BOSTON COLLEGE WINTER 2022
MAGAZI NE
The Future of Pandemics
Four BC experts on why we can expect new global outbreaks in the years ahead, and how we can better prepare for them.
Contents // Winter 2022
FEATURES
FISH TACOS Dressed with apple slaw and cider jus, locally caught redfish takes a star turn in these tacos. Of the 70,675 pounds of seafood purchased annually by BC Dining Services, 84 percent is certified or verified sustainable.
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Scientific Exploration
The Pandemics to Come
A Poet in Full
The Taste of Success
BC recently opened 245 Beacon Street, a state-of-the-art science building that’s home to the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. Here’s a look at the beautiful facility.
The world is very likely to experience new outbreaks of disease in the future. Four BC experts explain how we can prepare for them … and why we may be in better shape than you think. By John Wolfson
CV2
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C. Dale Young ’91 writes poems that are featured in some of the finest publications in the world. Then it’s off to his day job as a radiation oncologist. By Shelby Pope
An inside look at Boston College’s innovative, award-winning Dining Services. By Courtney Hollands
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LINDEN LANE 4
Investment Opportunities Meagan Loyst CSOM’19 is opening doors for a new generation of venture capitalists.
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Campus Digest
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Closing the Health Care Gap The School of Social Work is partnering with Massachusetts’ largest health care provider to train social workers who understand the language and cultures of Boston’s growing Latinx population.
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Revitalizing the Catholic Church The presidents of Boston College and Notre Dame share their visions for the Church’s future.
10 Lifting Others Lauren Blodgett ’11 started a nonprofit that’s empowering young immigrant women.
12 Fr. Gregory Boyle STM’84 The Jesuit priest talks about the importance of kindness in rehabilitating gang members.
CLASS NOTES 13 Telling the World’s Stories For more than twenty years, the Jacques Salmanowitz Program for Moral Courage in Documentary Film at BC has sent fledgling filmmakers around the globe.
14 Introducing BC’s
Ricci Institute
Dedicated to East-West cultural exchange, the research center houses thousands of rare artworks, books, and manuscripts.
52 Alumni News and Notes 76 Obituaries 78 Advancing Boston College
80 What I’ve Learned Kathleen Bailey ’76, Ph.D.’01
81 Parting Shot
16 The Team Builder Brittanny Johnson ’09, M’10, found her confidence in BC basketball. Now she’s using what she learned to develop the next generation of women’s hoops stars.
18 Why I Write The accomplished novelist Yang Huang MA’98 on how writing fiction, in English, allowed her to overcome the censorship and thought control she experienced while growing up in China. Illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare
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Conversation
ODE TO MARY ANN’S
OPERATION DEEP FREEZE I just finished reading your story on Joe Dobbratz [Fall 2021]. Talk about an unsung American hero, yet humble to the core. It was a pleasure learning about him and his incredible exploits. Joe Ailinger Jr. ’85, M’90 Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts
With profound respect for Mike Lupica ’74, I would like to note that before “those were the days,” there were other days. So this is offered as a prequel to his “Ode to Mary Ann’s” [Fall 2021]. BC’s residential population was smaller in the early ’60s, but we were no different than other generations in our out-of-class pastimes. There were basically three bars where resident men would hang. The Tam O’Shanter on Beacon Street was where you could find the hockey team most nights. John Helfer’s Hofbrau in Allston was a little more upscale. Both were comfortable with any ID you offered. On Friday afternoon, however, after getting out of class at about 3, the place to unwind after a challenging week of six courses was The Jungle. This saloon in Cleveland Circle apparently got elevated to the level of “dive bar” when it became Mary Ann’s. The Jungle was straight out of a Eugene O’Neill drama. We went there to steep ourselves in history…and really cheap draughts. The bar was dominated by a large framed painting of John F. Kennedy on the wall. Scribbled across the lower right corner in perfect cursive was the message: “To the boys at The Jungle from Jack.” One always left The Jungle questioning if all those MTA motormen who filled the barstools were letting off steam after a hard day’s work, or building up a head of steam as they went on duty at the trolley car yards around
the corner. The conversations between the motormen and the students were memorable, often dealing with lessons about life, and occasionally winding up in a song. Not sure that there was ever a scheduled “Blessing of the Jungle.” However, it nevertheless got the imprimatur needed, as it was the final stop on Fr. Linnehan’s legendary annual pub crawl. So, nice to know it has continued to bring people together and that now it offers a new high for the Heights. When they clean the place up, perhaps they will find Jack’s portrait under the dirt, still keeping watch. Ron Nief ’65 Madison, Wisconsin RIP Mary Ann’s. I agree with Mike Lupica. It was our dive bar! Brian Ahern, via Facebook How many beers were consumed here? Lynn Sterett, via Facebook Many nights sticking to the beer-soaked floor at Mary Ann’s—great memories. Terri Sieber Moldovan, via Facebook My freshman year at BC (1975), I decided Mary Ann’s was not my kind of place. It was populated mostly with BC athletes. Plus, since the drinking age was 18, BC had a bar on campus. How times have changed. Margaret Clare Kienzle, via Facebook
Joe Dobbratz certainly isn’t the only highly successful BC graduate, but he sure does finish high on the list. If for any reason you get to talk to that great jarhead again, tell him “Semper fi” from a fellow alumnus. Jack (John) Flanagan ’59 Auburndale, Massachusetts Joe Dobbratz is a true American hero. The issue containing the article on the greatest athletes in BC history that resulted in his telephone call was also well done. In fact, I have stored that issue in my “keep” drawer. Bill Baxley P’18 Birmingham, Alabama [Editor’s note: “Operation Deep Freeze” misstated Dobbratz’s title while stationed in Japan in 1974. He served there as commanding officer of the Marine Wing Service Group of the 1st Marine Air Wing. We regret the error.] This photo of Mary Ann’s ran in the 1985 Sub Turri yearbook, accompanying a story that called the dive bar “truly a BC hangout.”
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photos: Courtesy of Joe Dobbratz; Peter Hillenbrand, Sub Turri, Burns Library (Mary Ann’s)
FICTIONAL EAGLES [SUMMER 2021] Please do not forget about Kevin Bacon as Jackie Rohr, the FBI agent in Showtime’s City on a Hill. Jackie is a graduate of BC Law, Class of ’72, and wears the class ring proudly in every episode. Plus, Matthew Del Negro ’94 stars in the show as Boston Police Officer Chris Caysen. Chris Ruyak ’91 Reno, Nevada
BC CELEBRATES 50 YEARS OF COEDUCATION April White’s fascinating article in the Summer 2021 issue told the story of the trailblazers in the School of Education who played major roles in preparing the way for the eventual admittance of women into all schools at BC. It also demonstrated Fr. Walsh’s vision and strategic thinking as he worked to bring women into the entire student body. The culture change that Fr. Walsh was trying to create involved normalizing the presence of women on campus. The School of Nursing came into existence in 1947, when twentyseven high school graduates became the first women accepted as full-time undergraduate students at BC. The school was located on Newbury Street in downtown Boston (pictured above), but students spent two days a week in Devlin Hall. When I arrived at BC in 1962, I took up residence in the Franklin Square House, in Roxbury (which later became well known as the building displayed at the start of St. Elsewhere.) The next year we were relocated to Brighton and other areas. Having housing closer to campus enabled greater participation in University life. We were a cohort of several hundred women who helped establish the norm of women on campus. My classmates and I had the attitude that we were an integral part of Boston College. We were accepted and welcomed, an important part of the fabric of BC life. The contributions of the women described in April White’s article brought the discussion of coed education to the next level, but that work rested on the foundation of normality brought about by the women students who had been part of the University for decades. Genevieve V. (Gen) Foley CSON’66 Pawtucket, Rhode Island
When Mark Deklin’s character in the Hallmark TV movie Meet Me at Christmas is asked where he went to college, he replies, “Boston College—go Eagles!” Also, Tom Berenger’s character in the movie Last Rites is a priest who wears a BC shirt while exercising. Harry Peurach ’78 Farmington Hills, Michigan Ryan Dunne (played by Freddie Prinze Jr.) in the movie Summer Catch played baseball for BC. Probably the best movie ever made. Dave Racki ’06 Los Angeles, California Gary Mendez (played by James Roday Rodriguez) on A Million Little Things. It’s come up a couple of times in the dialogue, and he has been seen proudly wearing his maroon and gold in a few scenes, too! Jeff Pelletier ’94 Columbus, Ohio
Boston College Magazine welcomes letters from readers. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Please include your full name and address. EMAIL: bcm@bc.edu MAIL: BCM, 140 Commonwealth
Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Connect with @BostonCollege
photos: Burns Library (Intown Center); Eric Ogden/Showtime (Bacon); Warner Bros/MovieStillsDB (Prinze Jr.)
BOSTON COLLEGE MAGAZI NE
VOLUME 82
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NUMBER 1
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WINTER 2022
EDITOR
John Wolfson ART DIRECTOR
Keith Ake DEPUTY EDITOR
Courtney Hollands STAFF WRITER
Elizabeth Clemente DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Lee Pellegrini SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
Caitlin Cunningham
Please send address changes to: Development Information Services Cadigan Alumni Center, 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 (617) 552–3440, Fax: (617) 552–0077 bc.edu/bcm/address Please send editorial correspondence to: Boston College Magazine 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 (617) 552–4820, Fax: (617) 552–2441 bcm@bc.edu Boston College Magazine is published three times a year by Boston College, with editorial offices at the Office of University Communications. ISSN 0885–2049 Standard postage paid at Boston, MA, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address corrections to: Boston College Magazine Development Information Services Cadigan Alumni Center, 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Please direct Class Notes queries to: Class Notes editor Cadigan Alumni Center 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 email: classnotes@bc.edu phone: (617) 552–4700 Copyright © 2022 Trustees of Boston College. All publications rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A by The Lane Press.
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photo: Lee Pellegrini
Investment Opportunities
Meagan Loyst CSOM’19 is opening doors for a new generation of venture capitalists. BY ELIZABETH CLEMENTE
Early in the pandemic, Meagan Loyst CSOM ’19 was living at her parents’ house on Long Island and working remotely for one of the country’s leading venture capital funds. She had joined the firm in September 2020, becoming its youngest investor. Hoping to connect with other young people in the field, she sent out a tweet that fall that would change her life, shake up her industry, and ultimately land her on the 2022 Forbes “30 Under 30” list. Venture capital funds are often the first major investors in startup companies, providing vital financing as fledgling businesses grow past their early stages of development. For example, in 2016, Lerer Hippeau, the fund where Loyst works, led a group that invested $2.7 million into the sustainable footwear company Allbirds. Six years later, Allbirds is worth a reported $709 million. Loyst refers to venture capitalism as the “lifeblood of entrepreneurship.” But she also believes the industry should do more to diversify its workforce. According to a 2021 survey by the professional-services firm Deloitte, just 7 percent of VC workers were Hispanic or Latino in 2020, and only 4 percent were Black. The survey also highlighted gender disparity in the field. Women held 45 percent of all positions in the VC workforce in 2020— the same as in 2018 and 2016—but when it came to senior-level roles, women accounted for just 23 percent of investment professionals and 16 percent of partners at firms. Hoping to connect with other VCs who shared her life experiences, Loyst sent out a tweet one day to fellow Gen Z investors— those born in 1995 or later. She asked them to respond with the companies and trends they were interested in. The article that Loyst wrote for her Medium page summarizing these responses ended up going viral, and she decided to capitalize on the momentum in the fall of 2020 by creating a new online community called Gen Z VCs. Inspired by the level of interest in the group, Loyst then organized the Gen Z VCs Summit. The daylong virtual event in September 2021, which featured presentations by founders and companies looking to target the generation, attracted 3,000 attendees from 71 countries, most of them Gen Z investors and students.
The summit caught the attention of the national media, and Loyst soon found herself the subject of coverage in such outlets as Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post, and Bloomberg Television. Business Insider even dubbed her the “Queen of Gen Z VCs.” Meanwhile, Loyst’s Twitter account exploded from 50 followers to more than 20,000. Gen Z VCs is now a collective of more than 12,000 young people interested in venture capitalism, investing, and startups. It offers a number of initiatives for its members, including a peer mentorship program that assisted 228 mentees in its inaugural year—41 percent of them people of color. Diversity is critical in venture capital, Loyst said, because employing VCs with different backgrounds leads to better invest-
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Diversity is critical in venture capital, Loyst said, because employing VCs with different backgrounds leads to better investment decisions.
Gender Breakdown by VC Role in 2020 OVERALL VC WORKFORCE 45%
55%
FEMALE
MALE
VC INVESTMENT PROFESSIONALS 23%
FEMALE
77% MALE
VC INVESTMENT PARTNERS 16%
FEMALE
84% MALE
photo: Hadi Yazsani data source for graph: “VC Human Capital Survey,” March 2021, Deloitte
ment decisions. “If you just have white guys on one side of the table, you’ll oftentimes miss out on opportunities because it’s hard for you to see those other perspectives,” she said. To ensure future diversity, there should be a “culture of listening” in VC, she added, especially around the hiring and mentoring of young people. Lacking connections when she started out in the field after graduating from Boston College, Loyst had to create her own opportunities. When she noticed that Lerer Hippeau employed an unusually high number of women, she sent a cold email to the firm introducing herself. The message led to Loyst getting coffee with partner Andrea Hippeau and later a job. Today she’s an associate at the firm, and much of her time is spent talking to company founders, many of whom she finds on social media. “They’re telling me about their life story,” she said, “why their idea is going to change the world, how they’re doing it.” Loyst and her colleagues research companies for potential investment, and examine their market size, competition, and financial and business model. If the team sees potential, Lerer Hippeau’s partners will get involved for further analysis. Like all VC firms, Lerer Hippeau receives partial ownership of any company it invests in, while also helping the company with marketing, branding, strategy, and public relations. Loyst is particularly bullish these days on what she calls the creator economy, meaning people and businesses that produce online content. “People look up to creators the same way that I think a decade ago people looked up to athletes and celebrities,” she said. “People are admiring creators, they’re buying products from creators, and the barriers to creation have never been lower because of TikTok.” Loyst was first drawn to VC because of the opportunity it presented to impact the world through life-changing startups. Now, as she builds her own career, she wants to give others the tools for success via Gen Z VCs. “VC still has a long way to go in terms of seeing true parity,” she said. “But I think having open hiring practices and younger people getting into venture earlier with different sets of experiences is moving the needle quite a bit.” n w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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Linden Lane // Campus Digest
STUDENT CLUB SPOTLIGHT
Avid Listeners of Boston College Established: 2015 Current members: 112 What it is: Originally founded by heavymetal fans looking to connect with fellow head-bangers, this club today is for admirers of all music genres. Members meet weekly to share and discuss their favorite songs and albums.
“I rarely feel cooler than when I share a song I heard in ALBC with a friend who isn’t in it.” —Mitch Collins ’23
Honoring the Fallen
BIG NUMBERS
On Veterans Day, First Lt. Thomas Redgate was recognized as the 211th name to be added to Boston College’s undulating stone Memorial Wall. Redgate was a Brighton resident and former BC student who went missing in action during combat in the Korean War seventy-one years ago. His remains were returned by North Korea in 2018 and eventually identified. “It is an honor for us to memorialize Lt. Redgate from now on as someone who gave their life in service to our country,” Jean Chisser, BC’s associate director for Alumni Affinity Programs, said before the November 11 ceremony. Redgate’s family attended the event, held on the Burns Library Lawn, which also included keynote remarks from retired United States Navy Rear Admiral Raymond Berube ’78.
The BC Effect
Boston College recently hired a national, independent research firm to determine the University’s economic and social impact. Here’s some of what the researchers found.
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The gift that Boston College Trustee Marianne D. Short JD‘76 gave to name the deanship of the BC Law School.
3,294,468
The total number of volumes in BC’s libraries, as of fiscal year 2020.
$439M
$3.3 billion
BC’s total annual economic impact in Massachusetts.
Total annual tax revenue BC provides to Massachusetts.
In 2021, BC students and employees completed approximately 768,000 volunteer hours in the community, helping more than 52,000 people.
$439M
$172 million
692,392
$135M
$112 million
Amount spent annually by students, visitors, and attendees of BC events.
The University provided 5,900 jobs in FY 2020:
2,200 part-time
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$10 million
3,700 full-time
BC’s spending on vendor-supplied goods and services during FY 2020 Amount that went to local vendors
75,626
Community service hours Local school support hours
photo: Caitlin Cunningham illustration: Shutterstock
Campus News School of Theology and Ministry Dean Thomas D. Stegman, SJ, will step down from his position this June. The popular dean, who led the school to the upper echelons in global rankings, said his decision follows the advice of his medical team to attend to his health in his ongoing battle with glioblastoma. “Tom has been an extraordinary leader,” said BC Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley, “and leaves the school in a very strong position.”
CHARACTER SKETCH
Blake Tomnitz CSOM’12
Last fall, Boston College admitted its inaugural cohort of Questbridge students. These 106 Class of 2025 students had an average SAT score of 1420 and an average ACT score of 33, putting them in the top-fifth percentile of applicants nationally. Questbridge is a nonprofit that helps highperforming, low-income students to enroll at the country’s top institutions. BC was invited to join the organization last year.
The United States Global Research Program has tapped BC Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies Andrew Jorgenson to help write the Fifth National Climate Assessment, which will summarize the current state of science on global climate change. Jorgenson’s contribution will focus on how human actions are impacting the environment.
Blake Tomnitz started crafting beer as a student at BC, and kept it up after graduating and moving to New York to work as an investment banking analyst. He visited taprooms around the city, fleshing out the business plan he’d originally drafted while at the Heights, and in 2015, Tomnitz left his job to cofound the award-winning Five Boroughs Brewing Co. in Brooklyn. —Courtney Hollands
I met my cofounder, Kevin O’Donnell, when we both worked at the investment bank UBS. BC History Professor Heather Cox Richardson received the Massachusetts Governor’s Award in the Humanities last fall. Cox Richardson has written six books about American politics, is a national commentator, and authors the acclaimed daily newsletter “Letters from an American.” She was commended at the virtual ceremony “for helping millions of Americans understand the historical roots of recent social and political challenges.”
We were going to beer festivals and he was the one who pushed me to say, We can do this. Let’s make the jump. We had complementary skill sets. I had more of the business and finance side and he had more of the operations and logistics side, and we both had friends in the beer industry with brewing science backgrounds. We started looking for real estate. We knew that we wanted to be a hyper-local brand, but a very big brand.
My parents were a little scared that I was leaving a very stable corporate occupation for something that was very risky. And so I think initially they were concerned, but as time went on and I gave them samples of the beers and updated them on the process and progress we were making, they started to warm up to it and become more excited. They were supportive, but cautiously optimistic—that’s probably the best way to say it.
We wanted a name and concept that was fully inclusive. For us, it was important to say With analytics and data becoming ever more prevalent in the business world, the Carroll School of Management is now requiring all students to learn coding. “The process of coding is the process of problem solving and logic, and is an exercise in learning,” said Andy Boynton, the John and Linda Powers Family Dean of the Carroll School. photo: Courtesy of Five Boroughs Brewing Co.
that it doesn’t matter if you’ve lived here your entire life, or if you just moved here, or if you’re a tourist. This is New York City’s beer. It’s accessible and you can find it. And most importantly, we have a wide variety of beer styles that hit a lot of different palates.
There are pinch-me moments that really keep me going—when people are sitting in the taproom that you built and drinking this product that we’ve made and enjoying it. At the end of the day, beer is communal. It’s a beverage meant to bring people together. Witnessing that is so cool. w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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Linden Lane // Research
The grant will allow the LLI to provide living stipends and professional development for students in the School of Social Work’s master of social work program as they complete behavioral rotations in community health settings that predominantly serve Latinx communities. After the inaugural cohort of four fellows graduate in 2022, LLI and Mass General Brigham—the state’s largest health care provider—will select at least ten fellows each academic year. “There is an acute need for behavioral health providers in Latinx communities, especially after those communities have been dispro-
portionately affected by COVID-19,” said Associate Professor Rocío Calvo, the LLI’s founding director and the new grant’s principal investigator. “Mass General Brigham’s goal is to address that need, and we have a history of training professionals to do that work successfully.” The funds will also bolster Calvo’s ongoing research on effective strategies for training and supporting bilingual, bicultural social workers. Calvo and her team plan to interview and survey LLI alumni to identify systemic barriers that Latinx social workers face on the job. “The interventions of this grant target the systemic issues that prevent Latinx social workers from developing their careers and Latinx clients from accessing adequate care,” she said. Since Calvo founded the LLI in 2013, some 185 students have graduated from the program, in which all eight of BC’s core social work courses are taught entirely in Spanish. Alumni today work with Latinx and Hispanic communities in diverse settings around the globe. The initiative has been recognized as a Model Program for Diversity Education by the Council on Social Work Education’s Center for Diversity and Social & Economic Justice, and it received a top national award from Excelencia! in Education in 2020. “The LLI is pathbreaking, and it does far more than train bilingual social workers,” said BC School of Social Work Dean Gautam N. Yadama. “The goal is to transform social services and health systems to sustain a high level of engagement with Latinx families and communities to address their compound needs. In partnering with Mass General Brigham, we are extending the reach of our premier social work training that is evidence-based and culturally attuned to serving our Latinx populations in Massachusetts.” n
The first fifteen Schiller Institute Grants for Exploratory Collaborative Scholarship have been awarded to BC researchers and professors who are working together to tackle real-world problems. Among the funded projects are a faculty-led climate change seminar and a study of participants in the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a federally funded job-training initiative.
BC paleobotanist Paul Strother has coauthored a new report in Science that could alter conventional wisdom on the evolution of land plants. After examining 480 million-year-old microfossils from Australia, Strother and his collaborator determined that terrestrial plants appear to have evolved slowly from freshwater algae—from simple cellularity to complex multicellularity—rather than in great leaps between species. —Elizabeth Clemente
Closing the Health Care Gap The School of Social Work is partnering with Massachusetts’ largest health care provider to train social workers who understand the language and cultures of Boston’s growing Latinx population. BY JOHN SHAKESPEAR
Nearly 19 percent of Bostonians identified as Hispanic on the 2020 census, and since 1980, Latinx communities have accounted for 92 percent of the city’s population growth. And these numbers are likely to keep rising, as almost a third of Boston’s children are Latinx. Yet it’s not always easy for these residents to find or access social workers who are fluent in their language and culture. To address this critical gap, the BC School of Social Work’s Latinx Leadership Initiative (LLI) has received a $600,000 grant from Mass General Brigham to increase the state’s workforce of bilingual and bicultural social workers.
MORE FROM THE LAB More than $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation will fund the installation of two state-of-the-art nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers at BC’s Magnetic Resonance Center. The instruments, which facilitate the study of the physical, chemical, and biological properties of matter, will replace years-old equipment, support a range of research, and make analyzing lab samples more efficient. 8
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illustration: Andrea D’Aquino photo: Strother & Foster
Revitalizing the Catholic Church
The presidents of Boston College and Notre Dame share their visions for the Church’s future. BY JOHN WOLFSON
With religious participation in the country continuing a decades-long decline, the leaders of two of the world’s foremost Catholic institutions met recently for a candid discussion about how the Church can fortify itself and remain at the center of parishioners’ lives. “A Conversation on the Catholic Church” brought together Boston College President William P. Leahy, SJ, and University of Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins, CSC, for a lively talk about navigating the challenges facing the Church. The event, organized by the Notre Dame Business Council and held in November at the Seaport Hotel in Boston, was moderated by BC Trustee Associate Charles I. Clough, Jr. ’64, who is a permanent deacon of the Archdiocese of Boston. Clough got to the heart of the matter in his introductory remarks, noting the dwindling rates of church attendance and religious affiliation, and the resulting pressure on Catholic parishes and schools to merge or simply close. After concluding his opening comments, Clough took a seat between Fr. Leahy and Fr. Jenkins on a small stage overlooking the audience of more than 200 BC and Notre Dame alumni and community leaders. “God is still with the Church,” Fr. Leahy assured the participants, “but there are tough issues we need to face.” One helpful change the Church could make, he said, would be to borrow a page from many Catholic universities, where boards of trustees are made up of lay people with expertise in matters such as fundraising and the construction and operation of facilities. Similar boards could help archdioceses and dioceses modernize their governance structures, Fr. Leahy said, while ensuring
that all matters of faith and morals remain entrusted with the bishop. “I can say our two institutions run well because the boards of trustees have been great,” Fr. Leahy said. “Our two institutions have benefited from lay men and women who have given so much of their time and their energy to being trustees.” Fr. Jenkins agreed that such a move could benefit the Church. “The strongest dioceses,” he said, “are those that de facto invite in lay people.” Moreover, Fr. Jenkins cited the work of the renowned Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam to argue that the Church’s struggle to connect with young people these days says less about their hunger for spiritual meaning than about a shift in the broader society away from formal participation in groups and organizations. “The sociological data says that it’s a bit of a lonely generation,” he said. “They feel less connected, but spiritually yearning.” And in that yearning, Fr. Leahy said, there is opportunity for Catholic institutions. “At places like Notre Dame and BC, there is still a core curriculum,” he said, “meaning that students are required to take courses that deal with large questions, whether they come out of literature, history, philosophy, theology, mathematics, sciences. That is a great opportunity for us to hand on the faith and also to raise the questions that are most important, and to touch on what is meaningful for our students.” Fr. Jenkins concurred. “You need a high level of formation, intellectual formation, to be the kind of leaders that can help the Church to a successful future,” he said. “And I think BC provides it and Notre Dame provides it.”
Both presidents said that they see Catholic education at all levels playing a significant role in revitalizing the Catholic Church. “So much of the renewal of the Church will be shaped by what happens on the campuses of Catholic colleges and universities, and the high schools and grade schools,” Fr. Leahy said. “That’s why I think it is very important that we maintain as many of those schools as we possibly can.” “What a Catholic institution provides is the question of ‘What’s the purpose of my life?’” Fr. Jenkins said. “That is a different kind of education than just teaching how to program a computer or…how to manage a spreadsheet.” Such an orientation, he added, “helps the Church, but it also, I think, differentiates our institutions.” Fr. Leahy, who introduced the Church in the 21st Century Initiative at Boston College in 2001 in response to the clergy sexual abuse crisis, also offered insights on how best to renew parish life. “I think there is faith among young people,” he said. “It is not shown in practice the way our generation or our grandparents practiced the faith, but there is faith. Our challenge is to tap into those great values and desires that our students have.” “The greatest power of the Church is the holiness of its members,” Fr. Jenkins said. “For all our challenges, just to live the Gospel and to follow Jesus and to pray and do what you can. Probably as much as any structural change we could make or doctrinal change or change of practice—that is what’s going to strengthen the Church.” n
BC President William P. Leahy, SJ (left), and Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins, CSC (right), at the event moderated by Charles I. Clough, Jr. ’64 (center, in glasses).
photos: Lee Pellegrini
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Linden Lane
Lifting Others
Lauren Blodgett ’11 started a nonprofit that’s empowering young immigrant women. BY COURTNEY HOLLANDS
Yaniel Wynter moved from Jamaica to Minnesota in 2017. A year later, at the age of 20, she relocated to New York City. She arrived alone. “I had anxiety and a bit of depression and I missed my family,” she recently recalled. “It has been a rough journey. There were points when I was homeless or had no food.” Today, Wynter has a full-time job and her own apartment, and is enrolled in nursing school. She credits her progress, in part, to The Brave House, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit that helped her find a therapist and a mentor and provided her with food delivery and community while she was recovering from COVID-19. The organization, founded in 2018 by the immigration attorney Lauren Blodgett ’11, offers resources and support to young women immigrants, especially those who are survivors of gender-based violence. The Brave House now works with 104 women and gender-nonconforming youth ages 16 to 24 who collectively speak more than twenty languages and come from fourteen different countries. They can access free legal aid and English lessons, get matched with mental-health professionals, and, perhaps most important, relax and meet new friends at cookouts, wellness days, and other social events. “Part of empowering people is helping them make decisions, and not making decisions for them,” Blodgett said. “That’s what self-advocacy looks like.” She grew up north of Boston, the youngest of three children of the longtime Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett and Judy Blodgett, who works at the state auditor’s office and chairs the local Board of Registrars. Her mother’s side of the family emigrated from the Azores and her grandparents helped found a church in town where Portuguese immigrants could gather. “There were these narratives of community, to help where you can,” Blodgett said. “My parents taught me super early on that it doesn’t actually matter what you’re doing as long as you’re in the service of others.” Like her brothers, she took German in high school—an auspicious decision, as it eventually led her to Michael Resler’s German Studies classroom during her 10
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freshman year at Boston College. Resler encouraged Blodgett to apply for a Fulbright scholarship—“He changed the trajectory of my life,” she said—which allowed her to spend a year after graduation living in the Austrian Alps, teaching English and taking international and human rights law classes at the University of Innsbruck. She subsequently volunteered at a refugee center in South Africa and then set out to become a lawyer dedicated to women’s and immigrants’ rights. “I’ve always had this sense that there is injustice in the world and that there’s a better way of doing things, and if we just come together, we can figure it out,” she said. “Extreme optimism and hope—that’s my mindset.” Blodgett continued to work in the field while attending Harvard Law School. She testified before the United Nations, conducted legal research in Casablanca on discrimination against women, and traveled to Tanzania to study the rights of women entrepreneurs. After graduating from law school in 2016, she took a job at the Safe Passage Project, in New York, which provides pro bono lawyers to children who are facing deportation. “I was really drawn to that mission and drawn to the fact that they were a small startup,” Blodgett said. “Within weeks of starting there, I was already in court on my own.” While at the nonprofit, Blodgett also cofounded Las Mariposas (“The Butterflies”), a girls’ empowerment group for her teen clients. “I started to see the power of community and also the need for a holistic response for this population, as opposed to solely focusing on the legal
“
I’ve always had this sense that there is injustice in the world and that there’s a better way of doing things.”
Lauren Blodgett photographed with the Creative Resilience mural on the Lower East Side, which was painted by members of The Brave House.
aspect,” she said. “They had such a range of needs, as we all do as humans.” A plan began to form in her mind: What if she could create an organization that supported young immigrant women legally, socially, and emotionally? Blodgett remembers going to a women’s storytelling event one night in mid-2018, and then leaving partway through the show to buy supplies and create a vision board for what would become The Brave House. She then researched how to start a nonprofit, sought advice from other executive directors and founders, and officially incorporated in the fall of 2018. For her 30th birthday, in February 2019, Blodgett put up a Facebook post asking friends to donate $30 to The Brave House. She raised more than $50,000, and the next month secured free office space in Lower Manhattan through the Urban Justice Center’s incubator program (she’s since moved the office to Brooklyn). She left the Safe Passage Project and shifted to The Brave House full-time that spring. Three years in, Blodgett may be the executive director, supervising three employees, seven interns, and dozens of volunteers, but she continues to spend a lot of her time in immigration court. Her day’s tasks at The Brave House can also include coordinating résumé-writing classes, assisting a transgender client with a name change, or arranging emergency housing for a member. She also meets monthly with The Brave House’s Youth Leadership Board, which provides feedback on the nonprofit’s programs. In exchange for their service, the board’s seven members—including Wynter, the nursing student from Jamaica—receive a stipend, plus training in public speaking and other leadership skills. “It’s clear that we need more diverse voices in leadership, and that includes immigrants, people of color, LGTBQ people, women,” Blodgett said. “How can we help young women today so they can be leaders tomorrow?” Blodgett acknowledges that it can be hard to witness the pain of the people who join The Brave House, but there’s something else she is witness to as well. “People talk a lot about vicarious trauma, which is real, especially when you’re working with survivors—no one should go through the kind of unimaginable pain that a lot of our members have gone through,” she said. “But I like to think about vicarious resilience. The resilience I see modeled around me every day is part of what helps me continue to show up and be brave, and to do brave things.” n photo: Jai Lennard
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Linden Lane
AS TOLD TO
Fr. Gregory Boyle STM’84
The Jesuit priest talks about the importance of kindness in rehabilitating gang members. Over the past thirty-four years, Homeboy Industries, the organization I started in Los Angeles, has grown into the largest gang intervention, rehab, and reentry program in the world. Each year, we help more than 10,000 people change their lives in concrete ways, including through substance-abuse assistance, mental-health support, and tattoo removal. In 2020, we were honored to receive the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which gave us $2.5 million to continue our mission. People often ask me how we got here, but the truth is there was no master plan. Homeboy’s genesis came during my early years as pastor at Dolores Mission Church in L.A.’s Boyle Heights. At the time, it was the city’s poorest neighborhood, with the highest concentration of gang activity. When I joined the parish in the mid-1980s, there were shootings morning, noon, and night. In 1988, I buried eight kids in a three-week period. Junior high students were joining gangs, getting kicked out of school, and wreaking havoc in the middle of the day. They told me they would return to class if there was somewhere that would take them, but few alternative schools existed. I knew something had to be done, so I started a school for them at the church. We gradually began offering more services, and that initiative evolved into Homeboy Industries. Early on, a movie producer offered assistance, which allowed us to purchase an abandoned bakery nearby. There, we had rival gang members bake bread together for the first time. In addition to Homeboy Bakery, we now run nine other businesses that employ our clients and have a social mission. Homeboy has kept me rooted in L.A.—my hometown—but Boston is also part of my story. In 1984, I earned my Master of Divinity degree from the former Weston Jesuit School of Theology, which reaffiliated with Boston College. After graduation I spent a year doing ministry in Bolivia, where I learned to speak Spanish and realized my calling to work with the poor. My first assignment after returning to the U.S. was at Dolores Mission. Our program’s impact is evident in Los Angeles’s decreased gang-related homicide rate, now a fraction of what it was during the peak violence of the early ’90s, but also in the lives we’ve changed. Recently, one of our clients, a graduate of Homeboy’s job training program, told me he was amazed to get a job transporting court documents despite his background. In the past three decades I’ve learned that kindness is a universal language. Gaining the trust of gang members is not as hard as people expect. Seemingly small acts like visiting people in the hospital or juvenile hall are never forgotten. I’ve also learned that violence is often sparked by a lethal absence of hope. Homicide rates have risen worldwide during the pandemic because it has exacerbated many people’s despair. At Homeboy, we seek to cherish the wounded instead of ostracizing them, because making someone feel cherished often leads them to the best version of themselves. —As told to Elizabeth Clemente 12
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photo: Joel Barhamand
Film Archive
Here are a few notable projects created via the Jacques Salmanowitz Program for Moral Courage in Documentary Film.
Nkosi’s Legacy (2003) The first Salmanowitz production, this film by David LaMattina ’03 recounts the story of Nkosi Johnson, a South African boy and activist who was born with HIV and died of AIDS at age 12.
