted as
too feminine and at other times as too masculine. She really has to define for the first time
what “being presidential” might mean for a
woman. T H E R E P UBL I C A N S
Jennifer Steen:
So far, Huckabee has made conservative
values a larger feature of his campaign than the
other Republicans, and I expect that he would
continue this emphasis in a general election.
Romney has made a point of courting religious
conservatives, but I think he also wants to
be careful not to make his own religion any
more prominent than it has to be. McCain is The crowd at Hillside Cafe for last week’s appearance by Chelsea Clinton.
a social conservative, but I don’t expect him to
to a national election with states like Caliemphasize “values” issues in a general election
1932 is a question whose answer rests, for
fornia and New York all in play. There are
campaign because that just hasn’t been what
now, on the other side of history.
a huge number of delegates up for grabs.
he’s been about in the Senate (or the primaries).
Right now, it looks like everything is at
Giuliani, of course, is possibly less appealing to
stake. But even with a huge number of del“values voters” than either of the likely DemoWHAT NEXT?
egates, it’s still not clear that Super Tuescratic nominees, but I think he is extremely
Dennis Hale:
day will decide the races. It might settle
unlikely to win the Republican nomination
Romney will need to do well in his
everything, or might settle nothing.
anyway. [Giuliani left the race Wednesday.]
home state, but if he does well only in
Massachusetts his campaign will almost
John Wheatley:
certainly be over. It’s hard to imagine
Speaking on Obama vs. Clinton, it’s
Giuliani pyramiding a strong showing in
the whole change-versus-experience thing
Florida into victories elsewhere, given his
and what it really boils down to is youngshrinking campaign staff. On the Demoversus-old. The older women, who vote
cratic side, voters have divided their votes
more than any other demographic, are
fairly evenly between Clinton and Obama
behind Hillary. The younger people are
(unlike in 2004, when Kerry scored a
behind Obama. It’s really split: The old
number of decisive victories early on.)
Democrats, the union Democrats, they are
And given the big metropolitan areas in
all going with Clinton. The more tradithe Super Tuesday lineup, with their relitional liberals, the college students, they’re
ably liberal voters, it’s likely Clinton and
behind Obama. I think Massachusetts is
Obama will continue to break more or less
going to be one of the most important
even. I think this will continue to be true
states. And it’s going to depend who comes
until we know better who the Republican
out to vote.
nominee is likely to be. It is then that the
Dennis Hale: “Mitt Romney will
Democrats will finally resolve the conflict
Assoc. Prof. Mark Gelfand (History):
need to do well in his home state [on
between their heads (Clinton) and their
Through the decades Massachusetts
hearts (Obama).
Democratic primary voters have largely
Super Tuesday], but if he does well
been spectators to their party’s presidential
only in Massachusetts his campaign
Jennifer Steen:
nominating process, but in 1932 those
The worsening economy will probably
casting ballots placed themselves on the
will almost certainly be over.”
have
a multifaceted effect on the election.
wrong side of history by almost fatally
Certainly,
it should make the criterion
derailing the candidacy of Franklin D.
Dennis Hale:
“able
to
manage
the economy” more imRoosevelt.
The “wings” of the Republican Party are
portant
for
some
voters.
I haven’t seen any
Four years before, Al Smith had carried
easily visible, and each has put forward at least
survey
data
that
indicates
which candidates
Massachusetts in his futile quest for the
one candidate. Mitt Romney is the economic
are
currently
perceived
as
strong on the
White House — a victim of religious and
conservative; McCain and Giuliani (while he
economy,
so
I
can’t
say
who
in particular
cultural prejudice — and when he challasts) are the national security conservatives;
might
benefit,
although
there’s
some evilenged his fellow New Yorker in the 1932
Thompson was and Huckabee is the candidate
dence
that
financially-strapped
voters
preMassachusetts primary, FDR went down
of the social conservatives and the so-called
ferred
Hillary
Clinton
in
the
New
Hampto a humiliating 3-1 thrashing.
“values” voters. Since each of these wings is
shire primary. In general, voters tend to
As they approach the voting booth
roughly the same size and each is led by acpunish the incumbent president’s party for
in 2008, Democratic party members in
tive candidates, the debate in the Republican
bad economic times, so this may end up
Massachusetts will have little choice but
campaign has been more interesting than the
helping the Democratic nominee.
to align themselves with the future. In
Democratic debate, largely because it has feaselecting among the first woman and the
tured actual differences over matters of prinAlan Wolfe:
first African American to be taken seriously
ciple. (The YouTube Republican debate had
I think it safe to say that neither of
in their pursuit of the presidency, and the
the highest viewership of any cable debate in
the
populists, Edwards or Huckabee, will
first white male Southern tort attorney to
history.) The relative equality of these wings
capture
the nomination of their respecmake populist attacks upon the corporate
has been mostly responsible for the fact that
tive
parties.
[Edwards ended his candidacy
structure the basis for his candidacy, Bay
there are still three or four viable candidates left
Wednesday.]
Staters will undoubtedly be overshadowed
in the Republican pack.
by voters in the bigger states that will be
balloting the same day. However, with
Alan Wolfe:
NOTE: The Boisi Center for ReNew York and Illinois likely to be partial
The decision of Rudy Guiliani not to go for
ligion
and American Public Life will
to their respective senators, California and
broke in the early primaries leaves me puzzled.
hold
a
panel discussion, “Assessing the
Massachusetts might well be the best in2008
‘Super
Primaries,’” on Feb. 12
dicators of the direction the liberal wind
SUPER TUESDAY/
from
4:30-6
p.m.
in Gasson 305, with
is blowing.
