Boston College Chronicle

The Boston College

Chronicle Published by the Boston College Office of University Communications november 10, 2016 VOL. 24 no. 6

Civic Engagement Effort Doesn’t End with Election

INSIDE program 2 •Philosophy ranked as ‘Great Value’

By Sean Smith Chronicle Editor

•Seventeen profiles BC entrepreneur

•Photo: George Mitchell speaks at IEW launch

3 •Veterans Day ceremony is tomorrow

•Q&A: BCSSW Dean Gautam Yadama •Advancing Research and Scholarship Day

4 •Sienkiewicz explains the ‘other air force’

6 •BC unveils Connolly

Collection of Irish Music •Police Department seeks reaccreditation

Boston College students watched election coverage at an Election Night party in the Vanderslice Hall Cabaret Room, sponsored by the University’s Civic Engagement Initiative. For more on the initiative, see story at right. (Photo by Kaley Bent ‘19)

Turning the Page

They started out as professor and student.

Six years later, they’re co-authors, and friends.

By Sean Smith Chronicle Editor

When Connor Fitzmaurice ’10 transferred to Boston College prior to his junior year, he hoped he would find an environment that supported undergraduate research.

Now, six years later, Fitzmaurice is the co-author of a book – based on his award-winning senior thesis funded in part by the University – on which he collaborated with a faculty member who became his mentor and friend, Associate Professor of Sociology Brian Gareau.

It’s fair to say he found what he was looking for at BC, and more.

“The people I met, like Brian,

were incredibly helpful and caring, and showed me all kinds of possibilities for what I could do,” says Fitzmaurice, a Freehold, NJ, native who is now a doctoral student at Boston University. “That made such a difference.”

Publishing Organic Futures: Struggling for Sustainability on the Small Farm was a professionally and personally satisfying achievement for both Fitzmaurice and Gareau, and a testament to the formative character of liberal arts education. Fitzmaurice took a compelling contemporary subject of personal interest to him – the popularity of organic food – and made it the basis of a literally Continued on page 5

7 •Welcome Additions;

BC in the Media; Expert Opinion; Jobs

8 •Faculty and staff art show on display

•Robsham to stage ‘The Misanthrope’

Assoc. Prof. Brian Gareau (Sociology), left, and Connor Fitzmaurice ’10. The two co-authored a book based on Fitzmaurice’s senior thesis. (Photo by Gary Gilbert)

Election 2016 may be over, but there are still plenty of reasons to talk about it, according to organizers of Boston College’s Civic Engagement Initiative (CEI) – and they want BC students to take part in the conversation.

This Monday, CEI and the Campus Activities Board will sponsor a panel discussion with Political Science faculty members Kay Schlozman, Marc Landy and David Hopkins, who will offer their assessments on the post-election landscape. The event will take place in the Vanderslice Hall Cabaret Room at 6 p.m.

“Given how unprecedented this national election has been – in so many ways – it became evident that there really needed to be some postNov. 8 follow-up for students to help them process what’s gone on,” says Senior Associate Dean of Students Carole Hughes, who chairs the CEI, adding that more events are in the works for this semester.

A program of the Student Af-

fairs division, the CEI aims to help students think about how they can make a difference in the civic life of their communities – both political and non-political – or on a larger scale. Administrators, faculty, staff and students assist in planning and organizing CEI events and activities, often in collaboration with other University offices and departments.

Encouraging civic engagement is a worthy and appropriate endeavor for a university dedicated to the personal as well as intellectual formation of its undergraduates, say CEI representatives, especially at a time when the college-age generation is widely perceived as detached and uninvolved.

“Jesuit education is about discernment – discovering who you are and what you can contribute to society,” says Hughes. “So part of that discernment should be to find your place in civic life and politics. I think many of our students come here with an openness to, and even some experience in, civic engagement. We want to build on that.”

Continued on page 5

BC’s Global Math, Science Study Turns 20 Years Old

By Ed Hayward Staff Writer

TIMSS, the longest running, large-scale assessment of mathematics and science education in the world, turns 20 this year.

Administered by the TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center at the Lynch School of Education, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study measures student achievement in the fourth and eighth grades every four years, and also tracks changes in curriculum, instruction and other aspects of education in classrooms around the world.

“It’s very significant – no one

else has a 20-year international trend study in education,” said Ina V.S. Mullis, who directs the study center with Michael O. Martin. “It’s really quite challenging in assessment to adhere to the adage, ‘If you want to measure change, don’t change the measure’ in a world that is constantly changing. You have to stay the same and change at the same time to stay relevant.”

Nov. 29 will mark the release of TIMSS 2015, the fifth installment of the global assessment of nearly 600,000 students from 60 countries and regions. The center’s literacy study, PIRLS, will Continued on page 4

A NOTE ON THE CHRONICLE PUBLICATION SCHEDULE Chronicle will not publish on Nov. 24 due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Our last editions for the fall 2016 semester will be on Dec. 1 and 8. For news and updates on Boston College, go to www.bc.edu/bcnews.

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A ROUND

C AMPUS

A COLLECTIVE SUCCESS FOR BC SENIOR Many people attend college with the goal of becoming a big wig in business, and one Boston College student may already be on her way. Angela Jin, a senior marketing major and women’s and gender studies minor in the Carroll School of Management, is the CEO of her own merchandise company, 1950 Collective, generating more than $280,000 in sales in just a year-and-a-half.

Jin’s quick success in the startup industry led to a recent feature in Seventeen magazine.

“I was in complete shock,” Jin says of being featured in a magazine she grew up reading. “To know that our story will reach and impact girls is astounding.”

Getting a high-profile feature felt like “a huge validation” for the work Jin and her cofounder Nishiki Maredia put into their company from its inception, she says.

“From the get-go, our company was met with a lot of doubt and resistance by the startup community. Many thought we weren’t techy enough, scalable enough, sustainable, or catering to an important market,” says Jin. The experience has given Jin a

Angela Jin ’17, left, and her friend Nishiki Maredia, cofounders of the 1950 Collective, which was recently featured in Seventeen magazine.

“tough skin” and taught her that sometimes the non-traditional path is best. “In the last yearand-a-half we’ve launched an iOS app with 7,000 downloads and a five-star rating, created a global network of 11,000 ambassadors and garnered over 80,000 followers across our social media platforms.

“At the end of the day, our strategy was simple,” she says.

“We took teen girls’ interests seriously.”

A portion of each 1950 Col-

lective purchase is donated to a charity, Jin notes. The company changes its causes frequently, and notifies customers when it does.

Past beneficiaries include the Polaris Project, the Girls Shop and the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and organizations aiding the Flint water crisis and Syrian refugees.

“Any cause we choose holds a personal importance to us,” says Jin. “It’s incredibly important to us to integrate corporate social responsibility into our mission,

simply because it’s our passion.

We never expected 1950 Collective to be where it is now, and never expected to be donating thousands to organizations. We just knew that whatever profit we were making didn’t need to go back solely to us.”

Jin and Maredia – a student at the University of Texas at Austin (the company’s name refers to the number of miles between their two colleges) – founded their company because they were dissatisfied with the merchandise available to them, especially items devoted to popular culture like the band One Direction. For the first six months, 1950 Collective operated out of her College Road residence hall room. When Jin relocated to Edmonds her junior year, the company followed her there.

