John M. Connors Jr. ’63, H’07, a legendary advertising executive and philanthropist, never had his family, the Church, the disadvantaged, or Boston College far from his heart.
28
Introducing Messina College
BC has launched a new two-year residential junior college for first-generation students from low-income families.
By Shaun Tolson ’05
Photography by Caitlin Cunningham and Lee Pellegrini
Easing Their Pain
The opioid addiction crisis has spotlighted a vexing problem: How do you treat the pain of medical patients who have a history of substance use disorders? Katie Fitzgerald Jones’s research into that question has made the Connell School of Nursing PhD a nationally recognized expert in pain management.
By Michael Blanding
Photography by Tony Luong
4 Discovering Her Voice
Jordyn Zimmerman may be nonspeaking, but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming a powerhouse advocate for disability rights and education reform.
6 Campus Digest
8 Constitutional Crisis
In an acclaimed new book, Law School Professor Aziz Rana argues that mythologizing our founding document is impeding the country’s progress.
10 BC Becomes a Top QuestBridge Destination
The University has risen to the top of a program matching excellent students and elite institutions.
11 In Memoriam
Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau
12 Chemistry Solutions Fueled by the Sun
How BC researcher Jier Huang is using tiny molecules to help solve one of the world’s biggest problems—climate change.
14 Making a Mint
Dawn Myers ’07 took a hair care tool she invented all the way to Shark Tank
15 Director’s Chair
The documentary filmmaker Marissa Aroy ’95 has already won an Emmy. Now she’s at work on an upcoming Smithsonian exhibit.
16 The Touchdown Maker
Pete Carmichael Jr. ’94 may have starred on the baseball diamond for the Eagles, but the NFL is where he’s built his reputation as a brilliant offensive coach.
17 Olympic Champion Swimmer
Dara Torres Joins BC as Coach
The record-setting athlete will lead the swimming and diving program.
18 The Heirloom
A new novel by Jessie Rosen ’05 offers a twist on the fairy-tale ending of a marriage proposal.
LINDEN LANE
Photograph by Lee Pellegrini
The Future of AI
Our cover story explored the ethics of artificial intelligence.
I found the article [Summer 2024] to be both impactful and impartial. The following statement from your panel sums up my thinking on the future of AI: “When media, images, language, or speech are created through artificial intelligence, it’s getting to the point where it’s so good that it’s difficult to know if that product was produced by a human or by artificial intelligence.” As a career HR professional, I am steadfastly opposed to AI replacing humans in the workplace.
Anne Marie Tucciarone-Mahan ’90 Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire
I was a little disappointed to see an article on “The Future of AI” that posed several questions about AI to Boston College faculty, but not the most important one: Can AI do what it claims to do today? The preface speaks of “the possibilities [being] endless,” and AI being “poised to transform humanity.” But it’s not until deep in the article that anyone addresses the question of whether AI works today. Professor Prud’hommeaux mentions in passing that ChatGPT can’t complete a coding exercise without getting several things wrong. But Gina Helfrich is the only one to acknowledge that any company that has tried to replace human beings with AI platforms— the loudest, most repeated promise of AI boosters today—has failed. Meanwhile,
Google has rolled back its Generative AI search features after a comically disastrous debut. A claim that ChatGPT has been able to pass the bar exam has been debunked. The World Health Organization, the City of New York, and Air Canada have all been forced to grapple with lies that their AI-powered chatbots told. There are more examples of AI products failing to live up to their claims than of following through. Any effort spent postulating on what AI might one day do without first addressing whether it does what it claims to today is wasted.
John Perich ’03
Braintree, Massachusetts
Follow this simple rule when it comes to AI: Just because it can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.”
J.P. Lanham ’81 Irvine, California
Making Headlines
Former Boston Globe Managing Editor for News Tom Mulvoy ’64 on his post-retirement work with the ambitious Dorchester Reporter community newspaper.
The article [Summer 2024] brought back so many memories. I started writing for the Boston Globe in 1974, when Tom Mulvoy was the assistant sports editor, and everyone wanted a piece of his time. He offered either insight or wit—sometimes scathing. Once, he took me to his local golf course, and after my effort on the first tee, said, “I don’t believe that swing has ever been seen in the history of golf.” Nothing mattered more to him than the truth. He once told me the truth is a newspaper’s DNA. He also cared about spelling (and would not take “typo” as an excuse) and wanted everyone to have a fresh perspective. I’m not surprised the Reporter has served the community so well for so long. It’s what Tom’s done his entire life. If we had a day for all the people he has touched, it would fill Alumni Stadium.
Lesley Visser ’75, H’07 Bay Harbor Islands, Florida
This Drug Enables Breakthrough Organ Transplants
A biotech company founded by Steve Perrin ’88 created a drug that helped to make possible a revolutionary kidney transplant.
The article about this breakthrough [Summer 2024] is certainly wonderful news for anyone awaiting a transplant. However, I am saddened by the thought that more xeno -
illustrations: Stephanie Dalton Cowan (AI); Courtesy of Eledon (Tegoprubart drug) photo: Lee Pellegrini (Mulvoy)
Artificial intelligence is poised to transform society. How do we develop it safely?
BY LISA WEIDENFELD ILLUSTRATIONS BY STEPHANIE DALTON COWAN
transplantation [animal-to-human organ transplants] will be taking place. It seems little thought is given to the animal giving his or her life to save a human life. I do not want to get into a discussion of whose life is more valuable. It would simply be nice to acknowledge the sacrifice of a pig’s life, rather than just note that the pig’s kidney is similar in size to human kidneys and performs all the essential functions of a healthy human kidney.
Jane Hoffman ’75 New York, New York
What I’ve Learned: Harvey D. Egan, SJ
Boston College’s longest currently serving Jesuit spoke to the magazine about his life and career, including his time studying under Karl Rahner, one of the world’s leading Jesuit thinkers.
Thanks for the great article [Summer 2024]. I worked at BC Information Technology for many years and knew Fr. Egan as an early adopter of technology. I spent hours helping Father learn to input data about Karl Rahner on a VAX computer. He was not only a great theologian—he easily grasped new ideas. I believe I helped him learn about technology, but as a Jesuit, a man, and a friend, he taught me so very much and I will always treasure getting to know him.
Karen King ’89, LGSOE’98 Wakefield, Massachusetts
I am one of the students that Fr. Egan made a huge impact on in my freshman year at BC. I remember being impressed by his black
leather jacket. I was later influenced by his books. Thanks, Fr. Egan.
Mark O’Connell ’86 Braintree, Massachusetts
I still have my notes from Fr. Egan’s Foundations in Catholic Theology class from 1979 or 1980.
Bill Abely ’81 Johns Creek, Georgia
Character Sketch: Maggie Rulli
ABC correspondent Maggie Rulli shared stories about reporting live from all over the world for the broadcaster.
So proud of you, Maggie Rulli! Will always remember our first Television Production class.
Maeve Sloan ’08 Mountain Brook, Alabama
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Jordyn Zimmerman may be nonspeaking, but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming a powerhouse advocate for disability rights and education reform.
BY ELIZABETH CLEMENTE
Jordyn Zimmerman MEd’21 is autistic and nonspeaking, and spent the first eighteen years of her life trapped in her own mind, unable to communicate with the world around her. But everything changed one day in 2014 as she sat in her childhood home with her mother and a disability rights lawyer. With the lawyer’s guidance, Zimmerman slowly dragged her finger across the screen of an iPad, selecting pictures and letters that represented how she was feeling. Suddenly, she was articulating her thoughts for the first time.
Ten years later, Zimmerman has become a powerful champion for disability rights and education policy reform. Her motivation is nothing less than to change the world’s perception and treatment of people with disabilities. In 2022, President Biden appointed her to the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities. She has shared her inspirational story on CBS Mornings, and she’s the subject of the 2021 documentary This Is Not About Me. In addition to her full-time job as head of project strategy at the special education nonprofit The Nora Project, Zimmerman is also chair of the board of directors of CommunicationFIRST, a nonprofit that advocates for the civil rights of the millions of Americans who have difficulty speaking.
To her many admirers and her thousands of online followers, she is a living example of what is possible when a person is given adequate accessibility. But painful memories of the difficult path she took to her success have never left her. “That messaging that I didn’t belong and that I couldn’t learn, or wasn’t worthy of learning, really made me passionate about ensuring accessibility today,” she said, speaking via Live Speech, a feature that reads aloud words she types into an iPad app. Zimmerman carries her iPad everywhere, often cradling it in her lap. When I asked her questions for this article, she took a couple of minutes to type her responses and then a female-sounding electronic voice reminiscent of Siri voiced her words. This method of communicating is a high-tech form of what’s known as augmentative and alternative communication, a term used to describe
all the ways that a person can communicate without speaking. Zimmerman identifies as nonspeaking rather than nonverbal, because of her ability to perceive and utilize language. “Speech is the motor process of expressing language,” she explained. “I cannot effectively speak, but I am very verbal.”
But for the entirety of her childhood, she was unable to demonstrate those abilities. Growing up in Ohio, she was relegated in school to special education classes, some of them so under-stimulating that she remembers spending all day playing video games. Back then, her primary means of communication was using gestures. She had trouble regulating her body and would sometimes
That messaging that I didn’t belong and that I couldn’t learn, or wasn’t worthy of learning, really made me passionate about ensuring accessibility today.” “
bang her head against walls or wander off. She recalled people treating her like she couldn’t understand them, which made making friends almost impossible, and her lack of speech led the public school system to assume she was an “incompetent” student. “Both at school and at home, [communication and regulation] were exceedingly difficult,” she said.
In 2014, Zimmerman’s mother contacted Disability Rights Ohio to discuss the mistreatment she believed her daughter was experiencing at school. A lawyer from the nonprofit met with Zimmerman to learn more about the situation, and also taught her how to use an iPad to communicate.
Soon Zimmerman was taking the iPad to school, using the device to transform her learning and her life. Suddenly she could share her thoughts and deepen her relationships with other people in a way she could never have imagined previously. “Before the iPad, I didn't have the opportunity to show my humanity or engage with the world,” she said.
Zimmerman eventually transferred to the Cardinal Autism Resource and Education School, graduating in 2016 at the age of twenty-one. She then earned a bachelor’s degree in education policy from Ohio University in 2020. Less than two years later, she graduated with a master’s in education from the Lynch School of Education and Human Development.
Zimmerman may be a civil rights champion these days, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t know how to have fun, too. Tauna Szymanski, executive director of CommunicationFIRST, said Zimmerman is known within the organization for her sense of humor, love for her dog, Einstein, and passion for activism. “She loves to laugh and meet people, and at the same time she’s incredibly professional and wise beyond her years,” she said. “She’s definitely the best boss I’ve ever had.”
In her advocacy and policy work, Zimmerman is pressing for a ban on federal funds used to support the IQ testing of nonspeaking students in public institutions. She knows from personal experience that such tests are poor indicators of the intelligence of nonspeaking students. “When students are given an IQ test but don’t have access to effective communication, it puts them on a path of lifelong segregation,” she said. “Once that happens, it’s very hard to switch things up.”
Of course, Zimmerman herself has been switching things up for a decade now. In addition to everything else she does, she’s currently working on an MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology. “Wherever that takes me next, my mission in life remains the same,” she said. “To make our communities more accessible and inclusive, especially for those of us who are historically most often left out.” n
Fr. Gregory Boyle STM84
Receives Major Award
Gregory Boyle, SJ, STM’84 was recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. President Biden presented the medal to Boyle in recognition of his work with Homeboy Industries, the Los Angeles gang intervention program he launched in his church’s basement in 1988 that today helps more than ten thousand people each year through services such as substance-abuse assistance, mental health support, and tattoo removal. Boyle’s example, Biden said, “reminds us of the power of redemption, rehabilitation, and our obligation to those that have been condemned or counted out. Thank you, Fr. Greg, for your amazing grace.” —Eliz abeth Clemente
Carl Lanzilli ’66 travels the world with a beloved Boston College banner, photographing the flag in front of scenic backdrops in every country he visits. Here’s a numerical breakdown of his globetrotting art project:
30
Countries visited
7,362
Miles from Boston to the furthest destination
6
Continents explored
15
Years of photographing the banner
All three contestants on an episode of Jeopardy! last summer were stumped by this “answer,” for which any Eagle could have come up with the correct “question.”
Professor Ann Burgess Takes Center Stage in New Hulu Docuseries
Connell School of Nursing Professor Ann Wolbert Burgess is in the Hollywood spotlight once again. Burgess spent two decades using her skills as a psychiatric nurse to profile serial killers for the FBI, and her career has served as inspiration for several television and film projects, including the hit Netflix series Mindhunter it’s Burgess’s own life that is the focus of a new Hulu docuseries that premiered over the summer. Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer viewers through fifty years of Burgess’s career, including her role in establishing the field of forensic nursing, which exists at the crossroads of health care and the criminal justice system. The docuseries, produced by the actress sisters Dakota and Elle
Fanning, delves into the grisly murder cases Burgess and her FBI colleagues investigated, and the sexism she faced in the field. The show, which was shot over eighteen months, includes a number of scenes featuring the BC campus. It provides a rare glimpse into Burgess’s personal life, including interviews with her, her husband and children, and her colleagues. Burgess said she disliked being followed with a camera but hopes the show will raise awareness about her field. “I really did it for nursing,” she said. “I think a lot of people don’t know what a forensic nurse is, so hopefully we’re educating people that nurses have a lot to do with the interface between medical procedures and the law. And they make excellent expert witnesses.” Elizabeth Clemente
CAMPUS NEWS
David Goodman has been named dean of the Woods College of Advancing Studies. Goodman, who started in August, was formerly the associate dean for strategic initiatives and external relations at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development. He previously served as Woods College interim dean from 2018 until 2019.
BC research funding is expected to total $83 million this year, the most in University history. Faculty and administrators attribute the achievement to years of strategic initiatives and investment, with funding from government agencies, private foundations, and other external sources rising from $57 million in 2020 to $73 million last year.
Personal finance magazine Money gave Boston College a five-star rating, placing the school in the highest tier of the magazine’s “Best Colleges in America” list. BC earned its spot alongside fiftyfour other schools thanks to exceptionally high scores for its graduation rates, cost of attendance, financial aid, and alumni salaries.
The Law School’s Initiative on Land, Housing & Property Rights has received a $2 million grant from JPMorganChase. The initiative, founded and led by Drinan Professor of Law Thomas W. Mitchell, works to address housing and property issues for disadvantaged communities by issuing policy recommendations, performing community outreach, and training law students.
Nutrition Navigators, a Boston College Dining Services program that helps new students manage food allergies and other medical nutrition needs, won the grand prize at the National Association of College and University Food Service Nutrition Awards. The program pairs first-year and transfer students with older Eagles with similar food challenges who can offer guidance in the dining halls.
CHARACTER SKETCH
Matthew O’Brien ’00
O’Brien spent thirteen years providing security around the world for American embassies, consulates, and dignitaries as part of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. These days, O’Brien is the special agent in charge for the Boston field office of the DSS, overseeing operations in New England, providing security for visiting officials, and investigating crimes such as passport and visa fraud. Elizabeth Clemente
We are the most broadly represented US law enforcement agency. We operate in 270 diplomatic posts around the world in over 170 countries, so if there’s an embassy or a consulate, you’re going to find us. We are a federal law enforcement agency, and we’re also members of the foreign service, which means we’re diplomats as well.
In Baghdad, I was working out of Saddam Hussein’s former palace. We’ve since built a “real” embassy, but it was a unique living environment, and I spent about fourteen months there, starting in 2007. For a year of that, I was the agent in charge of the protection detail for the United States ambassador to Iraq, and it was a huge job to keep him safe. I crisscrossed Iraq dozens of times. I’ve been on every single air platform, helicopter, and aircraft that’s in the US military’s arsenal.
Before I went to Colombia in 2008, my sole job for six months was to learn Spanish. A fortunate part of joining the State Department is that we can go to the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia. They teach literally every language down there to prepare American diplomats to go serve. I returned before moving to Pakistan for a thirteenweek familiarization with Urdu.
My job now is not only to manage the New England operation, but also to mentor and advise newer agents. About 80 percent of my personnel are on their first tour, and they come to the field office to learn how to be agents. All of our missions are dangerous, whether they involve protection, arrests, or surveillance. My number one priority is the safety of our personnel.
photo: AP Photo/Alex Brandon (Boyle); Carl Lanzilli (BC banner); Lee Pellegrini (O’Brien)
Constitutional Crisis
In an acclaimed new book, Law School Professor Aziz Rana argues that mythologizing our founding document is impeding the country’s progress.
BY LISA WEIDENFELD
The Constitution is often held up as the bedrock of American democracy, a sacrosanct founding document that not only defines our rights as citizens but, two centuries after its ratification, continues to show us the way toward a brighter and more just future. But what if that very belief is actually holding back American progress? That’s the argument in an influential new book written by the renowned legal scholar Aziz Rana, who recently joined the Law School as the J. Donald Monan, S.J., University Professor of Law and Government.
In The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them, Rana writes that while there have been ebbs and flows of reverence for the Constitution over time, our current level of veneration, which borders on worship, is largely a product of the twentieth century, coinciding with America’s rise as a global power. As America’s prominence on the global stage grew, he argues, the Constitution helped us explain what made our country special. “My book is really an effort to understand American constitutional culture,” Rana said. “How did we get to a point where it’s very hard to think and talk about the Constitution precisely because of the outsized cultural role it plays?”
The book has generated glowing praise from media outlets, reviewers, and legal scholars alike. The New Republic called it “charismatic and forceful on every page,” while Kirkus described it as a “work of
legal and political history that speaks eloquently to democratic reform.” Yale Law School’s Reva Siegel, meanwhile, hailed the book as “paradigm shifting.” When Rana submitted a related op-ed to the New York Times that called for changes to the Constitution, the former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi applauded his “strong case for legislative solutions that will reinforce American democracy.”
As reactions like these indicate, Rana’s hiring last year was a significant coup for the Law School. “He is at once a pioneer who is exploring the horizons of several fields, and also a committed classroom teacher and mentor to the next generation of lawyers,” Boston College Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley said.
Rana, as it happens, is also the husband of the prominent international economic law scholar Odette Lienau, who in 2023 was hired away from Cornell University to become the Law School’s inaugural Marianne D. Short, Esq., Dean. When it was announced that Rana would also leave Cornell to join the Law School faculty, it represented a unique opportunity for BC to add two academic stars at the same time (see facing page). Quigley said that Rana has already begun making his mark in Law School classrooms. “He seeks to embody our ideal of the teacher-scholar,” he said.
Of course, as the success of The Constitutional Bind demonstrates, Rana’s influence has hardly been limited to Chestnut Hill. The book may seem a timely com-
photos: Caitlin Cunningham; Courtesy of Rana and Lienau
mentary on our current moment of debate about the democratic merits of the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, but Rana argues that demands to amend the Constitution are as old as the document itself. America has a long history of thinkers who have pushed for a “deeper transformation” of the Constitution, he writes, only to be “thoroughly marginalized” by the modern era. The book explores both how we came to worship the Constitution and how we can move beyond the current legislative gridlock that the document enables.
Rana was born in Los Angeles but spent his early childhood in his father’s home country of Kenya. He moved back to the States when he was six, but traveled to Kenya often to visit family. “I think of myself as very much an American, but I feel like I have a perspective that’s shaped by the time I spent outside the country,” he said.
Rana attended Harvard as an undergrad (that’s where he and Lienau met), then earned a JD from Yale Law School and a PhD in political science from Harvard. He was the Richard and Lois Cole Professor of Law at Cornell, where he taught from 2010 to 2023. In the classroom, he said, “the energy from the students and the shifting perspectives and dynamics immeasurably improve not just my teaching, but my thinking generally. It’s definitely had an impact on the writing I do.”
Cornell Law Professor Michael Dorf said Rana’s students loved him, even those who may have disagreed with him on some issues. “I think that’s because of his sincerity and his generosity toward the students,” Dorf said. “He’s not judging them. He’s giving his account.”
Lienau echoed the sentiment. “He’s an incredibly compelling teacher, but also a kind person,” she said. “He goes to a conference and somehow ends up on three different dissertation committees for people at other institutions, or ends up being asked to write tenure letters.”
Rana began working on The Constitutional Bind ten years ago. Even then, at a very different moment in American politics, he was struck by the mythology surrounding the Constitution, right down to the way it was taught in law school. He rewrote the introduction to the book repeatedly as time went on, with each of the revisions reflecting the shifting times and attitudes around the document. “The last version,” he said, “highlights how we’re living during this moment in which constitutional support is really breaking down.” n
Power Couple
When the Law School hired the powerhouse Cornell University law professor Odette Lienau in 2023 to become the inaugural Marianne D. Short, Esq., Dean, she wasn’t the only acclaimed academic who arrived in Chestnut Hill. Lienau is married to Aziz Rana, a renowned legal scholar who joined the Law School as the J. Donald Monan, S.J., University Professor of Law and Government.
Lienau and Rana met on their first day as Harvard undergraduates. “We were in the same dorm, and I remember thinking he seemed cool, smart, kind,” Lienau said. “And fun.”
Lienau, who focuses on international economic law, grew up in Indonesia, while Rana, a constitutional law scholar, was raised in both Kenya and the States. Their specialties today may be different, but Lienau said they both have always been “very interested in the larger issues of the world, in questions of justice.” They also both majored in political science at Harvard, and even won the same prestigious academic prize, one year apart.
These days, they’re not just each other’s biggest supporters, they’re also the closest editors of each other’s work, even though their expertise and views differ widely. “I have her editing voice in my mind when I think of my own writing,” Rana said. “Her influence for me goes from the conversation level to real handson advice and editing work.” Even as she was preparing for the move to BC, he recalled, Lienau gave him page-by-page edits of his new book.
Lienau said it’s been helpful throughout their careers to have each other as a knowledgeable sounding board. “We understand where the other person is coming from,” she said, “but can also say, ‘this is too much in the weeds.’”
After living in Cambridge and Somerville during their years at Harvard, Rana said the couple, who have two children, have been charmed by getting to know Boston in a different era of life. “We have a lot of connections and positive memories and associations with Boston,” he said. “What's been really fun is just getting a broader experience of the city.”
BC Becomes a Top QuestBridge Destination
The University has risen to the top of a program matching excellent students and elite institutions.
BY LISA WEIDENFELD
Josh Cruz ’25 was a gifted high school student, but growing up in Washington state and Texas, he wasn't as familiar with Boston College as he was with other colleges. Then he learned about the University from an innovative program called QuestBridge, which matches excellent students from lowincome backgrounds with top colleges that are willing to commit to full scholarships. BC appealed to Cruz immediately, in part because of the focus on formative education. “I was a person who, at that point in my life, had no idea about what I wanted to pursue,” Cruz said recently. “Seeing a school that’s like, We’re here to care for you, really develop you in all aspects of your life—I was really drawn to that.”
All across the country, there are students just like Cruz. They’re high-achieving, academically driven, and from low-income families. They have the skills to thrive in an elite educational institution, but identifying such schools, navigating the application pro -
cess, and then securing financial aid can pose a significant challenge. The QuestBridge program resolves that problem by connecting such students with colleges that are good fits, and that also are able to meet their full financial need.
Boston College is one of fifty-two standout colleges and universities that have been invited to participate in the QuestBridge program, a group that includes institutions such as Yale, Princeton, and MIT. BC welcomed its first students from the program in 2020; by 2024, the school enrolled the second-most students in the national match program out of all participating institutions.
BC intended from the very beginning to admit a large number of QuestBridge students, said Grant Gosselin, dean of undergraduate admission and financial aid. While some schools start out their participation in the program by enrolling ten or twenty students, Boston College enrolled fifty in its first year. The next year, University President
William P. Leahy, SJ, committed to increasing participation to seventy-five students. In the third year, the number went up again, to ninety students. This fall, 115 students have matriculated through the QuestBridge program. “The fact that we’ve risen to the top of the list is not a result of promotion,” Gosselin said. “It’s a result of our commitment.” When it comes to finding highachieving students, he added, QuestBridge has “allowed us to expand our reach nationally, and even around the world.”
That expanded reach is what allows BC to enroll excellent students such as Cruz, who is pursuing a dual degree in computer science and management. When he graduates in May, he’ll be part of BC’s first class of QuestBridge scholars to do so. “Being able to make friends and connections,” he said, “and then find out, Oh, you’re a QuestBridge student, too?, that’s one of the best kinds of connections you can make on BC’s campus.” n
IN MEMORIAM
Boston College continues to mourn the tragic loss of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau. The inseparable brothers, and one-time BC hockey teammates, were struck by a car while bicycling in August. Their deaths have led to an outpouring of grief throughout the Boston College community. Jerry York, who coached the Gaudreaus at BC, said he
was “devastated and heartbroken by the news…. They were not only great hockey players but two outstanding young men."
