When Adrienne Nussbaum started working at Boston College as an international student advisor, she remembers Kevin Duffy, then the vice president of student affairs, asking if she could make a two-year commitment.
That was 38 years ago. In the time since, Nussbaum has helped thousands of international students call Boston College home and has overseen BC’s transformation into a premier destination for international students, most recently in her role as associate dean and director of the Office of International Students and Scholars. Now transitioning into retirement, Nussbaum sees her career at BC as the job she had imagined for herself growing up—or might have imagined, if she had known about the field of international higher education.
Studying languages throughout high school, Nussbaum always planned on studying abroad in Paris in college. And as a French and psychology double major at Tufts University, she did.
“I loved my study-abroad program,” said Nussbaum. “When I graduated college, I really thought I was going to run a study-abroad program. It never occurred to me that there were international students coming to the United States.”
But as she applied for jobs—basically anything with the word “international” in the description—Nussbaum found a job in the International Office at Harvard University and discovered the growing field of international higher education. While working at Harvard, Nussbaum also earned her master’s degree in intercultural relations and international higher education from Lesley University. After graduating, she was recruited to BC for the international
advisor position, and the two-year commitment became a career-long home.
Along the way, a lot changed.
Today, the Office of International Students and Scholars serves more than 2,600 students and scholars with staff and peer advising, intercultural programming, academic support, and more. When Nussbaum started, the office served closer to 300 students and scholars.
“It was just me and a part-time assistant working on the ground level of McElroy Commons as part of Student Affairs, in the Office of the Dean for Student Development,” recalled Nussbaum.
Still, she stayed.
“I was able to grow in my position, and I also found such a community here of good-hearted, good-valued, nice people. Men and women for others really resonated.”
Among Nussbaum’s early goals was increasing global engagement on campus. Although it wasn’t strictly part of her job description, as she pointed out, no one else was doing it. So she brought International
“I got into this field because I love working with international students,” says Adrienne Nussbaum.
“They’re the number one part of my work that brought me joy, and now I’ve met people from all over the world who I’m still in touch with.”
Education Week (IEW), a federal initiative to celebrate international education, to BC. Now, IEW has grown so popular at BC that it’s become multiple weeks of celebration and programming, including foreign films, international cuisine pop-ups, speakers, and other activities, noted Nussbaum.
“IEW has grown and flourished. We can’t do it in one week anymore because we usually have around 40 programs, open to the whole University.”
And global engagement? It has its own office now, headed by Vice Provost for Global Engagement James F. Keenan, S.J.
“This was my dream for years,” said Nussbaum. “The offices of Global Engagement, International Students and Scholars, and Global Education finally share one house and can centralize events and support for the international and campus community. I’m so happy I got to see that happen.”
Nussbaum has been a model of wisdom and hospitality, particularly in welcoming the thousands of students, administrators, faculty, and staff who came to BC from
overseas, said Fr. Keenan.
“She became a stable resource for those who needed to make the right decisions about their visa applications and renewals. Above all, by her insight, kindness, and enduring sense of humor, she was for them the first American professional they met as they settled into life here and the one they most remembered when they returned home.”
“Adrienne’s dedication to Boston College’s international community was unmatched,” said Executive Director for Global Engagement Bryan Fleming. “Having worked with her for decades in a variety of ways, I saw firsthand the expertise and passion she poured into her work. While we’re sad to see her go, we’re also incredibly excited for her next chapter.”
As she considers what comes next, traveling is a given for Nussbaum, with a trip already planned for the spring. After 38 years working with international students, she can go to nearly any country and meet someone she knows.
“I got into this field because I love working with international students. It just makes me really happy. They’re the number one part of my work that brought me joy, and now I’ve met people from all over the world who I’m still in touch with.”
It’s because of that joy that Nussbaum has decided to continue teaching two firstyear topic seminars dedicated to helping international students adjust to BC.
“You don’t just leave a place after 38 years,” Nussbaum said. “I’m going to continue doing the things that bring me joy, like teaching. And I’m going to miss the camaraderie and community at Boston College, but I’m excited to continue in friend mode.”
Ellen Seaward is a senior digital content writer in the Office of University Communications
Potter New Head of Office of International Students and Scholars
Kayla Potter, who for nearly a decade has helped administer programs and resources for international students and scholars at Boston College, has been named as director of the University’s Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS).