MASSACHUSETTS PRIMARY
Boisi
Center
Director
Prof. Alan Wolfe
Whether any of the three candidates
(Political
Science),
Moakley
Professor
Patrick Maney:
will become a target of prejudice as Smith
Kay
Schlozman
and
Prof.
Marc
Landy
For a political historian, Super Tuesday is
encountered in 1928 or go on to match the
(Political
Science).
Call
ext.2-1860
or
like the Super Bowl. It is the closest we come
momentous achievements of FDR after
e-mail richarsh@bc.edu.
Gary Gilbert
Continued from page 1
used to have a number of “wings”, appears
to be united with respect to its philosophy,
and divided only on the question of who
is likely to have a better chance of beating
whoever wins the Republican nomination.
On this question its divisions are becoming
more than a little testy. But what is striking
is that so far in this season there has been
virtually no debate inside the Democratic
campaign about principles. What we used
to call the “McGovern wing” of the party has
ballooned to become the party itself. It’s as if
the Democratic Leadership Council and even
the Clinton presidency had never happened
– even though Bill Clinton is up there sharing
the stage with his wife.
Lee Pellegrini
january 31, 2008
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
january 31, 2008
First alumni service trip
to New Orleans setting
the stage for more
By Reid Oslin
Staff Writer
The 38 Boston College alumni
who took part in a volunteer service trip to New Orleans earlier this month reaped far greater
dividends than they could have
imagined from their week-long
work project in the still-heavily
damaged Crescent City.
“We all came back so changed,”
says Alumni Association Associate
Director for Alumni Spirituality and Service Dianne Duffin,
who organized the week of work
and reflection. “I think we were
all touched by what we had all
learned back when we were undergraduates: that our lives are not
meant to be shared just amongst
ourselves. A service project like
this definitely revitalizes that. We
went down there as strangers and
came back as a community.
“The call to service is something that alumni are still very
sensitive to,” Duffin says, “whether they have been out of BC for
one year or for 40.”
Duffin came up with the idea
of an alumni service trip not long
after Hurricane Katrina ravaged
New Orleans in 2005 and numerous BC volunteers began to
assist in the region’s rebuilding efforts. “Students have gone, faculty
members have gone, staff members have gone and individuals
have gone,” she says, “but there
hadn’t been an organized alumni
group.”
She sent an e-mail outlining
the idea to alumni and immediately received more than 300
responses from graduates who
wanted to help. After the group
of 38 was selected, more than 100
other alumni asked to be placed
on waiting lists to participate in
future service trips, she said.
The 38 – each of whom covered their own travel and expenses
– were representative of the en-
Photos courtesy of Boston College Alumni Association
‘We All Came Back So Changed’
Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, will be the 29th Jesuit Superior General. In
photo above, he conducts his first Mass following his selection as
leader of the Society of Jesus. (Photo from sjweb.info)
Local Jesuits Hail Choice
for New Leader of the Order
Boston College alumni who traveled to New Orleans to assist in community
projects — such as the one in the photo below — found the devastation from Hurricane Katrina still all too apparent.
tire alumni body, Duffin said. “It
was pretty evenly divided among
men and women, graduates in
their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. We
had doctors, nurses, accountants,
real estate professionals, investment bankers, retirees and even
an actress.” The group included
two married couples and a woman
who brought her two college-age
sons.
Duffin made a connection
with St. Bernard Project, a nonprofit reconstruction effort that
was co-founded by 1994 Lynch
School of Education graduate Liz
McCartney. The organization facilitates house rebuilding projects
in St. Bernard’s Parish, a mostly
middle-class neighborhood where
only a third of the pre-hurricane
residents have returned to their
homes.
BC Is Tops in Massachusetts
Corporate Reputation Survey
Continued from page 1
munity service has helped boost
the school’s reputation and enhance the state’s reputation for
excellence in education,” said
Morrissey & Company President & CEO Peter A. Morrissey. “The results of MCRS
clearly demonstrate how well
BC addresses each of its stakeholders, and how community
involvement can impact reputation and quality of life – a lesson
that can be translated to all types
of organizations.”
Vice President for Human
Resources Leo Sullivan said the
first-place finish in the prestigious survey is a reflection of
BC employees’ commitment to
the University and its Jesuit
mission.
“There is a unique culture
at Boston College in which
people view the University as
more than a place to work,” said
Sullivan. “BC is a place where
people are personally invested
in the mission, and that commitment, along with our excellent academic reputation and
our community outreach, has
helped us to earn this distinction. It is a credit to the entire
BC community.”
The complete MCRS report
is available at www.reputationsurvey.com.
“We are excited that Boston
College alumni are involved,” says
McCartney. “They contributed a
lot of rebuilding support to this
community. But even more importantly for the families involved,
the work that these volunteers did
just means the world to them. We
see over and over again that the
real value added to the community is having people come into
the community and, in addition
to the rebuilding, talk to the families who are struggling and need
emotional support.”
The BC volunteers, who stayed
at Jesuit-run Loyola University,
did their share of the manual labor
of house construction – hanging
sheetrock, spreading plaster, and
the like. Each night, the group
heard from a speaker who told
personal experiences of the terrible
flooding and its long and complex
aftermath.
Duffin noted that the displaced
residents of houses where the volunteers were working frequently
stopped by the projects to offer
their thanks and share their individual stories. “I was so moved by
the lack of anger and the amount
of graciousness that the residents
showed us,” she said. “They were
very grateful to us for being there,
and I know that everyone in the
group came back very grateful
for the opportunity to have been
there.”