At their funeral, Johnny’s widow Meredith attested to the bond between the two brothers. “The fact that you’re now together in heaven gives me a little bit of comfort,” she said.
photo: Richard T. Gagnon/Getty Images
Chemistry Solutions Fueled by the Sun
How BC researcher Jier Huang is using tiny molecules to help solve one of the world’s biggest problems—climate change.
BY JESSICA COLAROSSI
Every plant on Earth, from the tallest tree to a microscopic algae, is constantly doing chemistry—converting carbon dioxide and water into the energy they need to survive. We all learned about photosynthesis in elementary school, but what if this foundational process in nature could be harnessed for something else entirely: to help solve perhaps the biggest, most complex threat to life on Earth—climate change?
In a number of innovative lab projects,
the BC researcher Jier Huang is exploring that possibility. An associate professor of chemistry, Huang is making organic materials inspired by the relationship between the sun and plants. Her materials mimic how plants use light to trigger chemical changes at the cellular level, such as converting carbon dioxide, one of the most prevalent planetwarming greenhouse gases, into one that doesn’t contribute to climate change.
To appreciate Huang’s work, imagine
If water could be split with just the sun, as Huang is working on, it would revolutionize hydrogen as a clean energy.” “
yourself as a student learning for the first time about the chemical elements and particles that make up our world—electrons transferring between molecules, bonds forming and breaking between atoms. For Huang, the most essential concept is catalysis, or a catalyst. As we all remember from chemistry class, that’s any substance that speeds up a reaction without changing itself, like the enzymes in our saliva that convert starch into sugar.
Huang’s lab in the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society is where she and a team of students are experimenting with different combinations of molecules and catalysts. To describe her lab, she uses the tagline Designed by Chemists. Powered by the Sun. And it’s easy to understand why: She and her students have created a material called a photocatalyst, meaning that it reacts with the sun. In one of their experiments, the photocatalyst is infused with carbon dioxide (CO2), then put in direct sunlight, which begins a chain of events that leads to a chemical reaction. The sun reacts with the material and causes the CO2 to lose an oxygen atom, making carbon monoxide (CO)—a gas that is dangerous to breathe in high quantities indoors but typically diffuses quickly in outdoor environments and doesn’t directly contribute to climate change the same way carbon dioxide does.
Huang’s photocatalysts can be used to create beneficial changes in other substances, too. For instance, if the same photocatalyst is infused with a drop of water, the sunlight can separate the oxygen and hydrogen parts. That resulting hydrogen has the potential to be used in hydrogen fuel technology, which is a cleaner alternative to natural gas. Today, hydrogen requires a lot of electricity to split the water molecules and create hydrogen. But if water could be split with just the sun, as Huang is working on, it would revolution-
ize hydrogen as a clean energy. “The goal is to make our contribution in solving the energy crisis and climate change,” she said.
Over the course of her career, Huang’s work has been recognized by the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy (DOE). She recently received a $400,000 grant from the DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences to refine her design of a photocatalyst called a hybrid covalent organic framework. This material is a porous structure made of crystalline molecules that can efficiently expose to sunlight the reactants, which are the materials that you start with in a chemical reaction, like the carbon dioxide that gets transformed into carbon monoxide.
To make these reactions—which are invisible to the human eye—happen and understand the chemistry behind them, Huang relies on a tool called ultrafast spectroscopy, which is essentially a laser that she calls the fastest camera in the world. “Our human eyes watch the world, but we chemists use spectroscopy to watch the molecular world,” she said. “In order to measure this event, we need a tool that is faster than the event itself.”
Huang started studying solar energy conversions as a graduate student at Lanzhou University in China, then earned her PhD in physical chemistry at Emory University. From there she joined the Argonne National Laboratory as a postdoctoral scientist. She was later a faculty member at Marquette University in Wisconsin for nine years, before joining Boston College last year as an associate professor and researcher.
In another project here at BC, Huang is collaborating with Earth and Environmental Sciences Assistant Professor Xingchen Wang to extract CO2 from ocean water. Their plan is to develop a system in the lab that uses Huang’s photocatalysts to convert this CO2 into CO. “Professor Huang's expertise in photochemistry and hybrid materials is crucial to this endeavor,” Wang said. Their collaboration transcends the traditional disciplinary boundaries, he added, which has made the project not only possible, “but also a genuinely enjoyable venture.”
Across all her work, and one experiment at a time, Huang’s sun-fueled reactions have the potential to be a part of broader global efforts to reduce carbon dioxide—a must to combat climate change—and pave the way to cleaner energy solutions. Her goal, she said, is nothing less than to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. n
Fiddle Kid Enrolls at BC
Back in 2013, seven-year-old Danny Gillis ’28 won the hearts of Eagles everywhere after he appeared on the Jumbotron at a men’s hockey game playing air fiddle to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Born into a family of BC alumni, Gillis attended enough games to become widely known as “Fiddle Kid.” He’s all grown up now, and studying economics and entrepreneurship in his freshman year at BC. “I’ve been exploring the campus my whole life,” he said. “But to experience it from a student’s lens and have so much more depth to my experience will be great.”
CSOM Department Named for Marc Seidner
Thanks to the largest gift in the history of the Carroll School of Management, the Finance Department will be renamed the Seidner Department of Finance.
The gift, from University Trustee Marc Seidner ’88, will provide support for continued scholarship, research, and teaching in the department, and will endow the Seidner University Professorship, currently held by Nobel laureate Paul M. Romer. The Seidner Department of Finance becomes the University’s first named academic department, and one of the few endowed departments in American higher education.
Seidner, a managing director at PIMCO, said he made the gift in recognition of the transformative education both he and his daughter Alexis ’24 received at BC, and to further strengthen the highly ranked Finance Department.
The Ice Bucket Challenge Ten Years Later
This year is the tenth anniversary of the ice bucket challenge, the wildly popular ALS fundraiser inspired by Pete Frates ’07. To mark the milestone, BC last summer hosted the ALS Association’s CEO Soak, a fundraising event where local business and community leaders do the ice bucket challenge, which raised more than sixty thousand dollars. During her keynote address at the event, Nancy Frates ’80 recalled her son as someone who “lived a life full of love, compassion, empathy, and leadership.”
photos: Caitlin Cunningham (Gillis); Ethan Roy/BC
Making a Mint
Dawn Myers ’07 took a hair care tool she invented all the way to Shark Tank.
BY ELIZABETH CLEMENTE
Dawn Myers ’07 could have been forgiven if she’d felt a little anxious in April as she strode onto the stage of the hit TV show Shark Tank. Her goal—in front of millions of viewers—was to convince the show’s daunting panel of venture capitalists to invest in a product she’d invented. So yes, potentially nerve-racking. But not to Myers. “I got onto that stage and it was the easiest pitch I’ve ever done,” she recalled. “I got to go out there and have fun.” In the end, the “sharks”
The traditional method of styling textured hair with a comb and hair products takes hours. The Mint by Richualist can do the job in just a few minutes.
Myers spent seven years working to get the product to market. Even a diagnosis of stage 3 colorectal cancer in 2022 barely slowed her down. Several major companies had invested in her product, and she knew
The Mint by Richualist detangles, conditions, and styles textured hair in only a few minutes. Users insert pods full of curl cream into the tool, which at the touch of a button heats and distributes the cream through the brush’s bristles.
funding even before appearing on Shark Tank
The Mint by Richualist can be purchased online, and with the help of Cuban and Grede, Myers is working on getting it into retail locations.
“So many of us walk into stores and know the entire section of hair products and appliances will not apply to us,” she said. “This whole thing is about serving that consumer who I believe has been historically disrespected and overlooked in the marketplace.” n
Shark Tank stars Mark Cuban and Emma Grede invested $150,000 in The Mint by Richualist, in exchange for 15 percent equity and 5 percent in advisory shares.
Director’s Chair
The documentary filmmaker Marissa Aroy ’95 has already won an Emmy. Now she’s at work on an upcoming Smithsonian exhibit.
BY CHERYL MAGUIRE
The filmmaker Marissa Aroy ’95 is the creative force behind a collection of acclaimed documentaries, including the 2008 Emmy-winning Sikhs in America and The Delano Manongs: Forgotten Heroes of the United Farm Workers, which was nominated for an Emmy in 2014. Now Aroy is getting ready to debut her latest project, an ambitious new multimedia exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, that picks up on her work with the manongs, a Filipino term that means, roughly, “older brother" and has been used to refer to the generation of Filipino men who came to the US in the early twentieth century on their own. The exhibit, which has the working title “Unpacking Filipino America,” is scheduled to open next fall. It tells the stories of Filipino immigrants in the Little Manila neighborhood of Stockton, California.
The exhibit will feature videos that Aroy created out of photographs and interviews she filmed through her film production company Media Factory, which she cofounded in 2006 to produce documentaries, dramas, film festivals, and exhibits. The company has created videos for clients as varied as Wired magazine, the Wall Street Journal, UNICEF, and the National Endowment for the Arts. And while the subjects may vary, the sensibility behind them is always Aroy’s. “I like looking at how people push past social barriers to find their way to live as happily, freely, and securely as they can,” she said.
Aroy’s circuitous path to filmmaking began in the Peace Corps, which she joined after
graduating from BC with a degree in psychology. She traveled around South America and eventually found herself in Arequipa, Peru. While visiting the Museo Santuarios Andinos
From there, Aroy began teaching video and documentary production at Berkeley City College. It was there that she met her husband, Niall McKay, and in 2006 the couple founded
there, she became riveted by a short National Geographic documentary about the discovery of a famous Incan mummy. “I was intrigued by the idea of incorporating this love I had of movies with the real world,” she said. In 1999, she enrolled at the University of California–Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she specialized in documentary film.
Media Factory. In 2007, they were hired by the PBS affiliate in Sacramento to create the Sikhs in America documentary, which examined the increase in discrimination that Sikh people faced in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “We felt a great responsibility to the community to understand their stories as well as outsiders could,” Aroy said.
At the time, McKay and Aroy were living in the Bay Area, and Aroy, who is Filipina American, began working on a documentary about the history of Filipino immigrants in the region. The resulting short documentary, Little Manila: Filipinos in California's Heartland, aired on PBS and explored the 1930s Filipino immigrant community in Stockton, California. The project inspired her next documentary, The Delano Manongs, which told the story of the manong workers who joined the Delano Grape Strike of 1965 that led to the creation of the United Farm Workers union. While many people are familiar with Cesar Chavez’s leadership in that era, Aroy’s film highlights the significance of Larry Itliong, a leader among the manongs who played a major role convincing Mexican workers to join the Filipino workers on strike.
In 2018, Aroy and McKay moved to Ireland, where McKay is from. Aroy, who became a citizen last year, said she has embraced the Irish concern for one’s neighbor. “The culture of caring for one another is here,” she said. What hasn’t changed, she said, is her desire to tell the stories of the world’s underrepresented groups, particularly her own. Her current project at the Smithsonian Institution is giving a voice to the manong workers through interviews she created. “I want someone to see our brown faces on the screen and feel proud of who we are as a people,” she said. “To see all the challenges we’re faced with in the world and to know that there are Filipinos who speak up, who fight for justice, who are heard and who are seen.” n
photos: Courtesy of Richualist (Myers, The Mint); Shutterstock/Kathy Hutchins (Cuban); Sipa USA/Alamy (Grede); Tony Gavin (Aroy)
The Touchdown Maker
Pete Carmichael Jr. ’94 may have starred on the baseball diamond for the Eagles, but the NFL is where he’s built his reputation as a brilliant offensive coach.
BY JACK HOLMES
For Pete Carmichael Jr., it all started with some cables.
Back in the early eighties, it was someone’s job—usually a coach’s kid—to follow former Boston College head coach Jack Bicknell around on the sideline, minding the cord that trailed behind him from his headset. For a time, that task fell to young Pete, whose father, Pete Sr., was a longtime assistant coach on the team. And that gig, he recalled, supplied a core memory: “Holding the headsets for Coach Bicknell in the Miracle in Miami.” Carmichael was just thirteen years old when he got a sideline view of Doug Flutie’s sixty-three-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass that snatched victory from the 1984 Miami Hurricanes.
He's fifty-two now, and when we spoke in August, he was deep into preparations for his twenty-first season as an NFL coach. He’d
recently been hired by the Denver Broncos after seventeen years—and a Super Bowl ring—with the New Orleans Saints. But those early days as a kid volunteer at BC, he said, were what convinced him that coaching was “what I wanted to do when I got older.”
For a while there, though, it was about baseball as much as football. Carmichael played both in high school before realizing he could go further on the diamond than the gridiron. He got an offer to play in BC’s infield, and ended up a four-year letterman and captain. It was after graduation that football returned to center stage in his life.
In 1994, he got a job working with the offensive line at the University of New Hampshire that paid nothing—like, actually zero. But it was “a great opportunity to start learning the game at a different level,” he said. The next year, he joined the coaching
staff at Louisiana Tech, where “we were starting to build an offense from scratch.”
Then, in 2000, the NFL came calling. Like most any other job, Carmichael said, it came down to networking. His dad was friendly with Cleveland Browns head coach Chris Palmer. “I had a chance to interview,” he recalled, “and was fortunate enough to get the job.” He was just twenty-eight years old, and some of the players were older than he was, he said, but “great players want to be coached. Football is football.”
He moved on to Washington and then to the San Diego Chargers, where he first ran into a young quarterback named Drew Brees. He was stunned by the second-year signalcaller’s professionalism, “how he handles his business,” and as fate would have it, the two of them each moved to the New Orleans Saints in the summer of 2006. Carmichael
worked closely with Brees throughout his time in New Orleans, as quarterbacks coach, passing game coordinator, and, eventually, offensive coordinator. Brees led the league in passing seven times under Carmichael and head coach Sean Payton, and retired second in NFL history in career passing yards, touchdown passes, and completion percentage.
Carmichael was promoted to Saints offensive coordinator heading into the 2009 season, and what a season it was. New Orleans started 13–0 before storming through the playoffs and into a matchup with Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. The Saints took the game 31–17, securing the first and only major professional sports championship for the city of New Orleans, a crowning moment in a glorious run that helped deliver the Big Easy into a new era after the horrors and heartbreak of Hurricane Katrina.
The years that followed were not as kind, however, featuring crushing playoff losses and periods where the Saints defense failed to match the offense. Brees retired after the 2020 season, and Payton left the team the next year. The Saints missed the playoffs in the three years that followed, and Carmichael soon got a reminder that top-level football is a ruthless business. He was one of three offensive coaches dismissed after last season.
“We didn’t get it done and so changes were made,” he said. “No hard feelings. My children grew up in Louisiana, and that’s their home. Everything worked out perfectly for my family. It’s a business where sometimes you’ll be on a staff with another coach who says, ‘Oh, I’ve had to move my children five times in their school years.’ I was just fortunate enough not to have to do that.”
He wasn’t out of work for long. Payton, who was hired last season as head coach of the Broncos, brought him in as senior offensive assistant coach. “Pete’s an outstanding football coach and really a great teammate on our staff,” Payton said. “There’s a calming presence that Pete brings, which the players appreciate, and I think it comes from his experience and even-keeled personality.”
The Broncos have some work to do this season coming off an 8–9 record last year, but “there's a great feeling in this building,” Carmichael said. “We expect to win.” They’ve got a brand-new project on offense in rookie quarterback Bo Nix, and it’s a new city and a new division for Carmichael. But he knows his way around this league—and what’s required when that crisp autumn air rolls in. n
Olympic Champion Swimmer Dara Torres Joins BC as Coach
The record-setting athlete will lead the swimming and diving program.
BY ED HAYWARD
The legendary Olympic swimmer Dara Torres has been hired as the new head coach of the Boston College swimming and diving program. During her competitive swimming career, Torres set six world records and ten American records and competed in five Olympic games, winning four gold, four silver, and four bronze medals.
Torres called her BC appointment a “full-circle moment” that allows her to give back to her sport and rebuild the program following its suspension for hazing issues during the 2023–2024 season. She will oversee both the men’s and women’s teams. “Obviously, the kids had a rough year last year, and the program has been at the bottom of the ACC conference for a while,” she said. “I’ve had many trials and tribulations in my life, but it’s about how you learn from them and put them in the rearview mirror and move forward.”
Since retiring from competitive racing, Torres has coached and mentored swimmers of various ages and skill levels and has worked as a swimming commentator. A globally recognized health and fitness advocate, she has also published a number of books, including the best-selling autobiography Age Is Just a Number and Gold Medal Fitness
She said that her years of experience swimming at an elite level will inform her coaching. Competing in the Olympics, for instance, comes with an incredible amount of pressure, but Torres said she learned to block that out during her five appearances at the games. “You do things to try to relax and not overthink things,” she explained. “My thinking was that I had done all the work up to that point—the training, the turns, the nutrition, the workouts. So I just wanted to enjoy the experience and not overthink it.”
There’s something else that she said will also define her work with the swimmers at Boston College—bringing the joy back. Swimming can get monotonous, as athletes work their way back and forth across the pool, and Torres said she hopes she can remind them why they do it. “I want to get these student-athletes back to having fun,” she said. “I want to help them as their coach and share my passion for swimming and competing.”
Competing in the Olympics is a “crazy, cool feeling,” Torres said, but she’s thrilled for this opportunity to train the next generation of Eagle swimmers. “I wouldn’t have it any other way than to work with anyone but college swimmers right now,” she said. “BC has the tradition, and the atmosphere, and the environment to build a great program.” n
photo: Lee Pellegrini
The Heirloom
A new novel by Jessie Rosen ’05 offers a twist on the fairy-tale ending of a marriage proposal.
BY LISA WEIDENFELD
Jessie Rosen ’05 has been a working screenwriter in Hollywood for years now, but she celebrated a new creative milestone last summer with the publication of her first novel for adults. The Heirloom is a love story about a young woman named Shea who gets an intense case of cold feet after her longtime boyfriend proposes with a vintage engagement ring while asking her to marry him.
According to her Italian family’s superstitions, an heirloom ring passes down to the next wearer the “energy” from the prior marriages it was used in, so Shea embarks on an international quest to learn the love stories of the women who owned the ring before her.
The Heirloom explores societal expectations of marriage, and asks what love stories mean,
on the world. The project grew steadily over time, with Time naming it a top twenty-five blog, and Forbes honoring it as a top ten website for millennials. With Hollywood showing interest in a movie or TV adaptation of the blog, Rosen moved to Los Angeles in 2010. The adaptation never materialized, but she found success anyway on the West Coast.
In 2012, she created the influential stage show Sunday Night Sex Talks, featuring performances from prominent comedians including Rosen’s fellow Eagle Cameron Esposito ’04. The show caught the attention of the sketch comedy powerhouse Upright Citizens Brigade, which began hosting it on their stage in LA. Rosen then launched a second version in New York. More recently, she’s become a showrunner on the Amazon Prime show The Baxters, which came out this year.
whether they’re interested in the institution of marriage, Rosen said, “the assumption is that you’ve picked the wrong person. I thought it was important to say, ‘You can still make the decision to enter into partnership, but shouldn’t you go in very certain about the I in I do?’”
The Heirloom has romance and love at its center, but it’s also an examination of what makes couples last, or not. “I think my obsession with culture and psychology and sociology mixes with archetypes of romance and rom-coms, and wants to poke and prod a little bit,” Rosen said. She said some rom-coms are “perfect” stories, but she’s always wondered what happened after the credits rolled. “I always wanted five more hours with the characters,” she said, “to be like, What? Why? What’s going on behind there? Why do you feel that way?”
both to the outside world and to the people in them. The novel has received positive critical notice, with Kirkus Reviews calling it “an earnest exploration of the trauma that can follow the children of divorce into adulthood,” and The Knot including it on a list of great books to read on your honeymoon.
Rosen said that Shea’s concerns about the ring, based on actual beliefs that she grew up with, allowed her to play with gender stereotypes about the fear of commitment. “The concept of cold feet is very male-dominated,” Rosen said. “I thought that women deserved that opportunity to freak out.”
Rosen first attracted attention as a writer in 2007 with the well-received blog 20Nothings, which chronicled her experiences as a young person taking
Rosen acknowledged feeling intimidated when it came to writing a novel and facing the vastness of an empty page. But The Heirloom was a natural story for her to tell, she explained, since it was inspired by her boyfriend proposing to her. When she admitted to friends that she wasn’t sure she was ready for marriage, they often responded by wondering whether the boyfriend was the problem. (He’s now her husband, by the way.) When women wrestle with
Rosen’s first novel, a young adult title called Dead Ringer, was published in 2015. It was during the pandemic that her manager suggested she write a novel for adults. It was an escapist thrill during the depths of quarantine, she said, to write about someone jetting off to Europe to have adventures. “I was writing all the places that I wanted to be,” she said. “I was having a bad time, and it was way more fun to write about Portugal.”
The Heirloom is the first release in a two-book deal Rosen signed with G. P. Putnam’s Sons, and she’s now at work on her follow-up novel, All the Signs, about a woman who’s never believed in astrology but starts to change her mind after a psychic reading proves startlingly accurate about her life during a challenging time. Like The Heirloom, “it’s really about a person’s relationship with self-actualization and knowing themselves,” Rosen said. “It’s exploring this idea of how we get disconnected from knowing ourselves—and what it takes to reconnect.” n
photo: Jenny Anderson
Undeclared
Associate Professor Chris Higgins on improving higher ed.
In 1933, a group of educators dissatisfied with the state of higher education opened Black Mountain College, an experimental liberal arts institution in North Carolina where farming, construction projects, and making art were as much a part of student education as classroom learning. The goal was to create a flexible, creative educational environment that produced independent thinkers. Black Mountain closed in 1957, but the college remains an inspiration to Boston College Associate Professor Chris Higgins, who argues in a new book that higher education has departed from its mission of educating the whole person in favor of preparing students to find employment.
In Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education, Higgins draws heavily from the lessons of Black Mountain College. In a collection of essays, he explores how modern higher ed is failing to help students find their purpose and has instead become a consumer good. In this new “job-ified” setting, he writes, students feel pressure to simply pick a major, acquire credentials in a single discipline, and go on to get a job. Higgins argues in Undeclared that, in addition to academics, institutions of higher education should focus on the social, ethical, and spiritual development of their students. That’s what drew him to Boston College and its emphasis on formative education. “People think of education as simply a kind of device for return on investment in a very literal, narrow way—tuition dollars versus salary,” he said recently. “That distorts what education is about.”
Decades later, the Black Mountain College experiment still has much to teach us today, Higgins argued. The faculty didn’t just prioritize intellectual exploration; it constantly monitored whether the school was living up to its mission. That’s something all universities should do, he said. The idea is not to recreate an exact Black Mountain, but to ask questions, just as each year the Black Mountain faculty asked themselves, “Who do we want to be?” Elizabeth Clemente
The
Case of
Lizzie
Borden and Other
Writings:
Tales of a Newspaper Woman by Elizabeth Garver Jordan, edited by Jane Carr and BC Professor of the Practice Lori Harrison-Kahan
This collection of stories attests to Garver Jordan’s feminist influence as a trailblazing journalist and suffragist who ascended from true-crime reporter to acclaimed editor and fiction writer in the male-dominated literary world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The Big Squeeze by Molly Harris ’10
A plucky kitchen sponge is the unlikely protagonist of this children’s book, which chronicles the sponge’s misadventures while soaking up everyone’s household messes. She soon becomes too sodden to move. Her eventual solution to the problem provides a lesson to young readers about the importance of utilizing self-care to prevent burnout.
Irish Materialisms: The Nonhuman and the Making of Colonial Ireland, 1690–1830 by BC Assistant Professor of English and Irish Studies Colleen Taylor
What do coins, flax, spinning wheels, mud, and pigs have in common? They were all part of everyday life in colonial Ireland, and they are the focal points of this examination of Irish life during that era. Through a study of these items, Taylor outlines how each one gradually became a symbol of the new Irish national character—for instance, how spinning wheels came to represent hardworking Irish peasants.
The Astrology House by Carinn Jade ’98
Mystery and family drama intertwine in Jade’s debut novel, which follows a group of wealthy New Yorkers who embark on an astrology-themed retreat for a break from their stressful lives. But the weekend away becomes anything but relaxing when a shocking death reveals secrets that members of the group have been keeping from each other.
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
In this classic sci-fi novel, protagonist Redrick ventures out into a mysterious “Zone” to collect alien artifacts to sell on the black market. What stood out to me as a physicist was the subtle ways the “Zone” affected each of the characters, as well as the systematic exploration tactics Redrick must use to survive. What the book is ultimately concerned with is how we as humans respond to forces far beyond our comprehension.
