The Boston College
Chronicle
september 20, 2007-vol. 16 no. 2
BC Outlines Emergency
Preparedness Efforts
gency, and with Verizon Business to create a 1-800 emergency
hotline to provide individuals on
Boston College has embarked and off campus with a means of
on a comprehensive emergency obtaining updated information
preparedness program in the wake should BC land and cell phone
of the Virginia Tech tragedy that lines become overwhelmed.
its organizers hope will enable
The University is also in the
administrators to respond quickly process of creating a full-time diand effectively in the event of an rector of emergency management
emergency situation.
position to oversee the emergency
Under the direction of Execu- response effort, and an on-campus
tive Vice President Patrick Keat- Emergency Operations Center to
ing, BC’s Emergency Response provide a designated location for
Team, comprising representatives emergency operations.
from BC Police, Residential Life,
Lastly, the Emergency RePublic Affairs, Facilities Man- sponse Team is evaluating a siagement, Student
ren/public address
Services and Infor“While we believe BC notification system
mation Technolto see if it would be
ogy, among others, is a safe campus, these
an effective emerworked throughout
steps are necessary to en- gency communicathe summer to comtions tool on the
plete a new emer- able us to respond effec- BC campus.
gency preparedness
“We have done
tively should we ever be
Web site, blast voice,
a great deal of work
e-mail and text mes- called upon to do so.”
to prepare ourselves
saging capability and
—Patrick Keating in the event of a
a 1-800 emergency
man-made emerhotline to help progency or natural dimote the safety of
saster on campus,”
students, faculty and staff.
said Keating. “We now have a
The emergency preparedness comprehensive electronic messagWeb site, www.bc.edu/prepared, ing system and hosted phone serwill serve as the primary source vice that are designed to meet the
of news and information for the needs of a university community.
Boston College community in While we believe BC is a safe
the event of an emergency. The campus, these steps are necessary
site, called BC/Prepared, contains to enable us to respond effectively
safety tips and information on should we ever be called upon to
how best to prepare for emer- do so.”
gency situations as well as links to
Keating said he is pleased that
informative internal and external more than 11,000 BC students
Web sites.
have already provided their cell
In addition, Boston College phone numbers through www.
has contracted with national ven- bc.edu/agora to avail themselves
dor 3N/Qwest to provide instant of emergency notification techtext messaging and blast voice nology. “I encourage all students,
and e-mail notification that will faculty and staff who have not yet
enable the University to send responded to register their nummessages with vital information bers today so that we can alert
via cell phone, land phone and them on their cell phones in the
e-mail in the event of an emerContinued on page 6
By Jack Dunn
Director of Public Affairs
Faculty Forum Set for Oct. 29
The Office of the Provost and Dean of Faculties will
sponsor a faculty forum on Monday, Oct 29, from 4-6 p.m.
in McGuinn 121.
Provost and Dean of Faculties Cutberto Garza said the
event will serve to build on his talk at the Sept. 5 University
Convocation, at which he outlined several major initiatives
— including the allocation of $43 million for the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and professional schools
— aimed at strengthening the University’s academic, research and student formation missions.
Garza said faculty will have the opportunity to offer
questions and comments on the plans.
INSIDE:
Biology, Chemistry researchers
find potential breakthrough in
disease-causing process (page 3)
CROWD PLEASER—Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, receives a standing ovation from the audience
after completing her keynote speech at last Thursday’s fourth annual First Year Academic Convocation. Story,
more photos on page 4. (Photo by Frank Curran)
Humanities Series At the Half-Century
For 50 years, literary stars have glittered at the Heights
By Sean Smith
Chronicle Editor
A small Catholic commuter college hosting lectures by the world’s
leading literary figures? Back in the
1950s, the idea probably seemed
as preposterous as the thought of
men walking on the moon.
As it turned out, the moonwalk
took a little longer to happen.
Because 50 years ago, a determined Boston College priest and
poet named Francis Sweeney, SJ,
decided that the University should
spotlight the prominence of arts
and literature in its Jesuit education tradition.
Thus was born the Humanities
Series, which in its first half-century has brought to campus the likes
of Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, Seamus
Heaney, Alec Guinness, Robert
Penn Warren, Lillian Hellmann,
Robert Lowell, Joyce Carol Oates,
John Kenneth Galbraith, Margaret
Mead, James Reston, Julian Bond
Humanities Series founder
Francis Sweeney, SJ.
Dean’s List 2007: Fr. Neenan, right, has a
few books for you to read (page 5)
and Maya Angelou. [It came to roles as introducer, presenter and
be known as the Lowell Lectures appreciative audience member.
Humanities Series after the Lowell
“One expects a university with
Foundation began providing sup- a Catholic, Jesuit dimension like
port in 1978.]
ours to have a deep, strong comFive decades can bring a host mitment to the humanities. As
of changes, and the Humanities that university, we have to keep
Series — opening its fall sched- our ties to the fine arts, because it
ule next week [see page 5]
— was hardly unaffected.
The most obvious and conspicuous was the transition
in leadership: Fr. Sweeney
stepped down as series director in 1998 — he died
four years later — and was
succeeded by Assoc. Prof.
Paul Doherty (English).
Nor has the Humanities Series been immune to
changes in Boston College
— no longer a small commuter college — and in
the literary world itself, and
the various political, artistic
and social trends percolating through American and
“The Humanities Series has never been as imworld culture since 1957.
But the program’s many portant as it is now,” says Rattigan Professor of
Emeritus John Mahoney, who at various
supporters say it continues English
times in the series’ 50-year history has been
to fulfill its mission — and introducer, presenter and appreciative audience
that of BC — by offering a member. (Photo by Gary Gilbert)
forum for an array of distinguished authors, artists, commen- is a point of stability in this crazytators and others in the humani- quilt culture of ours. The Lowell
ties to discuss compelling subjects Lectures Humanities Series underacross the spectrum of art, politics lines that commitment.”
and contemporary issues.
Says Vice President and Special
“The Humanities Series has Assistant to the President William
never been as important as it is B. Neenan, SJ, “Fr. Sweeney startnow,” says Rattigan Professor of ed this all when Boston College
English Emeritus John Mahoney, was nowhere near being a national
who in the series’ 50 years has filled
Continued on page 5
Alumni Awards to be presented
next week (page 6)
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
september 20, 2007
AROUND
CAMPUS
Lessons on writing,
and life
Jeannette Walls, the guest
speaker at this year’s First Year
Academic Convocation [see page
4], won more than a few admirers
during her visit to campus.
In addition to her appearance
at the convocation, the author
of The Glass Castle lunched with
a small group of faculty and administrators and also visited several classes, where students were
able to engage her in conversation
about her work, and especially her
troubled yet inspiring childhood.
One visit was to the Courage
to Know class, part of the University’s Cornerstone Program. Susan
Michalczyk, an adjunct associate
professor in the College of Arts
and Sciences Honors Program,
said the students in her class asked
Walls about particular aspects of
her book, as well as the process of
writing — and even requested updates on present-day relationships
with her family members.
“There seemed to be two distinct types of students who asked
questions, and kept asking questions during her visit,” says Michalczyk. “Those who hope to
pursue literary careers or careers
in journalism and those whose
lives have been touched in some
way by alcoholism and troubling
family issues.
“In either case, the connection
Jeannette offered to our students
was personal, as role model or
example of the possibilities for a
professional career or as someone
who both validated their less-thanperfect home life, while offering a
glimmer of hope.”
Equally impressed was Assoc.
Prof. Elizabeth Rhodes (Romance
Languages and Literatures), whose
Cornerstone class also hosted
Walls.
“The visit was fantastic and
we went overtime; she is extremely generous with her time, her
thoughts, and her energy. Her
friendly and open nature thrilled
the students, and there is clearly
a very different chemistry in the
room when an author is sitting
two feet from you versus standing
on a podium at a distance.”
At one point, Rhodes notes,
Walls discussed how she used
techniques of writing fiction to
form the characters of her parents, especially her mother, who
in spite of the family’s troubles
displayed an unfailingly effervescent nature.
According to Rhodes, a student commented: “‘Living with
her seems a little like living with a
child, because she has an original
and frank opinion on everything
and you can’t change her.’
“Jeannette lit up, leaned in,
and replied: ‘Exactly.’”