Telling the World’s Stories For more than twenty years, the Jacques Salmanowitz Program for Moral Courage in Documentary Film at BC has sent fledgling filmmakers around the globe. BY ELIZABETH CLEMENTE
Audra Hampsch ’17 (pictured above) arrived at the Heights in 2013 planning to study filmmaking. A year later she found herself 6,000 miles from campus in Argentina, filming a short documentary, Encontrar La Paz, which detailed terrorism during that country’s Dirty War in the 1970s and ’80s. Hampsch’s trip was part of the Jacques Salmanowitz Program for Moral Courage in Documentary Film, which has helped to fund documentaries by nearly 100 Boston College students over the past two decades. In fact, by the time Hampsch graduated, Salmanowitz grants had also financed her trips to Israel and Germany to make two additional movies. “It was the Salmanowitz program that made me want to pair film with social justice,” said Hampsch, who today produces campaign videos as a vice president at NP Agency in Washington, DC. The program, which was originally based at George Washington University, is named after Jacques Salmanowitz, a Swiss businessman who helped people escape Germany during World War II. Since the initiative moved to BC in 2001, students, often working in pairs, have produced sixty films on a range of social issues. Another six are scheduled to be completed this year. BC’s film photo: Courtesy of Audra Hampsch
The Art of Reconciliation (2019) By focusing on Belfast’s many political murals,
studies program is on the small side, graduating about fifteen students each year, so the annual Salmanowitz funding of $25,000 goes a long way. Participants receive up to $2,500 each to pay for travel, lodging, and logistics such as hiring security guards in dangerous areas. That may not sound like a lot of money, said Boston College Film Studies Director John Michalczyk, who runs the program, but “all of them have come back with some kind of experience that has changed them in some way about looking at the world.” Like Hampsch, Elayne McCabe ’06 made multiple Salmanowitz films. Her first short documentary, Shaksting, completed in 2006, took her to a tent city in India, where she shadowed a 10-year-old boy. “Growing up north of Boston I just didn’t know people in the world lived like that,” McCabe said. After graduation, she studied cinema in Indonesia on a Fulbright scholarship. She spent nearly two years there directing her first feature-length film, Kasheer, for which she used another Salmanowitz grant to purchase historical footage. “BC isn’t really known for being a film school,” McCabe said, “but it has this incredible resource that you can take advantage of. It gave me on-theground experience.”
Kelsey McGee ’19 and Ciarra Duffy ’20 examine the lingering animosity between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Island.
Saving Faith (2019) John Mohler ’21 chronicles the journey of Fr. Douglas Al-Bazi, an Iraqi priest who emigrated to New Zealand after being held by ISIS.
Kicking on Rocks (2020) Brandon Brito ’20 explores how Cape Verde, a small African island with few resources, has produced a large number of professional soccer players.
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Linden Lane
Introducing BC’s Ricci Institute Dedicated to East-West cultural exchange, the research center houses thousands of rare artworks, books, and manuscripts. BY ELIZABETH CLEMENTE
The Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History will open later this spring at the Creagh Library on the Brighton Campus, giving Boston College faculty and students access to thousands of rare East Asian artifacts from the 16th century to the early 20th century, including more than 100,000 books and manuscripts. The world-renowned research center was founded in 1984 at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit Catholic institution, and recently moved to BC. The institute is named for Fr. Matteo Ricci (1552–1610), who was one of the leading figures of the Jesuit missions in China, and its collection and work reflect the diversity of Ricci’s intellectual passions: cartography, medicine, astronomy, technology, and cultural exchange between the East and West. “We’re focused on the impact of Christianity in East Asia, but from a very interdisciplinary perspective, and with the common denominator of history,” said Fr. Antoni Ucerler, who oversaw the institute at USF and has relocated to the Heights to continue in his role as director. Xiaoxin Wu, the institute’s director of research, has also made the move from San Francisco—and the institute’s librarian, Mark Mir, will join them this spring. Fr. Ucerler said that the institute plans to host international seminars, conferences, and public lectures on a range of topics, and to work with professors and departments across BC to be a resource for both undergraduates and graduate students. Its diverse inventory of artifacts, Fr. Ucerler said, invites researchers and visiting scholars to engage with history on a deeper level. “One thing that I’ve learned about young people is there is something about the visual and seeing the real thing,” he said. “It brings it all to life.” Here are a few of the works in the Ricci Institute’s extensive collection. n 14
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Painting of Jesus reciting his lessons Catholic artist Gao Tihan completed this painting portraying Jesus and Mary in Beijing before the Communist revolution of 1949.
Guangzhou cathedral plan This architectural rendering was for a cathedral in the Chinese city of Canton, which today is known as Guangzhou. It is one of 12,000 documents in the Canton Archives—now housed at BC—which survived the Communist and cultural revolutions that took place in the area during the early 20th century.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Fumi-e This fumi-e, or trampling image, features a bronze relief of the Virgin Mary framed by wood. During centuries of religious persecution in Japan, Christians were exposed if they refused to step on sacred images like this one.
Emperor Kangxi’s letter This rare manuscript is a letter written by the Chinese Emperor Kangxi to the Pope. The third emperor of the Qing dynasty, who ruled from 1654 to 1722, Kangxi was supportive of the Jesuits’ work in China.
Guanyin statue Guanyin, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, depicted in this circa-19th-century porcelain statue, holds a unique place in Japanese religious history. During the 17th century, Japanese Christians who were forced to hide their faith used Guanyin statues as stand-ins to pray to the Virgin Mary.
photos: Courtesy of the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History
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Linden Lane // Sports
ranked second in team history for total games played—and helped the Eagles advance to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2006. Ultimately, the experience taught Johnson that when it comes to getting the best out of athletes, it’s important to consider the whole person. That’s the philosophy she brings today to her own successful career as a high school basketball coach in Illinois, and it’s how she approached her role last summer at the trials in Indianapolis to select the 2021 USA Basketball Women’s U16 National Team. Johnson was one of just two coaches chosen by USA Basketball to
assist its staff on the court, training and mentoring the most talented young athletes from around the country as they vied for a spot on the national team. “It was an incredible honor,” Johnson said. “To do anything with USA Basketball, that’s the pinnacle.” Rather than focus strictly on the young women’s performances on the court, though, Johnson also worked with them on confidence and attitude. After all, she said, the national team’s selection committee doesn’t just look at how you dribble. “They’re also watching how you interact with your teammates, and with the people back at the hotel,” Johnson said. “Your demeanor is important.” In her own way, Johnson stood out as much as her players at the trials. “She was all in with them,” said Carol Callan, the former director of the U.S. women’s national team. “Did she help the kids get better? And did they have a good experience? The answers to those two questions are clearly yes.” Johnson’s holistic coaching style has already served her well at Evanston Township High School, which is not far from where she grew up in Chicago. In just five years as coach there, she has led the girls’ basketball team to more than 100 victories, won four consecutive regional titles, and sent six players to Division I college programs. As for the players that Johnson coached at the trials, they powered their way to a gold medal at the FIBA U16 Women’s Americas Championship in Mexico, qualifying the United States for the World Cup later this year. If USA Basketball calls again, Johnson will answer, still motivated by the greatest piece of career advice she received from her BC coach, the late women’s basketball legend Cathy Inglese. “Go,” Inglese told her, “wherever you’ll make a difference.” n
The BC women’s lacrosse team welcomed two new members: twin 8-year-old sisters Lucy and Sophie Stiles. The girls became Eagles through Team IMPACT, a nonprofit that combats the isolation experienced by children with illnesses by matching them with college athletes. “We are so excited for the impact they will have on this team throughout the year and years to come,” said midfielder Annabelle Hasselbeck ’24.
Boston College women’s basketball forward Taylor Soule ’22 scored her 1,000th career point in a season-opening win against Harvard University in early November. “It’s a great milestone for any athlete,” said Soule, who was named First-Team All-ACC last year. “If I had the stats on how many of those baskets were assisted, it’s probably 90 percent of them. So I couldn’t have done it without my teammates.”
Brittanny Johnson on the court at the 2021 USA Basketball Women’s U16 National Team trials last summer.
The Team Builder
Brittanny Johnson ’09, M’10, found her confidence in BC basketball. Now she’s using what she learned to develop the next generation of women’s hoops stars. BY SCOTT KEARNEN ’04
Considering that she went on to become a standout athlete and coach, it might surprise you to know that Brittanny Johnson started off on the basketball court at Boston College as a bit of a wallflower. That all changed the day her athletic trainer pulled the promising freshman aside and got Johnson to share that she was self-conscious about her smile. The BC basketball team wound up paying for braces and an oral surgery for Johnson, unlocking her confidence—and her potential—in ways that practicing her drills never could. “It was life-changing,” said Johnson, who blossomed into a two-year team captain. She racked up some impressive stats over the course of her college career—for one, she’s
EXTRA POINTS The Boston College men’s hockey team turns 100 this season. To help celebrate its first century—which included five national championships and hundreds of players going on to the National Hockey League and the Olympics—former Eagles such as Mike Mottau and Alex Newhook are sharing video reflections on the team’s social media channels. And in related news: Jerry York is marking his 50th season as a Division I head coach and his 28th at BC. 16
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photos: USA Basketball
BC IN THE NEWS
“A lot of people think we’re like princesses and queens, but we really are servant leaders and we value giving back and leaving an impact.”
Wall Street Journal On how inflation can affect the Social Security system:
“If wages are not increasing at the same rate as inflation in a given year, then what’s going in is going to be increasing less than what’s going out in benefits. That’s when you get the mismatch.” Anqi Chen, assistant director of savings research at BC’s Center for Retirement Research
—Liz Pierre SSW’23, the secondever Black woman to be crowned Miss Massachusetts, who is studying to be a clinical social worker
New York Times On the Varsity Blues college-admissions scandal:
QUICK Q&A
Matt Manser M’04, a global product manager at the ski equipment company Atomic. What are your top priorities when designing ski boots? We always think about three things: fit, comfort, and performance. We spend millions of research and development dollars trying to identify those three key points and make them come alive in the best way possible for each skier.
“We’ve generally accepted that if you donate a building to a university, you get some preference to get in. We don’t agree that if you lie and cheat to get in, you should get in.” Jeffrey M. Cohen, associate professor at BC Law School
How do you reinvent the boot season after season? We look at a current boot that needs a refresher. Sometimes there’s a new plastic that behaves better in terms of skiing performance, or it could be a plastic that is more moldable. One of the things we pioneered seven or eight years ago was a ski boot that was fully heat-moldable—you put it into this special oven and it becomes warm and soft, so that when you step into it, it molds to the shape of your foot.
You get to test all of the products, right? Yes, we have to go skiing [laughs]. It sounds really fun and it is really fun, but I can tell you that by the time the ski boot is sellable in the store, there were thirty or forty versions that did not fit that well—and it wasn’t very fun to ski in them. —Courtney Hollands photos: Stephanie Vegliante (Pierre); Atomic Skiing (Manser)
Marketplace On the stress of remote work for some employees:
“Whenever their manager sends them an email, they respond instantaneously in order to show that they are really working, they are really addressing their needs. They fear they could somehow lose out if they’re not being seen by their manager.” Wen Fan, BC professor of sociology w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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Linden Lane // Books
Why I Write
The accomplished novelist Yang Huang MA’98 on how writing fiction, in English, allowed her to overcome the censorship and thought control she experienced while growing up in China. I was 7, and I was crying again. Being a sensitive child, I often experienced strong emotions that I couldn’t put into words. I grew up in China, and from the time I was 10 months old until I was 7, I lived with my grandparents, where people put up with my crying fits. When I returned to my parents to start elementary school, however, my father demanded to know why I was crying. I was startled that I had to give a reason for being sad. I should stop crying, he told me, because my life had been better than that of many others. I understood that I wasn’t permitted to cry in front of my parents. It was my first taste of censorship. By the time I enrolled at Tongji University, in 1988, all of my schoolmates had survived their versions of a similar ordeal. Concealing discontent had become our second nature. I studied physics and enjoyed the beauty of science. I also loved working at the school newspaper, the Tongji Students Post, with other like-minded engineering students. On the surface, we were granted a voice, but none of us was permitted to express our opinions. Instead, we were instructed what to write and how to feel. Yet we resisted. Parroting the official line felt like a form of prostitution. So, we conspired for ways to say what we meant without getting into trouble. Then, in 1989, pro-democratic protests swept across China like wildfire. But the peaceful demonstrations ended in the 18
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Tiananmen Square massacre, and we gave up our resistance for stony silence and amenia in order to survive. In 1990, I took the opportunity to leave China and study computer science at Florida Atlantic University. After I graduated, in 1992, I worked as a computer engineer at IBM. It was a good and comfortable life, but something was missing. I felt lost in the sudden and complete freedom, like a person without an identity. The whiplash of two opposite realities brought on an early midlife crisis when I was 23. A desire to bridge the emotional gap between my early life in China and new life in America eventually drove me to become a novelist. In 1994, I returned to FAU to study English. I envied the freedom of writers who wrote in English. When I was growing up, censorship had transformed the poetic Chinese language into a limp, florid, and pompous tool for propaganda. Our teachers had told us what everything meant, and how we should feel. We were made to breathe the oppression and embrace it as truth and happiness. I never fully complied—I observed people and delighted in finding the contradictions in what they said, felt, and did—but I didn’t dare put any of it into words. Now, I was an adult with a reservoir of life stories. It was safe for me to tell my stories, but I lacked the language or skill. So in the late ’90s I decided to take a risk and write in
English, my second language. I poured myself into studying English, memorizing phrases and sentences verbatim. Step by step, I tore down the thought-prison of my early years. That work continued at Boston College, where I began studying literature in the MA program in 1996, and also at the University of Arizona, where I earned an MFA in 2000. Through it all, I continued to work full-time as a computer engineer. In my latest novel, My Good Son, a young man named Feng wants to become a tailor, but his father, Mr. Cai, pressures him to go to university and study engineering. Unlike me, Feng rebels. In storytelling I wield my power of imagination, enabling my characters to act out their desires. Their actions can bring painful consequences, but they also have the power to make people grow. In writing the book, I relished Feng’s rebellion, which caused Mr. Cai to think deeply about his parenting decisions. These days, I’m the mother of two American teenagers, and I no longer begrudge my father’s actions from when I was a child. I sympathize with his efforts. In silencing my discontent, he was trying to protect me so that I could have an easier life. But I have learned that a person can never be free by hiding their emotions or turning away from their aspirations. In a way, I can be that child once again, having a good cry, not merely from sadness, but from basking in the raw emotions that move me. Finally, I can give voices to strong fictional characters who confront their difficulties with ingenuity, humor, and quiet dignity. n photo: Susan Fan-Brown
The Trump Administration and COVID-19
BRIEFLY
A close look at the first year of the pandemic from BC alum and Washington Post editor Damian Paletta ’99. In April 2020, when most people were grappling with the onset of the pandemic, Washington Post journalists Damian Paletta ’99 and Yasmeen Abutaleb got to work. The mounting crisis combined their areas of coverage perfectly: Paletta is the Post’s economics editor and Abutaleb reports on health policy. The pair spent the next year or so interviewing more than 180 people with knowledge of the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response, from White House officials to infectious disease experts. Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic that Changed History is the fruit of these labors. The book, which became a bestseller, examines the first year of the pandemic through the lens of the Trump White House, taking readers behind closed doors from the first COVID-19 cases in China until the final days of the presidency and giving context to the major headlines of the time. Untangling fact from fiction was difficult. Paletta said that many sources they interviewed were cagey, and Trump himself canceled a long-planned interview with the authors. But by reviewing thousands of internal documents, text messages, and emails, Paletta and Abutaleb were able to deliver a definitive account of Trump’s response to the pandemic and of the administration’s many missteps. The task was crucial, Paletta said, in order to not “let people off the hook” for the decisions they made. “Yasmeen and I kept coming back to the fact that it was just so important for us to get this right because so many lives had been lost and so much had been destroyed,” he said. “We really owed it to readers to sort things out.” —Elizabeth Clemente illustration: Joel Kimmel
Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front by Charles R. Gallagher, SJ Europe is the setting for most accounts of Nazi history. But in his new book, BC Associate Professor of History Charles R. Gallagher, SJ, chronicles the rise of the Christian Front, a group led by East Coast Catholics and headquartered in Boston, and its attempt leading up to and during World War II to install in the U.S., as Gallagher describes it, a “dictatorship that would eliminate Communists and Jews.”
The Human Element: A Time Capsule from the Anthropocene by James Balog ’74 Photographer James Balog has been capturing nature for more than forty years. His work’s focus has evolved over the decades, most recently to showcase the catastrophic effects of human-led climate change. The Human Element comprises 350 of Balog’s most striking shots—of everything from endangered species to construction sites—and companion essays.
Lived Religion in Latin America: An Enchanted Modernity by Gustavo Morello, SJ In his latest book, BC Associate Professor of Sociology Gustavo Morello, SJ, argues the practice of religion has not died in the modern era—it’s simply changed. Morello’s book is the culmination of the six years he spent studying how believers and nonbelievers in Latin America find spirituality, whether at church, in nature, through tattoos, or online.
Catch Us When We Fall by Juliette Fay ’84 The sixth novel from Massachusetts-based writer Juliette Fay follows Cass Macklin, a pregnant woman struggling with alcoholism and homelessness after the death of her partner, Ben. Desperate to recover, Cass asks Ben’s brother Scott, a Red Sox player, for help. It’s a story of redemption, but also, as Fay said in a recent interview, “about the —Elizabeth Clemente beginning of a family.”
WHAT I’M READING
All Adults Here by Emma Straub “My go-to source for new and inspiring books has been the O’Neill Library’s ‘Pop Collection.’ One recent title I enjoyed is this beautifully written novel. It is the story of three generations of a family where the roles are often reversed, and the insights on family, love, loss, and regret are very real and very sharp.” —Ethan Sullivan, senior associate dean for undergraduates at the Carroll School of Management w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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scientific exploration bc recently opened 245 beacon street, a state-of-the-art science building that’s home to the schiller institute for integrated science and society. here’s a look at the beautiful facility. photographs by andy caulfield 20
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W
hen students
returned to campus in January for the start of the spring semester, they were greeted by Boston College’s shimmering new science building, officially open for classes after two years of planning and construction. The 150,000square-foot, $150 million facility features state-of-theart teaching and research laboratories, makerspaces, versatile classroom setups, and public collaboration areas— all of it framed by endless stretches of glass and natural light to promote a climate of creativity and innovation. Known as 245 Beacon Street, the building houses the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society; BC’s new Human-Centered Engineering department; the Shea Center for Entrepreneurship; and the Computer Science department. Connected to Higgins Hall, which is home to the Biology and Physics departments, and adjacent to the Eugene F. Merkert Chemistry Center, 245 Beacon represents the latest addition to what is now a 500,000-square-foot expanse of STEM-focused teaching and research at BC.
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245 Beacon will quickly emerge as a hub for student and faculty engagement at the frontiers of science and technology. Its arrival on campus is cause for celebration.” Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley
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a numerical look at 245 beacon street
383 windows
10 miles of duct work
18,000 square feet of interior glass
31,000 square feet of granite
13,300 square feet of lab space
2 outdoor terraces with total
5,500 square feet of makerspace 14,000 square feet of
seating for 39 22 offices for principal investigators
collaborative space
1,775 tons of steel
9 classrooms
26,000 feet of roof tile
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There is a genuine excitement that 245 Beacon will make an impact, both on campus and in the world. You can sense that when you walk in the building.” Vice Provost for Research and Academic Planning Thomas Chiles
245 Beacon Street’s extensive use of glass and natural light can be seen in everything from the building’s main staircase (opposite) to its entryway (below). The facility includes more than 13,000 square feet of lab space, including the engineering area at left.
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The openness of the building helps entice collaborations, especially from different academic departments. The goal is to enable the development of solutions to the problems facing humanity.” Engineering Department Chair Glenn Gaudette
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Schiller Institute laboratories and convening spaces empower students and faculty to tackle the great societal problems of our times— starting with today’s focus on climate, renewable energy, and global public health.” Schiller Institute Executive Director Laura Steinberg
The 245 Beacon Street auditorium (opposite below) spans 1,600 square feet and includes 181 seats. Meanwhile, much of the equipment in the labs (below and opposite above) is on wheels to maximize layout flexibility. The building’s café (left) can accommodate 140 transactions per hour at peak periods with its modern kiosk and mobile ordering capabilities.
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The Pandemics to Come
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from left: Nadia Abuelezam, assistant professor at the Connell School of Nursing; Welkin Johnson, chair of the Biology department; Katherine Gregory, dean of the Connell School of Nursing; Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Public Health Program and Global Pollution Observatory.
The world is very likely to experience new outbreaks of disease in the future. Four BC experts explain how we can prepare for them … and why we may be in better shape than you think. BY JOHN WOLFSON
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ELEANOR SHAKESPEARE w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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WO YEARS into a cruel and grueling pandemic,
many of us have managed to find at least some comfort in the thought that COVID is a once-in-a-lifetime event. But is it? The answer, according to researchers, is probably not. Our current, seemingly unending outbreak may be the deadliest since the great influenza pandemic of 1918, but it’s actually the sixth different global eruption of disease since that time. Recent studies, meanwhile, have tended to put the likelihood of a new pandemic striking in any given year at between 2 and 3 percent, with at least a one-in-two chance of a new outbreak in the next twenty-five years. And those calculations may be optimistic. Experts believe that the probability of new outbreaks is increasing because of ongoing deforestation and climate change. Little wonder, then, that a 2020 report by a United Nations biodiversity panel identified future pandemics as an “existential threat” to humanity. So what’s required to better prepare for the next outbreak, and the one after that? What lessons can we take from COVID19? What has worked well, and what must we improve? To answer these questions, we gathered four members of the Boston College community: Nadia Abuelezam, assistant professor at the Connell School of Nursing; Katherine Gregory, dean of the Connell School of Nursing; Welkin Johnson, chair of the Biology department; and Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Health Program and Global Pollution Observatory. We sat the group down and asked them what comes next. (The news isn’t all bad!) The following conversation has been condensed and slightly edited for clarity. You can hear the entire discussion in podcast form at on.bc.edu/pandemic.
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John Wolfson: There’s been a lot of talk lately that
COVID is on the path to becoming endemic. That essentially we will never actually eradicate it.
Philip Landrigan: As the various waves of the virus
come along, as the different variants have emerged— the Delta, the Omicron—each new iteration is more contagious than the one that came before it. But even as we’re seeing the disease continue to spread, we’re seeing the severity of the impact of the disease diminishing. We’re not seeing as many hospitalizations.
We’re not seeing as many deaths as we were earlier. And I think this sequence, from pandemic to recurrent mid-grade epidemic to something that’s more of a smoldering fire, is really what an endemic disease is. But we’re not going to be rid of this thing for a long time. New variants will emerge from time to time I’m sure in the future, as they have already. And I think that, looking to the future, you’re going to see the coronavirus infection become like influenza. It may or may not show seasonality. I’m not clear about that yet, but we’ll see recurrent waves of infection of greater or lesser severity. And we may, in some years, have to take particular precautions like masking and social distancing, or it may be we have new medicines and very quickly just pop a pill in the first few days after having been exposed to a person, the way a lot of people do
Philip Landrigan DIRECTOR, BC GLOBAL HEALTH PROGRAM AND GLOBAL POLLUTION OBSERVATORY
Landrigan ’63 is a renowned epidemiologist and pediatrician who has helped to lead countless public health campaigns. He has previously served as a medical epidemiologist for the CDC.
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these days after they get a tick bite, and that just puts it out. So bottom line, it’s not going to go away but I don’t anticipate any major, massive global pandemics of COVID-19 in the future. John Wolfson: It was to everyone’s great relief, of
course, that our existing COVID vaccines proved to be so successful at minimizing the health risks associated with the Omicron variant. How have these vaccines, which were developed with such incredible speed, proved to be so effective?
Nadia Abuelezam: The scientific community luck-
ily had already been working on some variant of the COVID vaccine and that allowed us to jump right in and develop and distribute a vaccine very quickly. The scien-
tific community was on top of its game and managed to get a vaccine out extremely quickly, and not just any vaccine, but a vaccine that’s extremely effective. That is one of our largest triumphs to date. The part of the vaccine conversation that we may need a little more work on is our global distribution efforts. We’ve been doing quite a bit of work to get all of our citizens here in the United States vaccinated. There’s still quite a bit of work to be done, especially among marginalized populations, but there’s also a lot that needs to be done globally to ensure equity and vaccine distribution. And to also ensure that the poorest members of our societies have access to this vaccine because we know that individuals who are marginalized, whether that’s socioeconomically or in any other way, are at highest risk of COVID infection and may be least likely to get vaccinated.
Nadia Abuelezam ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, CONNELL SCHOOL OF NURSING
Abuelezam has commented throughout the pandemic for national media outlets, including the New York Times, MSNBC, and CNN. Her research focuses on health inequities in vulnerable populations.
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John Wolfson: The Omicron variant is said to have
more mutations than any previous variant that we’ve seen. That sounds frightening. How concerned should we be about the number of mutations in the variants to come?
Welkin Johnson: The Omicron variant is interesting
because even very early on when it was first reported, there were already indications that it probably was causing a milder disease. The only reason I think this one got more attention than other variants of concern was because it has two or three times as many mutations in it as any other variant. And that’s not really a reason to get concerned. We hear “mutation” and we think that automatically means something bad. But there’s no logical extension that says a mutation has to cause worse disease. And in fact, I think a lot of virologists are expecting milder variants of COVID-19—and perhaps Omicron is it. This could be the sign of the virus now stabilizing and getting into equilibrium with the human host. John Wolfson: Many of us have tended to think of the
pandemic as a once-in-a-lifetime event. It’s certainly been the deadliest one we’ve seen in a century, but it turns out that these kinds of public health crises aren’t actually all that rare. In just the past 20 years or so we’ve had a couple of prior coronavirus outbreaks, and also the swine flu and Ebola epidemics. In any given year, according to a couple of recently published papers I’ve seen, there’s a 2 percent to 3 percent chance of a global pandemic striking. Researchers say there’s as much as a 50 percent chance that we’ll see something like this again in the next twenty-five years. And that’s just if things stay as they are—which, unfortunately, seems unlikely. A gowing body of evidence suggests that the probability of outbreaks is actually going to increase in years ahead. Yet here we are still struggling in our current pandemic to convince people that vaccines are safe and that masking is effective. As we plan for the possibility of future pandemics, how can we more effectively get people to buy in to these lifesaving preventive measures?
Katherine Gregory: What the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has shown us is that we will almost certainly interact with novel pathogens again in the future. And we will have other pandemics, perhaps not at the same scale, but we absolutely will need to take some of our lessons learned from this pandemic. And one of the major lessons learned is that we have a good, maybe a great acute-care infrastructure here in the U.S. for when
people get sick. But I think what this has shown us is that we really lack the public health infrastructure to manage large-scale infectious disease. The second thing I think that we have learned, and these have been some bitter lessons, is that there is a gap in overall health literacy and health knowledge in the general population. And so again, when I think about how we educate our care providers, we do a very good job of educating them in how to take care of people in acute situations and maybe even in chronic situations—but not necessarily from the perspective of overall public health, of understanding health literacy and what the science means. The vaccine that the scientific community was able to develop is breathtaking, and yet there was such distrust about it, and there remains distrust, because I don’t think we’ve provided a foundation in health literacy for so many people. Nadia Abuelezam: I think this is also reflective of the
way that the U.S. health care system has been set up. It’s been set up to deal with existing health issues. It has not been set up to be a preventative measure. To prevent disease, to prevent illness. And I think that that’s where a lot of the misunderstanding comes when we think about the general public. Do we accept new potential drugs that could treat coronavirusrelated disease? Yes, because people accept treatment as a reasonable way forward. But it’s the prevention piece that always has been controversial. And I think it stems from the way that the health care system has been developed. It’s financially beneficial to treat as opposed to prevent, right? So we have to think about it from that perspective, too: This is the way that we’ve institutionalized medicine and treatment in this country, but we have not institutionalized prevention. And I think that that has been to our detriment during this epidemic. Philip Landrigan: So how has that played out? Well,
what has happened in this country since I would say the late 1960s, early 1970s, is that we have very, very substantially disinvested in public health at every level. We’ve done well on biomedical research. We’ve built beautiful hospitals to treat sick people. But we have cut the budget of the Centers for Disease Control at the federal level. We’ve cut the budget of state and county health departments across the country. The more than 3,000 county health departments that are the bedrock of the American public health system have seen their staffing dropped by 50 percent to 75 percent in the past four years. So that when COVID19 burst out of China in 2020, we were dreadfully w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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unprepared within the public health system. It’s a problem, of course, but it’s also an opportunity if we can persuade the leadership of this country—national, state, and local levels—that public health is a key component of the national infrastructure, just the way bridges and highways and airports and broadband are part of the infrastructure. And this is a great opportunity to rebuild this critical component of our country. One of the phrases that’s been used a lot in describing this COVID-19 pandemic is that it’s brought out into the open various problems in American society. It’s brought racism into the open, it’s brought economic inequality into the open. And it’s certainly brought into the open the great need to reinvest in public health, to rebuild the public health system. John Wolfson: Perhaps in concert with that effort,
what is the potential for the science behind the coronavirus vaccines to protect us from future pandemics?
Welkin Johnson: People don’t often mention this, but HIV-1 was a major zoonosis—a disease that jumps from animals to humans—that spread worldwide. And almost all the technology that was applied to this current virus came from people who were working on HIV-1 for the past twenty years. The antiviral drugs that for HIV-1 took ten to fifteen years before they were really fit to be used now can be deployed probably against any other retrovirus that would invade into humans. And the drugs that are coming out for the coronaviruses—because of the way they work, because they attack conserved parts of the coronavirus biology—they very likely can be weapons that we can deploy against future coronaviruses. And then the mRNA vaccine platform, it’s just amazing. I mean, the way vaccines were developed in the early 20th century was just, it was voodoo, right? It was pure empirical. Try this, try that. It would be interesting to read the history of the yellow fever vaccine or something. Whereas this is a very rigorously controlled and they can deploy this so fast that we’ll be more prepared for the next pandemic, at least the next viral pandemic. John Wolfson: The pharmaceutical companies have
been rightly praised for the speed with which they were able to produce those vaccines. But have we done enough to make sure that the vaccines are widely available in the developing world? There’s a moral case for doing so, of course, for making sure that the most marginalized communities and the least privileged among us are kept as safe as the most
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privileged. But doesn’t our own self-interest argue for making sure that these vaccines are getting to the developing world? Philip Landrigan: Oh, absolutely. There is indeed a moral case for vaccinating the world and making the vaccines available worldwide at either zero cost or the very lowest possible cost. But there’s also huge self-interest. Look at how small the world is today, how Omicron went from South Africa to the U.K. to various big airports in the United States in less than a week. I mean, the 1918 flu a century ago took many months to travel around the world. This thing is traveling at 500 miles an hour—the speed of a commercial airliner. We’re all interconnected and it’s not just air travel. It’s all the goods that move between countries. The migration of thousands of people every day and every week. When something like this comes, it’s a global emergency. And the only rational way to protect ourselves is to help everybody else. There’s no way we can put some kind of a virus-type wall around our borders. That’s just not possible. Katherine Gregory: I really agree. I think that there is no health without global health, and maybe this is a silver lining is this pandemic: that this virus has just shown us just how connected we are as a people. And if that doesn’t create the imperative for us in moreresourced places to care about the access to health and vaccines, I don’t know what does. So we can talk about South Africa and Johannesburg, but I think we also have to think a little closer to home. There are still people in our neighborhoods in Boston who have not had vaccine uptake and they’re currently very, very sick. We started this part of our conversation about the triumph of the pharma companies and the speed of vaccination. In retrospect, I think that while they were working in that lane, we could have been doing more education in the community, so that when those vaccines came, we would’ve readied the environment for the vaccine and for the vaccine uptake, certainly here, and then across the globe so that there wouldn’t have been this hesitancy. Maybe that’s one of our most important lessons learned—the need for greater knowledge of how connected we are, and how important it is to have this global public health infrastructure in place. John Wolfson: So what should we make of the
apparent jump in positivity rates and breakthrough cases? Does it make it harder to argue that people should get vaccinated?
Katherine Gregory DEAN, CONNELL SCHOOL OF NURSING
Gregory came to BC in 2021 from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she served as associate chief nursing officer for women’s and newborn health, research, and innovation.
Welkin Johnson: I think there’s a shifting perspective now on what vaccines actually do. We’ve talked for so many decades about vaccines as the bulletproof vest: They protect you from infection. But if you look back at the 20th century, the golden era of vaccination—yellow fever, polio, measles, smallpox—what we know for a fact is that those vaccines prevented disease, death, and spread of the virus. What we don’t actually know for a fact is that those vaccines prevented breakthrough infections. We didn’t have the technology then to do the very high-throughput, rapid screening of healthy individuals to see if the virus was still there. And that’s caused some issues this time around because everybody’s expecting the vaccine to be perfect. And the shift in thinking that hopefully is coming now is to stop thinking about positivity rates and start
thinking more about hospitalization rates. And that’s not just this vaccine. I think it’s true of any vaccine. We’ll probably retrospectively figure out that would’ve been true of a lot of the very successful vaccines that came before this. Katherine Gregory: And so, here we come back to
this need for a better understanding of science and health literacy. The trials for these vaccines looked at, If we give vaccines to these populations of people, will they experience death or hospitalization? That’s what the trials were set up to assess [rather than whether they protected people from getting infected at all]. But explaining that to a lay population that doesn’t have that fundamental understanding is complicated. w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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Welkin Johnson CHAIR, BC BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Johnson has helped lead the implementation of BC’s COVID-19 safety strategy, and was responsible for establishing a certified SARSCoV-2 testing laboratory at the University. His research involves the study of how viruses adapt to their hosts through the lens of genetics.
Welkin Johnson: I agree. We hope a vaccine does two things. First, protect you from getting infected in the first place. Second, if you get infected, stop the virus from burrowing deeper into your body and causing disease and possibly death. And for decades, we have overemphasized the first and underemphasized the second. Protection is a hopeful benefit, but it’s a very, very high bar. Whereas preventing the virus from spreading and causing disease once you’re infected is what the immune system really does. Philip Landrigan: I think the way to communicate this
complex reality to people is to say to folks that the vaccine gives you somewhere around 95 percent to 98 percent protection against serious illness and death. But it gives a much lower rate of protection against
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mild, usually mild, upper-respiratory illness. People just need to know that. And once you’re able to communicate that effectively to people, then that lays the groundwork for telling them that it’s still important to be prudent, even if they’re vaccinated or even if they’re surrounded by vaccinated people. And considering this circumstance, to possibly wear a mask or possibly not take that six-hour flight or not go to that rock concert. Welkin Johnson: On our campus, I would hazard to
guess that we’ve been more impacted by flu during the fall semester than we have by COVID. But the SARSCoV-2 positivity numbers are what get published, and that’s what we’re obsessed with. But actually I think there’s been significantly more flu, so significantly
more missed classes and loss of work due to flu. But the perception is being skewed by the COVID positivity rates. John Wolfson: How has the pandemic shaped the pri-
orities and aspirations of our students here at BC?
Philip Landrigan: Altruism has been part of the DNA
of Boston College students for a long time. The students that Boston College selects and the students that select Boston College tend as a group to be people that want to make a difference in the world. What I’ve seen happen in the past two years since COVID arrived is that this altruism has been channeled. The number of students who want to do careers in medicine, in nursing, in public health, and the other caring professions has gone up. There’s a push coming up from the grassroots in our society to do something about public health. Now we have to harness that energy and turn it into political reality. It’s a great opportunity if we can seize it.
Welkin Johnson: The careers of the people partici-
pating in this conversation are now very attractive. Younger people are more aware of them now. And I think we’re probably even starting to see more interest in them. Graduate school applications very frequently now mention the pandemic in one form or another.
Nadia Abuelezam: Another thing that I’ve observed
is folks are starting to realize how interconnected a lot of struggles are. Just because you want to pursue medicine or just because you want to be a biologist or a chemist doesn’t mean that you can’t influence societal issues like racism or climate change. These are all interconnected issues. And so I think students are starting to make the connection that, just because I’m going to be a nurse or just because I’m going to be a doctor doesn’t mean that I can’t influence these other parts of not only society but my life, too. And to be honest, I think that that’s a realization I’ve come to myself, with my work. It’s not just about studying the way that a virus is spread. It’s about recognizing the way that virus is spread within a particular context of racism or inequality. And by doing that, you can have influence on that context. And for me, that’s been really an important discovery. And I think that students are also discovering that. And I think to some extent, the public is also discovering that as well.