Alexander Auner, assistant professor of the practice and undergraduate program director in the BC physics department
Remembering Jack Connors
John M. Connors Jr. ’63, H’07, a legendary advertising executive and philanthropist, never had his family, the Church, the disadvantaged, or Boston College far from his heart.
photo: Gary Wayne Gilbert
Wat right : Connors speaking at BC Commencement in 2007, when he received an honorary Doctor of Business Administration degree.
below : Connors (second from left) in 1967 with his fellow founders of the Boston College “Downtown” Club.
hen Jack Connors ’63, H’07, passed away last summer at the age of eighty-two, Boston all at once lost one of its most prominent business executives, philanthropists, and mentors. For the Boston College community, Connors’s passing may have been even more profound.
John M. Connors Jr. became one of America’s leading advertising executives after cofounding and running the acclaimed marketing communications company Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Inc. in 1968. Yet he arguably left an even bigger mark in Boston’s health care, philanthropic, political, and education circles— particularly at his beloved BC.
Connors was one of the driving forces behind the merger of two of America’s best hospitals— Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s— and he went on to chair Partners HealthCare, the entity formed by the two giants. He helped to create Boston’s
innovative Camp Harbor View, and fundraised and donated tens of millions of dollars to support everything from Catholic schools to anti-poverty programs to centers dedicated to the health of women.
Nowhere was his influence felt more powerfully than here at BC. After becoming the first in his family to attend college, he eventually went on to twice serve as chair of the University’s Board of Trustees, and to cochair two BC capital campaigns. Major gifts from Connors and his wife Eileen ’66, MSW’95, funded both the Connors Family Learning Center and the Connors Family Retreat and Conference Center in Dover.
“Jack was a warm, engaging, positive individual who was a bridge builder and mediator in all that he did,” said University President William P. Leahy, SJ. “He provided vision, inspiration, and challenge to BC throughout all of his years of service. He was always a force for good and will be greatly missed by all of us in the Boston College community.”
In addition to Eileen, Connors is survived by his children Susanne Joyce ’94, John III, Tim ’93, and Kevin; his sister, Margaret Hanks; and his thirteen grandchildren. “We feel blessed our father was able to share his love of Boston College with us,” Susanne and Tim said in a joint statement for the family. “The outpouring of love and support from the BC community from his funeral forward will stay with us forever, a truly special place in our family’s heart.”
To honor Connors’s passing, we commissioned the following reflections from people who knew and worked with him closely across his many passions, projects, and initiatives. John Wolfson
photos: Bob Dean/The Boston Globe via Getty Images (1967); Gary Wayne Gilbert (2007)
Sharon McNally
CEO of Camp Harbor View, and chief of staff in the Connors Family Office
In 2005, I had a series of serious health problems. Brigham and Women’s hospital saved my life. I was incredibly grateful and decided I wanted to go to work raising money for them. A friend connected me with Jack Connors, who of course was chairman of Partners HealthCare. I didn’t know him at all, but he asked me my story and then he helped me get a job at the Brigham. We kept in touch and sometimes my work overlapped with his branding efforts for the hospital.
A year and a half later, Jack was opening Camp Harbor View. Former Mayor Tom Menino had asked him for a plan to keep kids busy and out of trouble during the summer. Jack came up with an idea for a summer camp on Long Island in Boston Harbor. He said, “If you give me the land, I’ll raise $10 million to build the camp.” The idea was to keep kids safe and let them have some fun.
Jack had retired from Hill Holiday and had a small family office where he needed help. So he reached out to me and asked if I’d come work for him in the family office and help get the camp off the ground. He brought me out to where the camp was being built. I asked him what I’d be doing…you know, what the actual job was. He said, “I don’t have the faintest idea. You’re going to figure that out.”
So the camp opened with two four-week sessions. It’s a beautiful location and they could take leadership training, play sports, and do other fun things. But we soon realized that wasn’t enough. It became, let’s create relationships for these kids and give them opportunities that they wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. And Jack got hooked. He was really hooked on it. He wanted more and he wanted better and he wanted to help more kids and show them more things. He got onto this fundraising rampage and provided the camp with every resource imaginable. And so if we could come up with an idea for something that would add to the curriculum and provide a better chance for these kids to be successful, he was going to raise the money and make it happen. In the last ten years of his life, Camp Harbor View—I think it became second only to his family for him. I think his heart really belonged to Camp Harbor View.
After I went to work for Jack, I saw just how caring he was for everyone he met. He never stood in an elevator at City Hall, or anywhere else, and didn’t say to someone, “I’m Jack Connors. Who are you? Where do you come from? Tell me your story.” Just like he did with me. Because he really wanted to know. You can’t fake that. There are people, you can tell that their warmth is transactional and it’s not real. But with Jack, it was so genuine.
Connors raised millions of dollars to help launch Camp Harbor View in 2007. Today, the organization works with more than a thousand young Boston residents, offering services that range from the summer camp to a year-round leadership development program.
David Quigley
Boston College Provost and Dean of Faculties
As I stepped into my new job as provost and dean of faculties in the summer of 2014, I had the singular good fortune of inheriting the veteran Trustee Pat Stokes as Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee. Kathleen McGillycuddy was just concluding her term as Chair of the Board, and she too joined the Committee. And unexpectedly, after over three decades as a Trustee, Jack Connors opted to serve for the first time on Academic Affairs as well.
Jack couldn’t help marveling, at nearly every meeting for the past decade, at the grand irony of his service on
photos: Nicole Chan Loeb (McNally); Courtesy of Camp Harbor View; Lee Pellegrini (Quigley)
below : His work
Academic Affairs. Those of us who spent those Friday mornings with him quickly learned that beyond that disarming laugh line was a fierce intelligence and a limitless belief in what might be possible for Boston College students and faculty. He delighted in regular discussions
of the early days of the renewal of the undergraduate core curriculum and the imagining and then implementation of what would become the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. From our first Committee meetings as the Light the World capital campaign was winding down to this past year’s launch of the new Soaring Higher campaign, Jack was always pushing for us to “Be Bold” and to sharpen our storytelling about what was going on in the University’s classrooms and laboratories.
Before I ever had the pleasure of meeting Jack, I was charmed by his occasional appearances on local Boston talk radio. His accounts of working various jobs while putting himself through BC as a commuter in the early 1960s were a staple of his self-understanding and fueled his insistence on paying forward what he came to understand as his great good fortune of having been a member of the Centennial Class of 1963. And then to have been able to serve across nearly half a century as a member of the Board of Trustees. When Jack spoke— whether at the Committee table or before the full Board—everyone listened. Seven years ago, at an offsite retreat, the gathering ended with a panel of veteran Trustees sharing their wise counsel to a newer generation of University leaders. Jack commanded that room,
24 bcm v fall 2024
at right : Connors in 2017, addressing an advertising class in Stokes South.
at Hill Holliday made Connors, photographed here in 1990, one of the nation’s most respected advertising executives.
photos: Gary Wayne Gilbert (2017); Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images (1990)
and with his characteristic blend of poetry and humor reminded all of us of how much BC meant to him and what “Ever to Excel” could mean for the next generation of our students. Our future Academic Affairs meetings will feature, I am certain, numerous appeals to Jack’s memory and example as we recommit to the work that fired his imagination.
Marianne Short NC’73, JD’76
Retired executive vice president, chief legal officer, and member of the office of the chief executive at UnitedHealth Group
Ifirst met Jack in 1985, when we were asked by Fr. Monan to serve on the BC Board of Trustees. The Board then was half Jesuit, half lay, and had many of the leading political and business figures of that time. Jack and I always joked that we were the two kids on the Board. We sat next to each other and would pass notes to one another throughout the meetings. It was a camaraderie of two younger people whose careers were barely taking off, wondering how we were lucky enough to have been asked to serve on the Board.
And while I was in awe of being there, Jack would always come up with something that was really relevant. He had such great judgment. He was thoughtful and kind beyond belief, but he was also political, smart, and savvy. He had a strategy for how to handle any issue and he always did what was best for BC. He had such great people skills. He would often propose ideas by saying, “I was thinking about this, and I wonder if we should consider…” Because of his personality and wisdom, he had the respect of everyone. Over the years, Jack provided a lot of good advice to Fr. Monan and Fr. Leahy. They, like all the members of the Board, had such tremendous respect for him. He was a thinker and a planner who was also very creative and wise. No one on the Board was as loved, admired,
or effective as Jack. He was as BC as BC can be, and his influence on the Board and Boston College was remarkable. He went on to chair the Board twice, always with BC’s best interest at heart. We owe so much to him for helping to lead BC’s transformation during the past forty years. He was a one-of-a-kind leader and an example for us all.
Outside of the Board, Jack was just as kind, sweet, and caring. He had that great Irish way about him, and that twinkle in his eye, and he spent his whole life helping people, never with any expectation of a return. I can still hear his voice saying, “Remember, I am here for you. Call me anytime.” I remember talking to him about my son who, while attending BC, needed some career advice. Jack reached out to him and took him to a baseball game to talk about his future. He was a true, real, and loving friend who had such a wonderful way about him. There was just no better soul. I loved him and miss him terribly, but you know he is up there helping to run heaven now. He is gone, but his love, passion, and heart are still with us.
top : Connors at a 2017 Trustee meeting with BC President William P. Leahy, SJ.
bottom : Having fun at Symphony Hall in 2002.
photos: Courtesy of University Advancement (Short); Lee Pellegrini (2017); Justin Knight (2002)
At the 2008 groundbreaking for the John Paul II Catholic Academy in Boston, along with former Boston Mayor Tom Menino, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, and current University Trustee Chair John Fish.
Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM, Cap.
The ninth bishop and sixth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Boston
Jneedy children and families, which for him was a source of great joy.
ack Connors had a very significant and positive impact on the life of the Church in the Archdiocese of Boston, on our people, and on me personally. It was twentyone years ago upon my installation as Archbishop when I first met Jack. In that time of immense crisis, he never shied away from answering the call to help. Jack was a true force of nature and a force for good. He was a man of deep and profound faith. If you were to visit Jack in his office at the Hancock Tower, overlooking the City of Boston, you might cross paths with any number of the city and state’s most influential leaders in business, government, media, and politics. Jack had become a tremendously successful advertising and marketing executive whose counsel was sought after for matters both big and small, and he always answered the call. But on display throughout his office, and most important to him, were mementos, photographs, and messages from the work he did for 26 bcm v fall 2024
Jack believed that we should all try to be like the Good Samaritan. He readily helped those in need, whether or not he knew them. He was a man of deeds for whom the community and the needs of others were priorities. When we asked Jack to lead the revitalization of our Catholic schools, without hesitation he accepted the challenge and founded the Campaign for Catholic Schools, raising more than $130 million and saving Catholic education in several of our urban centers.
Early on, Jack served the Archdiocese of Boston as a member of the Finance Council, helping to chart a course for financial stability. He then went on to establish Boston Catholic Development Services, the agency that leads our fundraising ministry, which makes it possible to serve our parishes, schools, and ministries.
One of the last times I was able to spend time with Jack in a public setting was at the Catholic Charities of Boston Spring Gala this past May. He was his usual joyful self and enlivened the event by serving as emcee. That evening when I offered my remarks, I said, “When you look at how Jesus managed his time, his priority was always taking care of others—taking care of the sick, taking care of the hungry, the works of mercy—and we as his followers are called to do the same. Catholic Charities is the manifestation of that.” And so was Jack. Just this year he was cochairing the Archdiocese’s annual Clergy Trust dinner with
Eversource Energy President and CEO Joe Nolan, and he continued to work to support the event even as his health declined.
We pray that Jack’s life, legacy, and his faith will remain an inspiration to all of us.
We offer our prayers of gratitude for the life of Jack Connors, and we continue to pray for his wife, Eileen, his four children and their spouses, and his thirteen grandchildren.
Dr. Hadine Joffe
Executive Director, Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology
When Brigham and Women’s selected me as Executive Director of the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology in 2017, I got a call from Jack Connors. He and his wife, Eileen, had just committed substantial resources to endow the center, which is named for his mother, who died young from cancer. Jack and I spoke, and we had the most wonderful and memorable call. And he asked me: “What’s in your heart?” I have never forgotten that.
Usually people ask things like, “What’s your vision?” or “What are you going to use the resources for?” So, for Jack to convey that what matters is what drives you as a person was really amazing. That’s just what he cared about. The people whose work he supported were people who were passionate about doing something for the greater good.
I was in contact with him often, to get his advice about the center, and to help him in any way that I could related to the health of women, which he was so committed to. He would ask me, “how can I help you? What can I do for you?” And he would always say, “Hadine, I’m the only son of Mary Horrigan Connors. Thank you for keeping her memory alive.”
He really cared about the health of women. He was
willing to stand up in front of people—often the only man in the group—and say “women’s health matters.” It never phased him. We are the most prominent center across the country in our field, and I don’t think that would have been possible without his investments. Yes, the financial resources, of course, but just as important were the network, the visibility, the prioritization— because he advocated for it.
He did it out of a sense of compassion and equity. He was about championing everybody, in particular the people who don’t have the power, who don’t have the voice, who don’t have the economic or political or social influence. He was the champion of not only the underdog, but also of the idea that, basically, we’re all in it together.
We will feel his loss here at the center, of course, but we have his daughter and wife on our board, and through them we will stay connected to Jack. He brought so many other people to our board who he mentored in his professional world, and they are all champions of his legacy. We will miss him every day, but we are committed to continuing to be champions for women’s health, just like Jack. n
top : Jack and Eileen Connors at Pops on the Heights in 2014.
bottom : Connors poses with a portrait of his mother in the Brigham and Women’s health center that is named for her—The Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology.
photos: Susan Symonds (Joffe); Courtesy of University Advancement (2014); Tatiana Blanco (Connors at Brigham and Women’s)
intro messina
BC has launched a new two-year residential junior college by shaun tolson ’05 photography by
ducing college
for first-generation students from low-income families.
caitlin cunningham and lee pellegrini
Alvarez, a
Iit was the middle of july, and with the mercury rising into the mid-nineties, the Boston College campus was mostly dormant. In six weeks’ time, the Heights would be bustling with activity as a new school year commenced, but for now, summer’s languorous days had cast a spell of tranquility over BC.
But only a mile to the south, on the Brookline Campus that was once home to Pine Manor College, the buzz of a new school year had already enveloped the grounds of Messina College, the brand-new two-year, residential junior college that BC has launched this
academic year for promising first-generation college students who come from low-income families. Messina College is a bold idea not just for BC but for higher education in general, one of the very few degree-granting junior colleges in the country to be operated by an elite university, let alone one specifically concerned with educating people who are the first in their family to attend college.
The Messina campus still looks and feels a bit like the residential estate it once was. Originally the home of a successful Boston businessman, the fifty-acre property features a renovated brick-and-stone carriage house that today serves as a science building complete with a natural science lab and a fully renovated STEM lab. The college’s Administration Building, meanwhile, is a converted nineteenth-century Shingle-style mansion that’s perched atop the property’s highest point. If a new twoyear institution situated in such a bucolic setting and focused on students from under-resourced communities sounds like a bit of an experiment, that’s because it is. The staff involved in the school’s creation and its dayto-day operation are taking a new approach to investing in the success of their students. Messina College students receive a scholarship for their full demonstrated financial need, and any student who earns an associate’s degree with a cumulative GPA of at least 3.4 can enroll at BC to finish their undergraduate studies and earn a bachelor’s degree.
Amy
Messina College associate professor of the practice, working with students during a writing seminar.
Messina College was designed to help students make the most of these opportunities. The school’s founding dean, Erick Berrelleza, SJ, was himself a first-generation college student, as were many of Messina’s faculty members. The college offers a mentorship program that connects students with Boston College juniors and seniors, plus tutoring sessions and the mandatory Summer Start session that was the source of the campus buzz in July and August. During the session, the college’s inaugural class of 110 students completed two of their core curriculum courses. It was an opportunity to transition to a residential college setting and to ease into the challenging course work. In the Administration Building, for instance, incoming freshmen explored the form and efficacy of the personal essay during meetings with Professor Kat Gonso. A short distance away in the Ashby Center—a mixed-use building composed of classrooms, a dining hall, gathering spaces, and a chapel—other students met informally in small groups to study together and talk through assignments for classes such as life science chemistry, first-year writing, and a first-year discovery seminar.
The Summer Start initiative was designed to help students adjust to residential college life, and it’s part of the school’s strategy of investing in the academic success of ambitious and determined learners who don’t have family members to help them with the transition to higher education. “It gives them a better on-ramp to college life,” Fr. Berrelleza said, adding that the summer session exemplifies the vision he articulated more than two years ago when he accepted his position as the school’s found-
ing dean. “My goal,” he said at the time, “is to create a place that students will feel comfortable in, a place where they know we have their best interests at heart.”
With summer having now turned to fall, and Messina in the middle of the first academic semester in its history, Fr. Berrelleza’s faith in that vision has been rewarded. But getting the school launched was simply a first step. “We’re a startup, in a sense,” he said. “We’re going to be learning with these students and figuring out what they need to be successful. We have a model, but the model can be adjusted. We want to maintain that spirit that we can be nimble, that we can change, that we can pivot if we need to.”
Messina college freshman Ashlynn
Edwards, who is pursuing a degree in psychology and human development, spent much of her childhood alternating between her parents’ custody and the foster care system, all while bouncing from one town to the next across the South Shore of Massachusetts. Edwards eventually ended up living with family in Weymouth. She was grateful, but the house never felt like it was her own space. “One thing I didn’t have so much at home was routine or structure,” she said. “Rather, I was trying to force a routine or structure on my house.”
It makes sense, then, that the importance of having a sanctuary space was the topic of Edwards’s Messina application essay. “At a young age, I ended up getting
Erick Berrelleza, SJ, Messina College’s founding dean, is himself a firstgeneration college student.
First-year student
Ashlynn Edwards said Messina College feels like the home she’d been searching for.
a job so I could buy myself a used car and have a place to get away, to breathe and do my own thing,” she said. “My car was my sanctuary, and I’m realizing that that’s also what college can be for me. Just in the way that a car is not just a piece of transportation, college is not just a degree. It’s so much more.” Curled up in an armchair in an Administration Building sitting area, Edwards said that, just a few weeks in, the college campus already felt like that sanctuary she’d been looking for.
Like Edwards, most of Messina’s students come from Massachusetts. More than half of the inaugural class, which is 56 percent male and 44 percent female, attended Boston high schools, and the college also recruited heavily in cities such as Worcester, Springfield, Brockton, Lowell, Lawrence, and Providence, Rhode Island.
Freshman David Castillo-Parahoy, who is studying applied data science, said he was thrilled by the academic opportunities he’d found at Messina. “Just coming in and seeing how everybody in this environment loves to learn, loves to study, and wants to do better for themselves…” he said. “I had no idea it was going to be this way.” Castillo-Parahoy, whose parents immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic, described himself as “obsessed” with academics in high school—he tutored middle school students
in his home city of Lawrence—but said he didn’t always feel that he had time to dedicate to his studies. All of that has changed at Messina, he said. “We’ve all realized how much autonomy we really have now as college students,” he said. “We have more freedom and we have more responsibility. Everybody that I’ve met so far has this mindset to do better for themselves and for their community, and everybody feels like we all can relate and connect in that way.”
Castillo-Parahoy is precisely the kind of student that Messina College hopes to attract—talented young adults who have the aptitude and resolve to thrive but who haven’t had the benefit of school initiatives or resources to realize what they’re capable of. Messina’s goal is to help these students unlock their potential. “The atmosphere here is so warm and welcoming, and the assignments we’ve been given so far have been personal,” said freshman Darius Dowdye, who is from Boston. Dowdye learned about the college when a Messina recruiter visited his high school. He’s now the first member of his family not just to attend college but also to graduate high school. One of his first writing assignments at Messina required him to reflect on his goals and what he wanted from himself. “I got deep in mine, and I thought it was going to be embarrassing to share that in the classroom,” he said. “But then every-
one was talking about something that really mattered to them. That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, this is what it’s gonna be like!’ Being around people that are pushing themselves and constantly working to be better, and are pushing you to do that…it’s contagious.”
“These students have incredible potential,” Fr. Berrelleza said, “and this program is designed to center that experience, helping them build the framework that is going to help them achieve their academic goals. These students have what it takes. They just need assistance.”
Messina college traces its roots to the summer of 2020, when Boston College completed an integration with Pine Manor College, a small private institution that was struggling financially. Two years later, BC introduced its Pine Manor Institute for Student Success, a collection of programs that support the University’s long tradition of educating underrepresented first-generation students. Messina College was then announced as a core part of the initiative. “We cannot afford to have so many students not develop their gifts and address the tough issues facing our society,” Boston College President William P. Leahy, SJ, said at the time. “Education is the ladder to success.”
The Pine Manor Institute was launched with a $50 million commitment from BC, with the endowment
Like BC, Messina College was founded with an institutional mission to provide a formative education that helps students live a life with meaning and purpose.
growing to $100 million thanks to a $25 million anonymous gift and extensive fundraising efforts. From those funds, $35 million was used to create Messina College, named in honor of the first Jesuit institution of higher learning, which was founded in Sicily in 1548 to educate the local population.
With a plan in place to open the new two-year college in 2024, all that was missing was someone to lead it. To fill the crucial position of founding dean, BC turned to Fr. Berrelleza, who was born to Mexican immigrants and knows what it’s like to be the first in a family to attend college. “As a first-generation college student, I did not have a lot of people I could talk to about applying to college and how to navigate the college experience,” Fr. Berrelleza said when his hiring was announced. “Serving as dean of Messina College will enable me to help provide access to underprivileged and
Messina College first-year student
Darius Dowdye is the first member of his family not just to attend college but also to graduate high school.
underrepresented students who too often face an uphill battle without the vital support we will offer.”
Fr. Berrelleza, who earned his Master of Divinity degree in theology and ministry from BC in 2015, was hired from Santa Clara University, where the fortyone-year-old Jesuit priest was an assistant professor of sociology focused on urban sociology and immigration. Once he accepted the role at Messina, Fr. Berrelleza oversaw the extensive work that was needed to transform the former Pine Manor College campus into a sparkling new institution. The science building was comprehensively refreshed, as were all of the dormitory buildings, while the Ashby Center was completely gutted, its interior spaces redesigned and rebuilt to be a welcoming social and academic space flooded with natural light. These projects transformed the campus into a home for state-of-the-art classrooms and gathering spaces, while maintaining the character of latenineteenth century New England architecture.
Just as much work and attention was devoted to building out the college’s curriculum. To start, Messina will offer four majors: applied data science, applied psychology and human development, general business, and health sciences. And just as it does at Boston College, a broad introduction to the liberal arts serves as the foundation of a Messina College education. Across their two years, students will take courses that span ten distinct disciplines—from mathematics and literature to theology and the arts.
Teaching these classes is a faculty made up of five full-time and twenty-four part-time professors. The faculty stress to their students that higher education requires a shift in how they think and the manner in which they learn. “Their education previously might have disproportionately focused on memorization, but they have to understand that we’re not in that era anymore,” said Messina College Assistant Professor of the Practice Antonio Serrato-Capuchina, a geneticist who, after doing postdoctoral research at Harvard and Boston University, is now teaching general biology and anatomy and physiology at Messina. Serrato-Capuchina knows this truth about his students because he had to learn it himself. After immigrating as a child to the United States, he attended the University of North Carolina as a first-generation college student. He makes it a point to share his upbringing and personal experiences during his classes. “I’m not going to hide that from the students,” he said. “I’m motivated to help them because these are ways that I wish I was helped as a first-gen college student.”
For all of Messina’s programs to help students succeed, perhaps the most notable aspect of life at Messina College is the fact that this two-year institution offers all of its students a residential experience. For any college student, the lessons learned outside the classroom can be just as important as those inside it, and those lessons are rooted in the experience of living among
Messina College faculty members Kat Gonso (top) and Antonio SerratoCapuchina have a personal understanding of the challenges their students face as first-generation students, since they, too, were the first in their families to attend college.
classmates. There are plenty of other two-year colleges around the country, but Messina is one of the few to feature on-campus housing for all of its students. “The transformative Jesuit education doesn’t happen with a commuter model,” Fr. Berrelleza said. “It’s expensive, and it’s an investment, but it’s going to help them be successful here.”
Like boston college , Messina College was founded with an institutional mission to provide a formative education that aims to help students live a life with meaning and purpose. Still, the prospect of attending college can be fraught with anxieties for first-generation students. Every school has a “hidden curriculum,” said Kat Gonso, a Messina professor of
the practice in English. She meant the obstacles that all students must overcome in order to understand how college operates, and the strategies they must learn to navigate the challenges they’ll inevitably face. Many first-year students can lean on parents or family members who have already earned college degrees to help overcome these difficulties. But as Gonso knows from her own experience as the first in her family to attend college, first-generation students don’t have that benefit.