—SS
Tuning in from Iraq
In spite of his Army uniform, there’s no doubting the
football allegiance of Lt. Col. Brian J. Cummins ’82, who is
currently serving with the US military in Iraq. Cummins has
videotaped a message cheering on the Boston College Eagles
that will be shown on the Alumni Stadium scoreboard during this Saturday’s game against West Point.
Not only is Cummins a BC grad, he’s married to Patty
Foley Cummins ’81; the father of Maureen ’08 and Erin
’11; the son of Daniel Cummins ’58; and the son-in-law of
Daniel ’55 and Carolyn Foley ’56.
A resident of Fairfax, Va., Brian Cummins was recently
recalled to active duty by the Army and is stationed north of
Baghdad where he is involved in training Iraqi military and
police forces.
—RO
A “Classic” recalled
SIGN OF THE TIME—The McMullen Museum of Art continued the celebration of its “Pollock Matters” exhibition
with an invitation-only reception on Sept. 7. A public event on Sept. 2 also launched the exhibition, which has attraced considerable public and media attention. (Photo by Frank Curran)
Finding the center
The Graduate School of Social
Work typically holds a special
Afternoon of Service during the
second week of September, sending students, faculty and administrators out into Allston, Brighton, Roxbury and other Boston
neighborhoods to help with various beautification and clean-up
community projects, as well as to
make contact with area residents.
But the date this year wasn’t
exactly typical: It was the sixth anniversary of 9/11.
So the school decided to add a
special touch to the day, gathering that morning at the memorial
labyrinth on the Burns Library
lawn — dedicated four years ago
to members of the BC community who perished on 9/11 — to
reflect on the symbolism it offered
to those beginning their studies at
GSSW.
Speaking to the assembly,
Campus Minister Sister Mary
Sweeney, SC, said the labyrinth
represented an inward journey
“into the center,” where one can
find their deepest values, desires
and memories. The labyrinth also
recalled, she said, the sacrifice of
Welles Crowther ’99, who died
while rescuing co-workers when
the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11.
“It’s good to remember the
deeds of this young man who,
along with the others, is remembered here: selfless deeds that may
inspire us in our less dramatic
lives, and in the less dramatic
services we render to others – in
the service that you will render
this afternoon, and in the role of
social worker for which you are
preparing.”
Making time for reflection,
whether at the labyrinth or elsewhere, will “help you to remember the values that are at your
centers, to remember what gives
you the impetus to become social
workers,” she said.
Sister Sweeney also noted the
concluding statement of University President William P. Leahy,
SJ, at the 2003 dedication: “May
the Labyrinth’s presence on the
Boston College campus call us to
understand that even in darkness,
there is a path on which we can
walk. Even in confusion there is
grace to guide our journey. And
even when we seem to stand most
distant from where we began, we
can turn yet again toward home,
moving according to the sure
compass of God’s enduring love.”
—Public Affairs
Boston College football has
a place in Irish (and European) history — and vice versa
— and you’ll be able to see
for yourself at an exhibition
opening tomorrow in Burns
Library.
The exhibition commemorates the 20th anniversary of
the announcement of the Boston College–Army “Emerald
Isle Classic” football game that
was played in Dublin on Nov.
19, 1988. More than 10,000
Boston College fans traveled
to the game, which the Eagles
won by a score of 38-24. It was
the first American college football game played in Europe.
The special display includes
photographs, memorabilia and
press clippings from the game
played at Lansdowne Road
Stadium as part of Dublin’s
Millennium Celebration that
year.
The exhibit is running in
conjunction with this Saturday’s BC-Army game, being
played 20 years after the contest in Ireland was announced
to the general public at an
Alumni Stadium game between the two schools that was
attended by numerous Irish
and American government and
sports officials.
In addition to regular Burns
Library hours, the exhibit will
be open to the public on Saturday from 10 a.m. until the
start of the BC-Army game
at 1 p.m. The exhibit will run
through Oct. 5.
—RO
The Boston College
Chronicle
Director of Public Affairs
Jack Dunn
Deputy Director of
Public AFFAIRS
Patricia Delaney
Editor
Sean Smith
Contributing Staff
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
September 20, 2007
Biology, Chemistry labs
make key discovery on
disease-causing process
By Sean Smith
Chronicle Editor
It doesn’t have the most eyecatching name, but in the world of
human biology “oxidative stress” is
something like a shadowy, sinister
film noir character.
Scientists have known that oxidative stress is implicated in diseases
such as atherosclerosis, Parkinson’s
and Alzheimer’s — they’re just not
sure how.
But a team of Boston College
researchers from the Biology and
Chemistry departments has found a
means to discover more about what
role oxidative stress plays in the development of diseases.
Through the use of novel synthetic intracellular targeting molecules that contain oxygen speciesgenerating compounds that cause
oxidative stress, the BC researchers
can target specific locations within
the cell — notably the nucleus and
mitochondrion — and observe how
these molecules interact with nucleic acids (DNA). This will make
it easier to determine what parts
of a cell are most likely to combat
the effects of oxidative stress, and
which are weaker, according to the
researchers.
That knowledge, in turn, could
someday lead to the development
of toxic agents that could be used,
for example, to attack cancer at the
sub-cellular level.
The achievement — recounted
in a paper highlighted in a recent
Lee Pellegrini
Joining Forces
edition of Chemistry & Biology
[www.chembiol.com/] — demonstrates the value of interdepartmental and interdisciplinary collaborations, say the investigators, a trend
which is becoming a hallmark of
the University’s natural science programs.
“This experience is an illustration
of where natural sciences are headed
at Boston College: toward a more
integrated approach to science,”
said Biology Department chairman
Prof. Thomas Chiles, whose lab was
involved in the research.
“It shows what can happen when
you have an environment where
chemists and biologists continually encounter each other, formally
and informally. Conversations start,
ideas are exchanged and progress
is made rapidly; these historically
separate disciplines can get together
to share observations and work together.”
Adds Terra Potocky, a post-doctoral scientist in Chiles’ lab, “The
fact that we were all in the same university definitely helped this work
go forward.”
Fittingly enough, says Chiles,
the collaboration began a few years
ago when he and Shana Kelley — a
former member of the Chemistry
faculty now at the University of
Toronto — were serving on a planning committee for BC’s proposed
integrated sciences center. She described her research to Chiles, and
the two scientists began exchanging
ideas and sharing lab resources and
staff to work on the project.
Kelley had designed highly innovative chemical probes to target
specific locations within the cell,
Chiles explains, “but once inside,
in human experience.” Because people “experience fear
and see it in others,” she said, scientists have assumed
there must be “a literal circuit for fear
in the mammalian
brain.”
For example,
Barrett said, “rats
freeze when they
Barrett
hear a tone paired
with a foot shock, so they are
presumed to be in a state of fear
— versus surprise, anger, or even
a general state of alarm — and undergoing ‘fear learning.’ Scientists
also presume that a map of the
neural circuitry of freezing behavior will yield a neural mechanism
for fear that is largely preserved in
humans, and a decade of neuroimaging studies have focused on
locating a similar neural circuit in
the human brain.”
But Barrett said her studies
found this “natural kind” model
to be an insufficient explanation
of emotion and its effects. In response, she developed the conceptual act model, which incorporates
psychological and neuroscience
findings from rats, primates and
University Preparing for
NCAA Recertification
By Reid Oslin
Staff Writer
Prof. Thomas Chiles (Biology) says BC
research on oxidative stress indicates
the University’s trend “toward a more
integrated approach to science.”
she found she needed another perspective, because she was dealing
with questions of a biological nature. Were these compounds killing
cells, and if so, how? How does a
cell survive oxidative stress?
“Past research on oxidative stress
focused on the cell as a whole, so
it was difficult to ascertain exactly
what was happening at the molecular level. But with these compounds
developed through Shana’s lab, we
can begin to understand the specifics of the cell’s response to oxidative
stress.
“The next step is to look at
whether the changes occurring
within the cell are its response to the
oxidative stress caused by the compounds, or if the compounds themselves are triggering the changes.”
Other investigators who co-published the paper in Chemistry &
Biology were Biology post-doctoral
scientist Derek Blair; Biochemistry
Department research associate Kelly
Stewart; and Marc Roy and Kerry
Mahon, former graduate students
in the Chemistry Department.