Last December, Jin and Maredia moved the company to a warehouse in Michigan that now handles all of the global shipping operations to 47 different countries.

“1950 Collective started as a passion project,” says Jin. “We hold that same mentality today.

We started out as a One Direction t-shirt company and slowly

expanded to artists in the same realm. Today, we carry fandom gear, social justice and feminist apparel, skincare, swimwear, accessories, and more.”

What sets 1950 Collective apart from most other merchandise companies, Jin says, is its responsiveness to comments and suggestions from fans via email and social media.

“I love crowdsourcing ideas from our fans; they always have the most creative concepts. I usually blend the pop culture concept I’m designing with the aesthetic of urban street-wear brands,” says Jin. Nowadays, Jin is juggling her 1950 Collective duties and BC classes with job-hunting (she’s hoping to work in the entertainment industry after graduation).

But for all the uncertainty ahead, Jin says she and Maredia took the time to build systems so the company can “run itself as much as possible,” thus leaving her options wide open.

To learn more about 1950 Collective, see 1950collective. com.

–Siobhan Sullivan

VALUE IN PHILOSOPHY

Former US Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell spoke Monday night – the eve of Election Day 2016 – in McGuinn Auditorium, an event sponsored by the Boston College Global Leadership Institute; prior to his talk, Mitchell attended a reception in Connolly House (above).

Mitchell’s visit was the kick-off event for BC’s celebration of International Education Week, which goes until Nov. 18. Other IEW-related events included yesterday’s appearance by Boston Police Commissioner William Evans. For more on International Education Week, see www.bc.edu/international. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)

Director of UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONs Jack Dunn Deputy Director of NEWS & Public AFFAIRS Patricia Delaney Editor Sean Smith

Contributing Staff Melissa Beecher Ed Hayward Sean Hennessey Rosanne Pellegrini Kathleen Sullivan Siobhan Sullivan Photographers Gary Gilbert Lee Pellegrini

Boston College and its Philosophy Department rank 19th among the nation’s “Great Value Colleges” for philosophy degrees, according to a new survey conducted by Great Value Colleges, an online provider of information for students about colleges, careers, and resources The ranking is based on master’s and doctoral degree opportunities for students, as well as research, internship and scholarship opportunities. The survey methodology also considered awards and recognition related to philosophy, return on investment, affiliated centers and institutes on campus, and related student organizations and societies, among other factors. Data

The Boston College

Chronicle www.bc.edu/bcnews chronicle@bc.edu

were drawn from the National Center for Education Statistics’ College Navigator database, Payscale.com, and school websites.

The entry on Boston College noted that its Philosophy Department offers degree programs at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels, and that “students have opportunities for specialization through various concentrations including medieval philosophy, philosophy of science, and social and political philosophy.

The school hosts a special joint MA in philosophy and theology for graduate students more interested in the religious aspects of philosophy. Philosophy degree students are also able to gain hands-on experience through the

department’s outreach and research projects.”

Rounding out the top 20 are Princeton University, CarnegieMellon University, University of California at San Diego, MIT, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Brown University, Harvard University, Binghamton University, University of Minnesota at Twin Cities, University of California at Berkeley, Columbia University, University of Notre Dame, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, University of California at Davis, Yale University, Duke University, Vanderbilt University and Cornell University.

–Office of University Communications

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 News & 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 News & Public Affairs, 14 Mayflower Road, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.

A flipbook edition of Chronicle is available via e-mail. Send requests to chronicle@bc.edu.

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Chronicle november 10, 2016

Boston College School of Social Work Dean Gautam Yadama, who’s in his first year at the University, recently shared some thoughts in a Q&A with the BCSSW blog Innovate about his decision to come to BC, his hopes for continued success and his philosophies on education and leadership. This interview has been edited here for space; read the entire piece at http://bit.ly/2eEBJgo. Why was now the right time for you to take on this position?

Yadama: Now is such a critical time for our field; it is a time when we are called to tackle a multitude of complex problems that have remained unaddressed for decades and that have perpetuated social, economic, and health inequalities.

The profession of social work must innovate inclusively with those embedded in these problems and suffering as well as with other allied disciplines, in order to find ways to build productive societies. This we must do here in the neighborhoods of Boston, in the favelas of Rio, in the aimags of Mongolia, or in the slums of Mumbai.

In 2016, in new and exciting ways, schools of social work across the world have the tools to effect positive change for impact never before seen, and Boston College is at the forefront of those institutions thinking differently about how to engage and collaborate with the most vulnerable. Already, I’ve noticed that BCSSW has a critical mass of faculty with a focus on working with our newest immigrants and ref-

ugee populations. With our strength in clinical practice and place-based social work, there is enormous opportunity for social work innovations from the individual to the community. To strengthen our communities that are socially and economically dislocated for many decades, we have to meld interventions from regional and community development to improve the livelihoods, health, and mental health of people that have been marginalized.

You speak often about the imperative for social workers to work within the communities in which they serve; as you mentioned, it’s an explicit part of the mission of our school’s many programs and partnerships that we champion.

Tell us more about why this is so important.

Yadama: Too often in the past, our profession on the whole has gone into communities with a normative point of view, mistakenly believing that what we’ve learned should provide all the answers to solve a problem. What if we pause and give space to those embedded in the social

dilemmas to tell us about their perspectives on the problem and possible solutions? It is a powerful act of empowering. It is a genuine invitation to collaborate towards a common goal to improve the quality of life.

I think that we forget sometimes that all of us are not that different, in that we all want every day to be a better day. But where we do diverge is in our understanding of just what a better day may be and what are the means to get there.

Talk about the origins of your foray into social work, and how your life’s work will inform your philosophy as dean.

Yadama: As a very young person growing up in Hyderabad, India I attended a Jesuit school, St. Patrick’s, where the fathers and brothers instilled in me the core values of service. From that early age, I have been keenly aware of the crushing realities of poverty and my responsibility as a citizen of the world to try to find ways to alleviate them.

Also very early in my life and later, in my twenties, I remember spending time with my father who worked as a forester and later on in forest policy, and I began to see that beyond the biophysical beauty – the actual trees that my father cared about – were communities of people dependent of these forests for their living. It was then that I had an early epiphany – that even the wilderness was more than just trees and thickly forested space – it was the people who resided there.

Of course there is a rich tradition of seeing forest and human linkages, but we all have to discover these connections for ourselves.

Research & Scholarship Day Is Dec. 5 Environmental Voter Project founder and CEO Nathaniel Stinnett JD ’05 will deliver the keynote remarks at the University’s third annual Advancing Research and Scholarship Day on Dec. 5.

The program – a showcase for faculty and student research – centers on the theme “Environment and Society: Research for a Changing World,” and takes place from noon to 5 p.m. in the Heights Room of Corcoran Commons.

“BC has faculty and students engaged in research and scholarship about the environment in nearly all of our schools, with expertise ranging from policy, social impact, health, ethics, law and of course, the natural sciences,” said Vice Provost for Research Tom Chiles, whose office sponsors the event. “We also have numerous student groups on campus who are activity involved in various aspects of sustainability. So it was clear to the planning committee that the third annual Advancing Research and Scholarship Day should highlight this body of research.”