Gonso, who was hired from Northeastern University, where she taught writing for thirteen years, said she was struck by the intimacy of the academic community at Messina. “In a way, the classroom almost doesn’t end,” she said. “My students come up to me in the hallway and ask me questions about my day, or about writing.” Those kinds of interactions are uncommon at many larger institutions, she said, but they’re part of Messina’s academic culture.
Boston College has committed to an additional $10 million for investment in Messina for the next academic year. And when the new class arrives next fall, bringing total enrollment to around two hundred students, the college’s second-year students will take two of their classes on BC’s main campus. Fr. Berrelleza said he can’t wait to welcome that next class of first-generation students to Messina College. “I’m really excited to be
able to say that we have reflected on what the student experience is for students from those backgrounds,” he said. “Messina College is innovative, and we’re making sure it’s well thought-out for these students. We have them involved and engaged in their formation from social, spiritual, and physical standpoints—who they are as people—in addition to their growth academically and intellectually. And they’re in an incredible position, because they’re helping us to build this culture.”
For Ashlynn Edwards, the Messina student who wrote in her application about the importance of sanctuary, the impact of that culture is already evident.
“Having to move from place to place growing up, finding friendships that last was difficult, especially going through the difficult circumstances and not knowing who you can trust,” she said. “So walking into Messina knowing that I was going to meet people that may have gone through similar things or at least have felt the way I do in similar circumstances, it made me feel more connected and so much less alone. I can actually feel stable here. Coming here definitely makes me feel more comfortable than I’ve ever been.” n
Shaun Tolson ’05 is a New England-based journalist whose writing has appeared in publications such as Robb Report, Elite Traveler, Whisky Advocate, and The Golfer’s Journal.
First-year Messina College student David Castillo-Parahoy is studying applied data science.
Easing Their Pain
The opioid addiction crisis has spotlighted a vexing problem: How do you treat the pain of medical patients who have a history of substance use disorders? Katie Fitzgerald Jones’s research into that question has made the Connell School of Nursing PhD a nationally recognized expert in pain management.
BY MICHAEL BLANDING
PHOTOGRAPHY BY TONY LUONG
How do you help someone like Charles?
Sixty-nine years old. Metastatic lung cancer. History of substance abuse. A few months left to live. Katie Fitzgerald Jones PhD’22 looked down at the papers in front of her on the conference table on a recent Thursday morning at the West Roxbury Veterans Administration Hospital outside Boston. A nurse practitioner at the VA, Jones was sitting around the table with eight other nurses and social workers of the hospital’s palliative care team, whose job it is to figure out how to make their patients’ lives as comfortable as they can in the time they have left.
“He has serious mental illness and chronic pain,” said Jim Parris, who is Charles’s doctor and was there seeking Jones’s advice on the challenging case. “He lives with his significant other and their cats. She also, I believe, has serious mental illness. It’s a social situation without a lot of supports.”
Jones specializes in pain—more specifically, in how to manage the chronic pain of people who have had past substance abuse issues. Opioids are often the most effective pain treatment, but prescribing them has been complicated by the epidemic of opioid addiction over the past twenty-five years. That has created a conundrum for doctors and nurses: How do you treat someone with a medication they’ve had addiction issues with in the past?
Charles (not his real name) is a difficult case. He started hearing voices after serving in Vietnam and has a history of opioid use. “It looks like he’s made over twenty attempts on his life, about half of them through overdose,” Jones said. That’s probably why a doctor hasn’t already prescribed an opioid such as oxycodone for his pain, she surmised. “I would glean he had some level of tolerance to opioids,” she said, “or else his substance use disorder kicked up when he developed chronic pain.” He now takes buprenorphine, otherwise known as Suboxone, which is a medicine that’s used to treat opioid use disorder but can also be used to alleviate pain. Only in Charles’s case, buprenorphine didn’t seem to be working. Jones noted that he was taking a high dose of 24 milligrams, but still suffering from pain. Oxycodone might work better, but given his history, there was the chance it could trigger an overdose if not managed properly.
Jones asked the team whether Charles would agree to go somewhere, such as a hospice care unit, where a nurse could control the delivery of pain medication. “He’s willing one day, and then wants to go home tomorrow,” responded his social worker, Millie Mitchell, explaining that the VA’s hospice units are located in places his significant other can’t easily get to. Another option might be a skilled nursing facility closer to home, Jones said, “but some of those discriminate against people with substance use disorder, particularly when they are on a medication like methadone or buprenorphine.”
The team continued to run through the options. If they were able to find a facility that would take Charles, and where he would be willing to go, they could drop his buprenorphine dosage down to, say, 16 milligrams and add oxycodone into the mix to better alleviate his pain.
“I wouldn’t want to do that unless he is going to go to a facility,” Parris, his doctor, said.
“For sure,” Jones agreed.
They eventually decided to keep Charles, his health failing as he approached the end of his life, on his current medication, while continuing to try to persuade him to go to a more structured facility.
Jones is faced with choices like this daily—both for her own patients, and for chronically ill patients around the country. Starting with research she conducted at BC’s Connell School of Nursing, she has become a national expert on pain management for those who have suffered from substance abuse. She’s published papers on the topic in prestigious journals, consulted with doctors around the country, and prepared materials to educate health care providers on the most compassionate and effective ways to help patients who are often desperately in pain, and sometimes close to death as well.
For her, that mission is in keeping with her belief that nursing is about caring for the whole patient. “The
definition of nursing is helping patients achieve their best quality of life while optimizing their health, and that’s what I do in palliative care,” she said. “I could tell you what I would want, but it doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t what they want.”
JONES RECEIVED AN EARLY LESSON IN listening to patients’ needs years ago while she was a second-year nursing student at Simmons College in Boston, working with a cancer patient at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “She was demanding to be discharged, and people didn’t understand why she was being so difficult,” Jones recalled while seated in a conference room at Boston’s Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center. Jones spoke with the patient and discovered that she had only a short time left to live, and that doctors had scheduled a procedure for the following day—her daughter’s birthday.
“She really wanted to be home for it,” Jones said. She talked with the doctors and had the date of the procedure changed. “For me, it was just a few calls,” she said, “but for her it was everything.” The experience helped her realize how a little empathy can have a huge impact on people’s lives. Jones said her husband,
Michael Jones, thinks she can sometimes take on a little too much of other people’s pain. “I can sit with suffering maybe more than somebody else can without feeling like I always have to fix or change it,” she said. “Just being present can be really powerful.”
Jones grew up in Scituate, a suburb on Boston’s South Shore, where her mother and several aunts were nurses. “I always saw her coming home from work with a smile,” she said of her mother, who worked in the local school and also at Brigham and Women’s. “She would tell anecdotes of how she was taking care of this person, and she did this thing, and it made a big difference. It was clear she derived a lot of meaning from her work.” Her father, meanwhile, was an engineer who filled his bookcases with military histories and always had war documentaries playing on the History Channel. “He knew every story about Vietnam and World War II,” said Jones, who attributes her dedication to working with veterans today to that upbringing.
Jones started volunteering at a local nursing home in high school and fell in love with caring for elderly adults. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Simmons in a five-year program, developing a special affinity for working with the more difficult patients. “I was always drawn to people with serious illnesses,” she said. “Not the person who comes in with a broken leg,
but the person who is really bearing the burden of a lifealtering condition.”
After graduating in 2006, she worked in primary care before getting a job in 2011 as a palliative care nurse practitioner at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. There, she began to see firsthand the way that chronic pain can crush a person’s spirit, leading to depression and isolating them from loved ones. She learned to approach each patient as an individual to determine how to help them live as well as possible. “Someone with pancreatic cancer might have terrible pain in their abdomen, while someone with head and neck cancer might feel like they are getting a blowtorch taken to their mouth when they get radiation,” she said. For those at the end of life, the goal was “making sure they are comfortable and die with dignity.”
By that time, the increased awareness about the addictive nature of opioids such as oxycodone had caused doctors to pull way back on prescribing them.
“Now if you have chronic pain, it’s quite difficult to get an opioid,” Jones explained. But doctors continued to make an exception for cancer patients, prescribing opioids at high rates out of a belief that the disease required particularly strong medication. Yet Jones could see some cancer patients misusing the medication. “They would use opioids to manage the suffering they had
in their life—not necessarily the physical pain, but the existential pain of not being able to work anymore or support their family, the loss of self that can come with a cancer journey.”
Jones left her full-time job at Dana-Farber in 2014 to start a family—she and her husband have two children—and worked part-time at a senior care facility, where she started a palliative care program. In this role, she again saw how patients who’d taken opioids for pain earlier in life could wind up developing a substance use disorder. Because of the stigma, however, most cancer programs don’t have an integrated approach to dealing with addiction. “If you have hypertension or diabetes, they might say that’s important to address, because you might not tolerate chemotherapy,” Jones said. “But if you went into a cancer clinic with alcohol-use disorder and asked for treatment, they wouldn’t know what to do.” And well-intentioned federal regulations only compounded the challenges. For instance, methadone is a less-addictive drug that’s used to treat opioid withdrawal symptoms—but by law it can only be administered in licensed treatment facilities. That means that cancer patients with substance use disorders often must travel to different locations to receive their chemotherapy or radiation treatments and their methadone doses.
It wasn’t until Jones began working at the VA in
Jones found that there didn’t seem to be any clear answers about prescribing pain medications for patients with a substance use disorder. So she decided to find those answers for herself.
2016 that she found models for dealing with opioid use disorder and chronic pain at the same time. The VA had been a leader in treating addiction since the Vietnam War, when veterans developed addiction issues at high rates. Unlike many health systems that treated substance use disorders separately from physical ailments, the VA pursued a more integrated approach. “I have patients that could get methadone, and then take the elevator up a couple of floors to get chemotherapy,” Jones said.
Studies were also beginning to show that buprenorphine could be just as effective at managing pain as oxycodone but without the dangerous side effects. In high doses, some opioids can lower a person’s respiratory drive, leading them to stop breathing and die during an overdose. “Buprenorphine doesn’t do that, so you can take lots of it and won’t ever have respiratory depression,” Jones explained. “It’s intrinsically a safer opioid than oxycodone.”
But because buprenorphine is classified as a “partial opioid agonist” while oxycodone is a “full opioid agonist,” many doctors and nurses have erroneously assumed it is less effective at treating chronic pain. The medication faced policy barriers as well, requiring a special license to prescribe it. “At the time, only 13 percent of clinicians across the country had this special license—and only 5 percent prescribed it,” Jones said.
The whole thing frustrated her. If buprenorphine could be effective at fighting pain without the addictive side effects, why weren’t more clinicians rushing to use it?
More than a decade into her career, what Jones found when she looked at her profession was widespread confusion about the best course of action when it came to prescribing medications, especially for patients with a substance use disorder. There just didn’t seem to be any clear answers. So in 2019, she enrolled in the PhD program at the Connell School of Nursing, determined to find those answers for herself, and for her fellow practitioners across the country. “My biggest impetus in getting my PhD was feeling like there wasn’t any evidence to guide me,” she says. “And no one else knew what to do either.”
WHEN JONES ARRIVED AT BC, HER passion for figuring out how to deal with issues of chronic pain and addiction was immediately apparent to her advisor, Connell School Professor Lisa Wood-Magee. Impressed by Jones’s deep knowledge about the issue, Wood-Magee encouraged her to apply for a National Institute of Nursing Research grant. Despite having no prior grant-writing experience, Jones scored a perfect ten on her application, and became BC’s first nursing doctoral student to be awarded the prestigious grant. “A lot of the time my experience with Katie was just standing back and letting her go for it,” Wood-Magee said.
Connell School Dean Katherine Gregory marveled at Jones’s accomplishments. “Katie is remarkable,” Gregory said. “She came to us with incredible strengths—she’s hardworking, persistent, and had clinical expertise and experience. And behind every great scientist, there’s a team of mentors, and I think Katie would say she really benefited from the excellent mentorship from Lisa Wood-Magee and others that she had during her research education.”
For her dissertation, Jones explored the social and psychological factors that affect cancer patients’ experiences with pain. “I was trying to understand what is so different about cancer from other chronic pain,” Jones said. She found that patients could experience the same physical pain differently depending on other aspects of their life. “It’s the tissue damage,” she said, “but it’s also
the isolation, loneliness, and trauma.” Those psychosocial factors, she found, can often lead to substance use disorders. “We found that even people who had been through treatment and were ‘cured’ from cancer still used opioids at about five times the rate of people without cancer,” she said. From interviews with cancer survivors, she learned that doctors often just defaulted to prescribing opioids for pain—rather than trying more holistic treatment methods such as acupuncture, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, or less addictive medicines that target nerve damage.
And for those cancer patients who already had a form of opioid use disorder, Jones said, “there were no real strategies. If you had a patient in front of you with cancer and opioid use disorder, it was like the Wild West. From patient to patient, clinician to clinician, across the country, there were no guidelines.”
In an effort to create some, Jones cold-called another researcher, Jessica Merlin, a medical professor at the University of Pittsburgh who was also working on the issue. “I could tell right away she was smart and inquisitive and cared about research that would change patient care in a positive way,” recalled Merlin. So she invited Jones to join a project in which they presented national experts in palliative care with hypothetical scenarios involving patients experiencing chronic pain. Some of the patients had past substance use disorders and some did not, while some had more time left to live than others. Merlin and Jones asked the clinicians what they would do in the various scenarios.
The results, which were published in a 2022 paper in the American Medical Association’s influential JAMA Oncology medical journal, were at times troubling. The experts, for example, often counseled patients against entering addiction treatment programs because of the difficulty of coordinating visits to licensed clinics. That outcome pointed to a need to reform the way methadone is delivered for substance use treatment, Jones said, in order to make it more accessible to cancer patients who need it.
The experts also seemed unsure how and when to prescribe buprenorphine, and were reluctant to prescribe the drug even in cases where people were abusing opioids. In some cases, they stopped prescribing it even when patients wanted to continue with it. “That was really worrying for us, because why would you stop a life-saving treatment?” Jones said. She and Merlin concluded that there is an overall lack of education about the drug. “What we’re seeing is that people are worried whether it’s strong enough to treat cancer pain,” she said, “even though the literature shows us that buprenorphine is just as effective as other opioids in managing chronic pain.” Patients with a short time left to live may be treated with opioids, but Jones believes that those with more time would be better served by buprenorphine in order to minimize the chances for addiction.
Doctorate degrees in nursing may be something of a rarity these days—fewer than eight hundred are earned each year—but Wood-Magee said the patient-centered approach Jones demonstrates in her research demonstrates why they remain so important. “In the basic sciences and medicine, it’s often about the disease, and not the person,” said Wood-Magee, whose own background is in molecular and cellular biology. “Nurses have an understanding that a lot of other professions don’t. They should be the ones leading these big research teams, because they have the holistic knowledge that is needed to answer these very big questions.”
JONES NOW SEES PATIENTS IN HER VA
clinic one day a week, managing perhaps twenty patients at any one time, in addition to advising the wider palliative care team in weekly meetings. She recalled a man she’d seen two days earlier who had started feeling pain in his belly on the golf course, and was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer. She sat with him and talked about both physical and emotional pain as he took the diagnosis in. “It was just devastating to him and his wife,” she said. “I think what he really wanted was to be heard and understood.”
In talking through his situation, Jones found that he had a history of alcohol use disorder, and was reluctant to take any medication for pain. She was able to send him home with a low-dose buprenorphine patch as a safer option, with a follow-up visit to check on progress. Another patient she saw the same day didn’t have any history of substance use, and only intermittent pain, so she prescribed oxycodone, which he could take in a pill as needed, giving him more flexibility.
The bulk of Jones’s time these days is spent on research and education projects related to pain management and substance abuse. Last year she, Merlin, and other clinicians published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine that highlighted the challenges in managing methadone while undergoing cancer treatment through the story of “Mr. C”—a composite of patients. He had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to drive to the methadone clinic to receive treatment at 7, followed by an hour-long drive in the other direction to receive chemotherapy at 9 and radiation at 11. As he became sicker, the process became like “juggling two-full time jobs,” and he began suffering, missing methadone appointments and developing cravings for opioids, and falling down while waiting in line due to dehydration. “Every palliative care clinician has a Mr. C,” Jones said.
Because many methadone clinics are for-profit, they don’t get paid as much when people don’t visit in person, and they decline to give patients medicine they can take at home if they don’t have a perfect attendance
record. That policy can be unfair to patients whose treatments for chronic illnesses such as cancer often must take place elsewhere.
In January, the Biden administration changed the methadone treatment regulations to make it easier for clinics to prescribe take-home medication even for patients without a perfect record, though not all states have approved the changes. And in 2023, a new law also removed the requirement for a special license to prescribe buprenorphine, removing a major impediment to prescribing the drug for chronic pain. Many clinicians, however, still lack experience with buprenorphine. Jones has become an evangelist for the cause, creating an online toolkit for clinicians around the country to use as a guideline to prescribing the medication. She and Merlin wrote an informational blog about buprenorphine for the nonprofit Center to Advance Palliative Care that became one of the organization’s most-read posts, and they’ve since created a workshop for the organization including a webinar aimed at educating clinicians about the drug. So far the six sessions have all sold out.
In one recent webinar, some three dozen clinicians attended, many of whom had never prescribed buprenorphine at all. “We often think about substance use, and then we think about chronic pain,” Jones told
the group. “But what we’re arguing is for you to think about it as a complex, integrated cluster, and to treat both conditions as a unit, rather than try and separate them.” She and Merlin launched into a detailed description of buprenorphine—how it works, various doses, and the best mechanisms for delivery in different situations, including a skin patch, a tablet that dissolves under the tongue, and a film applied to the inside of the cheek. As they talked, the chat lit up with questions.
“We’re trying to create ambassadors throughout the country who can become skilled in managing people with substance use disorder and serious illness,” Jones said. Along with sharing knowledge and expertise, she also hopes that she can change attitudes by reducing some of the stigma around substance use and seeing its treatment as part of the overall treatment of a serious illness.
“There’s something so satisfying about seeing patients, because the difference you are making for them is so tangible,” she said. “But the reason I got my PhD was that I felt like I was only able to have an impact on one patient at a time. Now it feels like I can have a much broader impact.” n
Michael Blanding is a Boston-based journalist and author of The Map Thief and In Shakespeare’s Shadow.
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1954
James J. Buckley Jr. is 91 years old. In 1970 he received a doctorate in educational administration from Harvard. He was superintendent of schools in Milford for 11 years and held the same position in Peabody for 13 years. He has 24 descendants, including six children, 11 grandchildren, and seven greatgrandchildren.
1958
Bob Johnson reports that he is still in reasonable health, cuts the grass, shovels the snow, reads four papers daily, and is grateful he’s still around. He thinks of those who have passed on, and is absolutely in awe of what BC has become
compared with the commuter school he knew. Hello again to all of you! Class correspondent: Marian Bernardini DeLollis // mdelollis58@comcast.net
1959
Charles Battaglia is still in the glow of the Boston College alumni weekend for his Class of 1959 et al. He wishes to congratulate the Alumni Office for a well planned and executed reunion. It was both superb and nostalgic! Class correspondent: William Appleyard // bill.appleyard@verizon.net
1960
65th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025
Allan McLean’s oldest grandson, Collin McLean, graduated from McGill University with honors, and is entering his second year at BC Law. // Tom Kelly’s grandson, Jack McConnell ’24, became a fourth-generation graduate of BC with degrees in both chemistry and finance.
NC 1960
65th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025 Dot Radics McKeon and 16 family members had a reunion at the Outer Banks, North Carolina. // Love and prayers go to the family of Julie O’Neil, who passed on June 4. // Please also keep my husband, Dick Browne, in your prayers as he passed on June 6. A Holy Cross 1960 grad, he supported all my Newton/BC activities. Class correspondent: Pat Winkler Browne // enworb1@verizon.net
1961
Joe Leary has recently had a collection of free verse poetry published by Kelsay Books. It’s also available on Amazon. Joe spent a number of years in the Marine Corps. He followed that with a brief stint in the FBI, eventually practicing periodontics for 30-plus years. In retirement he found writing to be a primary source of satisfaction and fun. He and his wife, Susan, have four children and seven grandchildren, and live in Franklin. // John McLaughlin ’61, MA’66’s grandson John McLaughlin ’24 graduated from BC. He joins granddaughters Michaela ’19 and Olivia Thompson ’22 and John’s five children who graduated from the Heights. To
keep the streak going, grandson Christopher Thompson started BC this fall.
PMC 1961
Margot Cushing has been a longtime travel agent and plans wonderful vacations for clients. Her specialty is Italy, which developed after graduation from Pine Manor when she spent a school year in Florence. She learned about art, Italian language and literature, and some cooking. It was magical and so Italy continues to draw her, from the wonderful experiences and the colleagues who help create her vacations. She encourages everyone to travel; it is an easier way to learn history!
1962
Richard Murphy, wife Jean, and their three-year-old golden retriever, Riley, moved to Eagle, Idaho, in June 2023. They did so to be near their son and daughter-in-law and their two boys, ages 14 and 11. Richard and Jean are enjoying them immensely, as well as this beautiful country and delightful weather. They are both in good health and enjoying life!!! // Dick Dewar and wife, Mary Lou, celebrated their 60th anniversary in Wicklow Town, Ireland, with friends and family. They also celebrated Mary Lou’s birthday and the confirmation of their two oldest grandchildren. Dick and Mary Lou have been blessed with three children, eight grandchildren, and one great-
COURTESY OF DICK DEWAR ’62
grandchild. // As this year’s Class of 2024 took the long walk to Alumni Stadium, we, the Class of 1962, celebrated our 62nd year as alumni of Boston College. Many of us have continued our maroon and gold relationships. Message me if you are interested in joining the First Friday Alums who meet once a month for lunch. Class correspondent: Eileen Corazzini Faggiano // efaggiano5@gmail.com
NC 1962
V. V. Maartin is living in Palm Desert, California, and serves on two committees of her HOA—communications and finance. She occasionally serves as the pianist and cantor at a local church, and is in the choir of Palm Desert Sacred Heart Church. Additionally, she is secretary of the Palm Springs Genealogical Society and is a member of the Cahuilla Daughters of the American Revolution chapter. Last fall she spent 10 days in France and is hoping to get back to Europe soon. // Judy Pizzarello Bishop wrote that her new book Behind the Scenes has just been released and is available on Amazon. Her first book, Changing Channels: From Just the Facts to Outrageous Opinions, was a great read. Congratulations, Judy. // Judy Davin Knotts continues to write inspirational articles for The Austin American Statesman.
1963
Frank Duffy and Noel, his wife of 50 years, split their time between Hilton Head Island and Boston and are still trying to make new friends, keep up with old ones, and keep a cadre of doctors at Mass General busy. Life is good and they are grateful for every day. Class correspondent: Ed Rae // raebehan@verizon.net
1964
Brian Condon doesn’t wish to brag, but has to share that his wonderful stepson, Mathew Kraft, an Educational Economist from Brown University, has just been named to the president’s economic advisory board with an office in the Executive Office Building where the coffee pot is a short walk through the connector to the White House. // Dr. Steve Duffy says that his frequent returns to campus events through the decades were canceled for a few years due to
COVID, but he’s planning to get back to Alumni Stadium this fall for the November 9 game against Syracuse thanks to our generous and welcoming friend and classmate, John Moynihan. Steve hopes our Eagles have another good season, and looks forward to seeing as many of his dear classmates as possible! Go Eagles! // Judy McClelland Searle was saddened with the news in the summer issue of BC Magazine that her BC bestie Noreen Lindner Barney had passed away after the long goodbye of Alzheimer’s disease. Judy is relatively hale and hardy at 82 years old. She works in the Oak Bluffs Information Booth, telling tourists on Martha’s Vineyard where to go (wink). She lives on the Vineyard, but spends the coldest months in Mexico. // Jim Hughes reports that Lloyd and Sandy Doughty ’65; Fred and Bonnie Delay, MS’04; and Paul and
Connie Sullivan NC’66 returned to BC for our 60th Reunion. A wonderful time was had by all. // Len Conway ’64, JD’67, left the waters of Marblehead for the mountains of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, to be near his son Michael and daughterin-law Tricia and has never looked back.