Philip Landrigan: I wouldn’t be surprised if one out-
come that we see here—in fact, it’s already beginning
to happen—is that more people with backgrounds in nursing, medicine, social work, and allied health professions run for public office. Because people are beginning to realize that if we’re going to prepare our society for the next pandemic, there need to be some people at the table who speak the language of public health and epidemiology. John Wolfson: How has the pandemic affected you on
a personal level?
Katherine Gregory: I’m the newest here to Boston College, and I was previously at a large academic medical center in Boston. And I have to be frank and say that I don’t know that I processed it all. It was a very intense clinical environment where we were very literally reading papers from Wuhan overnight and writing hospital policy the next day… that might change twelve hours later. I think the only way to describe it is maybe eight to ten years of work in two years. Phil Landrigan: Yes, I think we’ve all had to learn how
to say, and say publicly, that we don’t know—that we’re waiting for more information: We may know more in a couple of weeks, but right now we don’t know and this is what you have to do in the face of uncertainty.
Welkin Johnson: When something like this challenges humanity, you do feel grateful that you work in a place like Boston College that gives you an opportunity to do something. You don’t want there to be pandemics, but you’re grateful that when something happens, you’re in a position to actually get involved. Nadia Abuelezam: So I have a pandemic baby—born
during the pandemic—and my pandemic baby has not met a lot of people. And we spend a lot of time indoors on our own. And it’s really brought to the forefront for me the importance of human connection, the importance of being able to form that connection even in difficult times and difficult circumstances. The pandemic has really brought to the forefront the interconnectedness of health and well-being with every other aspect of life. And it takes living through something like this to bring that to the top of one’s mind. At Boston College, we believe in men and women for others, and that lines up perfectly with a lot of our COVID mitigation efforts. When we wear our masks and when we socially distance and when we get vaccinated, we’re not just doing that to benefit ourselves but we’re doing that to benefit others around us. And I think it’s a part of not only our personal missions but also our institutional mission. n w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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A POET IN FULL C. Dale Young ’91 writes poems that are featured in some of the finest publications in the world. Then it’s off to his day job as a radiation oncologist.
By Shelby Pope photographs by NicolÒ SERTORIO
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ONe day during his junior year, C. Dale Young ’91 had an appointment with the registrar’s office to make sure he was meeting his requirements for graduation. Young was pre-med (“When I was in college, everyone was pre-med or pre-law—clearly the late ’80s,” he said) and pursuing a biology degree, but the meeting held a surprise: The University thought he was an English major. That was because every time he’d needed an elective, he would flip through the gargantuan course catalog and always pick an English course. If anyone had asked Young when he started school whether he wanted to double major, he would have said no. But sitting there with two degrees—biology and English—mostly completed, he decided to do both. That decision to pursue both writing and medicine marked a path that Young has continued to follow throughout his life. Today he is a full-time physician and the lauded author of five books of poetry and a novel. The accolades have been plentiful. The Washington Post wrote that Young “confidently locates himself at the crucial intersection between body and soul, invoking that foremost of American poet-healers, William Carlos Williams….” Young has been recognized with sought-after fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. His work has been published in the The Atlantic, The Nation, and The New Republic, and has been selected for three different volumes of The Best American Poetry. “Sometimes the ability to convey information compactly and quickly has moral grace,” Robert Pinsky, the former U.S. poet laureate, has said of Young’s work. “His writing can put garrulous narration or evasive speechifying to shame.” The majority of Young’s writing is done in the early hours of the morning, before he starts his day job as a radiation oncologist. It’s a stressful occupation centered around some of the worst, most anxiety-provoking times in people’s lives. “His patients love him,” said Lisa Boohar, a fellow radiation oncologist who’s known Young since the early 2000s and practiced with him until 2018. “He’s very, very detail oriented. He’s super organized. He definitely feels the humanity of his patients.” Young introduces himself as both a physician and a writer, but if he somehow had to give up one of his careers? “I can’t really imagine not writing,” he said. “When I think about it, it just seems so completely preposterous.”
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Now 52, young lives on the west side of San Francisco, a mile from the ocean. I visited him on a Saturday morning in November. We were scheduled to talk for an hour or two, and his plans for later that day included dropping off his dry cleaning, picking up groceries, and 38
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writing a letter of recommendation, the hodgepodge of things his strict schedule doesn’t allow during the week. Young wakes up every morning between 5 and 5:30, depending on when he needs to be at the hospital. Most writing happens on the couch in his living room, where large windows highlight a view of the water, tufts of trees, and, just a few blocks away, a Catholic school much like the ones he attended as a boy in Florida. We sat down in the living room, with Young’s coffee table between us. On it, two remote controls, a tube of lip balm, and a single penny were arranged in an ordered tableau. “I am very much an obsessive person,” he told me, indicating the table. If someone were to move something, he said, he would know. Young works in the morning for an hour or an hour and a half, and on weekends he puts in additional time. Sometimes this work isn’t writing at all. Being a writer isn’t just writing, he told me. It’s everything else, too: reading something new and interesting, sending emails, editing, or even just thinking. And once all that’s done, it’s off to his day job. Young works at a hospital in Redwood City, forty-five minutes south of San Francisco. Like at most medical centers, the radiation oncology department at the hospital is located underground, so Young had his office painted a special shade of bright yellow that reflects the fluorescents to better mimic sunlight. As a radiation oncologist, Young develops care plans for cancer patients, determining their course of radiation, checking in with them during treatment, and aiding with any side effects. It seems, at first, to be a radically different skill set than writing poetry. Does he pivot during the day from poetry to medicine? No, he said. “I just continue. It doesn’t feel different to me.” There’s
a precision in both fields, he pointed out. As a radiation oncologist, “I literally make changes in beam trajectories of a millimeter. So it’s not that different from working on a poem where you’re like, ‘Oh, I didn’t dot that i.’” Over the years, Young has realized that the idea that you need a lot of time for creative work is incorrect. It’s not how much time you have to work, he said, but doing it when you work best. (In grad school, before he adopted his current early-bird schedule, that usually meant 1 or 2 in the morning.) Those chunks of time in the mornings and weekends, his six books have proven, add up.
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Young was born in the Caribbean. When he was small, his family moved to South Florida, where he attended Catholic schools and watched the towns swell with drunk college students on spring break, the passengers and crewmembers of cruise ships, and the winter’s snowbirds. As a kid, Young, whose mother was an English professor, loved to read comic books and mythology. He was never conscious of the fact that he was reading poetry when enjoying something like the Odyssey, but that began to change in high school when he was tasked with memorizing “The Second Coming,” by W. B. Yeats. The poem left him “completely dumbstruck,” he said. “I could not understand how someone could make something like this.” He read it something like sixteen times. Probably not fully understanding it, he told me, but with a hunger. The poem seemed like a little machine. How could you make something like that? What he remembers most is how sharply the class’s attention focused on the poem once he began reciting it. There was a new stillness in the room. “And I
Young came back the next day. He really liked poetry, he told her. He really wanted to take the class. No, Matson said again. Young kept returning, and by the end of the week, Matson finally acquiesced. “Fine, you can take the class,” Young recalled her telling him one Friday, “but if you get a C, don’t complain to me.” (“A C at Boston College is like failing,” Young pointed out.) Then Matson told him to bring her ten of his poems by Monday. Poems he didn’t have. So he spent the weekend writing what he now remembers as “horrible poems.” But he made it into the class. When I talked to Matson, she mentioned Young’s “extraordinary” motivation. There are a lot of talented writers who go through the creative-writing workshops at BC, she told me, but not all of them keep writing and improving, and keep working through the inevitable rejections. “And one thing that was apparent with C. Dale was that he had this kind of drive,” she recalled. “He was very, very, very hungry to improve.” By the end of Matson’s class, Young had realized something: He needed to write. “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” he said. That same year, he had a similar realization about medicine. By this point, he had switched his focus from painting to pre-med, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue with the major until his junior year, when an advisor recommended that he volunteer at Massachusetts General Hospital. So he did. Residents and interns warned him about the stresses of the field. But, he recalled, breaking into a laugh, that only made him want to do it more. After graduating from BC in 1991, Young enrolled at the University of Florida, where he earned a master of fine arts degree in 1993 and a medical degree in 1997. Med school
Young is relaxed and approachable, which is disarming if your idea of a poet is an unsmiling beret-wearer existing outside the everyday world of alarm clocks and pop culture. was like, huh, how?” he recalled. “And then I was more fascinated by it, because I thought, not only did he make this thing that is fascinating and strange and odd, but it has the ability to almost mesmerize people.” Whatever he did with his life, he decided, he wanted to have that effect on people. When Young started at BC as an undergrad, he thought that would happen through painting. So he joined the student publication The Stylus of Boston College, where he served as the art editor. (His main challenge was finding enough art to run, since students seemed to only submit poems or short stories.) Many of his friends at the magazine were talking excitedly about a certain poetry-writing class they were all taking, and Young felt left out. During his junior year, he approached the professor, Suzanne Matson: could he take the class, too? No, Matson told him. He hadn’t taken any of the prerequisites. Undeterred,
was grueling. Some of the students were so ambitious, they were known as gunners. “The joke was, if they saw you in the parking lot, they would gun you down to make sure you couldn’t do better than they did on the test,” Young said. During his second year, he studied so much that he started getting anxious about spending time grocery shopping. Young rotated through several specialties. He wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about any of them, until he started in radiation oncology. Within a day, he knew it was the field for him. “I just fit,” he said. He liked the detailed nature of it, and he felt comfortable being the calming presence for worried patients. When an instructor was showing x-rays in class, and asked the students where on the body they mapped to, Young knew. “Good,” he recalled the instructor telling him. “You can think in three dimensions.” For Young, it was simple. His art classes had made it obvious to w i n t e r 20 2 2 v bcm
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him. It matched other parts of his personality, too: It’s easy for him to spot another radiation oncologist at a professional conference. How? Young—a person who lines up the magnets on his refrigerator in symmetric rows—explained that, “They’re the ones that are like, Excuse me, is there supposed to be a separate folder for this?” After graduating from medical school, Young headed west, interning in Southern California and then completing a residency in radiation oncology at the University of California, San Francisco. He had already started figuring out how to balance both of his passions, landing a job as poetry editor at the well-respected literary journal New England Review in 1995, while he was in med school, and publishing his first book in 2001, during his residency. Young served as poetry editor at the Review until 2014, working with a handful of other poets to sift through the two to three thousand submissions the publication received each year in order to find the twenty to thirty they’d publish.
Or Britney Spears, whose song “Circus” started the churn in Young’s mind that eventually led to a poem in his most recent collection, Prometeo, which was published in 2021. That collection, like his others, has poems of colorful landscapes full of movement, of saints and desire. There is physical pain—stories of suffering patients—and emotional pain, of the small ways people hurt each other, and the way they go on. One of his best-known compositions, for instance, the title poem from 2011’s Torn, is about a tired, gay doctor tending to the victim of a homophobic hate crime, and reflecting on how his work entails healing both the victim and the perpetrators, were they to somehow show up, and how he has to do all of this harsh, emotional work as quickly as possible. His narrators start out bold, then change their minds. In one poem, a narrator begins by accusing someone of leaving a mark, a “purplish and dark” bruise. But by the end, the narrator has decided to “forgo” the bruises: “I have hidden behind the beauty of metaphors/far too long. I have been
“I can’t really imagine not writing. When I think about it, it just seems so completely preposterous.” Carolyn Kuebler, the Review’s managing editor, recalled Young’s openness to different styles, and his ability to bring in work from poets at high levels of their careers: the Pulitzer winners, the National Book Award recipients. “I think that he established it as a place where people wanted to have their work published,” Keubler said. (She also has a theory about Young’s productivity: “Everybody else has twenty-four hours in the day. He has probably, like, thirty-six, because he just—I don’t understand how he gets so much done.”)
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Two decades into his career, Young still has the drive evident in his first poetry class with Suzanne Matson. His typical output, year after year, has been four poems, but by the time we talked in November, he had already written six. “His poetry has a combination of inwardness and outwardness,” Matson told me. “It’s engaged in the world and, at the same time, it has a high level of lyric sensibility.” Many of those poems start with music. Young writes in silence. But if he starts listening to a particular piece of music over and over, that’s when he knows he’s working through an idea. The music isn’t a direct arrow—the poems and music aren’t in conversation, he said—but more a signal flare. Classical pieces, I asked? No, he responded with laughter. Young is relaxed and approachable, which is disarming if, like me, you have a Simpsons-formed idea of poets as unsmiling beret-wearers existing in a dimension outside of the everyday world of alarm clocks and commutes and pop culture. Not classical, he said. More like Depeche Mode, or the new Dua Lipa and Elton John song.
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hiding for far too long.” Among Young’s sharp details, there is interrogation, and an eschewing of the expected. He explores, for instance, how the Taíno people endured in the face of colonialism, and also the gleeful, tiny bits of recognition that come with being in love: “I know, no one talks about/joy anymore. It is even more taboo/than love.” Young has studied and taught poetry—he worked in the MFA program at Warren Wilson College from 2005 to 2018—and I wanted to know how he would describe his own voice. “I have no idea,” he said immediately. “I think it’s very easy to do that when it’s someone else.” A lot of people tend to see his work through his biography, he said, or think of him as mainly writing about his cultural heritage or his work as a physician. But his poems, he stressed, are not biography. He would never write about a patient. That would be a violation of his oath. An aspect of one patient, or a small detail of another, might end up combined in a poem with an experience of his, but the poem is not his life, and that’s not how he thinks of his work. Young’s poems often go through nearly twenty drafts before they reach a point where he feels they’re done. Most of the time, he said, it’s the last line of a poem that comes to him first. Then the challenge is finding his way to that ending. When Young’s friend Tomás Morín, a poet and professor at Rice University, was working on his first collection of poetry, he struggled, like many poets do, with figuring out the best way to order his work. Young encouraged Morín to try his approach and choose a final poem that would make readers want to go back and start reading the book from the beginning. The two men met around twenty years
ago when Morín discovered Young’s blog. Morín, who is Latino, was looking for a writing community and was happy to find a poet of color who seemed accessible. Young identifies as Latino of Asian descent. Morín said that Young “from the very beginning has been a sort of possibility model for me in the writing world.” Another friend of Young’s, Isaias Fanlo, an Iberian literature lecturer at the University of Cambridge, emphasized Young’s command of form. Young thinks about what he wants to say, but also what form best fits what he’s conveying. Young has read poems in various stages to Fanlo, allowing his friend to see their evolution. Nothing is random, Fanlo said. Everything has been carefully decided. Fanlo said he knows of no one else in contemporary poetry who “works so thoroughly in this very happy marriage between form and content.” Fanlo also noted Young’s use of color, a holdover from his art training. His poems feature rusty browns, titanium blacks, and the blue of a cobalt solution set aflame: “a brilliant blue,/the flame itself bluer than the richest of skies/in summer.” And many of Young’s poems begin with an imperative, much like the myths he read as a child. Young is also willing to work slowly, Fanlo said, something he sees as a respect for poetry. The early mornings that produce his writing seem like an expression of that respect, of giving the art he loves the intense focus it deserves. It’s the same intense focus that he’ll give his patients a little later in the workday, and the same focus he gives to his friends. When Fanlo was diagnosed with COVID in 2020, relatively early on in the pandemic, he was living in Spain, where the health care system was saturated. Young called several times a day, instructing Fanlo on what to drink and the kind of Tylenol to take, and quizzing
him on his temperature, even as he grappled with the pandemic’s impact on his own practice. “He might be the most loyal person that I know,” Fanlo said. Lisa Boohar, Young’s friend and fellow radiation oncologist, noted his strengths at guiding patients through terrible, stressful periods. Communicating and connecting with people during these situations is a part of the job that has always come easily to him, she said. There is also, she said, Young’s “use of English language—the way he uses it in his books, in his poetry—he brought that into his medical notes.”
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One day about a decade ago, Young was on a shuttle bus from Corvallis to the airport in Portland, after a talk at Oregon State University. As he sat on the shuttle, a sentence came to him. Usually when that happens, the words wind up as the end of a poem. But this line wouldn’t work that way. Maybe, he recalled thinking, it was actually part of the beginning of a story. So he started writing, and by the time he arrived at the airport, he had completed two handwritten pages, which ended up as part of the first chapter of The Affliction, a novel of short stories published in 2018. Poetry and fiction are opposite writing styles, Young told me. If he knows the ending, it’s a poem. “If it’s fiction, I can’t know the end of it because otherwise there’s nothing for me to do, to get to the end.” Young started working on a follow-up to the novel, and by early 2020 it had reached an overwhelming 145,000 words. Sick of it, he put the book down for a year or so. But then, last spring, he felt the urge to pick it up again. News of the pandemic was changing every day at that time—was it airborne? Could it be transferred via shoe? Was there enough protective equipment available?—and the novel was a balm. It was an entire world he created, but one that needed work. “And you can just dip in and lose yourself for an hour or two while you clean up paragraphs and make sure you’re not writing redundant sentences,” he said. “There’s something calming about that.” And so Young wakes up in the mornings to write before heading off to the hospital, the same routine he’s had for more than twenty years. Having an entire career apart from writing allows him to continue producing work at his own pace: He’s the only writer, he jokes with his editor, who wants his book to come out later, not sooner. He doesn’t worry about keeping up with any literary Joneses. For him, doing the work is the thing. While he’s working, he gets to exist solely as the artistic version of himself. When I continued to ask for the details of his morning routine, he remarked that I seemed to be thinking of it as a chore. It’s not, he said. He likes it. Without the early morning writing time, he said, “I would feel like I wasn’t doing what I’m supposed to do.” n
Shelby Pope lives in Berkeley, California. She has written for NPR, the Guardian, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
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The Taste of Success An inside look at Boston College’s innovative, award-winning Dining Services BY COURTNEY HOLLANDS
Carney Kitchen chef Jeronimo Colon Cora—who likes to cook the stews popular in his native Puerto Rico—has worked at the University for thirty-three years. His three daughters all graduated from BC. 42
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photo: Lee Pellegrini
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ollege dining has come a long way from chicken fingers and french fries. The food served up by the Boston College Dining Services employees at fifteen locations across campus is creative, global, sustainable, and increasingly plant-based. And the food-service industry is taking notice—the University’s à la carte dining program has earned a slew of recent accolades, including, notably, the 2019 College Innovator of the Year award from Food Management magazine. (The publication called BC “one of the leaders in the higher-education sector,” and cited its menu and dining venue updates, pop-up events, and mobile-ordering program.) “Students today are sophisticated,” BC Dining Services Director Beth Emery said. “They are asking for more global flavors and they want to hear the stories behind where the food comes from and how it’s part of the culture.” In the pages ahead, you’ll get a taste of what sets BC Dining apart as we showcase some signature dishes (page 44), take a look at the sparkling new Carney’s dining hall at McElroy Commons (page 48), and spend a day in the life of BC Dining—from early-morning baking to the last lights being switched off late at night (page 50). Hungry yet?
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the taste of success
Defining Dishes Meet a few of the menu items that characterize the modern era of BC Dining. PHOTOGRAPHS BY NINA GALLANT
STYLING BY JOY HOWARD
Açaí Bowl BC was ahead of the curve when it debuted this superfood-packed smoothie six years ago. “Gen Z is up on the trends and they’re on social media,” said BC Dining Services Director Beth Emery. “We have to be on top of it.” Diners can customize their bowls with coconut granola from Maine’s GrandyOats and other toppings.
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Pork Ramen In February 2020, the Heights Catering team hosted a one-nightonly ramen pop-up for more than 200 students. This Tokyo-style soup—made with noodles sourced from a local Japanese market—was the headliner of the event, which won a grand prize from the National Association of College & University Food Services.
Avocado Toast Dining hall fare today has to look as good on social media as it tastes on the plate, and this toast—crowned with two cage-free eggs and an optional sriracha drizzle—succeeds on both counts. Like most new dishes that appear on BC’s permanent menu, this one started out with a trial run to gauge interest.
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the taste of success
General Tso’s Cauliflower Showcasing a buzzy vegetable— cauliflower—and served over sticky rice, this stir-fry is a hit with carnivores and herbivores alike. “There are a lot of students who aren’t vegan or vegetarian, but who are eating more plant-forward and less meat based on its impact on climate change,” Emery said. (Other meatless triumphs include jackfruit arepas and the Screaming Eagle steak-and-cheese made with plantbased protein shreds.)
Chocolate-Chip Cookies Perhaps the most popular of the many desserts produced by BC Dining’s in-house bakery are these legendary cookies. Run by Executive Pastry Chef Tim Fonseca—formerly of Boston’s exclusive Four Seasons Hotel—the bakery produces thirtyfive dozen of these mini masterpieces each day.
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New England Classic Smoked turkey, thinly sliced Granny Smith apples, and dijon mustard get all gooey with cheddar in this beloved panini. But it’s the cranberry-studded bread from Cape Cod’s Pain D’Avignon bakery that truly “makes the sandwich,” Emery said. (As an alum commented wistfully on a recent Instagram post about the Classic: “Would give anything [for one].”)
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the taste of success
Staffers cook pastas and tacos to order at this new six-burner exhibition stove. “We can interact with our customers and let them see us making their food,” O’Neill said. “There’s an entertainment factor.”
The Dining Hall of the Future Is Here Built in the early 1960s and segmented with temporary walls, Carney’s dining hall at McElroy Commons was more than ready for an overhaul. The bustling, middlecampus spot—it serves around 5,000 meals each day—just underwent a year-plus renovation that doubled the square footage of the food-service area, added a brick pizza oven, and reconfigured the seating plan. The first thing you’ll notice, said BC Dining Associate Director of Restaurant Operations Megan O’Neill ’89, is “the openness, the brightness, the freshness of the room. With the new layout, you can actually see the food being made.” Here, O’Neill breaks down the new and improved—and renamed—Carney Kitchen.
BC Dining By the Numbers
15
Dining locations at BC.
21,000 Number of meals served each weekday.
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Special attention was paid to the ambiance. Among the accent materials chosen for the modern design were wood and subway tile with a subtle starburst pattern. “The stations that we bought are so solid and well-made,” O’Neill said, adding that BC’s “Capital Projects team did a phenomenal job.”
This custom-made tiled brick oven is currently being used to bake New York–style pizza, but the Carney Kitchen team has future plans to use it for roasting meats and casseroles.
A mix of high-top and low-top tables and booths gives dimension to the large 488seat Carney Kitchen dining room. The counter spots that line the oversize windows facing Beacon Street are in demand among laptop users (several outlets were added).
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250 Number of full-time employees.
62,000
100
Percentage of eggs served (shelled and liquid) that are cage-free.
Percentage of food purchased by BC Dining that’s grown or produced in New England.
Pieces of whole fruit sold each month.
800
17,500
Pounds of waste composted every day.
Cups of fairly traded coffee served every week.
For the first time in years, hot and iced coffee and tea are again available all day at this dining hall—all the better to pair with the egg sandwiches and burritos from the grill at the adjacent Carney Kitchen at breakfast (or with the subs and stir-fries at lunch and dinner).
The often-mobbed Greens salad counter has been moved upstairs from Eagle’s Nest to Carney Kitchen, where there is more space. Students select the vegetables, dressing, and toppings they want, and then the dining staff toss everything together.
The BC Fresh station offers a plain-andsimple entrée, plus sides at dinner—made without the top nine allergens—and also features a designated gluten-free refrigerator, freezer, microwave, and toaster, making it the destination for vegans and diners with allergies or gluten intolerance.
To improve traffic flow, there is now a cash register at each food station. In the old design, students had to wait in line twice: first for their food and then at a register.
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$19
11,000
Average amount spent by students who shop at the weekly on-campus farmers’ market.
Number of dishes washed each day.
80
Number of custom cakes ordered from the BC Bakery each month.
architectural rendering: EYP
16
Number of topping options— including shaved steak and basil—on the pizza served at The Market at Corcoran Commons.
400 Pounds of laundry done each day.
260 Number of orders placed each day through BC’s GET mobile ordering system.
Years that the longestserving employee has worked for BC Dining.
70,675
Pounds of seafood purchased annually by BC Dining (84% is certified or verified sustainable).
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A Day in the Life of BC Dining
4:56 A.M. mcelroy commons: Clint Durant (front) and other BC Bakery staffers have been at it since 3 a.m. to create treats for campus.
7:15 A.M. lyons hall: Laundry Lead Armando Rivas loads a dryer. His team washes all BC Dining laundry from around campus.
10:05 A.M. hillside café: Lexi Rich steams milk for espresso drinks before the midmorning rush.
11:11 A.M. eagle’s nest: Javonna Plummer (left) and Bea Sina toss and dress salads at the popular Greens station.
6:08 P.M. lower live: Sustainability interns Kyle Powers and Annie Liu pass out vegan pasta, a healthy dish made with local ingredients.
7:42 P.M. conte forum: Fans wait for snacks at a BC hockey game. BC Dining also runs the concessions at football and basketball games.
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photo: Duncan Wilder Johnson (Durant)
A behind-the-scenes look at BC Dining Services in action on an early December day. PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAITLIN CUNNINGHAM AND LEE PELLEGRINI
8:47 A.M. corcoran commons: Charles Gonsalves cleans tongs at one of several BC Dining dishwashing locations.
omelets to order at once.
12:49 P.M. walsh patio: Heights Catering teamed up with Il Circolo Italiano (BC’s Italian student club) to host an arancini pop-up event.
3:12 P.M. stokes hall: Staffers serve coffee and sweets (chocolatecovered Oreos!) at the aptly named Chocolate Bar.
10:04 P.M.
stuart hall: Students grab a late-night bite at Newton
Campus's dining hall.
9:39 A.M.
lower live: Monica “Momo” Johnson makes several
11:58 P.M. lyons hall: Lovely Shima restocks condiments and cutlery as late night winds down at BC's last-to-close dining location.
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NEWS & NOTES REUNION
18
OVER
1,200
CLASSES
invited back to celebrate a first-ever Fall Reunion
alumni and guests celebrated on campus
4,966
185
alumni reunion volunteers
reunion year alumni made a gift to BC
WELCOME HOME!
Over a classic New England October weekend, Boston College alumni old and new descended on the Heights for a pair of festive celebrations.
4,000+
CLASS OF 2020 COMMENCEMENT
family and guests attended events on campus
Graduates and guests traveled to the Heights from
46 states and 32 countries
1,700+ members of the Class of 2020 attended Commencement (nearly 75 percent of the class)
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Inside
CLASS NOTES Profile 69
Arivee (Vargas) Rozier-Byrd ’05, JD’08
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James Lizzul ’09
Advancing Boston College A Day to Unite 78 All Eagles
Reunion 2022 Eagles from milestone classes will gather at the Heights for Reunion 2022 in June! Visit bc.edu/reunion to find out when your class will be celebrating with us.
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Bill Emmons, who received the first Edward Finnegan “Ever to Excel” award, played in the first Beanpot Tournament, and played football and hockey at Boston College, shared some updates from over the years. “Immediately went into Air Force from graduation. Became a lieutenant, singleengine pilot, and instructor. While in Arizona, met and married my wife 66 years ago. When living in Boston, with IBM, joined the New Hampshire National Guard as a captain, where I flew F-87s. Great experience and fun! Have five children and six grandchildren. One son played hockey at Yale and in the NHL for a short time. One daughter, Catherine Kennedy ’90, married Shawn Kennedy ’89, a hockey player at BC. Enjoying the school’s growth and sticking to its mantra. Enjoyed many a football game with friends over the years.” Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
1954 Betty Glynn Hannon wrote in, “Greetings to one and all from this BC senior who’s alive and well here in sunny California. I live just a bit north of San Francisco and would love to host a gathering of other BC seniors. Anyone interested? I love to swim every day, and do so much more. How about you? It would be wonderful to see old friends from near and far.” Correspondent: John Ford jrfeagle1@gmail.com; (508) 755-3615
NC 1954
STAY CONNECTED Follow us on social media
bc.edu/socialmedia Check often for upcoming chapter, class, and affinity group events at
bc.edu/alumni
For the latest information on alumni virtual programming and ways to stay in touch with your BC family, update your profile in our alumni directory at
bc.edu/update
For Mary Evans Babst in Switzerland, it was a summer of farewells. Her brother, a cousin, and several close friends died, and with COVID restrictions, farewells were not possible. After over a year, returning to church and Sunday Mass was a joy for Mary. In summer, her family invited her on a three-day Swiss Glacier Express trip to Zermatt and St. Moritz. “The cloud cover remained higher than the spectacular peaks, so we were able to admire the geological wonders of creation, as well as the engineering feats and human cost of dozens of bridges and tunnels built for our pleasure.” • There is sad news from Evie Higgins Beveridge in Scituate. Her husband, Nelson, and her brother, Jim, died during the summer. Please keep all of them in your prayers. Fortunately, Evie has many friends and some family near to support her at this difficult time. • I had a long conversation with Maureen Cohalan Curry. All is well with her in Bristol, Rhode Island. • In closing, the Dalys again were able to have the annual family reunion in July. Our daughter, Ann, came from London. A good time was had by all. Correspondent: Mary Helen FitzGerald Daly fitznjim@msn.com
1955 Correspondent: Marie Kelleher mrejo2001@yahoo.com
1956 Philip “Jack” Dawson, MEd’59, shared some of his awards and accomplishments. He won the National Football Foundation Maine Chapter’s Distinguished American Award in 2007, served as mayor of Portland, Maine, from 1995–96, and is the owner and CEO of Dolan Flavoring Company in Portland. Congratulations on a wonderful career! Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
NC 1956 We heard from Shirley McKenna, who would love to hear from all of us. “Hi to all our Class of ’56 survivors! Our news from Dublin—hubby battling Parkinson’s but his many friends still walk him daily by the seafront...I’ve spent the year cataloging and boxing our collection of books accumulated over the years...it got me through our strict lockdown. We so miss the visits of our five children, 13 grandchildren, and greatgrandson but as all are well, that is the greatest of blessings. Keep well, mentally and physically. Love to all.” • Ursula Connors lovingly cares for her husband John and is in good health herself. She frequently speaks with Gail. I think this is the first time our intrepid Sr. Gail O’Donnell hasn’t submitted her many activities, but we have spoken and she is as active as ever. • I (Cathy) participated in a phase-two clinical trial for macular degeneration. My daughter, Naomi, took me to Florida and maneuvered me around to the evaluations and surgery while she worked online. Happy results with sufficient improvement that enables me to continue driving. Two of my children wrote books: Dan Hickey’s A Classic Path Through High School for early teens, and Naomi Brickel’s Not to Spoil the Ending…but everything is going to be OK after the tragic loss of her 15-year-old son, Adam. Please, dear classmates, send me an email even just to say that you’re alive and well! Correspondent: Cathy Brennan Hickey cbhickey7@gmail.com
1957 65th Reunion June 2022
Greetings to the great Class of ’57. Hard to imagine that our class will be celebrating our 65th Reunion this year. The kickoff to our 65th was a get-together in September held at the Cadigan Alumni Center, which was funded and named for Pat Cadigan ’57. Bill Cunningham spearheaded this wonderful event enjoyed by approximately 40 of our classmates. The event included the television viewing of the BC vs. Temple football game, followed by a Mass celebrated by classmate Father Gene Sullivan, DEd’81. 53
• Received a note from Ed Hines indicating he and his wife, Anne, have ended their living in Naples, Florida, and have established themselves in Harwichport. Ed is still very active in veterans programs, the DAV, and the Wounded Warrior Project. • Paul Daly writes that he, Jim Devlin, and Jim Doherty recently were guests of Bill Cunningham for golf and lunch at Woodland GC. • Dick O’Brien reports that he and his wife, Jane, celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in Ogunquit, Maine, with their three children and eight grandchildren. His daughters Kristen ’89 and Carolyn ’90 were of great help to them during the pandemic. His granddaughter, Maeve Holland, is a member of the Class of 2025. • Bill Cullinane has attained his Irish citizenship and celebrated it with a family golf outing in Chatham, where he and his wife reside. Be on the watch for more information on our upcoming 65th class reunion. Correspondent: M. Frank Higgins f higgs92@gmail.com
NC 1957 65th Reunion June 2022
Elizabeth Doyle Eckl reports that after much thought and tired of dealing with worries of house maintenance, she has sold her house and made the “big move” to a rented condo not far from her old home. She has close friends there and all is working out well. Liz also had a joyful event with a family gathering at her oldest granddaughter Sophie Elizabeth’s wedding in the Shenandoah area of Northern Virginia. She sends warm wishes to her classmates. • Barbara Lowe Eckel writes of a bittersweet trip to her island home of Jamaica. The trip was mainly to visit her sister, who died two days after Barbara’s visit. Her group stayed at Half Moon in a villa where the staff planned a birthday party for Barbara in the beautiful surroundings of a wildlife sanctuary, botanical garden, and old-world charm. Despite dealing with arthritis, she is passionate about gardening in her community garden near her home. Barbara is pleased with all the advances of hearing aids, as she reminds us that her first child was born profoundly deaf. (Strange coincidence: Barbara was my freshman roommate at Newton; my grandchild who is a freshman at Tulane called me to say her freshman roommate in college is from Jamaica. [I assured her they would have a wonderful friendship, as I did.]) • Ellie Pope Clem writes of her dance, exercise, writing, poetry groups, etc., at the Colonnades in Charlottesville, Virginia. They also have a Catholic group with monthly visits from parish ministers. Correspondent: Connie Weldon LeMaitre lemaitre.cornelia@gmail.com
1958 Anthony Busa ’59 and Bea Capraro Busa now spend most of the year in Naples, Florida. We thank Bea for the many years she organized the Naples luncheons. • Paul Fennell is smiling again now that he’s 54
back to dancing a couple of times a week in Orlando. • We have our own “Spy Who Came in from the Cold” in Guy Guarino. Guy, of Ipswich, is finally able to share stories from his days as a communications intelligence analyst officer in the U.S. Army in the years surrounding the Korean “Conflict” and the Cold War. After ROTC and BC graduation, he worked with NSA agents and the Republic of Korea military intelligence community to intercept and interrogate North Korean agents who penetrated South Korea. Life was not without mishaps. One time, their small landing craft, returning in the Yellow Sea from North Korea under cover of darkness, ran aground on a sandbar. Guy and his colleagues feared the results when in the morning they were observed by locals and an unknown helicopter. Fortunately, they made it away. His identity and missions were seriously restricted: no letters home to friends or family, including his wife, Frances. To conceal his identity, he was papertransferred from the Army Security Agency to another branch of the Army. Forty years later, Social Security had no record of his military service. Guy’s stories began to surface in June when he visited Omaha to watch his grandson, an All-American swimmer and U.S. Nationals bronze-medal winner from Auburn University, compete in Olympic trials. They visited the Strategic Air Command Museum where Korean War aircraft are exhibited. The visit prompted Guy’s grandson to ask questions and, for the first time, Guy shared some war experiences. • On a personal note, I, Marian Bernardini DeLollis, spent two grand weeks in a Wai’ula’ula estate at Mauna Kea on the Big Island in Hawaii. Getting there, though, required an 11-hour, direct flight from Boston to Honolulu, a brief layover, and an hour-long flight to Kona. I was hosted by my vacationing daughter and son-in-law Karen and Mark McLean, both ’88, and entertained by my grandson, Grayson (10), who is already an impressive golfer. Karen, Mark, and Grayson held their own, playing four award-winning, 18-hole courses. I just cheered them on. Correspondent: Marian Bernardini DeLollis mdelollis58@comcast.net
NC 1958 True to her Sacred Heart commitment, Rosemary Stuart Dwyer has been working on plans for the next AASH National Conference in spring 2023. It will be held in Rhode Island at the second Elmhurst, a boarding school which is housed in a lovely French manor. • Maureen O’Donnell Kent’s summer was highlighted by visits from her granddaughter, Jennifer, a sophomore at Notre Dame, and lunch with Sue Baxter and Bob Baxter in Rhode Island at the boat house in Riverton. The Baxters live in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and the Kents in Wellesley. The Kents will return to Naples, Florida, in January. • Peg Keane Timpson enjoyed a summer of beach time and golf. She celebrated her third great-grandson’s christening with a big family gathering. Peg plans time in Florida during the winter.
