Boston College

An October 26 Shabbat service, sponsored by Boston College Hillel, was one of several events being held this fall to celebrate the renovation of a multi-faith worship space in the 66 Commonwealth Avenue residence hall. Above, attendees dance around a Torah scroll being held by Theology Professor Rabbi Ruth Langer, who presided over the service. “We want to support the faith development of all our students,” said Vice President for University Mission and Ministry Joseph Appleyard, SJ, who explained that the space was originally the chapel of a Baptist nursing home, before the University acquired the building in 1989. Rev. Howard McLendon of Campus Ministry said he hopes many students will “express their faith through liturgy” in the new space, where books, cushions, and the Torah are stored. “Praise and Glory,” a service of Christian music and song will take place on November 1 at 7 p.m. at the new worship space, and Muslim Midday Prayer, followed by a reception, is planned for November 2 at 1 p.m.

These guys aren’t just performers, they’re funny people. Backstage, they were making each other laugh,” says Julian Kiani ’10, who organized the UGBC program that brought three alumni comedians to campus on October 23. Nearly 500 attended the “Alumni Comedy Show” in Robsham Theater, which featured Paul D’Angelo ’78, Gary Gulman ’93, and Brian Kiley ’83—popular comedians, each with numerous awards and television credits, whose show business careers began in Boston comedy clubs during, or shortly after, their college years.

Kiani got the idea for the program when he read an article about alumni comedians in an old issue of Boston College Magazine (Summer 2002). He and the UGBC campus entertainment department identified some 10 comedians whom they invited to the homecoming event, “and the program shaped itself when it turned out these three could make it.”

As Boston College approaches its 150th anniversary in 2013, it is reaching out to its extended community. Last June “The Boston College Experience”—a program established by Boston College Magazine to gather oral history and memorabilia from alumni and faculty—was inaugurated with a public panel discussion among five members of the Golden Anniversary Class of ’57, selected by the class’s leadership. “We want to draw upon the experiences and lived wisdom of various graduates of Boston College,” said President William P. Leahy, SJ, in introducing the program.

@BC presents 10 minutes of highlights from the program, which took place on June 2 in Devlin 008. The moderator is Ben Birnbaum, editor of Boston College Magazine. Panelists’ profiles are presented below. The full program may be viewed at Front Row, for which a link is provided, at right, under “Related Links.”

Class of ’57 panelists at the June 2 inauguration of The Boston College Experience:

Norma (DeFeo) Cacciamani grew up in Somerville and, having majored in elementary education, became an elementary school teacher in the Newton public schools. For 36 years she was an administrative coordinator at Mount Auburn Hospital. She has been a choral singer since her Glee Club days, has traveled the world, and was “bounced” on the final question when she was a contestant on Jeopardy! in 1964.

William Cunningham grew up in West Roxbury. After receiving his degree in business administration, he served three years in the U.S. Navy. After working in sales for Burroughs and Small Systems, he started Dataware Products, a computer sales and service company, which he led until his retirement in 1998. He is a past president of the Alumni Association and is active in a variety of University and community activities.

Edward Miller grew up in Dorchester and, after a decorated career in the U.S. Marines, came to Boston College where he was a marketing major. A victim of the polio epidemic of 1955, he was appointed as the University’s athletic business manager and assistant to the athletic director following graduation. Two years later he became director of sports publicity and in 1974 he became director of University public relations. Now retired, he earned an MBA from the Carroll School and an Ed.D. from the Lynch School, and is the father of nine children, all of whom hold degrees from Boston College.

James Turley grew up in Dorchester and majored in English. After a stint in the Naval Air Force, he became a public school teacher. He holds several advanced degrees, including an Ed.D. from Boston University. For 33 years he was on the faculty of Rhode Island College where he served as a professor, dean, and assistant academic vice president. Turley spent part of his undergraduate career preparing for the priesthood at Catholic University, prior to attending Boston College.