NC 1964
Rosemarie Van Eyck Winslow and Mary Lou Cunningham Mullen celebrated with Pete Mullen ’61 (Mary Lou’s husband) their granddaughter’s graduation from New Trier High School’s special education program on June 2. Kate was born 19 years ago to Tracy Mullen Winslow ’95 and Ward Winslow ’92 . Kate’s parents met as youngsters. Family members came to celebrate Kate. As she received her diploma on stage, thousands clapped for Kate. Kate loves everyone and everyone loves her! Class correspondent: Priscilla Weinlandt Lamb // priscillawlamb@gmail.com
PMC 1964
Liz Downey began writing books five years ago. The first was for adults and the other three are for children. They are all available on Amazon and through Barnes & Noble. The books are: The Cat Who Came to Dinner, Harry the Highrise Spider, Baby G: A Tale of Two Tails, and Bernadette: A Bear at Bear Lake. They are all true stories and involve Liz’s family.
1965
60th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025
Joe DiFeo, Mary Ann NC’67 and Vinny Giffuni, Joe Mollicone, Mary and Jeff Somers, Gretchen NC’65 and Bill Sterling, Dave Wilson, and Tanya and Joe Vena enjoyed several days at The Hamilton Hoppin House in Newport, Rhode Island, celebrating their 80th birthdays. // Nelson H. Minnich ’65, MA’69, published earlier this year the Cambridge History of Reformation Era Theology that he co-edited with Kenneth G. Appold. Later this year, his edited Brill Companion to the Renaissance Papacy, 1400–1600 is scheduled to appear. Class correspondent: Patricia McNulty Harte // patriciaharte@me.com
COURTESY OF BRIAN CONDON ’64
COURTESY OF DR. STEVE DUFFY ’64
1966
Rev. Paul Kenney ’66, BD’72, is editor of the US East Oral History, which has just published volume 148, Rev. Robert Braunreuther, S.J., who worked in Campus Ministry. // Stuart “Stu” McGregor recently began a book tour for his recently launched nonfiction book The Wee Wah Beach Club in Tuxedo Park: An American Story of Social Change, which is doing well on Amazon and in bookstores. A must-read for book clubs raising questions like “Has the country returned to a new Gilded Age?” // Dan Madden has uncovered his inner Thucydides. This new life began seven years ago. Since then, he has written four books, two on the American Revolution. These two led to speaking engagements in his hometown, Sun City Center, Florida. His fourth is a book of plays on aspects of the causes of the Civil War. These plays are in much local demand and are being performed by local seniors. This July, two of them were performed by youth in Washington, DC.
NC 1966
Many classmates are celebrating their 80th birthdays this year and (according to Facebook!) celebrating in creative and joyful ways. Send your class correspondent a brief note describing your 80th birthday celebration, and we’ll include as many as we can in future issues. Class correspondent: Catherine Beyer Hurst // catherine.b.hurst@gmail.com
1968
Rabbi Kenneth B. Block has a YouTube channel, The Rabbi and I, the success of which inspired his new book, How to Be Jewish in 30 Seconds, which is available in print or at Amazon. He has three podcasts: How to Be Jewish in 30 Seconds, The Wisdom of Rabbi Block, and The Rabbi and I. He posts regularly on TikTok and is live on TikTok every Wednesday evening at 8 p.m. // Arthur Derosiers and Marian summer in Newport, Rhode Island, and winter in Delray Beach, Florida. Arthur is still semi-active as a nuclear industry consultant. Marian researches Newport history. Short-term goals include breaking 90 in golf (his handicap is 23), catching striped bass, and getting to the gym every day. Always interested to recount events with old friends. Class correspondent: Judith M. Day // jnjday@aol.com
1969
Rev. Joseph Arsenault reports he is now living at Regina Cleri Residence in Boston. It is a home for retired priests. “They are very good here and the fellowship here is great. Lots of BC alumni here to share with. ‘For Boston.’ God bless and keep you all. Amen alleluia.” // Hi y’all! Chuck Auth retired to the Texas Gulf Coast (Galveston) a couple of years ago after spending about 40 years as a road tech working nuclear reactors for refueling during shutdowns. Bought a little cottage and a convertible VW, is now a regular beach bum. // Bob Berrillo retired from practicing psychiatry in London and then living in Bologna, Italy, for 30 years. He is back in Providence, Rhode Island, in the family home. He enjoys strolling around the campus every once in a while. // Mary Lofty attended the 55th reunion and spent time with Bill ’72 and Pat (Finn) Hallion and Myrna Cohen Thurnher!
Class correspondent: James R. Littleton // jim.littleton@gmail.com
PMC 1969
Laurie Sorensen and husband, Dave, have moved to Westport, Connecticut, to live closer to their daughter, Kristin, her husband, and their two daughters (ages 8 and 10), and their son, David, who lives and works in NYC. They are grateful to live in this wonderful community and enjoy volunteering at church and local charitable organizations and walking at the beach every day!
COURTESY OF ARTHUR DEROSIERS ’68
COURTESY OF RABBI KENNETH B. BLOCK ’68
COURTESY OF STUART MCGREGOR ’66
COURTESY OF MARY LOFTY ’69
1970
55th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025 Bob Walsh and Ann (Gordon) Walsh ’71 celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on May 4, the same day as the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby. They celebrated with a few days in Ogunquit, Maine. They rented a threehouse property in Dennisport in August. All their kids and six grandkids planned to join for the week. They also planned to meet Kevin Flynn; John Flaherty; Tom Kiewlicz ’70, MEd’72; Jack Lally; and spouses for their annual Cape lunch. // Bill Kates ’70, MEd’71, MEd’73 , coached the boys’ tennis at Scituate High School for the Spring of 2024. The team’s record was 15–3 and they won the Fisher Division of their league. Bill is also a professional tennis umpire. // Kevin Carr and his wife, Elizabeth, announce the birth of their grandchild Declan. After retiring from Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School after 43 years and Weymouth High School after the last four years of his careers as career and technical director, Kevin has now retired, spending summers on the coast of Maine and winters on the island. He has passed the ownership of his construction company to his son Caleb and future partner Declan. Fishing on the island now takes up his time. // Joseph Terilli recently celebrated his 50-year career in education, law, and politics. His recently published novel Blood on the Chalkboard is now available. Although the story is written as fiction, it is based on his early life as a teacher at East Boston High
School. It features a whodunit murder mystery and culminates in a sensational murder trial. // Lou Milkowski was sworn in as a commissioner on the Beverly Hills, California, Planning Commission at the beginning of 2024. Since moving to Beverly Hills in the late ’90s, Milkowski has been deeply involved with the community. In addition to the Rent Stabilization Commission, he served as the first chair of the Friends of Greystone. This varied background affords him a unique perspective as the Planning Commission’s newest member, he said. During his term, Milkowski is focused on addressing three major issues: getting approval of the city’s housing element, building up the mixed-use overlay zone, and continuing to weigh the importance of each project against residents’ concerns. // Stephanie Del Giudice McEvily has a third grandchild, born in Mexico City on June 22. Rowen is the only boy of her three grandchildren. Her others are Rory (6) and Charlotte (4), who live in Westchester County, New York. Stephanie and her husband, Chuck, were in Mexico for the birth and got to spend a little time with Rowen before returning to the US. However, they foresee frequent trips to Mexico City in their future! Class correspondent: Dennis Berry // dennisj.berry@gmail.com
1971
Tom W. Burke and his wife, Gail, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at a Charlotte, North Carolina, dinner hosted by their daughters, Dr. Allison Burke and Sharon Dodson. Class correspondent: James R. Macho // jmacho@mac.com
NC 1971
Melissa Robbins reports that her three weeks spent visiting her husband in Idaho during the month of July were hotter than it has ever been. After 31 years of summers in Idaho, it might be time to sell that house. She is happy to be back in Connecticut to swim in the ocean. // Eileen McIntyre has decided to step away from her responsibilities with the Hingham Historical Society after six years of involvement, five of which included organizing the Society’s seven-part lecture series. For the year
ahead, she will be enjoying time with family (especially a five-year-old granddaughter and a new arrival due in August), shorter trips in the US, and a Tauck tour of Cuba in February. Eileen asks folks visiting Eastern Massachusetts to stop in. Class correspondent: Melissa Robbins // melissarobbins49@gmail.com
1972
Jane MEd’78 and Richard Darveau ’72, MEd’77, PhD’91, were recently reunited with their friend and colleague, Fr. Marcel Uwineza, S.J., STL’15, PhD’20, president of Hekima University College in Nairobi, Kenya. Fr. Marcel was in Boston in April to speak at a conference at Holy Cross. They were joined by Kathleen Sullivan of the BC Office of University Communications, who has written extensively about Fr. Marcel. The Darveaus urge you to visit the Hekima website to contribute to Hekima. // Col. John W. Saputo, USMCR, has owned the
COURTESY OF MELISSA ROBBINS NC’71
COURTESY OF STEPHANIE DEL GIUDICE MCEVILY ’70
COURTESY OF RICHARD DARVEAU ’72, MED’77, PHD’91
Anheuser-Busch/Corona and craft beer distributorship in Sarasota, Florida, for 26 years. When daughter Andrea SaputoCox and son-in-law Devyn Dugger were approved by the breweries as qualified to run a beer operation, they purchased three more Anheuser-Busch operations in West Chester and Lima, Ohio. John retired in 2006 from USMCR after 30 total years and two combat tours in Iraq. He recently celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with wife Denise with a family trip to Tuscany, Italy. // Arnie Goldie reports: “I am now semi-retired after a long career as both CFO and CEO of large healthcare companies. I stopped flying a while ago after over 50 years of doing so and sold our last airplane. I dabble in real estate and own the largest real estate school in New England. I still teach but leave the travel to my instructors. I am in reasonably good health given my age. My wife and I just completed a total renovation of our home. I miss my days at BC.” // Joe McCarthy ’72, MA’74 , is retired but privileged to serve on the Board of the Fr. McKenna Center at Gonzaga High School in Washington, DC, the only high school in America with a homeless shelter and food pantry on campus where the students help serve guests while learning to become men for others. Class correspondent: Lawrence G. Edgar // ledgar72@gmail.com
NC 1972
Maureen Harmonay lives in Boca Raton, Florida, and works at the Caldwell Banker Realty Office there, which is 45 miles North of Miami. // Ruth Gordon Erickson and Paul visited Bolivia and Chile and cruised in Portugal along the Porto River. They loved the series of beautiful cities in Bolivia for the blend of modern and colonial architecture with surrounding beautiful scenery. The rest of their summer involved golf and time at their second home in Jamestown, Rhode Island. // Laurie Loughlin returned from her trip to Ireland, Scotland, and England with praises for Mary McShane’s excellent tips about travel there. Laurie met with friends from Australia in Ireland. They went to nine destinations doing ancestry discovery and reconnecting with relatives who live in those countries. // From San Francisco, Marilyn Penny Price Nachtman reports that she volunteers at the American
Cancer Society Discovery Shop in honor of her husband, Joe ’70, who passed away from cancer 30 years ago. She continues to visit her children and twin granddaughters, mentor and coach new school administrators as a faculty member at the Graduate School of Education at Touro University, and Zoom with her Newton friends. // Vance Bonner splits her time between Bend, Oregon, and Frederick, Maryland. Vance teaches the Vance Stance in her home studio and is an adjunct professor at Frederick Community College. Congratulations to Vance on the 50th-year celebration of the Vance Stance. A local newspaper article showing pictures of Vance with her students highlighted that celebration. To see that article and more information including her book, see the Vance Stance website. // Lisa Kirby Greissing hosted a second spring luncheon for Shelly Noone Connolly, Margot Dinneen Wilson, Margie Molidor Dooley, and Nancy Brouillard Mckenzie. Shelly and Mike recently cruised the Panama Canal. To prepare them for the problems constructing it, Shelly read David McCullough’s The Path Between the Seas Their ship received a warm welcome celebration with TV reporters and a band in Acapulco. It was the first to visit there after earlier destruction from Hurricane Otis. // Margot Dinneen Wilson was honored to represent the Republic of Ireland in their purchase of a new ambassadorial residence in Washington, DC, and the sale of the residence that
served as the ambassador’s home since 1963. // Kathy Hickey Barrie writes that she and Dennis enjoyed a longanticipated trip to Cape Town in winter, to soak up the culture and stunning natural views. “In Botswana at the UNESCO site, the Okavango Delta, we were blown away by the beauty of the landscape, animals, and the people. After seeing at least one of everything we’d hoped to, we got to experience more focused drives watching the animals go through their cycles of life. Only took about 1,000 photos, an addiction that began at Newton.” Class correspondent: Nancy Brouillard McKenzie // classnotes@bc.edu
1973
Randy Mudarri has been retired for two years. His wife, Trish, has just retired. They have been living in Mashpee since May 2023. // Jim Duffy and wife, Awilda, have become legal guardians of their 14-year-old grandson Dylan. He is a wonderful kid who loves theater, video games, and flag football. He arrived in July 2023 and the legal process was excruciating but successful. Dylan planned to begin high school in an accelerated honors program in August. // John “Dino” Donovan retired from both the Boston Police Department and the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office in 2021 after spending the last 22 years investigating crimes against children. He is happily now going to the West Roxbury YMCA every day and enjoying not working. He attended the BC 50th Reunion and met many old classmates. He brought a copy of the 1969 freshman tuition bill, which was $1,000 per semester, and everyone got a kick out of it. Class correspondent: Patricia DiPillo // perseus813@aol.com
NC 1973
The Newton College 50th Reunion was fantastic, in no small part due to the flexibility and professionalism of the BC Reunion staff! Approximately onequarter of the class was able to attend at least one event over the weekend. What a blessing to have Sr. de la Chappelle lead the Saturday conversation and bring back so many memories. It was wonderful to experience how quickly we could reconnect and enjoy each other’s
COURTESY OF COL. JOHN W. SAPUTO ’72
lives and accomplishments. We hope to see each other before another five years pass. Class correspondents: Kathy Dennen Morris // kathymorris513@gmail.com and Mimi Reiley Vilord // mimivi@optonline.net
1974
Thomas Confrey says he and Sue Sullivan were visiting the Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, area and saw some old BC friends. It was great reconnecting with Jim Combs, Martha Ford Combs, and the ever-effervescent John “Cube” Cappiello ’76 // Former 14A Modmates Doug Conetta, Steve Del Sole, and Bob Wilcox reunited to attend the 2024 Reunion weekend. They participated in many events but especially enjoyed the Golden Eagle Investiture and the 1974 Class Party. Doug and his wife, Carolyn, live in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. He retired in August after a 50-year career in pharmaceuticals. Steve and Colleen live in Wallingford, Connecticut, and Bob and his wife Carol live in Clifton Park, New York. Both Steve and Bob are retired attorneys. // Michael J. Hession, MD, released his first book, Physician Heal Thyself: Nearly Dead and the Journey Back to Health. This is his story of near death from pneumonia complicated by ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome), then paralysis from the neck down due to Guillain-Barre Syndrome. In the book there is detailed discussion on how crucial his Jesuit education and faith were in navigating the arduous year-anda-half recovery. // Anita Ducca enjoyed connecting with former classmates at the
50th reunion. To update those who were not there, she reports that she retired from a trade association called the Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) in May of 2023 as senior vice president of regulatory affairs. Anita is now spending a lot of time with friends, with her significant other, and generally learning the fine art of goofing off—including how to sit on the beach with her toes in the sand and a drink in her hand.
Class correspondent: Patricia McNabb Evans // patricia.mcnabb. evans@gmail.com
1975
50th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025
Mark Kiley published Reading Between the Letters of the Gospels with Wipf and Stock of Eugene, Oregon, in January 2024. Drawing on examples in Aratos and Virgil among others, these 16 essays ask whether and how discreet Greek letters correctly ordered within a text comment on an explicit theme nearby. Written for all those interested in the intersection of ancient poetics and Gospel formation. // Tom Cannon’s son Robert is an officer in the US Marines now assigned to the 8th Battalion Combat Engineers based in Camp Lejeune. // Joe Zornik has lived in Florida for 37 years. He moved to Ormond Beach two years ago. He is still doing some employee benefits consulting for AON and has four children; three are working and coaching at Lake Brantley High School in Longwood, Florida, and one son is working for Deloitte Consulting and living on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Joe is married to Pamela
Smant. // Shawn ’75 and Caroline Sheehy ’23 of Newton, formerly of Cohasset, are thrilled to announce that their children, Seamus (24) and Sinéad (22), graduated on May 18, 2024 from UMass Amherst in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Sinéad will be attending the Boston College School of Social Work in the fall. Her brother Seamus studied economics and was a recent competitor in the Cohasset Triathlon where he placed 40th out of 879 overall and has qualified for the nationals. On March 15, 2024, Shawn Kane Sheehy had the honor of being sworn into The Supreme Court of the United States by the full court of all nine justices alongside 40 of his fellow Suffolk Law Alumni as part of that school’s US Supreme Court Admissions Program. Afterward, there was a celebratory toast along with breakfast at the courthouse. He was accompanied by his wife, Caroline. // Kevin McEvoy ’75, MBA’81, has been writing poetry and fiction since he retired in 2022, a hobby he started in the seventh grade. After taking a number of creative writing courses through Stanford University’s continuing education program, his work has so far been accepted by Vermillion and 50 Give or Take publications (Vine Leaves Press). He hopes more will come.
Class correspondent: Hellas M. Assad // hellasdamas@hotmail.com
PMC 1975
Karen Dodge, PhD, MSPH, LCSW, is on the research faculty at Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Science Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.
1976
While at BC, Andy Satter completed a photo essay of a Kendall Square workingclass diner. In 2023, he discovered hundreds of images of cops, truck drivers, postal workers, and the diner’s staff that were presumed lost in 1984. Forty of those images are part of a traveling exhibit titled “The Diner Project—A Community Lost to Progress.” The exhibit traveled to the Elting Library in New Paltz, New York this past August. Class correspondent: Gerald B. Shea // gerbs54@hotmail.com
COURTESY OF DOUG CONETTA ’74
COURTESY OF SHAWN SHEEHY ’75
New BCAA Board members
Exciting changes to the BC Alumni Board!
As volunteer leaders of the Boston College Alumni Association (BCAA), members of the Alumni Board of Directors advise on programs and activities that deepen alumni engagement, support goals of the Office of University Advancement, and further the University’s Jesuit, Catholic values and commitment to service to others. We are thrilled to welcome a new vice president to the Board, as well as three new members. To learn more and see a full list of members and leadership, visit bc.edu/alumniboard
DC
1977
Robin Ryan is currently writing a career- and job-search column for Forbes and is the author of eight career- and job-search books. // Jennifer Lynch
reported that after taking a cruise through the Panama Canal and docking in San Diego, she was fortunate to meet up with Navy vet and docent Steven DesJardins. Steve retired as a captain O-6 surface warfare officer and now volunteers on the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum, the largest maritime museum in the world. Jennifer reported it was a fabulous personal tour and appreciation reminder for the work our Navy has done for so long. // Dr. Daniel Persico retired from KEMET Electronics in July of 2022 as SVP mergers and acquisitions. Dan maintains his position as president of the Tantalum-Niobium International Study Center, a global metals trade organization. Upon retirement Dan started his critical minerals consultancy, MTAL LLC. Dan lives in Coral Springs, Florida, with his wife of 18 years, Misty, and has two sons, Nicholas (33) and Christian (31). // Christine Khan Barrett and husband, Bill, celebrated the birth of their fifth grandchild on the day they buried her mom after she succumbed to terminal
illness following a six-year battle. Blythe Barrett arrived on June 12 at 9:45 p.m., just 12 hours after they buried Jeanne Khan in Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Yin/ yang...God is good! They are also downsizing after Christine’s two knee surgeries and moving four doors away from their home of 28 years, after selling
Michael P. Rodriguez, MS’15 Washington,
Logan DelloStritto ’13 Brookline, Massachusetts
Nancy Dennery Goslee ’95 New York, New York
Jamal Y. Halepota ’09 Atlanta, Georgia
COURTESY OF ANDY SATTER ’76
COURTESY OF ROBIN RYAN ’77
it to Blythe’s parents, their son James Barrett and his growing family. Class correspondent: Nicholas Kydes // nicholaskydes@yahoo.com
1978
Mark McKenney retired from practicing law after 40-plus years. But he still represents his hometown, Warwick, as a Rhode Island senator. He remains close with BC classmates Bill Madden, Bill Herbert, Jim Koness, Steve Jacques, and Betsy Masek. Married to Tricia, he lives in Old Buttonwoods, where he grew up. His three kids and grandchildren are nearby. While none of them followed him to Boston College, two went to colleges whose colors were maroon and gold, so he could get away with simply wearing his BC swag! // Inez Stewart , senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine, commutes between Boston and Baltimore. She is involved with several boards and has one grandchild with another expected in August 2024. // Thomas Heimbach will be retiring in December 2024 from his law firm, Flamm Walton Heimbach in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Class correspondent: Julie Butler // julesbutler33@gmail.com
1979
Jim Sano has been living in Medfield for the past 38 years with his wife, Joanne, and two daughters, and they are looking forward to their first grandchild this summer. Jim has been busy writing Catholic novels and stepped outside his
award-winning Father Tom series to release a middle-grade reader adventure story called The Journey in May ’24. Jim is also working on his master’s in catechetics and evangelization at Franciscan University. // John Stiglmeier recently produced a TV comedy pilot called Pump, which features Brian Baumgartner from the widely popular US version of The Office along with an ensemble cast of characters. Class correspondent: Peter J. Bagley // peter@peterbagley.com
1980
45th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025
Mike Murphy retired from full-time employment as a teacher and licensed clinical social worker in June. He spent 30 years in special education (the last 26 with the Gresham-Barlow School District in Oregon), 10 years in mental health, and two years in youth ministry with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (Portland, Oregon, and Juneau, Alaska). He looks forward to the next phase of life including spiritual contemplation and action, outdoor pursuits, travel with his wife, Julia Hagan (Santa Clara class of 1979), and being a grandparent. // Laureen Harris, a senior partner at Cronin, Harris & Associates, P.L.L.C., and her associates will join Forchelli Deegan Terrana LLP, a real estate tax law firm in New York State. Class correspondent: Michele Nadeem-Baker // michele. nadeem@gmail.com
1981
Ellen (Dessureau) Donohue, RN, BSN, is the nurse supervisor at Friends of the Homeless (FOH) in Springfield. FOH is
the only homeless shelter in Massachusetts that has a nurse-led drop-in clinic within a homeless shelter. // Christine DiMattia ’82 and Bill Tupper met in 1978. They were both members of the Boston College “Screaming Eagles” Marching Band, in the drumline, no less. Friends for a couple of years, they started dating in 1980. On May 12, 1984, they were married at St. Ignatius Church. That means they recently celebrated their 40th anniversary. Keeping the legacy alive, their youngest daughter will be receiving her MSW from BC. // Pat Finn Driscoll retired from her role as chief operating officer for Girls Inc., the national girls’ leadership organization inspiring girls to be strong, smart, and bold. Pat and her husband, Jim, also celebrated the birth of their granddaughter, Lily, who joins their grandson Noah (two). Pat and Jim live at the New Hampshire Seacoast and keep
COURTESY OF JOHN STIGLMEIER ’79
COURTESY OF MARK MCKENNEY ’78
COURTESY OF LAUREEN HARRIS ’80
1983
Beth Grant retired in January 2024 after 37 years in the seafood industry. Her career took her all over the world, with one exception—New Zealand. So she’s headed to NZ this October to spend a month exploring the land of the Kiwi bird. Class correspondent: Cynthia J. Bocko // cindybocko@hotmail.com
1984
in touch with Ellen Hart Morris and TJ McKenna . Anyone from ‘81 is welcome to stop by their Seabrook Beach home! // Jamie Dahill has left Metro NYC after 25 years and now lives in sunny and beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Just living the dream! // Bob Cucuel organized an epic trip covering eight famed golf courses in Northern Ireland and Scotland for a hearty crew of ‘81 BC lads who took Great Britain by storm. Joining Bob on the trip were Brett Kellam, Greg Clower, JT Fucigna, Jim Gorga, Herb Miller ’80, Tom Cingari, and Peter Hoyt. Great times, great experience, great memories shared by all. Class correspondent: Alison Mitchell McKee // classnotes@bc.edu
1982
A grand time was had by all when Marianne Welch, Patti Enright, Margherita Ciampa-Coyne, and Vanessa Parks caught up to enjoy time on the water, good food, and, above all, conversation and lots of laughs in Mystic, Connecticut. One of those great friendships where years can go by without seeing each other, then you pick right back up. Here’s to BC memories! // Joel Taves just retired after a 40-year aerospace and defense career as an executive leader. With his wife, Meghan, and family, he will spend more time at their Cape Cod house, golfing, traveling, and supporting charitable causes. Class correspondent: Mary O’Brien // maryobrien14@comcast.net
John F. Shoro, managing partner at Bowditch & Dewey LLP, has been named a Go-To Taxation Lawyer by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. This is the latest in a long list of accolades for Shoro: Best Lawyers in America honored him as Lawyer of the Year in 2020, 2022, and 2024, and Massachusetts Super Lawyers has included him in its directory every year since 2004. // Kim Nagy says tens of millions of us are caregivers; some of us, reluctantly. In June, she published Staying Sane on the Crazy Train: Journeying to the End with My Mother // Richard P. Buckley Jr. is proud to share that his son, Richard P. Buckley III, was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society in June. His parents and uncle Tim ’87 are very proud of him! // Mike Nurse is now vice president and general manager at Sinclair Broadcast Group TV and Digital operations for both the Dayton and Toledo, Ohio, markets. He added oversight of WNWO/NBC24 to his previous responsibilities managing ABC22 and FOX45 in Dayton. // Gary Presto marked 21 years working at Bunker Hill
Community College in Boston overseeing faculty/student issues resolution, onboarding, and assignment contracts processing. BHCC is the state’s largest community college, with many diverse students beginning as high-school dual enrollees who eventually transfer to nationwide four-year colleges, including BC! Class correspondent: Carol A. McConnell // classnotes@bc.edu
1985
40th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025 Vilma Rodriguez-Andrade ‘85, MEd’94 , and Jose Ricardo Andrade ‘86’s son, Ricardo Andrade ’14 , graduated BC in May 2014 with a degree in economics. Vilma is currently a reading resource specialist for the Brockton Public Schools and lecturer at Bridgewater State University. // Mod 40B roommates Pete Sulick, Bob Radie, Jim Tyma, Anthony Solomine, and Rob Pitney got together in New York to toast Billy Glos. They had dinner at Patsy’s by the park and shared a lot of great old stories! // Théo Spilka has been doing fine with his youngest son, Lucas, 14, who will begin the high school road this fall; a step closer to BC! Théo is global VP of strategic licensing at DSM-Firmenich, and going into his 34th year. DSM merged with Firmenich Fragrances last year. As a passionate cyclist and bike racer, Théo is thrilled that DSM-Firmenich is a sponsor of an international men’s bike racing team. He also loves the fact that BC’s track and cross country coach, Pete Watson, is an avid cyclist, too. // Gloria Haines
COURTESY OF KIM NAGY ’84
COURTESY OF BILL TUPPER ’81
COURTESY OF CHRISTINE D’ENTREMONT MOSHER ’85
Yennaco, Renee Castro, Melissa Morton Joy, and Mei-Tai Yee had a mini reunion weekend in CT in late June. Very much missed were Lauren GaglianoVavra and Karen Reardon. All are very much looking forward to the 40th Reunion festivities. // Christine D’Entremont Mosher has been selected into membership of the Women’s Hall of Fame for the New Agenda - Northeast Women’s Sports Organization. The organization recognizes women who have made a significant contribution to advancing the role of girls and women in sports. The Induction Ceremonies will be held on Nov. 3, 2024, at the Woodland Golf Club in Newton. // Michelle Byrne has been working in physical security and IT for over 35 years, with 18 of those years at Polaroid. She has been at Harvard University now for 13 years and is currently the director of public safety systems. She also earned a master of liberal arts degree in legal studies at Harvard Extension School. Michelle’s proudest accomplishments are her two daughters, Rachel and Becca, and now she gets to enjoy her grandchildren, four-year-old Gianni and one-year-old Lyla! // Rick Cresta was given the Excellence in Teaching Award at Boston University’s School of Social Work where he has been on the faculty since 2005. He also has a private practice working with court-involved youth and young adults. // Kathy Brophy retired from teaching on June 30, 2024. She and a colleague are continuing their work in supporting educators with K & A
Connecting, LLC. They provide professional development and workshops, called Self Care for Educators, that allow time each week for participants to devote to their own self-care. Participants can take the class for PDPs or graduate credit. // Sally Janulevicus was appointed associate justice of the Salem Division of the Massachusetts District Court on November 1, 2021. Judge Janulevicus was a sole practitioner in Boston for over 32 years prior to her appointment. Judge Janulevicus served as president of the Justinian Law Society, a member of the Essex County Bar Association, a member of the Boston Bar Association, and was secretary and board member for the National Italian American Bar Association as a practitioner. Class correspondent: Barbara Ward Wilson // bww415@gmail.com
1986
Teri Anderholm’s book Inn Mates: An Innkeeper’s Memoir was published by Maine Authors Publishing in January 2024. In February, Teri was featured in a televised interview with Rob Caldwell on 207 NEWS CENTER Maine. In June, Maine Home + Design magazine selected Inn Mates as one of four titles to kick off the summer reading season, and Inn Mates was named a finalist in the 2024 International Book Awards. // Jim Ryder, Greg Eaton, and Paul Helou ’85, MA’90, got together in February for the first time since graduation at Paul’s home in Asheville, North Carolina. Jim and his wife, Louise, live in the Detroit area and have three sons in college. Greg, an attorney, and his wife, Debbie (a BU alum), live in Burlington, Vermont. Paul is a musician and actor. Check out his music on YouTube @bluegrasspaul. // Leigh Ann (Steinbrink) Yuen is thrilled to announce the 25th anniversary of the early childhood education center she founded and runs on Martha’s Vineyard. The school, Garden Gate Child Development Center, takes an innovative approach to early education by using the arts as a means of creative communication and problem solving. They celebrated their anniversary with a community-wide art show highlighting the diversity and creativity of artists ages 2 to 30. // Charles Joseph Kickham III,
who likes to be called Charlie, lives in Cartagena, Colombia, for about seven months of the year. For the other five months he’s in different parts of the United States with his wife, Piedad. Class correspondent: Leenie Kelley // leeniekelley@hotmail.com
1987
Andres Hurwitz reports the death of his mom, Carmen Hurwitz, in April in Jamaica Plain. She joins his dad, Irving Hurwitz, who was a longtime faculty member in the School of Education at BC; he passed in 2020. Andres’s folks were residents of the Boston area and were so impressed with how the University developed. Andres remembers his dad taking him to campus when O’Neill Library was under construction and spending summers working out at the Plex. He’s still practicing law but planning retirement, maybe even a return to New England. // Darren Twombly’s daughter, Bridget Twombly, is a Fulbright Scholarship recipient. She will be pursuing her PhD in biomedical engineering at Royal Academy of Surgeons Ireland. // Jane Trombly was joined at her home in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, for a high school graduation celebration for daughter Taylor Delli Carpini ’28 by classmates Barbara (Barry) Gendron, Nick Gendron, Mary Beth (Hirsch) Arigo, Ron Arigo, Kristen (Duff) Schlageter ’88, Deborah (Garcia) Carey, Anne (Hoskins) Krick, Suzanne (O’Grady) Laurito, and Tim McCarthy. Everyone is so happy to have another Eagle to tailgate with this fall.