• Jo Kirk Cleary regrets being unable to continue her usual yard work. Instead, she purchased a rose bush in a container on rollers. This solution serves her well. Busy grandchildren were only able to make a few day trips to the Cape, but Jo enjoyed beach dinners with her brothers and their wives. Her youngest grandchild is now on a football team and she looks forward to his games. • Julie Saver Reusch is adjusting to apartment living. The benefit: a smaller space makes it easier to clean. • Marge George Vis’s activities include tedious visits to doctors in search of final healing of her left hip replacement and two skin surgeries on her left shin. She totters and weaves slowly, but is now without a cane or walker. She enjoyed visits to her family cottages during the summer, and in January she spent five weeks in Cabo San Lucas with friends. She hopes to return in 2023. • While Judith Young Runnette has no news to report, she hopes everyone enjoyed a happy and blessed holiday season. • Sue Fay Ryan stays busy in her waterfront condo in North Palm Beach, Florida.Herosteoporosis and macular degeneration are under control and a personal trainer helps her maintain good health. She republished her first book and is working on her second bilingual book for elementary students in English and Spanish immersion programs. Each of the books will be posted on her website. • The Schorrs are holding their own in New Jersey. Last fall, they visited Madison, Wisc., where they watched the Army/ Wisconsin game and met their grandson’s future in-laws. They look forward to this wedding in July. I hope all are thinking reunion 2023! Correspondent: Patty Peck Schorr dschorr57@verizon.net
1959 I received news from our classmate Tom Tierney, Carroll School, of Arlington. He writes that he takes his morning walk to a neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts where he joins his contemporaries in a discussion/ argument about the day’s news. After an hour or so, he walks home, mad. Why don’t these guys understand? Next day, same routine, but I suppose it’s good for the blood circulation. He is also a longtime season ticket holder for BC hockey. He described his first visit this season for a game: In the Comm. Ave parking garage near the Forum, he looked out at the Lower Campus and realized that the “Plex” was gone, replaced by a lovely lawn. Who still remembers the ponds that were there when we were parking and then walking up those long wooden stairways? He also looks forward to the Laetare Sunday Mass and Brunch and the Veteran’s Memorial Mass on campus. • John W. Fitzgerald, physics major, late of South Boston and Dorchester, now of San Francisco, writes with a family story that belongs in the category of “suspect genes.” His grandson, Kyle Walsh, a freshman at UCLA, while enjoying a COVID-induced first semester in Hawaii, had his surf board rise up, strike him in the face, and break his jaw. Fitzie
never should have left the bosom of Carson Beach. So, stay well and send some news. Correspondent: William Appleyard bill.appleyard@verizon.net
NC 1959 Correspondent: Maryjane Mulvanity Casey 100 Rosemary Way, Apt. 330, Needham, MA 02494 781-444-1583
1960 Double Eagles Joe Shields ’61, Jim Reilly, Allan McLean, Matt Connolly, and myself were among the attendees at a special luncheon on the Boston College High School campus marking 65 years since our graduation. BC adjunct professor Dave Twomey ’62 was the architect of this event. Sadly, Matt passed away a few weeks thereafter. A graduate of BC Law School, he was a former U.S. Marine Corps officer as well as a career prosecutor and deputy district attorney for Norfolk County. • The social highlight for the class was the previously postponed celebration of the 60th anniversary of our BC graduation. Although attendance was limited in size, the following stalwarts were on hand for a delightful luncheon in historic Gasson 100: Eugene and Maura Connors, Paul and Jean Cunningham, Pauline Doherty and Paul Croke ’55, Joyce Dwyer, Vin and Peggy Failla, Bernie and Pat Gleason, Bob and Alice Hart, Gerard Hayes, Robert and Sheila Kelley, Tom and Sandra Kelly, Allan and Mary Ann McLean, Jack McNealy, Bob and Alyce Morrissey, Fred and Ann Marie O’Neill, Jim Reilly, Jane (Shea) Sullivan, Fr. Leo Shea M.M., John Sheehan, and Carolyn (Duffy) Winer. • Well-deserved kudos are due to our one-man committee of classmate Fred O’Neill and to Corinne Wyson ’16 and her dedicated colleagues from the Alumni Association for the success of this memorable milestone. • The Waltham Little League has honored retired dentist Vin Failla with a permanent trophy in his name celebrating his many years of volunteering with the city’s young people. • Checking the calendar our 65th is only three years away! Sláinte. Correspondent: John R. McNealy jmcnealy@juno.com
NC 1960 As promised, we highlight our grandsons. Nan Anderson Coughlin has a BC-grad football player, working in finance in San Francisco. Her other grandson is a junior at Trinity College on its golf team. Her great-grandson lives in Omaha. • Anne Canniff Boyle’s eldest grandson is a lawyer in Detroit. A med student, the second is at Mayo studying to be a plastic surgeon, while the third is a Chicago high schooler active in track and basketball. She also has eight- and seven-year-old grandsons. • Joan Dimenna Dahlen’s grandson is a doctor on the Harvard Medical faculty. Number two is a UC-Santa Barbara grad and a project manager. Number three is a freshman at
Westfield Community College in New Jersey. Number four is a 15-year-old, accepted to Paper Mill Playhouse, an educational performance venue. • Lennie Coniglio DeCsepel’s seven- and four-yearold grandsons attend St. David’s School in NYC. • Betsy DeLone Balas’s 17-year-old grandson in California is interested in engineering. He built and launched a rocket in the Nevada desert. Two grandsons live in Raleigh: a 14-year-old, 6'2" basketball player and his 12-year-old brother, a swimmer. • Mickey Mahon MacMillian’s grandsons are graduates of UMass Amherst and Providence College. • Carole Ward McNamara’s grandsons all had scholarships to their various schools. The eldest graduated Colgate, played hockey, and is now in commercial real estate. His brother, a BC grad, also played hockey. The next two hockey players are Holy Cross grads. A University of Oklahoma grad is in sports manufacturing. Grandson number six graduated from Penn State in engineering, then changed jobs to become a singer, guitar player, and music composer in Nashville. His brother, in veterinarian studies at Colorado State, had an internship working in a sanctuary with wild animals. Her eighth grandson, born at four-and-ahalf months, is visually impaired but graduated from New England Academy and has a scholarship to Merrimack College. • Dot Radics McKeon has a grandson working for Google, a sophomore in high school, and a sixth grader. • Suzanne Kenney Gaetano’s grandson at the University of Vermont is a sophomore interested in being an Air Force pilot. • Kathy McDermott Kelsh’s grandsons are: a junior at BC, a freshman at University of Denver, a senior at Chaminade High School, and fourth, third, and first graders. • The Alumni office has started to develop class celebration plans for delayed class reunions of 2020 and 2021, together with 2022, the weekend of June 3–5, 2022. Correspondent: Pat Winkler Browne enworb1@verizon.net
1961 David Driscoll shared that, after working for 32 years as a high school principal in Medway, he has retired to Venice, Florida. Correspondent: John Ahearn jjaeagle@hotmail.com
NC 1961 Brigid O’Sullivan Sheehan traveled to Pocasset on Cape Cod to enjoy a visit with Babs Kager this summer. Babs recently moved to the Cape to be closer to her daughter. • Mary Nolan Calise and Janet Miele organized a second mini NC’61 reunion at Janet’s house on the Cape in August. Attendees were Gael Sullivan Daly, Paula Keane Teeling, Nancy O’Neil, Nancy Campanella Iacobucci, and Linda Gray MacKay. Babs Kager and Micky McQueeny Matthews were to join but last-minute family commitments precluded that. • Juliana Fazakerly Gilheany wrote in the fall, “This semester NYU is totally remote.
Fordham is hybrid, which is hard. I lecture two hours in a mask facing about 30 students and simultaneously on Zoom.” • Maryann Morrissey Curtin writes that she and Ellen MacDonald Carbone “are braving the Boston traffic to attend the Boston Symphony. We have attended for the past 25 years. We have enjoyed the evening starting with dinner at the Symphony Cafe. We have had rather same seats. We are happy to have a time to discuss world, family, and friends’ events; philosophy; and the latest books we are reading. If anyone in the area wishes to join us… !” • Although Bob and I had to cancel our Rhine cruise trip in September, we were able to join three of our children, their spouses, and grands for a few days in Colorado in July. While we did it in stages (thanks to our Denver son’s planning) going from an altitude of 502' to 5,200' in Denver, to 9,600' in Breckenridge, and to 11,440' in Keystone can take your breath away. Stay in touch, stay well, and, as Juliana says, “stay safe.” Correspondent: Missy Clancy Rudman newtonmiz@aol.com
1962 60th Reunion June 2022
Joyce Francis McDevitt and Patricia Stabile Marma have remained friends since graduation. When Patty and her daughter Marijean ’86—long-time residents of Ft. Lauderdale—came north in July to visit a South Shore family, they spent an enjoyable day in the North End with Joyce. • Life is good with Paul Apholt. He and his wife, Eleanor, have recently returned from attending homecoming weekends for two grandsons, one at the University of North Carolina and the other at Gonzaga University. Representing Boston College is their youngest daughter, who is getting married next summer. • At a recent social event marking the 75th launching of the Exchange Club of Needham, Paul Deeley received the president’s pin from his wife, Maureen. • We offer our sincere condolences to the families of the following classmates: John Breen graduated with a BS in physics. He leaves his wife, Kathleen, and five children. He loved collecting Lionel trains. David Allen majored in accounting. He leaves his wife, Freda, and three children. Kevin Leary founded VPNE Parking Solutions in 1990, a company he successfully built with his son, Kevin. He was very supportive of organizations like Camp Harborview, Nativity Prep, and Christmas in the City. He leaves his wife, Mary Kelleher, and six children. For Donald Lemieux, a BC accounting degree was followed by a law degree from American University. He maintained a private law practice in Falls Church, Virginia. He is survived by his wife, Carol, and three children. After starting out at BC in the pre-med program, Stephen Burns completed his career as chief of radiology at a hospital in Warwick. He leaves his wife, Nancy, and four children. John Jenney attained a doctorate of law. He practiced with the 55
Massachusetts court system as first assistant registrar of probate for Norfolk County. He is survived by his wife, Kathleen. While Frank Faggiano achieved a successful career as a VP in human resources, he devoted himself to helping young people find their career path and supporting the BC baseball program. • I’m guessing it’s the age, but there’s a lot of reminiscing going on. When Gerald Greely recalled that Frank and I met freshman year, Jerry shared that he met Mary Anne in history class at Gloucester High and have been dating ever since. • Good to hear from Louis Kirouac, another proud Bishop Bradley High School grad. Hoping you and all you hold dear are well. Correspondents: Frank and Eileen Corazzini Faggiano efaggiano5@gmail.com
NC 1962 60th Reunion June 2022
Anne Morgan O’Connor passed away July 1, 2021, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. Following graduation from Newton, Anne earned a master’s degree in education and, after raising her three children, got a second master’s degree with a focus in library science. • Ellen Markey Thurmond reminded me that she went to school with Anne from kindergarten through college. Ellen also told me that she had a great mini-reunion luncheon with Mary Ellen McShane Troy, Jayne Murray Peterson, and Peggy Kugler McLaughlin while visiting Alice Hurley Dickinson in Minnesota. • Ellen called to tell me that Kitsy Cavanaugh Fogerty passed away suddenly on August 5. Kitsy had gone to Newton Country Day School with several of our classmates. She spent much of her married life in New Canaan and Darien, Connecticut, raising four children while teaching in elementary school and later holding positions in public relations and marketing for Labatt USA. While at lunch with Tan Cooney Sklut, Maura O’Neill Overlan, Jackie Gegan Mooney, and Anne Gallagher Murphy, they raved about Kitsy being a super athlete. Tan and Jackie remembered her Newton team always beating their Elmhurst team in field hockey. • None of us had seen Tan for years, but she promised to put a Newton luncheon on her calendar for next year’s trip to Rhode Island from California. I hope she can make it for our 60th reunion, June 3–5. It is always so great for us to reconnect. BC does an amazing job for us, so mark your calendars and stay tuned! • Janet Richmond Latour paid a visit back to the Bay State from South Carolina and had lunch with Anne Gallagher Murphy and me. She is happily settled in her new home, playing lots of golf and bridge. • Several of our classmates have recently moved. Beth Graham O’Mara has moved with her husband from Wilton, Connecticut, to an independent/assisted living place in Darien. Beth is an avid reader and is always giving me good suggestions. • In my last note I had said that Cathy Power Schibli and her 56
husband had just moved to Weavertown, New York. However, after visiting friends and family in Switzerland and another daughter in Germany last summer, she’s cleaning out once again, and moving to Germany, where they will settle in Nordhorn. Cathy had met her husband, who is Swiss, while studying in France when she left Newton after sophomore year. They have lived between Switzerland and the States while raising their five children, so this move is not such a big change for them. • When we were freshmen, a couple of “boys” at Holy Cross and a couple of “girls” in our class organized a mixer. We matched people up by interests, height, where they were from, etc., and off to Holy Cross we went on buses. I actually came across that list cleaning out this summer and was reminded that a few marriages resulted from it—I think it may have been a first “match.com!” Dr. Fauci wasn’t on it, as he must have been in the lab or library! • Pat Wolf ’68 thanked me for including the Newton College website 885ncsh.org in my last news notes and said she hoped “alums would e-mail her memories that they would like uploaded in general or for a particular RSCJ.” She has uploaded some of their PhD dissertations, as well. Pull out the class directory we sent you from 2017 and start calling your friends about our 60th Reunion in June! We hope to have a great turnout. Correspondent: Mary Ann Brennan Keyes keyesma1@gmail.com
1963 Retired newspaper columnist Joe Gergen P’10, emails from Lido Beach about nostalgia: sharing a third-floor dorm, the fire escape balcony, at “hotbox” St. Joseph’s Hall, with John Casey. Joe extolls John’s remarkable freshman “earned” selection, only underclassman BC team on the “College Bowl” TV quiz show. John’s answering barrage was a golden highlight. He excelled in graduate math at Michigan and Brown University. He was a founding member of the Northeastern University computer science department and a professor for the better part of 40 years. • Joe DuBois passed away December 2019 after bravely facing Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia effects. Joe was a McLean, Virginia, resident since 1970. He obtained a master’s from BC in 1965, a PhD in mathematics from Lehigh University in 1968. He had a 34-year accomplished career at the U.S. Department of Labor within the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and retired in 2009 as director in the office of statistical analysis. His impressive work wonderfully impacted workers’ safety nationwide. Forever an Eagle. No retirement recluse, world traveler. Left his wife, Joan, daughter Karen DuBois Kelly ’91, son Jim, and four grandchildren. • In Cape Cod last summer, Paul Hardiman; Carol and Jim Norton, P’90; Kay and John Golden; Mary and Bob Uek, P’89, ’90; Brian Sullivan, MA’65, P’87, ’90, ’93, ’01 and Oky Goldman; and Judy and Frank Carney, P’92 gathered. • In February 2020, Bill Murphy retired from a 50-year legal
career. He was a partner at Parker Coulter Daley & White, and later Curtin Murphy & O’Reilly P.C. Bill boasts two BC daughters: Dorothy ’89 and Deborah ’97. • Last summer, Ann Marie and Bob Reardon, MA’66, P’91, hosted their annual Martha’s Vineyard four-day weekend. Gathered were George Bourque; Wayne Budd, H’13, P’90; Frank Catapano, P’88; John Pellegrini; Eddie Spain, P’90; Gerry Ward, P’92, ’96, ’98. Bob has beaucoup praise for their deserving spouses. • Bill Haley is teaching electrical theory at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, Maryland. • On his 81st birthday, Frank Connolly surrendered his long-running, prodigious part-time vocation: alpine skiing instruction in Telluride, Colorado. He relocated near his dear Jackson, New Hampshire. Given BC’s relative proximity, he hopes to partake in alumni activities. Welcome back, Frank. • In October, Eagles returned to venerable Lewis Grille. On the agenda: pub grub, buzz, old times. Gathered were Frank Carney; John Cuneo; Dick Gould; Bob Grazado; Paul Hardiman; Mike Lydon, MBA ’70; Jim Norton, P ’90; Ed Rae; Bob Uek; Carl Young, JD’66. Correspondent: Ed Rae raebehan@verizon.net
NC 1963 This is the year, ladies! Most of us will turn 80 this year. In the spirit of what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger: celebrate! Call a Newton friend or friends and celebrate together. Celebrate being 80! Celebrate being able to! Say a prayer for those who went before. Viva 80! Viva LXXX! • Marj Dever Shea, Jo Egan Maguire, and Carol Donovan Levis have been putting their heads together for another group outing. The memories of the summer gathering linger: Wouldn’t another lunch be fun as well? Contact them with your ideas. • Meanwhile in Connecticut, Susie Moynihan Spain reports that their lunch group—Carol Singleton Dockery, Carolyn McInerney McGrath, Maureen Lambert Roxe, and Dorothy Daly Voris—plan to meet for lunch this fall at the Waccabuc Club. • Susan McAuliffe Brown posted a lovely series of winter photos of her house and garden on Facebook: beautiful, serene, quiet. They almost made me miss winter. • You may know that Carol Donovan Levis’s grandson, Will Levis, is the starting quarterback for the University of Kentucky. We watched most of his games: so exciting! Football has never been much my thing (I remember my roommate Anne Gallagher Southwood trying to educate me with a chart of Xs and Os, which basically baffled me) but it’s pretty darn exciting watching Carol’s grandson play. • Looking forward to the Naples report this winter: Who will be there? Will they have their annual lunch? More later. Correspondent: Colette Koechley McCarty colette.mccarty@gmail.com
1964 Michael Densmore lives in Punta Gorda, Florida, where he is “enjoying retirement and all that beautiful Southwest Florida has to offer: golf, beaches, softball, etc.” • Ron Martino writes: “All is well with Maureen and I in Newburyport. We are pleased to see one child of one of our three BC-graduated kids now at BC and potentially more looking to apply.” • Bill and Ruth Bennett made an eastern odyssey from their home in Arizona in September ’21. On their trip they were able to catch the football games vs. Colgate and Mizzou, and spend some time in Maine and Cape Cod visiting friends and classmates. • Friends and former students of Bill Collins are currently involved with endowing a scholarship in his name at BC High. If you would like to help push them over the goal, contact the development office at BC High. • John Martini writes, “Our family operates Martini Vineyards in the Finger Lakes region of New York. We use some of the grapes we grow to produce the wines under the Anthony Road Wine Co. label.” • Tom Mulvoy: “I told Sister Eleanor Frances, my seventh-grade teacher, that I wanted to work on a newspaper. Some 66 years later, I’m doing just that. After 35 years at the Boston Globe, from which I retired as managing editor in 2000, and six years running a journalism seminar at the Heights, I took on a new job as a three-daya-week associate editor with the Dorchester Reporter, a weekly from my boyhood neighborhood. • Stephen Curley sent this note: “John (Jack) T. Shea, my freshman roommate and lifelong best friend, passed away peacefully in December 2020.” • Bill Cormier: “After nearly 30 years leading a large local real estate company, I and a business partner formed Hourihane, Cormier & Associates in 1998 in my hometown of Rochester, New Hampshire. My wife, Cally, and I live on Great Bay and are finally getting back to visiting our children Monique ’90, a corporate General Counsel in Atlanta and Billy ’92, a highyield bond salesman with JP Morgan in London. • Ann Carty-Thrailkill retired from the Palo Alto VA hospital as a nurse practitioner. She returned to Boston in early May 2021 for the funeral of her younger brother, who died of cancer. Her daughter, who graduated from BC in 1989, lives in Boston and works for Wellington Co. Her son lives in Chicago, and is a chemist and patent attorney for a pharmaceutical company. Ann’s grandson is a Harvard grad who lives in New York and works on Wall Street; her granddaughter is a thirdgeneration BC grad who also works on Wall Street. • Milly and Fred Dunfey have moved from Tucson, Arizona, to Westborough to live at Del Webb Chauncy Lake. “We both have played pickleball all over the country, winning a couple of national tournaments along the way. We moved to be closer to family after nine years in Tucson.” • Jim Spillane is back in Indonesia at the Jesuit university in Yogyakarta, where he has been teaching three courses most semesters: business ethics, professional ethics, and
international economics. • The cover of the Summer 2021 edition of Boston College Magazine featured a letter from Arthur Doyle when he was director of admissions for BC. The letter in question welcomes the first woman admitted to A&S. Arthur was also known as the first director to reject an applicant from BC High (which caused great consternation at the Jesuit residence at BC High). • John Moynihan has stepped down from the role of class correspondent, and the Alumni Association thanks him for sharing news on behalf of the class of 1964. Please send any future news to classnotes@bc.edu. Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
NC 1964 My big news is the birth of my granddaughter, Eliza Lamb Caviness, on July 2, 2021, to my daughter, Alexis, and her wife, Celeste. Eliza’s sisters are enthralled, which will probably last until Eliza decides to assert herself. So, add in my grandson in California, I now have four grandchildren, ages seven and under. I may be too old for this. • Sue Roy Patten said that since she and Chuck moved to Fort Myers, she has become involved with the Florida Repertory Theatre. Her passionate interest is in the youth program. This year they’re doing Macbeth and Sue is the show sponsor. From Sue: “I had a wonderful Shakespearean education in high school and at Newton and am looking forward to getting involved. I’ll tread carefully and try to dress in a manner the teens will find OK but appropriate to a 79-year-old!” • After receiving her master’s in social work from BC in 1966, Maureen (Reenie) Davis was a high school social worker in Simsbury, Connecticut, for 35 years, retiring in 2011. She now lives in Harwichport, Cape Cod. Her seventh grandchild was born in May 2021 and Reenie said, “Who would have thought at 78 I would be a grandmother again?!” Her granddaughter, Hailey Davis, writes music singles available on YouTube and is also helping create a more sustainable environment. She launched the “Reformation Program” with a Boston retail brand, 1987 Active, focused on recycling past clothing collections. • Katy Withers Higgins and husband, John, live in a life-plan community in Washington, D.C. John is the commissioner of their advisory neighborhood council and the family now refers to him as the “commish.” It’s a nonpolitical, voluntary position that works on issues such as schools, racism, transportation, and affordable housing. Their older son lives and works in Brussels. Their younger son and family live less than a mile from Katy and John. • Thanks to all for getting in touch. After so much isolation, connecting feels wonderful. Correspondent: Priscilla Weinlandt Lamb priscillawlamb@gmail.com
1965 Kathy Hogan took care of the records of this class in the School of Education. She also attended the Evening College, as did many BC secretaries, and Kathy worked on
The Heights. After she left BC, she went back to college at Bridgewater State, found her creativity, graduated with honors, and has never looked back. Kathy loves teaching and ended up teaching ESL to adults for 10 years. She also started the Reverend Maurice V. Dullea, S.J. ’17 Scholarship Fund in 1996 (her uncle was the AD from 1940 to 1957), and this is the 20th year it’s been awarded. This led Kathy to seeing the connection between sports and physics. Her blog is sportscience-kathy.blogspot.com. • After 30 years living in Cape Coral, Florida, David Skehan and his wife, JoAnne, have moved and purchased a new home in Ormond Beach, Florida. David and JoAnne celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary and his semi-retirement after 35 years of leading his company, Skehan & Associates, Inc. 2021 also marked the death of an era with the passing of David’s older brother, Thomas F. Skehan ’54, who lived in York, Penn., had seven children, 40 grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren. Tom was 88. David and his two brothers, Tom and John J. Skehan ’51, were the first in their Brighton-based family to attend Boston College. • The South Dakota Historical Society Press has published Warren “Sandy” Barnard’s 17th book, George Armstrong Custer: A Military Life, which is a biography of the Civil War and Indian wars officer. In addition, he and his wife, Betty, celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary in late July. • A special thankyou to Ed Lonergan, who orchestrated the 60th reunion of our class at Matignon High School. It was a great event. Since so many of the Class of ’61 went on to Boston College, we had an enjoyable time renewing both Matignon and Boston College friendships. We remembered our deceased Matignon/BC classmates: Jim Sullivan, Eleanor Thornton Sullivan, and Rosemary Thomas MacKinnon. Correspondent: Patricia McNulty Harte patriciaharte@me.com
NC 1965 Hello, Newton friends. I am updating my mailing list, so please take a minute to send your latest email address to me at the below address. • Pat Cecil Bikai transferred in her sophomore year but remembers with fondness her roommates: Rosa Aparicio, Marti Schikel Imbraham, and Chiyoko Aikawah. Pat and her husband, Pierre, visited Japan just before the pandemic and, with Marti’s help, were able to enjoy a wonderful visit with Chiyoko. Upon their return, Pat continued on her archeology projects and recently published a book, Petra: The North Ridge about the extensive excavation at the World Heritage Site. • MaryLou Comerford Murphy enjoyed a family reunion in Hyannis Port, during the summer. Those present included her three grandchildren Andrew, Aidan, and Maggie, who were named for their greatgrandparents. • Angie McDonnell Larimer and husband, Tom, moved to a retirement community at the same time that Tom was hospitalized with congestive heart failure. Two weeks later, Angie fell and shattered 57
her shoulder. All is well now. Tom has recovered and Angie has a new shoulder! • Nancy Cuniff Cole is selling her big home that she converted to a B&B. Nancy will miss the fun but not the work. • Your writer enjoyed a busy summer reuniting with friends and family. She spent three weeks in Denver and Kauai with son Mike ’90 and his family in June and July. In August, 23 members of the extended Mason family enjoyed a week in Georgia. • Big news! Save the dates June 3–5 for a long-awaited reunion. Watch your mailbox for details. Please send your email address. Be happy! Correspondent: Linda Mason Crimmins mason65@me.com
1966 Bonnie Gorman wrote in, “I have been busy saving the world from COVID by volunteering at a COVID vaccine clinic we set up in Quincy for the Metro Boston area. Also working hard on advocating for a single-payer universal healthcare system here in the U.S. just like the rest of the developed world!” • Sadly, Christopher Mungovan passed away on March 16, 2021. He is survived by his spouse of 49 years, Marilyn Mungovan; their two children, Margo and Reed; his brother, John; and grandchildren. Chris was commissioned an Army lieutenant through the ROTC program at BC. He went on to serve with the 1st Infantry Division (the storied Big Red One) in Vietnam during 1967–1968. • Joseph Meehan added, “Just enjoying general life in High Rise in Fort Lee, New Jersey. My wife and I both hail from New Jersey, Diane from Fort Lee, I’m from Maplewood. We enjoy dining out with friends both new and old and occasional trips to the shore or Poconos. Very proud of my four grandsons. Two started kindergarten in September; Alrik Meehan in Westchester, New York, and James Whalen in Montclair, New Jersey (his mother, Meghan Meehan, is BC 2000!). Glad to see BC football on TV so often this fall. Been in touch with PD, a.k.a. Paul Delaney, in Florida.” Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
NC 1966 Our class held a wonderful mini-reunion on Zoom in October with 34 classmates in attendance. Many thanks to Sandra Puerini Del Sesto who did a masterful job pulling it all together. We had small discussion groups on meaningful topics, several instant polls (48% attend Catholic Mass regularly and 33% do not attend any church services at all), a report on our fundraising efforts for the Caroline Putnam Fund, and more! Stay tuned for communications on our actual, in-person, 55+1 reunion June 3–5, 2022. Because of COVID delays, this reunion will include members of 60% of the Newton classes. If you had friends in the Classes of 1965 and 1967 you may see them on campus as well! • Several members of our class have a regularly scheduled video call with Martha Roughan, RSCJ, 58
who is living with dementia. If you’d like to brighten Martha’s day with a greeting card, you can send it to her at Teresian House, 200 Washington Avenue Extension, Albany, NY, 12203. • Sandra Puerini Del Sesto reports that she is still working at her craft (part-time). During COVID she was asked to design and deliver many virtual trainings nationally in behavioral health planning and ethics, which she enjoyed doing. She also serves on several state and national boards and is mentoring new people to fill those roles. • Ros Moore and her husband, Michael St. Clair, moved to Lasell Village (an educational retirement community) in Newton this past August. Ros enjoys taking classes, swimming in the pool, and chauffeuring one of her granddaughters on a weekly basis. She also belongs to two book clubs and arranges flowers for the complex. Her younger son, Travis, married his husband during the pandemic in an outdoor ceremony on Long Island, with eight people in attendance. • Condolences are offered to Sheila McIntyre Barry, whose husband, Jim Barry ’66, died on August 8 after a long, courageous battle with Parkinson’s. He held an MBA from Suffolk and a doctorate from Northeastern, and was a popular coach and educator at Cape Cod Community College and later at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he taught leadership and ethics and took their hockey team to two national championship tournaments. Sheila and Jim were married for 54 years and raised five children—three of whom were adopted from Bangladesh, India, and the Dominican Republic, respectively. Correspondent: Catherine Beyer Hurst catherine.b.hurst@gmail.com
1967 55th Reunion June 2022
Peter Lincoln has been elected chairman of the board of the Liberty Bay Credit Union in Braintree. He also became a grandfather for the first time with the birth of Bodie Samuel Lincoln to Peter’s son, Jonathan, and daughter-in-law, Courtney. • Mark Branon plans to spend this winter in Hawaii with his two youngest granddaughters and their parents, as he was unable to do so last year due to COVID. Mark has eight grandkids in total. • Jerry Levinson, an economics major in CSOM, passed away in September. Jerry had a long battle with multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. Jerry never let his disabilities define him or slow him down. After many years in San Diego, he and his wife, Dorothy, returned to New Jersey to retire and be near family. The class extends its condolences to Dorothy, his sons Keith, Michael, and Ryan, and to Sasha, his golden retriever. • Richard Moran writes that after leaving BC (A&S chemistry major) and Milton, he went to Buffalo, New York, to pursue a PhD in pharmacology and biochemistry at SUNY Buffalo and Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Then on to Madison, Wisc., for postdoctoral at McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. Next up was USC as a professor in the
department of biochemistry and molecular biology. Richard then came back east to the Massey Cancer Institute in Richmond, Virginia, as associate director for research. He worked at Massey for the next 24 years. He retired in 2015 and moved back to the Boston area, settling in Marshfield. He is the father of four: Tim, Terry, Erin, and Keith, all of whom have advanced degrees in engineering or biology. Richard is married to a lovely lady from Zimbabwe who is also a retired professor of molecular biology and founding member of the field of epigenetics. • Bill “Blake” Murray, who we mentioned in our last column, passed away suddenly in Rye, New York. Blake was an economics major and in a second career, taught in both the U.S. and China. He was Brooklyn-born, an Army veteran, served in Vietnam, and was awarded the Bronze Star. Attending services from the Class of ’67 were Fred Faherty, Mike Ford, Rob Wilde, Bill Kitley, Joe Kiely, Peter Canning, Tom Walsh, Joe Alves, Pat Hogan, Ralph DeSena, Pris Tessier DeSena, Doug Miller, Ken McDonald, Bill Zak, and John Kelleher. The class extends its condolences to Blake’s wife, Maurine, daughters Courtney Storz (Erik) and Brooke Murphy (Charles), and seven grandchildren. • Mike Equi has died. Throughout his lifetime, Mike battled Friedreich’s ataxia, a rare progressive degenerative movement disorder that ultimately robbed him of his mobility and his primary career (dentistry), but never sapped his good humor, intellectual curiosity, or faith. Mike earned his DDS from Columbia and was a Navy veteran. He was predeceased by his beloved Martha so we extend the class’s condolences to his children and family. • Looking forward to our 55th Reunion. Stay tuned! Correspondents: Charles and Mary-Anne Benedict chasbenedict@aol.com
NC 1967 55th Reunion June 2022
Life has challenges: Last report in October noted that Mary Lou Hinchey Clemons decided to return to New England from Michigan after 10 years to be closer to family and friends. Now, she reports happily making that transition to senior living in Exeter, New Hampshire, although she misses her son and grandson. • A more challenging report came from Denise Hern Wood, who’s recuperating from a shattered hip suffered last July. Her doctors say it will take a year to heal! • On a sad note, I heard from Marianne Bracken O’Neil that Randi Slaatten Sack passed away on October 2, 2021, in her hometown of Rye, New York. There’s a great story of her life experiences in her obituary at grahamfuneralhomerye. com. She was ill for close to 10 years but previously had taught for 20 years. She then enjoyed a second home in Boston for another 20 years where she and husband, Joe, did real estate business and cheered on “their” Red Sox. She and Joe had three children and nine grands. • Also, in early
October news of the unexpected passing of Arnie Reisman, husband of Paula Lyons, surfaced. Online searching found a wonderful tribute in the Martha’s Vineyard Times extolling his wonderful wit and extensive writing. As a couple they enjoyed traveling frequently and widely. Recent events curbed some of that, much to their dismay. Our condolences to both families. • Unfortunately, I also have to add my own personal sad note. My husband, Bill, passed away in October after many months fighting cancer. He is at peace now after a full life—53 years married to me and two years cruising the Newton campus as a young Naval officer stationed in Boston. Over the years, he traveled through all 50 states and across five continents, courtesy of his Naval career and insurance-business educational responsibilities. (Yes, I have made all 50 states; he made sure.) • For now, just savor your wonderful memories from back at Newton, nearly 55 years ago— many which changed your lives forever. Remember in your thoughts and prayers those whose lives are still being challenged. If you want a walk down memory lane now, try Googling “885ncsh.org”, a website created by Pat Wolf NC’68, with stories about the wonderful ladies who broadened our minds as our teachers and friends. You can share your own memories there, too. Correspondent: M. Adrienne Tarr Free 3627 Great Laurel Lane, Fairfax, VA 22033-1212 703-709-0896; thefrees@cox.net
1968 Winter greetings from warm and sunny California. • Bob Alcarez reports that for many years fellow classmates have been meeting monthly for breakfast in Braintree. The group includes Norm Cohen, Richard Smith, John Mullaney, John Mulholland, Phil Piscatore, and John McColgan. • Pradeep Nijhawan and his wife, Deb, have permanently retired to Sun City Center, Florida, after having lived for fifty years in Kokomo, Indiana. They have enjoyed connecting with fellow Eagles who were also members of the BC International Club. • Congratulations to Dr. John Trapani, emeritus professor of philosophy at Walsh College in North Canton, Ohio, who has added to his many laurels in academia by receiving the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award. He continues his professional trumpet playing in the 17-piece John Trapani Big Band. • Sadly, Bob Kelley reports the tragic loss of his son Bryan Kelley ’01. A proud Eagle alum, young Bryan’s favorite BC memory was the awesome Flutie-to-Phelan TD pass. He could recite verbatim the Dan Davis radio call of the play. May Bryan soar like an Eagle on eagles’ wings. • Several classmates, including Frank Vidmar and Paul Deschenes, reported on the loss of their friend, Bob Gass. Bob was a remarkable gift to our world, serving the Randolph, community for 40 years as town meeting member and school committee member for 25 years. He coached Little League for over thirty years and founded Randolph Youth Basketball. The Randolph Middle School gymnasium was named in his honor. Both
his public and personal life were dedicated to education and youth, particularly as an advocate for those with special needs. Proud Eagles Frank Vidmar and Bob held BC basketball season tickets together for 40 years. Additionally, Bob and his son, Michael ’98, held BC football season tickets. Bob, with his wonderful sense of humor, was known as being compassionate, kind, and caring to all, devoted to his family, friends, and town. Flags in Randolph were flown at half-mast for a week after his passing. On July 28th, more than 200 people gathered for his public memorial. To his beloved wife, Diane; their children Jon, Michael, and Callie; and his grandchildren, we offer our deepest sympathy for this true man for others. • Take care and be kind to yourselves, my friends. Go, Eagles! Correspondent: Judith Anderson Day jnjday@aol.com
