APRIL 8, 2021 VOL. 28 NO. 13
PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON COLLEGE OFFICE OF UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
A Transition at the Connell School In farewell address as dean, Gennaro reflects on challenges and lessons of last 13 years
Former CSON faculty member Gregory will return to lead the University’s nursing programs
BY KATHLEEN SULLIVAN STAFF WRITER
With her last semester as dean of the William F. Connell School of Nursing drawing to a close, Susan Gennaro spoke about the lessons she has learned about leadership, service, and nursing at the Spring 2021 Connell School Pinnacle Lecture. During her March 30 talk, she shared how she decided to become the dean of the Connell School, a discernment process that reflected her Jesuit education. “It’s really about the mission and the values. Being able to understand [Boston College’s] mission and being able to really live it has been the most wonderful thing,” said Gennaro, a graduate of Le Moyne College. Gennaro, who has served as Connell School professor and dean since 2008, was
INSIDE 2 Around Campus
Nine new Dining Services initiatives to feast on; Poetry festival tonight.
6 Romero Winner
Daniela Vazquez Loriga earns the coveted Oscar Romero Scholarship.
8 End of an Era
Student weekly The Heights will cease its print operations and become a fully digital publication.
BY JACK DUNN ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Susan Gennaro photo by caitlin cunningham
the Dr. Maureen P. McCausland Pinnacle Keynote Speaker at the venerable lecture series where each semester a nurse leader speaks to CSON students, staff, faculty, alumni, preceptors, practitioners, and others. Leadership is about helping people to
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Katherine E. Gregory, the associate chief nursing officer (ACNO) for women’s and newborn health, research, and innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, has been named dean of the Connell School of Nursing. She will succeed Susan Gennaro, who is stepping down at the end of the semester after 13 years as dean. A visionary nurse leader, educator, and researcher, Gregory will return to Boston College where she received a Ph.D. in nursing in 2006 and served as an assistant and associate professor in the Connell School between 2006 and 2014.
Katherine E. Gregory Ph.D. ’06 r. symonds
photo by susan
During her 25-year nursing career, Gregory has risen from a staff nurse in a newborn ICU to the ACNO at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, with a scope of responsibility that includes leadership of a division with approximately 700 nurses and clinical staff, and
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Talent, Diversity Hallmarks of Class of 2025 BY JACK DUNN ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Boston College has admitted its best and most diverse class in University history, including 42 percent AHANA students, 11 percent first-generation students, and seven percent international students, for the Class of 2025. The students were accepted from a pool of 39,875 applicants—the highest total ever at Boston College—with an admit rate of just 18.9 percent, reflecting the University’s growing admission selectivity. In a year when Boston College and most elite institutions of higher education made standard test scores optional, 61 percent of BC’s accepted students submitted test scores, with an average SAT score of 1495 and ACT of 34. In total, students were accepted from
3,168 high schools located in all 50 states and 75 countries. Fifty-four percent of admitted students come from public/charter schools, 20 percent from Catholic schools, and 26 percent from private/independent schools.
Director of Undergraduate Admission Grant Gosselin praised the admitted students in the Class of 2025 not only for their talents, but for the remarkable resiliency they have shown as COVID-19
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What if we were to invest in each other? What if our singular aim was to create a community of beloved belonging? What if we were to imagine a circle of compassion and then imagine nobody standing outside that circle? What if we chose together in a community of kinship to dismantle the barriers that exclude? – gregory boyle, s.j. m.div. ’84, page 3