COURTESY OF RICK CRESTA ’85
COURTESY OF TERI ANDERHOLM ’86
Donna Brien Sullivan to Loren Miller III ’67, 11/12/2022
Karen Lofty, MSW’03 , to Paul Rabazzi, 6/22/2024 // Eagles in attendance: Mark Mulvoy ’64, Tom Mulvoy ’64, and Jim Mulvoy ’70
Gail Harper Yeilding ’05 to Matt Morris, 4/6/2024
Courtney Kipp ’10, MTS’12, to Daniel Nardo, 3/9/2024 // Eagles in attendance: Allie Letourneau Baker ’10, Lisa Derr Ferretti ’10, Lindsay Oliver Shores ’10, Amanda Giglio ’10, Kari Singleton Murphy ’10, and many more Taylor Makson ’13, JD’16, to Ryan Murphy ’13, JD’17, 11/18/2023 // Eagles in attendance: Don Makson ’78; Ryan Brown ’13, MEd’14; Anna Bujalski ’13, MEd’14; PJ Concannon ’13, Gillian Freedman ’13, and David Palubicki ’13; and other guests from the Classes of 1977, 1978, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2017.
Christine Bowles ’13 to Sam Borgen, 5/10/2024
Johnny Schue ’13 to Brian Leslie, 6/8/2024
Jamie Brenner to Geoffrey Griffen ’14, 6/1/2024 // Eagles in attendance: so many!
Sara Seonmin Chung ’20 to Paul Lee ’15, 5/15/2022
Nancy Au ’15 to Ben Dalton ’15, 11/4/2023
Emily Akin ’15 to Jacob Mayo ’15, 6/1/2024 // Eagles in attendance: 50+ including N. Peter Johnson ’60; Edith Witherell ’60; Anthony Mayo ‘84; Lisa Hastings ’80, MA’09; Lorie Paldino ’87, MAT’89; half of Cushing Hall 2011–2012; and Mods 22a and 22b 2014–2015
Maggie Mullins ’16 to Matthew Pierce ’16, 9/9/2023 // Eagles in attendance: many, spanning decades
Tara Egenton to Anthony Gallo ’17, 5/2023
Jessica Lyons ’17 to Michael Rufo ’17, 3/16/2024 // Eagles in attendance: John Walsh ’17, MBA’21
Emily Mann ’18 to Colin Derdeyn ’19, 9/9/2023
Maureen Buff to Garret Patten ’18, 10/2022
Morgan Mahoney ’19 to Thomas Hull ’18, 6/29/24
Caitlyn Shipp, MTS’23, to Michael Proietta ’19, MTS’23, 1/5/2024
COURTESY OF JESSICA LYONS ’17
COURTESY OF MICHAEL PROIETTA ’19
COURTESY OF MARY LOFTY
COURTESY OF EMILY AKIN ’15
COURTESY OF EMILY MANN ’18
COURTESY OF TAYLOR MAKSON ’13
COURTESY OF JOHNNY SCHUE ’13
COURTESY OF NANCY AU ’15
1989
John Taylor works as a fractional controller/CFO in the Boston area and had the opportunity to meet up with Elisabeth Brady—who works as a personal financial planner in the disabled community in Massachusetts—to have coffee in Newburyport after their June reunion. // Kathleen Coyte Manley retired in March from the James A. Haley VA Hospital in Tampa, Florida, where she was a clinical nurse specialist in critical care for more than 31 years. She and her husband, Michael, split their time between Florida and northern Arizona. // Cathy Carroll is excited to announce the publication of her new book Hug of War: How to Lead a Family Business with both Love and Logic. Filled with gripping stories, Hug of War details the unique challenges facing family business leaders, along with a fresh approach—polarity thinking—to resolve enduring conflict. Written for the family business leader, the book also offers important context that every family business advisor should know when serving family businesses. // Michael O’Loughlin enjoyed singing the national anthem with the Boston College University Chorale and Chorale alumni at Boston College Night at Fenway Park this spring. His family, including Margot O’Loughlin ’21, and over 1,000 Boston College alumni, students, and friends were present at the Red Sox–Cubs game. Singing with the Chorale was a wonderful experience. He also attended his 35th reunion at the Heights in May and had a wonderful time, making some new friends. // Ellen Reifel checked in to
say that she and her family took an amazing trip to Peru in the spring, including a four-day/three-night hike on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Ellen and family reside in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, where she works at the local high school, her husband is winding down his consulting career, and her boys are beginning their adult lives: Ben (IU Class of ‘22; works at Kearney), Josh (Purdue Class of ‘24), and Owen (IU Class of ‘27). For Boston! Class correspondent: Andrea McGrath // andrea.e.mcgrath@gmail.com
1990
35th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025 Michelle Mohrmann moved to a new home in St. Louis Hills, Missouri. She is bringing her first cousin, Ron Heideman, from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, to Homecoming 2024. See you in October! It’s the 35th anniversary of her 21st birthday! Will celebrate with Denis and Claire Yannatos at Cheers. // Maura Lynch opted for early retirement at the end of 2023 after 22 years with the United Nations, most recently in Sudan. She celebrated with a trip to Antarctica and Chile. She is back in Harlem, but traveling often to catch up with friends. Congratulations on your retirement, Maura! // Maria (Fini) Beck and her husband, Ken Beck, recently celebrated the graduation of their middle son Nick ’24 back on the Heights. Nick is a third-generation Eagle with his mother and grandfather, Herbert Fini ’56. Ken and Maria enjoy summers on Lake Winnipesaukee and look forward to
spending winters at Belfair, a golf community located in Bluffton, South Carolina. Class correspondent: Missy Campbell Reid // missybc90@comcast.net
1991
Louise Taverna retired at the end of March 2024 after working at Tufts Health Plan/Point32Health for 16 years. Her career began at Boston College Law School (10 years); followed by Brandeis University (13 years), where she received a master’s degree in management of human services from the Heller School; followed by three years with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates; and culminating at Tufts Health Plan/ Point32Health. She celebrated with a three-week trip to Italy. More trips ahead! // Kim LaBarbiera just celebrated two years as a director and counsel for the cybersecurity and risk management legal team at American Express and one year on the board of directors for the Third-Party Risk Association. She received an award as “A Woman in the Lead” for work in the risk space and was granted a Fulbright Specialist designation and will serve a three-year term for Fulbright Foundation. She has been on several girls’ trips with Jessica Prata Miller, Jane Ngara Pearson, Nicole Tufo Pirnie ’92, Annie Mallick ’92, and Ana Quadros ’92! // Karen O’Malley, who cochairs the Goulston & Storrs retail, restaurant, and consumer group and pro bono committee, has been elected as a fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL). She was the
COURTESY OF MICHAEL O’LOUGHLIN ’89
COURTESY OF MICHELLE MOHRMANN ’90
only attorney in Massachusetts selected for this year’s ACREL Fellows class. O’Malley is a well-known real estate attorney who focuses her practice on retail and office leasing within mixedused properties for many large public and private real estate companies. // Congratulations to Sheree Nuccio Winans on receiving the Enfield Public Schools’ 2024–2025 teacher of the year award! Sheree is a fifth-grade teacher at Prudence Crandall Elementary and has worked in the Enfield school system since graduation in 1991! Amazing work, Sheree, and so well deserved!! // Bob Joyce of Newton, who serves as legal counsel for Massachusetts Hockey, was recently elected to serve a three-year term on the board of directors of USA Hockey, Inc., the national governing body for amateur ice hockey. Class correspondent: Peggy Morin Bruno // pegmb@comcast.net
1992
Lisa Noller was selected as one of America’s top 200 lawyers on the Forbes inaugural list. Lisa is a partner at Foley & Lardner in Chicago. She is chair of the firm’s national litigation department and government enforcement defense and investigations practice. Lisa has been lauded by clients and colleagues for her subject-matter expertise, investigative prowess, tenaciousness, and integrity. She is an expert in healthcare litigation and white-collar defense. // Laura (Daniel) Fox; Jaimini (Parikh) Fugiel; Laura Hennessey; Mary (Raab) Hornby
’92, JD’96; Nancy (MacElhiney) Kenney ’92, MEd’96; Elisa (Ferraro) Rosenwinkel ’92, MA’00; and Alyssa (Riley) Thompson met in Ogunquit, Maine, this July for a long-overdue reunion. They traveled from Florida, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts to get together after 20-plus years of not being all together in one place at one time. They had so much fun they plan to do it again every year! // Ceci (O’Connell) Miller was recently elected to serve on the board of directors of Buchalter, APC, a national law firm with over 500 attorneys and 12 offices. Ceci is a shareholder in the San Diego office and cochair of the firm’s insurance law practice group. // Gina LaRocca, MD, MHSc , is director of advanced cardiovascular imaging at Mount Sinai Medical Center at the Fuster Heart Hospital. She was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honor Society, which encompasses the top one percent of physicians in the country. Gina is honored to be a member among the likes of five Nobel Prize recipients and 12 former US surgeons general. // Ron Smith is a 30-year science educator in New Jersey, working in the NJ public schools as well as on education projects with Drexel University and various conservation organizations. He recently published a book with Schiffer Publishing, Adventures in Community Science. A follow-up book is due out in spring 2025: Adventures in a Backyard Garden Class correspondent: Katie Boulos Gildea // kbgildea@yahoo.com
1993
Eliza Allen Curtis and family moved to Charlotte after living in and working in Connecticut. She lost her job due to a merger and they thought it was a great opportunity to do something different. If you are in the area let Eliza know. // Michael Garnsey received his 8th Top Forensic Examiner Award from the United States Secret Service. Class correspondent: Laura Beck // laurabeckcahoon@gmail.com
1994
Shelly Pendergrass Sullivan and David Sullivan are proud of their daughter Skyler ’22, MSW’23 , who is currently
working as a school-based therapist in Needham. Their son Trey just graduated from Fordham, Class of 2024. The couple is happy to announce their youngest, Corey, will be attending BC this fall in the Class of 2028. Happy to have another Eagle in the house! Class correspondent: Nancy E. Drane // nancydrane@aol.com
1995
30th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025
Amanda O’Dea Dillon worked as an attorney in the Philadelphia area for 17-plus years after graduating from Villanova Law School. She moved to Jupiter, Florida, in 2016 where she works as a Realtor. She remains very close with her BC friends and gets together for girls’ weekends with her “roommates” one to two times per year! // Sean Patrick Flahaven won his third Tony Award as a coproducer of the Best Play, Stereophonic by David Adjmi. Stereophonic was the most Tony-nominated play in history and most award-winning show of the season. Sean’s previous Tony Awards were for coproducing Company (2002) and Hadestown (2019). In February, he won his third Grammy Award for producing the Best Musical Theater Album, Some Like It Hot. His previous Grammys were for Into the Woods (2022) and Hamilton (2016). Sean is chief theatricals executive for Concord in New York City. // Roshan Rajkumar was elected to a third term as the managing partner of the Minneapolis office of Bowman and Brooke LLP. He leads a team of 138 and reports to his firm’s executive committee. Recently in his spare time, he performed as a
COURTESY OF LOUISE TAVERNA ’91
COURTESY OF ROSHAN RAJKUMAR ’95
member of the “angel chorus” for the Out of the Box Opera performance of Suor Angelica at the Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis. Class correspondent: Kevin McKeon // kmckeon@gmail.com
1996
Dave McGrath recently published his first children’s book If You Give a Dave a Darth. This is his eighth published book and follows his Poetry Anthology 1990–2020, which was published in 2021. In addition to writing, Dave is teaching intense-needs elementary students, performing stand-up comedy, and hosting a podcast, The WWIM Podcast // Larry Hare returned to the Heights in February 2024 for the 30th anniversary of men’s basketball’s 1994 Elite 8 run through the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Hare was a student manager with the program from 1992–1996. Hare also took advantage of the Frozen Four’s proximity in April, taking his daughter to her first hockey game at the National Championship game in St. Paul. // Michael Huha was recently named executive chef of the Hynes Convention Center. Mike studied at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts after BC. He began his culinary career working at many local restaurants, the Ritz, and finally in a sous chef role that had him splitting his time between the Hynes and the Boston Convention and Expo Center. Mike and his wife, Katie Mulligan-Huha, are looking forward to celebrating his promotion and their 25th wedding anniversary this fall! // Ivan Illan attended the LPL Financial 2024 Business Leaders Forum (BLF) hosted at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School in June. BLF is an executive education certificate program for the largest investment advisory firms with the highest growth in the past year for a three-day intensive classroom study on growth strategy and management.
1997
Stephanie J. Martinez MBA, BSN, RN, CPHQ, was promoted to executive director, associate chief nursing officer, care continuum in May 2024 at Boston Medical Center Health System. // Suzanne (Egan) Martin has a new leadership development book: Brilliant
Leadership: Patterns for Creating HighImpact Teams. She is also a BC Emerging Leadership Program alum (both as a participant and a facilitator) and looks forward to bringing her work to campus. Suzanne is currently the director of marketing learning and development at Google. // Kim Meninger ’97, MBA’08, was awarded 2024 Microenterprise of the Year by the Massachusetts Small Business Administration. Her leadership coaching and consulting business is on a mission to make it easier to be human at work. Class correspondent: Margo Rivera Gillespie // margogillespie@gmail.com
1998
Father Brian O’Brien is the new rector of Holy Family Cathedral in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was previously pastor of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Stillwater. // Christina Malone Lund ’98, MS’99 , is very excited to join Premier Sotheby’s International Realty in Tampa, Florida, as a real estate advisor selling high-end homes within the Tampa Bay area! In addition to having a record year in sales for 2023, her side hustle is handling real estate callers as a practicing attorney for the Ask the Dom radio show on 102.5 FM! Christina is loving her real estate career and, in her free time, captaining a USTA 5.0 tennis league! // Mark Shambura was recently named the chief marketing officer at Panera Bread. Headquartered in Missouri, the restaurant chain operates more than 2,000 locations in the United States. This new role builds on Mark’s
success leading marketing for other major restaurant companies, including Papa Johns, MOD Pizza, and Chipotle. Class correspondent: Mistie P. Lucht // hohudson@yahoo.com
1999
Christian Baird recently took an equity stake in Ave Maria Capital LLC, which owns an insurance advisory firm focusing on the benefits industry. As a vice president and shareholder, he is advising high-net-worth individuals and small business owners on benefit packages. The firm focuses on serving Catholic families and their respective business interests across 20 states. // Steve Galante celebrated 25 years at Brown Brothers Harriman. // Nicole (Nelson) Zakowicz now leads EisnerAmper’s forensic, litigation, and valuation practice in the North Carolina Research Triangle. Nicole has over 20 years of experience providing damages consulting and expert testimony in complex commercial and intellectual property disputes. Nicole lives in Durham, North Carolina, with her husband, Greg, and their two sons. Class correspondents: Matt Colleran // colleran.matt@gmail.com and Emily Wildfire // ewildfire@hotmail.com
2000
25th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025 Double Eagle Jorge Alexander Cardona ’00, MS’03 , embarks on a two-year journey exploring South and Central America while working remotely as a financial systems consultant. His goal: to traverse every country in the Americas. Since graduating from Boston College, Jorge’s adventurous spirit has led him to soar over one million miles, visiting nearly 40 countries. His wanderlust has even seen him welcoming New Year’s in an impressive 13 different time zones. This Eagle is going places! // Nikki (Aurillo) Lacz and Daniel Lacz ’99 , MS’03 , are thrilled to be back on the Heights next year with their oldest son, Maximilian, who has joined the Eagles Class of 2028! Max’s older sister, Emmalyn (Syracuse 2027) is looking for a revenge win this football season. Both of Max’s younger brothers, Wolfgang and Lucas, are happy to have Delbarton to themselves next year and Max’s little
COURTESY OF KIM MENINGER ’97
BCAA 2023–2024 Annual Report
See what the Boston College Alumni Association did this year and how you can get involved.