Psychologist Earns NIH Grant Honor
Prof. Lisa Feldman Barrett
(Psychology) has been awarded a
five-year $2.5 million grant from
the National Institutes of Health
that will fund her research on the
psychology and neuroscience of
emotion — in particular her development of a “conceptual act
model” that offers a new view of
emotions and their role in mental
and physical health.
Barrett is one of 12 recipients of
the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award,
which recognize “exceptionally innovative investigators” whose work
holds the promise of conceptual
and technological breakthroughs
in science, according to an NIH
release.
This is the fourth set of Pioneer
Awards to be given, and Barrett
is the second psychologist to have
earned the honor.
Barrett expressed enthusiasm
at receiving the grant, which she
said will “allow me the intellectual
freedom and resources to continue
building evidence for the conceptual act model of emotion, thereby
shaping a new paradigm to guide
the scientific study of emotion.”
Explaining her research, Barrett
said much of the previous work on
emotion has been guided “by a scientific paradigm that is grounded
Lee Pellegrini
humans, and explains “the
mechanisms that produce
the range and variety of behavioral and introspective
instances that we call ‘emotion.’
“The conceptual act
model asks different – and
perhaps better – questions
about what emotions are and
how they function in mental
and physical health.”
Psychology Department
chairman Prof. James Russell called the NIH award a “fabulous achievement” for Barrett. “Of
course,” he added, “it reflects her
many accomplishments, but it also
reflects the excellence of the lab
she has established here at BC and
on the general environment here
in which major research can take
place.”
Barrett is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the
Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Her
other honors include the Society
for Experimental Social Psychology Career Trajectory Award and
fellowships from the American
Philosophical Society and the Association for Psychological Science.
—Sean Smith
Boston College has begun a yearlong, campus-wide effort to study
its athletics program as part of the
National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I athletic certification program.
The focus of the certification
study, which is required every 10
years by the NCAA, will cover academic integrity, governance and
commitment to rules compliance
and the University’s commitment
to equity and student-athlete welfare.
Assistant to the President Robert
Newton will chair the self-study
committee. University President
William P. Leahy, SJ, Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo, Associate
Athletic Director and Senior Women’s Administrator Jody Mooradian
and Atlantic Coast Conference Associate Commissioner Shane Lyons
are among the members of a 25person steering committee for the
study.
Sub-committee chairs will be
Associate Academic Vice President
for Undergraduate Studies J. Joseph Burns (academic integrity);
Director of Student Services Louise
Lonabocker (governance and commitment); and Carroll School of
Management Assistant Dean for
Undergraduate Advising Amy LaCombe (equity and student-athlete
well-being).
“One of the concepts of the
study is that it should be a campus-wide, broad-based effort,” said
Newton. “The NCAA wants to
make sure that the people at the
top – the Board of Trustees, the
University President – are involved,
but they also want to make sure
that membership of the committee involves men and women, faculty members, athletic department
staff, student-athletes, representative
from the Athletic Advisory Board,
the AHANA community and the
like in the process.
“The goals of the certification are
to provide an opportunity for the
campus community to participate
in a broad-based review of intercollegiate athletics,” Newton said,
“to promote a fuller understanding
in the campus community of the
role, purpose, operation and importance of intercollegiate athletics
in the mission of Boston College,
to validate that athletic programs
are conducted in full accordance
with NCAA operating principles,
to identify areas in the University’s athletic program that should
be improved and to ensure that
specific plans for improvement are
in place.”
Members of the steering committee and sub-committee chairs
are today participating in a day-long
video teleconference to launch the
project, Newton said.
In coming months, the steering
committee will work through its
three subcommittees to produce a
detailed report that will be submitted to the NCAA next May. After
any revisions are made, a threemember committee that will include a university president will visit
Boston College to meet with key
administrators to review the final
report.
The NCAA’s certification decision will be issued in early 2009,
Newton said.
Correction and Clarification on
BC-Weston Jesuit Reaffiliation
An article in the Sept. 7 Chronicle concerning the University’s acquisition of property from the Archdiocese of Boston
included news of a proposed reaffiliation between Boston College and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology.
The following paragraphs are intended to correct details
concerning the proposal that were incorrectly presented in
the article:
The proposed Boston College School of Theology and
Ministry, which would be the result of the reaffiliation of
the Weston Jesuit School of Theology and Boston College
— a move that has yet to be finalized — would be located
in Bishop Peterson Hall, which contains classroom, academic
and office facilities.
The School of Theology and Ministry also would comprise
the Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry
and the on-line programs of the Church in the 21st Century initiative. The BC Theology Department, however, is not
part of the re-affiliation and will remain part of the College
of Arts and Sciences in its present location in 21 Campanella
Way. The Weston Jesuit School’s 60,000-volume collection of
books, periodicals, documents and other materials will be
located in the former St. John’s Seminary Library. Students
from BC, as well as STM and St. John’s Seminary, will have
access to the library, although St. John’s and Weston Jesuit
will retain ownership of their collections.
BC’s theology holdings, however, will remain at O’Neill
Library.
Plans also include the construction of housing for the Jesuit formation community on the newly acquired real estate
located on Foster Street.
Chronicle regrets any inconvenience that may have resulted
from the article.
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
september 20, 2007
Speaker’s Story Enthralls
Convocation Crowd
By Reid Oslin
Staff Writer
“Never stop dreaming,” author
and network television personality Jeannette Walls urged Boston
College’s newest students at the
First Year Academic Convocation
last Thursday evening. “And,” she
added, “never stop loving.”
Walls, whose own life story of
conquering homelessness, family
dysfunction and poverty was detailed in her best-selling memoir
The Glass Castle, was the keynote speaker at the fourth annual
student convocation that drew
more than 2,000 members of the
University’s Class of 2011 and an
equal number of transfer students,
upperclassmen, faculty, administrators, parents and alumni.
“Each of you is here because
you have a dream,” Walls told the
audience. “Boston College is asking a lot of you: It is expecting you
to include others in your dreams.
“What matters is that you have
a dream. But dreams alone are
not enough. There is a lot of hard
work ahead of you.”
In addition to Walls’ keynote
address, the First Year event included a barbecue for the new
students on the Campus Green,
followed by the “First Flight” academic procession from Linden
Lane to Conte Forum.
As each group departed on the
procession they were addressed
by various Jesuit priests and University administrators, welcoming them to “the next stage of
your journey” and urging them
to continue the spirit of Jesuit
education. Each group received a
lighted torch and the words of St.
Ignatius Loyola, “Go set the world
aflame.”
More than 100 alumni – including many members of the
50th anniversary class of 1958
– joined in the procession and
convocation to welcome the newest Eagles.
“It is important for all students
to understand that the Alumni
Association is going to be there to
support them for the rest of their
lives,” said Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations John
Feudo. “They are now members
of the Boston College family and
that will never end.”
Last week’s convocation offered
a challenge as well as a welcome to
the new students. First Year Experience Director Rev. Joseph Marchese told the students, “This is a
very pivotal moment in your lives
– the transition from a structured
home and high school to the less
structured life of undergraduate
life as a student.
“During orientation, one of
our goals was to help you discover
a home here at Boston College,”
he said, “as a place to explore your
intellectual gifts.
“I hope that Boston College
is also a place that will help you
develop as a human being.”
Walls drew the title of her
book from her alcoholic father’s
constant promise to build a “glass
castle” for the often-homeless
family to live in one day. “Some
may have seen it as a drunken
promise,” she said, “or see it as I
choose to – as a dream of hope for
the future.”
Walls, who eventually earned a
degree from Columbia University
and went on to become an entertainment reporter for MSNBCTV, said she hid her hardscrabble
background for many years. “If
even one rich kid, one child who
Former Israeli Ambassador to
Speak on Middle East Oct. 2
Former Israeli Ambassador to
the United States Itamar Rabinovich will present his views on
the current, and future, Middle
East situation on Oct. 2, at 4:30
p.m. in McGuinn Auditorium.
His talk, “The US, Israel and
Syria: On the Path to Settlement or to a New Conflict?,” is
sponsored by the Office of the
Provost and the Middle Eastern
and Islamic Studies Program.