Stinnett, named one of 50 “environmental visionaries” in the US, is an attorney who has worked in law, politics, and advocacy. The Environmental Voter Project has used data analytics to identify 15.78 million

non-voting environmentalists and applies behavioral science tools to convert them into consistent voters.

Recently dubbed “The Voting Guru” by Grist.com, Stinnett will present “Modern Environmental Politics: Big Data, Behavioral Science, and Getting Environmentalists to Vote.”

In a recent podcast interview, Stinnett called voting “the highest form of environmental citizenship” and the reason the non-partisan EVP works to turn non-voting “superenvironmentalists” into an actively voting political force.

“The reason so few voters care about climate change or other environmental issues is not because too few Americans care about environmental issues,” Stinnett said in the interview. “The reason is that environmentalists are awful voters.

“Because campaigns can only afford to talk to good voters, it made me realize we need an organization that actually doesn’t care about who is going to win the next election, but addresses this turnout problem and goes after environmentalists who don’t vote and tries to turn them into better voters.”

In addition to Stinnett’s speech at noon, the program includes presentations and a panel discussion with

BC faculty whose research interests include environmental issues.

Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Jeremy Shakun, Assistant Professor of Economics Richard Sweeney, Professor of History Conevery Bolton Valencius, and BC School of Social Work Dean Gautam Yadama will make 15-minute presentations.

BCSSW Professor of Macro Practice Tiziana Dearing will moderate a 2 p.m. panel on environmental justice, featuring Professor of Political Science David Deese, Professor of Sociology Juliet Schor, Assistant Professor of the Practice of Philosophy Holly Vandewall, Carroll Professor of Nursing Judith Vessey, and Assistant Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences Corinne Wong.

Undergraduate student researchers will showcase research projects that examined the environmental impact of killer marine plankton, carbon emissions, factory work, technology transfer practices, and climate policy. There will also be a session for undergraduates to give presentations about the research that they have done.

For more information about the program, see www.bc.edu/researchday –Ed Hayward

CSON’s Burgess to Speak at BC Veterans Day Event Connell School of Nursing Professor Ann Wolbert Burgess, an internationally recognized leader in the treatment of victims of trauma, will be the guest speaker at the 16th annual Boston College Veterans Remembrance Mass and Ceremony tomorrow, Nov. 11.

Burgess is the leader of the College Warrior Athlete Initiative, funded by the Wounded Warrior Project, which pairs studentathletes with post-9/11 veterans to improve the veterans’ fitness levels.

Earlier this fall, Burgess was honored as a “Living Legend” by the American Academy of Nursing, the academy’s highest honor.

The day’s events will begin at 9:30 a.m. with Mass in St. Ignatius Church. BC Jesuit Community Rector Robert Keane, SJ ’71, MDiv ’78 – who served more than two decades as a US Navy chaplain before retiring from military service as a captain – will preside and deliver the homily.

A ceremony honoring all alumni who have served, or are currently serving, in the armed forces, will follow at 11 a.m. at the Boston College Veterans Memorial on Burns Library lawn. BC students in the ROTC program will read aloud the names of those BC graduates who died during the nation’s military conflicts. Burgess will give her address at the memorial.

In addition to her work with veterans, Burgess teaches a course called Wounded Warriors in Transition that introduces undergraduates to the issues facing the more than 65,000 US military service members who have been wounded since 2001, including those with traumatic brain injuries and posttraumatic stress disorder.

“I am honored to have been invited to give this year’s address,” said Burgess, who plans to speak

about the Collegiate Warrior Athlete Initiative and her course. “I will talk about what nursing can do for this important population.”

Burgess, a pioneer in the field of forensic nursing, has researched and written about topics such as serial killers and rapists, kidnapping, sexual victimization and exploiGary Gilbert

BC ‘At Forefront’ of Positive Change

Christopher Soldt/MTS

Q&A: Gautam Yadama

Ann Wolbert Burgess

tation of children, cyber crimes, sexual abuse, and elder abuse. She has worked extensively with the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI, training special agents and developing criminal profiles. In 2009, the International Association of Forensic Nurses established the Ann Burgess Forensic Nursing Award to honor an individual who has made exceptional research contributions to the field of forensic nursing, through clinical program development, scientific achievement, legislative changes, or educational activities.

The Veterans Remembrance Mass and Ceremony is organized by the Boston College Alumni Association with support from the BC Veterans Alumni Network, BC Army ROTC, Human Resources and Campus Ministry. The event is open to all members of the Boston College community. A reception will follow in Gasson 100.

–Kathleen Sullivan

Kempa Elected Fellow of American Physical Society Professor of Physics Krzysztof Kempa has been elected a 2016 Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) – a significant honor bestowed by scientific peers in recognition of exceptional contributions to the physics enterprise through outstanding research, important applications, leadership or service, or contributions to education.

Kempa was cited by the APS Division of Condensed Matter Physics for his outstanding research, which is focused on the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with novel materials and architectures, in particular on op-

3

tical and plasmonic effects. The APS citation notes Kempa’s “pioneering contributions to understanding basic physics of plasmons in condensed matter systems.”

Boston College Physics now has five faculty members, representing nearly 30 percent of the department, who have been selected for this highly competitive honor, with Kempa joining Distinguished Research Professor Gabor Kalman, Rourke Professor Kevin Bedell, Ferris Professor and department chair Michael Naughton and Professor David Broido.

–Office of University Communications

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A New Front in the Propaganda War In The Other Air Force, Communication’s Sienkiewicz explores an innovative US strategy to win the battle of ideas in the Middle East

TIMSS Marks Two Decades

Continued from page 1 be released for the fourth time countries to those of major industrial nations, including the US. next year.

“Before TIMSS, people in the Funded by IEA, an Amsterdambased non-governmental organiza- US were very insulated when it tion, TIMSS is a massive under- came to education,” said Mullis. taking that requires thousands of “It was an eye-opener to discover international staff, contractors and that the US wasn’t first in the collaborators – from government world in mathematics and science. officials to researchers to teachers – They were shocked to find that in order to carry out an assessment there were different ways of doing that fairly and accurately measures things – for example, that other educational outcomes despite the countries don’t have exactly 12 world’s multiplicity of languages, years of schooling for everybody.”

The research project has made cultures, ethnicities, races and some adjustments during the past available resources. two decades.

“We have the In addition to common goal of “We have the common goal TIMSS, the cenimproving educaof improving education, and ter administers tion, and we don’t have any political we don’t have any political TIMSS Advanced at less frequent inagenda,” said Maragenda. We also work to tervals – including tin, a research professor in the Lynch give people what they want this year – to measure math and sciSchool’s Depart– from designing the tests ence achievement ment of Educational Research, and what they measure, to among secondary school students.

Measurement how to report the results.”

TIMSS Numeraand Evaluation –Michael O. Martin cy will be released (ERME).

“We for the first time also work to give this year, measurpeople what they want – from designing the tests ing learning outcomes at fourth and what they measure, to how to grade in countries where most children are still developing fundareport the results.”

For participating countries, mental math skills.