McCartney said groups and
individual volunteers are always
welcome to assist in the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. “The
problem is fixable,” she said. “We
can get a family back into their
house that had been flooded in
8-12 weeks for about $10,000.”
Information on the St. Bernard
Project is available at www.stbernardproject.org.
This month’s election of Span- 35th General Congregation in
iard Adolfo Nicolas, SJ, as the Rome and sent a glowing report
29th superior general of the So- of the new superior general back
ciety of Jesus was enthusiastically to Boston: “Our new Father Genwelcomed by members of the lo- eral has a very comprehensive view
cal Jesuit community.
of the modern world, growing out
Fr. Nicolas, 71, succeeds Peter- of his own extensive experiences,”
Hans Kolvenbach, SJ, as the spiri- Fr. Regan wrote in an e-mail.
tual leader of the 19,200-member “Most of all, he is clearly a man
Jesuit order that is dedicated to of deep prayer. The delegates are
education, missionary work, refu- simply delighted at his election
gee assistance and other social ser- and the spirit of hope that it envices throughout the world.
genders.”
Fr. Nicholas had been in
Fr. Nicolas was born in Palencharge of Jesuit accia, Spain, and
tivities in Asia and
entered the Jesuit
“He has a great
Oceania since 2004,
order in 1953 in
history in terms of
after serving most of
Madrid. He was
his priesthood in the
what he has done in ordained in Tokyo
Far East.
in 1967 and has
the East and in his
“I met Fr. Nicolas
served as the direca few years ago at the
tor of the East Asia
missionary work.”
Curia in Rome when
Pastoral Institute
I was working in the —T. Frank Kennedy, SJ in Manila; provinHistorical Institute,”
cial of the Japanese
said Music DepartProvince; professor
ment chairman Prof.
of theology at SoT. Frank Kennedy, SJ, director of phia University in Tokyo; and
the University’s Jesuit Institute. moderator of the Jesuit confer“What struck me was his joy. He ence of East Asia and Oceania.
is a very joyful person. He’s warm He holds a doctorate in systemic
— the type of person who, when theology from the Gregorian Inyou meet him, you feel that he stitute in Rome.
welcomes you into his life.
“Fr. Nicolas is fluent in Span“He has a great history in terms ish, French, Italian, English and
of what he has done in the East Japanese,” noted Fr. Regan. “He
and in his missionary work,” Fr. has done an outstanding job of
Kennedy said. “I was certainly coordinating provinces in Asia.
happy to see him elected.”
Considering that they encompass
Thomas J. Regan, SJ, provin- many different countries, cultures
cial of the New England Province and languages this is no small acof Jesuits, attended the order’s complishment.”
—Reid Oslin
Panel to Discuss Great
Women in Catholic History
A panel of Boston College
female theologians will discuss
the work, words and wisdom of
prominent women in the history
of Catholicism, and the inspiration and insights they have provided, at a Feb. 6 forum sponsored by the Church in the 21st
Century Center and the Women’s
Resource Center.
“Foremothers in Faith: Historic
Women For Our Time” will look
at such figures as Mary Magdalene, Catherine of Sienna, Evelyn
Underhill and Julian of Norwich.
Panelists for the event will be
Vice Provost for Faculties Patricia DeLeeuw, Monan Professor
of Theology Lisa Sowle Cahill,
Assoc. Prof. M. Shawn Copeland,
Adj. Assoc. Prof. Colleen Griffith,
who is faculty director of spirituality studies at the Institute for
Religious Education and Pastoral
Ministry, and Center for Christian-Jewish Learning Associate
Director Assoc. Prof. Rabbi Ruth
Langer.
The panel discussion, which is
part of the “Continuing the Tradition” C21 series on women, will
take place at 5:45 p.m. (registration at 5:30 p.m.) in the Heights
Room of Corcoran Commons. A
reception will follow.
For more information, see
www.bc.edu/church21/programs/
seriesonwomen.html or call ext.20470.
—Office of Public Affairs
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
january 31, 2008
Dean’s Colloquium focuses
on the arts
Prof. Ellen Winner (Psychology), who
has written extensively on the role of
arts in education and personal development, will present “Why Study the
Arts” Feb. 6 at 4 p.m. in Devlin 101.
Winner’s talk is sponsored by the
Dean’s Colloquium series, which aims
to spotlight cutting-edge Boston College
research and broad­en understanding
across academic disciplines.
Boisi Center seminar on
Christian legal study
David Skeel Jr., an expert in bankruptcy and corporate labor law who is
Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate
Law at University of Pennsylvania Law
School, will present “The Unbearable
Lightness of Christian Legal Scholarship” on Feb. 6 from noon-1:15 p.m. at
the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life [24 Quincy Road].
The event is sponsored as part of the
ongoing seminar “Ways of Knowing
and the Catholic Intellectual Traditions.”
Details on the seminar are available at
www.bc.edu/centers/boisi/coursesandseminars/catholicintellectualtraditions.
html.
For more information on Skeel’s talk,
cal ext.2-1860.
Panel to discuss “Building
a Just Society”
The Boston College Orthodox Christian
Fellowship will host a discussion on the
theme “Love Thy Neighbor: Building a
Just Society” on Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. in the
Heights Room of Corcoran Commons.