She succeeds Adrienne Nussbaum, who recently retired as OISS associate dean and director after 38 years at BC [see separate story].
For the past three years, Potter has worked as senior international student and scholar advisor at OISS, serving a population of some 2,600 undergraduates, graduate students, faculty members, and other scholars from abroad who are at BC for study and research. She has provided advisement on relevant immigration regulations and procedures, conducted immigration “check-ins” for exchange program visitors, and kept up to date on guidance from various governmental authorities—including United States Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Department of State, among others—and communicated rel-
evant changes to campus partners.
Potter also has provided administrative and programmatic support for OISS initiatives such as the International Student Orientation, International Assistant Program, Conversation Partners Program, and Thanksgiving Host Program, which pairs international students and scholars with BC employees.
“Each year, Boston College is home to fabulous students and scholars from all over the world, and I’m excited to be part of the process involved in welcoming them, and helping facilitate their academic and professional goals,” said Potter. “As the University has continued to invest more in global engagement, the OISS has played a crucial role in ensuring BC fulfills its objective to be an international university. My colleagues and I welcome that opportunity.”
At a time of uncertainty and anxiety in American international education, Potter said the University community has been supportive of OISS and the students and scholars it serves.
“We’ve heard from faculty, staff, and students, and it’s heartening to know that BC recognizes the importance of our mission,” she said. “We continue to work with many different departments, offices, and organizations in the University, including Student Affairs, the Provost and Dean of Faculties, Undergraduate and Graduate Admission of-
fices, and the Undergraduate Government of BC, among others, to make sure BC is supporting our international students and scholars in the best way possible.”
A useful source of news, updates, and other information for the University community, she added, is the Global Engagement Gateway, which is accessible via the Global Engagement website at bc.edu/ global.
Potter joined OISS in April 2016 as a temporary administrative assistant, later serving as international advising assistant and international student advisor. In addition, she has worked as an academic advisor for firstyear international students in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, staff co-leader for the Arrupe International Immersion Program in Mexico, and teaching assistant in a Cross Currents Seminar.
Potter earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and International Studies from Wittenberg University in Ohio and a master’s degree in international higher education and intercultural relations from Lesley University.
—Sean Smith
photo by caitlin cunningham
Kayla Potter
photo by caitlin cunningham
BC Researcher Relishes Chance to Study Nebula
Continued from page 1
halo—and flowing strands of burning gasses.
Data examined by Kraemer and other researchers led by Mikako Matsuura, of the University of Cardiff, come from images and electromagnetic wave measurements produced by the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which was focused on what is known as Butterfly Nebula, NGC 6302.
“Since this was a new instrument, we had no idea how much detail we would be getting from this data,” said Kraemer, an astrophysicist who specializes in dying stars. “It’s spectacular. We are drinking from a fire hose here. We will be talking to the modelers and the people in the lab, because we are seeing features we have not seen before. That’s part of the fun—finding things you did not expect and don’t yet know what they are.”
With funding from NASA, Kraemer has been working on the project for nearly four years and has spent the past 18 months parsing the data and images returned by the telescope, which was launched into space in 2021. Her specialization of infrared astronomy uses data from infrared radiation to examine the physical properties of extraterrestrial sources such as the nebula—in this case dust and gas shed by the dying star.
The Butterfly Nebula is located approximately 3,400 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. For perspective, the sun is a mere eight light-minutes away from the Earth. The nebula has been studied extensively and previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, the pioneering predecessor to Webb.
According to the European Space Agency, a central Webb partner, the new images
“zoom in on the center of the Butterfly Nebula and its dusty torus, providing an unprecedented view of its complex structure.” The research team supplemented the Webb observations with data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a powerful network of radio dishes.
“Our task is to interpret the data and determine what these different structures we see mean,” said Kraemer. “We’re interpreting the different materials the star is ejecting. Some colors trace material that is kind of like soot. Other colors trace where a lot of silicon dust is flowing. Other colors are hot gases. All of that is being ejected back into space and will ultimately be recycled into new stars and planets some day.”
Kraemer’s interest in astronomy was piqued as a child by spending evenings with her father looking at the stars in the backyard of their home near an Air Force
base in Southern California. That led her to Caltech as an undergraduate, and a doctorate at Boston University. As a scientist, she finds dying stars the most interesting.
“There are people who like middle-aged stars, but I think the dying ones are much more interesting,” she said. “This is where they are ejecting their materials back into space where they end up in new stars and planets.”