The companion TIMSS 2015 TIMSS data allow government officials to make evidence-based Encyclopedia, released in October, educational policy changes. Study offered glimpses into the continresults measure education systems’ ued professionalization of teaching effectiveness in a global context, around the world, as well as how identify gaps in resources, pinpoint education systems are investing in areas of weakness, and measure the digital devices to improve math impact of new initiatives. TIMSS and science learning.

While the trends TIMSS has also trains researchers and teachers revealed since 1996 have shown in assessment and evaluation.

For some countries, the intro- how math and science education duction of TIMSS marked a novel changes, they haven’t pointed to a single, universal path to improveshift in assessment.

“Some countries, like Germa- ment.

“There isn’t a magic bullet in ny, had no history of empirical research in education whatsoever education,” said Martin. “The an– it wasn’t a concept at all before swer is, it’s really complicated. As TIMSS,” said Mullis, a professor in a colleague in Singapore once said ERME. “TIMSS has contributed when asked about the secret to the to the practice of evidence-based country’s academic success, ‘It’s the decision making in today’s shifting curriculum, teachers, parental support – everything.’” landscape of education policy.”

TIMSS has established a global Contact Ed Hayward at frame of reference for educators ed.hayward@bc.edu and policy makers in the smallest

shows that speak to their people but also attempt to meet American interests. As you can imagine, it’s quite a narrow bridge that these producers need to cross.

Chronicle: Why would an Afghan media entity want to work with the United States?

It’s important to note that much of the actual content of the programming is not directly about things that America champions, although there is certainly some of that. It’s the overall media system that’s supposed to reflect American values. For example, in Afghanistan a lot of American-supported material comes in the form of seemingly apolitical game shows. You might argue that they promote capitalism, for example, but to a local producer

watch the TV show, associate it with the freedom to choose what you want to watch, and reflect on it as being part of a broader democratic, capitalistic shift in local society. So the American ideology is meant to slip in through the back door a little, even though the US is very open about whom it funds.

To attract local viewers, however, producers need considerable freedom to craft programming, and that’s where things get really interesting. Sometimes in order to make programming people want to watch, producers find themselves pushing back against US positions. You’ll see a program that goes against American policy with their content but their general place is something that America likes.

Gary Gilbert

Michael O. Martin and Ina V.S. Mullis have been executive directors for TIMSS since its inception. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)

Assistant Professor of Communication and International Studies Matt Sienkiewicz’s new book The Other Air Force examines a new kind of propaganda war the United States is fighting – one for the airwaves of the Middle East. During two years of field research, Sienkiewicz travelled to the West Bank, Palestinian territories and Afghanistan, and spoke to people in various media entities. He found this “other air force” involves give-and-take on the part of the US, allowing considerable freedoms to its partners while hoping to encourage an American-friendly discussion of democracy, freedom of expression, and free markets.

Sienkiewicz recently spoke about the project with Chronicle’s Sean Hennessey. The conversation has been edited for space and clarity – read the full version at http://bit.ly/otherair-force.

Chronicle: People might not be surprised to hear the United States is involved in a propaganda war in the Middle East. What exactly is going on there?

What I found was a different way of approaching what you might call a propaganda strategy. You may be familiar with the concept of “psyops,” the idea that we can psychologically manipulate the minds of either military combatants or populations in other countries by feeding them the right messages. For example, during World War II the US would set up a fake “resister” radio station to broadcast from Switzerland into Germany to influence the population against Nazism. America also did this in Iran during the revolution, putting forth misleading media against the government and claiming it was of local origin.

That’s not what’s happening with the media institutions I’ve studied in the Middle East. Instead, the US is enabling people in the Middle East, in conflict zones, to do their own work to make media and messages that will ultimately reflect well on American values. There are, of course, limitations and restrictions on what the partners produce, but it’s more nuanced than the old “psyops” approach. The US is not trying to trick people as much as it is trying to change the Middle East media system to operate more like a Western one, particularly in terms of competition and profit motives.

America looks for entrepreneurs with friendly ideological commitments and supports them in producing creative, competitive media.

It’s certainly propaganda, there’s no question about that, but there’s a collaborative element that, at times, allows for really interesting levels of local creativity, autonomy, and even resistance to American directives. So instead of having the CIA making the propaganda, now we have local Afghans or Palestinians make TV

“Instead of having the CIA making the propaganda, now we have local Afghans or Palestinians make TV shows that speak to their people but also attempt to meet American interests,” says Sienkiewicz. “As you can imagine, it’s quite a narrow bridge that these producers need to cross.”

they have basically nothing to do with American ideals and the US is fine with that.

What American overseers want to encourage is for-profit TV, taking a secondary interest in the actual content. So they make reality TV shows that might have nothing to do with democracy or freedom but compete against factional, religious or state-run TV. The number one thing that America is interested in is getting these places to make television that acts competitively and puts profit first. You might think, “Isn’t that obvious?” Well, it’s not.

Throughout much of the world, TV is run by government; it’s run by political parties. In Afghanistan, a lot of TV is funded by warlords.

What the United States wants to do is show the world that there is money to be made in competitive non-partisan TV, outside of local political patronage.

Chronicle: And if you can do that and identify good TV with America, that translates into an entirely new message about our country.

Exactly. In the hyper-competitive media world we live in, the US government knows it can’t succeed by offering TV shows that are didactic lessons in democracy or capitalism. Instead, they hope that locals

Chronicle: Is this “other air force” working?

US-funded stations draw lots of viewers, so that might be taken as a sign of success. I think the architects of these programs are generally pretty happy with them. They might occasionally run counter to US-approved messages, but they serve as very public endorsements for commercial media and America.

Also, in places like the West Bank and Afghanistan, a lot of the media comes from political factions or other foreign nations. So, for many in the US government, a popular, if imperfectly obedient broadcast partner that gets eyeballs isn’t so bad.

It’s very, very hard to say how media projects impact viewers and utterly impossible to separate such an impact from the political and security upheavals that have rippled through the Middle East. That said, these projects certainly do impact one important group: the creators.

American partners in places like the West Bank and Kabul tend to be happy with, if still occasionally critical of, American funding partners.

So there are a number of really talented, often young media makers who are grateful for American-led opportunities.

Contact Sean Hennessey at sean.hennessey@bc.edu

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Election 2016 Provides Ample Material for Civic Engagement Initiative Christopher Huang

Continued from page 1 “Millennials in college are very active,” says Lily Lorbeer ’17, a political science major who is co-president of the Eagle Political Society.

“We may not be attending political rallies or writing to newspapers, but through the use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and online news sources, we are actively engaged information seekers.”

This fall, the CEI organized or co-organized public viewings of the presidential and vice-presidential debates as well as panel discussions and lectures on various electionyear topics. Through the initiative, BC collaborated with Turbovote to provide students with election information and materials and assist them in registering to vote. And on Election Night, the CEI held a reception in Vanderslice Hall so students could watch the results.

Hughes and other CEI members say student response has been heartening: Almost 600 turned up at the first presidential debate screening in Robsham Theater, while several hundred freshmen watched in residence hall viewings co-arranged through the Office of Residential Life’s House Call program. In September alone, almost 2,100 students registered through Turbovote.