Part-time faculty members Demetrios
Katos (Theology) and Maria Kakavas
(Classical Studies) will join a panel that
includes former Assistant Secretary
of State Barbara Spyridon Pope; Constantine Sitaras, director of the Greek
Orthodox Archdiocesan Center for Family Care; and Metropolitan Methodios,
spiritual leader of the Greek Orthodox
Metropolis of Boston which includes
much of New England. The panelists
will discuss such matters as the role of
religious faith, politics, gender and racial equity in the professional world.
For more information, call (617)6715908 or e-mail alshannj@bc.edu.
Mediator describes
Mozambique peace process
Archbishop Jaime Pedro Gonçalves,
one of the mediators who successfully
brokered an end to the bloody Mozambique civil war, will share his experiences at a lecture, “Peace From Africa:
The Mozambique Story,” on Feb. 7 at
7:30 p.m. in Higgins 300.
Joining Archbishop Gonçalves will
be Andrea Bartoli, founding director
of the Columbia University Center for
International Conflict Resolution and a
faculty member of at Columbia’s School
of International and Public Affairs.
For more information, call ext.2-8491
or e-mail jane.vecchi.1@bc.edu.
Carnegie Lecture to focus on
high-stakes testing
The Boston College Teachers for a
New Era program will sponsor the
fourth annual Carnegie Lecture, to be
given by David C. Berliner, “The Effects of High-Stakes Testing on the
Economy and the Educational System:
Wicked Policy for Massachusetts and
the Nation,” on Feb. 12 at 4:30 p.m. in
McGuinn 121.
Berliner is the Arizona State University
Regents’ Professor for Educational
Leadership and Policy Studies.
For information on Teachers for a New
Era and the Carnegie Lecture series, see
tne.bc.edu or e-mail shakman@bc.edu.
The History, and Meaning, of Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries
By Sean Smith
Chronicle Editor
Since they are now widely condemned as bastions of oppression
and exploitation, it’s easy to forget
that Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries
— Catholic Church-run asylums
for “fallen” or marginalized women
— started out with good intentions, says Assoc. Prof. James Smith
(English).
Once these institutions performed a rehabilitative role aimed
at both personal and societal virtue,
he notes, aiding women in desperate financial and living situations
as a means of keeping them from
prostitution or other circumstances
considered immoral.
But for much of the 20th century, Smith says, the Magdalen
Laundries were “workhouses in
which the state and families incarcerated women perceived to be a
threat to the moral fiber of society,
where inmates performed hard labor, received no official sentences,
no mandated release dates and were
forced to give up their individual
identities and assume new names
for the length of their stay.” Many
died behind these walls, he adds.
Public and media awareness of
the Magdalen Laundries’ troubling
legacy has grown since the last asylum closed in 1996, particularly
through the critically praised 2002
feature film “The Magdalene Sisters.”
For all this attention, Smith ar-
gues that the Magdalen Laundries
exist in the public mind more as
story — through survivor testimony
and literature or other cultural representation — than history. His recent book Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of
Containment seeks to address that
gap, presenting the first scholarly,
interdisciplinary study of the Magdalen Laundries and their inmates
in the 20th century.
Smith will read from Ireland’s
Magdalen Laundries on Feb. 5 at 7
p.m. in Gasson 305 as part of the
“Writers Among Us” series, which
celebrates recent book publications
by Boston College faculty.
Although it is an Irish saga,
Smith says the Magdalen Laundries history offers some universal
lessons on how a state, intent on
establishing a national identity, will
“disappear” those citizens it deems
anathema to such an image — with
the help of political and religious
institutions.
“For many post-colonial societies — such as Ireland in the early
20th century — there has been a
perceived need to set its credentials
by affirming a traditional, masculine persona,” he explains. “Look at
what Ireland did in the years after
its independence: The state banned
contraception and divorce, imposed
censorship and barred women from
jury service, with the intent to bring
about a patriarchal, homogeneous
society.
“So, that meant hiding away
Lowell Lectures Humanities Series
Spring Schedule Now Under Way
The Lowell Lectures Humanities
Series, celebrating 50 years of bringing top writers, artists, journalists and
other prominent figures to Boston
College, continues its winter-spring
schedule next Thursday, Feb. 7, in
Devlin 101 with Cathleen Kaveny
presenting the 2008 Candlemas Lecture titled “Prophets, Priests, and
Kings: Christianity, Confidence, and
Humility in the Public Square.”
[The series last night kicked off
the second semester with a talk by
Bill McKibben, one of America’s
most renowned writers on environmental issues.]
Kaveny, the John P. Murphy
Foundation Professor of Law at
Notre Dame Law School, explores
relationships among theology, philosophy, and law, and her published
essays provide the grounding for full
discussion of various issues where
Christian ethics and US culture and
politics intersect.
On Feb. 10 in Gasson 100, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine
Brooks will read from her new release People of the Book, a fictionalized
narrative of the perilous history of
the Sarajevo Haggadah manuscript.
Brooks is a former reporter for The
Wall Street Journal who covered crises in the Middle East, Africa, and
the Balkans.
The series will mark St. Patrick’s
Day, March 17, with a talk in Gasson 100 by Irish historian Roy F.
Foster, “The Strange Death of Ro-
mantic Ireland.” Foster, the Carroll
Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford, is the biographer
of Charles Stewart Parnell, the editor
of The Oxford History of Ireland and
author of Modern Ireland: 16001972, generally regarded as the most
accurate account of modern Irish
history.
On March 25, Louise Glück will
offer a reading of her poetry, which
often draws from classic myths, fairy
tales, and the Bible — her most
recent book of poems, Averno, is a series of meditations on the mythological Persephone’s descent into Hades.