NC 1968 Kudos to Pat Wolf for developing a Newton College website: 885ncsh.org. Take a look at the impressive job Pat has done on this site, which includes yearbooks and issues of the school newspaper, among other items. • Barry Noone Remley writes, “Life is good—wonderful, especially now that we can spend time maskless with all the people we love.” • Barry and Jeannie Sullivan celebrated their March birthdays with a visit at Ellen Mooney Mello’s Vero Beach home and then returned the favor while hosting and celebrating Ellen’s June birthday on the Cape. Barry divides her time between a home in Silver Springs, Maryland, and a newly constructed cottage 75 miles outside of D.C. on a property on the Shenandoah River. Barry moved her award-winning architectural furnishings company, Salvations, to the new location and is lucky to have her son as a neighbor. In addition to owning her own company, Barry finds time to play an excellent game of tennis and do unique sketches of the places she visits. She credits her very neat penmanship to a calligraphy class she took senior year at Newton taught by none other than fellow classmate Jeanne Daley. • Jeannie Sullivan is in the process of building a new home in Rhode Island. She recently took two weeks off from her job as manager of a high-end Newport restaurant to care for Ellen, who had open heart surgery in late September. Ellen is back in her Greenwich home recuperating and very grateful for all that Jeannie did to help her on the road to recovery. • Carol Duane Olson and her husband, Bob, recently had a 200-years celebration—50 years of marriage plus 75.5 and 74.5 years of age. The festivities at their Snowmass Village, Colorado, home included many family and friends. In the six-degreesof-separation category, it should be noted that back in the 1980s, Carol was the above-mentioned Ellen’s law professor at Pace University. May you all be in good health and able to share and celebrate these special days with those near and dear to you. Correspondent: Jane Sullivan Burke janeburke17@gmail.com
1969 Jim Malone and wife Alice were blessed to have spent their 32nd consecutive summer on Nantucket in 2021. This summer was highlighted by Jim’s 9th hole-in-one in June, and their daughter Katie’s marriage to James Gallen on October 9. The Malones returned to their home in Charlottesville in late October. • Neil Maher reported that as a chemistry major at BC, it took decades for him to appreciate the literature, philosophy, and history courses that were part of the A&S curriculum. After much stalling, Neil has now enrolled in a humanities program at Hood College. His first couple of courses brought him back to Massachusetts, looking at what led to the Salem Witch Trials and also to an examination of the cultures of some of the world’s great cities. • Rick Carroll reported that on October 2, 2021, he and classmates Bob Budic, Pat Daly, Kathy Daly, Kevin McGuire, Roger Mooney, Bart Nichols, Bill O’Dowd, and Henry Stamm attended a memorial service for their good friend Gene Buehler, a former trustee of the University. The service, organized by Gene’s wife, Deborah, was held at the Harrington Athletics Village at Boston College. • Mike Morrissey indicated that he is not ready for retirement yet as he is having too much fun to stop now. Mike recently accepted the position of chairman of the board of Protective Life, a Fortune 500 provider of life insurance and annuities. • I hope all of you are doing well. Please take the time to write/email me and let me know what is new with you. Correspondent: James R. Littleton jim.littleton@gmail.com
NC 1969 Kathy O’Connell Peterson, a fellow Ohioan, wrote that like me she’s been on Zoom every Monday night with some of our classmates since spring 2020. She connects with Kathie McCarthy, Martha Verrier McCarthy, Kathy Bednarz McLoughlin, Jess Twaddle Packard, Marge McGah Scanlon, Alicia Silva Ritchie, Joanne Pozzo (who left after sophomore year), and sometimes Laurie Bryan! This camaraderie started freshman year in Stuart. There would be a mutiny if they didn’t meet every Monday! • Alicia Silva Ritchie reiterated the magic of Monday Zooms. She has ventured with family to their cabin in Minnesota, to San Diego to see friends, and to Denver to see grandchildren. She and Daniel have moved to an apartment with no stairs or gardens in a new neighborhood ready for exploration. • Teddy Thompson Helfrich sat down with a glass of Prosecco to read the BC Magazine and decided to write. After 43 years as a Spanish teacher/foreign language department chair at Brockton High School and an adjunct community college professor, she has retired. Remote learning convinced her. Sadly, her husband passed away seven years ago. She has three stepsons, a foster daughter, six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Teddy lives in 59
Hingham, and periodically sees Kathy O’Neill Jodka and Sheila Carroll Curtis. • As a retired pharmaceutical scientist, Dene Davis Ryan reports how proud she is of the people in her industry and how remarkable the accomplishments in vaccine development are! She was fortunate to spend time with family at her Jersey Shore home and hopes to get out and enjoy the world again and rebook trips to San Diego, a French river cruise, and a 50th wedding anniversary celebration in Florida. • When Pat East Allison comes from Houston to her Cape Cod home, she and Julie Lombardy Goulet and their husbands connect. Patt Smith Peterson and Chip visited the Goulets in Narragansett. All three couples met up for a dinner in Newport. Julie is looking forward to celebrating her 74th birthday with Judy Miller Cummins NC’70. They both celebrated their mutual 21st birthdays together! • Noreen Weaver Shawcross is heading to Bonita Springs, Florida, for most of the winter. She hopes to connect with Beth Cangemi Heller and Bea Cerrito Goldstein. She marvels how so many of us have stayed connected! • Ana Perez Camayd went to Maryland in January 2020 for the birth of grand-twins and stayed through the lockdown with her sweet “quaranteam.” Luckily, Zoom allowed her stay in touch with her boards: the Clipper Foundation (housing, youth, and foster care), Muñiz Academy (dual-language high school she helped found), and Conexion (mid-career leadership and mentoring). • Pat Connolly Henry drove from Delaware with a dear friend, who is challenged with cancer, to Vermont, so the friend could see her old neighbors, a group of very vibrant seniors! Aren’t we all? • Jill Hendrickson Daly has been to New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York to see family. • Pam DeLeo Delaney, Polly Glynn Kerrigan, and Bebee Carroll Linder all met up on Block Island. • Sue Davies Maurer visited the San Juan Islands. • Kathy Hartnagle Halayko has been to Hilton Head. • Susan Power Gallagher has a new granddaughter, Isabel “Izzy” Mary. • Paula Fisher Paterson has been to Jackson Hole, Nashville, and Chicago to visit sons. She has a new grandson, Matthew Alexander. He and his siblings and parents have moved to Russia for a while to be close to his mom’s family. • If you want to get away, check out “relaxing getaway St. Croix” on Airbnb. Winnie Loving would love to host someone from Newton. • A big thanks to all who wrote. As you see from my message above, Kathie McCarthy Zoomed every Monday night with her group of friends. I sadly tell you that she passed away from leukemia, having only been diagnosed two months before. Correspondent: Mary Gabel Costello mgc1029@aol.com
1970 Margaret Breunig retired in 2018 from being a school nurse for 30 years in two different districts. She went back to New Jersey City University for her master’s and a certification as a certified school nurse (CSN). • Bob Bouley, JD’73, writes, “Pleased 60
to report that Candace and I have retired to Daniel Island, South Carolina, and are enjoying our new life in a beautiful new setting. Our daughter, Brynn, lives and works in Charleston, and our son, Cole, who lives and works in NYC, has been able to spend time with us and take advantage of the two great golf courses that are part of our club. Enjoying our team’s success this year and proud of our coaches and players.” Correspondent: Dennis Razz Berry dennisj.berry@gmail.com
NC 1970 Congratulations to Andrea Moore Johnson, Brookline Commission for Women’s annual Woman of the Year! Andrea was honored for her work as co-founder and advisor to Women Thriving. This impressive nonprofit co-creates learning and leadership opportunities for women facing economic, social, and racial inequities. • Rita Houlihan, who sat in a fully vaccinated theater for the first time since early 2020, reports: “NYC Broadway and Off-Broadway shows are back! Just being there, seeing the marquee, the playbill, people waiting at the stage door, was a thrill. There’s nothing like live theater. I’m so grateful for the scientists whose research made COVID vaccines possible! By the way, the ‘turn off your cellphones’ announcement is now ‘Keep masks on at all times and turn off your cellphones!’ People were happy to be there and happy to comply!” • Kathy Sheehan observes: “Emerging from the COVID emergency is almost as confusing as going into it. Now we think going to the movies is brave. I decided the safest place to go is a nail salon; they were cleaning everything long before COVID. Live theatres here require proof of vaccination and a mask. When you purchase coffee, you can remove your mask only while sipping. Lesson learned: pulling the mask down, not up, is the most efficient way to do this. Our building’s chief engineer gave a tour explaining how reverse osmosis filters remove minerals, purifying our drinking water. A resident asked if this water was safe for plants. Plants have clearly taken on a new importance to us! I’ve only left Virginia twice—to go to New Jersey. New Jersey is the new Italy!” • Annie Impink Hall, who lost her sister, Mimi (and two years earlier, her brother, Ed), to metastatic melanoma, writes: “Never miss an opportunity to lather sunscreen on yourself or your loved ones! Gathering for my sister’s funeral in the midst of COVID strengthened my resolve to live every day filled with the confidence that God’s grace is with us. I’m blessed—my two daughters and five grandchildren live nearby, so we maintained a family pod during the height of the pandemic. Being with them, and watching my grandchildren’s resilience, made navigating COVID’s troubling waters a bit easier. Blessings and good health to all! Are we really 73 years old?!” Correspondent: Fran Dubrowski fdubrowski@gmail.com
1971 Diane Crowley shared, “In March 2020, I was furloughed from my job as a vascular access specialist, placing long-term IV catheters (PICCs and midlines) in nursinghome patients in New York State. A few months later, we were encouraged to return to work even though the risk remained high. Because of my age and the riskiness of the job, I chose to stay home but did not resign until August 2021. Last year gave me a new grandson, who lives close by, and a new puppy, a Bernedoodle. I also belong to a women’s breast cancer survivor dragon boat team, and we will be competing in New Zealand in 2023. I do miss nursing and I always will, but I also am enjoying new loves and new adventures in this next chapter of my life.” Correspondent: James R. Macho jmacho@mac.com
NC 1971 October 14, 2021, was a gorgeous day with a lingering summertime feel for our group of twenty NCSH ’71 graduates to celebrate 50 years since we had left our Newton Campus. JoAnne Kennedy was our gracious hostess at her New Canaan, Connecticut, home, welcoming folks from the Northeast with a few others sprinkled in. Blue hydrangea centerpieces and burgundy tablecloths were a reminder of our school colors (thanks to Mary Jo Dolliver Taddie’s keen long-term memory), along with the ribbons decorating the silver compacts engraved with “NCSH ’71”, which everyone received as a memento of the special occasion. A delicious catered buffet luncheon followed an hour-and-ahalf-long chat session, where the stories never ended, and everyone mingled freely, reminiscing about college life, Filene’s Basement, Tony’s Pizza, Villager and John Meyer clothing, apartments and roommates, meeting husbands, starting careers, raising children, traveling...the list goes on. I circulated taking notes, attempting to have something to write about each person. We are all active in so many ways. • Christine Moran keeps busy with strength training, attending concerts at Madison Square Garden, and taking trips that include snorkeling with Alice the whale shark. • Priscilla Cosgrove has been happily retired from a career in insurance for six-and-a-half years. • Beth Cooney Maher has retired from her nonprofit position, is enjoying time with her grandchildren, and looking forward to traveling more. • Jean McVoy stays active at the Outer Banks and just had a nice reunion on Martha’s Vineyard with her sister (NCSH ’68) and family. • Sharon Zailkas Lena is a semi-retired nurse and the proud mother of two active Army colonels: Rich, a brigade commander at Ft. Rucker, Alabama, and Chris, an orthopedic surgeon at Walter Reed. She also has two wonderful daughters-in-law and three beautiful granddaughters. • Marie Robey Wood is also semi-retired. She continues to write for Potomac Lifestyle, participates in three book clubs and Capital Speakers Club, and loves
spending time with her two grandchildren. • After beginning her professional life teaching philosophy, Mary Nelson found her niche in the IT field. She’s now happily retired and living in NYC. • Delly Markey Beekman is the mother of four children, a retired CEO of a nonprofit, and a traveler, who especially enjoys the Dolomites in Italy. • Jane Hudson splits her time between Old Saybrook, Conn., and St. Petersburg, Florida, where she is a docent at the St. Petersburg Museum of History. • Jane Maguire is a retired attorney, enjoying traveling the globe. • Another retiree is Kathy Morrison McShane, who is enjoying her six grandchildren and hoping to resume travel soon. • Jane Cavanaugh has retired from a career in social work and is active with her local school board in Deep River, Conn. To be continued next time. Correspondent: Melissa Robbins melissarobbins49@gmail.com
1972 50th Reunion June 2022
Time flies! This is already my last chance to promote our class’s 50th Reunion in this column. I hope to see you there. • Meanwhile, I heard from several classmates who are retired from successful careers as corporate executives. Roger Egan wrote from his home in Sea Girt, New Jersey, that he’s a member of several boards and that his grown children are scattered from Washington, D.C., to Savannah to Barcelona. The latter is the home of his two grandchildren. • Dick Mucci, who’s the retired CEO of New York Life, reported that he, too, is on several boards and that he has residences both in Boston and on Cape Cod. • Fred Flynn sent his annual message about the golf marathon that he and his son, Matt ’09, play to raise funds for Fred’s charity. This year, they played 165 holes in one day! The charity is the Susan D. Flynn Oncology Nursing Foundation. • The much-traveled Tom Herlehy wrote that he has retired to St. Petersburg, Florida. He moved from Alexandria, Virginia, the site of his last corporate job, with Land O’Lakes Butter. During his working career, Tom lived in Ukraine, in five African countries, and on the island of Madagascar. • Pete Accinno reported that he and his wife, Pat Sherbondy Accinno, have moved back to their home in New Canaan, Conn., after spending much of 2020 on Martha’s Vineyard. • Paul Sinclair wrote that he has moved from Kansas City to the Kingston, New York, area. He still practices law in New York after 46 years of having done so in Kansas City. He and his wife have four grown children, who have a total of six degrees from Georgetown. • My condolences to the family of Dr. Tim Lechmaier, who practiced medicine in Madison, Wisc. Tim was renowned as the best intramural basketball player on campus during our student days. • That’s all my news about our class, but I do have some about a member of the Class of ’73, Tom Anstett. Tom was a three-year
letter-winner in basketball (and starting center in 1972–73). Since then, he’s had a 40-year-long career as a high school teacher-coach in suburban Chicago and has written two books (Victory Is in the Details and Stop Whining, Start Winning), both aimed primarily at his fellow coaches. Tom is retired in Green Bay, Wisc. Correspondent: Lawrence Edgar ledgar72@gmail.com
NC 1972 50th Reunion June 2022
Congratulations to Jane Donovan de Vries and Lloyd on the birth of their first grandson, Ari James de Vries, born on June 30, 2021. The parents are their son Karl and daughter-in-law Jane. • Also, congratulations to Suzy Berry Slattery, who just retired after a 31-year career in teaching. Suzy checked on our 50th reunion dates, as she plans on taking a granddaughter to Europe next spring and did not want those dates to conflict. Since her brother lives in Washington, D.C., and she retired, Suzy will be coming here to see Margot Dineen Wilson, Lisa Kirby Greissing, and me. • A classmate who lives in Mississippi reports that last summer’s Hurricane Ida only caused scattered tree limbs in her area. • For our 50th reunion, please remember to update our contact information at Boston College. • If anyone needs a Study of Western Culture reading list, I will be happy to send that to you. In fact, I started re-reading a few of those books. • Please take care and send me lots of Newton news for our column. Correspondent: Nancy Brouillard McKenzie mckenzie20817@comcast.net
1973 Bob Miecuna recently retired from the historic Yonkers Raceway Track at Empire City Casino after a 35-year career as the official race secretary at the track. Congratulations to Bob as he enters his retirement and celebrates his remarkable career! • Edwin “Ned” Moore wrote with some life updates: “Connecticut Yankee through and through. Live at the shore of Long Island Sound. I was shamed into lots of healthy activities, long walks along the water, biking, and golf (someday I will master the game). Happily married to Donna for nearly 45 years. We are the proud parents of three wonderful children, all BC grads and spread out around the country. We have eight grandchildren, one a hockey fanatic who we see at BC, and one who is crazy about football and may give the Eagles a look if Nick Saban doesn’t find him first. Easy, guys, they are only 10 years old. Good luck to the Eagles, and thanks for everything.” • Michael O’Keefe added, “In answer to the question posed, I did not change jobs. In fact, at the end of this term, I will have been in my office for 40 years. Twenty years as an assistant district attorney, and 20 years as the district attorney of the Cape and Islands. It’s been
a great ride. All the best to the Class of ’73.” • Norene Buczynski Freeman is very happy to announce that her first children’s book, Do You Know How Wonderful You Are?, is now for sale on Amazon. After her first grandchild was born, she was inspired to write the 38-page rhyming and lushly illustrated book to celebrate the goodness and precious qualities all children possess. Norene believes that every child is holy and needs to know it. She hopes this book helps kids from all backgrounds realize that “no matter what bad may have happened to you or what bad you might have done, too, there is a light inside that no one can harm, no matter their might!” Correspondent: Patricia DiPillo perseus813@aol.com
NC 1973 Hi everyone. Mimi and I heard from Alice Bene Kociemba this summer. She was excited to share the news of a poetry anthology that she co-edited, From the Farther Shore: Discovering Cape Cod and the Islands through Poetry, released by Bass River Press. The collection of 118 poems travels throughout the Cape, Elizabeth Island, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket, focusing on famous landmarks and people, traditional industries, and the natural beauty, all of which have made the region a world-renowned destination. The poets range from the well-known and established to those who are just starting in their promising careers. “Many of my classmates have fond memories of the Cape and Islands, and the book is a way to savor those experiences again.” The book is available at independent bookstores that can order it online or through the Cultural Center of Cape Cod’s Bass River Press. • Kate Novak Vick reported that during the fall, she and classmates Anne Rafferty Crowley, Kathie Sullivan Murray, Joan Stuckey Mitchell, Liz Regan, as well as Susan Badwey NC’74 met at Joan and Tom Mitchell’s house on Deep Creek Lake in western Maryland. The group tries to rendezvous once a year; however, COVID-19 kept them apart in 2020 so this visit was especially wonderful. Aside from seeing good friends and enjoying amazing food and drinks provided by the hosts, they made a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and some of his other designs in western Pennsylvania. • Rosemary Murphy Kitts related that she and her husband, Stephen, are living happily in Yardley, Penn. Their children are all grown and married. Emilie (a BC graduate) lives outside Denver with her husband and two little boys. Kathryn and her husband are now living in The Hague and relish their travels throughout Europe. Elizabeth and her husband just welcomed their first child in September. Her son, his wife, and their two daughters live in Brooklyn, where they enjoy a busy life. • Mimi Reiley Vilord celebrated her 70th birthday with her husband, Randy, in Hawaii. They visited Oahu and Maui and had a fabulous time. Their youngest daughter is expecting her third child, making this their 15th grandchild! Does she win the prize? • 61
Ken ’71 and I celebrated the marriage of our third daughter at the end of May. It was a wonderful outdoor (COVID-safe) wedding! Our entire family was able to take a vacation this summer on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, for the last week of August. • Email us anytime with news and we can post it in the next magazine. Take good care. Correspondent: Kathy Dennen Morris kathymorris513@gmail.com Correspondent: Mimi Reiley Vilord mimivi@optonline.net
1974 Thanks to all who took time to send updates. I wish everyone a happy and healthy new year! • I received a great note from Diane George, who is the twirling coach at Villanova. Many of us still appreciate how much the band and the twirlers added to the great atmosphere and fun of the football games. Diane was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when we were sophomores, and in October she was recognized by the Joslin Diabetes Center for her exemplary managing of the disease over these 50 years, through diet, exercise, and use of insulin. Interestingly, it was at Villanova where she first performed with the band and twirlers 50 years ago…time does fly! • Edward Sullivan and his husband, Bruce Backman, are living in Boston and have recently celebrated their 42nd anniversary. Congratulations! They were one of the first gay couples to legally marry in the state. Ed is happy to see some of the changes on campus, among them the presence of an official GLBT+ BC alumni/ student organization. • Mary Jane GilliganKimball thanked all the nurses who persevered throughout the pandemic. After 40 years in nursing, including 30 as a NP in geriatrics at the Manchester, New Hampshire, VA, Cookie retired in 2014. She and Ted moved to Lake Sunapee in 2016, where they enjoy spending time with their son, Tad, his wife, Megan, and their two grandsons. • Dennis McCleary sent an update on the 50th fall football reunion in Sarasota, which was postponed because of COVID. He reports that everyone “behaved,” and that all the stories of Tom Condon, Don Macek, Tom Marinelli, Gary Marangi, Pat Sgambati, and Jay Tully get better every year. What a great tradition. • More grandbaby news: Ed and Paula Fraser Donnelly have a new granddaughter, and Jim and I hope she will be able to play with our new granddaughter (baby number seven) at the beach next summer! Please stay well. Correspondent: Patricia McNabb Evans patricia.mcnabb.evans@gmail.com
NC 1974 Correspondent: Beth Docktor Nolan nolanschool@verizon.net
1975 Greetings, friends! A heartfelt thank-you to the BC Alumni Association for planning a 62
memorable 45th reunion filled with overflowing laughter and excitement. Our Reunion, in combination with other classes, began Friday evening under the tent adjacent to the McMullen Museum. The venue was ideal for reconnecting and reminiscing on treasured memories of our years at the Heights. Classmates enjoyed scrumptious food, a fabulous dessert bar, dancing to fine music, watching past ’75 videos and photos, and the sheer joy of being together. All of us attended at least one event during the October 15th weekend: Amaza Reid, Catherine Lind Finstein, Dennis Orr, Donna Matteodo, Dorothy Di Pesa, Frank Mastrocola, Gerard Kells, yours truly, Janet Horrigan, Jayne Mehne, Kathie Cantwell McCarthy, Kathleen Bannon Magee, Kevin Conway, Marc Melikian, Mark Riley, Michael Markey, Nancy McCleary, Paul Conroy, Paul Finstein, Richard Rigazio, Shawn Sheehy, Susan Murphy, Thomas Cannon, Thomas Kniffen, Vincent Quealy, William Fallon, and Steve Carroll. • Vinnie Quealy attended the Reunion events and enjoyed catching up with many longtime friends, was delighted to serve on our class Reunion gift committee, and always glad to find ways to remain connected to BC. The generosity of classmates continuing to support BC over the course of an especially challenging Reunion year was gratifying for him. Most recently, Vinnie has been active with the Boston College Ireland Business Council (BCIBC). The role of the BCIBC is to connect Boston-area business leaders and Irish business leaders to promote business expansion and investment between the two communities. • It was a pleasure for me to meet and chat with Gerard Kells and his wife, Kimberly ’76. They enjoyed Reunion weekend with close friends, Kevin and Beth Worgul (both ’76), Kevin Conway, and Mike Markey and his wife, Marie. Gerry was amazed at the many changes that have taken place on campus and seeing many of the beautiful new buildings. They all laughed at the fact that some of the Mods are still there! • Jack Zarkauskas graduated in ’75 with a BS in accounting and MBA in ’87. He worked for 40 years in financial services in Boston and retired from State Street as a risk manager in 2016. He is currently teaching business courses at Quincy College and looks forward to the diminishing of the pandemic to resume travel. • Dolly Di Pesa has been appointed to the Quincy College board of governors. She will serve on the program, finance and facilities, strategic planning, community advisory, and the compliance NECHE committees. • I look forward to hearing from you and want to extend my best wishes for a happy, healthy, and blessed 2022. Correspondent: Hellas M. Assad hellasdamas@hotmail.com
NC 1975 So happy to usher in 2022 with a wonderful update from Deborah Melino-Wender. “2020 was an incredible year: retirement, leaving our beloved Newport, Rhode Island, and family and friends for a cross-country move to San Diego at the height of the
pandemic, our first grandchild (Aaron, now 18 months), and so much more! We are thrilled to be so much closer to our kids and their families.” Daughter, Tori, and her husband, Anthony, live in L.A., close enough for frequent visits. Taylor and wife, Kim, and little Aaron live across the street in downtown San Diego, and they take care of Aaron two days a week. Alex and wife, Olga, live nearby in the South Park neighborhood, too! “We laugh that we’ve spent more time with them in the last year than in the previous 10! We have been each other’s ‘pod’ during the pandemic. So very grateful!” They are settling in and embracing all that California has to offer: dog beaches, wonderful farmers markets with year-round fresh produce, and the beautiful weather, with road trips to Big Sur, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, and Joshua Tree. As Deb said, “The changes in landscape here are incredible and the desert is beautiful!” She is also reconnecting with some old activities, getting back into teaching yoga and starting to play the violin again. “I wish I could hand out earplugs to my neighbors!” They try to stay physically active and hope that their recent good health continues. She’s looking forward to more new adventures and would love to hear from any Newton Dollies who may come out her way! • Helen Fox-O’Brien and husband Dana are great and staying healthy in Connecticut. They had the pleasure of hosting their NYC COVID-refugee daughter and her then boyfriend, now husband, for 15 months! They were married on a beautiful day in September and ended up relocating down the street in Riverside. “We are thrilled and blessed!” Like many, Helen has been working from home but getting ready to go back into the office this February. Two recent “escape from Zoom prison” trips to Boston were a welcome change of scenery. She hopes to celebrate with many of us at our upcoming Reunion, June 3–5! Thanks for all your news and continuing to stay in touch. Correspondent: Karen Foley Freeman karenfoleyfreeman@gmail.com
1976 Our Reunion year (45th!) came in very trying times, with predictable adverse effects. Many classmates will return at their leisure given the tenor of the times. Change is in the air, as always on the Heights. The Flynn RecPlex is gone and there is a needed Fish Field House to augment athletics. The women’s lacrosse team is the reigning national champion! What a great achievement! Saturday, September 11 was the 20th anniversary of the murderous terrorist attacks on our nation and way of life. It was moving to see it remembered at football games across the land, and right to recall that it took two of our classmates’ lives. Danielle Delie was remembered by many, and her plaque at the campus Labyrinth Memorial was visited for thoughts and prayers. On Long Island, New York, a memorial service for Eddie Papa was hosted by his widow, Patti, and their four daughters, celebrating all facets
of Eddie’s too-short life. One could hear the music across the miles, and see Ed’s radiant smile once again. • The aging process has affected many of us, so take a moment and spare a prayer for those in need. This writer greatly appreciated the company of Kathy Murphy, Beth Hurley, and Pola (Papetti) Buckley in such a time of need! Congratulations to all our retirees and those who have become grandparents! Amazing! • Dr. Walter and Pat O’Hara Rok celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary last June after renewing their vows in Cana, Israel. Pat served as a nurse at Seekonk High School for many years and retired last summer. Dr. Walt is still a pediatrician in Fall River, with an emphasis on medical management. Fun time is spent on their motorboat and with their first grandchild in the D.C. area. Walt and Pat volunteered for the Moderna COVID vaccine trial in autumn 2020. Walt and Pat continue to “Rok” on in Barrington, Rhode Island. • Wishing all a healthy and happy winter and spring and deliverance from these trying times. God bless. Correspondent: Gerald B. Shea gerbs54@hotmail.com
1977 45th Reunion June 2022
Christine K. Barrett’s first granddaughter, Audrey Root, who was reluctant to enter this world, was born to her eldest daughter, Antonia, who was so sick that the family didn’t even say the word “baby” until she was seven months pregnant. When Audrey was born, they didn’t know her gender until one hour after the birth! Very funny! Christine’s son, James, married Bronte Butler, at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve in December 2019. James is a top-20 recruiter for Total Quality Logistics (supply chain trucking nationally), and Bronte is with the City of Las Vegas, collecting traffic fines. Christine’s younger daughter, Nora, after five years in Las Vegas, is progressing from EMT to a nationally licensed paramedic. She completed a year working for both Vanderbilt Medical Center and now Sumner County as a first responder/paramedic. Christine and her husband, Bill, continue in semi-retirement; she administering the state high school equivalency exams, and Bill’s working as a golf marshal. She gives a shout-out to her classmates for our 45th reunion coming soon. • Eileen Moran read Lou Chrostowski’s update in the prior edition of the BC Magazine, prompting her and Mark Fortunato to visit Lou while on vacation in South County, Rhode Island. Eileen and Mark live in Boston and their children, Michael and Katie, live nearby with their spouses and two grandchildren. Eileen went back to BC for a master’s in pastoral ministry (STM ’06) and enjoyed working as a retreat director and hospital chaplain. Eileen and Mark are both retired, and, while biking the rail trails of New England kept them sane during the pandemic, they look forward to volunteer opportunities and traveling adventures. •
In September 2021, Jeffry Bauer celebrated 38 years as a leadership volunteer for the American Red Cross. Jeffry also celebrated one year as the regional chief operating officer for the American Red Cross, Michigan region. Thank you for your volunteering services, Jeffry! God bless the world and may all good things find the path to your door. Correspondent: Nicholas Kydes nicholaskydes@yahoo.com
1978 Happy winter of 2022 everybody! Here’s the scoop. Marybeth (Tallarida) Machesney, whose husband, Michael Machesney ’77, with whom I worked at the Eagle’s Nest, said that’s also where she met him, and the rest is history; they celebrated their 43rd wedding anniversary in 2021. Between jobs and grad school (Texas A&M for Michael), they’ve lived in five different states. Moving was hard, she wrote, but it provided a way to see parts of the country and how others lived that they never would have experienced if not for the moves. Their three grown children live in New York City, Austin, and outside Madison, Wisc. Marybeth and Michael live north of Milwaukee, not far from their youngest who lives with her husband and their first grandchild, Beckett. Marybeth said a true silver lining to COVID was getting to see all three of her adult children for most of the pandemic. • Kathleen Norris is enjoying life as emeritus professor of educational leadership while still teaching doctoral-level research methods and dissertation courses at Plymouth State University and masterlevel leadership courses at Granite State College in New Hampshire. She’s also having a great time returning to her roots as an English teacher by teaching ESL to young Chinese students for VIPKID and dividing her time between New Hampshire and Florida. • Jean Canty Schwartz sent me a touching missive about her father and fellow BC graduate, James Michael Canty. He was a member of the Class of ’43 but actually graduated early with a BS in physics in 1942. After returning from World War II as a U.S. Naval officer, he continued his service to our country as a special agent in the FBI for 35 years. Her dad celebrated his 100th birthday on October 1, 2021. • Phil Dorsey wanted me to let classmates know Bill “Whitey” Felton passed away in early 2020. Attending Whitey’s memorial service in his beloved Berkshires were classmates and fellow 1914 Beacon Street/Store 24 roommates. • Finally, Rich Scheller had neck surgery just days after Eddie O’Sullivan’s son’s wedding in June 2021. The following is what he sent to several of his New Jersey classmates: “I wanted to talk about this friendship we have all had for the last 45 years. It is a beautiful thing and I think we sometimes take it for granted. What we have I am told happens rarely, that 25-plus college friends stay so close over the years sharing good times and rough times. For myself, I feel blessed to be part of the group, never more than this past week. Unless you have been in a similar situation as me, you cannot
imagine how all the kind words gave me strength and resolve, and increased my determination to get better. I will add one last thought: After talking to Fr. Keenan, I think the friendships we have are centered around love; we all love each other.” Indeed! Correspondent: Julie Butler julesbutler33@gmail.com
1979 David Brown left the Boston wholesale flower industry in a career change to become a Coldwell Banker Realtor on the North Shore. He is enjoying his new job, meeting people, and sharing knowledge and ideas. • Joe Bonito recently completed his doctorate in business administration from Temple University’s school of business and is hoping to teach once he finishes his corporate career. Correspondent: Peter J. Bagley peter@peterbagley.com
1980 Tom Siegert is enjoying having his fifth child at BC! He was also recently named to the board of trustees, Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey. • Richard Rapp added, “My wife, Susan, and I have been enjoying the ‘sawgrass’ experience, consisting mostly of golf, tennis, and Friday happy hour in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. We make repeated trips north to visit our children, Jackie ’09, Michelle, and Richard ’11, who are scattered about New York and New England, as well as to attend most BC home football games. Classmate Steve O’Connor and his wife, Linda, are frequent house guests.” Correspondent: Michele Nadeem-Baker michele.nadeem@gmail.com
1981 Doug Miller retired after three decades as a trial attorney with two large Chicago law firms. For over 10 years he was also an assistant professor with Loyola University School of Law where he taught a variety of courses, published articles and course books, and received several awards, including “Who’s Who in American Law” and “Who’s Who in the World.” Doug and his lovely bride Birgitte will soon celebrate their 36th anniversary. Their oldest daughter, Kristina, lives in Barcelona, following completion of a prestigious MBA program in Madrid. Their younger daughter, Emma, is a Chicago public school teacher and recently married. Doug enjoys texting and visiting with his good friends Rob Reilly, Ray Devasto, Brian Hale, Dan Arkins, and Tim Cruz. • Florence Berghane Hannon has lived in Exeter, New Hampshire, for almost twenty years. In 1989, she wed James T. Hannon, Jr., a successful businessman and an audiophile. He sadly passed away in 2012 but the couple created many happy memories together, building two houses on the NH seacoast and raising their three children, Dan, Katherine, and Emily. Both James and Florence were magazine editors and writers. Florence is 63
an artist and a member of the Seacoast Artists Association, where she has an online gallery. • John McLaughlin holds two graduate degrees from Harvard and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School. He has more than twenty-five years of experience as a senior investigator in the areas of law enforcement administration and investigative services. President of McLaughlin & Associates in Lynnfield, John recently joined forces with John Flannery to create a new weekly podcast, “On the Level,” which can be found on all major podcasts. Their program showcases the major issues of the day, including truth, law, and justice in the United States. Check out John on Twitter: @Harvard1988. • After years of working in patient care, clinical office practice, and pay-for-performance programs for physician networks, Kate McGovern stepped away from full-time work last year and is pursuing work as a professional patient advocate, helping individuals and families navigate complex health care matters. • By all accounts, our 40th Reunion in October was a blast! Highlights included some late nights at “The Hotel California at Newton” a.k.a. the Marriott; a Shea Field tailgate hosted by Tim Chapman, JT Fucigna, and George McGoldrick; and a musical revival at the American Legion in Bedford organized by Neil and Erin Gorman Kirk and Brian Kelly. Be sure to check out our digital 40th Reunion yearbook at bc.brightcrowd.com/1981! Correspondent: Alison Mitchell McKee amckee81@aol.com
graduated from Harvard. Paul is working for the Los Angeles Kings and John is playing hockey for the Pittsburgh Penguins and wears #6. • Susan Murphy is delighted that her son, Michael, married his childhood sweetheart, Ashley, in early October. Susan joined the staff of UMass Lowell as assistant director of transfer admissions in December 2019. • David Bracken, Dan Portanova, Joe Fontana, Dan Campbell, and John Pinnock met in D.C. for the Mets/Nationals game. They enjoyed each other’s company and stayed in the area for a few days. • Dan Johnedis founded Cratus Capital LLC 13 years ago. Cratus Capital is a registered investment advisor based in Florida. Dan is interested in making opportunities available to BC students and alumni from both the undergraduate school and the Graduate School of Business. He can provide a job description to interested parties or the career center, who can choose to work remotely. Dan is interested in boating, hiking, golfing, traveling, and bodybuilding in his free time. He recently visited the Boston area for a family reunion. • Kevin McNulty and Debbie Harrington McNulty are excited about their youngest daughter Kate’s enrollment in the Class of 2024. • Congratulations to Timothy King, who was recently elected chairman of American Mensa. Correspondent: Mary O’Brien maryobrien14@comcast.net