Election-related events and ac-

Among the events for students sponsored through the Civic Engagement Initiative were campus viewings of the presidential debates.

tivities outside of the Civic Engagement Initiative also have taken place on campus. For example, last month the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy – co-sponsored with the History and Political Science departments – held a full-day conference on Election 2016 featuring panel discussions with BC faculty members and keynotes by author and policymaker Bruce Bartlett and University of California-Berkeley political scientist Paul Pierson.

But it’s the quality of the engagement, not just the quantity, which has impressed CEI representatives, especially in a highly volatile elec-

tion atmosphere.

“I have seen the student body collaborating and really listening to any and all opinions,” says Lorbeer.

“There is a lot of discussion and question-asking. It is a breath of fresh air from the media to see students engaging with one another, seeking different sets of opinions, and wanting to learn more.”

Adds Hughes, “At the presidential debates, for instance, you could see students from different political viewpoints who were nonetheless respectful to each other, and having lively but civil conversations.”

But the CEI also is looking farther ahead, says Hughes, and be-

yond election-year drama. Spring events are likely to cover topics like the US Supreme Court’s current term, or the outlook for political parties in the wake of Election 2016.

“The election captured everyone’s attention, but we want to extend the conversation and focus on the process of governing, because that’s just as important.”

Still, CEI representatives acknowledge that challenges persist for such initiatives in convincing students that the political process is relevant to their lives.

Cecilia Milano ’18, vice-president for the Americans for Informed Democracy BC chapter, has experienced the “eye rolls and ‘not agains’” when she’s tried to talk with friends about politics, but says the attitude is understandable: Many students attend a college in a different city or state than where they are registered to vote, and are thus unlikely to take interest in local issues. Students also are apt to perceive their college’s rules and policies as more critical to their lives than state or federal laws, she says, so “changes in the college administration would therefore be more of interest than a change in their senator or representative.”

Students, most of whom pay little to no income tax, are likely

to view policies on elementary or second education, health care, trade, immigration or Social Security – issues which tend to receive most media coverage – as having little impact on them, Milano adds.

“The political process feels removed from their daily concerns,” she says, “and therefore students have little impetus to get involved.”

Lorbeer points out that many college students have yet to fully form a political philosophy or identity. “At this age, many of us grew up only listening to, and agreeing with, our parents’ political ideals.

But as you spend more time at college, and you become exposed to other views and perspectives, you start to develop your own opinions.

It can be difficult to balance when these ideologies begin to conflict.”

And that, says Hughes, is where a Civic Engagement Initiative should come in. “We believe that a student’s education at BC shouldn’t take place only in a classroom. So we want to create opportunities for students to be exposed to different viewpoints, and to think how these contrast with the views they hold.”

For more on the Civic Engagement Initiative, see www.bc.edu/ offices/vpsa/civicengagement.html.

Contact Sean Smith at sean.smith@bc.edu

Book Collaboration a Learning Experience for Student and Mentor Alike Continued from page 1 hands-on research experience that included toiling at a Boston-area farm.

For Gareau, who joined BC in 2009, collaborating with Fitzmaurice was an opportunity to extend his own scholarship in food systems and sustainability, and ultimately deepen his insight into the role of a college teacher.

a positive outcome.

“How do you make that decision? You consider the quality of the student, and the passion for his or her work. If Connor wasn’t who he is, I wouldn’t have participated in the project. But I was confident this would be worthwhile, and it’s been rewarding to see how everything has turned out.”

Connor Fitzmaurice

Farm life was tough, but “who else gets to live in a place this beautiful?” one farmer told Connor Fitzmaurice ‘10 during his research.

“Being a professor means you have to make careful decisions on how you commit your time and energy, not only to teaching but to research and service,” says Gareau, who credits departmental colleague Associate Professor Paul Gray for his initial involvement in Fitzmaurice’s project. “Obviously, a major part of my job is to help our students find their calling, and sometimes that means investing extra time and energy when you feel it will lead to

Organic Futures explores the lives of New England small-scale organic farmers as they struggle to compete in an era where the much-touted “organic” food most Americans eat is produced not in small, intimate agricultural settings but by the food industry, and sold in outlets like McDonald’s and Walmart.

Fitzmaurice and Gareau trace the trajectory of the organic, “locally grown” food movement from its beginnings nearly a century ago

among farmers resisting the advent of industrial agriculture, through the 1960s and ’70s counterculture, and its gradual emergence in mainstream consumer markets.

The book also describes the range of views on the evolution of the organic food industry: Some hail the wide-scale proliferation of environment-friendly production methods, while others see a diminishing of standards and community values regarded as the hallmark of organic farming; still others reject the polarization, and accept the existence of both large and small-scale sectors of organic farming.

Organic Futures, however, is not some analytical, factoid-leaden treatise. Interviews with the New England small organic farmers, and descriptions and anecdotes of their work-a-day lives as they adhere to sustainable and ecological practices, give the book what a reviewer described as a “wide-eyed and lyrical” quality. When one farmer, John, discusses how he ended up on the farm, his wife, Katie, notes that his parents had discouraged his agricultural interests.

“Yeah, but with good reason,” replies John. “No small farms had done anything but fail for thirty years.”

Such vignettes came from Fitzmaurice’s research for his original senior thesis. Using an Advanced

Study Grant, he spent several weeks talking with and observing organic farmers, and doing some work himself. It often left him with aching, blistered hands but a considerable appreciation of the challenges and virtues of farm life.

“The lives of people on these farms were tough: They struggled a lot, and made many sacrifices,” says Fitzmaurice. “But as you talked with them, you could see what attracted them to farming: ‘Who else gets to live in a place this beautiful?’ one of them told me. They felt a strong connection to the land and what they produced, but they didn’t overly romanticize their lives as farmers.”

Gareau notes that, in addition to its mix of quantitative information and human-interest content, Fitzmaurice’s project broke new ground: “Most sociological studies of this type have looked at farms in the Midwest or California. But there are characteristics which make New England unique as a farming system – such as its smaller farms that grow a diversity of crops on a mixed geographic landscape – so Connor broadened the research on organic farming.”

In fact, Gareau felt there was a strong enough foundation for a book, and after Fitzmaurice was awarded the Morrissey College of Arts and Science’s McCarthy Prize

for the outstanding senior thesis, he offered to help Fitzmaurice to build on the dissertation. Yale University Press expressed interest in publishing the result.

Turning the thesis into a book was no small task. It involved expanding the scope of the original research, historical analysis, interviews, returning to primary sources and considerable rewrites.

“It was all worth it,” says Fitzmaurice. “The standards for academic presses are high, so that meant having to not only go over what I’d done already but go beyond, and look at organic farming in a broad historical and cultural vein. But we had good support from Yale, and we knew we were on the right track. I was really happy to have Brian as my collaborator.”

Says Gareau, “The book has relevance for the social sciences, but it’s also a celebration of the small farm, a quintessential part of New England’s social fabric – just think of apple orchards and strawberry festivals.

“I’d hope our experience with Organic Futures would encourage faculty to consider doing this kind of beyond-the-classroom work with students. It’s very rewarding in many respects.”