A former US poet laureate who won
the 1993 Pulitzer Prize, Glück has
attained such honors as the National
Book Critics Circle Award, a PEN/
Martha Albrand Award and the Yale
University Bollingen Prize in Poetry
for lifetime achievement.
Glück’s reading will take place at
4 p.m. in Devlin 101.
Concluding the Humanities
Series’ half-century celebration on
April 9 will be a reading by Edward
P. Jones from his All Aunt Hagar’s
Children collection of short stories
presenting lives of African-Americans in his native Washington, DC.
Jones is the author of The Known
World, which won a Pulitzer Prize
for fiction in 2003.
All lectures take place at 7:30
p.m. unless otherwise noted.
For more information, see www.
bc.edu/Lowell.
—Office of Public Affairs
Lee Pellegrini
Postings
Assoc. Prof. James Smith (English).
women and children who for one
reason or another were a danger to
the idea of ‘pure Catholic Ireland’
— those who had children out of
wedlock, for example, but also victims of male sexual violence.”
Even today, Smith adds, the
matter of national identity influences Ireland’s view of the Magdalen
Laundries. “In the modern, global,
successful ‘Celtic Tiger’ Ireland, the
attitude is, ‘Yes, that was a terrible
thing, but it’s all done now.’ The
movies, the plays, other cultural
representations about the Magdalen
Laundries tend to focus on the narrative and dramatic qualities, largely
from the survivors’ perspective.
“What we don’t have — and this
is the reason for the book — are the
archival and official aspects. There is
a great complexity to this chapter of
Irish history, in particular the role of
the state and the Catholic Church.
The state has put a fair amount of
blame on the Church, and because
the religious orders have not opened
their archives, there are still important details unavailable.
“In this scenario, the religious
orders become the scapegoats of
contemporary Irish complacency,
enabling the state and families to
evade all culpability.
“Getting at the history of Magdalen Laundries is a valuable and
necessary task: not just for a national acknowledgement on the part of
state, church and society, but a step
toward providing redress for victims
and survivors.”
Smith’s reading at the Feb. 5
“Writers Among Us” event will include an introduction by Marianne
Bolger, vice consul for the Consulate
General of Ireland. For more information, call ext. 2-4576 or e-mail
carlisll@bc.edu.
WELCOME ADDITIONS
•Asst. Prof. Gorica Petrovich (Psychology)
PhD, University of Southern California
Research Interests: The neurobiology of motivation and feeding behavior.
Courses: Neurobiology of Eating and Eating Disorders.
Petrovich, formerly an associate research scientist in the Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, states that
her long-term research goal is to delineate functional organization of the
brain system mediating control of appetite and eating by factors such as
environmental signals, stress, emotion, learning and memory. An honors
graduate of the University of Belgrade in Serbia with degrees in chemistry
and biochemistry, Petrovich worked at Johns Hopkins under a $693,000
grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
•Asst. Prof. Karim Chalak (Economics)
PhD, University of California, San Diego
Research Interests: Econometric theory, applied econometrics, causal
inference.
Courses: Econometric Methods, Econometric Theory II.
In addition to his academic background as an economist, Chalak is fluent in three languages: English, French and Arabic. A graduate in economics asnd mathematics from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon,
Chalak later received his masters and doctoral degrees from UCSD where
he won several academic scholarships and awards. In the past two years, he
has presented his research findings at academic seminars and workshops
at universities in Quebec, North Carolina, California, Maryland, Washington, DC, Texas, New York and Massachusetts, as well as econometrics
conferences in Europe and North America.
•Asst. Prof. Seung-A Jin (Communication)
PhD, University of Southern California
Research Interests: Social-psychological aspects of interactive communications technologies.
Courses: Communication Research Methods, Communication Technology and Society, Computer-Mediated Communication.
Jin is an expert in the “new media” – involving such topics as instant
messaging, multi-player on-line role-playing gaming, computer video
games and virtual reality, and avatar-based advertising and marketing communication.
A graduate of Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, where she received a
dual degree in mass communication and journalism and media arts, Jin is
currently investigating the topic of “Experimenting with Socially Interactive Robots and Creating Human-Robot Interaction Interfaces for Social
Science Research and Teaching” with a University Academic Technology
Innovation Grant.
—Reid Oslin
“Welcome Additions,” an occasional feature, profiles new faculty members at Boston College.
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
january 31, 2008
PEOPLE
Newsmakers
•Money magazine interviewed
Center for Retirement Research
Director Drucker Professor Alicia
Munnell about stocks in a retirement portfolio.
•Center for Human Rights and
International Justice Director
Prof. David Hollenbach, SJ (Theology), discussed Martin Luther
King Jr.’s legacy for a story in the
Ocala Star-Banner.
•Boston College Magazine Editor and Marketing Communications Executive Director Ben
Birnbaum published a review of
Glenn D. Smith Jr.’s “Something
on My Own”: Gertrude Berg and
American Broadcasting, 19261956 in Nextbook.
•McMahon Ahearn Professor of
Social Work James Lubben was
interviewed by CNN for their
“Accent Health” program and
CNN Headline News, and discussed the social and emotional
issues related to the experience of
retirement, as well as the need for
comprehensive retirement planning.
•New York Magazine included
research and remarks by Center on Wealth and Philanthropy
Director Prof. Paul Schervish
(Sociology) for an article on the
record number of heirs produced
by America’s burgeoning money
culture.
•Assoc. Prof. Francis McLaughlin (Economics) wrote a letter to
the editor responding to a Boston
Globe columnist’s use of the term
“there’s no free lunch” in relation
to the economy.
