Boston College

In anticipation of its 150th anniversary in 2013, Boston College is gathering oral histories and memorabilia from alumni and faculty for a project called “The “Boston College Experience,” sponsored by the Office of the President, Boston College Magazine, the Burns Library, and the Alumni Association. The program was inaugurated a year ago with a public panel discussion among members of the Class of ’57 held during reunion weekend. This year there were two programs in which class members reminisced about their time at Boston College in the 1950s and 1960s. @BC presents highlights from each session, one on May 30 for the Golden Anniversary Class of ’58 and the other on May 31 for the Class of ’68. The full programs may be viewed at Front Row, for which a link is provided in the right-hand column of this page under “Related Links.”

Class of ’58 panelists:

Sheldon Daly grew up in Wellesley and has had a 45-year career in sales and construction. He currently works with the Boston College Athletics Department as a director of the Varsity Club and as president of the Boston College Hall of Fame Club.

Paul Fennell grew up in Brighton and devoted his career to finance and investments. He earned an MBA from the University of New Hampshire and served as a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. He has written several articles on financial tax planning and spent 15 years researching and publishing a book on Irish history and the history of the Fennell family in County Limerick, Ireland.

James Murphy Jr. grew up in Newton. He teaches writing and literature at the Woods College of Advancing Studies and is a published author. A past recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, Jim is currently working on a novel about the Korean War.

Patricia Brine O’Riordan grew up in Cambridge and worked as the department head for health occupations at Northeast Metro Tech for 30 years. She holds a master’s degree in education from Fitchburg State College. In recent years she has worked at her brother’s sporting goods store, Brine’s, in Harvard Square.

Margaret Molloy Vasaturo grew up in Medfield and became a teacher. She earned a master’s degree in special education at Lesley University and devoted 22 years to teaching history and English to adolescents in a residential treatment center.

Ben Birnbaum, moderator, is the editor of Boston College Magazine, special assistant to the president, and executive director of the Office of Marketing Communications.

Class of ’68 panelists:

Judith Anderson Day grew up in Scituate and was a middle school English teacher. She has been the 1968 class correspondent for several decades. After moving to Los Angeles in 1995, she became a docent at the J. Paul Getty Museum, specializing in Greek and Roman antiquity.

Chrisopher “Kip” Doran lives in Denver where he is a practicing psychiatrist and a clinical professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He is a supervising psychiatrist for the Veterans Administration and has written two textbooks on mental health. Kip was president of the Boston College Alumni Association chapter in Colorado for five years and president of the national Alumni Association in 2004.

Robert Howe grew up in Quincy and following graduation was an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, receiving the Bronze Star for service in Vietnam. He cofounded ADS Financial Services Solutions in 1980 and was its president and CEO until 2004. Bob is a former chairman of the Boston College High School board of trustees.

Carmine Sarno grew up in Acton. He has started six companies, ranging from high tech to recreation. He is president of the electronic component company Bothhand USA, and frequently travels to the company’s facilities in China.

Joanne Calore Turco received a master’s degree in community health nursing from Boston University and also completed course work in the doctoral program in higher education administration at Boston College. She was the first full-time nursing faculty member at Salem State College, where she currently is a professor in the School of Nursing.

William McDonald, moderator and a senior editor in Advancement Communications and Marketing at the University, was a Navy officer and holds a master’s degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism. He is the founding editor of Boston College Magazine and has specialized in university communications throughout his career.

While he was a graduate of John Carroll University, a sister Jesuit institution in Cleveland and a short drive along Lake Erie from his beloved hometown of Buffalo, Tim Russert became part of what we call the Boston College community when his son, Luke, enrolled in September 2004. Parents who are public figures are not unheard of at Boston College, but they mostly move discreetly from airport to hired car to campus to hotel and then back to airport. Mr. Russert, however, like an eager freshman, took advantage of every opportunity to engage with the University, flying up for football games, sitting through a public interview with the editor of the student newspaper on a sweltering evening in the Shea Room, flipping a BC cap onto his head on Meet the Press, and lending his capacious drawing power and journalistic abilities to public forums sponsored by the Church in the 21st Century Center. Whether in the stadium or on the Dustbowl, he moved through Boston College with the confidence of an old boy, endlessly proud, cheerful, and at ease. “Today I’m here as a dad,” he begged off on May 19, 2008, when a reporter approached Russert at Luke’s graduation ceremony to ask for a comment on Senator Ted Kennedy’s illness. “BC lost a friend,” a senior administrator emailed me from his BlackBerry soon after the news of Russert’s death was announced on the Friday afternoon of June 13. The sentiment was widespread. On Monday morning, I arrived at the office to find that a young alumnus in Washington, D.C., had emailed me photographs of the floral tributes piled on the street in front of the NBC studios, as though thinking we, too, might want to bank them against our front gate.

Ben Birnbaum
Executive Producer, @BC
Editor, Boston College Magazine

The links below are to selected stories, photographs, and videos from Mr. Russert’s five years of association with Boston College.

• Russert Made Impression on BC, as Parent and Participant, from the Office of Public Affairs
• Forum on Catholic presidential candidates and their faith, April 23, 2007
  Video
  Story in Boston College Magazine
• Forum on Catholic politicians, February 27, 2006
  Video
  Story in Boston College Magazine
• Interview of Russert by Heights editor Ryan Heffernan ’06, October 6, 2005
  Video
• Russert’s 2004 Commencement address
  Video
• Forum on the state of the American Catholic Church, September 18, 2003
  Video
  Story in Boston College Magazine

When Elizabeth Kensinger was a psychology graduate student working with aging adults and Alzheimer’s disease patients, she realized that although it seemed obvious to caregivers that people were more likely to remember experiences associated with strong emotions, most researchers studying memory measured “college-aged students’ abilities to remember lists of unrelated words or line drawings.” Now an assistant professor of psychology and director of Boston College’s Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, she investigates how age and emotions influence the formation and retrieval of memories.