Contact Sean Smith at sean.smith@bc.edu

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Séamus Connolly Collection a New Resource for Irish Music A groundbreaking digital collection launched by Boston College Libraries signifies the vibrancy and constancy of traditional Irish music and one of its leading figures: retired Sullivan Family Artistin-Residence Séamus Connolly, a teacher and scholar at the University for a quarter-century.

The Séamus Connolly Collection of Irish Music [connollymusiccollection.bc.edu] presents audio recordings of more than 330 tunes and songs by such traditional Irish music performers as Liz Carroll, Kevin Burke, Matt Cranitch, Martin Hayes, Kevin Crawford, Rita Gallagher, Paddy Glackin, Liz Knowles, Charlie Lennon, Tony McMahon and Tommy Peoples, and Connolly himself. These recordings – many of them previously unreleased – are complemented by music transcriptions, stories and essays.

Project organizers note the collection links three generations of musicians and pays tribute to those in previous generations who kept the tradition alive.

The collection also is a testament to the perseverance of its namesake, who for years collected and organized the materials for publication, and to the collaborative effort of several Library departments to bring Connolly’s vision to life – albeit in a different format than he originally planned.

“What began simply as 100 tunes for a book and CDs is now a digital collection of over 330 tunes and songs, each with its own transcription, recording, and story,” Connolly – who retired from the University at the end of 2015 – writes in the introduction to the collection. “The Boston College

Libraries and I are delighted to be able to present the Séamus Connolly Collection of Irish Music free of charge via the Internet, for all to enjoy, download, learn, and play.”

“In producing and publishing this extraordinary cultural resource as a digital collection, the Boston College Libraries are enabling users worldwide to not only listen and read, but to search, explore, navigate and share,” said Irish Music Librarian Elizabeth Sweeney, a member of the project team.

During the first two weeks after the website went live, according

Lee Pellegrini

By Sean Smith Chronicle Editor

to University Libraries, the audio tracks on SoundCloud were streamed some 12,000 times, with more than 1,300 downloads. Users from the Dominican Republic, Germany, Brazil, Turkey and Sweden were among those visiting the site during that period.

As Irish traditional music has grown in popularity around the globe, numerous archives and resources have been made available online. But the Connolly Collection is a unique window into the life and career of Connolly, a 10-time All-Ireland fiddle cham-

pion and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship as well as a Faculty Award from the BC Arts Council. The recordings and other materials reflect many of the friendships he has cultivated throughout – and even beyond – the Irish music world, and evoke countless stories, anecdotes and musings associated with the music tradition.

For example, in 1990 Connolly recorded a fiddler and accordionist named Eddie Kelly playing a jig at an impromptu session. When Kel-

nist Barbara MacDonald Magone and banjo player Kevin McElroy.

“I was enthralled with her music then, and I still am.”

The collection also has local and regional dimensions. A tune composed by the late Brendan Tonra, a mainstay of Boston’s Irish music scene for many years, is included.

Current or former Boston-area musicians like Helen Kisiel, Tara Lynch (daughter of accordionist Jerry Lynch, a member of Ireland’s legendary Kilfenora Ceili Band), Brendan Bulger, Tina Lech, Eamon Flynn and Matt and Shan-

The Séamus Connolly Collection of Irish Music, which includes audio recordings, music transcriptions, essays and other materials, was a collaboration between Universities Libraries staff and Connolly (left), the former Sullivan Family Artist-in-Residence.

ly finished, he asked, “Is it any good, Séamus?” and Connolly subsequently used that query as a title for the tune (thought by Connolly to have been composed

by Kelly). Manus McGuire, a fiddler from County Sligo who has been a member of several outstanding bands, recorded the tune for the collection.

Another tune, “Mrs. Galvin’s Barndance,” came to Connolly from Ellen Galvin, a fiddler who was in her 70s when Connolly saw her perform back in the 1950s.

Her playing “certainly did sound as though it were from an earlier time in history,” Connolly writes in the accompanying notes for the track, on which he plays along with pia-

non Heaton are featured on the tracks, along with New Englanders such as Donna Hébert, David Kaynor, Pete Sutherland and the late Bob McQuillen.

Some of Connolly’s Boston College colleagues – Sweeney, Laurel Martin and Jimmy Noonan – also appear in the recordings.

When he first embarked on the project 15 years ago, Connolly intended to perform and record 100 tunes with special meanings for him, selected from his private archives. The project expanded and progressed thanks to the generosity of fellow musicians who offered to perform and record some of these tunes for the project.

Along the way, however, Con-

nolly was beset by a series of tragedies. First was the loss of his wife Sandy, who despite battling cancer had played a critical role in many aspects of the project, and then his son, Darragh. Another blow was the death of John McGann, a longtime friend and collaborator who had been working with Connolly to transcribe the source recordings.

“After the loss of Sandy and Darragh, I lost the will, motivation, and inspiration to persevere with this enormous task of compiling a collection of music to share with the world,” Connolly writes.

“After much deliberation I decided to put the project to rest.”

Following a hiatus, with the encouragement of family members and friends, Connolly resumed the project but found that the advent of digital technology had complicated music publishing. A conversation with University Librarian Thomas Wall convinced him that the collection could move forward, using technology to reach a broader audience. Connolly worked with a University Libraries project team that included Sweeney, Digital Archives Specialist Jack Kearney, Digital Publishing Assistant Nancy Adams, Senior Digital Scholarship Librarian Anna Kijas, Web Design and Communication Specialist Chris Houston-Ponchak and Web Applications Developer Ben Florin.

Connolly is quick to credit the many hands, at BC and elsewhere, and in particular the musicians who helped him in creating the collection: “Were I asked to define this collection in a few short words, I would not hesitate to say, ‘so much love from so many people.’”

Contact Sean Smith at sean.smith@bc.edu

A team of assessors from the Massachusetts Police Accreditation Commission (MPAC) is evaluating the Boston College Police Department for reaccreditation, with a decision expected in January.

The three-member MPAC team visited campus late last month and spent two-and-a-half days examining all aspects of the BCPD’s policies and procedures including evidence collection, firearms training, patrol procedures, the facilities, even communication with prospective police officer candidates.

“I feel confident our department will be reaccredited but we won’t know officially until the commission takes its vote in January,” said Executive Director of Public Safety and Chief of Police John King. “We have to identify in each of our policies where we

Lee Pellegrini

BC Police Department Undergoing MPAC Reaccreditation

John King

meet the standards that we are required to uphold. And then they ask questions of various department members to make sure that what we have in writing is what we practice.”

Massachusetts’ voluntary police accreditation program – which is open to town, city and campus police departments – consists of 257 mandatory standards and 125 optional standards. To achieve accreditation status, which recognizes professional excellence in law enforcement, a department must meet all mandatory standards and at least 75 of the optional standards.

Boston College’s 55-member police force became certified in 2013 and fully accredited in 2014.

About half of the state’s roughly 400 police departments are participating in the accreditation program; about a third of the state’s less than three dozen college and university police departments taking part in the program are fully accredited.

King says BCPD’s accreditation underscores the “critically important” support from the University.

“No campus law enforcement department is going to be able to go down the path of accreditation without the support from the institution because it takes resources, time and staff to be able to do this.