•Malaysia’s New Straits Times profiled Prof. James Morris (Theology) about his journey of spiritual discovery following an act of
kindness by a family in Morocco.
•The Catholic News Agency reported on a well-attended debate
concerning abortion that included
Prof. Peter Kreeft (Philosophy) as
one of the speakers.
•Adj. Assoc Prof. Michael Noone’s
(Music) CD recordings and concerts of Renaissance music were
the subject of two one-hour programs broadcast by RTHK (Hong
Kong).
Publications
•A manuscript co-authored by
Prof. James Russell (Psychology),
“The Neurophysiological Bases
of Emotion: An FMRI Study of
the Affective Circumplex Using
Emotion-Denoting Words,” has
been accepted for publication in
Human Brain Mapping.
•University Professor of English
Paul Mariani published the following: “Mountain View with
Figures,” Living in Storms: Contemporary Poetry and the Moods of
Nota Bene
Prof. Maxim D. Shrayer (Slavic and Eastern Languages) has won
the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in Eastern European Studies
— the Ronald S. Lauder Award — for An Anthology of Jewish-Russian
Literature: Two Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry, the Jewish
Book Council has announced. The awards honor some of the best and
most exciting authors in the field of Jewish literature.
Shrayer’s anthology also was a runner-up for the 2007 National Jewish Book Award in Anthologies and Collections.
In his two-volume work, Shrayer gathers stories, excerpts from
novels, essays, memoirs and poems by more than 130 Jewish writers
of the past two centuries who worked in the Russian language. Shrayer
describes the anthology as introducing readers “for the first time to the
full range of the Jewish-Russian literary canon.”
The 2007 winners will be presented at the 57th Annual National
Jewish Book Awards ceremony in New York in March.
Prof. Tayfun Sonmez (Economics) has been selected as the fourth
recipient of the Social Choice and Welfare Prize, which honors accomplished young scholars in the area of social choice theory and welfare
economics.
Sonmez is a member of a team of economists that has developed a
system for optimizing live donor kidney exchanges. The team’s work
led to the establishment of a New England area kidney exchange clearinghouse, which is envisioned as the model for a national system that
would shorten the wait time for kidney transplant patients and potentially save thousands of lives.
In a letter informing Tayfun of the award, the Society for Social
Choice and Welfare said, “Your outstanding contributions to mechanism design have done much to advance our knowledge of how to
design mechanisms for allocating resources. They also hold out the
promise of making the lives of many individuals better off as your ideas
are implemented in practice.”
Tayfun will be officially awarded the prize at the 2008 International
Meeting of the Society for Social Choice and Welfare this June in Montreal.
Manic Depression; “Mantra for a
Dark December Night,” America;
“Introduction” to B.H. Fairchild’s
Trilogy.
•Assoc. Prof. James Najarian (English) published his story “The Snow” and the poems
“Schoolhouse” and “Near Apex,
PA” in Watershed: A Journal of the
Susquehanna.
Honors
•The Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis, edited by
Prof. Sharlene Hesse-Biber (Sociology), has been named among
the Outstanding Academic Titles
for 2007 by Choice magazine, a
leading source for reviews of academic books, electronic media,
and Internet resources of interest
to those in higher education.
Time and a Half
•Assoc. Prof. Bruce Morrill, SJ
(Theology), presented “Time,
Absence, and Otherness: DivineHuman Paradoxes Bonding Liturgy and Ethics” at the North
American Academy of Liturgy in
Savannah, Ga.
Lynch School Doctoral
Student Earns Two Honors
Maryam Jernigan, a doctoral
student in counseling psychology in the Lynch School of Education, has been honored by two
leading psychological associations.
The 2008 International
Counseling Psychology Conference has selected her as one of 14
individuals to receive the inaugural “Many Faces of Counseling Psychology” award.
Awardees are described as
doing innovative, creative and
adaptive work to bring a critical
focus to strength-based, developmental and preventive approaches to psychological issues. She
will be recognized at the 2008
International Counseling Psy-
chology Conference in March
in Chicago.
In addition, Jernigan has been
awarded the 2008 APA/APAGS
Award for Distinguished Graduate Student in Professional Psychology administered by the
Board of Professional Affairs for
the American Psychological Association.
The award recognizes a
graduate student who has demonstrated outstanding practice
and application of psychology
through performance in working
with an underserved population
in an applied setting or has developed an innovative method
for delivering health services to
an underserved population.
—Office of Public Affairs
•The multimedia exhibit “Still
Present Pasts: Korean Americans
and the ‘Forgotten War,’” organized by Prof. Ramsay Liem
(Psychology), has been invited to
show at the Wing Luke Museum
in Seattle this November until
Februrary 2009. The exhibit just
completed successful showings in
two galleries in Seoul, Korea.
•Prof. Frances Restuccia (English) presented “Resisting the
Society of the Spectacle: To Be or
To Not Not-Be” at the Modern
Language Association Convention in Chicago.
BC ROTC Cadets to
Pursue Medical Studies
Two Boston College Army
ROTC cadets have received
medical school education delays
allowing them to pursue medical studies before reporting for
active duty. Seniors Anthony
Tolisano and Charles “Alex” Riley are among the 25 recipients
of the medical school authorizations issued by the Army for
ROTC cadets who are graduating and commissioning this
year.
Tolisano is a pre-med/biology major from Glastonbury,
Conn. Riley, from Pomfret,
Conn., will receive his degree in
biochemistry.