John Wissler grew up in Floral Park, a suburb of New York City. He majored in marketing and also holds an MBA from the Carroll School. Following graduation he was on active duty for two years in the U.S. Army. From 1967 to 1998 he was the executive director of the University’s Alumni Association, a job he learned about while attending his 10th reunion. In the course of his career Wissler represented Boston College in his travels to each of the 50 states. He currently lives in New Hampshire.

Craig Finn ’93, songwriter and lead singer of the Hold Steady, returned to campus on September 25 to be interviewed publicly in the University’s “Master Class: Alumni in Residence” program, sponsored by Boston College Magazine. After graduation, Finn moved to Minneapolis where he formed the band Lifter Puller, which released several well-received albums. His current band, the Hold Steady, formed in 2003 and now plays 300 concerts per year on both sides of the Atlantic. Its most recent release, Separation Sunday (Frenchkiss Records, 2005), was “one of the best-reviewed records of the year,” according to National Public Radio. In its review of the album, Pitchformedia.com said, “Finn’s lyrics and delivery are the crux of the Hold Steady, skewering whole characters and lifestyles with unapologetic aplomb. Finn expertly shoots his lyrical barbs like little arrows, knocking down and dismantling everything from recreational drugs and the tech boom to bartenders and jukebox codes, all in a familiar, half-smirking growl.”

At the master class, Carlo Rotella of the English department, who writes about contemporary urban culture, posed questions on topics ranging from Finn’s favorite hangouts as a college student to his creative process. Audience members asked how he expressed his faith in his music (the Village Voice called Separation Sunday an “egregiously American Catholic album”), how band members coped with disagreement, and what it felt like to sing “Rosalita” with Bruce Springsteen on the stage of Carnegie Hall. Finn, unassuming in jeans and an open-collar shirt, wearing dark, round spectacles, looked more like a graduate student than a rock star as he replied. @BC presents a video of the session, which took place in Lyons Dining Hall.

In 2001 Susan Legere, who received a master’s degree in sociology from Boston College in 2005, began making Immigrant Reflections: Three Boston College Service Workers Share Their Stories, a documentary film in which three immigrants tell their stories of coming to America, finding employment at Boston College, and establishing new lives. A novice filmmaker, Legere received training in film production and “moral support” from the Film Studies Program faculty under the University’s Jacques Salmanowitz Program for Moral Courage in Film. Soon after the film was completed last spring, it was accepted for screening on October 20 at the Boston International Latino Film Festival. Legere, who is working toward a Ph.D. in sociology, says her dissertation will build on the film’s themes, which “put a ‘face’ on immigration.”

Disturbed by reports of government brutality against Buddhist priests and the general populace in Myanmar, students gathered on the Quad for a candlelight vigil on October 16. “The only thing we can do now is to show our witness and be in touch with our government leaders and insist they keep this issue alive,” said Joshua Rubenstein, regional director of Amnesty International, who addressed the gathering, as reported in the Heights. The Ignatian Society and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice organized the vigil to raise awareness of the plight of citizens in the southeast Asian nation.

In a scene based on Ovid’s story of Baucis and Philemon—in which the gods’ faith in mankind is restored by the devotion and generosity of a poor, elderly couple—Sarah Williams ’08 (left) is Baucis, Greg O’Kane ‘08 (right) is Philemon, and Lindsey Simcik ’10 (center) plays the Narrator. The couple has been granted a divine favor and must decide what to request. They ask to serve as priests and to die at the same moment so that, in Philemon’s words, “I never have to see my wife’s grave, nor she have to bury me.” The tale ends as they die, with the words “Farewell, O dear companion” on their lips, and change into trees whose branches intertwine.

Playwright Mary Zimmerman, recipient of a McArthur “genius” grant, created the play as a student production at Northwestern University. When it was staged on Broadway, Time called it the “theater event of the year” and Zimmerman won a Tony for her direction. “In Metamorphoses we examine the myths that gave instruction to countless human beings throughout the ages,” writes the Theater Department’s Luke Jorgensen, director of the University’s production. “Metamorphoses juxtaposes the ancient and the contemporary in both language and image to reflect the variety and persistence of love in the face of inevitable change.”