Rabinovich, who holds the
Ettinger Chair of Contemporary
Middle Eastern History of Tel
Aviv University, served as Israel’s
Ambassador to the United States
and as his country’s chief negotiator with Syria from 1992-96
— a period marked by the historic 1993 accord between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
and Palestinian Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat,
and Rabin’s assassination two
years later.
A member of the Tel Aviv
faculty since 1971, Rabinovich
recently completed an eight-year
Itamar Rabinovich
term as university president. He
has been chairman of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies,
director of the Dayan Center
for Middle Eastern and African
Studies, dean of humanities and
rector.
Rabinovich is the author
of numerous books and other
academic works, among them
The Brink of Peace and Waging
Peace.
—Office of Public Affairs
A group of students prepare to embark on the “First Flight” procession to Conte
Forum as part of the Sept. 13 First Year Academic Convocation.
grew up not knowing what it
was like in life to do without, if
one child who doesn’t understand
what it is like to be poor reads
this book and understands, then
whatever embarrassment and humiliation that I had to go through
was worth it.”
Interviewed after her speech,
which drew a thunderous standing ovation from the audience,
Walls said she was honored to
share her story and perspective
with the newest members of the
University community. “Nothing
means more to me than to have
these kids read the book and then
have them ask the intelligent questions that they were asking.
“It shows that they are thinking about these things,” she said.
“It blows your mind that you
can make them think outside of
their immediate sphere and understand what other people are
going through.”
Freshman Branden Getchell
of Sherborn, Mass., said he was
moved by Walls’ presentation. “I
have had some problems in my
Photos by Frank Curran
life too,” he said, “so it was good
to hear how she overcame what
she had to go through. As she was
speaking, I was thinking about
my own life and how it has come
together. It was really cool.”
On Friday, Walls visited the
Bookstore to sign copies of her
book and also spoke to four classes
during the day [see page 2].
(Right) Jeannette Walls during her
keynote speech, which drew applause and praise from students and
others in the audience.
Pops on the Heights to Mark 15th Year
The 15th anniversary of the Pops
on the Heights Scholarship Gala
will be among the highlights of this
year’s Parents’ Weekend at Boston
College during Sept. 28-30.
During the weekend, family
members also can learn about BC’s
volunteer opportunities and use
of technology for education, and
hear University President William
P. Leahy, SJ, offer his perspective
on BC.
During its 15 years, Pops on the
Heights — established by University Trustee Associate James F. Cleary
’50 — has awarded 522 scholarship
grants to 251 students. Organizers say the event has already raised
more than $1.9 million this year.
The concert, which takes place
Friday night, Sept. 28, in Conte
Forum, will once again feature John
Williams, Boston Pops Laureate
Conductor and winner of multiple
Grammy and Academy awards,
leading the Boston Pops Orchestra
before an expected sell-out crowd of
parents, students, alumni, faculty,
staff and friends of the BC community. A variety of student musical
groups will entertain concert-goers
before the show and the University
Chorale will join the Pops on stage.
Parents’ Weekend will officially
kick off earlier in the day in the
Robsham Theater lobby where
University administrators will greet
arriving parents and families at a
welcome reception beginning at
noon. Parents have the option of
attending classes with their children
on Friday as well.
Formal presentations for families
will be held in Robsham Theater
beginning at 12:30 p.m. with a discussion of “Spirituality and Social
Justice: Twin Aspects of Volunteerism at BC” by Campus Minister Catherine Brunell and Michael
Sacco, associate director of the University’s Intersections Project.
The creative integration of technology in the classroom will be the
topic of a 1:30 p.m. presentation by
Associate Academic Vice President
for Technology Rita Owens and
Environmental Studies Program
Director Eric Strauss titled “From
Blackboard to Blackberry.”
Concluding the presentations
will be “At the Core of a Jesuit
Education” at 2:30 p.m., at which
a panel of faculty members will examine the how the University’s core
curriculum is integral to the nature
of a Jesuit education. Presenters will
be: Philosophy Department chairman Prof. Patrick Byrne; Connell
School of Nursing Associate Dean
Catherine Read; Prof. Margaret
Thomas (Slavic and Eastern Languages); and Assoc. Prof. James
Weiss (Theology), director of the
Capstone Program.
Fr. Leahy will address the parents and families at 4 p.m., also in
Robsham Theater.
Parents’ Weekend activities continue Saturday, Sept. 29, with a
tailgate lunch at the Flynn Recreation Complex followed by the
BC-UMass football game.
A family liturgy Sunday at 10
a.m. on O’Neill Plaza will finish
up Parents’ Weekend. The liturgy
will be followed by a continental
breakfast on Bapst Lawn. In the
event of inclement weather, all Sunday events will be held in Conte
Forum.
—Kathleen Sullivan
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
September 20, 2007
Humanities
Series at 50
THE DEAN’S LIST
By Rev. William Neenan, SJ
Linton Kwesi Johnson (left) and Robert Mankoff are among this fall’s
Lowell Lecture Humanities Series speakers.
This fall’s Lowell Lectures Humanities Series slate begins next
Wednesday, Sept. 26, at 7:30 p.m. with an appearance in Devlin
101 by Jamaican “dub poetry” pioneer Linton Kwesi Johnson — the
second living, and first black, poet to have his work published in the
Penguin Modern Classics series.
Other speakers this fall are: Robert Mankoff (Oct. 4), a popular
New Yorker cartoonist for three decades; Ralph James Savarese (Oct.
23), whose recent book describes the life of his autistic son, once
thought to be retarded and now an honor roll student; Charles M.
Payne Jr. (Nov. 1), a researcher and writer on urban education and
school reform, social change and modern African American history.
Also featured this semester are Martin Espada (Nov. 8), whose six
award-winning books of poetry draw mostly from his Puerto Rican
heritage and work experiences ranging from bouncer to tenant lawyer;
and David Reiff (Nov. 15), known for an non-ideological approach
to human affairs, such as post-Iraq humanitarian intervention — the
subject of his talk — and his aversion to easy solutions.
More information about Humanities Series events is available at
www.bc.edu/offices/lowellhs/.
his legacy. “I’ve done pretty much
what he did. Maybe I’ve expanded
the scope in a few areas, but I
certainly had no wish to change
the underlying vision Fr. Sweeney
brought to the series.
“The idea, I think, has always
been to have people who will be
of interest beyond their disciplines,
who while they may be ‘celebrities’
are also likely to be of interest to an
undergraduate or graduate student.
We can’t neglect our educational
and formative responsibilities.”
...and Frost Says, ‘Well, What Do You Think It Means?’
A sampling of memories and
moments from the first 50
years of the Lowell Lectures
Humanities Series.
Rattigan Professor of English
Emeritus John Mahoney:
One of the traditions early on in
the series was that the English Department chairman would introduce
the speaker. Can you imagine being
an English professor and being able
to present Robert Lowell, Lillian
Hellmann and W.H. Auden? I had
that privilege.
One of my favorite Humanities
Series moments came when Robert Frost spoke, in the old Roberts
Center. As you can imagine, it was a
packed house. All the students who
were there tried to get him to explain
the more cryptic parts of his poems.
A young man stood up and
pressed Frost on a particular passage,
and Frost finally asked, “Well, what
do you think it means?”
The young man gave his theory,
and Frost nodded and said, “Hmm,
that sounds good. Yes, I think that is
what I meant. I’ll have to remember
to use that next time.”
Vice President and Assistant to the
President William Neenan, SJ:
About 20 years ago, Calvin Trillin came to speak at the Humanities Series, and there was a huge
blizzard that day which closed the
airport. He had to take a train up,
and John Connelly, the husband of
my assistant Mary Lou Connelly,
picked him up out on Route 128
and brought him to campus.
When we brought him to St. Ignatius Church, where he was speaking, we found that — despite the
weather — 50 people had showed
up. Some of them had come on
skis.
Prof. Elizabeth Graver (English):
The writer and activist Grace
Paley died this August, just before
our semester started. How to describe her visit to Boston College on
March 11, 1999?
I remember she drove down from
Vermont in a beat-up car filled with
her grandson’s toys and piles of her
own mail. When a group of us gathered for an afternoon colloquium, she
said her feet hurt, asked two students
to help pull her boots off, then sat on
the floor sock-footed, talking to the
students, talking with them, direct
and funny, strong-minded, quick
and kind, and as present as you can
imagine another person being.