“I think accreditation also says a lot about the department’s organization, and the quality of the men and women who work day in and day out with the sole focus and function of keeping our community safe – and wanting to do that in the most professional way possible. It affords our institution a level of comfort that there is a professional organization charged with protecting them. Our policies meet state and national standards and I think it’s a testament of how

forward-thinking and professional our department is.”

As a member of MPAC, King plans on reaching out to more of his colleagues to encourage them to get their departments accredited.

“I think it makes sense not just for our profession but for the institutions they work for. At some point in time, something may occur on that campus and the question could be asked from their administration or their students, ‘What are our policies and how do we know our policies and practices are correct?’ And one of the answers to that question would be obviously ‘We’ve achieved certification or accreditation and have been assessed by outside assessors that affirm that we meet these requirements.’”

–Sean Hennessey

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Chronicle november 10, 2016

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BOSTON COLLEGE IN THE MEDIA An introduction to new faculty members at Boston College Hanne Eisenfeld

Assistant Professor of Classical Studies Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences DEGREES: Brown University (BA); Ohio State University (MA, PhD) WHAT SHE STUDIES: Archaic and classical Greek poetry; Greek religion and myth.

WHAT SHE TEACHES: Classical Mythology; Death, Dying, and Afterward in Ancient Greece; Dangerous Women in Classical Literature; advanced seminar on Homer’s Iliad, intermediate Greek course on unbelievable stories in Homer and Lucian.

Why does modern scholarship divide classical Greek poetry and Greek religion and myth into different categories, when these fields were not separable for the Greeks themselves? “Ancient Greek thinking about gods and heroes was flexible in a way that is hard for us to imagine. There was no single text or authority – what another tradition might call scripture – that could tell you what Zeus was like, for instance, or what happened after death.

Instead, many competing discourses including poetry, ritual practice, and monumental sculpture at sanctuaries offered competing answers. Because of the way classical scholarship developed historically, these complementary ways of talking about the world and the gods were broken up into distinct fields of study with their own methodologies and perspectives. My work contributes to a developing conversation across those disciplinary boundaries.”

Professor of Economics Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences DEGREES: McGill University (BA); University of Toronto (MSc); Princeton University (PhD) WHAT HE STUDIES: Econometrics; applied econometrics; statistical methods for inference on nonlinear models in areas of applied microeconomics; computer algorithms for implementation of inference methods.

WHAT HE TEACHES: Topics in Econometrics How do you view the teaching and research aspects of your job? “I have always regarded the responsibilities of teaching and conducting academic research as complementary to each other. Specifically, interacting with students by engaging in fruitful discussions and answering their thoughtful questions often results in new research ideas and or methods. On the other hand, going through the specific details involved in completing a research paper or project helps me convey ideas more clearly and concisely when lecturing in front of a classroom.”

Deoksoon Kim

Assistant Professor of Teacher Education/Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction Lynch School of Education DEGREES: University of Suwon (BA); University of New Mexico (MA, PhD) WHAT SHE STUDIES: Second language and bilingual processes; integrating instructional technology in teacher education.

WHAT SHE’S TEACHING: Teaching English as a Second Language You founded and led the Tip-Top Kids English School in Seoul, where economically disadvantaged children studied English. How did that experience influence your career path in academia? “Tip-Top Kids English School served low-income students whose parents were factory workers, offering them an opportunity to learn English. My years working with these children deepened my commitment to helping language learners, especially those who have not been served well by society and need language skills to improve their lives.”

Ryan Williams

Assistant Professor Boston College Law School DEGREES: University of Kansas (BS); Columbia Law School (JD) WHAT HE STUDIES: Constitutional law, civil procedure and federal courts; original meanings of the Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments; intersection of constitutional rules and the civil litigation process.

WHAT HE’S TEACHING: Constitutional Law

–Ed Hayward, Rosanne Pellegrini, Sean Smith Photos by Lee Pellegrini

with The Atlantic about archdiocesan opposition to the Massachusetts ballot question on legalization of marijuana.

A merger of sports fantasy businesses DraftKing and FanDuel could spark a new round of legal costs as the companies seek approval from the Federal Trade Commision and Department of Justice, Prof. Brian Quinn (Law) told the Boston Globe.

As donor-advised fund sponsors are becoming America’s biggest charitable entities, concerns

about them become ever more consequential, wrote Prof. Ray Madoff (Law) in an op-ed for the Chronicle of Philanthropy that was quoted by WCVB-TV News.

Assoc. Prof. Brian Gareau (Sociology) appeared on WBUR’s “Radio Boston” to explain how “organic,” once a counterculture movement, has gone mainstream, with foods often produced by a huge, industrial system rather than by the small-scale farmers who began it all – the subject of a book Gareau and Connor Fitzmaurice ’10 recently published [see page 1].

EXPERT OPINION Professor of Political Science Peter Skerry, writing for Clingendael, the Netherlands Institute for International Relations [read the piece at http://bit.ly/skerry-migration] : “For political elites in the US the lesson of the just completed campaign is that their efforts to define immigration neatly in terms of illegal versus legal immigration have come undone, and now the broader topic of immigration looms on the horizon. For Europeans the point is not merely that immigration is a highly volatile issue, but also a multifaceted, protean one that must be straightforwardly analyzed and squarely addressed.”

Lee Pellegrini

Shakeeb Khan

Boston College faculty continued to provide analysis and commentary in the lead-up to Tuesday’s election. Prof. Heather Cox Richardson (History) discussed the precedent for rigged election claims in an interview with WGBH News, while Assoc. Prof.

Dennis Hale (Political Science) told the Boston Herald that revelations about behind-the-scenes communications between CNN and the Democratic National Convention fed Donald Trump’s campaign narrative. Assoc. Prof. of the Practice of Finance Richard McGowan, SJ (CSOM), spoke

See more BC faculty opinion at www.bc.edu/bcnews Church in the 21st Century Director Thomas Groome was a co-recipient of a first-place award from the Catholic Press Association of the US and Canada. Groome and two co-authors were honored for their writing on the 2015 Synod on Family.

Allan Poe’s relation to Boston’s literati, and on recovering a generation of poets who published in Boston during the early national period. Lewis edited The Citizen Poets of Boston: A Collection of Forgotten Poems, 1789—1820, the result of a collaborative American Studies research project that he directed.

BC BRIEFING

During the International Boston Antiquarian Book Fair last month, Professor of English Paul Lewis presented an illustrated talk titled “Adventures in Literary Archaeology.” The president of the Poe Studies Association, Lewis – joined by some of his former BC students – discussed his work on Edgar

Carroll School of Management Professor of Business Law and Society Frank Parker, SJ, conducted seminars on affordable housing and public-private partnerships in Rapid City, SD. He also was interviewed by the local Fox TV affiliated.

NOTA BENE Two Boston College alumni are among 48 new novices in the US, Canada and Haiti who are entering the Society of Jesus: Christopher Alt, who earned a master of divinity degree from the School of Theology and Ministry in 2013, is from the Wisconsin Province. He has served as a volunteer living with the Jesuit community at Saint Ignatius High School in Cleveland, a chaplain at a health center and a house manager at a homeless shelter.

Shaun Slusarski, from the USA Northeast Province, graduated from BC in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree in theology. He has worked as a resident minister at the University of San Francisco and as a religious studies teacher and service/immersion trip coordinator. He also lived in the Jesuit community at Colegio San Luis in Chile during the summer of 2015.

