OCTOBER 29, 2020 VOL. 28 NO. 5
PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON COLLEGE OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
New Campaign Will Support Financial Aid BY THE OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Show of Solidarity
photo by peter julian
The Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America partnered with Student Affairs to host “Solidarity for Racial Justice” on Tuesday, a campus-wide event that invited students, faculty, staff, and student organizations to walk on Main Campus in support of racial justice. For details on this and other Forum on Racial Justice events, see bc.edu/forum.
INSIDE 3 Coronavirus, schedule updates
The University announced student options for Thanksgiving and the rest of the fall semester, as well as schedule details for spring semester.
5 Vox populi
A BC junior organized a virtual “town hall” event in which opposing U.S. Senate candidates Edward Markey and Kevin O’Connor participated.
6 Burns Scholar in Irish Studies Éilís Ní Dhuibhne sees a great relevance in folklore as a means to study literature.
Boston College has launched a $125-million fundraising effort to bolster its commitment to need-blind admissions for undergraduates. The Be a Beacon Campaign for Financial Aid will run through May 31. “We believe that any student who has earned admission through our rigorous admission process should be able to accept the offer to become an Eagle—regardless of their family’s financial circumstances,” reads a statement on the campaign website [beabeacon.bc.edu]. The website noted that Boston College’s undergraduate financial aid budget for 2020-21 is $152 million, which represents a 43 percent increase over the past decade. In a letter last week, University Presi-
dent William P. Leahy, S.J., noted that BC is one of only 20 private national institutions of higher education in the United States that are need-blind in admission— admitting students on the merit of their applications, not on their ability to afford tuition—and also meet full demonstrated need of qualified undergraduates. “Current economic conditions and loss of family income have made it increasingly difficult for deserving applicants to enroll at ‘the Heights,’ spotlighting the importance of financial aid and endowed scholarships,” he wrote. “Please join us in supporting individuals of potential, commitment, and generosity who will assist Boston College in living up to its mission and who will also contribute to resolving challenges of today and tomorrow.”
Continued on page 4
‘A Serious Course’
If it’s an election year, Kay Schlozman is teaching her Parties and Elections in America class—and giving students a comprehensive look at the electoral process BY SEAN SMITH CHRONICLE EDITOR
This semester—as she has almost every national election year, presidential or midterm, since she arrived at Boston College in 1974—Moakley Professor of Political Science Kay L. Schlozman is giving undergraduates a nuts-and-bolts, top-to-bottom grounding in the American electoral process through her Parties and Elections in America class. Not surprisingly, they’ve had a lot to keep up with this particular election year, given the almost non-stop torrent of events, controversies, and memes that have characterized Campaign 2020—in-
cluding COVID-19, anti-racism protests, the Amy Coney Barrett nomination, and the widely acknowledged Worst Presidential Debate of All Time on September 29. But Schlozman has always urged her students to look beyond the immediacy of headlines and breaking news and focus on big questions: How has the American system of parties and elections changed—or not—over the past 50 years? How do political parties structure social, economic, and political conflict in a democracy? What is the extent to which the American electoral system contributes to democratic control of government? Schlozman’s students dig deep to come up with their answers, whether analyzing
the funding patterns and strategies of political action committees (PACs), browsing detailed data on election results and voting activity, and critiquing decades-old political campaign TV ads. “It’s a serious course, because I take citizenship and engagement with politics very seriously,” said Schlozman, an expert on citizen participation in American politics who researches broad areas of American political life, citizen political participation, parties and elections, interest groups, voting and public opinion, political movements, money in politics, and the gender gap in citizen political activity.
Continued on page 8
These poems, this book, was my method of surviving the pandemic. It was also a way of sharing with the world my sense that poetry can offer a modicum of hope and a small dose of relief. – maxim d. shrayer, on his new book of politics and pandemics, page 4