Boston College

On May 19, at the University’s 132nd Commencement, David McCullough addressed some 3,000 graduating students, their parents, and members of the University community. “Make the love of learning central to your life. What a difference it can mean,” McCullough declared. “If your experience is anything like mine, the books that will mean the most to you, books that will change your life, are still to come.”

One of America’s preeminent historians, McCullough holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, where he studied with John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, Brendan Gill, and Thornton Wilder. He worked for a dozen years as a writer and editor for the U.S. Information Agency, Sports Illustrated, and American Heritage. His first full-length history, The Johnstown Flood (Simon & Schuster, 1968), was called a “first-rate example of the documentary method” by the New Yorker. Since then he has written books on the Brooklyn Bridge, the Panama Canal, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John Adams, among others. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes, two National Book Awards, and more than 80 other literary awards. In 2006, the nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, was conferred on McCullough “for his lifelong efforts to document the people, places, and events that have shaped America.”

@BC presents McCullough’s May 19 Commencement address, delivered in Alumni Stadium.

Writing a good book alone isn’t enough to make an author successful,” wrote Barbara Delinsky MA’69 in a April 28, 2008 blog entry, shortly before she appeared at Boston College. The author of some 76 books, with more than 30 million copies in print, says that the “business side” of being a writer—going on book tours, managing a website, blogging, and responding to readers’ interests—“isn’t very sympathetic to the creative side.” At the April 30 “Master Class: Alumni in Residence” program, the writer of “character-driven studies of marriage, parenthood, sibling rivalry, and friendship” talked about her craft, current projects, and how she balances creative time with business demands.

Born Barbara Ruth Greenberg, she grew up in Newton, attended Tufts University, and earned a master’s degree in sociology at Boston College. “I wish I could say that I had a career in mind, but women were barely thinking about careers back then,” Delinsky writes in a biography on her website. “The motivation behind my MA was sheer greed. My husband was just starting law school. We needed the money.” She became a researcher for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, but turned to part-time work once she and her husband started a family. In 1980, “by fluke,” she read a newspaper article about women writers. She recalls, “Intrigued, I spent three months researching, plotting, and writing my own book—and it sold.”

At her master class, in which she is interviewed by English professor Judith Wilt, Delinsky recalls writing her first book, describes how today’s writers use “hype” to promote sales, and discusses guidance from Phyllis Grann, her editor at Doubleday. She explains why she wrote Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors (Atria, 2001), a nonfiction “handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes for those with breast cancer.” The book’s proceeds are dedicated to a fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. @BC presents video excerpts of the master class. Readers can view the entire session under “Related Links” shown on the right-hand column of this page.

Invited undergraduate poets from 20 Boston-area colleges and universities gathered in the Murray Function Room on the evening of April 14 to recite—or perform—their work at the Greater Boston Intercollegiate Poetry Festival. From 1987 to 2001, the festival rotated among area campuses. It was revived in 2006 by English professor and poet Suzanne Matson, with support from Boston College Magazine and the Office of the Provost. In the chapbook of participants’ poems Matson writes, “We celebrate not only what is distinctively individual about each offering, but also what we have in common as poets and lovers of poetry.”

Following a keynote address by Robert Cording Ph.D.’77, Barrett Chair of Creative Writing at the College of the Holy Cross and author of five books of poetry, each student took a three-minute turn to present one or more original poems before an audience of 100 students, family members, and faculty mentors.

@BC presents a video of the festival, which may be viewed in its entirety or by performer segment.

Thomas McCarthy ’88 began his college career as a business major, but switched to the College of Arts & Sciences after discovering a desire to act. Following graduation he attended the Yale School of Drama and went on to establish himself as a journeyman actor. He has appeared on Broadway, and has acted with Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro in Meet the Parents, alongside George Clooney in Syriana, and under the direction of Clint Eastwood in Flags of Our Fathers. He appeared in numerous television series, including Boston Public, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Law and Order, and Spin City; and recently starred as a morally-challenged reporter in HBO’s critically-acclaimed The Wire.

