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Boston College Chronicle March 16, 2023

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PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON COLLEGE OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

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Around Campus

‘Critical Conversations’

Long-Term Effects

A new item on the BCDS menu; enthusiastic response for Faculty and Staff Service Day.

Forum on Racial Justice in America to hold studentled event next week.

BC Law’s Mitchell organizing conference on the history and impact of land loss on Blacks.

PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON COLLEGE OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

MARCH 16, 2023 VOL. 30 NO. 12

Pine Manor to Oversee Student Support Programs BY JACK DUNN ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS

Cardinal Sean O'Malley, OFM Cap., Archbishop of Boston, spoke in St. Mary’s Chapel during the conference “The Way Forward: Pope Francis, Vatican II, and Synodality” held at Boston College. photo by lee pellegrini

‘Respectful Encounter’ University is meeting place for major conference on synodality and the Catholic Church BY PHIL GLOUDEMANS STAFF WRITER

A major conference at Boston College earlier this month represented what is believed to be the largest gathering of Catholic leadership at a college campus in the nation’s history. Sponsored by the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, “The Way Forward: Pope Francis, Vatican II, and Synodality,” took place March 3-4. The 80 participants—including cardinals, bishops, and other Catholic Church leaders, theologians, historians, and journalists—came to discuss synodality, the call by Pope Francis for the universal Church to “walk together,” to continue the reception of Vatican II, and to embrace the ecclesiological challenges facing the Church. The event—co-sponsored by the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University Chicago (LUC) and the Fordham University Center on Religion and Culture—was a follow-up to the inaugural “Way Forward” conference

last spring at LUC. Future assemblies are anticipated at Fordham and on the West Coast, according to Boisi Center Director Mark Massa, S.J. “It was a great two days for the Church we love,” he said. “It was moving watching theologians listening attentively to bishops, and vice versa. It was the kind of ‘respectful encounter’ that Pope Francis is calling for in asking the entire Church to engage in the synodal process. It was an honor to sponsor the gathering.” Opening keynote speaker Rafael Luciani, an associate professor of the practice in the BC School of Theology and Ministry (STM), and author of Synodality: A New Way of Proceeding in the Church, described synodality—a process of fraternal collaboration and discernment—as expressing “a new way of being and proceeding in the Church that has as its point of departure but also its point of arrival in the people of God.” Luciani declared that a “synodal ecclesiality” is emerging, and that Catholics

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The newly named Mentoring and Academic Achievement pillar of Boston College’s Pine Manor Institute for Student Success (PMI) will be led by Karl Bell, the associate director of TRIO Student Support Services, who will serve as director of Mentoring and Academic Achievement. Joy Moore, University vice president and executive director of the Pine Manor Institute, announced the appointment as part of a realignment that brings Learning to Learn, Options through Education, TRIO Student Support Services, and the McNair Scholars Program under the Mentoring and Academic Achievement pillar of the PMI. The Pine Manor Institute for Student Success was established in 2020 as part of a $100 million University initiative to enhance access and opportunities for underrepresented, first-generation students. It consists of four pillars: Mentoring and Academic Achievement; the Academy, a

Joy Moore:“The goal of the PMI is to create a student success coaching model for all of the students we serve at Boston College, from eighth- to 12th-graders in the Academy program to Messina College and BC undergrads.” photo by lee pellegrini

readiness program for students in grades 8-12 that was successfully launched this past summer; Messina College, a two-year, associate-degree granting residential college Continued on page 5

Finance Supplants Economics as BC’s Top Undergrad Major BY SEAN SMITH CHRONICLE EDITOR

For the first time in 15 years, finance is the most popular major at Boston College, with 1,360 undergraduates enrolled for the 2022-2023 academic year, followed by economics (1,260), which had topped the list annually since 2012-2013—and ahead of finance since 2013-2014. Other notable changes in the top 10 popular majors list saw neuroscience (411) rise to ninth place in its fourth year as an undergraduate program, while psychology (571) and communication (570) swapped fifth and sixth places from last year.

Biology (883) and political science (743) retained their positions at, respectively, third and fourth, as they have since 2016-2017. Three other perennially popular undergraduate programs round out the top 10: computer science at seventh (556), nursing at eighth (418), and applied psychology and human development at 10th (382)— the latter two having been among BC’s most-enrolled majors since 2011-2012. These and other data for the University’s 9,484 undergraduate day students and 5,250 graduate students were compiled during the fall 2022 semester by the In-

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Boston College Chronicle March 16, 2023 by Boston College - Issuu