DECEMBER 9, 2021 VOL. 29 NO. 7
PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON COLLEGE OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
INSIDE 3x Barros Headline to BC
Ex-Boston economic development xxxxx. chief will be visiting professional at xCorcoran Headline Center next semester. xxx.
8 After COP26 x Headline BC delegates to climate conference discuss what could, and should, xxxxx. happen next.
12 M.B.A. to ICA
Kate Herlihy talks about how her Carroll School experience advanced her career in the arts.
Lynch Makes Major Gift Q &A to McMullen Museum An Update on
EagleApps, One Year Later
Donates more than $20 million in art from his private collection BY JACK DUNN ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Peter Lynch, vice chairman of Fidelity Management and Research Company and trustee associate at Boston College, has gifted 27 paintings and three drawings— worth in excess of $20 million—from his and his late wife Carolyn’s private art collection to Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art, including renowned works from Pablo Picasso, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Albert Bierstadt, Martin Johnson Heade, and Jack Butler Yeats.
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Peter Lynch: Donation is “a small way for me to give back.” photo by lee pellegrini
And Now, Back to Our Story... At long last, BC’s popular local outreach program Read Aloud has returned to the classroom BY SEAN SMITH CHRONICLE EDITOR
The Boston College community knows her as a staff assistant in the Communication Department, but Leslie Douglas has a not-so-secret identity. Once a month, she transforms into “Miss Leslie,” enthusiastic reader of stories to young children and dressed to suit the occasion, whether a Halloween witch, a Christmas elf, or a St. Patrick’s Day leprechaun. This fall, Douglas formally started her 18th year as a volunteer in the University’s award-winning Read Aloud program, which sends faculty and staff to visit K-5 classrooms at the St. Columbkille Partnership School and Thomas Edison K-8 School, both in Brighton, where they read a story or book to the students. The program, a partnership between BC, Boston
BC Read Aloud volunteer Hilary Crouteau, an acquisitons and fiscal assistant at O’Neill Library, presented Eloise at the Plaza to a class at the St. Columbkille Partnership School in Brighton. photo by caitlin cunningham
Public Schools, and Boston Partners in Education, is back to an in-person format after the pandemic had curtailed visits to schools from 2020 through last spring. During that period, some Read Aloud volunteers, including Douglas, used Zoom or YouTube videos to maintain a connection with the schoolchildren. Needless to say, Douglas prefers the liveand-in-person version. “I like it when the students react and have questions in regard to what I’m reading,” said Douglas, who has worked with pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and firstgrade classes at St. Columbkille. “Kids at that age are so bright and eager to learn. Flexibility is the key word with children, and so is listening. For all that to work, you really need to be in the same room with them.” Intersections Program Director Burton Continued on page 10
Almost a year ago, Boston College launched EagleApps, a groundbreaking platform to manage academic and enrollment activities for students, faculty, and administrators. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and Information Technology Services, EagleApps is designed to provide a “one-stop shopping” approach that integrates course and program management, registration, financial aid, advising, payments and billing, academic records management, and other vital functions. Two of the project’s key figures, ITS Director of Project, Planning & Portfolio Governance Denis Walsh and Student Services Information Systems Director Jennifer Mack, recently spoke with Chronicle to give an update on EagleApps’ first year, and what to look for in the months ahead. Q: Let’s set the context: Why undertake this project? What issues are being addressed through EagleApps? Mack: This was a strategic decision on the part of the University, made a decade ago, anticipating a number of needs and trends in student services. BC had been working on academic and enrollment management tasks through University Information System (UIS) with a mainframe computer that is about 40 years old. There was no way to do advanced course set-up for a more robust registration process, no integration with the vendor products that had emerged in key areas of student services. The mainframe is simply not as popular a technology as it once was in higher education, and it was vital for BC to move on to a new, more efficient means of serving students, faculty, and administrators. Walsh: The new generation of applications puts greater power and flexibility in the hands of users and how they choose to run their businesses, so it was in BC’s best
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I would love to hire more BC students. This is your college. This is your home. I’d like to see you be the one to make the money. – beth ann burns, dining services hr manager, page 2