Visit the Robsham Theater website for more information.

Photograph: Lee Pellegrini

University Dining Services customarily prepares meals using produce from area farms, but this semester it introduced a farmers market so students can buy locally grown fruits and vegetables for themselves. Each Thursday afternoon in September, from 3 to 6 p.m., some 350 customers have come to Corcoran Plaza to sample New England’s bounty. Blueberries, peaches, and other fruits are the most popular items, according to Helen Wechsler, director of Dining Services, who reports that students also avidly purchased Japanese eggplants, kale, green beans, corn, and Swiss chard. “We’re glad to highlight all the beautiful produce that is available to us,” said Wechsler. There are farmers markets at other universities, “but we may be the only college where students can use meal plan dollars for their purchases,” according to the Dining Services director. The final market day this fall is October 4. Wechsler says she plans to sponsor markets this spring and hopes they will become an ongoing feature of campus life.

Following a practice first observed in 1548 at the first Jesuit school, in Messina, Italy, some 1,000 members of the Boston College community gathered on the O’Neill Plaza on September 19 to mark the opening of the academic year with the annual Mass of the Holy Spirit. Delivering the general intercessions, director of Campus Ministry James Erps, SJ, said, “As we gather this afternoon and pray for the gift of the Spirit—the gift of wisdom—for our new academic year, we remember that wisdom has been highly prized in the Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions. As people of the book, today we seek and long for that wisdom.”

Excerpts from the day’s program appear below. Click on the title to view the excerpt. Former radio and television journalist Paula Lyons NC ’67, the day’s master of ceremonies, introduces each selection, provides narrative context, and identifies the readers.

Introductions

James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922) portrays the odyssey of Leopold Bloom through the course of one day, June 16, 1904, in Dublin. Hundreds of locales around the world now commemorate this literary high holiday with activities ranging from theatrical events to road races. On June 16, 2007 more than 300 attended the first such event in Boston, presented by the New Center for Arts and Culture and Boston College. Faculty, students, performers, media personalities, authors, community leaders, and diplomats took part in exploring Ulysses in a daylong program that included films, readings, exhibits, food, music, and discussion.

@BC presents a sampling of activities that took place at Bapst Library: readings of excerpts from Ulysses; an introduction to the novel entitled “Ulysses for the Perplexed: Making Sense of the Novel for the Common Reader,” by Marjorie Howes, chair of the Irish Studies Program; a performance of a song mentioned in the text; a reading from the legal decision that permitted Ulysses to be published in the U.S.; and a panel conversation on the Irish and the Jews of Boston.

Participants in the readings from Ulysses:

Steven Barkhimer, actor
David Barry, Irish consul general to Boston
Jim Braude, political commentator, NECN-TV and 96.9 FM
Ciaran Crawford, actor
Margery Eagan, newspaper and radio political commentator
Andrew Glynn ’08, major in philosophy and theater arts
Dolores Handy, radio anchor, WBUR-FM
Vivien Li, Boston Harbor Association
Paula Lyons NC ’67, former radio and television journalist
Bill Littlefield, radio commentator, WBUR-FM
Elise Manning, actor
Annette Miller, actor
Stuart Mushlin MD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Brian O’Donovan, radio host, WGBH-FM
Elizabeth Shannon, author
Elaine Theodore, actor
Jimmy Tingle, actor, writer, political humorist
Rony Yididia, Israeli consul to New England

The Boston College bands program—with its five instrumental ensembles, dance teams, full-time director, two assistant directors, vocal coach, instructional program, and scholarships—is a thriving institution whose more than 250 participating students contribute to campus cultural life at athletic events and in dozens of performances throughout the year. It wasn’t always this way. Only the marching and pep bands have had “consistent presence” since the turn of the 20th century, according to the Sebastian Bonaituto, the University’s current (and first) full-time director of bands, who was hired in 1989. His predecessor, Peter Siragusa, was a music teacher in the Boston Public Schools who devoted nights and weekends to University band rehearsals, preparing the ensemble for its appearances at athletic and ROTC events.

