Contents
boston college magazine
2 Letters 4 Linden Lane
From “Scholarship Winners,” pg. 22
F E AT UR E S 12 class warfare When Harvard declared its distrust of the Boston College degree, the Jesuits claimed religious discrimination. They may have been right, but there was more to it
Scholars and a tweeting audience examine how the Web has changed us • Investing ahead of the curve • No credit, no grade, just a talking lunch • An alumni reunion for singing the old songs • From the laboratories
32 C21 Notes
Coming to religion in the 21st century • The latest ‘Catholics in America’ survey
vol. 72 no. 1 winter 2012
36 End Notes
Survival of the cooperative • Teaching students the lost (and mourned) art of dating
42 Class Notes 72 Inquiring Minds Aristotle’s words
73 Works & Days Glass-blower Michael Hall ’97
By James O’Toole
22 scholarship winners Thirty years, eight lives By Thomas Cooper
28 need to know The dangers posed by Big Data are real. So is the defense inherent in liberal arts study By Siva Vaidhyanathan
www.bc.edu/bcm
on the cover: The Boston College class of 1899, the first class whose degree Harvard would not recognize. Photograph courtesy of the Burns Library
GET THE FULL STORY, AT BCM ONLINE: View “Cyberspace and Civic Space,” panel discussions on the social, political, and cultural impacts of the Internet from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities symposium (pg. 6) • Video highlights of the Bostonians reunion concert, backstage to onstage (pg. 10) • Video of the conversation between Rev. Robert Imbelli and philosopher Charles Taylor (pg. 32) • View the symposium “American Catholics: Persisting and Changing” (pg. 34) • “The Imperfect Art of Dating,” video of a talk by Kerry Cronin (pg. 38) • reader’s list: Books by alumni, faculty, and staff • headliners: Alumni in the news