Both seniors spent last summer working with military doctors as a student interns at Tripler Army Medical Center in
Hawaii. Tolisano looks to eventually practice in orthopedics or
ear, nose and throat specialties,
while Riley hopes to become a
surgeon.
“I believe that the Army
ROTC program attracts some
of the brightest and most talented students at Boston College
— students who are committed
to the BC ethos of ‘ever to excel’
and ‘men and women for others,’” says Tolisano, who is in
the College of Arts and Sciences
Honors Program.
Riley shares his classmate’s
view. “BC ROTC is one of
the best decisions I have ever
made. ROTC has been able to
keep me focused, forced me to
learn how to balance my time
efficiently and allowed me to
follow through with my lifelong
goal of becoming a doctor,” he
says.
“This really speaks to the
quality of the students that Boston College recruits and produces and the quality of student
that the Army ROTC program
has,” says Army ROTC Advisor
Capt. Brett Tashiro. “It’s good
for the school, good for the
individuals and good for the
country to have really highlyqualified people like this serving
in our military.”
Tashiro said that Tolisano
and Riley may choose to attend
medical school on their own,
enroll in the Uniformed Services University or apply through
the Health Professions Scholarship Program. Their active
duty commitments will be delayed until they finish medical
school and pass the certification
boards, he said.
Four Boston College ROTC
participants have received medical school delay authorizations
in the past five years. No more
than 30 such educational delays
have been granted in any one
year, Tashiro says.
—Reid Oslin
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.edu/offices/hr/:
HVAC Mechanic, Facilities Management
Director, Admissions and Recruitment, STM Administration
Interlibrary Loan
O’Neill Library
Assistant,
Third Cook, Dining Services Lower Campus
Information & Program Specialist, Graduate School of Social
Work
Security Attendant, Main Campus
Fiscal Coordinator (32 hours/
week), Weston Observatory
Manager, Technology Consultants
Investment Officer, Public Equities
Manager, Technology Consultants
Compensation Analyst, Human
Resources
Graphic Designer/Communication Specialist, Connell School
of Nursing
Job Coach, Lynch School of Education - Campus School
Audiovisual Archives Assistant,
Burns Library
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
january 31, 2008
LOOKING AHEAD
READINGS • LECTURES •
DISCUSSION
January 31
•“CLR James’s Misplaced Affections,” with Nadia Ellis, 4:30 p.m.,
Devlin 218. Call ext.2-3238, e-mail
mcateerm@bc.edu.
•“Catholicism, Natural Law, and
Homosexuality,” with Prof. Stephen
Pope (Theology), 7:30 p.m., Gasson 112. Call 617-966-7772, e-mail
celso.perez@bc.edu.
February 1
•Undergraduate Research Symposium, 12:30 p.m., Gasson 100.
February 4
•Atlantic Worlds Series: “Race
and Rights: The View from IrishAmerica, at the Turn of the Twentieth Century and the Turn of the
Twenty-First,” with Matthew Frye
Jacobson, Yale University, 4 p.m.,
Connolly House, see www.bc.edu/
atlanticworlds.
February 5
•Writers Among Us Series: “Ireland’s
Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment,”
with Assoc. Prof. James Smith (English), 7 p.m., Gasson 305. Call ext.24576 or e-mail carlisll@bc.edu.
February 6
• Ways of Knowing and the Catholic Intellectual Traditions Seminar: “
The Unbearable Lightness of Christian Legal Scholarship,” with David
A. Skeel Jr., University of Pennsylvania Law School, noon, Boisi Center
for Religion and American Public
Life, 24 Quincy Road. Reservations
required, call ext.2-1860, richarsh@
bc.edu.
•Continuing the Tradition: C21
Women’s Series: “Foremothers in
Faith: Historic Women for Our
Time,” panel discussion, 5:30 p.m.,
Heights Room, Corcoran Commons. Call ext.2-0470, e-mail
church21@bc.edu.
CLOWN TOOLS
•“Ice That Burns: Assessing Methane
Hydrates as an Energy Resource and
Contributor to Climate Change,”
with Carolyn Ruppel, US Geological Survey (Woods Hole), 7 p.m.,
Weston Observatory, 381 Concord
Road, Weston. Weekly through Feb.
20. Reservations required, call ext.28300, e-mail weston.observatory@
bc.edu.
Robsham Theater, tickets $10. See
www.bc.edu/psbc, e-mail reynesc@
bc.edu.
February 7
•“The ‘Vicious Negro Lunatic’ and
the ‘Violent African’: Transnational
Discourses of Black Male Insanity
in the Late Nineteenth and Early
Twentieth Centuries,” with Martin
Summers, 4:30 p.m., Devlin 101.
Call ext.2-3238, e-mail mcateerm@
bc.edu.
•“Health Communication on the
Ski Slopes: The Go Sun Smart Campaign,” with Peter Andersen, San
Diego State University, 6:30 p.m.,
McGuinn 121. Call ext.2-4280, email mary.saunders@bc.edu.
•Panel Discussion: “Love Thy
Neighbor: Building a Just Society,”
7 p.m., Heights Room, Corcoran
Commons. Call 617-671-5908, email alshannj@bc.edu.
•“Peace From Africa: The Mozambique Story,” with Archbishop Jaime Pedro Gonçalves and Andrea
Bartoli, Columbia University. Call
ext.2-8491 or e-mail jane.vecchi.1@
bc.edu.
