The Boston College
Chronicle Published by the Boston College Office of News & Public Affairs january 30, 2014 VOL. 22 no. 10
•Wellness Group: ‘You’re not alone,’ page 2 •BC international population continues to rise, page 2 •Kobe comes to class, page 2 •DeCapua takes associate dean of students post, page 3
•Math’s Chen receives NSF CAREER Award, page 3 •BC Libraries undertakes digitization projects, page 4
Legal Scholar and Theologian Kaveny Is New Libby Prof. By Kathleen Sullivan Staff Writer
Lee Pellegrini
INSIDE
Cathleen Kaveny, a legal scholar, moral theologian and nationally noted expert on the intersections of law, morality and religion, has joined Boston College as the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor. With an appointment in the Law School and Theology Department in the College of Arts and Sciences, Kaveny is the first person to hold a faculty appointment in two schools at the University. The author of the award-winning book Law’s Virtues: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society and a columnist for Commonweal Caitlin Cunningham
Cathleen Kaveny
magazine, Kaveny has written for America and authored approximately 100 journal articles and book chapters. She has also been interviewed by
SONG OF FREEDOM
various media outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, National Catholic Reporter, and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” among others. She is currently at work on her next book, tentatively titled Prophesy without Contempt: An Ethics of Religious Discourse in the Public Square. “I am delighted and honored to be joining Boston College’s distinguished faculty. I am also very excited about the possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration in this academically rich and diverse community,” said Kaveny, who teaches a graduate theology course on Faith, Morality and Law this semester. In
BC Law Authors Take a Practical View of Obamacare Chirba and Noble focus on compliance and implementation of ACA
•King Scholarship Ceremony is Feb. 12, page 4 •BCDS director Emery feeling at home, page 5
By Sean Hennessey Staff Writer
•Studying the moral view of suicide, page 5
For the first time, millions of previously uninsured Americans now have access to health insurance, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Now there’s a one-stop resource for health care professionals needing help to navigate the 900-page law, thanks to Law School Professor Mary Ann Chirba and Adjunct Lecturer Alice Noble, authors of Health Reform: Law and Practice. Rather than focus on the various well-documented political and social controversies surrounding the ACA, Chirba and Noble offer a more practical view of the law. “The book deals with implementation and compliance,” says Chirba. “It’s not headed for the New York Times bestseller list. It is two volumes and 2,000 pages, intended for those charged with complying with the statute: law firms, attorneys, compliance officers, hospitals, physician practices, insurance companies, state
•Q&A: with A&S Dean David Quigley, page 5
United Voices of Freedom, a collaboration of the student ensembles Against the Current, Liturgy Arts Group and the Voices of Imani, performed as part of the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Gathering on Jan. 20 in Robsham Theater. More photos on page 8.
Keeping Memories Alive
•City Connect receives funding support, page 6 •Lowell Humanities Series spring line-up, page 7 •Robsham schedule, page 8 •McMullen to host ‘Paris Night & Day,’ page 8
the fall, she will teach contracts at the Law School and a seminar cross-listed with the Theology Department. Kaveny said she plans to connect with Boston-based stakeholders on issues such as health care ethics and the law and as president of the Society of Christian Ethics will focus on the law and Christian ethics. Prior to her arrival at Boston College, Kaveny was the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law and Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, where she had been on the faculty since 1995. She also held visiting professorships and fellowships at Yale UniContinued on page 3
Documentary is latest effort by Ramsay Liem to pass along survivors’ stories from a ‘forgotten war’ By Sean Smith Chronicle Editor
One of the ironies of referring to the Korean War as “the forgotten war,” says Professor Emeritus of Psychology Ramsay Liem, is that it technically has never ended, since no formal treaty between the antagonists has ever been signed. But for many Koreans, the war is not forgotten, says Liem, coproducer and co-director of a recent documentary that depicts the
human costs of military conflict through personal accounts by four Korean-American survivors. “Memory of Forgotten War,” which Liem produced and directed with his sister-in-law Deann Borshay Liem, was shown at Boston College earlier this month. The program also featured a Q&A with the filmmakers and cultural music and dance presentations that included BC student performers. “As Koreans, so much of our Continued on page 6
QUOTE:
Law School faculty members Alice Noble, left, and Mary Ann Chirba. (Photo by Caitlin Cunningham)
regulators, and so on. It’s very technical.” In fact, Noble and Chirba, both specialists in health care law, didn’t come up with the idea for Health Reform themselves. They were invited to help write the book by a major legal publisher. “As an academic, this law was something I had been eagerly awaiting for many years,” says Noble. “I’m very interested in the topic, so when an opportunity comes along as this one did — to take the statutes and actually read them, analyze them, understand them in a way that most Continued on page 4
“We do an exercise at the library where we pass around a book from the 15th century to students at a table. At first, they all look like scared fathers who have just been handed a baby. I tell them, ‘this book has held up for 500 years and when we’re all dead and gone, it will still be here strong.’” —Burns Library Rare Books Librarian and Senior Cataloger David Richtmyer, page 4