WE CONNECTED Through shared interests and identities
WE GATHERED With classmates
WE ADDED New and enhanced alumni programming
Visit bc.edu/annualreport or scan the QR code
sister, Lillian, is just happy to kick a boy out of the house! // Desirée Scorcia is leading a busy life in her hometown of Boothbay, Maine. She works from home in population health management, and serves as the Maine Green Independent Party’s treasurer, on the board of trustees of the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library, and as a volunteer “woodchuck” at a local woodbank— chopping, splitting, stacking, and delivering firewood to residents in need. Class correspondent: Kate Pescatore // katepescatore@hotmail.com
2001
Michael Motyl ’01, H’15 , moved from Texas back to the East Coast, as he has been chosen to serve as the next president of Cristo Rey High School in Brooklyn. He looks forward to connecting with other fellow Eagles in NYC! // Vinnie D’Eramo was recently promoted to managing director at Deloitte, where he serves as the client
growth leader for the firm’s regulatory and legal services practice. Vinnie, his wife Laura, and their three children live in Westchester County, New York. // Gordy Gouveia is an equity partner with Fox Rothschild LLP, a national law firm with more than 1,000 attorneys nationwide. Effective April 1, 2024, Gordy was appointed as managing partner of the firm’s Chicago office and became a member of the firm’s executive committee. // Andrew Frey is now head of real estate for the City of Miami, leading all real estate functions including acquisitions, leasing, public-private partnerships, capital projects, property management, and asset management. He was previously a real estate development executive at private companies including AJ Capital Partners, Crescent Heights, and Codina Partners. // Matthew Benfer ’01, MS’09, MBA’09 , recently launched the app Extraordinal Love on Apple iOS and the website www.extraordinal.love. His app elevates personal narratives of emotion and love
into timeless treasures, safeguarding them forever in the digital cloud, ensuring their permanence across generations. He aims to change the direction of social media, displaying these narratives for everyone to celebrate daily. His unique approach honors the transformative power of love, making it as eternal as the love itself. Class correspondent: Sandi Birkeland Kanne // bc01classnotes@gmail.com
2002
Karim Aryeh recently joined the BC Alumni Miami Chapter leadership team along with Conor Gallagher ’16, MS’17, Conor’s wife Daniela Concha ’16, and Alejandra Rodriguez ’08. He has been living in Miami since 2010 with his wife and their three children. Karim recently marked his five-year anniversary as director in wealth management at Deutsche Bank. Through BC Eagle Exchange, he continues to mentor BC students and alumni interested in
Class Notes // Baby Eagles
Marina Ruiz Tourniaire and Guillaume Tourniaire ’96, Gaëlle Marie-Terese, 7/3/2023
Kathleen Walsh-Spoonhower ’01 and Paul Spoonhower, Aoife Keira , 1/4/2024
Emily Horowitz Buck ’08 and Jonathan Buck ’02, Noah David, 3/28/2024
Elizabeth Sartori Bresnahan ’04 and Craig Bresnahan, William, 11/15/2023
Lauren Weaver Holland ’08 and Burnell Holland III ’05, Elliott Burnell, 2/5/2024
Kayla Weaton and Tim Weaton ’06, James, 3/21/2024
Melissa Jaques and Matthew Jaques ’06, Josephine (Josie), 6/10/2024
Meaghan Whalen-Kielback ’07 and Stephen Kielback, Peter, 3/30/2024
Maura Boyle Walsh ’09 and Stephen Walsh ’09, MBA’16, Rose Dorothy, 3/19/2024
Sofia Barbieri ’12 and Justin Sileo ’10, Lidia , 5/1/2024
Chelsea Dostaler Joyce ’12 and Jayson Joyce ’12, Evangeline Jo, 1/11/2024
Lisa Mao Freihofer ’12 and Nick Freihofer, Colin Z , 6/4/2024
Caroline Sasso Candido ’13 and Steven Candido ’12, Luke Stefano, 10/8/2023
Lauren Ruvo Carroll ’14 and Matt Carroll ’14, Cameron David, 2/16/2024
Laura Goodell Sulmonte ’14 and Christopher Sulmonte Jr. ’14, William James, 3/19/2024
Anna Trilleras Burgess ’14 and William Burgess ’14, baby boy
Mary Naugler McDonough ’14 and Cameron McDonough, Brian, 4/23/2024
Lindy McKie and Mike McKie ’16, Piper Jean, 4/16/2024
Megan Fuqua Williams ’17, MSW’21, and Josh Williams ’17, Jack, 12/18/2023
Maureen Buff and Garret Patten ’18, Kiva Rose, 3/2023
COURTESY OF KATHLEEN WALSH-SPOONHOWER ’01
COURTESY OF LAUREN WEAVER HOLLAND ’08
COURTESY OF MAURA BOYLE WALSH ’09
COURTESY OF MEGAN FUQUA WILLIAMS ’17
COURTESY OF MEAGHAN WHALEN-KIELBACK ’07
COURTESY OF GUILLAUME TOURNIAIRE ’96
COURTESY OF SOFIA BARBIERI ’12
COURTESY OF LISA MAO FREIHOFER ’12
COURTESY OF NATASHA BEDNARZ TOGHRAMADJIAN ’17
COURTESY OF CHELSEA DOSTALER JOYCE ’12
learning about and working in the financial services industry. // Laura Allaire graduated from UCSF in June 2024 with a master of science in the clinical nurse specialist track. Her focus of study was in palliative care, and she now works as a nurse for By the Bay Health. Class correspondent: Suzanne Harte // suzanneharte@yahoo.com
2004
Callie Kozlak Tyler was appointed to lead the school facilities division and the school facilities oversight board at the Arizona Department of Administration. Her office supports building inspections, renewal, and new construction for Arizona’s 217 traditional public school districts. // Drudys (Nicolas Vernet) Ledbetter is now a leading voice at the intersection of healthcare and cannabis in Massachusetts. She is opening Boston’s first Latina-owned dispensary and launching the CBD topical line “Bè Beauty by Zèb.” Additionally, Drudys has invited Aundrea Cline-Thomas to write the foreword for her second book, revisiting the RAPID change process she created in 2017, offering new wisdom and insights for natural healing journeys. // Philip Frattaroli was honored to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican during the Vatican Climate Summit in May 2024. Philip was the guest of the Mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu. Philip said it was
an incredible honor to meet the Holy Father, a moment he will never forget. // Javi Herrera was elected as president of the San Antonio Trial Lawyers Association. Class correspondent: Allie Weiskopf | allieweiskopf@gmail.com
2006
Amanda Sindel-Keswick received a Juris Doctor degree from Boston University, graduating cum laude. // Rebecca Madson ’06, MA ’08, completed her PhD in family science and human development from Montclair State University. Her dissertation was titled “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Undergraduate Students.” She and her husband recently relocated from NJ to the Raleigh, North Carolina, area for her husband’s job with the United States Golf Association. Rebecca is currently working for NC State University in its Poole College of Management. // Michael Stefanilo Jr. has joined the world’s largest employment law firm, Littler, as special counsel. // Jean Blosser Brown joined Mars in a strategic finance role for their snacking business earlier this year. She is excited to be working on a portfolio of iconic brands (including M&M’s, Snickers, Twix, Starburst, and Skittles) plus newer additions like KIND, Nature’s Bakery, and Tru Fru. Jean lives on the North Shore of Chicago with her husband, two children (ages six and
four), and energetic mini Australian shepherd. // John Chin separated from the US Navy in April 2024 after almost 15 years of continuous active duty service as a medical officer. After completing the Navy’s undersea medical officer course and dive school, he was primarily assigned to the Navy’s undersea warfare communities on the East Coast, which included submarine, SEALs, explosive ordnance disposal, and salvage diving units. A board certified internist, he begins his cardiology fellowship this July at Albany Medical Center in New York. Class correspondent: Cristina Conciatori // cristina.conciatori@gmail.com
2008
Mary Mycroft has joined the board of the Rhode Island Brain and Spine Tumor Foundation. Class correspondent: Maura Tierney Murphy // mauraktierney@ gmail.com
2009
Carla Pellegrini did a TED talk about food waste, its links to climate change, and a few ways we can do something about it as individuals. You can watch it on YouTube and help spread awareness about this elephant-sized issue! // James Birney and his wife Anne Lenz are relocating to Minneapolis after five years in Austin, Texas, where he worked in various roles with Whole Foods Market (which was founded in Austin in 1980). James’s next chapter is as GM of the Minnetonka Whole Foods Market. Their two rescue chihuahua mixes will be
COURTESY OF PATRICE HOWELL ’11
COURTESY OF PHILIP FRATTAROLI ’04
joining them on the move “du nord!” // Isaiah Sterrett ’10, MA’12, PhD’24 , completed his PhD in History and was thrilled to participate in BC’s 148th Commencement in May 2024. Class correspondent: Timothy Bates // tbates86@gmail.com
2011
Patrice Howell earned a master’s degree in mental health counseling in May 2024. // Kelly Soltis was recently promoted to senior e-discovery attorney with labor and employment law firm Jackson Lewis PC. Kelly joined Jackson Lewis as an e-discovery attorney in 2022 after building her career in-house at GE, where she rose to become GE’s in-house e-discovery team lead prior to her departure. Class Correspondent: Brittany Lynch Pruitt // brittanymichele8@gmail.com
2012
Stephanie Gonzalez received her MBA from New York University Leonard N. Stern School of Business this May, Class of 2024. She specialized in marketing, brand management, and leadership and change management. This degree also makes her the first in her family to obtain a master’s degree. This summer, after 16 years on the East Coast, she returned to the West Coast to continue her career with Nike from world headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. // Alex Lucci completed an adult psychiatry residency at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, and planned to begin his fellowship training in child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Miami in July 2024. // Lieutenant Commander John Casper, USN, ’12, JD’15 , successfully completed a yearlong deployment with Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa as the head of operational and international law. Class correspondent: Riley Sullivan // sullivan.riley.o@gmail.com
2014
Katherine Donahue was named one of Boston’s Top Real Estate Producers by Boston magazine for the third year running. // Kyle Valente has been selected to the 2024 New Jersey Rising Stars list. Each year, no more than 2.5
percent of attorneys in New Jersey are selected to the Rising Stars list. Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters company, is a rating service that recognizes the top lawyers from firms of all sizes and across 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.
2015
10th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025 Jenna Blochowicz completed her PhD in economics at the University of Virginia in May 2024 and will be joining the economics department of Iowa State University as an assistant professor. // Matt Liber ’15, JD’23 , is finishing his first year at the Suffolk County District
Attorney’s Office in downtown Boston. He was sworn in as an assistant district attorney in August 2023 after graduating from the Law School earlier that year. // Benjamin Seo was recently recognized as one of 914inc.’s Wunderkinds. This select group of the best and brightest young professionals in Westchester, New York, have been chosen by the editors for their unique talents, groundbreaking ideas, and community involvement, all while under the age of 35! Class correspondent: Victoria Mariconti // victoria.mariconti@gmail.com
2016
Haley Wallace joins the New Hampshire Public Defender office as a staff attorney, after completing her clerkship with the Honorable Eric C. Tostrud on the US District Court for the District of Minnesota in August.
2017
Anthony Gallo was recently named chief resident in the Cleveland Clinic Internal Medicine Residency Program and will be overseeing the Cleveland Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center’s Center for Outpatient Education track. // Savanna Kiefer and Abigail Weber graduated with their doctorates in psychology from the PGSP - Stanford PsyD Consortium in June 2024. Both planned to begin as clinical psychology postdocs in New York City this fall. // Wade O’Neil says: “Congratulations to Michael A. Stark on his promotion as chief greeting officer at Walmart ($WMT)!”
Class correspondent: Joshua Beauregard // joshf94@charter.net
2018
Garret Patten received a promotion at work and is now a senior security engineer at nCino. // Chelsea Binnig recently deployed with the US Army as a MedEvac helicopter flight nurse, providing care to US military service members and NATO coalition military forces throughout the Middle East. // Janika Raynes graduated from David Lipscomb University in 2019 with a master’s degree in biomolecular science. She graduated in May 2024 with a degree of doctor of medicine from East Tennessee State University Quillen
COURTESY OF BENJAMIN SEO ’15
COURTESY OF JENNA BLOCHOWICZ ’15
College of Medicine. She planned to begin her obstetrics-gynecology residency training at East Tennessee State University starting June 2024. She also received the 1911 Society Award from ETSU. Class correspondent: Lizzie Loli // elizabethslolis@gmail.com
2019
Kaley Bent graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana with a masters of health sciences in physician assistant studies in May 2023. She is employed by Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans as a PA-C in orthopedic surgery. // Michael Quinn’s stage play The River East was shortlisted for the 2024 Yale Drama Series Prize, judged by playwright Jeremy O. Harris. Ten plays were shortlisted from over 2,000 submissions.
2020
5th Reunion, May 30–June 1, 2025 Shae Heitz graduated with her Juris Doctor degree and a certificate in human rights from the University of Connecticut School of Law. In the fall she will start her legal career at the Department of Justice through the honors program as a judicial law clerk.
2023
Heather Lee graduated from Georgetown University with her master of science in physiology and biophysics.
2024
Edward Martens is in the senior leadership now at Imotobank, a tech company in Walpole.
GRADUATE SCHOOLS
Allan Solomon, JD’60, was inducted into the Mississippi Gaming Hall of Fame. // Georgette Magassy Dorn, MA’61, has recently moved to Boston after living many years in Washington, DC. She would like to connect with fellow students from her time at BC and also engage in alumni activities more suited for her time in life. // Sister Barbara Volk, MEd’68’s understanding of children and her ability to convey life’s beauty through art earned her the honor of being Elementary Art Educator of the Year (1992) by the Missouri Art Education Association. She has been both teacher and administrator in parochial schools for more than 40 years. She began teaching art exclusively in 1985. In her retirement at Nazareth Living Center she is highly visible in seeking out and using community resources to make a positive impact on others. // Kathleen Shinners, MA’72 , received an EdM in the Teacher Education Program from Harvard University in 1991. She later earned an EdD from Teachers College, Columbia University in organization and leadership, with a concentration in private school leadership in 1999. // Tom Anderson, MA’75 , (English) released an 11-song punk folk album inspired by the life and poems of John Keats. The album Keats Euphoria is streaming on all the platforms. Tom has been called “sort of a latter-day Lou Reed” and his music “literary-infused rock.” The album debuted live at The Burren in Somerville on April 10. // Paula Roberts, MEd’76, published a book in December 2023. Sealed with a Kiss is the story of the WWII love letters her father, 2nd Lt. Paul E. Roberts, 320th Rifle Infantry, wrote to his fiancee. The Needham Free Library said, “In late 1942, as WWII raged, 19-year-old Paul Roberts left Union College and enlisted in the Army. He was seriously wounded in March 1945.” Paula found the letters her father wrote and named the book the same way he signed his letters. // Coral May Grout, MEd’76, has served as the national children and youth chair for the American Legion Auxiliary’s 550,000 members during the past year. Children across the 52 departments were recognized for good
deeds and heroic activities. Military children were recognized on Purple Up! Day. More than 80 representatives and senators from Massachusetts cosponsored a resolution in honor of the day. // John Gillespie, MBA’77, left Charles River CFO to collaborate with a long-term partner to launch Scaling Nonprofits. Its mission is to match nonprofit leaders with advisors to support their growth to become more operationally and financially sustainable. He is the board treasurer of the Curtis Memorial (Brunswick, Maine) Library. He is also on the finance committee of both the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program and the Motley Fool Foundation. He has been a SCORE mentor since September 2021. // Hon. Carmen Messano, JD’77, recently retired after 26 years as a superior court judge in New Jersey, the last 10 years as chief judge of the appellate division, the state’s intermediate court of appeals. He will be traveling, relaxing, and reading everything but briefs! // Terry Driscoll, MBA’79 , is still practicing environmental engineering in the US and developing countries. Besides remediating hazardous waste sites in the US, he is currently working in Tajikistan, Zambia, and Ecuador on water and health issues. In April he received the grand prize for industrial waste design from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists for an innovative remediation project in Oregon. // Gene Reineke, MA’79 , sold his public relations firm last year and officially retired. He spends his time now hiking in the Indiana Dunes National Park near his home and volunteers with the Moreau College Initiative, a prison education program run by the University of Notre Dame and Holy Cross College. // Barbara Quinn, RSCJ, MDiv’81, has transitioned from full-time work at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry after 13+ years but will continue to do occasional projects at BC in various capacities. // Rich DeBona, MA’85 , has officially retired from the Catholic church. He served four decades as a high school religion teacher, college campus minister, and a parish/diocesan director of social justice, which included a Holy Land ministry that shone a light on the plight of Palestinians living under apartheid. // Jay Cerio, PhD’88, retired
COURTESY OF MICHAEL QUINN ’19
as Dean of the School of Graduate and Continuing Studies at Alfred University in Western New York. In his 32 years at the university, Cerio oversaw programs in counseling, school psychology, education, public administration, and health care management, and was responsible for establishing the university’s AUNY extension programs in the metro-New York City region. Under his leadership, the graduate school grew from 100 students to over 600. // Sister Karla Marie Kaelin, MEd’93 , a Louisville native, is celebrating 60 years as an Ursuline Sister of Mount Saint Joseph (Maple Mount, Kentucky) She earned a master’s degree in religious education from Boston College in 1993. She served as a teacher and parish minister. She is retired at the motherhouse, where she is active in the Powerhouse of Prayer. The Ursuline Sisters are celebrating 150 years of service in 2024. // Elizabeth Talia, JD’93 , was recognized this past fall by the Ontario County Chamber of Commerce as an ATHENA Leadership Award nominee. This award celebrates women who excel in their professions, give back to their communities and assist other women in achieving their full leadership potential. Elizabeth is currently the vice president and general counsel of Thompson Health in Canandaigua, New York. She serves on boards for United Way of Greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes and Compeer Rochester. // Dan Rosen, MAT ‘94 , is teaching high school English and will probably keep doing that. Every. Day. Until. He. Dies. // Bridget HartKenney, MEd’96, has been connecting
generations through storytelling and memoir writing, along with her father, Joseph Hart ’59. Together they have written children’s books, provided free workshops to all ages, and through their teaching, they are spreading the message that storytelling connects us all. At 93, Joseph hopes others will be inspired to tell their story! // Mary Didiuk, PhD’96, cofounded Traveling Toys, Inc., in 2019. Her nonprofit collaborates with Connecticut libraries to create toy libraries. Traveling Toys provides children and teens access to high-quality, age-appropriate toys and games that promote play and enhance development and learning. Its first toy library opened at the Westbrook Public Library in 2021. Since then, it has expanded its partnership with nine other public libraries. You can find more information at travelingtoys.info. // Amanda UdisKessler, MA’96, PhD’02 , is pleased to announce the release of her new book Cultural Processes of Inequality: A Sociological Perspective (Anthem Press). // Ravi Ramnarain, MS’03 , and his wife, Devyn Ramnarain, recently celebrated their seven-year wedding anniversary. The Naples, Florida-based couple also celebrated the nine-year anniversary of Ravi Ramnarain, CPA, LLC, a 14-person firm focusing on corporate accounting work. Ravi and Devyn also recently opened a second CPA Firm, South Florida
Tax Firm, LLC, which focuses solely on tax compliance and tax consulting. // Jennifer Just McGuire, MA’01, took a position in district administration as the college and career information coordinator for the New Bedford Public Schools in July of 2022, after 21 years as a school counselor, 18 at Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School. The following April, she received the Outstanding Service Counseling Award of Recognition (OSCAR) from the Massachusetts School Counselors Association. // Brian Thomson, MBA’08, recently launched his own executive coaching practice, Brian Thomson Coaching, helping successful people maximize their leadership potential. He did this after building a successful career in the biotech sector. // Amanda “Mandy” Collier Scipione, MBA’08, is the head of global diversity and inclusion for Fidelity Investments’ 74,000-plus associates. // Carol Anne Marchetti MS’02, PhD’10, was appointed as a clinical professor in the School of Nursing at Northeastern University Bouve College of Health Sciences. // Brian Ashmankas, MA’12 , and wife, Samantha (married August 2023), are in the process of starting a Catholic worker farm and eco-village called Makarioi (“beatitude” in Greek), committed to spirituality, sustainability, and social justice and healing. They are seeking a location in Central Massachusetts, cofounders, and supporters to make this communal vision a reality. The couple is currently living in an existing Catholic Worker House. Brian can be contacted at Brianashmankas86@gmail.com. // Frank Murray, JD’13 , joined Stumphauzer Kolaya Nadler & Sloman, PLLC, as a partner in Miami. // Bertan Turhan, PhD’15 , was awarded tenure and promoted to be an associate professor at Iowa State University Department of Economics. // Fr. Christopher Daniel, MTS’16, was ordained a priest in the Dominican Order in May 2024. // Alex Zequeira, MEd’16, began his tenure as the newly appointed president of Saint Ignatius Loyola Academy, a Jesuit NativityMiguel model school in Baltimore. // Andrew Mercado, MA’18, was appointed as the first Latino director of university ministry at Dominican University, a Catholic Hispanic-serving
COURTESY OF FR. CHRISTOPHER DANIEL, MTS’16
COURTESY OF ELIZABETH TALIA, JD’93
institution in River Forest, Illinois. // Wendan Xiao, MSW’19 , will receive her MSc in Finance (investment & asset management) from University College Cork this fall. Passionate about impact investing, ESG, and investor relations, Wendan is currently navigating the job search and hopes the strong BC alumni network will help introduce her to opportunities where she can contribute to an organization with strong leadership and a great team. She wishes everyone the best on their journeys! // Carole Hughes, PhD’99, MSW’21, was recently elected to the position of region I director for the National Association for Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) for 2024–2026. Region I consists of all New England states and Eastern Canada. // Catherine Cuchetti, PhD’22 , was named program director, School of Nursing, at Franklin Pierce University in October 2023. In the role, she oversees operations of RN to BSN and MSN (education, leadership, and MSN/MBA tracks) online programs, and the Master’s Entry Program in Nursing (MEPN), which she helped launch in 2020 on the Manchester, New Hampshire,
Fond Farewells
1940s
Nancy Hussey PMC’42
Nancy Murphy PMC’42
Majie Failey ’43
Arnold Perlman ’44
Alfred Ferullo ’45
Sibyl Kirby PMC’45
Edie Maclay PMC’45
Sue Stevens PMC’45
Shirley Stewart PMC’45
Mary Zunino PMC’45
Richard Fitzgerald ’47
Julio Contrada ’48
Richard Greene ’48, MS’54
Naomi Jefferson PMC’48
Saskia Kessler PMC’48
Margie LaFever PMC’48
Ginny Pierpont PMC’48
Phoebe Rogers PMC’48
Ann Andes PMC’49
Deweenta Bones PMC’49
Edward Burgess ’49
Raymond Gorman ’49
campus. // Erica Szczechowski, MA’23 , started competing in triathlons. After qualifying for Team USA for her age group at USA Triathlon Nationals, she will be competing in Spain at the 2024 World Triathlon Age-Group Championships in October. She hopes to earn her professional license this season. Erica believes if it were not for former Boston College XC Coach Randy Thomas, she would never have achieved what she has today, as she was a walk-on the
James Harkins ’49
Joanie Lyman PMC’49
Edward Lynch ’49
Richard Minichiello ’49
1950s
William Dempsey ’50
Albert Devejian ’50
Lawrence Finnegan ’50
Robert Murray ’50
John O’Hare ’50
Anne Parsons PMC’50
John Taylor ’50, JD’53
Becky Underhill PMC’50
Jacqueline Woods PMC’50
Nancy Young PMC’50
Paul Ballantine ’51
Brenda Bisbee PMC’51
Joseph Coppinger ’51
Charles Cunniff ’51
Ann Dix PMC’51
Leo Hannon ’51
Owen Kellett ’51
2021–2022 XC season. // Jordan Michelson, JD’22, MA’24 , obtained his master’s degree in philosophy. He is now a civil rights lawyer in New York. // Dave Renninger, MEd’24 , was just hired as an instructional aide at Pine Hill Elementary School in Westwood. He is thrilled to be able to make a difference in the lives of young students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to sustain access to the general ed curriculum within the context of the traditional classroom.