The carbon thrown off across millennia not only replenishes the galaxy but ends up in each one of us, she noted.
“The carbon in us was mostly produced by nebulas,” she said.
Among the key findings is the source of the cast-off soot and dust, which in the case of the Butterfly Nebula creates a torus, or a donut-shaped feature of dust and gas that surrounds the center of the star, Kraemer said.
“We wanted to know what was going
A view of the planetary nebula called NGC 6302 or the Butterfly Nebula. “We wanted to know what was going on in the core of the nebula,” says Boston College Senior Research Scientist Kathleen Kraemer. “Data from the Hubble telescope showed the center of the nebula was blocked by clouds of dust. Now we know more about what is going on in the core and causing the larger structures.”
on in the core of the nebula,” said Kraemer. “Data from the Hubble telescope showed the center of the nebula was blocked by clouds of dust. Now we know more about what is going on in the core and causing the larger structures.”
As the star dies, she said, “light is being shot out in directions perpendicular to the torus and that makes the butterfly shape.”
In this cauldron of soot, sand, and gas, the images are informing what is known about the chemistry at play, the radiation at the core of the nebula, the molecules that can be formed and the temperatures they reach, Kraemer said.
Kraemer is already looking forward to the next phases of the project exploring additional data from the Webb telescope and seeing what more they reveal.
She added, “We are excited to keep digging into the data.”
esa/webb, nasa & csa, k noll, j k astner, m zamani (esa/webb)
BC Scenes
With the first month of the 2025-2026 academic year almost over, the Boston College campus is once again a busy place— outside as well as inside. University events in September have included (clockwise from left) the Hispanic Latinx Heritage Month opening ceremony; WellFest; the Stokes Set, featuring a performance by Fitz and the Tantrums; and the Clough School of Theology and Ministry Harrington Lecture, given by Jean Luc Enyegue, S.J., S.T.L.’13.
photos by seho lee ’27 and frank curran
BC Arts
Gaelic Roots Series Fall Program Gets Underway This Evening
Boston College’s Gaelic Roots series, which for more than two decades has brought acclaimed performers of Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, and other traditional music to the Heights, begins its new season this evening at 6:30 p.m. with a concert by Irish trio Lane to the Glen in the Theology and Ministry Library on Brighton Campus. All other Gaelic Roots events will take place (also at 6:30 p.m.) in Connolly House, 300 Hammond Pond Parkway.
Lane to the Glen comprises Oisín Mac Diarmada, a co-founder of popular traditionally rooted band Téada (a past Gaelic Roots performer) and a master of the distinctive Sligo fiddle style; Daithí Gormley, regarded as a generational talent on accordion who along with Mac Diarmada published The Fiddlers of Sligo Tunebook, regarded as a must-have among many traditional-minded musicians; and Samantha Harvey, a talented pianist who also excels as a dancer and accordionist, and has toured with Téada and in other collaborations.
Andy Irvine, one of the most important figures in the Irish folk music revival, will perform on October 2. Irvine has been a member of groundbreaking groups such as Sweeney’s Men, Planxty, and Patrick Street, and part of a duo with Paul Brady that produced what is regarded as a landmark album in modern Irish music. His visits to Eastern Europe in the 1960s led him to explore that region’s musical traditions, and in the process made him a pioneer of world music. A skilled musician and gifted singer, he also developed a reputation as a skillful, eloquent writer of songs, many built around historical figures and events as well as social concerns, drawing comparisons with Woody Guthrie. He holds a Lifetime Achievement honor from the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards.
On October 30, the series presents two gifted fiddlers representing different, but
New Robsham Season and Monan Prof. Arrive
The Boston College Theatre Department and Robsham Theater Main Stage fall season begins next week with a production of Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls,” touted as one of the best plays of the 20th century by, among others, Entertainment Weekly, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and The Guardian theater critic Michael Billington, who included it in his book The 101 Greatest Plays.
Directed by Associate Professor of the Practice Patricia Riggin, the play will run from October 2-5 on Robsham’s main stage.
