Published: February 2016
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Community gifts, “cross-coupling” chemistry, and drama—scenes from the past six weeks.
January 8: William Gross, superintendent-in-chief of the Boston Police Department, spoke in McGuinn 121 about community policing, at a conference sponsored by the School of Social Work. The theme of the conference was “Race and Justice.”
Photograph: Lee Pellegrini
January 14: Actor, director, and musician Jere Shea ’87 talked in Gasson 100 with Margaux Villeneuve ’18, one of 188 sophomores who took part in Endeavor, a two-day career exploration program recently launched by the University’s Career Center. In all, 57 alumni spoke on panels and acted as coaches for the undergraduates, who subsequently visited area workplaces (among the options: the State House, a hospital, a law firm, a nonprofit, and a technology startup).
Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert
January 15: At a ceremony in Gasson 100 (front row, from left), University President William P. Leahy, SJ, and Boston Mayor Martin Walsh ’10 presented six organizations serving in nearby Allston or Brighton with grants totaling almost $450,000 from the Boston College Neighborhood Improvement Fund. The awards were outlays from the $2.5 million fund created by Boston College and distributed together with the Boston Redevelopment Authority and the community-based Boston College Allston-Brighton Task Force. Seated to Walsh’s left were Massachusetts State Representative Kevin Honan, Boston City Councilor Mark Ciommo, and Jean Woods, the Task Force’s cochair.
Photograph: Lee Pellegrini
January 21: Among those attending the Unity Breakfast in the Murray Room to honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. were (from left) David Quigley, provost and dean of faculties; Dan Bunch, director of the University’s Learning to Learn Program; Tracey West, associate dean of external relations, diversity, and inclusion at the Law School; and guest speaker Andrea Cabral ’81, a lawyer and former Massachusetts secretary of public safety. The event was sponsored by the Black Faculty, Staff, and Administrators Association.
Photograph: Lee Pellegrini
January 22: James Morken (second from right), the Louise and James Vanderslice and Family Professor of Chemistry, met with members of his research group—from left, chemistry Ph.D. candidates Gabriel Lovinger, Emma Edelstein, Adam Szymaniak, Liang Zhang, and Matteo Chierchia—in his Merkert laboratory. The group recently published an article in Science reporting their development of a type of “cross-coupling” chemical reaction.
Photograph: Lee Pellegrini
January 26: A lead investigator in a $1.2 million project sponsored by the National Science Foundation to develop hands-on science, technology, engineering, and math learning opportunities for low-income students in elementary school through community college, Professor G. Michael Barnett (far right) of the Lynch School of Education has been working on ways to integrate robotics and coding into coursework. Testing ideas on a recent day were (from left) Rajeev Rupani, a 2015 M.Ed. recipient in secondary teaching in physics; Elisabeth Ryden ’17; and Anne Vera Cruz, a Ph.D. candidate in curriculum and instruction.
Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert
January 28: The Japan Club was among 134 undergraduate organizations signing up recruits at the Student Involvement Fair in Conte Forum. Here, Erika Osada ’19 and Dongkyu Lee ’19, seated in front of the laptop, are joined by, from left, Ken Leszkowicz ’16, Nuolin “Snow” Zhou ’19, Nima Boluriaan ’19, Guo Yu ’19, and Tom Foo ’16.
Photograph: Peter Julian ’16
February 3: Joseph Nugent, associate professor of the practice of English (standing), met in Connolly House with the team of students who designed and produced the multimedia digital guide for the McMullen Museum’s current exhibition, The Arts and Crafts Movement: Making It Irish. In spring 2015, the students—from left, Ryan Reede ’16; Patrick Synan, MA’16; Kaitlin Astrella ’16; and John McElearney ’16—were all members of Nugent’s class “Digital Text, Material Image.”
Photograph: Lee Pellegrini
February 4: Auditioning (right) for Sing it to the Heights were juniors, from left, Bianca Francois, Amelia Parker, and Laura-Kay Demezieux. Members of the Boston College Emerging Leader Program (from far left) Eric Zhang ’18, Julie Ozmeral ’19, Madeleine Sullivan ’19, and Enzo Butrico ’19 served as preliminary judges for the American Idol-inspired event that raises funds for music programs at the St. Columbkille Partnership School in Brighton. The try-out took place in Carney Hall, in space now assigned to the Office of Student Involvement.
Photograph: Christopher Huang
February 5: Recent pruning has heightened the view down Linden Lane to Gasson Hall.
Photograph: Gary Wayne Gilbert
February 16: At the 34th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship award banquet, in Gasson 100, Sonia Okorie ’17 (in white), a student in the Connell School of Nursing, was named next year’s scholarship recipient. Following the award presentation, the finalists, all juniors, gathered for a portrait with University President William P. Leahy, SJ. From left are Joi Dallas, Osamase Ekhator, Fr. Leahy, Okorie, Jessica Stephens, and Jacquelyn Andalcio.
Photograph: Frank Curran
February 16: The former host of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered Michele Norris spoke in the Heights Room about her 2010 memoir, The Grace of Silence, and the Race Card Project, which she initiated at NPR. The worldwide conversation about race in the form of six-word essays earned a 2013 George Foster Peabody Award for excellence in electronic communications. Norris’s talk was sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Affairs.
Photograph: Lee Pellegrini
February 16: Cast members (from left) Jared Reinfeldt ’16, Julia James ’17, and Caroline Portu ’16 onstage in the Bonn Studio during the dress rehearsal for Learning How To Drown. The musical was written by the 2015–16 Monan Professor in Theater Arts, Patricia Noonan ’07.
Photograph: Lee Pellegrini