1982
Correspondent: Cynthia J. Bocko cindybocko@hotmail.com
40th Reunion June 2022
Michael Dunford, a retired U.S. Marine, shared that he is the co-chair of the executive committee of Boston College Veterans Alumni Network (BCVAN). BCVAN was established in 2011 to honor the University’s servicemen and women and to strengthen the bonds among alumni, veterans, and the greater BC community. • In February 2021, William Campbell was appointed director of the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance. • Gabriella Milley gathered in Boston with Patricia Flaherty, Jan De Mayo, Mary Jane Ercha, Brigid Gray, and Kathleen Carson in October. They had a great time reminiscing and enjoying each other’s company. • Grace Cotter Regan hiked Machu Picchu and the Rainbow Mountain in Peru with her sister Kelly Cotter ’85 and three other formidable women. They also visited the beautiful Jesuit Cathedral in Cusco. • David Olsen retired as a special agent of the FBI in 2017. David and his wife, Kelly, enjoyed their first Family Weekend at BC. Their daughter, Shea, is MCAS ’24 and their son, Daniel, is CSOM ’25. • Michael Mancini accepted a new pharmaceutical position as a specialty representative with Nestle Health Science in August 2020. • Cindi Bigelow’s son, David Bigelow O’Hara, was married last July in Maryland to Mary Kate. • Paul Marino and his wife Jennifer’s twin sons 64
1983 1984 Greetings! After 30 years in the Washington, D.C. area, TJ Kozikowski moved to Long Branch, New Jersey, and enjoys living five blocks from the ocean and exploring the Jersey Shore on his bike. He looks forward to seeing live music and being able to travel, including a trip to Italy. Over the past five years, a combination of business and leisure travel has allowed visits to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany (Oktoberfest!), Turkey, Austria, France, Czech Republic, Poland, and the UK. • Jeff Smith is now an empty nester and, after over 25 years, has moved to the Sierras from the Bay Area. Jeff and Tami feel fortunate to be surrounded by the mountains, Donner Lake, and a lifestyle they enjoy. Jeff is active, advising young technology companies in Northern California through the Tech Futures Group, while Tami has embarked on a new job with Tahoe Donner in member services. Their kids have launched, pursuing their passions working for environmental and renewableenergy companies and studying hard at graduate school. Jeff planned to host a BC Bath reunion celebration in the mountains this past September. • Frank and Ann Scott Kilkelly celebrated 35 years of marriage on June 1. They have had five of six children graduate college, including Caroline, BC ’16. They are blessed with three
grandchildren and a fourth on the way. Frank is an orthopedic surgeon in Hanover, Penn. • Mary Jacobs writes that 2020 was hard for everyone. Being a nurse in a hospital was especially challenging, with much suffering from COVID. Mary writes that BC gave her strength and knowledge to accomplish dreams despite hard times. Faith and hard work can make great things happen. Mary and her husband sold their home. She continued to work at Greenwich Hospital and lived with family in New York, while her husband looked for a new home in Bucks County, Penn. They settled into a new home last January, where they plan o retire. She thanks BC nursing buddies, Carrie B., Linda L. MD, Donna D., and Liz C. for their help. • Juliette (Dacey) Fay’s sixth novel, Catch Us When We Fall, is now out. Set in Boston, it follows a young pregnant woman’s recovery from alcohol abuse, with the reluctant help of her only sober friend, a Red Sox third baseman with his own problems. Juliette and husband, Tom ’83, live in Wayland, with a rotating roster of their four children. Correspondent: Carol A. McConnell bc1984notes@optimum.net
1985 Congratulations to John Vollino on his appointment as clerk of the Court of Appeals of Virginia. John lives in Richmond and on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with his wife of 31 years, Laura Lee Garrett, and their pup, Lexi. • Dr. Chris Mulloy is happy to announce his son, Matthew ’25, is enrolled in the Carroll School of Management. Chris has been a dentist in New Jersey for the past 30 years. He, along with his wife, Carissa, soon-to-be-married daughter, Kate, and Matt have been living the dream! Go, Eagles! • After BC, James (Jay) DeMaria attended Suffolk Law School, then opened a law firm on Beacon Hill in 1994 and was managing partner of the firm until his retirement in 2019. Jay and his wife, Colleen, spend most of their time living on Cape Cod, where Jay is in his third term as president of the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, one of 10 teams in the Cape Cod Baseball League, the premier amateur baseball league in the country. Jay sends a shout-out to the boys from the 4th floor of Keyes South…what a crew! • In May 2021, Christine Mosher set up her own private psychotherapy practice in Buzzards Bay near her home in Onset. Christine sees clients either in person or via telehealth. She enjoys working with clients and having the flexibility of working for herself. • After more than 11 years as the U.S. head of communications, alumni and institutional development at IESE Business School, Marie Oates joined Euromoney PLC as their head of communications. Marie lives in New York City. • In May, there was a gathering of the Mod 33A and 33B boys, including Jim Pier, Ken Ryan, Steve Herrick, Brendan Nolan, and others. • David Sullivan lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and recently founded University Prep Advisors, a consulting and education group that specializes in helping students
and parents navigate the college admission process. David works with families and PTAs from Connecticut to California to educate parents and assist students in preparing for and applying to college. • Quite a few of our classmates attended the Reunion Weekend in October, celebrating 35+ years since graduation. The celebration included a class party and a football game. Amazing how quickly the years go by. Correspondent: Barbara Ward Wilson bww415@gmail.com
1986 Hi, ’86 Eagles, how is everyone? This is a special column because we just celebrated our 35th reunion—it was EPIC! • Thanks to Colleen Egleston Bonde for writing in to update us on her family. Colleen wrote that her daughter is currently enrolled in the Carroll School of Management and a member of the Class of 2022. Congratulations to a new generation on the Heights! Her family attended Family Weekend and saw a spectacular victory when BC beat Missouri—our Eagles look awesome and the stadium was electric! The energy and excitement felt like the Flutie years and it was awesome to see the students, alumni, and all Eagle fans tailgating and cheering on our amazing team. Go, Eagles, in all sports…ever to excel! • A shout-out to our Reunion committee and class co-chairs: Kathy Beam, Peter Bell, Mikey Hoag, and Rene Jones. Thanks for your hard work, generosity, and selfless hours of volunteer time that made this event spectacular—I think the best yet! Friday, October 15, a group of ’86 Eagles joined alumni from the Classes of ’85, ’90, and ’91 in a heated tent on Lower Campus and we just dominated the event with dancing, laughing, toasting, and reminiscing about our glory days! There were two photobooths that captured the reunion memories of BC forever friends whether freshmen floormates, Mod roommates, athletes, class couples, friends. The message was consistent—everyone has amazing friendships of 39 years that will last forever. It was awesome to hear how many groups were freshman floormates; from Cushing, Keyes (North and South), Hardey, Duchesne (East and West), Upper, Lower, and off campus were all represented. If you think back to 1982, you made one of your best life decisions to attend Boston College and become a graduate of the Class of 1986 and with primitive computers, no cellphones, no internet, a five-hour drop-add line, paper housing questionnaires. No matter where you were placed you found your forever friends! The connections and friendships are unique and everlasting; thanks, Boston College, for creating such a fun, loving, and academically challenging environment so that we will always cherish our college years and keep coming back for more! The dance floor was packed because of the music by DJ Paul of Mass Rhythm. I want to personally thank all the ’86 dancers that joined me to jump, stomp, hop, and dance to favorite class songs: “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meatloaf, “American Pie” by Don McLean, “Shook Me
All Night Long” by AC/DC, and “Sweet Caroline,” plus lots of other excellent tunes! I think our dancing is improving as the years go on. We relived the 80s for one wild night. I still can’t believe it’s been 35 years! Please send me updates of post-reunion festivities, mini-reunions, family or career news, or any newsworthy item you want to share with our classmates—we love staying connected. Everyone looked incredible, young, energized, and happy—we have figured it all out! If you missed it, we missed you and hope that you join us next time for the epic fun—’86 never disappoints! Well, keep the mail coming and keep living the dream and staying healthy. Remember, once an Eagle always an Eagle. See ya at the 40th! Correspondent: Leenie Kelley leeniekelley@hotmail.com
1987 35th Reunion June 2022
Martha McNamara sent a short note saying that her daughter, Megan Collins ’15, married Sean Flaherty ’12 on Cape Cod on September 25, 2021, and all seven of her roommates attended the big BC wedding: Maria Montuori, Michelle Guzowski, Sheila Watts, Jennifer Fitzpatrick, Tara Bergen, Joanne Spadorcia, and Kathy Delaney. Megan had several of her roommates from BC as bridesmaids, and Sean had several of his fellow BC football players as groomsmen. From the welcome drinks at Baxter’s Fish and Chips to the Mass at Our Lady of Victory in Centerville to the reception at Hyannisport Club, Martha wrote that it was one of the best weekends ever! • Camille Fine’s daughter, Ansley, is a member of the BC Class of 2025! • In June 2021, Paul Roselli retired from Fidelity Investments. • M. Quentin Williams wrote, “Proud of the work that BC Athletics and Dedication To Community is doing together to educate all of BC’s student-athletes, coaches, and administrators about justice issues. Pat Kraft is the real deal and has been a great hire for the University as BC engages in this pioneering effort. Such an honor to work with him.” • Joseph Andriola added, “Married almost 30 years with three great sons. Oldest is a Fulbrighter studying in Europe; middle son living large at University of Colorado Boulder; and our high school student is enjoying his senior year. I’m still practicing law, and enjoying living in Connecticut with vacations with our extended family on Cape Cod for the past 30 years. Still a Mets fan, suffering the delusion that next year is our year.” • Mark and Molly Delaney Druffner continue to work in Tanzania, East Africa, building hospitals and schools. Mark is a family physician and teaches doctors and nurses at the mission hospitals, and Molly is the executive director of Partners 4 Hope Tanzania. Mark and Molly have seven children and three grandchildren. Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
1988 Great to hear from Diane Hunstein, who is proud to announce her daughter Stephanie graduated from the Lynch School in May 2021. After celebrating that, she enjoyed a mini-reunion in Maine with Mod 40A roommates Lisa Smith MacDougall, Anna Punsal, Karen McKenna Roche, Jennifer Fish Muscato, and Liz Ross Meissner. • Susan Petroni, the founder, publisher, and editor of FraminghamSource.com celebrated five years publishing in 2021. The news site also expanded its coverage area during the pandemic to include Ashland, Natick, Marlborough, and Framingham. Source also had its first-ever BC intern during the summer: Grace Mayer ’22. • My Keyes North basement floormate Stephen Picazio wrote from Sarasota, Florida, to announce his daughter Brooke accepted a rowing scholarship and will be at the Carroll School as a member of the Class of 2025! He was at BC for Family Weekend, caught an amazing Pops concert, and, after tailgating with Jeff Flaherty and Jean Crescenzi, cheered the Eagles to victory over Missouri. Stephen is still with Merrill Lynch in Venice, but manages to spend summers fishing on Cape Cod. He’s also thrilled that Brooke has some of the same professors that he had! • Finally, the September 15–17 Cape reunion organized by Mike Muller and Ralph Santora sounds like it was a rousing success. The list of attendees alone exceeds my word limit for this column, but suffice to say that the three-day event included whalewatching, biking, a lobster/clambake on the beach, and various other meetups. The Alumni Association kicked in some swag, including custom beer koozies. Plans for the 2022 event are already underway and all are invited, so start planning now! Correspondent: Rob Murray murrman@aol.com
1989 We’ve had an overwhelming number of (great) updates this past year—thank you! Greg Schulte joined a mini-reunion in July hosted by Chris Bellonzi in his former hometown of Portland, Maine, with Tommy Kurtz, Tom Walker, Georgia Critsley, Maria Joseph Peckham, Greg and Mary Alice Schulte, Dennis Quinn, Dan Miller, Joe Gydus, Joe Speidel, Jim DeAngelo, Monique Anderson, Beth Tuico, Clare Curley, Jane McClellan Rohan, and Lisa Blando. An awesome time was had by all with plenty of lobster and spirits at Gritty McDuff’s and other great local spots. While Greg recently became CFO at Chelsea Lighting of NYC, he and wife Mary Alice spent 2020 volunteering on the Joe Biden presidential campaign: knocking on doors, canvassing, acting as out-of-state observers, and making speeches as campaign surrogates in central Michigan. They were part of the Oakland County GOTV team that was also selected to run Jon Ossoff’s Atlanta-area campaign in the Georgia U.S. Senate race. • Deborah Williamson McCabe and her BC roommates 65
are committing to every-other-year gettogethers, after gathering in 2019 at Nancy’s in Naples, Florida, and at Joann’s at Lake Winnipesaukee in 2021. Coining their crew, “#BC8,” this includes: Nancy Trust Johansen, Lisa DeMayo, Kathy Young, Joann Rude VanderPoel, Mary Wills Funari, Kristen Dacey Iwai, Jackie Kondel, and Deb. • Jenifer Bosco is an attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, and lives with her husband and two children in Arlington. Her daughter, Isabel, started at Oberlin last fall. • Check out Steve Pemberton’s new book, The Lighthouse Effect, which shares stories of ten ordinary people he has encountered along his life’s journey who inspired him and whom he hopes will do the same for each of us. • In August, we sadly lost classmate Bill Harrington, who died suddenly. Our thoughts are with his wife, Janette, and children, William T. “Billy” Jr., Jacqueline, and Charles “Grady.” • In September, we honored the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and our classmate Sean Lynch, who died in the towers that day. • In October, classmates gathered for a weekend of sharing remembrances and good stories of classmate Scott King, who sadly passed away in February 2020. Our thoughts remain with his wife (and ’89 classmate) Becky and their three daughters, Emily, Abby, and Molly. Correspondent: Andrea McGrath andrea.e.mcgrath@gmail.com
1990 For those who were able to attend all or part of our Reunion weekend, thank you for the fabulous stories, pictures, and laughs! Under the enormous white tent on Friday night, there were beautiful smiles and total gratitude for the opportunity to be together in a perfect setting. It was great to see everyone and word on the street is that the tailgating scene on Saturday was epic; I am already penned in for the full Reunion experience for 35! If you have not joined the Class of 1990 Facebook page, there are great pictures from the many events of the weekend. • In other news, Laura Civetta writes that after teaching high school English, she embarked on a new path teaching middle school theology at Sacred Heart Greenwich. In her free time, she publishes short stories and personal essays. Laura is now querying agents with her first novel. • Leslie Rohrbacker lives in Madison, New Jersey, with her husband, Neil, and 14-year-old sons, Luke and Jed. Leslie is happy to report that Eagles are now well represented in Madison and surrounding Morris County towns, although there are also a few more ND grads than is desirable! Leslie is the chief operating officer and a partner in BAL, a large global immigration and mobility services firm. Neil owns a custom closet and wine cellar design company. Luke and Jed are proud freshmen at St. Peter’s Prep, the only Jesuit high school in New Jersey. When not in NJ, the Rohrbackers are in Kennebunkport, Maine, where they bought a house during the COVID real estate boom. This was also a tactic to get the boys 66
hooked on New England so they will go to college there! Look them up and say hello when in NJ or Maine! • Colleen Sweeney writes that she lost her father, Joseph F. Sweeney ’51 (A&S), at the age of 93 on April 6, 2021. A proud alum, he will be dearly missed by Colleen and the rest of the family: Ann Sweeney Augustyn ’78, JD’81, and Joseph F. Sweeney, Jr. ’81. • Mike Bumpus shared that his daughters Ellie ’20 and Clare ’22 will both go through graduation ceremonies this year. Daughter Grace ’18 lives in South Boston and works for Putnam Investments. Kate and Mike have moved to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. Their son, Michael, is a freshman at Brown. Correspondent: Missy Campbell Reid missybc90@comcast.net
1991 Laurie McLeod joined the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters as their chief operating officer. She is excited about supporting work on environmental conservation and justice in her home state. And it is even more relevant, as she is thoroughly enjoying her new home at the Jersey Shore. • Hon. Joseph Harrington was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker as an associate justice of the Fall River District Court. Classmate Senator Walter Timilty attended his swearing-in ceremony in January. Joe and his wife, Tina, live outside of Boston and have three sons: Colin ’23, Brendan, and Declan. • Katie O’Connell continues to own and operate Dragonfly Yoga Barn, Studio & Retreat in N. Sandwich, New Hampshire, and was awarded “Lakes Region’s Best 2020” #1 yoga studio. She was also highlighted in Yankee, Spirituality & Health, and Real Simple. 2020 was a bust for the retreat business due to the pandemic so Katie closed her doors and turned to the world of online yoga literally overnight. Katie and her husband, Declan, celebrated 29 years of marriage this year and have two kids Finnian (25) and Bridie (23). • Elizabeth “Liz” Jack was elected last month as a judge in the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. Prior to being elected, Liz served as a prosecutor for the state attorney’s office. Liz won a hard-fought election after having to make significant adjustments to her campaign due to COVID-19. • Congratulations to Dave O’Neill, head coach at the University of Texas, on leading his team to the 2021 NCAA Women’s Rowing Championship! • Elizabeth Melahn is enjoying life as a kindergarten teacher at Saint Augustine School in Andover, successfully completing the most challenging teaching year ever during this pandemic. She is married to Matt Stroika and is the mother of five amazing boys. • Manuel Muchacho sends greetings to all from Puerto Rico. He has two boys: Manolo (20, a student at Duquesne) and Enrique (17, soon to be a student at Loyola Maryland). If you land on the island, give him a call, only Muchacho on the island. • Rey Roldan was part of a CNN TV special called “Toxic: Britney Spears’ Battle For Freedom.” The one-hour special aired in September and again in
October. As Rey was Britney’s publicist for her first two albums, CNN interviewed him to discuss his time with her. • Irene Kontje is a part of the COVID-19 “Great Resignation.” She left a good-paying job and a New York City apartment to become a location-independent online business manager. She will start out in Mexico and see what happens from there. Let the adventure begin. Again. • Congratulations to Mark Dennehy, who was recently promoted to chief amateur scout for the New Jersey Devils! Correspondent: Peggy Morin Bruno pegmb@comcast.net
1992 30th Reunion June 2022
Hi, everyone! Thanks to those who sent in updates. Please reach out if you have news to share! • Heide Bronke Fulton sent in the following update: “I spent the pandemic with my family in Alexandria, Virginia. Despite restrictions, I’m glad to be back in the U.S. after several years overseas with the U.S. Department of State. In August 2020, I was appointed as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL), with responsibility for INL’s Western Hemisphere and aviation portfolios. In June 2020, I retired from the U.S. Army (Reserve) after 28 years with the rank of lieutenant colonel. I survived the pandemic thanks to Zoom calls with Kim Bahs Rector, Renee Pike Strachan, Carol Belletete McDaniel, and Kristine Hall Farmer. Looking forward to our in-person reunion in 2022!” • Debbie Volpe Hogan and Matt Hogan are celebrating their 25th anniversary this August. Matt is lead counsel, R&D Contracts at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and Debbie is assistant director of the BC School of Social Work doctoral program and an adjunct professor in the BC Sports Administration program. Debbie is also a first-year doctoral student in the Lynch School Higher Education program. Their three sons are also BC students: Matty is a senior in CSOM, Nick is a sophomore at the Woods College, and Tim is a freshman in CSOM. Katie is a senior at the Dublin School. Debbie and Matt just purchased a home in Dover. • Tricia Pelnik-Fecko sent in the following update: “I am currently in my 25th year at Albany Medical Center practicing internal medicine and pediatrics. My son Aidan is a junior at Villanova University, doublemajoring in math and Spanish. My son Evan is a high school senior, and my daughter, Bryn, is a freshman at BC, majoring in math. We just celebrated with two of my college roommates, Stephanie Evans and Roseann Sheehan. As good Eagle luck would have it, Bryn found her roommate, Katharine Baker, on the BC Facebook page. Katharine is the daughter of our classmate Kelly Lang!” • Debbie Bosworth Kittleson and Jeff Kittleson ’91 are thrilled that their son, Colin, is a freshman in CSOM. It has been so fun for Debbie and Jeff to be in Boston for freshman move-in and Family Weekend. Highlights include tailgating with Dallas friends Chris
and Joe Popolo ’89 and seeing Dave Mazzullo, Mark Walker, and John Doran at the game! Correspondent: Katie Boulos Gildea kbgildea@yahoo.com
1993 So many 50th-birthday celebrations of BC ’93, corona be darned! Good for you all! Love seeing the pictures. • From Sophia Germanides Dryer: “To celebrate 32 years of friendship (and 50 trips around the sun), Karina Alberto Adourian, Grace O’Malley Ebaugh, Angie Bengzon Hazard, Kelly Kane, Heather Ryan Morrissey, Kristin Mangels Murphy, Daniela Bellitta O’Neill, Nicole Palina Pace, and I convened for a weekend of debauchery in Nashville. We are still recovering. The blessings are numerous: college graduations (Isabella Pace ’20), and matriculations (Aidan O’Neill ’25), new homes, and new jobs (Nicole Pace was just named chief marketing officer at Everise).” • Saw that Pat Laundry enjoyed a reunion at the BC–Missouri game with John Coffey, Tom Fowler, Steve Capshaw, Jeremy Couture, Bill McGraw, John Sullivan, and Dennis Schaeffer. • Michelle (Wright) Bucaria, Beth McBride, Ann (Boyle) Nagel, Anne (Trenkle) Schaefer, Beth (Ahmuty) Silveria, and Maureen (Mulcahy) Surber ’92 got together at that game, too! • I loved seeing pictures from a huge gathering at Matt and Tracy (Monaco) Lawlor’s house at the end of August. Maura Kelly Lannan, Mike Bertie, Christian Megliola, Jennifer Flynn Jarbeau, John Ladd, Laura Bete, Sarah Jewell, Hans and Michelle Dorsainvil, Joe Perschy, Bob Luiso, Dan and Karen Cushing, Jennifer Williams Riley, David Feliciano, Mike and Trisha Stravin, Rachel Cronin, Jess Hughes, Min Yoo, Ellen Berichon Murphy, Amy Gage Piselli, even Baldwin the Eagle showed up! • Ana Agrelot posted that she, Delia Román, Sarah Irizarry, Carla Rampolla, Bettiuska Segarra, Veronica Fernandez, Mari Merce Gomez, and Margarita Irizarry got together to celebrate 50. • Shana Erber posted about a 50th celebration with Laura Browning Davis, Tracy Madigan Grbic, and Laurie Maher. • Carl Kallen shared pics from his All Sports BC weekend with Mark Buonagurio, Jennifer Boyle Mehta, Eric Wiberg, Jeff Nicholson ’94, Mike Stokes, and Andrew Hegedus. • It was so great to see the Boston Marathon back after far too long an absence. I know Michele Campisi ran. And Mark Streeter ran for the 4th time, but this time was even more special than prior races with his daughter, Megan ’24, wife Joan (Monahan) Streeter, and other family there to greet him right across from St. Ignatius. • Julie Hanlon wrote that she was selected to be the deputy associate chief counsel (ITA) for the IRS Office of Chief Counsel. Go, Julie! • Keep enjoying and celebrating 50. Such a huge life milestone. Go, us! If you share updates, it does take a while to see them— this is hardly a place for breaking class news. That can be found on our Facebook page: facebook.com/groups/BostonCollege93/ Correspondent: Laura Beck laurabeckcahoon@gmail.com
1994 Dan Hayes was recently promoted to the position of supervisory trial counsel at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Chicago. • Cheryl Mastrogiovanni has published a children’s book about a boy who attends his first Bruins game in Boston— “because, of course, for those who know me, what else would I write a children’s book about!” she writes. • After almost 25 years in private practice, Bill Staar recently became the chief legal officer of Milton CAT, one of the largest Caterpillar dealerships in the country, with facilities located throughout New England and New York. He resides in Bedford, New Hampshire, with his wife, Paige, and two daughters, Lily (12) and Ally (11). • J. Davis Harte (formerly Jen Wilson) earned an MS in design & human environments from Oregon State University and a PhD in health from the University of Technology Sydney. She is director and faculty of the design for human health (DHH) master’s program at Boston Architectural College. Her husband is an associate dean and faculty member at Oregon State University, and she is stepmom to three young adults. She co-leads the Trauma-Informed Design Collective and Global Birth Environment Design Network. She recently surprised former roomie Rebecca (Murphy) Schmitz at work in the BC advising office! • After nearly six years in school (with two children in tow), Joy Russell-Moy is a doctor of acupuncture and integrative medicine at her own clinic, Joy of Acupuncture, in New York. Her specialties are acute- and chronic-pain conditions, cosmetic acupuncture, and organic herbal skincare. Joy recently got on TikTok (@joyofacupuncture) to create videos about the benefits of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine—she has 344k followers! • Martin FernandezPello has two kids and lives in Madrid. • Finally, some sad news. Christopher Rusho passed away in June 2021. Chris worked as an IT professional in San Diego and Austin, Texas, prior to returning to his hometown of Syracuse, New York. Michael Monteiro said that while he and Chris didn’t know each other at BC, they became fast friends when they were both assigned to a project together in Minneapolis as newly minted consultants, spending time working and exploring a new city. Michael said he will always remember Chris’s “wit, creativity, kindness, and generosity.” Correspondent: Nancy E. Drane nancydrane@aol.com
1995 Melissa Markofsky McDonald had lots of updates to share. “[I am currently] in my 21st year working for Massachusetts Trial Court, currently in Clinton District Court as an assistant chief probation officer. Years of BC alumni connections within the system, most notably with BC alumnus colleague Matthew Nugent ’98, who worked in same court with me as an assistant district attorney. Met up with my Mod 22A
roomie Melissa (Gagnon) Correia after her recent travel cross country from Washington to New England. Melissa just tied the knot with her partner, Joanna, last year and they are living the happy life running Tangled Thicket Farm in Mt. Vernon, Washington. Melissa still has the biggest heart and smile I remember so clearly from being bunkmates 26 years ago! [My] latest BC alum connection randomly happened when a fellow Boston Bruins season ticket holder reached out to request a few ticket swaps, only to find out he, too, is a BC grad (Chris Fallon ’05). The list of connections is endless. Can’t wait to see what the next 10 years bring for additional BC contacts.” • Beth Anish wrote in, “I am excited to announce that my first academic book, Irish American Fiction from World War II to JFK, will be out soon from Palgrave Macmillan. The book is based on research I started in my doctoral program at URI, as well as a lifelong passion for Irish literature and culture, fostered at BC. I was also promoted this year, to full professor of English at the Community College of Rhode Island. In personal news, husband, Ron, and I are empty nesters this year, with both kids off to college.” • Scott Livingston has been busy with family, work, and sport. He is the president of HORST Engineering in East Hartford, Conn. The family business turned 75 years old and, after a multi-year renovation, moved to a state-of-the-art factory. In addition to their core aerospace components business, they make Cross Spikes and the HORST Dreidel. Scott is a competitive athlete and does cyclocross, mountain biking, trail running, and triathlon. He serves on the board of the Appalachian Mountain Club and lives with his equally active family: Debbie, Shepard (15), and Dahlia (12) in Bolton, Conn. • Steve Lee has founded and runs Veritas Catholic Network, a non-profit media organization that is focused on evangelizing the culture through radio, podcasts, and other media. Correspondent: Kevin McKeon kmckeon@gmail.com
1996 Erin M. Dunston has been named to the 2022 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, one of the legal profession’s oldest and most respected peer-review publications. She is currently a partner in the Philadelphia office of Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel LLP. • Diana Pisciotta spent much of the pandemic in Newton, where she led the independent communications firm Denterlein virtually (where she recently celebrated her 20th anniversary, serves as president, and specializes in crisis communications and public policy). Her co-workers included her husband Paul Stewart, their 7-year-old son, Paul Joseph, and two Rhodesian ridgeback dogs. Mid-pandemic, Diana and Paul finally got married in a COVID-safe outdoor ceremony officiated by Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller. Diana is happy to be back in her Downtown Boston office in Post Office Square, and is craving coffee/drink meetups if anyone else is in town. • 67
Juan Alexander Concepción has joined the law department of Boston Scientific Corporation, a global medical technology leader that addresses unmet patient needs worldwide. As senior legal counsel, Juan provides practical advice and solutions for workplace compliance and strategic workforce management demands. Before joining Boston Scientific, Juan served as employment counsel and director of employment policy and employee relations at MassDOT/MBTA. Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
1997 25th Reunion June 2022
On January 4, 2021, Erin Lynch Prata was sworn in as an associate justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court. For the first time in its history, the five-member Court has a female majority. • New York Citybased PR firm Baretz+Brunelle announced in October that Jeff Berardi, an executive widely regarded as one of the legal industry’s most respected marketing and business development advisors, has joined the firm as a partner after merging his consulting firm, Berardi Consulting LLC, into B+B. • Frank L. Gallucci III, principal of Plevin & Gallucci Company, L.P.A., in Cleveland, was a key member of the trial team representing two Ohio counties in the nation’s first trial attempting to hold pharmacies responsible for their role in the deadly opioid crisis. He joined with other leading plaintiffs’ lawyers to represent Lake and Trumbull counties in a seven-weeklong trial in U.S. District Court in Cleveland before Judge Dan Polster. Correspondent: Margo Rivera Gillespie margogillespie@gmail.com
1998 Hello, Class of 1998! On July 3, 2021, we lost our dear classmate Josephine Sciarrino. Josephine will be dearly missed by friends and family for her jovial spirit and zest for life. Classmates are putting together a fundraising campaign for a bench to be placed on campus at Boston College. If you would like to contribute, please visit bc.edu/ give, choose “other” as your gift designation, and type in “Josephine Sciarrino Memorial Bench Fund” under “where to direct your gift.” You may also type “Josephine Sciarrino” in the “in memory of” section. • Vince Lorusso recently co-founded Changebridge Capital, a Boston-based asset manager. He is a co-portfolio manager of Changebridge’s long/short ETF and sustainable equity ETF, both of which were listed on the New York Stock Exchange last year. • Bernadette (Quirk) Norton and husband, Leo, welcomed their first child, Henry Francis Norton, on September 11, 2021. • In July, Brent Bell was elected as chair of the board of directors for CFA Society Boston, having served on the board since 2016. CFA Society Boston’s 6,000 members promote the highest ethical 68
standards, best practices, and professional development within the investment industry to educate and build trust in the communities they serve. On a more social note, he and his family made their annual pilgrimage to Martha’s Vineyard and continued their tradition of sharing a house with the Sullivan (John) and Sweeney (Sean and Jennifer Riordan) clans. • Katherine Orgeron welcomed a little girl to the world in mid-May 2021. She is a joy and they feel abundantly blessed to have her in their lives. In September 2021, Katherine was conferred her doctor of psychology degree. The doctoral program was a career change, as she was an attorney previously. In the future, she is hoping to use her doctoral degree and her legal background to work in the field of forensic psychology. As a family, they are enjoying the cooler weather and being outdoors as much as possible on the beautiful Virginia trails. • Andrew Barna accepted a new position of director of human resource services at Texas A&M University, and is currently living in The Woodlands, Texas, outside of Houston. • I was lucky to see Charise (Rohm) and Jeff Nulsen in October for a drink and quick catch-up. Correspondent: Mistie P. Lucht hohudson@yahoo.com
1999 Lowell Community Health Center (Lowell CHC) announced the appointment of Stacey Thompson to the position of health communications manager last summer. Congratulations to Stacey! • Brian Rich was recently selected for inclusion in the Best Lawyers in America 2022 list. A partner at the law firm Halloran Sage, he received recognition for his commercial litigation practice. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on peer-review evaluation. • Michael Scialabba, DDS, was promoted to chief clinical officer for 42 North Dental in Waltham, the largest dental support organization in the northeast. He continues to practice chairside at Great Hill Dental Partners in Peabody, with a limited schedule. In 2018, he was appointed to the Board in Registration of Dentistry of Massachusetts by Governor Charlie Baker and, in 2021, he was voted chairman of the board by his colleagues. He lives in Wellesley, with his wife, Allison, and two sons, Mikey and Nicholas. • Several years ago, John McGowan left the law practice and returned to construction, obtained his contractor’s license, and proceeded to build a small but thriving custom remodeling building business in Sharon, where he lives with his wife and two boys. The business focuses on bread-and-butter work like additions, kitchens, bathrooms, and decks. He also serves on the board of directors for South Shore Habitat for Humanity. “I do not miss practicing law, but I write excellent customer contracts!” Correspondent: Matt Colleran colleran.matt@gmail.com Correspondent: Emily Wildfire ewildfire@hotmail.com
2000 After running a successful “make adulthood fulfilling” business for 15 years headquartered in Chicago, Saya Hillman has expanded her business to 12 other areas throughout the U.S. and London. Mac & Cheese Productions is guided by the mantra “find something that makes you happy and use it to make others happy” and connects people to people, people to opportunities, and people to themselves through individual and workplace offerings. The Boston chapter leader is the husband of Lori (Piscatelli) Scanlon. Many Mac & Cheese offerings reflect Saya’s very impactful time at BC. If you’re looking for community, personal and professional growth, and space for reflection, vulnerability, and leaning into fear—and if you live in one of its areas, join us! Saya lives and collaborates with her husband (who she met via one of her events) in Chicago. They are continuing to travel as much as they can—Japan, Mexico City, and Colombia last year—and to foster rescue dogs. • Jorge Cardona began a new job in late February at Donyati Consulting as an FDMEE developer. His husband, Ethan Jewett, also started a new career this February a as personal fitness trainer at Equinox. • Stephanie (Haug) Mullervy and her husband, John, welcomed Declan Ernst on December 10, 2019. He joins big brother Colin (2). The family resides in Natick. Steph is excited to serve on our Reunion committee and looks forward to connecting with friends old and new this May! • Please don’t forget to send your exciting news along to share with our fellow classmates. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Heights for our next Reunion! Correspondent: Kate Pescatore katepescatore@hotmail.com
2001 Happy New Year, classmates! • Margaret Rickard Rubinacci became senior director of cable strategy at MediaKind in June 2021. She is also on the boards of Girls Inc. of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey and Women in Cable Telecommunications (WICT). Her boy- and girl-twins turned six this year. • Kathryn (Katie) E. Ray married Jim Conrad on June 19, 2021, in Cashiers, North Carolina. The couple lives in Atlanta. • Mike Adair lived in Boston for one year after graduation, working in asset management, moved to NYC, then Seattle until 2007. He got married, went to the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, started a burrito company called Red’s All Natural, had three kids, and has been making burritos and other natural/organic frozen items for the last twelve years. His family moved to Franklin, Tenn. (a suburb of Nashville), ten years ago and relocated Red’s to the south. He hasn’t been back to BC in 20 years, and while he was unable to make the reunion, Mike says he’s definitely in for the 25th. He sends well wishes to the Class of 2001. • Unlike Mike, I’ve returned to BC a bunch over the last two decades,
and while the physical campus has gone through many changes (RIP Edmond’s and The Plex) and improvements (hello, fancy four-story recreation complex with adjacent pine tree preserve), it always feels like coming home. I attended our 5th Reunion very newly pregnant, our 10th and 15th Reunions with our two children, and was sad to miss our 20th. I hope that those who attended enjoyed your time back on The Heights. Everyone pencil in June 5–7, 2026, so we can celebrate our 25th in grand fashion! Correspondent: Sandi Birkeland Kanne bc01classnotes@gmail.com
“Empowerment is so central to who I am and how I help people.”