Written by Churchill during the Margaret Thatcher era in England, “Top Girls” explores the choices modern women face in the workforce. Opening with a dinner party where each guest is a historical, fictional, or mythical woman who faced adversity and suffered bitterly to attain her goals—including Pope Joan, a Japanese courtesan turned Buddhist nun, and Dull
Donald Monan, S.J., Professor in Theatre Arts for the 2025-2026 academic year. Established in 2007 by a generous gift to the University, the Monan Professorship— named for the former University president and chancellor—brings regionally and nationally renowned theatre artists to work and teach at Boston College on an annual basis.
Florestal is a four-time Elliot Norton Award-nominated director, educator, dramaturg, writer, and collaborator based in Boston. She is the associate artistic director of The Front Porch Arts Collective, a Black theater company committed to advancing racial equity in Boston through theater, and an assistant professor of theater at Boston Conservatory at Berklee College of Music. She also created and manages the Young Critics and Apprenticeship Program and is associate producer of “The Reading Series,” “Black Out Events,” and other productions.
hardly divergent, music traditions from their respective birthplaces. Kimberley Fraser is among the elite Cape Breton musicians of her generation, performing and teaching in many different parts of the world. An alumna of Berklee College of Music, Fraser has released two albums, “Behind the Bow” and “Falling on New Ground,” the latter of which won the East Coast Music Award for Roots/Traditional Album of the Year. Oisín McAuley was born in County Donegal, home to a revered fiddle tradition, and in addition to his long-time stint with the acclaimed band Danú has drawn praise for his solo efforts, notably his album “Far from the Hills of Donegal,” on which he demonstrates a command of other Irish fiddle styles. A member of the Berklee College faculty, McAuley and some of his Berklee colleagues were part of the project “Emerald Jazz,” televised on WGBH, which introduced jazz elements to traditional Irish music.
Concluding the fall schedule will be Celtic guitarist Tony McManus on November 13. The Scottish-born McManus, a self-taught finger-style player, renders the complex ornamentations of traditional music associated with fiddle and pipes, and the effect is spellbinding and often emotionally powerful. In addition to Scotland, Ireland, and Cape Breton, McManus has explored Celtic music traditions of Brittany, Asturia, Galicia, and Quebec. He has teamed with an array of celebrated performers like Andy Irvine, Dougie McLean, Phil Cunningham, Liam O’Flynn, Martin Simpson, Kevin Burke, Alison Brown, Natalie MacMaster, and the Nashville Chamber Orchestra. In recent years, he has teamed with Berlin guitarist/fiddler/vocalist Julia Toaspern, whose interests extend to baroque and jazz; they released a live album in 2019.
For more about Gaelic Roots, see events. bc.edu/group/gaelic_roots_series —Sean Smith
Gret, a subject of a Flemish renaissance painting—the play culminates in a blistering and timely dispute over the politics of the right vs. left. “Top Girls” questions whether it is possible for women in society to combine a successful career with a thriving family life.
Robsham main stage will be the venue from December 4-7 for one of the most beloved Christmas stories, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.”
The production, directed by Associate Professor Courtney Elkin Mohler, will feature live music and dance, as well as the timeless tale of miserly and humorless Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemption and transformation—with the help of three spirits—on one Christmas Eve.
For more on Theatre Department/Robsham main stage productions, including performance times and ticket prices, go to bc.edu/theatre. For tickets, see bc.edu/tickets or call ext.2-4002.
The Theatre Department recently welcomed Pascale Florestal as the Rev. J.
Her directing credits include “To the People Like Us” (Strand Theater), “No Child” (Gloucester Stage Company), “Is This America?” (White Snake Projects), “Our Town” and “Next to Normal” (Central Square Theater). As an assistant to the director, Florestal has worked with Kimberly Senior, Liesl Tommy, Billy Porter, Paul Daigneault, and M. Bevin O’Gara; as associate director, her collaborations have included Gil Rose (“X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X”) and Kimberly Senior (“Our Daughters, Like Pillars”). She served as associate director for the Broadway national tour of “Jagged Little Pill.”
In 2021, Florestal was named one of the WBUR ARTery 25 Artists of Color Transforming the Cultural Landscape in Boston. In 2020, she won the inaugural Greg Ferrell Award for her excellence in teaching and supporting young people.
Read more about Florestal in her Theatre Department profile: https://bit.ly/PascaleFlorestal-Monan-Professor —University Communications
Traditional Irish trio Lane to the Glen performs at 6:30 tonight in the Theology and Ministry Library on the Brighton Campus.
Pascale Florestal, the Monan Professor in Theatre Arts for 2025-2026.