Her work was brilliant and hilarious, sad and full of surprises. Subversive. Hopeful. “There is a long
time in me,” she once said, “between
the knowing and the telling.” That
night in March, the podium was too
tall for her. She and Paul Doherty
laughed and fiddled and figured it
out. She read, talked, read; we listened, rapt. When I dropped her off
at her hotel, she gave me a brief bear
hug, fierce and close. Would that we
could have her back.
Assoc. Prof. Paul Doherty (English), series director since 1998:
Once in a while there is a speaker in the series who the students
know about and feel strongly about
from their own life experience, not
necessarily from academic life.
Dave Eggers’ visit was particularly
noteworthy. As the end of his reading, seated behind a table in the Gasson rotunda, he began signing copies
of his book, A Heartbreaking Work
of Staggering Genius. A long line
formed, snaking around the statue
of St. Michael crushing the Serpent.
Eggers treated each person who came
before him as a long lost friend; each
conversation lasted several minutes.
At one point I broke in, to remind Eggers that dinner was waiting
in the Admissions conference room,
and to hand him a check for his
reading.
Eggers stopped signing, stood up,
and asked, “Any one of you folks
planning to become a teacher?”
A voice from the back of the line,
“I am.” I recognized the voice: a
student in my Narrative and Interpretation class.
“Come up here,” said Eggers.
The student came forward, and
Eggers endorsed the check and
handed it over to him. “I want you
to have this,” Eggers said for all to
hear. “You will do good work and
you will be underpaid for it for the
rest of your life.” Then he went back
to signing.
The next day in class, my student
could not believe what had happened. I think he was only convinced
when the check went through. And
he did pursue his goal of becoming a teacher. After graduating from
BC he entered graduate school and
the Harvard University School of
Education.
“What’s it all about, Alfie?”
Dionne Warwick posed this question to Alfie and the rest of us
in the 1960s. Well, Alfie, this
year’s Dean’s List has five new
entries that might help you and
the rest of us answer that question:
“What indeed is it all about?”
Novelists create characters
whose experiences often serve to
illuminate the human condition.
Two novels new to the Dean’s
List this year offer a prism through
which to view the emigrant experience which often begins with
a wrenching departure from the
“old country” followed a generation or two later by challenges
facing grandchildren in a contemporary America.
Paul Behrens’ The Law of
Dreams traces the life of young
Fergus as he flees famine in 1846
County Clare on through violence in Liverpool, heartbreak in
Montreal until he arrives with a
modicum of hope on the road to
Biddeford, Maine. All this occurs
a mere 20 years before Boston
College was founded with the intent to educate young men such as
Fergus. This story is gripping, the
traditional “good read.”
Alice McDermott’s reputation
rests on her masterful depiction of
the life struggles of those grandchildren of immigration. In After This, physical hunger is not
the threat facing the Long Island
Keane family in the 1960s. This
is the era of Alfie, the age of another kind of hunger—manifested
in intergenerational conflicts and
challenges to the traditional family faith that so often characterized
the ’60s and subsequent decades.
If, as has been remarked, philosophy is a series of footnotes
to Plato, it may also be said that
all economics is an elaboration
of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of
Nations. Two of Smith’s central
concepts are economies of scale
and the famous “invisible hand”
which guides free markets. In a
brilliant work of exposition, David Warsh’s Knowledge and the
Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery shows how economists for over two centuries have
employed these two concepts in
attempting to make sense out of
the complexities of economic life.
Warsh’s book is an intellectual
history of the highest quality.
Human life is bordered by
mortality. We all have various
strategies to deal with our own
mortality or the mortality of those
we love. Brian Doyle’s The Wet
Engine is his beautifully poetic
reflection on his son’s mortality
made excruciatingly evident by
his little heart having only three
not the usual four chambers when
he came from the hand of God.
Now nine years old, Liam, after
numerous surgeries and abundant
love, faces a bright future. Brian
Doyle reminds us again how precious, because so tenuous, this
human life of ours should be.
The basic unit in society is the
family. We all come from one and
Lee Pellegrini
Continued from page 1
Catholic university. It is a credit
to him and Paul Doherty that the
Humanities Series has grown right
along with BC.”
Colleagues say Doherty has
more than done the job of keeping
the Humanities Series relevant and
interesting. “Fr. Sweeney saw the
series as very literary in nature, and
he went for ‘big names,’ like Frost,
Eliot, W.H. Auden and so on,”
says Mahoney. “But consider how
different the landscape is nowadays,
how fields like poetry have changed
— really, is there anybody who
has the same presence as a Frost
or Eliot?
“You look at the speakers Paul
invites — Naomi Klein, Sharon
Olds, Grace Paley, Andrew Delbanco — and you can see that
he has enlarged the conversation
beyond traditional ideas of what
constitutes ‘literary.’ He has widened the scope yet at the same time
without losing the intensity.”
Mahoney adds that Doherty
usually arranges a workshop-like
session earlier in the day for students to meet with the Humanities
Series speaker appearing that night.
Reflecting on his tenure as series
director, Doherty expresses gratitude toward the administration
for its longstanding support, and
respect toward Fr. Sweeney and
perhaps have wondered from time
to time what other families are really like from the inside. Probably
we can never know for sure. Tim
Russert’s Wisdom of Our Fathers
may help us peer into other families’ inner sanctum as clearly as we
ever will be able. This collection
of brief memories — some serious, others humorous but always
touching — from daughters and
sons needs to be read in snatches.
There is no beginning or ending.
They are simply heartfelt feelings
that may assist Alfie in answering
that question — this may be what
it is all about.
The 2007 Dean’s List (boldface indicates new addition)
James Agee, A Death in the Family
Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim
Peter Behrens, The Law of
Dreams
George Bernanos, Diary of a Country
Priest
Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons
Albert Camus, The Fall
Brian Doyle, The Wet Engine
Joseph Ellis, His Excellency: George
Washington
Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Graham Greene, The Power and the
Glory
Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life
David McCullough, Truman
Alice McDermott, After This
Alice McDermott, Child of My Heart
Charles Morris, American Catholic:
The Saints and Sinners Who Built
America’s Most Powerful Church
Henri Nouwen, The Return of the
Prodigal Son
John O’Malley, SJ, The First Jesuits
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
Tim Russert, Wisdom of Our Fathers
Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels
Wallace Stegner, Collected Short
Stories
Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s
Men
David Warsh, Knowledge and
the Wealth of Nations
Garry Wills, Saint Augustine
Simon Winchester, River at the Center of the World
Jay Winik, April 1865, The Month
that Saved America
—Fr. Neenan is vice president
and special assistant to the president.
He has issued his Dean’s List of recommended reading annually since
he was dean of the College of Arts
and Sciences in the early 1980s.
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
september 20, 2007
Postings
“Thin” screening and discussion
on Sept. 25
The award-winning “Thin,” a documentary by Lauren Greenfield that
follows several women with eating
disorders through their stay at a
treatment center, will be shown on
Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 7:30 p.m.
The screening, which will be followed by a panel discussion, is
sponsored by the Connell School of
Nursing and the Graduate Nursing
Association.
For more information, call ext.22758 or e-mail adrian.smith.1@
bc.edu.
Irish Studies to host
novelist Enright
The Irish Studies Program will
sponsor a talk on Sept. 26 by Anne
Enright, whose novel The Gathering was recently shortlisted for this
year’s Man Booker Prize. Enright
also has published The Pleasures of
Eliza Lynch, What are You Like? and
The Portable Virgin (Rooney Prize for
Irish Literature), and her writing has
appeared in The New Yorker, The
Paris Review, Granta and The London
Review of Books.
The lecture will take place at 7:30
p.m. in Higgins 300.
For more information, see www.
bc.edu/centers/irish/studies/writers.
html, call ext.2-3938 or e-mail irish@
bc.edu.
TIAA-CREF offers retirement
plan counseling
Representatives from TIAA-CREF
will be on campus this fall to offer
one-on-one counseling sessions for
participants in the 401(k) and 403(b)
retirement plans. Meetings are
available this month for Sept. 26 and
27 and are held in rooms near the
Benefits Office in More Hall.
To make an appointment, see www.
tiaa-cref.org/moc or call Pearl Ajayi
at 1-800-842-2004.
Oct. 3 concert features
koto music
A concert of song and music spotlighting the Japanese instrument the
koto will be presented on Oct. 3 at
4:15 p.m. in Gasson 100.