February 5
•Concert: Triton Brass Quartet
performs new music for brass by
Composers in Red Sneakers: Lansing
McLoskey, Ken Ueno, Delvyn Case
and Howard Frazin, 8 p.m., Gasson
100. Call ext.2-6004, e-mail concerts@bc.edu.
February 4
•Concert: Hyperprism performs
works by Bartok, Berio, Messiaen
and Pinkham, 8 p.m., Gasson 100.
Call ext.2-6004, e-mail concerts@
bc.edu.
February 6
•Gaelic Roots Music, Song, Dance,
Workshop and Lecture Series: “The
Irish Music Manuscripts of Henry
Hudson at the Boston Public Library,” lecture and recital by visiting
Fulbright scholar Jimmy O’Brien
Moran, 6 p.m., Thompson Room,
Burns Library. See www.bc.edu/
gaelicroots.
ATHLETICS
February 1
•Men’s hockey: BC vs. Providence, 7
p.m., Conte Forum.
February 3
•Women’s basketball: BC vs. Virginia, 2 p.m., Conte Forum.
UNIVERSITY EVENTS
February 12
•Annual Martin Luther King Jr.
Awards Banquet, with guest speaker
Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral, ’81, 5:30 p.m., Welch Dining
Room, Lyons Hall. Call ext.2-4991.
MUSIC • ART • PERFORMANCE
February 2
•Philippine Society Annual Culture
Show: “Diwa ng Buhay: Discover
the Magic of Our Culture,” 7 p.m.,
February 6
•Men’s basketball: BC vs. Maryland,
7 p.m., Conte Forum.
February 7
•Women’s basketball: BC vs. Duke,
7 p.m., Conte Forum.
For more on Boston College events, see
events.bc.edu or check BCInfo [www.
bc.edu/bcinfo] for updates.
BC SCENES
(L-R) K. Bevin Ayers ’08, Dan Fabrizio ’10 and Steven Conroy ’10 had their games faces, and red noses, on for a workshop on
theatrical clowning led by part-time faculty member Susan Thompson (Theater) last Friday and Saturday at the Brighton Campus Dance Studio. The facility at 2115 Commonwealth Avenue offers Boston College a new venue for rehearsals and classes,
and is also available for student groups evenings and weekends. (Photo by Chris Huang)
“Vine Growing in Urn From Egypt,” one of the works that will be displayed at “Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire.”
New McMullen Show
Looks at Ancient Mosaics
By Rosanne Pellegrini
Staff Writer
The role of Roman-period mosaics in the development of synagogue
decoration in the late Roman Empire — and what they reveal about life
in that era — is the focus of an upcoming exhibition at the McMullen
Museum of Art.
“Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire,” which
runs from Feb. 17 through June 8, will showcase works originally organized
and displayed by the Brooklyn Museum. The McMullen Museum is the
second venue in a three-city tour, which marks the first time the mosaics
have left New York City.
A public celebration of the exhibition opening will be held Feb. 18 from
7-9 p.m.
Twenty-one mosaics — along with some 40 works from the Brooklyn
Museum’s Roman art collection, including contemporary jewelry, coins,
marble statues, ritual objects and textiles — shed light on the role of synagogues in the Diaspora during Late Antiquity, the development of Jewish
art in the Roman period, the importance of female patrons in the ancient
Jewish community, connections among early Christian, Jewish and Pagan
symbolism in this period, and the relationship between ancient and modern
understanding of the synagogue as an institution.
Taken together, exhibition organizers say, the works of art reveal a
society where Jews were more integrated and accepted than ancient texts
would suggest.
“Superbly conceived by the Brooklyn Museum to pose larger questions
about links among various faith communities in Late Antiquity, this exhibition and its public programs draw on strengths of the Boston College
faculty’s research and curriculum and on the University’s commitment
to exploring the relationship among Jews, Christians and Muslims from
antiquity to the present,” said McMullen Museum Director Prof. Nancy
Netzer (Fine Arts).
“We look forward to welcoming at the McMullen visitors from all three
faith groups.”
The exhibition presents the reconstruction of an ancient mosaic floor
from a synagogue in Hammam Lif, Tunisia — the ancient town of Naro,
later called Aquae Persianae by the Romans.
A Latin inscription in one of the surviving panels records that the mosaic
floor was a gift to the synagogue from a certain Julia, a resident of Naro in
about 500 CE. Other mosaic panels in the exhibition, datable to the first
or second century CE, originated either in an earlier part of the same synagogue or in a nearby building.
The mosaics were discovered by chance in 1883 by a French army
captain, Ernest de Prudhomme, while preparing ground for gardening. In
1905, the Brooklyn Museum acquired most of the panels Prudhomme had
owned and transported back to his home in Lyon. “Today, these panels
provide a fascinating contrast to the much richer archaeological evidence for
synagogues of this period now known from the Land of Israel,” said Assoc.
Prof. Rabbi Ruth Langer (Theology), academic director of the Center for
Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College.
The exhibition will also feature nine Tiraz textiles from the Brooklyn
Museum collection that illuminate the role of Islam in North Africa in the
Middle Ages. A catalogue by the exhibition’s curator, Edward Bleiberg, associate curator of Egyptian, Classical and Ancient Middle Eastern Art at the
Brooklyn Museum, accompanies the exhibition.
“Tree of Paradise” is made possible by the Martha A. and Robert S. Rubin Exhibition Fund. The presentation of this exhibition at the McMullen
Museum is underwritten by Boston College with major support from the
Lassor and Fanny Agoos Charity Fund. Additional funding was provided
by the Patrons of the McMullen Museum.
For more information on tours and programs of the museum, see www.
bc.edu/artmuseum or call ext.2-8100.