But it is McCarthy’s work from behind the camera that has won the most recognition. His 2003 directorial debut, The Station Agent, which he also wrote, won three awards at the Sundance Film Festival, as well as awards at festivals from Stockholm to Mexico City. The National Board of Review named it one of the “Ten Best Films of the Year,” and it was nominated for three Screen Actors Guild Awards and for Best Original Screenplay by the Writer’s Guild.

McCarthy has written and directed a new independent feature film, The Visitor, released last month, about a man who comes home from a business trip to find a pair of illegal immigrants living in his apartment. It has been praised by Salon.com, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times, which designated the film a “critic’s pick.” In April McCarthy received the University Arts Council Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement, presented to him by President William P. Leahy, SJ.

• Profile of McCarthy in the Fall 2003 issue of Boston College Magazine
• Video interview of McCarthy at Filmcatcher.com
• Interview with McCarthy about The Visitor on ComingSoon.net
• McCarthy’s profile on Internet Movie Database
• New York Times review of The Visitor

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Families, friends, and the University community joined some 3,000 graduates in Alumni Stadium on May 19 for Boston College’s 132nd Commencement. The College of Arts & Sciences, Woods College of Advancing Studies, Carroll School of Management, Connell School of Nursing, and Lynch School of Education conferred a total of 2,177 bachelor of arts and bachelor of science degrees. Sixty-nine doctorates and 839 master’s degrees and advanced education certificates were awarded.

From a staging area bedecked with flags of the 59 nations that are homes to this year’s graduates, Pulitzer Prize winning historian David McCullough exhorted students to “make love of learning central to your life,” to read, to travel, to “choose work you believe in,” and to “make a difference.” President William P. Leahy, SJ, urged students to be always intellectually curious. “If we are not people who wonder, if we never entertain what is new or different, we can easily become rigid,” he cautioned. “When that happens, the wounds of society and suffering of others will seldom enter our consciousness, and we will feel little urgency to question existing structures and viewpoints.”

Leahy conferred honorary degrees on McCullough and four others: Br. Celestino Arias ’90, a teacher, social service organizer, and advocate for the poor; Jennie Chin Hansen ’70, president-elect of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP); Anne Jones ’58, JD’61, a former member of the Federal Communications Commission; and William Neenan, SJ, University vice president and special assistant to the president, and former dean of faculties.

Visit the University’s 2008 Commencement website, with a link to a video of the ceremonies.

At the biology department’s May 2 “Undergraduate Research Celebration,” Inna Grishkan ’08 (right) won the Grant Balkema Award for excellence in undergraduate research for her laboratory investigation of basic mechanisms for transmitting epigenetic information—information that controls gene expression. Selected by a panel of 7 faculty members, Grishkan’s project, entitled “Nucleosome Assembly in Human Cell Lines Expressing Inducible FLAG-Tagged Histones,” was among the four oral and 25 poster presentations that took place at Higgins Hall, highlighting the research of some 37 undergraduate biology majors. “She’s been an intellectual colleague and has made a significant contribution to the work in our laboratory,” said biology professor Anthony Annunziato of Grishkan, who immigrated to the U.S. from Russia at age 15 and will enter a combined Ph.D. and MD program at Johns Hopkins University next year. Above, Grishkan holds her award and talks with Annunziato and Marilee Ogren, widow of Grant Balkema, a Boston College biology professor who died in 2004 at age 53 and was, according to Annunziato, “passionate about having undergraduates work in the lab.”

Film actor, writer, and director Thomas McCarthy ’88 (center) took part in three events at the University’s 10th annual Arts Festival. On the night of April 25 he spoke about his recent movie The Visitor (Overture, 2008) following its public screening on O’Neill Plaza. The next day he was interviewed by Luke Jorgensen ’91 of the theater department in a program called “Inside the BC Studio,” and that evening President William P. Leahy presented the Boston College Arts Council’s annual Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement to McCarthy. As an actor, McCarthy’s credits include Flags of Our Fathers, Syrianna, Goodnight and Good Luck, The Year of the Dog, and Meet the Parents. He wrote and directed The Station Agent (Miramax, 2003), which won numerous awards including the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Above (l-r) Daniel Esposito ’10, McCarthy, Jorgensen, and Riley Madincea ’11 talk on April 26 after McCarthy’s public interview under the tent on O’Neill Plaza.