The performers are Miho Sato, soprano; Gary Tucker, baritone; Sumie
Kaneko, koto and Linda Papatopoli,
piano.
For information, see www.bc.edu/
music, call ext.2-6004 or e-mail concerts@bc.edu.
BC’s Makransky discusses
his new book
Assoc. Prof. John Makransky (Theology) will speak about his new book,
Awakening Through Love: Unveiling
Your Deepest Goodness, on Wednesday, Oct. 3, from 7-9 p.m. in Merkert
127.
In the book, Makransky — who is a
Buddhist lama — discusses universal elements in Buddhist ideas and
practices, and how these relate to
traditions of other religions.
Makransky will be joined by Seelig
Professor of Philosophy Richard
Kearney and Prof. Fr. Michael Himes
(Theology).
For information, call ext.2-3752 or
e-mail mcdargh@bc.edu.
Alumni Achievement Awards
Joseph Corcoran to Receive McKenney Honor
Boston real estate developer
Joseph E. Corcoran ’59, a trustee
of Boston College from 19982006 and a long-time and generous supporter of the University,
will receive the 2007 Joseph V.
McKenney Award next week as
the graduate who has made outstanding contributions to service,
industry and BC during his lifetime.
The McKenney Award, the
highest honor bestowed by the
Boston College Alumni Association, will be presented to Corcoran at the Association’s annual
Awards of Excellence event to
be held in Robsham Theater on
Thursday, Sept. 27, starting at 7
p.m.
Corcoran will be among 10
distinguished alumni who will be
honored in recognition of their
excellence in various professional
and academic disciplines.
Corcoran is chairman of the
privately held real estate development firm Corcoran Jennison
Companies, which has developed
a wide array of residential apartment communities, commercial and recreational real estate,
Alumni Achievement Award winners this year include Joseph Corcoran ’59
(left), who will receive the Joseph V. McKenney Award, and Wayne Budd ’63.
schools, health facilities, condominiums, hotels, resorts, conference centers and golf courses in
Greater Boston and beyond.
During his eight years as a University trustee, Corcoran served on
the Building and Properties Committee and the Executive Committee. He is a former president
of the Boston College Real Estate
and Finance Counsel.
Saya April Hillman, a 2000
graduate, will receive the Young
Alumni Award that evening in
recognition of her work as a documentary filmmaker who also
teaches media to at-risk youth in
her native Chicago. As an editor at
her own digital editing business,
Mac ’n Cheese Productions, she
has won awards at film festivals
from Illinois to India for her outstanding and creative documentary projects.
Other alumni to be honored at
the event are:
•Henrik Syse, MA ’91, head
of corporate governance, Norges
Bank Investment Management
(Arts and Humanities);
•G. Craig Sullivan ’64, retired
chairman and CEO, The Clorox
Company (Commerce);
•James E. Cotter ’59, retired
teacher, counselor and coach at
Boston College High School (Education);
•Assoc. Prof. Rosanna DeMarco (CSON), MS ’76 (Health);
•Wayne A. Budd, Esq. ’63,
senior counsel, Goodwin Procter
LLP (Law);
•Daniel J. Hennessy ’79,
founder and partner, Code Hennessy & Simmons, LLC (Public
Service);
•Rev. William C. Burckhart
’49, retired priest, St. Joseph’s Parish, Belmont, Mass. (Religion);
•John W. Kozarich ’71, chairman and president, ActivX Biosciences, Inc. (Science).
The Alumni Awards event is
open to the University community. Call ext. 2-4700 or e-mail
alumni.comments@bc.edu for additional details and admission.
­­—Reid Oslin
New Series to Focus on African-Irish Connections
This Monday sees the start of a
new interdisciplinary lecture series
at Boston College that examines
the complex intersections between
peoples of African and of Irish
descent.
“Atlantic Worlds in Black and
White,” sponsored by the Irish
Studies and the African and African Diaspora Studies programs,
features six lectures during the
2007-08 academic year, beginning
with a Sept. 24 talk by activist,
author and former California legislator Tom Hayden, who will present “Irish Memory and Modern
Multiculturalism.”
All series events will be held at 4
p.m. in Connolly House.
Organizers of the series note
that for all their differences, the
two peoples’ cultures and history
have been markedly defined by mi-
gration, both voluntary and forced.
Their interactions throughout the
Atlantic world over time have
strongly influenced cultural forms,
political structures, intellectual traditions, social histories and urban
environments.
Other events in the lecture series are:
Oct. 15, “Black Irish, Irish
Whiteness and Atlantic State Formation,” with David Lloyd, a professor of English at the University
of Southern California specializing
in Irish literature and culture and
in cultural and aesthetic theory.
Nov. 12, “Remembering Slavery in the Postcolonial State: Frederick Douglass and Ireland,” with
Fionnghuala Sweeney, director of
Comparative American Studies at
the University of Liverpool Institute of Latin American Studies.
C21 Online Expands Offerings
Church in the 21st Century Online, or C21 Online, has introduced
an expanded program for the 200708 academic year. C21 Online offers non-credit courses for spiritual
renewal and ongoing formation in
collaboration with the Boston College Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry.
C21 Online’s first program of
the fall, “Spirituality Matters,” featuring video with Prof. Fr. Michael
Himes (Theology), began Monday
and continues until Oct. 12.
Beginning Oct. 1: “Encountering Mark, Matthew, and Luke: The
Synoptic Gospels” (six weeks) and a
two-week course on “The Gospel of
Matthew,” featuring articles by Fr.
Himes and Adj. Assoc. Prof. Philip
Cunningham (Theology).
From Oct. 22-Nov. 16: “Christian Faith and Moral Character,”
featuring text by Assoc Prof. Fr.
Ken Himes, OFM (Theology);
“The Creed: What We Believe,”
featuring video with Fr. Himes; and
“What Makes Us Catholic, Part 1,”
featuring video with IREPM Director Prof. Thomas Groome (Theology).
C21 also offers two ongoing selfguided, safe-paced, free mini-courses, “The Birth of Jesus: Two Gospel
Accounts” and “The Death of Jesus:
Four Gospel Accounts.”
For course descriptions, registration, and more information,
see www.bc.edu/c21online, e-mail
c21online@bc.edu or call ext.28057.
Her research focuses on the literary exchanges and interactions
between the United States, the Caribbean and Ireland.
Feb. 4, “Race and Rights: The
View from Irish-America, at the
Turn of the 20th Century and the
Turn of the 21st,” with Matthew
Frye Jacobson, associate professor
of American Studies and history at
Yale University, whose interests include race in US political culture.
Feb. 25, “The United Irishmen
and the Fight to End Slavery,” with
University of California-Santa Cruz
Associate Professor of Community
Studies David Brundage, author of
Who Built America: Working People
and the Nations Economy, Politics,
Culture, and Society.
April 14, “Irish America and
the Abolitionist Movement,” with
Maurice Bric, who teaches Irish
and American history at University
College, Dublin.
Emergency Preparedness
Continued from page 1
event of a campus emergency.”
Keating, who has led BC’s emergency preparedness efforts for
the past few years, stressed that these emergency response efforts will
supplement longstanding University policies and practices with the
goal of promoting campus-wide safety.
“At the recommendation of our security consultants, our Emergency Response Team continues to meet regularly to assess risks,
conduct training exercises and to prepare ourselves for any unforeseen circumstances,” said Keating. “This team, coupled with BC’s
53 highly trained, professional police officers, nearly all of whom
have completed crisis intervention and Homeland Security training
and annual hazardous materials and firearms training, will help us
to respond to any emergency situation we may face. My hope is we
will never have to activate our Emergency Response Team, but if
we do, we have well trained professionals who are ready to respond
as needed.”
In addition to the emergency preparedness effort, Keating is also
overseeing a Business Continuity Team that would be responsible
for restoring University operations in the event of a natural disaster
such as a fire, earthquake or hurricane. His team has worked with
academic and administrative departments across campus to create
contingency plans that would enable Boston College to remain
functioning in the aftermath of a major disturbance.
“Our goal would be to restore operations at Boston College as
quickly as possible,” said Keating. “The planning efforts that we
are undertaking now will go a long way in helping us to meet that
challenge.”