School correspondents: Elizabeth Abbott Wenger ’04, MSW’06 // lizabbott@gmail. com (School of Social Work); John Clifford, MBA’10 // clifford.jr@gmail.com (Carroll School of Management); Katy Phillips, MS’10, PhD’13 // katyelphillips@gmail. com (Connell School of Nursing); Marianne Lucas Lescher ’83, PhD’98 // malescher@ aol.com (Lynch School of Education and Human Development); Leslie Poole Petit, MA’91 // lpoolepetit@gmail.com (Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences); Clough School of Theology & Ministry // stmalum@bc.edu; and Jane T. Crimlisk ’74 // crimliskp@gmail.com (Woods College of Advancing Studies)
Martha Landsman PMC’51
David Levy ’51
William Manley ’51
Alice Mathews PMC’51
Phil McGinn MEd’51
Cathryn Mecaskey PMC’51
Joseph O’Loughlin ’51
George Bergin ’52
Tom Cummiskey ’52
Robert Delaney ’52
Edward Gallivan ’52, MA’54
Kirwan MacMillan ’52
Anthony Mariano MEd’52
Anne Fisher McCabe NC’52, MA’55
Jay Olsen ’52
William O’Sullivan ’52
Andrew Previte ’52
Alvin Simmons ’52
Adam Suchecki ’52
James Thompson ’52
Thomas Donahue ’53
Frank Falvey ’53
Kenneth Kelly ’53, MA’59
William Martin ’53
Robert Mullin ’53
Connie Powell PMC’53
Philip Dimattia ’54, MEd’56, PhD’74
Paul Dunlap ’54
Joseph Fandel ’54
Bob Kerwin ’54
Robert O’Brien ’54
James O’Donnell ’54
Donald Preskenis ’54
Bob Sanborn ’54
Edward Stegemann ’54, JD’57
Jim Whalen ’54
Elliot Cover ’55
Adeline Mucciarone Donahue ’55
Bob Flanagan ’55
Olga Habersham ’55
Rena Levesque ’55
Paul McHugh ’55
John O’Connell ’55
Joan Rieger PMC’55
COURTESY OF WENDAN XIAO, MSW’19
Ronald Tesorero ’55
Claire Bacciocco Tully ’55
Martin Barrett ’56
Carol Blandford PMC’56
Robert Campbell MEd’56
George Cartier ’56
Edward Cisternelli ’56
Jane Slade Connelly NC’56
Denis Hassan ’56
Robert Murphy ’56
Daniel Reilly ’56
Jean Riley Roche ’56
Mary Louise Tomasini Sayles ’56
Pat Stabler PMC’56
Denis Tobin ’56
Diana Weil PMC’56
Lawrence Callahan ’57
Norman Ceder ’57
Mary Danahy Delmonte ’57
Jim Devlin ’57
William Fagan ’57
John Hoye ’57
Frank Jager ’57, MBA’69
Mary Jane Crowley Kemper ’57, MS’76
Peter Lucchesi ’57
Gil Mackinnon ’57
Rosemary Bonica McDermott ’57
Bill McQueeney ’57
Dick Monahan ’57, JD’60
Marjorie Murphy, MEd’57
Leo Powers ’57
Sheila Rider NC’57
Ann Sheridan ’57
James Devine ’58
Bill Joyce ’58, MBA’62
William Kilroy ’58
Richard Mandile ’58
John McCarthy ’58
Charles O’Hearn ’58
George Olesen ’58
Agnes Rockett-Bolduc ’58
Jessie Tatum PMC’58
William Walsh ’58
Alexander Wilson ’58
Janet Chute NC’59
Albert DeLuca ’59
Francis Donnelly ’59
Dorothy Fenelon Flattery ’59
John Gilfoyle ’59
John Meade ’59
Tom Murray ’59
Stephen Paterna ’59, MEd’65, PhD’77
Marie Keaveney Robins ’59
Susan Russell NC’59
James Sullivan ’59
John Walker ’59
John White ’59, MA’64
1960s
Genelle Berry PMC’60
Beatrice Martin Buchheister NC’60
Malcolm Collins ’60, MSW’62
Richard DeCesare MA’60, PhD’68
Martin Dockery ’60
Virginia Dooling ’60
John Downey ’60
Donald Duffy ’60
Mary Byrne Edwards ’60
Katheryn Esterline PMC’60
Thomas Galvin ’60
Ernest Gulla ’60
Robert Hart ’60, MSW’62, MTS’03
Ronald Jagiello ’60
Robert Kane, MEd’60
John Keenan, JD’60
Jim Martin ’60
Edward McCarthy ’60
Elizabeth McDevitt ’60
Jerry McManus ’60
Jack McNealy ’60
Julie O’Neill NC’60
Robert O’Regan ’60
Patricia Ryan ’60
Daniel Sughrue ’60
Betsy Winn PMC’60
Anne Ackerman ’61
Richard Delcolle ’61
Thomas Dupont JD’61
Daniel Farrell ’61
Oswaldo Fierro, STL’61
Joseph Fitzpatrick ’61
Robert Gilbert, MSW’61
Henry Hull ’61
Thomas Neary ’61
Edward Parker ’61
Nancy Scott PMC’61
Joseph Sheehan, MSW’61
Sheila Scharf Szymborski, MA’61
Susan Trainor NC’61
Richard Beauregard ’62
Eilene Buzzee ’62
Denis Callahan ’62
Roland Chaput ’62
Paul Duffey ’62
Cynthia Hoare Eagar ’62
Kay Forbes Fandetti ’62, MSW’64
Peggy Brennan Hassett NC’62
Catherine Heelan ’62
Richard Landy JD’62
Mary-Lynn Fleming Liverzani NC’62
Kathleen Fishel McCullough NC’62
Richard Murphy ’62
Donald Orkin, JD’62
Stephen Weiner JD’62
James Bassett ’63
Jane Blais ’63
Jack Connors ’63, HON’07
Charles Cunis ’63
Robert Donohoe ’63
Louis Gosselin ’63
Jill Kendall PMC’63
Marilyn Kohla NC’63
Luke LaValle ’63
Catherine Beagan McKenna ’63
David O’Keefe ’63
John O’Shea ’63
Donald Quinn, JD’63
Pauline Strout NC’63
Carl Young ’63
Don Bellezza ’64
Margaret Malahan Borger ’64
Vincent Colgan ’64
Stephen Curley ’64
Bill Daly ’64
Mary Short Finneran ’64
Vincent Fournier ’64
Howard Goldsmith ’64
Lawrence Looney MA’64
Patricia McArdle MA’64
Charles McCarthy ’64
Joanne Belliveau Oechler NC’64
Gerald Amann ’65
Roger Connor ’65
Frank Green JD’65
Jim Hammill ’65
Mary Ratchford Hesselgrave NC’65
Matthew Krajewski ’65
Mary Maloney MEd’65
Susan Maguire McClory MSW’65
Lawrence McNeil ’65
Robert Mitchell ’65
Raymond Pezzoli ’65
David Seabrook ’65
Dorothy Smith ’65
Elizabeth Marrone Warfel ’65
Carol Davis ’66, MA’70, PhD’79
Joan Hegarty MA’66
Thomas Kelley ’66
Richard Kotarba JD’66
Robert McGowan MBA’66
Maurice Moriarty ’66
Henry Pangione ’66
Manuel Papoula ’66
Paul Ross ’66
Lawrence Scofield ’66, MAT’68
Michael Bellotti, MSW’67
John Casey ’67
Thomas Cecil ’67
Sheila Decoteau Johnson ’67
Kathleen Kennedy ’67
John McNaught ’67
Alice Milot MEd’67
Daniel Mulhern ’67
Thomas O’Leary ’67
Christopher O’Neil ’67
Mary O’Donnell Pezzullo, MA’67
Niles Schlegel, MBA’67
Evelyn Soldano ’67
Timothy Cronin ’68, MBA’72
Dennis Crowley ’68
Katherine Ruggiero Emery ’68
Rodney Jackson ’68, MA’73
Philip Jacoby ’68
Joan Kelly ’68
Kent Lineback, MBA’68
Rick Murray ’68
Maria Nace ’68
Robert Parker ’68
Michael Sullivan ’68
Patrick Walsh, MA’68
Nancy Brissette, MS’69
William Drohan ’69
John Felt ’69
David Hayes, MEd’69, PhD’86
Donald Krier, PhD’69
Gerard McClory ’69
Jim O’Reilly ’69
Roger Pelissier ’69
1970s
Ronald Barg ’70
Bob Connor ’70
James Daly ’70
Nicholas Foundas, JD’70
Ken Gorman ’70
Marsha Belcher Schaeffer ’70
Brenda Smith-Burke ’70
Kathleen Power Conroy, MEd’71
Amy Hofing, MS’71
Cheryl Chalenski Kayes ’71
James Kinney, MAT’71
Sylvia Redick Kongelbeck ’71
Jim Lozier ’71
Kathleen McGillycuddy NC’71 (see right)
Michael Saniuk ’71, MS’74
Peter Skiadas, MA’71
Barry Strauss, MBA’71
Sheila Buckley Gilfeather ’72, MS’76
Anne Kearney, MEd’72, PhD’77
John Lackaye ’72
Lawrence Ludwig ’72
Marian Moyston Peters ’72, MEd’75
Alfred Singer, JD’72
Joan Boczar Delphia ’73
Martin Kennedy ’73, MEd’74
Paul Moore ’73, JD’76
James Snow ’73
Barbara Buchert NC’74
Donald Fabrizio ’74
Stephen Fix ’74
Marion Flynn NC’74
Janis Giarrusso Kohlbrenner ’74
Richard Lettieri, JD’74
Thomas McKechney ’74
Paul Murphy ’74
Andrea Natsios, MSW’74
John Passidomo ’74
Nina Romano ’74
Loretta Ruchinskas ’74
John Wolfe ’74
Leslie Brooks ’75
Alice Moranville Clark ’75, MS’77
Paul Hunt, MSP’75
Gerry Kells ’75
Harold Lewis, MEd’75
William Pepper, JD’75
Ronald Rappaport, JD’75
John Williams, MBA’75
Kathleen Carazola Berkowitz, MEd’76
Priscilla Biondi, MEd’76
Robert Couture, PhD’76, DED’79
Gary Eichorn ’76
Bernadette Furin, MDiv’76
Lynda Mahoney, MA’76, CAES’80
Dorothy Malone-Rising ’76
James Manwaring, MBA’76
Susan Sheehan ’76
Ronald Bernardin ’77
John Hoag MBA’77
George Mahoney, MDiv’77
Christina Nalbone, MEd’77
Marie Nersesian ’77
Diane O’Hara ’77
Nancy Piscatelli, MEd’77
James Rice, JD’77
Mary Ryan, JD’77
William Ryan, MBA’77
Kenneth Arbeeny, JD’78
Mark Durfee ’78
Joseph Federico ’78
William Gajewski ’78
Michael Mahoney ’78
Joan Reagan, MA’78, MA’90
Jeffrey Sanders ’78
Matthew Callahan ’79
Paula Czyrklis ’79
1980s
Lee Blumetti ’80
Kathryn Dunn Campion ’80
Joseph Lambert ’80
James Tyrrell ’80
Maryellen Walker, MS’80
Leslie Bankowski Cocciardi ’81
Barbara Haywood ’81
Paula Catinella Johnson, MEd’81
Maureen Karig, MA’81
Darleen Karp, MBA’81
Ligia Kowalski, MBA’81
Jill Legault PMC’81
John Lemker, MEd’81
Sharon Tully, MA’81
Liz Reilly Baxter ’82
Arthur Cabral ’82
Patricia Sullivan, PhD’82
Neil Walsh ’82
Gail Whittemore Denman, MA’83
Kevin Steiling, JD’83
James Harrington, JD’84
Louise Hudson PMC’84
Richard Miller ’84
Jack Powers ’84, MAT’93
David Brauer, JD’85
Paulette Ducharme, MEd’86, MA’93
Diane Hurley ’86
William Lee PhD’86
Joyce Lindmark JD’86, PhD’02
Michael Maddalena, MA’86
Christopher Botelho ’87
Janet Kiah, MA’87
Jeanne MacLaren, JD’87
Willie Anzenberger ’88
Andrea Brantner, JD’89
Anabel Casey, PhD’89
Cynthia Ouellette, MBA’89
Patrick Sheehan ’89
Jennifer Hock Wolf ’89
1990s
Kathy Devaney ’90
Sam Mawn-Mahlau, JD’90
Les Grant ’91, MS’20, MS’21
Dennis Ahern, JD’92, MBA’93
David Dobbins ’92
William Donovan, MS’92
James Manfield ’92
Susan Needel ’93
Mary Pope ’93
Terry Briggs, JD’94
Spencer Virta ’94
Marcia Biondolillo, MBA’95
Robin Keough ’95
Daniel Burke, PhD’96
Daniel Follansbee, JD’96, MBA’96
COMMUNITY DEATHS
Alana Gooley ’96
Julie McConville, MA’96
Mike Petkewich, MBA’96
Patrick Bresonis ’99
2000s
Lisa Janpol, MEd’00
Julie Cholick PMC’01
Babak Gojgini, MS’02, MBA’02
Jennifer MacDonald, MSW’02
Paul Mahoney ’02
Michael Kelliher ’04
Sean Gaffaney ’06
Kenneth Kury, PhD’06
Allison Bassett ’09
2010s
John Leonard ’11
Patty Bolan ’17
Rory Siy ’17
2020s
Alba Zacaj, MA’20
Roberta Keane, DED’24
Margery Richardson, of Brookline, MA, on June 6, 2024. She was an Assistant Dining Worker from 1981 to 2024.
Michael Smyer, of Lewisburg, PA, on May 3, 2024. He was Graduate Dean, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences from 1994 to 2007, and Professor, Psychology Department from 2007 to 2008.
Thomas Wangler, of Newton, MA, on April 24, 2024. He was Associate Professor, Theology Department from 1967 to 2012.
The “Fond Farewells” section is compiled from national obituary listings as well as from notifications submitted by friends and family of alumni. It consists of names of those whose deaths have been reported to us since the previous issue of Boston College Magazine. Please send information on deceased alumni to Advancement Information Systems, Cadigan Alumni Center, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 or to infoserv@bc.edu.
Newton College alumna, University trustee, and founding member of CWBC leaves a legacy at Boston College.
It’s hard to find just the right words to remember Kathleen McGillycuddy NC’71 without sounding cliché—because that’s something she never was. As a leader, she was instrumental in shaping outcomes. As a doer, she engaged women to actively participate in supporting the University. As a mentor, she used her wisdom to teach. As an alumna of Newton College of the Sacred Heart, she remained loyal to her friends and their shared experience.
Her dedication to her Newton College roots easily transferred to Boston College, where for decades she gallantly advanced the future of the University—often as a pioneer in the role. After retiring from a career in Boston banking, she co-founded the Council for Women of Boston College (CWBC) (2002) and was the first woman to chair the University Board of Trustees (2011–2014). Together with her husband, Ronald E. Logue ’67, MBA’74, she served as co-chair of the Light the World campaign (2008–2016) and established the McGillycuddy-Logue Center for Undergraduate Global Studies (2008), which has helped countless undergraduate students study abroad.
During her 20 years as CWBC chair, McGillycuddy fostered an environment where NC and BC women could thrive personally and professionally. With the CWBC, she worked tirelessly to advance the role of alumnae as leaders and engaged members of the BC community, strengthening their involvement and influence to support the University’s mission. Under her leadership, the group of council members and associate members grew to include approximately 2,000 women from 41 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and seven other countries.
“ She was a true thought leader,” says Trustee Associate Hon. Darcel Clark ’83. “Kathleen had vision, values, and grace to move things forward. We loved being around her because she was always kind, supportive,
and encouraging. She wanted the best for BC and for all women.”
CWBC Co -Chair and University Trustee Pat Bonan ’79 agrees. “I always admired how Kathleen could inspire and engage others, bringing alums in who would have not otherwise engaged with BC,” she says. “She was strategic, patient, organized and always gracious. A true role model and a dear friend.”
Beyond her professional achievements, McGillycuddy mentored countless BC alumnae and students, guiding them not only with her knowledge but with an
impeccable style that inspired others. Part of that distinguished style was her sense of humor. “Brilliant and witty, Kathleen was always brimming with insights on a variety of subjects,” says University Trustee Beth Vanderslice ’86, CWBC co-chair. “Even her emails radiated warmth, charm, and humor, and the punctuation and grammar were always immaculate! Sometimes it became impossible for us to finish our CWBC meetings on time because we so enjoyed laughing and chatting with her. The agenda may have been long, but the meetings were never arduous. It was just a pure joy to be in her orbit,” she adds.
“ Kathleen was a pioneer in engaging women with Boston College,” says Andrew Davidson, senior vice president for University Advancement. “Her leadership with the CWBC and as a University Trustee made an immeasurable impact on BC, and her and Ron’s support of students and the McGillycuddy-Logue Center has left a lasting legacy that will continue to shape the experience of Eagles for generations to come.”
McGi llycuddy’s contributions have left an indelible mark on the University. Her vision lives on through the many whom she inspired.
Kathleen McGillycuddy NC’71
Pictured at 2019’s CWBC Colloquium, left to right: Sue Martinelli Shea ‘76, University trustee; broadcast journalist Gayle King, guest speaker; Beth Vanderslice ’86, CWBC co-chair and founding member; Kathleen McGillycuddy NC’71, CWBC chair emerita and founding member; and Pat Bonan ’79, CWBC co-chair and founding member.
Halfway to History
Comprehensive Soaring Higher campaign takes flight—and surpasses a milestone—in its first year
The past year has been very good to Boston College.
79 new faculty were hired
Football won the Fenway Bowl, then hired Bill O’Brien
Men’s Hockey won the Hockey East championship on their way to the Frozen Four
Faculty conducted $83 million in sponsored research
90% of the Class of 2028 ranked in the top 10% of their high school class
The Boston College Prison Education Program graduated its first class
Lacrosse captured its second NCAA championship in four years
Swimming and Diving hired five-time Olympian Dara Torres
Messina College welcomed an inaugural class of 110 students
While all of this was happening, the University launched Soaring Higher: the Campaign for Boston College, which caught a wave of momentum that is carrying it toward record levels of success. To date, more than 82,000 donors in total have contributed to the campaign, which has eclipsed its halfway milestone, raising more than $1.5 billion to date.
“When Boston College launched Soaring Higher, we did so with hope and optimism. Still, it’s amazing to see where we are now,” said Ben Anderson, campaign director and associate vice president for principal giving within the Office of University Advancement.
“This campaign was years in the making, and BC is ever grateful not only to the donors who have gotten us to this point, but also those who will help us sustain our momentum in the coming years.”
The athletics, academic, and admissions achievements mentioned above are both inspiration for and the focus of the campaign. Comprehensive in nature, Soaring Higher essentially supports everything that BC does, all in an effort to continue the University’s upward trajectory. In fact, it stands on three
pillars: financial aid; academics; and student life, which expands beyond Athletics to include Mission and Ministry, Student Affairs, and other parts of the campus experience.
For Every Eagle: Financial Aid
This year, Boston College will distribute the most financial aid in its history—$177 million—and two-thirds of undergraduates will receive some amount of aid. Without this critical assistance, many incoming families would be forced to decline an offer of admission from BC. It would weaken BC academically and negatively impact the diverse social ecosystem that benefits all who inhabit our campuses.
Fortunately, BC is one of only 21 national private universities that accept students on their merits alone and that also meet the full demonstrated financial need for undergraduates. However, the BC endowment ranks among the smallest in this group. Gifts to financial aid help the University maintain this commitment and overcome this gap.
Support for financial aid takes on many forms, and all levels of giving make a significant impact. Year in and year out, the BC Fund and financial aid rank 1–2 in gift designations among annual and leadership donors. Last year, gifts under $100,000 added up to $11.2 million for the BC Fund and financial aid alone.
For Excellence: Academics
From research on how viral insulins work and what they could mean for human cancer, to a project that empowers ministerial organizations serving Hispanic Catholics, BC faculty members made incredible use of the grant monies they received last year.
Indeed, some of BC’s greatest impact on communities is led through research and scholarship, academic institutes, and programs. These initiatives—and countless others—empower students and faculty to pursue passions, engage with some of the world’s most pressing and complex problems, and deliver what society needs most.
For BC alumni and donors looking to make a difference at an individual level, innovation funds afford BC’s academic leadership with resources to meet the pressing needs of their schools. These unrestricted funds have ripple effects within departments and across the Heights, strengthening undergraduate and graduate programs, developing faculty, and providing urgent funding to students in need.
Faculty support also remains critical as BC continues to elevate its academic profile as the preeminent Jesuit, Catholic university in America. Faculty are the key to making BC the best academic institution it can be. They help students discern their life’s calling. As teachers and mentors, they guide students to become conscientious, compassionate, and well-rounded leaders.
For the Heights: Student Life
On top of their sporting achievements, BC student-athletes completed more than 20,000 volunteer hours last year, earning many conference and national academic honors along the way. Yet that statistic doesn’t just represent the caliber of BC athletes, but rather the student body as a whole.
Student life encapsulates everything that happens on campus and beyond, from the residential experience and shared spaces; to intercollegiate, intramural, and club athletics; to service groups like 4Boston and Appa Volunteers; to retreat organizations such as Kairos and 48Hours; as well as social clubs centered around identities, hobbies, academic interests, and more.
Gifts to support student life promote formative experiences for students beyond the classroom that help them discern their impact in the world. Bolstering Athletics, Student Affairs, and Mission and Ministry— and the programs within—creates a vibrant, diverse culture on campus and allows students to explore new passions and communities. In other words, these gifts are crucial to making the Heights a home for every Eagle.
Boston College holds a special place in our family’s heart—we love that it is committed to staying true to its roots and mission. We have been so impressed over the years with BC’s leadership and direction. That’s why we are now even more motivated to support it through the Soaring Higher campaign.”
—Jessica
S.
Entering a college reunion year brings back so many memories, reminding me of the amazing friendships and meaningful connections that have stemmed directly from my time on the Heights. I’m proud to do my part for Soaring Higher and to give to the campus initiatives that will make a difference for today’s students the way those who came before me did for my class.”
—Sam Lipscomb Spain ’10, leader of the Hartford Alumni Chapter. Sam’s recurring monthly gift supports the unrestricted BC Fund, and she has also made separate donations to academic and student life initiatives.
Participation Matters
While it was publicly launched just outside Gasson Hall and Bapst Library, Soaring Higher has visited New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and beyond, featuring administrative, faculty, alumni, and volunteer speakers. There are even plans to travel abroad this fall.
One of the key messages that is being communicated to Eagles around the world is the importance of participation. That’s because in addition to its fundraising goal, Soaring Higher aims to collect gifts from 60 percent of BC alumni over the life of the campaign. As of August 2024, the participation number was 33 percent.
“Boston College is fortunate to have such a dedicated base of alumni who display their loyalty to the University through annual giving. And their giving makes a real difference—millions of dollars are generated year after year by gifts under $1,000,” says Jess Gagnon, director of annual and leadership giving.
“To me, there’s no better way to show your appreciation for BC or your investment in its future success than by making an annual gift, no matter the size.”
and Frank M. Antonacci ’05 from Enfield, Conn. The couple and its Antonacci Family Foundation recently established endowed financial aid funds to support studentathletes and other BC students in need via the Guy Antonacci Endowed Scholarship. They also invest in the Carroll School Dean’s Innovation Fund.
Everyone Matters
Fred Tirrell ’57, PhD’82, spent his long career in education. He was a teacher, a superintendent, a college professor, and a charter school board member. Then, last year, at eighty-nine years old, he published a collection of children’s books with an urgent message. John Wolfson
Why, after a career as an educator and late in life, did you suddenly decide to become an author? It goes back to my son, Ricky. I wrote the first book for him somewhere around 1980. So I wrote it a long time ago but just published it last fall, along with two more recent books. They are all about children with disabilities who contribute in important ways. The theme of all of them is that everyone matters.
Why is that theme important to you? Ricky was born in April 1960. That December, my first wife, Joan, and I began to notice developmental delays, physical for the most part. It took a long time but we eventually got a diagnosis of cerebral palsy. He has both physical and cognitive impairments. As he got older, he began going to school and finally, in the mid-1970s, we got him into the Campus School at BC, which is a fabulous school. It was spectacular,
especially because of a wonderful teacher named Jean Gumpert. She taught Ricky how to read. He was probably sixteen or seventeen. It was a miracle. Too often, people like Ricky get overlooked. They shouldn’t, because everyone has something to contribute.
What are your books about? The first one is called The Legend of the Two Santas. It takes place on Christmas Eve, and Santa is making his trip around the world. But he slips on a roof and falls down. A little boy named Rick sees him, and rolls his wheelchair outside to help. But wheelchairs don’t move well in snow and Rick falls out of the chair. So he and Santa help each other. Santa’s afraid he won’t be able to deliver presents now, and Rick says, “Well, I can help you, Santa.” At first Santa doesn’t think he can actually help, but he ends up giving him a Santa suit, and Ricky drives the sleigh. And they finish delivering the toys.
How did your son react to the story? I gave it to him as a Christmas present. I read it to him, and he was very, very excited. Because to this day he loves Christmas more than anything. Now that I’ve published it, you can see on the cover the two Santas, and Ricky is the little one, with his wheelchair in the back of the sleigh. The second book is The Year the Easter Bunny Got Lost, and it’s about a blind girl—I dedicated it to my daughter, Susan, though she is not disabled. And the third book is How the Deaf Boy Saved Independence Day The message in all of them is that people with disabilities can make a difference.
How is Ricky doing these days? He’s doing great. He’s sixty-four and lives in a staffed apartment. He was just here visiting me. You know, in 1979, he was selected for the United States Special Olympic Team. I think it was the third-ever Special Olympics, in New York, near the Canadian border. Ricky’s event was wheelchair racing. He was nineteen years old and he won a silver and a bronze medal.
You wrote the Santas book for him more than forty years ago. Why did you decide to publish it and the others last year? I wanted to make sure I published them before I died, because at this age, you never know. But I also felt like their message was really important at this moment in time. We had a long period of progress. In 1948, the military was desegregated. Schools were integrated in 1954. The War on Poverty was announced in 1964. And then in 1975 we had PL 94-142, which gave rights to handicapped people. And then Title IX prohibited sex-based discrimination in schools. And now we’re taking a look at things such as gender issues. So everyone matters. But it took a long time and a lot of incremental progress. But we haven’t been as polarized as we are right now since the Civil War. There are people today who don’t believe everyone matters. It feels like not only has that progress been arrested, it’s being rolled back. So, “everyone matters” is an urgent message.
What have you learned about parenting?
Parenting is just like teaching. You have to take people where they are. Ricky is handicapped, so you have to accept and account for that handicap as you move forward with him. On the other hand, Susan went to Boston College, has a master’s degree. They’re different and you work with them from the perspective of, this is my child. I am responsible. And I want to make sure that he or she has the best possible life. Just like in teaching, you have to meet people where they are. n
photos: Caitlin Cunningham (Tirrell); Eddie Monigan/Boston Red Sox
Strike!
The Boston College women’s lacrosse team was invited to Fenway Park in August to celebrate the program’s second national championship in four years. With the rest of the team cheering them on, midfielder Ryan Smith ’23, WGCAS’25, and defender Sydney Scales ’24 (not pictured) threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Red Sox game. Lisa Weidenfeld