2002 20th Reunion June 2022
Congratulations to Timur Pakay and his wife, Stephanie Pietros, who welcomed a baby girl, Cecilia Ela Pakay, on April 6. Ceci joins big brother Oliver. Looking forward to seeing many of you at our upcoming reunion! Correspondent: Suzanne Harte suzanneharte@yahoo.com
2003 Timothy Spiegel joined Boston law firm Davis Malm’s business practice area last summer. He is a business attorney with a focus in corporate and finance matters. • Meg Butler, MA’17 married Cameron Smith on July 9, 2021, at Sacred Hearts Parish in Malden. The couple met on March 1, 2020, just before the pandemic began. Thankfully, their wedding reception at Night Shift Brewery was held just in time for the state pandemic restrictions to be lifted and many hugs to abound. Several Eagles were in attendance, including Virginia Butler ’68 (mother of the bride), Steve Butler, MBA’83 (father of the bride), Sarah Butler ’06 (sister of the bride), Stephen Butler ’13 (brother of the bride), Lisa Gill Sabey ’01, and Jacquelyn Tenaglia, MA’09. • Femaris Peña Verdaguer was named senior vice president of Mediahub, a division of the MullenLowe Group. He also became a member of the board of trustees of Lawrence Catholic Academy, a pre-K through grade 8 elementary school located in Lawrence. • Carl Oliveri started a personal training and nutrition coaching company called TRAK Fitness in January 2021. He welcomed his son, Leonardo Edward Oliveri, on August 24, 2021. • Alicia LaPolla has taken a new position as the associate dean of student affairs at Brown University School of Professional Studies. • Patrick Jennings has opened the law firm of Jennings, Turiello & Hirshorn, LLC, in Rye, New York. He has teamed up with two exceptional attorneys to build a team of dedicated professionals committed to servicing the needs of clients. As co-founder of the firm, Pat has taken on the roles of managing member as well as chair of the secured transactions practice group. • Marcus E. Howard recently returned to Massachusetts, where he teaches as a journalism professor at Northeastern University. • Kevin Swatt, MS’04, was
ARIVEE (VARGAS) ROZIER-BYRD ’05, JD’08 DETAILS:
Always Be Growing
Member of Council for Women of Boston College, Board of Regents, and BCAA Board Founding member of AHANA Alumni Advisory Council of BC
A
rivee (Vargas) Rozier-Byrd thinks about mentorship the way a jeweler might consider a precious stone—examining it from every angle. “I want to empower the next generation of women,” says Rozier-Byrd, “A lot of that involves digging deeper with questions and helping people see their own light. I understand the impact of mentorship because of my own personal experience, and I need to pay that forward for others.” Having pivoted from her prior career as a lawyer, Rozier-Byrd leverages her legal and entrepreneurial expertise to coach women through challenges in their personal and professional lives. Her podcast, “Humble Rising,” hits many of the same notes, as she interviews women of color about how they’ve navigated their careers and lives. “Empowerment is so central to who I am and how I help people,” she says. A member of Boston College’s Board of Regents, Alumni Association Board, Council for Women of BC, and AHANA Alumni Advisory Council, Rozier-Byrd extends this same tireless commitment to her alma mater. For her, it’s not enough to root for the University from the sideline; she insists on rolling up her sleeves to help the University she loves. “From elementary through high school, I never felt like I truly belonged,” she says. “The schools weren’t racially diverse, and they didn’t value critical thinking enough. That’s why my time at BC was so meaningful—I was being challenged, not only by my professors but by fellow students. I felt like my worlds were coming together, and I had a sense of belonging there.” Proud of the strides BC has made to become more diverse and inclusive, Rozier-Byrd, who married classmate Trevor Rozier-Byrd ’05, is confident in the course the University is charting. “If we continue to ground ourselves in that Jesuit tradition, we can’t go wrong,” she says. “We have to keep learning and growing, because that’s what we’re called to do.” 69
advanced to principal at CliftonLarsonAllen LLP on November 1, 2021. Kevin leads the private industry assurance practice in the firm’s D.C. area offices and is currently living in Falls Church, Virginia, with his wife, Kathy, and two children, Olivia and Patrick. Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
2004 Jennifer (Donovan) Lutz and her husband, Justin, welcomed their third child, Adeline Rose Lutz, on June 11, 2021. Addie joins big sister Evelyn (Evie) and big brother Thomas (Tommy). • Gerard Erbeck had his second son on October 6, 2021, and recently joined Fidelity Investments. • Stephen Savage launched his own entertainment company, Savage Pianos, that provides dueling piano shows for special events all over the northeast. • Danielle Hildebrandt Conway and her husband, John, welcomed daughter, Charlotte Marie, on July 14, 2021. Correspondent: Allie Weiskopf allieweiskopf@gmail.com
2005 Burnell Holland married fellow Eagle Lauren Weaver ’08 in Cleveland on July 17, 2021. Classmates present included Justin McLean, Charles A. Grandson IV, and Grace (Simmons) Zuncic. The couple resides in Washington, D.C. Burnell runs Gilded Knight Consulting, a social impact strategy consulting and investment firm. Lauren works at Reed Smith as a whitecollar criminal defense and investigations attorney. • On June 14, 2021, Adam Webster and Claudia Pouravelis ’03, MA’04 welcomed their daughter, Delphine Maxine Webster, into the world. Delphine joins her parents and brother, Frederic, living in Boston’s South End. Adam is a political consultant and co-founder of Castle Point Partners and Claudia is the associate dean of enrollment management and corporate engagement at Boston College’s Woods College of Advancing Studies. • TJ ’03 and Mary Christine (Kwiatek) Paxton are thrilled to announce the birth of their daughter, Abigail Elizabeth, born June 2021. Abby has endeared herself to all, especially her big brother, John. • In August 2021, Duncan Delano opened the East Coast office of a full-service, boutique cannabis law firm, Emerge Law Group, which has been servicing cannabis businesses on the West Coast for over seven years. Duncan will be building the northeast practice, helping businesses obtain their local and state cannabis licenses and operate in a complex and ever-changing regulatory environment. Oh, and he has four daughters under age six with Katelyn (Rubert) Delano. • Shannon Decker and husband, Todd, welcomed Mary Therese Decker into the world on June 17, 2021. She joins big brothers Luke and Noah, and big sister, Tara, in the nest of Eaglets! • Joe Bowden and Shaun Tolson won first place in their flight in the Summer Classic at LeBaron Hills Country Club in Lakeville. 70
The Summer Classic is an annual, threeday member-guest golf tournament. Joe and Shaun played seven 9-hole matches over the course of the tournament. Correspondent: Joe Bowden joe.bowden@gmail.com Correspondent: Justin Barrasso jbarrasso@gmail.com
2006 Vernon Araujo resigned from his position as development director after 10 years at Family Resource Center and accepted the role of director of philanthropy and community relations for Alpine Securities USVI. In addition, he had a son, Kingston, on September 21, 2021. • In June 2021, Matt Putorti announced a campaign for Congress, as a democrat, against Rep. Elise Stefanik in New York’s 21st Congressional District. • Tara and Ted Dunlap welcomed their second child, Cooper Fredrick Dunlap, in May 2020. Family is doing well and attempting to wait out the pandemic by alternating between trips to the park, long walks, and episodes of Sesame Street. They are still living in Los Angeles. • Melissa Alesi and her husband, John, welcomed their second daughter, Olivia Noelle, on December 16, 2020. • Sylvia (Hechema) Rutherford is now the executive director of NYC Mammas Give Back, a 501(c)3 organization serving mothers, children, and families living in poverty in NYC. Please reach out to her if you would like to get involved! • Christina (Vetre) Salazar and her husband, Jorge, welcomed a beautiful, spunky baby girl, Camila Malina, on August 4, 2020. The family lives in Downingtown, Penn., with their dog, Hazel. Christina runs a program for high school English learners with limited/ interrupted formal education. She was grateful to be taking a sabbatical during the school year while she developed a handbook for supporting students like hers while she spends time with Camila. • Adam and Sarah Shipley welcomed their second child in 2020. Cora Shipley is doing well and is already being raised to cheer for BC teams! • Sahar Khalaj has been enjoying her time as a travel nurse, traveling alongside Meighann Recile throughout the U.S. and abroad. Most recently she was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel as a nurse in the Air Force Reserves. She is currently working on a transplant unit at MGH. Most importantly, she is a mom of an amazing little girl. Correspondent: Cristina Conciatori cristina.conciatori@gmail.com
2007 15th Reunion June 2022
ong Joo Lee started his new position as D an assistant United States attorney in the criminal division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey in September 2021. • As the senior strategy manager at Edwards Lifesciences
in Europe, Aleksandra LadaGola leverages the insights and wisdom from internal cross-functional units, external intelligence, and “voice of the customer” to determine market opportunities and strategy. Such an interdisciplinary approach and training was one that was learned and cultivated as an international studies major at Boston College. The critical thinking, analysis, and ability to articulate one’s viewpoint is a good baseline in any future employment position. Although she lives across the ocean in Switzerland, and has completed an executive MBA at a European institution, she remains a proud BC Eagle fan. • Jason and Katy (O’Leary) Ruiz celebrated the birth of their son, Thomas Anthony, on August 25, 2021. Tommy joins big siblings Jack (6), Corinne (4), and Grace (2). The family resides in Madison, New Jersey. • Edward Reynolds and Richard Reynolds entered Georgetown Law School in the fall of 2021. • Melissa (Koski) Carney and husband, Brian Carney, welcomed the birth of their son, Grant Michael Carney on July 22. Grant joins his older sister, Lucille (3), and brother, Francis (5). • In July, Kelly Higgins was named chief marketing officer of Doremus, an advertising agency in the Omnicom Group. The promotion makes Kelly the youngest CMO in the company’s 118-year history. • Kate Pierce and her husband welcomed their first daughter, Erika, in May 2021 after five years of infertility and pregnancy losses. They know how hard this journey can be and how helpful it is to have someone to talk to. If you ever need support, feel free to reach out to Kate at missmollyster@gmail.com. They are beyond ecstatic to watch their little Eaglet grow! • Caitlin Corrieri of Boston married Joe Augusta of Falmouth. on October 2, 2021, at St. Cecilia Church in Boston, followed by a reception at Granite Links Golf Club in Quincy. Bridesmaids included Elizabeth Genovese Clifton, Anne DiSalvo Dahl, Clare Murphy Marlin, and Rachel Rumely MEd ’08, ’15. Eagles in attendance included Sally Pennington Roller; Shannon Keating Kwiatek; Joe Kwiatek ’08; Chanmi Park; M. Amaris Kinne ’05, Lisa Iaccarino ’04; Mary Christine Kwiatek Paxton ’05, MEd’06; TJ Paxton ’03; and groomsman Randy Collette ’01. Caitlin is an eighth grade English teacher in the Belmont Public Schools and she and Joe currently reside in Waltham. Correspondent: Lauren Faherty Bagnell lauren.faherty@gmail.com
2008 Chrissie Glenn worked through the pandemic in the emergency department in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, until she and her husband, Jay, welcomed their second baby, Eleanor, in October. They then relocated to a log cabin in Greenville, South Carolina, in the fall and are continuing to work in emergency medicine at Prisma Hospital. • After managing digital communications for large nonprofit organizations and institutions, Victoria Marzilli took the leap to start her own digital marketing consultancy last July.
Victoria & Co. Digital specializes in digital strategy, website design, and social media for mission-driven companies and organizations. She also married Adjatay Nyadjroh in a beautiful wedding in Boston in June, surrounded by family, friends, and many fellow Eagles. It was a very busy summer for her! • Congratulations to Matt Becker, who was promoted to strategic sourcing manager for glass at Andersen Windows. His family relocated from Massachusetts to Minnesota over the summer. • Lorena Lopera joined the organization Latinos for Education two years ago as the executive director, New England. She has been working to increase representation of Latinx educators and leaders across New England. Most recently, she was appointed by interim Boston Mayor Kim Janey to serve as a Boston School Committee member. She is honored for the recognition of her work in the education ecosystem and looks forward to continuing to work hard to advocate with and for the Latinx community. • Jared Long and his wife, Elizabeth, welcomed their first child, Naomi, in December 2020. He said that welcoming a baby girl has been his highest high over the last year and has made every day working from home an absolute joy. • Kelly Golden recently made a career change from higher education to working in the corporate sector as a lead specialist for learning and development at Deloitte. She and her family now reside in Plymouth, where they love spending days at the beach. In addition, Kelly and her husband have both dived into real estate and have loved connecting with new and old friends on their home-buying journeys! Finally, Kelly will be speaking at this year’s South Shore Conference for Women. This is her second time speaking on the topic of confidence and networking. Kelly would also like to celebrate many of her BC ’08 classmates who have expanded their families this past year. Brianna Germain, Elizabeth GalliganBixenman, Elizabeth Carroll-Baldwin, and Cara Sullivan have all welcomed beautiful new babies! • On September 8, 2021, Daniel and Caitlin Leutwiler Meenan welcomed baby boy, Henry Taylor, into their family. Hank joins big brother, Timothy, and big sister, Malin, in cheering on the Eagles, and can’t wait to make his first visit to the Heights! • Katie Pope ’09, MA’13 and Matt Carroll were married on July 31, 2021 (the feast of St. Ignatius), at BC’s Connors Center in Dover. The couple was blessed to have 40 fellow Eagles celebrate with them, including wedding party members Marina Pastrana, Karl Danso, Bryan Connor, and Krick Cahill. Several beloved faculty members were also in attendance, including Biz Bracher, Fr. Michael Himes, and father of the bride/aspiring professional dancer Stephen Pope. Correspondent: Maura Tierney Murphy mauraktierney@gmail.com
2009 Jenna (Bee) Wolf wrote, “After ten years in Colorado, I decided to move back east to be closer to family and start a new job in
“It comes from the infectiousness of other people’s love for BC. I remember first seeing that and thinking, this must be a really special place.”
JAMES LIZZUL ’09 BCM
DETAILS: New York City, New York Co-President, NYC Alumni Chapter
This Must Be the Place
“W
hen we won at the last second, everyone stormed down the stairwells of the dormitories and ran through the Mods,” James Lizzul ’09 reminisces. “We had a kind of impromptu parade through all the pathways.” Listening to Lizzul recall Matt Ryan’s famous comeback at Virginia Tech in 2007 to keep the Eagles unbeaten, it’s easy to get swept up in his excitement. The fire for Boston College hasn’t waned a bit, and his fellow Eagles are the source of that passion. “It comes from the infectiousness of other people’s love for BC. I remember first seeing that and thinking, this must be a really special place.” Since graduating and moving home to New York City to begin his finance career, Lizzul’s relationship with his alma mater has only deepened. Like many other recent graduates, his involvement with his local alumni chapter began with BC Football game watches. After a while, the NYC chapter leaders asked if he’d like to be more involved From there, Lizzul hasn’t looked back. Between changing venues and adding a host of immersive elements to the game-watch experience, like a DJ playing BC marching band music, the New England Classic and BC steak and cheese on the menu, and drinks styled after cocktails from the late Mary Ann’s, pulling out all the stops has paid off. Average game-watch attendance has quintupled, drawing 200 to 400 people per contest. For Lizzul, the game watches are a microcosm of what makes the BC community so special. From the holiday parties and service projects to the Wall Street Council Tribute Dinner where he met his fiancée, Annie ’15, “Eagles show up because they’re invested in this place and these people,” he says. “It reminds me of something Fr. Himes said in a toast during my senior week: ‘You’re not leaving BC. You’re taking BC with you.’ It’s echoed in my mind ever since, and it’s proven true.” 71
development at The Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire. It’s been a whirlwind since then as my (then) boyfriend and I moved to New Hampshire in May 2020, bought a house in February, got married in April, and delivered twin boys in May. Max and Carter are happy and healthy babies as I returned to work for the 2021–22 school year. I am hoping to connect with more of my BC family now that I am back in the area!” • After over a decade of living abroad working in tech, innovation, and global health, Ryan Littman-Quinn is reconnecting with his BC roots this semester as an adjunct professor of managing for social impact and entrepreneur-in-residence with the Shea Center. • Despite the uncertainty of the past year and a half, 2021 was a rewarding one for April Browne, MPA. In May 2021, she began a new position as a member of the executive team at Mount Sinai’s Institute for Advanced Medicine in NYC, where she now serves as director of quality management and evaluation. In July 2021, she was chosen as an inaugural member of the 2021 cohort for the Thomas Dolan Career Accelerator Program through the American College of Healthcare Executives. Also, in September 2021, April married her now husband, whom she met at Boston College in 2007. • Kristen Lappas’s latest film, Blackfeet Boxing: Not Invisible, has screened in more than 25 film festivals, and its laurels and recognition along the way have included the Audience Award at AFI DOCS, the Jury Award at DC Shorts, the Grand Prize at the Academy Awardqualifying IndyShorts Festival, and most recently, an Emmy Award win for Outstanding Short Sports Documentary. TV Guide called it one of the best shows of 2020! Kristen is currently directing a “30 for 30” film on the 1996 USA Women’s Olympic Basketball Team, which acted as a catalyst for the creation of the WNBA. • Kevin Ryan wrote, “I got married—not to a BC graduate, but to a Buffalo Bills fan—so we found common ground and named our dog Flutie. I also had a book called Ahead of the Game, published by HarperCollins, come out on January 25. It’s about an incredible entrepreneur named Delane Parnell who grew up in a drug-riddled environment in Detroit and today, at age 28, is the founder of a several-hundred-milliondollar esports company.” • Goulston & Storrs, an Am Law 200 firm, is pleased to announce that Andrew Bensson, JD’16, has joined the firm’s Boston office. Andrew is an attorney in the firm’s real estate group, where he will continue to focus his practice on leasing, acquisitions, dispositions, and financing matters. Correspondent: Timothy Bates tbates86@gmail.com
2010 Cathleen Chopra-McGowan and her husband, Daniel Morgan, welcomed a baby girl, Uma Joy, in April 2020, and because a baby in a pandemic wasn’t enough of a challenge, they also moved from Chicago to California to begin teaching at Santa Clara 72
University, where they both teach in the department of Religious Studies. • Ariana (Ghom) and Patrick Greenwell have completed their training in their respective fellowships (Ariana’s in pediatric otolaryngology at Boston Children’s Hospital, Patrick’s in adult hip and knee reconstruction at New England Baptist Hospital) and have moved to Virginia to begin their practices. Ariana has taken a position as an assistant professor at UVA in the department of otolaryngology—head and neck surgery—while Patrick has joined the Shenandoah Valley orthopedics group at Augusta Hospital. • Sam Lipscomb Spain and her husband, Kevin, celebrated the birth of their first son, Aidan, on July 15, 2021. Aidan can’t wait to attend his first Eagles football game! • After honeymooning with his wife, Caroline, in Greece, George Somi joined the Worcester County district attorney’s office as a prosecutor in August 2021. • Stephanie Saltzman and James Mack were married on August 26, 2021, in a small family-only ceremony in York Beach, Maine. They look forward to celebrating with their BC friends and extended family in 2022! Correspondent: Bridget K. Sweeney bridget.k.sweeney@gmail.com
2011 Siobhan McKenna married Dave Jasinski in Kennebunkport, Maine, on July 17, 2021. Sean Peick officiated the wedding and Anthony Papetti served as the “man of honor.” Alex Stewart ’10 and Jeff Daniels ’09 performed music in the ceremony, and many other BC alums were in attendance. • In October 2019, Christopher Mason moved to Nashville to pursue a new opportunity at AllianceBernstein after living in Boston for 12 years. He recently became engaged to his fiancée Robin, a Swiss national, during a ski trip to the Swiss Alps. They plan to get married in the spring of 2022. • Kyndal Michel Marks and her husband, Sam, welcomed Henry Donald Marks on February 13, 2021. All are doing well and they look forward to attending Henry’s first game at Alumni Stadium this fall! • Hon. Grace E. Lee has been appointed to the national advisory council for Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing civil rights and promoting racial justice for Asian Americans. Correspondent: Brittany Lynch Pruitt brittanymichele8@gmail.com
2012 10th Reunion June 2022
Ruben Sotomayor became a CFA charterholder in August 2021 after passing the May 2021 CFA Level III exam. • On October 2, 2021, Andrew Moore married Emily Lynch ’14 in a beautiful ceremony that took place in Carlisle, Penn. Groomsmen included Tom Warns, Alexander Moore ’15, and Mikolaj Gawlik. Bridesmaids included Caitlin Like ’14. • Roommates Katherine
“KD” (Misgen) Nowicki and Emily (O’Brien) Tyksinski welcomed babies just a few days apart in August 2021. Elizabeth “Libby” is KD’s second child, and Theodore “Theo” is Emily’s first. Just as they once shared memories in Walsh and Ignacio, they are now enjoying the adventure of motherhood together. Both also share a passion for pediatric medicine and are balancing life as working moms. KD is a pediatric rheumatologist and Emily is a pediatric nurse practitioner. Correspondent: Riley Sullivan sullivan.riley.o@gmail.com
2013 Nicole Mollica recently started a new position as the director of admissions at Archbishop Williams High School in Braintree. • In 2021, Kira Mulshine moved from working at IBM in product management to working at Persefoni, a sustainable tech startup building software that helps enterprises calculate, reduce, and disclose their carbon emissions. She also shared that she’s “…gotten very into jiu jitsu over the past two years, catalyzed by my boyfriend teaching me while we were quarantined in Brooklyn.” • Sarah Gallagher is currently serving at U.S. Embassy Kinshasa, D.R. Congo, as a presidential management fellow. She loves the opportunity to work toward U.S. foreign policy objectives abroad and experience living on a third continent! • Kayla Manczurowsky also wrote in. “After clinicals in Boston hospitals during my years at BC and eight years of inpatient nursing in this great city, I am making the move to Portland, Maine, to begin a career in radiation oncology nursing. […] After caring for and losing my own mother, Rhonda, in July 2020 to mesothelioma, a very rare cancer related to asbestos exposure, I returned to work and was faced with working on the frontlines of the pandemic as a nurse in charge on a COVID unit. I saw a lot of suffering and loss in the past year, personally and professionally. Because of this, I have been inspired to make a change and continue in my mother’s footsteps, as she spent the last 11 years of her nursing career in radiation oncology at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center; she so dearly loved caring for her patients. I am humbled and honored to carry on her legacy as a nurse in the Maine Medical Center Cancer Institute’s radiation oncology department starting [in] November [2021]! My mom kept a quote on her desk at work: ‘Enthusiasm makes the ordinary, EXTRA-ordinary!’ I hope to share my enthusiasm and passion for this field of nursing with all the patients I encounter in the years to come.” Correspondent: Bryanna Mahony Robertson bryanna.mahony@gmail.com
2014 Marissa Manhart received a master’s in public health with a concentration in epidemiology from Rutgers University. She added that a lifelong interest in this
subject area culminated in this degree, during the timeliest of circumstances. She is employed at St. Joseph’s University Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey, as a nursing performance, safety, and improvement coordinator. • Danny Hlawitschka moved to San Francisco and is working for the real estate tech company Doma. • On October 16, 2021, Christopher Knoth and Bridget Eide celebrated their marriage in Minneapolis, where they recently moved in July. Former vice president and University secretary, Terry Devino, S.J., was the presider of the ceremony at St. Bartholomew of Wayzata. They were fortunate to celebrate with many BC classmates (including all members of the 2014 Strip Mod). • Christine Zhao also wrote in: “This past fiscal quarter, the ladies of Iggy A31 and their affiliates celebrated David Farley’s big 3-0 birthday down on the Jersey Shore (but we assure you, it’s not that Jersey Shore—more boats, Teslas, and tennis whites than GTL) and were catered by David’s personal chef […] In addition to Iggy A31, representing the class of 2014 were Bill Kloza, Willis Wang, Vince Mendola, Wonchan “Walter” Yi (now resident of Vegas), along with honorary member Altan Gulen, husband of Michelle Cunningham Gulen. Both Lani Frankville and Charlotte Parish became homeowners. Allie Rottman, Clara Kim Aakhus, and Michelle Cunningham Gulen continue to soar up the corporate/tech ladders while being working fur moms. Christine Zhao, because she does live in NYC, has not bought a home but has started drinking more water. • Samantha (Koss) Oubre and her husband, Nathan, welcomed their first child, Leah Elizabeth, in June 2021. They reside in Charlotte, North Carolina. • Sarah Malaske and Scott Burgess were married on July 24, 2021, in their home state of Minnesota. Among family and friends, maid of honor Laura Fedorko; bridesmaid Amy Blenk ’12, MEd’13; Matthew Mazzari; Christopher Lu; and Elizabeth Wall Gunter ’13 made the trek to Minneapolis to celebrate, while Samantha (Koss) Oubre toasted from afar! Sarah and Scott reside in Houston, Texas. Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
Gronewoller, a University of Kansas graduate, surrounded by loved ones at St. Teresa of Avila Church in Chicago. • Zachary Conte wrote that he “went back to school and earned an MBA from the University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business. Go, Blue!” • Samantha Hodge shared, “I recently discovered that my love of animals and dance can be combined in the developing field of animal therapy. Unlike pet therapy, in which animals assist people with mental health concerns, animal therapy is a growing area of practice in which humans assist animals with their mental health. After spending several years in the medical field as a nurse, I discovered this field after visiting an alpaca ranch and realized that my true calling was in working with underprivileged animals. During 2020, I took a huge risk to shift course in my career, pursue an online degree in animal management while minoring in dance, and have been working at Desert Mountain Alpaca Ranch in Georgia as the primary animal therapist.” • Madeleine Irwin is excited to have recently embarked on a new career journey! After working at UC Berkeley for four years, she transitioned to a new role at Deloitte, where she works in learning and development in the firm’s consulting business. As part of this new role, she is fully remote and looks forward to relocating back east after exploring the West Coast for a few years. Correspondent: Victoria Mariconti victoria.mariconti@gmail.com
can be easy to get stuck in ‘auto-pilot’ with life and the uncertainty spurred by COVID encouraged me to take the leap. I now work in construction tech, helping contractors adopt new technology to optimize their workflows.” Correspondent: Joshua Beauregard joshuab136@gmail.com
2016
2015
June 2022
Chris Russo, founder of Russo Strategic Partners, and Kris Meyer ’91, Hollywood producer and CEO of MuddHouse Media, partnered with Silverstein Properties, the developers of the World Trade Center, to produce an 11-part podcast series chronicling the historic rebuilding of the World Trade Center for the 20-year anniversary of the attacks on 9/11. The series, “Top of the World: Lessons from Rebuilding the World Trade Center,” is available on all podcasting platforms. Chris and Kris were lucky enough to take a photo standing at the top of 3 World Trade Center with Michael Teevan ’01, VP of communications for Major League Baseball, holding a red bandanna and honoring the memory of Welles Crowther. • Mei Huang recently started her master’s degree in economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University! Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
Sean McBride and Nicole Gabaldon were wed in their hometown of Milwaukee, Wisc., on August 21, 2021. They had the time of their lives, and were surrounded by 31 fellow Eagles. Sean and Nicole currently live in Chicago. • The National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors – Massachusetts recognized Jonathan Pierre of The Bulfinch Group as one of the four top young financial professionals in Massachusetts under the age of 40. Congratulations, Jonathan! • Roberto Martinez had a busy summer! He earned his JD from Chicago-Kent College of Law in May 2021 and immediately started studying for the Illinois bar exam. On August 7, 2021, Roberto married Eryn
Congratulations to Abigail Kopec, who completed her doctorate at Purdue University in October 2021 in astroparticle physics. She recently moved out to California for a three-year postdoctoral research position. • Natalie Yuhas recently started a new job at Boston Consulting Group, coordinating video marketing production. Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
2017 5th Reunion After three years at JPMorgan Asset Management, Naomi O’Leary left in the summer of 2021 and began a new role on the West Coast at BlackRock. Her sophomore-year, eight-man roommates had their first reunion together over the summer in Florida. • Myles Willis wrote in, “Largely in response to the rising pandemic, I decided to make the move to return home to Atlanta. I was previously working as a project manager with a general contractor based out of Boston. I had always envisioned myself returning home to be closer to family. As many have noted, COVID-19 was an accelerator of present societal trends and my move ultimately was no different than others. In a lot of ways that was one of the positive takeaways from the pandemic. It
2018 This past July, Grace Chung married her best friend and fellow BC Eagle (Class of 2016) in New York City. The pandemic altered their wedding ceremony plans, so rather than saying their vows followed by a party, they instead had an officiant with a few of their closest friends and family members. Two weeks after they got married, they moved from NYC to Atlanta. Both Grace and her husband decided to go to law school in Georgia, the Peach State and Grace’s home state. • Congratulations to Katie Kelleher, who started her first year at Harvard Law School. • Yejin Seo shared that he got his H-1B visa after three years of hard work in the States! • Jude Capachietti started working as a data analyst for a big tech company, and the role is fully remote. “The BC math department prepared me well for this! And now that I can work from anywhere, I moved out to Hawaii and I surf in my free time!” Correspondent: Lizzie Lolis elizabethslolis@gmail.com
2019
2020 Ben Posorske accepted a full-time offer at Moffitt Cancer Center, doing molecular oncology research in Tampa, Florida. • Krista Spadaccini shared that, after graduation, she moved across almost the entire country to Grand Junction, Colorado, to start her career as a broadcast journalist. Fast forward a little over one year, and she is moving back to eastern standard time! She will be joining the FOX 56 News team in Lexington, Kentucky, as a morning 73
reporter. She is going to be working with a group of talented journalists to build the station from the ground up, and she’s excited to tell stories from 5–9 a.m.! Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
2021 Buu Thong Tran shared that he secured a software engineering job four months after graduation. Correspondent: Boston College Alumni Association classnotes@bc.edu
BC SOCIAL WORK Col. (ret) Jeffrey S. Yarvis, PhD, MSW’94, was honored by the National Association of Social Workers inducting him as a pioneer in social work for his pathfinding contributions to the field for nearly 30 years. He also received the 2021 Researcher of the Year for Qualitative Research for Texas A&M University–Central Texas. A proud BC GSSW alumnus, Jeff is also excited to note that his son, Jacob Yarvis, MSW’22, is an advanced-standing student in the BC GSSW program! • Sr. Mary Henrietta Domingo, EHJ, MSW’96, PhD’02, received the 2021 Bishop James Healy Award from the Black Catholic Communities of the Archdiocese of Boston, presented by Sean Cardinal O’Malley, in November 2021 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. • Jami Croslow, MSW’09, has come on board with Veritas Collaborative, an eating-disorder healthcare system, as their professional relations manager. She made the transition from direct clinical work to business development and has found much joy in the work that she does to serve those with mental health needs. • Congratulations to Norman Lowe, MSW’13, who shared, “After 35 years of service to the city of Boston, I retired at the end of August. I worked in various capacities with the Department of Children and Families for sixteen years. I earned the prestigious Pride in Performance Award for working on a Black history presentation. I rescued many children from abusive situations. I moved on from DCF to Boston Public Schools. I was the director of student support services for 19 years at the Boston Day and Evening Academy, an alternative high school for overaged students. I have many positive memories from my time at the school.” • In June 2020, just over a month after graduating from BC, Jonah Naghi, MSW’20, started working as a full-time outpatient clinician at Advocated Inc. He said that he feels very confident and qualified and that he is really making a difference in people’s lives. “I could not have done it without BC!” Correspondent: Elizabeth Abbott Wenger ’04, MSW’06 lizabbott@gmail.com
CARROLL SCHOOL Congratulations to Solomon “Sol” Yas, MBA’71, for being inducted into the Cape Cod Baseball Hall of Fame after 27 years 74
of service as general manager, senior deputy commissioner, and director of officiating. • Raymond Boggs, MBA’77, has retired from International Data Corporation (IDC) after 22 years. Ray served as VP of IDC’s SMB research practice, examining the acquisition and use of advanced technology by firms with fewer than 1 ,000 employees. • Lauren (Foley) Preston, MBA’95, wrote, “I am pleased to announce I started a new career as vice president, customer care for Liberty Utilities. My husband, Bill, and I will be moving to New Hampshire after almost 20 years in the Washington, D.C., area.” • Bill Massos, MBA’95, added, “This past year, my lovely wife of 29 years, Andrea, and I moved from Hamilton to Ipswich, where we anticipate living for a long time. I am also very pleased to announce that Boston Private Bank is now a Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) company. My role within SVB is director in the specialty commercial group. We are focused on servicing the innovation economy, high-net worth individuals, and family offices, as well as venture capital and private equity firms. My particular specialty remains commercial real estate. I look forward to catching up with many of you at the BC Real Estate Council meetings.” • Christopher Crane, MBA’98, is happy to report that he has retired from State Street Corporation after 22 years. He is also very pleased to report that his eldest son, Matthew ’22, will be graduating in May from the Carroll School of Management with a degree in finance. In addition, his youngest son, Mark, has begun his freshman year at the O’Malley School of Business at Manhattan College and is also studying finance. Finally, his loving and supportive wife, Jane, has furthered her pharmaceutical sales career with Bayer Pharmaceuticals. • Mark Hovermann, MS’05, wrote, “I have the honor to be the first-ever CFO at Foresight Mental Health! I am super excited to join an amazing team of Foresighters and cannot wait to help spread positive mental health waves throughout the country!” • Cornerstone Research promoted Matt Osborn, PhD’15, to principal last summer. Dr. Osborn addresses issues involving financial markets, corporate finance, and financial institutions and is based out of the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. • Jordan Chatman, MBA’19, has been playing professional basketball in Europe and Asia since graduating with his MBA. Correspondent: John Clifford, MBA’10 clifford.jr@gmail.com
CONNELL SCHOOL Lynda Bulach Tagliavini, MS’79, is happily retired after almost 40 years as a pediatric nurse practitioner, enjoying volunteering, her grandchildren, church work, travel, and beach life during the summer at the Cape. Debbie Hanks, also MS’79, lives nearby, and they have remained close friends and professional colleagues over the years, mostly at Baystate Health Systems in Western Mass. Lynda says that
life is good! • Bethany Goldberg, MS’11, wrote, “I was thrilled to make a career change in 2021 to advance my career and establish better work-life balance. For years, I have worked the night shift while also teaching as adjunct faculty at the University of Rhode Island. I recently embraced teaching full-time as a nursing instructor for maternal/child health at the New England Institute of Technology in Rhode Island. I’m still working per diem as a labor room nurse, but I’m loving my new role and schedule!” • Jen Bash, MS’18, had lots of changes in 2021. She married David Barnes last July and became an occupational health nurse practitioner at Boston Children’s Hospital in August. Correspondent: Katy Phillips, MS’10, PhD’13 katyelphillips@gmail.com
LYNCH SCHOOL Bernard Richard Murphy, MEd’91, proudly a graduate of the BC Catholic School Leadership Program under Sr. Clare Fitzgerald, is now stepping away from education after 49 years. • Julie Brandt, MEd ’97, graduated from St. Louis University in May 2021, earning an EdD in educational leadership. • Sheryl Dion, MEd’16, completed her PhD at the University of New Hampshire and graduated in May 2021. • Patricia Boslet, MEd ’15, recently married her absolute love and BC alum Aristotle Boslet ’18. They moved to Florida for his graduate degree in nurse anesthesia at FSU and to start a family together. • Donald, Jr. ’67 and Kelley MacDonald ’67, MA’68, are celebrating 50 years of marriage this August. • Katie Burns ’09, MA’10 (nee Kelley), and her husband, Sam Burns, welcomed son, Noah Thomas Burns, on February 25, 2021. Named for grandfather Thomas Kelley ’75, MST’77, we’re all hopeful Noah will be the third generation in the family to attend BC! • M.E. Hawkins ’13, MEd,’14, and Derek Houseknecht ’13 got married on Martha’s Vineyard on June 26, 2021. Many guests were BC alumni! • Erin Russo ’11, MA’13, is excited to share that her son, Connor Thomas Russo, was born on Christmas Eve, 2020. Congrats! • Stephanie Silva, MA’15, is very proud and excited to report that in May 2021 she graduated with her PhD in early childhood education and care, from the University of Massachusetts Boston. • Victoria Carter ’14, MSW’15, shares that she married her best friend in August 2020 in front of an intimate groups of friends and family, despite the pandemic. • Jeanne Zilliox ’03, MEd’07, shares that she has three amazing children and has recently been promoted to director of graduate and professional studies recruitment at Endicott College. Her family also performs together in local community theater! Correspondent: Marianne Lucas Lescher ’83, PhD’98 malescher@aol.com
MORRISSEY COLLEGE Patrick Clarke, MA’74, shared precious memories of time spent at BC. “[That was] a pivotal time in my life between seminary and [my] missionary destination in Brazil (1976), where I have been ever since, mostly among the favela communities of São Paulo. I have received much more than I’ve given from people who have little or nothing materially. Boston though, remains a landmark to which I return often with nostalgic affection and gratitude for the unforgettable people I was privileged to know, and with whom I am still in contact, apart from one with whom I lost contact many years ago, but would love to connect again. Her name is Amy Sabatini Hannon, PhD’76, a student in Morrissey during my time there, and subsequently moved to California. Many thanks for the opportunity to connect again with precious memories.” • Amanda Udis-Kessler, MA’96, PhD’02, wrote, “In addition to my sociology-related work, I compose progressive sacred music and had many successes in 2021, including winning a national hymn-writing competition sponsored by the UCC Musicians Association and having my music used in several national and regional worship services (including the closing worship of the UCC General Synod, the denomination’s annual meeting).” • Monica Roberts, MA’01, MBA’08, recently announced her departure from the Boston Public Schools role of chief of family and community advancement to serve as the executive director of City Year Greater Boston. She started with City Year in November 2021 and looks forward to partnering with the Boston Public Schools and districts in Greater Boston to ensure educational equity, access, and opportunity for our youth. • Jim Crotty, MA’05, is an associate vice president at The Cohen Group, a strategic advisory firm based in Washington, D.C. Jim joined The Cohen Group after a 12-year career at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, most recently as the deputy chief of staff. • Daniel A. Gagnon, MA’17, published his first book, A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, the first full biography of one of the most well-known victims of the 1692 Salem Village witch hunt. • Selen Yanmaz, PhD’18, a graduate of the sociology department, is now an assistant professor of sociology at Istinye University in Turkey, her home country. She is the head of the department and the vice dean for the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Correspondent: Leslie Poole Petit, MA’91 lpoolepetit@gmail.com
towns. • On January 23, 2021, Jane AudreyNewhauser, MEd’75, was ordained a priest through Roman Catholic womenpriests, a worldwide movement within the Catholic Church. Currently, she supports ministry in two independent Catholic communities in Massachusetts and one in Florida. In addition, she volunteers as an end-of-life doula with Ascend Hospice. • Bernard Zablocki, MEd’85, shared that, sadly, his wife, Ann, died on August 4, 2020. She was a graduate of Brown (1953), taught elementary school in Germany and Montreal, and also taught ESL to intermediate students and adults in New York City. Bernard and Ann were married 49 years. • Dr. Michael M. Librie, PsyD, MSW, LCSW-C, MTS’01 (Weston Jesuit School of Theology), resumed his private psychotherapy practice, Synergy Counseling Services, LLC, after an 11-year hiatus. He is now delivering treatment on a virtual basis only. As a result, Dr. Librie can now provide psychotherapy services to the worldwide community. Dr. Librie also recently became certified as a sound therapist. • Hyun-Bo Shim, MA’04, is a proud father of two Eagles! His daughter, Ebbie, is a senior at BC majoring in environmental geoscience. His son, Emmanuel, is a freshman at BC (aspiring business major), and his youngest son is a senior in high school. Both dad and son hope that he will attend BC next year, as well. • Sandra Dorsainvil, MA’10, launched a new podcast in September 2020, titled “Bridges for Mission (B4M),” which can be found on all platforms. It focuses on the short-term mission movement and has over 1,900 followers and subscribers from all continents. • Rev. April Gutierrez, MA’09, is the associate pastor of St. Paul’s UMC in Rochester, Michigan. She co-convenes the anti-bias/anti-racism task force for the Michigan conference of the United Methodist Church. She is currently working on a
doctor of ministry degree in spiritual direction entitled “Embodied Spiritual Practices for Brown and Black Bodies Exploring Sabbath Rest” at GarrettEvangelical Theological Seminary. • Congratulations to Ricardo Gonzalez Sanchez, STD’10, who is now academic dean in the faculty of theology at the Pontifical University of Mexico as well as a member of the theological consultation team of Conferencia del Episcopado Latinoamericano (CELAM). Correspondent: School of Theology & Ministry stmalum@bc.edu
WCAS I received an e-mail from Philip O’Toole ’86. Phil informed me that after 40 years of service in the Massachusetts Trial Court, he was going to retire in February 2020. Phil’s most recent position was that of clerk magistrate in Leominster District Court. I wish you the best in retirement. • Stephanie Gigliotti ’17 currently works as a victim witness advocate for Suffolk County. She is currently assigned to South Boston Municipal Court as the solo advocate. Stephanie finds her work very meaningful in assisting victims. • Isabella Lanjan ’20 obtained a new position in tech sales at Logz.Io, an Israeli-founded startup. Isabella recently traveled to Tel Aviv. Also, congratulations to Isabella, who completed her studies in December 2019. • In April 2021, Christopher McCarthy ’08 left his position as a cybersecurity contractor at Hanscom Air Force Base and accepted a position with British firm Control Risks as a global security operations center consultant embedded with a client in Massachusetts. Correspondent: Jane T. Crimlisk ’74 crimliskp@gmail.com
STM Dave Hinchen, MDiv’74, is in his 11th year as director of Ignatian Volunteer Corps New England (IVC NE). IVC NE reached new highs in service corps members in 2021: 52 men and women (many who are BC grads) helping in 31 nonprofits in Boston, Worcester, Providence, and surrounding 75
OBITUARIES boston college alumni deaths
1940s Walter Cotter ’45 on 10/27/2021. Charles Rogers ’45 on 7/4/2021. Alvin Pierce ’46 on 8/5/2021. Gene Grillo ’47 on 11/14/2021. James Collins ’49 on 12/1/2021. Edward Daly JD’49 on 8/25/2021. Eugene Joyce ’49 on 8/11/2021. Patrick Leonard ’49 on 7/17/2021. Jack Meany ’49 on 9/8/2021. Millard Owen ’49 on 12/2/2021. Jack Spellman ’49 on 8/9/2021.