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
September 20, 2007
PEOPLE
•Asst. Prof. Jonathan Laurence
(Political Science) was interviewed on NPR’s “Day to Day”
about terrorism-related arrests in
Germany.
•Adj. Assoc. Prof. Michael Keith
(Communication) was quoted in
The Boston Globe on the subject of
rogue radio stations in the area.
•Deribasovskaia-Rishilevskaia, a
quarterly based in Odessa, Russia, interviewed Prof. Maxim D.
Shrayer (Slavic and Eastern Languages) on his Anthology of JewishRussian Literature.
•Clough Millennium Professor
James O’Toole was quoted by
the Los Angeles Times regarding
the history of the sacrament of
Reconciliation in America.
•Assoc. Prof. Joseph Pedulla
(LSOE) discussed standardized
testing and scoring with the New
York Daily News.
•Prof. Paul Lewis (English) reviewed It’s Good to Be the King:
The Seriously Funny Life of Mel
Brooks, by James Robert Parish,
in the monthly book section of
Haaretz.
•Science Daily reported on re-
search by Asst. Prof. Elizabeth
Kensinger (Psychology) and colleagues that shows that experiences associated with negative
emotions are more likely to be accurately remembered than those
associated with positive ones. Publications
•Trans World Radio in London
interviewed Prof. Dayton Haskin
(English) on the recent publication of his book John Donne in the
Nineteenth Century.
•Prof. Jorge Garcia (Philosophy)
recently published the following:
“Being Unimpressed with Ourselves: Reconceiving Humility,”
Philosophia (Israel); “Health versus
Harm: Euthanasia and Physicians’
Duties,” Journal of Medicine & Philosophy; “The Doubling Undone?
Double Effect in Recent Medical
Ethics,” Philosophical Papers (South
Africa).
•Prof. Ellen Winner (Psychology) — whose recent co-authored
book Studio Thinking: The Real
Benefits of Visual Arts Education
was featured in the New York
Times — co-wrote an article for
the Boston Globe “Ideas” section
on the issue of teaching art in
school. She also was quoted in
an article on gifted children that
appeared in the Globe and Mail
of Toronto, and was filmed by
Ivanhoe.com films for a TV show
on artistic prodigies.
•Adj. Prof. Thomas Maffei (Law)
was quoted by Mass. Lawyers
Weekly about the penalties for
professional misconduct.
•Prof. Mary Cronin (CSOM) was
interviewed by Newsday regarding
e-commerce for small businessness.
Freshman Student Clark Dies
Boston College freshman Benjamin Clark of Simsbury,
Conn., died at his family’s summer home on Cape Cod on
Sept. 9.
A funeral service was held last week in Simsbury for Mr.
Clark, who was the son of Stephen and Elizabeth Clark. He
was recalled as an avid skier, snowboarder and surfer.
Condolences may be sent to:
Stephen & Elizabeth Clark
58 Musket Trail
Simsbury, CT 06070
—Office of Public Affairs
ecutive Director Brad Harrington
has been named to the advisory
board of the IESE International
Centre on Work and Family at
the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain. •Prof. Maxim D. Shrayer (Slavic
and Eastern Languages) edited, and
contributed an afterword to, Vodka
and Cakes, a selected volume of literary memoirs by his father, David
Shrayer-Petrov.
•Assoc. Prof. Lisa Goodman
(LSOE) was recently recognized
by two divisions of the American
Psychological Association for her
outstanding teaching. She received
the 2007 Award for Outstanding
Graduate Teaching and Mentoring
from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the
Bonnie Strickland-Jessica Henderson Daniel Distinguished Mentoring Award from the Society for the
Psychology of Women.
•Prof. Donald J. Dietrich (Theology) has published Human Rights
and the Catholic Tradition. Time and a Half
•Center for Work & Family Executive Director Brad Harrington was a keynote speaker
at the Fourth Forum on Family-Responsible Companies, and
participated in the Second International Conference of Work and
Family. •The article “Judgments of Emotion from Spontaneous Facial Expressions of New Guineans,” by
Prof. James Russell (Psychology)
and graduate student Pam Naab,
has been accepted for publication
in Emotion.
•Prof. Jorge Garcia (Philosophy)
spoke at the Study Section on
Ethical, Legal and Social Implica-
Honors/Appointments
•Center for Work & Family Ex-
A First: Blair Earns
Honor for Second Time
Sheila Blair, who is Norma
Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art, recently earned her second BritishKuwait Friendship Society/British
Society of Middle Eastern Studies
Prize, the first person to have that
honor.
The award, which is given for
the best book on Middle Eastern
Studies published in the United
Kingdom, was presented to Blair
for her book Islamic Calligraphy,
published in 2006 by Edinburgh
University Press. Her 1998 book,
Islamic Inscriptions, was awarded
the prize in 1999.
AWARD WINNER – John Prinzivalli ’08, an economics major from Hadley, Mass., won the Center for Retirement Research’s first annual Award for Excellence in Retirement Research. Center Director Alicia Munnell
(at left in photo) said, “John’s diligent efforts have gone above and beyond the usual role of an undergraduate
research assistant. His contributions to creating a valuable new dataset of public pension plan information
have been critical to our progress on this important project.”
Lee Pellegrini
Newsmakers
tions in Washington, DC, and
participated in the study section’s
meeting. He also was a faculty
member and presenter at the Rutgers Summer Institute for Diversity in Philosophy, and presented
the talk “Racism as Vice” to the
Yale University Philosophy Department.
•Assoc. Prof. Robert Kern (English)
presented “Emily Dickinson, Alberto Manguel, and the Ecopoet’s Dilemma” at the biennial conference
of the Association for the Study
of Literature and Environment at
Wofford College in Spartanburg,
SC. Former and current BC graduate students who presented at the
conference included Alison Van
Vort, Helena Feder, Erin Cory, Jeffrey Myers and Christina Healey.
•Prof. Peter Clote (Biology) presented the following: tutorials
on RNA biology, structure and
algorithms, at Institute of Mathematical Sciences, National University of Singapore; “Structural
Bioinformatics: Recent tools for
protein and RNA” at the Vingron Group, Max Planck Institute
for Molecular Genetics; “RNA:
Asymptotics of minimum free
energy and number of shapes,”
Department of Mathematics of
Ludwig-Maximilians Universitaet
Muenchen; “Structural Bioinformatics: and “Recent tools for protein and RNA,” Lehrstuhl fuer
Genomorientierte Bioinformatik
of the Technische Universitaet
Muenchen.
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/
Sheila Blair
She jointly holds the Calderwood professorship at Boston
College with her husband, Jonathan Bloom. They are two of
the world’s leading historians of
Islamic art.
Several of her books were written with Bloom, with whom she
served as artistic consultant to the
documentary “Islam: Empire of
Faith,” shown nationally on PBS.
Last year, Blair and Bloom cocurated the critically acclaimed
exhibition “Cosmophilia: Islamic
Art from the David Collection,
Copenhagen,” at BC’s McMullen
Museum of Art. “Cosmophilia”
(literally “love of ornament”) explored, for the first time, the roles
that decoration plays in the visual arts of Islam. It comprised
over 100 of the finest examples
of Islamic art, most of which had
never before been displayed in the
United States.
—Rosanne Pellegrini
Compensation Analyst or Senior
Compensation Analyst, Human
Resources
Administrative Assistant, Leadership Gifts, Parents’ Fundraising,
Development Office
Assistant/Associate Director, Annual Giving, Special Gifts, Development Office
Third Cook, Dining Services
(McElroy)
Educational Technology Specialist/ Legal Information Librarian
and Lecturer in Law, Law Library
Technology Consultant
Data Manager/Analyst, Lynch
School of Education
Administrative Officer, Lynch
School of Education
Administrative Assistant, Law
School - Alumni and Development
Database Specialist, Carroll
School of Management, Center
for Corporate Citizenship
Academic Counselor, Learning
Resources for Student Athletes
T he B oston C ollege
Chronicle
september 20, 2007
LOOKING AHEAD
READINGS • LECTURES •
DISCUSSION
September 20
•Workshop: “The Priest as Collaborative Minister,” 5-8 p.m., Gasson 100. Call ext.2-8057, e-mail
lambmb@bc.edu, or see www.
bc.edu/irepmce.