Despite the program’s lower level of institutional support, the University’s bands of yore played with verve and precision, as evidenced by a 1968 performance preserved on The Boston College Eagles Band and the Eagles of Sound Dance Band, an LP record by the Fleetwood Recording Company of Revere. @BC presents three selections of the band performing staples from its athletic event repertoire: “Burst of Trumpets,” “Medley of Boston College Fight Songs” (including an introduction based on the Alma Mater, “Sons of Maroon and Gold,” “All Up for Boston,” “Sweep Down the Field,” and “For Boston”), and “This Is My Country.”

The 1960s record also features a dance band under the leadership of John Trapani ’68. He remembers organizing the group, getting Siragusa’s permission to rehearse, and the first paying gig ($60) at ROTC’s 1964 spring “Military Ball.” Trapani recruited extra talent from the Berklee College of Music, including an alto sax player named Richie Cole (who went on to play with Buddy Rich, Lionel Hampton, and Doc Severinsen, and became a leading light on the American jazz scene), and, calling itself the “Eagles of Sound Dance Band,” the group performed at the Quinnipiac and MIT jazz festivals and at many campus functions.

@BC presents the Eagles of Sound from the Fleetwood LP, which highlights the budding genius of Richie Cole on the alto sax and the trumpet of John Trapani, who today leads the John Trapani Big Band—that is, when he’s not at his day job as a professor of philosophy at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio.
 

From the 1968 record of the Boston College Marching Band:

• Burst of Trumpets ( 2:13 )
  Broadband / Modem
• Medley of BC Fight Songs ( 3:31 )
  Broadband / Modem
• This Is My Country ( 1:10 )
  Broadband / Modem

From the 1968 record of the Eagles of Sound Dance Band:

• Swing Low ( 2:49 )
  Broadband / Modem
• Where Am I? ( 4:13 )
  Broadband / Modem
• More ( 1:59 )
  Broadband / Modem

BONUS TRACK!

But wait, there’s more! For your listening and dancing pleasure this football season, we present the most recent recording of the Boston College Marching Band, under the direction of David Healey, performing “Build Me Up Buttercup,” which is included in the just-released CD, Game Day.

• Build Me Up Buttercup ( 2:03 )
  Broadband / Modem

A pioneer in the field of organic chemistry, Peter Dervan ’67, Bren Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, was honored at a White House ceremony on July 27 as one of eight recipients of the 2006 National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest recognition of scientific achievement. For Dervan, who began teaching at Caltech in 1973, the medal is the most recent of 28 major awards and fellowships (over and above his honorary Doctor of Science degree from Boston College in 1997). He was named a Guggenheim Fellow, received the Linus Pauling Medal, was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was three times voted by students to receive Caltech’s annual award for teaching excellence.

Throughout his career Dervan has focused on understanding the chemical principles for the sequence-specific recognition of DNA. “I became interested in creating novel molecular shapes with properties different from those found in nature shortly after arriving at Caltech in 1973,” Dervan wrote in the 2001 issue of Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry. “I asked the question whether organic chemists could rationally create ‘four chemical keys’ which would distinguish each of the Watson-Crick base pairs and, when linked together, read any continuous predetermined sequence of DNA.” His accomplishments could have profound implications for human medicine, such as synthesizing new classes of anti-infectives and blocking the growth of cancer cells using “transcription therapy.”

Teaching and ongoing research as head of the Caltech’s “Dervan Group” provide “intellectual vitality and excitement,” he writes. “Synthetic organic chemistry is one of the most powerful tools in modern science and, in the post-genome world, organic chemists will continue to play a major role.”

• Home page of the Dervan Group
• Article by Peter Dervan in Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry 9 (2001), describing the development of his work
• News of Dervan’s award on the Chemistry Department’s web page
• Awards ceremony at the White House, including both text and video of the proceedings
• National Science Foundation web page for the National Medals of Science.”