“Tasks used in our laboratory have ranged from asking octogenarians to report what they can remember about photographs to asking BC hockey players to remember positive and negative events from the hockey season while undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan,” says Kensinger. The research, supported by the National Science Foundation, the American Federation for Aging Research, and the Dana Foundation, has validated her intuition that “we cannot understand memory processes without understanding how they are influenced by emotion and aging.” In dozens of articles and presentations during the last eight years she has reported that emotions significantly influence whether and how people remember experiences, that an emotion’s positive or negative valence affects the accuracy of recollections (negative emotions enhance accuracy), and that neural imaging techniques reveal physical changes in the brain indicative of a connection between strong emotions and memory.

This spring Kensinger was named a Searle Scholar—the first Boston College faculty member to receive this honor, which provides “exceptionally creative and productive young scientists with sufficient funds to work on their best ideas.” Boston College also awarded her its Junior Faculty Distinguished Research Award on May 2. @BC presents an interview with Elizabeth Kensinger, conducted on June 19, in which she discusses her recent work.

President William P. Leahy, SJ, spoke on June 20 at Minihane’s Flower and Garden Shop in Brighton during a celebration at which checks were presented to 12 community organizations that were awarded grants this spring by the Allston/Brighton–Boston College Community Fund. Chancellor and former Boston College President J. Donald Monan, SJ, established the fund with Boston Mayor Thomas Menino in 1995 to benefit neighborhood programs and services “for which financial support is not otherwise available.” Since its inception the fund has distributed some $650,000, targeting services for youth, senior citizens, and the needy, as well as community beautification projects. Joining Leahy behind the lectern were (l–r) State Representatives Kevin Honan and Michael Moran, and Mayor Menino. The following organizations received grants: Allston-Brighton Adult Education Coalition, Allston/Brighton Baby, Allston-Brighton Walk for Recovery 2008, Brighton High School, Brighton Main Streets, Commonwealth Tenants Association, Community Rowing, Inc., The Fishing Academy, Friends of the Brighton District Library, Open Door Ministry of the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, St. Columbkille School, and the Veronica B. Smith Multi-Service Senior Center.

While he was a graduate of John Carroll University, a sister Jesuit institution in Cleveland and a short drive along Lake Erie from his beloved hometown of Buffalo, Tim Russert became part of what we call the Boston College community when his son, Luke, enrolled in September 2004. Parents who are public figures are not unheard of at Boston College, but they mostly move discreetly from airport to hired car to campus to hotel and then back to airport. Mr. Russert, however, like an eager freshman, took advantage of every opportunity to engage with the University, flying up for football games, sitting through a public interview with the editor of the student newspaper on a sweltering evening in the Shea Room, flipping a BC cap onto his head on Meet the Press, and lending his capacious drawing power and journalistic abilities to public forums sponsored by the Church in the 21st Century Center. Whether in the stadium or on the Dustbowl, he moved through Boston College with the confidence of an old boy, endlessly proud, cheerful, and at ease. “Today I’m here as a dad,” he begged off on May 19, 2008, when a reporter approached Russert at Luke’s graduation ceremony to ask for a comment on Senator Ted Kennedy’s illness. “BC lost a friend,” a senior administrator emailed me from his BlackBerry soon after the news of Russert’s death was announced on the Friday afternoon of June 14. The sentiment was widespread. On Monday morning, I arrived at the office to find that a young alumnus in Washington, D.C., had emailed me photographs of the floral tributes piled on the street in front of the NBC studios, as though thinking we, too, might want to bank them against our front gate.

Ben Birnbaum
Executive Producer, @BC
Editor, Boston College Magazine

The links below are to selected stories, photographs, and videos from Mr. Russert’s five years of association with Boston College.

• Russert Made Impression on BC, as Parent and Participant, from the Office of Public Affairs
• Forum on Catholic presidential candidates and their faith, April 23, 2007
  Video
  Story in Boston College Magazine
• Forum on Catholic politicians, February 27, 2006
  Video
  Story in Boston College Magazine
• Interview of Russert by Heights editor Ryan Heffernan ’06, October 6, 2005
  Video
• Russert’s 2004 Commencement address
  Video
• Forum on the state of the American Catholic Church, September 18, 2003
  Video
  Story in Boston College Magazine

During Reunion Weekend, (from left) President William P. Leahy, SJ, speaks with Class of ’58 panelists James Murphy, Jr., Paul Fennell, Margaret Molloy Vasaturo, and Pat Brine O’Riordan at a program (which also included Sheldon Daly ’58) entitled “The Way We Were.” Boston College Magazine editor Ben Birnbaum moderated the session on May 30 in Devlin 008 at which class members recalled their experiences of Boston College a half-century ago for an audience of more than 100 classmates and their families. The event was part of an ongoing initiative to gather artifacts and memories from alumni and faculty in anticipation of the University’s 150th Anniversary in 2013. “We are very interested in collecting as much information as we can about the evolution of Boston College,” Leahy said in his introduction. “We want to get at the culture and ethos so future generations of students will have a feel for what this institution was like.” Some 5,600 alumni attended the May 28–June 1 Reunion Weekend festivities, which included a golf tournament, jazz brunch, clambake, dancing, seminars, and the induction of the Class of 1958 into the Golden Eagle Society.