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: Assistant Construction Project Manager, Facilities/Trades Assistant Director, Marketing and Programming, Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies Senior Human Resources Officer, Human Resources Director of Program Innovation, Academic Affairs/Provost Executive Director, Advancement Communications and Marketing Compensation Specialist, Human Resources Instructional Media Producer, Academic Affairs/Provost Assistant Dean, Academic & Student Services, Law School Stewardship Operations Assistant, University Advancement Web Interface Designer, Information Technology Student Services Associate, Academic Affairs/Provost Collection Development Librarian, Academic Affairs/Provost Senior Applications Developer, Information Technology

T he B oston C ollege

Chronicle november 10, 2016

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By Rosanne Pellegrini Staff Writer

An impressive array of paintings, collages, drawings, etchings, photographs, prints and needlepoint by an equally impressive array of University community members comprise the Art Club’s annual exhibit of Boston College faculty and staff artists.

The Faculty and Staff Art Show is on display in the Carney Hall First Floor Gallery through Dec. 2.

Hours are daily from 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.

Exhibitors of the 20 works on display represent diverse campus areas, including University Mission and Ministry, Burns Library, Information Technology, and the Biology, Romance Languages and Literatures, and Art, Art History and Film Studies departments.

“This show, which allows faculty and staff members to showcase talents and skills which are not typically recognized, is vital, because it gives the Art Club the opportunity to have a presence on campus,” according to Art, Art History and Film Studies Assistant Professor of the Practice Sammy Chong, SJ, the club’s academic advisor.

“It’s inspiring and encouraging to know not only that we – and arts groups at BC, in general – have the support of BC faculty and staff, but that so many people who work here are multitalented,” said Art Club President Angel Jiang ’17, a biochemistry and Hispanic studies major. “We were very pleased with the range in submissions, theme, media, departments and offices represented.”

BC SCENES

Among the items on display is a detailed needlepoint work, “Discernment,” on which Fr. Chong collaborated with Walter Conlan, SJ, staff and alumni minister for University Mission and Ministry.

Fr. Chong painted the design on canvas, and Fr. Conlan did the needlepoint.

“is an incredible hands-on learning experience for board members: from curating submissions and paying attention to details like lighting and specific display instructions unique to an artist, to respecting art gallery norms like hanging pieces and their associated labels at specified heights and distances from each other.” She

Sammy Chong, SJ, and Walter Conlan, SJ with their collaborative project, “Discernment,” on display at the Faculty and Staff Art Show. (Photo by Lee Pellegrini)

“The inspiration is St. Ignatius’ Seventh Rule of Spiritual Discernment of the second week of the Spiritual Exercises,” Fr. Chong said. “It states: ‘In those who go on from good to better, the good Angel touches such soul sweetly, lightly and gently, like a drop of water which enters into a sponge; and the evil touches it sharply and with noise and disquiet, as when the drop of water falls on the stone.’

“It was a challenge translating acrylic colors into threads. Because [Fr. Conlan] knows the needlepoint technique, I had to learn how to paint the canvas to facilitate the sewing. The two of us discussed textures, colors, and stitches throughout the process.”

Organizing the show, Jiang said,

said club members felt “privileged” to have Fr. Chong – “a teacher of art-world norms, a personal mentor, and more” – as its advisor.

Fr. Chong said he was impressed with the Art Club officers’ dedication to promoting artwork on campus. “This means committing to meetings and taking on responsibilities related to budgets, attending to formational workshops, purchasing art supplies, and coming up with activities for the BC community. For the last few years, Art Club’s ‘Open Studios’ have offered a wonderful space for students to get together in an informal setting to explore ceramics, drawing, painting, design, photography, and even origami.”

Contact Rosanne Pellegrini at rosanne.pellegrini@bc.edu

Julie-Anne Whitney

Faculty, Staff Show Their Artistic Side

Molière’s “The Misanthrope” changed names and pronouns, but – a comedic satire of the hypocri- other than that are just exploring sies in 17th-century French aristo- how those characters would be cratic society – opens at Robsham played and seen as another gender.

Theater next week, with an amus- Part of this swap was also reing and revealing twist: The pro- visioning the period, looking at the duction is gender-swapped. world of the play where women “This season’s theme is gender are the ones in power.” parity,” explains director and Theatre Department lecturer Theresa Lang, “and that connects to the conversations we are having in the American theater in terms of whose stories are being told and whose voices are being heard.

“When we start talking about how we don’t see more plays by women, or more women working in certain production roles or artistic management, the question arises of how to bridge the gap.

We have to think about the preconceptions we have about gender.”

“The Misanthrope” runs Nov. A recent rehearsal for “The 16-18 at 7:30 p.m., and Nov. 20 Misanthrope,” which comes to at 2 p.m. A panel discussion fol- Robsham Theater Nov. 16. lowing the Nov. 16 opening-night A period comedy, “The Misperformance will underscore the anthrope” has “all this fancy decagender parity theme, with Lang, dence and takes shots at the social playwright and Monan Professor practices of the aristocracy, and at in Theatre Arts Sheri Wilner, and the same time raises really interJulie Hennrikus, executive director esting questions about class and of StageSource. power,” according to Lang.

The play’s plot follows Alceste, The biggest challenge and opwho is disheartened by the vain portunity, she explained, “has been flattery and deceitfulness of his fel- unpacking our own ideas about low men and declares that he will gender and finding the way into only speak the truth, no matter if these characters and this world. So others take offense. Ironically, he much of the period style is based is enamored of the young widow on gender roles; we have been Celimene, who – because of her exploring ways to present as the malicious tongue and coquetry – gender of the character, but with a embodies all he professes to detest. different power dynamic. It’s been Alceste is called to stand trial a lot of fun and the cast has been after he insults a sonnet written great about jumping into these by a powerful nobleman. Given questions and characters.” his refusal to dole out false comLang hopes the audience will pliments, he is charged and hu- both “laugh and see a little of us in miliated, which leads him to self- the world of the play. And in doimposed exile. ing so, I hope there are some quesIn the unconventional Rob- tions asked about how we perceive sham production, “the casting is a gender and its presentation.” total gender swap,” Lang explains.

For ticket information, see “The characters written as men are www.bc.edu/offices/robsham/ticknow played as women and those ets. who were women are men. We –Rosanne Pellegrini

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM With Halloween coming up, the McMullen Museum of Art hosted a series of talks on Oct. 28 to spotlight some of the more eerie, spooky aspects of its current exhibition, “Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections.” The event was part of the “Art After Dark” series, a late-night program that welcomes Boston College undergraduate and graduate students to “take over” the museum, which relocated over the summer to Brighton Campus. [See more at http://bit.ly/mcmullen-after-dark] (Far left) Wizardly McMullen Museum Student Ambassador Josh Artman ‘19 provided visitors Rony Thomas ‘17 and Hannah Ferguson ‘19 with some exhibit information. (Above) Student Ambassador Dante Keeler ’17 examined an illuminated manuscript. (Left) Students also had the opportunity to indulge in other forms of traditional Halloween art.

Photos by Frank Curran