PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON COLLEGE OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
INSIDE 2x Around Headline Campus
Honoring Finnegan Award winners; xxxxx. Gaelic Roots events.
x Headline 3 Under Construction xxx.
BC gets approval to construct Religious Archives. xCatholic Headline xxxxx.
8 Fond Farewell
David Twomey closes out 56 years at Boston College.
O’Hern Is New Facilities VP BY JACK DUNN ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Boston College has named Patrick O’Hern, senior director of project management services at Dartmouth College, as its new vice president for facilities management, effective February 3. He succeeds Daniel Bourque, who is retiring at the end of January after 16 years of service to BC. A highly respected manager with 26 years of experience across corporate, commercial, residential, and higher education sectors, O’Hern has spent the past 14 years at Dartmouth supervising internal and contractual staff to support new building construction and major renovation projects for academic, residential, and athletic facilities. As senior director, he was responsible
Chemicals and chemical-based products should be allowed to enter markets and remain on markets, according to the authors, “only if their manufacturers can establish through rigorous, independent, premarket testing that they are not toxic at anticipated levels of exposure.”
BC Researchers: Greater Oversight of Manufactured Chemicals Is Needed to Safeguard Children BY ED HAYWARD STAFF WRITER
Nations must start testing and regulating chemicals and chemical products as closely as the current systems that safeguard prescription drugs or risk rising rates of chronic illnesses among children, according to a New England Journal of Medicine report by Boston College researchers and an international team of experts writing as the Consortium for Children’s Environmental Health. Global chemical inventories contain an estimated 350,000 products—such as manufactured chemicals, chemical mixtures, and plastics. Despite the risks of environmental pollution and human exposure, the manufacture of synthetic chemicals and plastics is subject to few legal or policy constraints, conclude the co-authors. That regulatory vacuum must be replaced by new laws that prioritize health protection over the rampant production of chemicals and plastics, according to the co-
JANUARY 16, 2025 VOL. 32 NO. 9
Patrick O’Hern photo by caitlin cunningham
for the development and execution of Dartmouth’s five-year capital program, leading a cross-functional team to review capital project requests and support the establishment of the college’s annual capital budget, while expanding and reorganizing project management staffing to align with Dartmouth’s institutional goals. He also led a comprehensive renewal plan of undergraduate campus housing and established a team to address decarbonization across campus facilities. Most recently, he led the construction of two major campus buildings, the 160,000-square foot Class of 1982 Engineering and Computer Science Center and the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society, as well as the renovation of historic Dartmouth Hall. As vice president for facilities at Boston College, he will be responsible for all BC
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$10M Grant Will Aid Initiative for Faith Practices of Young Adults BY KATHLEEN SULLIVAN STAFF WRITER
Boston College has received a $10 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support an Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies (IAJS) program that will promote the renewal and expansion of faith practices in high school students, college stuauthors, who include Professor of Biology Philip Landrigan, M.D., BC Law Professor dents, and parishioners through a yearlong immersion in faith exploration and service and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar David through Jesuit spirituality. Wirth, Deluca Chair of Biology Thomas The grant, awarded through Lilly EnChiles, and Research Professor of Biology dowment’s National Youth and Young Kurt Straif. Adult Initiative on Faith and Service, will “Under new laws, chemicals should enable the IAJS to conduct a two-year not be presumed harmless until they are proven to damage health,” the authors said. pilot of AMDG, a program intended to energize the personal and communal reli“Instead, chemicals and chemical-based gious practices of youth and young adults products should be allowed to enter marbetween the ages of 16-29. AMDG is kets and remain on markets only if their shorthand for Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, manufacturers can establish through rigorthe Latin version of the Jesuits’ motto “For ous, independent, premarket testing that the Greater Glory of God.” they are not toxic at anticipated levels of “Boston College has had a strong relaexposure.” tionship with Lilly Endowment over the In addition, the authors say chemical years. This most recent grant builds upon manufacturers and brands that market that strong foundation and we are grateful chemical products should be required to for this newest support from Lilly Endowmonitor their products after they have ment,” said IAJS Director Casey Beaumier, been released to the market in the same S.J., a vice president and University secway that prescription drugs are monitored in order to evaluate any long-term negative retary at Boston College who will oversee the program along with IAJS Associate health effects. Continued on page 5 Director Matt Schweitzer. “The AMDG
Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies Director Casey Beaumier, S.J. photo by lee pellegrini
program will draw from the depths of the Jesuit tradition and its vast national and global apostolic networks so that the beauty of the Catholic faith can be instilled in young people in a lasting way.” Launching in July, the program will involve 625 participants representing 15 high schools, five colleges and universities, and five parishes throughout the United
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