1950s Richard Birmingham ’50 on 10/30/2021. Paul Coleman ’50 on 8/20/2021. James Connelly ’50 on 8/23/2021. Jack Donoghue ’50 on 9/6/2021. Daniel Leonard ’50 on 7/4/2021. William Looney ’50 on 6/24/2021. Kenneth McLaughlin JD’50 on 8/28/2021. John O’Neil ’50 on 3/1/2021. Frank Realin ’50 on 9/1/2021. Eileen Rigby ’50 on 12/10/2019. John Canane ’51 on 10/3/2021. Philip Dennis ’51 on 9/23/2021. John Donahue ’51 on 12/2/2021. Paul Dunbar ’51 on 10/7/2021. Albert Goodrow ’51 on 9/16/2019. William Horne ’51 on 9/24/2021. Melvin Jacobs ’51 on 1/29/2020. Robert O’Leary ’51 on 11/21/2020. Charles Ryan JD’51 on 10/18/2021. Harold Savard ’51 on 7/17/2021. James Timmons ’51 on 8/3/2021. Nello Traverso ’51 on 8/5/2021. Robert Yarbrough ’51 on 10/18/2021. Peter Gately ’52 on 9/4/2021. Arthur Gobron ’52 on 9/7/2021. Al Johnson ’52 on 9/7/2021. John Leary ’52 on 11/9/2021. Joseph Oteri ’52 on 11/22/2020. Daniel Ryan ’52 on 11/13/2021. Theresa Saniuk-Klimowicz ’52 on 9/4/2021. Peggy Dolan Sullivan ’52 on 12/29/2019. Robert Campion LLB’53 on 7/5/2021. Louise Lynch Conlan ’53 on 9/6/2021. Jack Costa ’53 on 8/20/2021. Matthew Flaherty ’53 on 11/28/2021. John Mazzone ’53 on 8/25/2021. James Ridge ’53 on 11/19/2021. Austin Smith ’53 on 7/30/2021. Gerald St. Denis MSW’53 on 9/11/2021. James Cisternelli ’54 on 6/29/2021. James Cotter ’54 on 9/22/2021. Frank Cruise ’54 on 7/28/2021. Virginia Marcotte Huard ’54 on 10/26/2021. Ruth Hurley ’54 11/26/2021. 76
Donald Sisk ’54 on 9/10/2021. Ann Sorensen-Coleman ’54 on 9/12/2021. Leo Waible ’54 on 9/20/2021. Thomas Brennan ’55 on 11/11/2021. John Carroll ’55 on 10/13/2021. James Halpin ’55 on 8/18/2021. Francis Lannon ’55 on 7/24/2021. James Lemieux ’55 on 11/12/2021. Edward Leslie ’55 on 7/31/2021. Joan Lett ’55 on 7/14/2021. Owen Mahony MSW’55 on 12/1/2021. John Morrissey ’55 on 9/28/2021. James Reilly ’55 on 10/22/2021. Sidney Smith ’55 on 8/16/2021. Elizabeth Bulman Craven ’56 on 8/3/2021. Genevieve Jean Fitzpatrick ’56 on 11/18/2021. Jack McCarthy ’56 on 12/5/2021. Robert O’Brien ’56 on 8/2/2021. Maureen Peralta ’56 on 9/18/2021. Josephine Fitzpatrick Tingley ’56 on 6/22/2021. Anthony Barba ’57 on 6/15/2021. Suzanne Carell MEd’57 on 9/11/2021. Russell Dailey ’57 on 10/25/2021. David Geggis ’57 on 10/28/2021. Hugh Grady ’57 on 5/22/2021. Jane Rhodes Hersey MSW’57 on 11/1/2021. Tom Johnson ’57 on 9/7/2021. Gabriel Leblanc MA’57 on 8/17/2021. Edward Lee JD’57 on 8/6/2021. Rose Lynch MS’57 on 9/1/2021. Bill McCarthy ’57 on 12/31/2020. George Morin JD’57 on 7/17/2021. Andrew Procopio ’57 on 11/3/2021. William Alves ’58 on 8/19/2021. Larry Bohan ’58 on 10/15/2021. Leonard Cunningham ’58 on 7/5/2021. Richard Derosas ’58 on 6/25/2021. Jack Dillon ’58 on 11/4/2021. Paul Donovan ’58 on 10/26/2021. Richard Doyle ’58 on 4/22/2021. Phillip Farber MS’58 on 10/19/2021. Mary Creeron Grostefon ’58 on 8/12/2021. Edward Heuston MA’58 on 11/18/2021. Jim Higgins ’58 on 8/16/2021. Thomas Johnson S.T.L.’58 on 9/26/2021. Ellen Langton ’58 on 9/19/2021. Michael Lavey ’58 on 10/31/2020. Richard Mandile ’58 on 10/15/2021. Thomas Melia ’58 on 9/23/2021. Arthur Mooney ’58 on 9/20/2021. Donald Seager ’58 on 10/22/2021. Bradley Smith ’58 on 8/26/2021. Frederick Busconi ’59 on 10/12/2021. Bill Coffey ’59 on 10/25/2021. Anthony DeCubellis MSW’59 on 8/24/2021. Jan Gray ’59 on 11/18/2021. Larry Harding ’59 on 10/29/2021. Harold Jackson ’59 on 10/21/2021. Nancy Holmes Keller ’59 on 12/19/2020. Kevin Kiley ’59 on 5/31/2021.
John Kuliesh ’59 on 8/3/2021. David Lynch ’59 on 10/23/2021. George Malloy ’59 on 6/27/2019. Ann Marshall MA’59 on 10/29/2021. Virginia Mostyn O’Donnell ’59 on 9/25/2021. Owen O’Malley ’59 on 3/19/2021. Robert Sievens ’59 on 10/16/2021.
1960s Maryann Boyd ’60 on 11/15/2021. Eleanor Coppola Brown ’60 on 11/2/2021. Gerald Butterworth ’60 on 11/18/2021. Matthew Connolly ’60 on 10/8/2021. Joanne Deforges Dearness ’60 on 9/3/2021. Francis Farley MEd’60 on 7/3/2021. John Fitzgerald MSW’60 on 7/5/2021. William Foley ’60 on 11/11/2021. Carroll Gagnon ’60 on 10/14/2021. Richard Hamilton MS’60 on 9/6/2021. Dorothy Kelley MSW’60 on 7/8/2021. Frank Leonard ’60 on 7/8/2021. Anthony Milano ’60 on 8/18/2021. Elizabeth Moore ’60 on 10/25/2021. Daniel O’Connor JD’60 on 9/11/2021. William Riley ’60 on 6/18/2020. Peter Sheehan ’60 on 8/16/2021. Gerard Spendley ’60 on 9/28/2021. Edwin Wallwork ’60 on 6/18/2021. Patricia Walsh ’60 on 7/19/2021. Jeanne Denys Ament ’61 on 8/1/2021. Mary Barry ’61 on 7/19/2021. Paul Carty MA’61 on 8/4/2021. Robert Chaisson ’61 on 7/28/2021. Barry Connelly ’61 on 6/19/2021. Eugene Cummings ’61 on 11/25/2021. Mary Travers Di Giovanni ’61 on 10/9/2021. Kathleen Hayes Dolan MEd’61 on 10/19/2021. Mary Mahoney Falvey ’61 on 7/22/2021. Celine Finn ’61 on 7/28/2021. Dante Greco ’61 on 9/18/2021. John Greene ’61 on 11/28/2021. Clifton Hoey ’61 on 7/14/2021. Barbara Bennetti Kellum ’61 on 8/31/2021. Carole Sullivan Lucey ’61 on 12/1/2021. Elizabeth Smiarowski ’61 on 10/19/2021. Mary Turbini ’61 on 9/20/2021. David Allen ’62 on 6/29/2021. Edward Bonenfant MSW’62 on 12/9/2021. Jack Breen ’62 on 9/29/2021. Stephen Burns ’62 on 8/11/2021. Bill Byrne ’62 on 6/23/2021. Charles Condon ’62 on 2/21/2019. Eugene Dallamora ’62 on 11/23/2021. Lorraine Yelle Daly ’62 on 8/8/2021. Gerald Dyer ’62 on 10/1/2021. Frank Faggiano ’62 on 9/16/2021. Virginia Fitzgerald ’62 on 11/17/2021. Kathleen Cavanaugh Fogarty ’62 on 8/5/2021. Megan Gillespie Rice MS’62 on 10/10/2021.
Donald Halpin ’62 on 8/4/2021. John Jenney ’62 on 8/29/2021. Mary Lannen MS’62 on 6/18/2021. Fran Lawl ’62 on 11/14/2021. Kevin Leary ’62 on 8/10/2021. Donald Lemieux ’62 on 8/23/2021. Arthur Lyons ’62 on 11/3/2021. Vincent McCarthy ’62 on 1/29/2020. James Moran ’62 on 10/18/2021. James Woods ’62 on 11/20/2021. Mary Casey MBA’63 on 10/27/2021. Bill Costley ’63 on 2/19/2020. Francis Manzelli ’63 on 11/19/2020. William Maye ’63 on 11/23/2021. David McLaughlin MA’63 on 11/1/2021. Carl Rubinstein JD’63 on 11/13/2021. Caroline Smith ’63 on 9/6/2021. Richard Talbot ’63 on 7/23/2021. John Barrett ’64 on 7/2/2021. Lawrence Corcoran S.T.L.’64 on 1/6/2019. Franklin Foley ’64 on 12/29/2020. Paul Kane ’64 on 9/13/2021. Fred McGoldrick ’64 on 11/29/2021. Dennis O’Leary ’64 on 10/27/2021. David Shapiro JD’64 on 8/29/2021. Stephen Silverman JD’64 on 11/11/2021. William Slattery ’64 on 9/1/2021. Ralph Smith ’64 on 9/15/2021. Lois Souza M.A.T.’64 on 6/16/2021. George Sullivan ’64 on 10/13/2021. Richard Sullivan ’64 on 7/19/2021. Steve Vogel ’64 on 8/5/2021. John Wojie ’64 on 7/16/2021. Jack Cotter ’65 on 10/18/2021. Peter Cryan ’65 on 8/4/2021. Kevin Doherty ’65 on 7/20/2021. Gabrielle Goode MSW’65 on 11/16/2021. William Hanigan MEd’65 on 9/18/2021. Bill Hayward ’65 on 7/16/2021. Michael Joyce ’65 on 11/6/2021. Jim Lucie ’65 on 6/13/2021. Mary Harris McAfee ’65 on 8/27/2021. Kathryn McGuiggan MA’65 on 12/2/2021. Kevin Sheehy ’65 on 8/1/2021. John Slipkowsky MBA’65 on 8/28/2021. Stephen Statuto ’65 on 10/1/2021. Dick Sullivan ’65 on 10/18/2021. Susan Ferrone Towle ’65 on 10/1/2021. James Barry ’66 on 8/8/2021. John Doehner ’66 on 11/29/2021. Dorothy Tyndall Duckworth ’66 on 6/9/2021. Paul Gonsalves MA’66 on 11/17/2021. Patricia Foley Hannan ’66 on 4/17/2021. Walter Kirby ’66 on 11/14/2021. George Maling ’66 on 10/28/2021. Paul Masterson ’66 on 7/13/2021. Vincent O’Connor ’66 on 8/18/2021. Timothy O’Leary ’66 on 3/7/2020. Edward Piazza JD’66 on 10/30/2021. Dennis Roberts JD’66 on 10/20/2021.
Andrew Rogers ’66 on 6/23/2021. Pauline Roche Walsh ’66 on 11/23/2021. John Wood ’66 on 11/30/2021. William Wynn ’66 on 10/29/2021. Michael Equi ’67 on 8/13/2021. Wallace Hubbard ’67 on 10/16/2021. Jane Heafey McDevitt ’67 on 10/21/2021. Mary McDonough ’67 on 11/4/2021. Mary Ann Mahoney McGovern ’67 on 11/14/2021. James McGregor MA’67 on 6/7/2020. Blake Murray ’67 on 9/8/2021. Randi Slaatten Sack ’67 on 10/2/2021. Harry Stanhope MSW’67 on 8/28/2021. Stephen Aylward ’68 on 10/7/2021. John Barry ’68 on 6/12/2021. Charles Eggert ’68 on 9/12/2021. Sandra Galligan MS’68 on 12/3/2021. Barry Gilman ’68 on 7/22/2021. Sheila Tipping Guerin ’68 on 11/14/2021. John Mathieu MA’68 on 7/17/2021. Daniel Nolan ’68 on 9/17/2021. Gail O’Reilly MA’68 on 11/2/2021. Leo Paradis MA’68 on 11/16/2021. John Ridge ’68 on 10/12/2021. Rich Steiman ’68 on 8/5/2021. Stephen Yablonski ’68 on 7/20/2021. Joseph Bage MA’69 on 6/18/2021. Sherman Ball ’69 on 11/22/2021. Mary Brown MEd’69 on 11/9/2021. John Buehler ’69 on 7/25/2021. Stephen Carter ’69 on 9/28/2021. Anthony Cotugno MA’69 on 12/31/2020. Donald Grieve MBA’69 on 7/19/2021. Sandra Lattimer ’69 on 10/29/2021. Kathleen McCarthy ’69 on 10/20/2021. John McCormack MSW’69 on 9/21/2021. Norma Swensen McGregor MA’69 on 6/18/2020. James McMahon PhD’69 on 6/24/2021. Jane Newbury ’69 on 11/22/2021. Mary Newman ’69 on 8/14/2021. Tom Norton ’69 on 8/5/2021. Peter Nurczynski ’69 on 11/6/2021. John Quinlan MBA’69 on 7/25/2021. Robert Sherry ’69 on 11/8/2021. Patricia Snyder MEd’69 on 10/1/2021.
1970s Gerald Connolly ’70 on 6/20/2021. Tom Coughlin JD’70 on 1/16/2021. Thomas Eaton ’70 on 12/1/2021. Honora Kaplan JD’70 on 10/22/2021. Robert McNeil ’70 on 5/8/2020. Jay Yost ’70 on 7/25/2021. Betsey Asrican MEd’71 on 10/16/2021. Richard Boucher MA’71 on 7/19/2021. John Boyle MSP’71 on 11/15/2021. Janeth Kershaw Brewster MS’71 on 5/21/2021. Marjorie Latta Dromgoole ’71 on 6/20/2021.
John Duggan MEd’71 on 11/4/2021. John Finnerty ’71 on 11/25/2020. Pamela Hayes ’71 on 12/2/2021. Marc Katz MEd’71 on 11/22/2021. Jean Little MEd’71 on 10/29/2021. Eugene McAuliffe ’71 on 7/6/2021. Joseph Murray ’71 on 9/20/2021. Nancy Palmisciano ’71 on 10/2/2021. James Prevett ’71 on 11/11/2021. Lawrence Shea ’71 on 9/24/2021. Thomas Totino ’71 on 3/21/2021. Dan Archabal M.A.T.’72 on 12/6/2021. Alex Bezjak MA’72 on 7/24/2021. James Burke ’72 on 7/8/2021. Georgia Hamlin MEd’72 on 7/28/2021. Tim Lechmaier ’72 on 9/15/2021. Dennis Mayne ’72 on 7/23/2021. Daniel Natchek ’72 on 7/17/2021. Michael O’Dwyer ’72 on 9/20/2021. Jacqueline Quinn MEd’72 on 2/6/2021. Francis Rosa ’72 on 11/26/2021. Betsy Ferriter Cotter ’73 on 8/19/2021. Thomas Curran ’73 on 7/10/2021. Robert Emilianowicz ’73 on 11/10/2021. David Flanagan JD’73 on 10/14/2021. Maryalice Foley ’73 on 7/15/2021. John Garry ’73 on 10/16/2021. Rhonda Meister ’73 on 6/15/2021. Thomas Pins MA’73 on 6/18/2021. Steven Platten ’73 on 9/30/2021. Raymond Scannell ’73 on 8/4/2021. Susan Condon JD’74 on 7/7/2021. John Crowne ’74 on 9/11/2021. James Curtin ’74 on 7/29/2021. Pamela Davis ’74 on 9/18/2021. Thomas Dyer ’74 on 6/26/2021. Joseph Grant ’74 on 7/28/2021. Robert Hawes MBA’74 on 7/30/2021. Anthony Pontecorvo ’74 on 11/6/2021. Susan Bettencourt ’75 on 1/6/2020. Nancy Correia ’75 on 7/11/2021. Joe Gillis ’75 on 9/1/2021. Mary Gillon MEd’75 on 10/20/2021. Mary Ann Hirschhorn MS’75 on 8/17/2021. Nancy Brown Phipard MEd’75 on 9/2/2021. Marian St. Onge MA’75 on 8/1/2021. Michael Taricano ’75 on 11/6/2021. Peter Crupe ’76 on 8/14/2021. Charles Ehl PhD’76 on 7/15/2021. William Foley ’76 on 11/24/2021. Stephanie Guerra ’76 on 9/18/2021. Lawrence Horn ’76 on 7/12/2021. Margaret Mahoney ’76 on 8/24/2021. Mary McCafferty ’76 on 7/30/2021. Peter McNamara ’76 on 10/6/2021. Annie McCarthy Petersen ’76 on 12/20/2020. Linda Schlicter Reiser ’76 on 11/30/2021. Peter Shumsker MBA’76 on 8/28/2021. Mary Ellen Slattery ’76 on 10/31/2021. Donna Bryant-Smith MA’77 on 6/18/2021. Ada-Maria Coulouras ’77 on 6/19/2021. Edward Feinberg JD’77 on 6/16/2021. Edmund Hill MA’77 on 12/1/2021. Joseph Koury MDiv’77 on 6/27/2021.
Tracy Tufillaro ’77 on 10/15/2021. Latham Ann DaumMS’78 on 11/19/2021. Dorothy Garman MS’78 on 10/23/2021. Vernon Blodgett MBA’79 on 8/21/2021. Edouard Bouvier ’79 on 7/6/2021. Anne Slein ’79 on 6/19/2021.
1980s Barbara Elmes MEd’80 on 11/9/2021. Dolores Haritos DEd’80 on 8/9/2021. Larry Kranseler ’80 on 10/13/2021. Samuel Marcellino JD’80 on 7/6/2021. Diane Noyes ’80 on 7/3/2021. Rick Stetson ’80 on 9/14/2021. Eleanor Pimentel Swierk MEd’80 on 7/27/2021. James Buckley ’81 on 9/30/2021. Phyllis Curcuru ’81 on 6/27/2021. Michael Giunta ’81 on 1/10/2021. Chris Kauders JD’81 on 7/31/2021. Brian Kelly ’81 on 12/9/2021. Michelle Bikowski ’84 on 12/1/2021. Jane Duggan MA’84 on 7/10/2021. Eedy Nicholson JD’84 on 7/16/2021. Arthur Barry PhD’85 on 7/1/2021. David McKay JD’85 on 10/31/2021. Dennis O’Brien MEd’85 on 7/17/2021. Edward Zigler DLITT’85 on 2/7/2019. Jacques D’Amboise DFA’86 on 5/2/2021. Jordon Derderian CAES’86 on 5/28/2021. Rosemarie Decock Hoffman MEd’86 on 10/7/2021. Daria Smith ’86 on 1/31/2021. Nancy Downey PhD’87 on 9/20/2021. Kevin Longin ’87 on 11/5/2021. Karen Keyho Farmer ’88 on 10/4/2021. Ari Feinstein ’88 on 8/11/2021. Carolyn Golden ’88 on 10/17/2021. Quinn Hebert JD’88 on 9/6/2021 . Laura Nelson ’88 on 8/20/2021. Bill Harrington ’89 on 8/25/2021. Barbara Sherman Lievens MS’89 on 7/25/2021.
1990s Kirk Jackson JD’90 on 8/17/2021. Roberta Southwick ’90 on 5/13/2020. David Swenson ’90 on 6/28/2021. Christian Call ’91 on 5/9/2020. Peter Coville PhD’91 on 7/19/2021. Julia Covino ’91 on 9/28/2021. Catherine Foley-Kennedy ’91 on 9/28/2021. Gisel Thomas ’91 on 8/23/2021. Joseph Driscoll ’92 on 12/6/2021. Joseph Richard MEd’92 on 8/5/2021. Cheryl Cobb MSW’93 on 10/1/2021. Robyn Nelson ’94 on 8/19/2021. Christopher Rusho ’94 on 6/23/2021. Sandra Brum ’95 on 7/8/2021. John Hume LLD’95 on 8/3/2020. Susan Hewitt MSW’96 on 6/22/2021. Elizabeth Walker MacLeod ’96 on 11/2/2021. Roger Etchegaray ’97 on 9/4/2019. John Nilsson JD’97 on 10/23/2021. Josephine Sciarrino ’98 on 7/3/2021. Anthony Spencer ’98 on 9/7/2021. Daniel Burke ’99 on 7/13/2021. Jennifer Flatley ’99 on 8/17/2021. Ilda Carreiro King PhD’99 on 8/12/2021. James Kinsey ’99 on 9/11/2021.
2000s Jaime Ortega ’00 on 7/26/2019. Wendy Lewis MSW’01 on 7/10/2021. Patricia Rhee MS’01 on 10/5/2021. Danielle Stapleton ’02 on 10/21/2021. Michael McCarthy PhD’03 on 9/25/2021. Helen Haas MA’08 on 6/10/2021. Colin O’Rourke ’09 on 10/11/2021.
2010s Moody Erin Brennan ’12 on 11/22/2021. Kerry O’Reilly ’12 on 9/3/2021. Tyler Vandeventer ’12 on 8/3/2021. Mary Kate O’Malley ’14 on 8/18/2021.
BOSTON COLLEGE COMMUNITY DEATHS Tracy Downing, of Dedham, on November 24, 2021. She was a fiscal assistant, Weston Observatory, from 1993 to 1995; and an administrative assistant in the English department from 1995 to 2021. Philip S. Kiley, S.J., Campion Center, Weston, on October 24, 2021. He was an archivist, Burns Library from 2003 to 2021. Peter Kugel, of Cambridge, on October 11, 2021. He was associate professor, computer science department from 1974 to 2006. Marvin Rintala, of Brookline, on September 9, 2021. He was professor emeritus, political science department and taught from 1963 to 2004. The “Obituaries” section is compiled from national 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. 77
advancing boston college
A Day to Unite All Eagles Philanthropy helped shape the Boston College we know today. Giving Day is one way for theBC community to celebrate our common bond.
In the mid-19th century, the Boston area was not bustling with colleges as it is today. Harvard had been founded 200 years prior to train the next generation of Puritan clergymen. Tufts and Boston University were established to educate Universalists and Methodists, respectively. In 1861, MIT was formed in response to the Industrial Revolution.
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Then, in spring 1863, a new chapter of the city’s academic history was written when the Society of Jesus presented to the Massachusetts Legislature a petition to charter a new college in the city. This one stood apart. It would educate the city's predominantly Irish, Catholic immigrant community, a population that had few options for higher education or social mobility at that time. The Massachusetts House and Senate passed the bill on the last day of March and, the following day, it was approved by Governor John Albion Andrew. On April 1, 1863, Boston College was officially chartered. A single trip to the present-day Heights makes it clear how far the University has come from its early days as a “small streetcar college” for immigrant students, housed in a single building in Boston's South End.
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Today, BC is a nationally prominent institution with an R1 research designation, eight schools, highly ranked graduate programs, and 31 NCAA Division I varsity sports whose student-athletes graduate at one of the highest rates in the country. Students represent all 50 states and six continents. And the University’s vast, influential community includes nearly 200,000 living alumni, 9,000-plus students, and countless faculty, staff, parents, and friends. That’s the what; here’s the how. Support from alumni and friends has always played a pivotal role in shaping the Boston College campus. In the years following WWII when enrollment began to outstrip facilities, BC students went door to door throughout Boston, asking neighbors to “buy a brick for Boston College”—which sold for $1 apiece—in order to build what would become Fulton Hall. Today, new buildings, spaces, and more are named for those who make outstanding lifelong commitments to Boston College.
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However, the impact of donors goes well beyond what is visible. The generosity of those who see the University’s potential have contributed to the intellectual, personal, ethical, and religious formation of hundreds of thousands of men and women. Philanthropy allows BC to invest in renowned faculty and compassionate mentors, and provide transformative experiences that inspire students to serve the world as Eagles for others.
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The day that unites all Eagles. Exciting things are on the horizon at BC—new disciplines and spaces to explore them, gamechanging athletics facilities, community-building student spaces, and so much more that has yet to even be imagined. Eagles around the globe have an ability to play a key role in where the University goes next. Giving Day has become one of the University’s most important traditions, not only as a signal of our community’s belief in BC’s present but also of its future. And that’s why we celebrate BC Giving Day on April 1. On Founder’s Day. Boston College was founded on hopes and dreams. The building blocks you help lay today will provide the foundation of our collective success tomorrow—taking us from our humble beginnings to our limitless future.
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Giving Day march 31–april 1 bc.edu/givingday
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but in my sophomore year, I took a course on Soviet politics that changed everything. Back then, Russia was, as Winston Churchill said, a “riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” There was no access to information. I’d never even left the Northeast, but almost immediately, I knew I had to travel to the Soviet Union to study that riddle. My husband, Donald Carlisle, was also a Soviet specialist and a BC professor. We published articles together, traveled to Moscow and Uzbekistan, read obscure Soviet newspapers, and talked endlessly. When he died, in 1997, that was what I missed most—our ongoing conversation. Sometimes, life lights a fire under you. I started my Ph.D. in 1978, and for years, I had the findings for my dissertation. But between teaching at BC and raising three boys, it was hard to find time to write. When Donald passed, my youngest child was only 2, and I realized, Now I’m it—it was up to me to support my kids, and my dissertation couldn’t wait any longer. It was all hands on deck, and I finished it in 2001. Now, I’m turning it into a book called Clan and Politics in Uzbekistan.
WHAT I’VE LEARNED
Kathleen Bailey ’76, Ph.D.’01 Professor of the Practice of Political Science Kathleen Bailey is an expert on the former Soviet bloc and the ethnic and regional politics of Uzbekistan, Central Asia, and the Persian Gulf. She began teaching at BC in 1984 and is the director of the University’s Islamic Civilization and Societies Program and the Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program. —John Shakespear I’m from a small town in the Hudson Valley called Kingston. There were nine of us crammed into a small house with one bathroom. That was my first lesson in diplomacy: I wasn’t getting my sisters out of that bathroom by making unilateral demands. It was all about negotiated settlements. My high school guidance counselors wanted me to go to finishing school, but that would have finished me. I wasn’t interested in lunch on china and wearing white. Instead, I went to the library and took out this 1,000-page Barron’s compendium that listed every single college in the country. I would have read 80
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the whole thing, but luckily, Boston College starts with “B.” I’d never seen anything as magical as this campus. I joined the very first BC women’s swim team in 1972. When I heard the Jesuit idea that mind, body, and spirit go together, something clicked for me. It was wonderful to realize that caring for your body could fit in with spirituality. To this day, the girls I swam with are my best friends. College is a chance to be surprised, to discover what you love. I majored in political science because I thought I wanted to be an attorney,
Since 1989, I’ve taken more than 300 students abroad. One of the invaluable things about going abroad is that, ideally, you become connected to people’s real lives. Beliefs and issues become tangible rather than theoretical. You start to see that the world is interconnected, and political solutions need to be interconnected as well. At times, especially after September 11, Americans have struggled to engage with what Islam really is—the daily, beautiful, peaceful practice of it. But once you spend time with Kuwaitis and Jordanians, once you’ve eaten their food and talked to their children and seen what wonderful people they are, all preconceptions fall away. You have to do that to understand any society, any faith. Mentorship, to me, is about helping people see who they want to be and what they want to do in the world. You can’t tell someone to find the questions and passions that will shape their lives, but you can expose them to things. I see it happen all the time with the Gabelli Scholars—after students volunteer at a food bank or travel to Kuwait, they talk about their experiences in a profound way. They begin to ask how they can contribute to solving problems on a societal level. With any luck, they work it out for themselves. n photos: Lee Pellegrini (Bailey); Justin Knight (Bright Idea)
Parting Shot
Bright Idea Students created glow-in-the-dark paintings under black lights on the McMullen Museum of Art’s outdoor terrace at the “Art After Dark: A Grotesquerie of Lights” event in October.
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Boston College campus, early 20th century
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From streetcar college to global research University, philanthropy has helped pave the way. This Giving Day, join us in honoring our history and help build the future of Boston College.
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Giving Day march 31–april 1 bc.edu/givingday