September 24
•Carnegie Lecture with Kris Gutierrez, UCLA, 4:30 p.m., Robsham
Theater. E-mail greenfre@bc.edu.
•“Lectura Dantis: Purgatorio
XXII,” public reading series of
Dante’s Divine Comedy, 7:30
p.m., Devlin 101. Call ext.2-8269,
e-mail shephardl@bc.edu, or see
www.bc.edu/schools/cas/honors/
bcdante.html.
September 27
•Constitution Day Lecture: “The
Constitution as an Institution,”
with Hugh Heclo, George Mason
University, 7:30 p.m., McGuinn
121.
October 3
•“Geophysical Prospecting for the
Great City Shang: The Making
of a B Movie,” with David Cist,
Geophysical Survey Systems Inc.,
7 p.m., Weston Observatory, 381
Concord Road, Weston, Mass.
Call ext.2-8300 or e-mail weston.
observatory@bc.edu.
MUSIC • ART • PERFORMANCE
September 20
•Jim Malcolm (guitar, vocals) performs Scottish folk music, 7 p.m.,
Connolly House. Call ext.2-3938,
e-mail irish@bc.edu or see www.
bc.edu/irish.
•Triton Brass Quintet, 8 p.m.,
Gasson 100. Call ext. 2-8720 or email patricia.longbottom@bc.edu.
September 25
•Master class with singer-songwriter Craig Finn ’93, 7:30 p.m., Lyons Dining Hall. Call ext.2-6343,
e-mail soyerd@bc.edu.
September 26
•Film and panel discussion: “Thin,”
Robsham Fall Season
Kicks Off Oct. 10
The “Pollock Matters” exhibition continues at the McMullen Museum.
by Lauren Greenfield, 7:30 p.m.,
Cushing 001. Call ext.2-2758 or
e-mail adrian.smith.1@bc.edu.
•Performance by BC bOp!, 5:30
p.m., Corcoran Commons. Call
ext.2-6004, e-mail
concerts@
bc.edu or see www.bc.edu/music.
ATHLETICS
September 21
•Women’s soccer: BC vs. Northeastern, 3 p.m., Newton Campus.
September 22
•Football: BC vs. Army, 1 p.m.,
Alumni Stadium.
September 26
•Men’s soccer: BC vs. Yale,
4 p.m., Newton Campus.
September 27
•Women’s volleyball: BC vs. NC
State, 7 p.m., Conte Forum.
September 28
•Field hockey: BC vs. Duke,
7 p.m., Newton Campus.
September 29
•Football: BC vs. UMass, 1 p.m.,
Alumni Stadium.
ONGOING EXHIBITIONS
•“Somewhere A Voice is Calling:
American Irish Musical Interpreters, 1850 - 1975,” O’Neill Library
Lobby, through Oct. 26. E-mail
sweeneec@bc.edu.
•“Pollock Matters,” McMullen
Museum of Art, through Dec. 9.
Call ext.2-8100, e-mail artmusm@
bc.edu or see www.bc.edu/artmuseum.
WEEKLY MASSES
•St. Joseph Chapel (Gonzaga Hall
- Upper Campus) 5 p.m. and 9
p.m.; Trinity Chapel (Newton
Campus) 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., St.
Ignatius Church, Lannon Chapel
- Lower Church, 9 p.m., Heights
Room, 10:15 p.m., St. Mary’s
Chapel (Spanish Mass) 7:30 p.m.
For more on BC campus events,
see events.bc.edu or check BCInfo
[www.bc.edu/bcinfo] for updates.
BC SCENES
SUN TIME, FUN TIME
Lee Pellegrini
No one had to butter up these students to attend the “Welcome Freshmen” Lobster Bake on Sept. 7 at Newton Campus.
The 2007-08 Robsham Theater Arts Center fall season opens on
Wednesday, Oct. 10, with “Metamorphoses,” a play by Mary Zimmerman based on David R. Slavitt’s translation of The Metamorphoses of Ovid.
Directed by Adj. Assoc. Prof. Luke Jorgensen (Theater), the joint
Robsham-Theater Department production brings Ovid’s tales to stunning
visual life, juxtaposing the ancient and the contemporary in both language
and image to reflect the variety and persistence of love in the face of inevitable change. “Metamorphoses” runs through Oct. 14.
Robsham and the Theater Department also collaborate later in the semester for a production of “Stage Door” (Nov. 15-18). Directed by Assoc.
Prof. John Houchin (Theater), the comedy by Edna Ferber and George
S. Kaufman focuses on a group of young girls at a boarding house in New
York, where they have come to study acting and find jobs.
Robsham’s Bonn Studio also will be the venue for some fall productions.
First is the BC Dramatics Society production of “Stop Kiss” (Oct. 25-27),
about the ways that lives can change irrevocably. It will be directed by parttime faculty member Theresa Lang (Theater).
From Oct. 31-Nov. 2, the Bonn will feature a staging of “A New
Brain,” by the Contemporary Theater of Boston College. The play is William Finn’s autobiographical account of his battle with a seemingly terminal
illness, and finding comfort in the healing power of art. Finn wrote the music and lyrics, and co-wrote the book with James Lapine. It will be directed
by Ryan Aspell ’08.
Also at the Bonn Studio will be “Diverse Voices” (Nov. 27-28), the
Theater Department’s workshop production based on projects from a
performance class taught by guest lecturer Robbie McCauley. The awardwinning McCauley has been an active presence in American avant-garde
theater for more than three decades.
From Nov. 29 to Dec. 1, the Boston College Dance Ensemble will
present its fall show at Robsham, with all proceeds benefiting the Boston
College Campus School. [For more information on the ensemble, see www.
bc.edu/bc_org/svp/st_org/dance/]
Robsham’s fall season concludes in December with the seasonal favorite
“A Dancer’s Christmas,” appearing for the 27th year at Robsham (and
28th overall) with a series of performances Dec. 8-9 and 15-16. This retelling of the Christmas story features original choreography by Jesuit Artistin-Residence Robert VerEecke, SJ, and a company of professional dancers
accompanied by BC alumni and students.
Information on Robsham Theater events and tickets is available at www.
bc.edu/robshaminfo or ext. 2-4800.
—Rosanne Pellegrini
Steady Rocker Finn Comes to BC
Photo by Lee Pellegrini
How does it feel to be a rock’n interview with Chronicle he noted it
roll singer and composer whose also had a lot to do with his college
group has been compared
choice.
to Bruce Springsteen and
“I wanted to go to
the E Street Band?
a Catholic school, and
You can find out
BC appealed to me in
for yourself when 1993
its size and its locaalum Craig Finn comes
tion - I wanted to be
to campus this Tuesday,
near a city,” he says.
Sept. 25, for a “master
“I also liked the idea
class” with Prof. Carlo
that it had Division 1
Rotella (English). Finn, a
sports. I thought that
member of the band The
would add a lot of exHold Steady, will speak Craig Finn ’93
citement to day-to-day
informally with Rotella
life on campus, as a
about his life, career and music.
sports fan. I was right, and I’m very
Writing in the winter 2006 Bos- glad I made the decision to attend
ton College Magazine, Tim Hef- BC. I met a lot of smart people who
fernan described Finn’s work as encouraged me. My confidence as
“rock-and-roll dime novels of pain a person grew a lot at BC, and
and redemption at the junction confidence is a huge part of being
of suburbia and the demimonde.” an artist.”
He’s been reviewed favorably by
So what does he plan to do in the
such publications as The New York- master class? “Well, I hope I don’t
er and Village Voice.
have to critique anyone’s songs,”
Finn’s presence is certainly help- he quips. And if you expect to hear
ing The Hold Steady attract plenty about the glories of a rock’n roll
of attention. This year, the band lifestyle, you’ll probably be disapreleased several of their songs on pointed: “I think there are a lot
various soundtracks, notably that of myths and misunderstandings
of the film “The Nanny Diaries.” about a career as an artist. I hope
And for whatever weight one gives I can shed light on some of those
to celebrity endorsements, “Harry types of things.”
Potter” star Daniel Radcliffe has
The class is open to the public as
proclaimed them his favorite band. well as the Boston College commuFinn has spoken frequently nity, but those who plan to attend
about the Catholic influence in his should register here: omc.bc.edu/
songwriting, and in a recent e-mail masterclass.
—SS