Boston College Magazine, Fall 2023

BOSTON COLLEGE FALL 2023

MAGAZI NE

BC’s $3 billion Soaring Higher Capital Campaign is raising funds for academic, financial-aid, and studentlife initiatives.

How Head Coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein built BC into a women’s lacrosse powerhouse.

Breaking the Oath Keepers

Prosecutors Lou Manzo ’06 and Brendan Downes ’07 are playing central roles in government efforts to bring the extremist militia to justice.

Contents // Fall 2023

FEATURES

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Boston College Launches the Soaring Higher Capital Campaign

Breaking the Oath Keepers

Building a Champion

Prosecutors—and best friends—Lou Manzo ’06 and Brendan Downes ’07 are at the center of government efforts to take down the Oath Keepers extremist militia for its role in the January 6 insurrection.

Before Head Coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein took over, the Boston College women’s lacrosse team had never won a game in the NCAA postseason tournament.

Today, she’s turned the program into a national powerhouse. Here’s the inside story of how she did it.

The $3 billion campaign, the largest in University history, will raise funds for crucial academic, financial-aid, and studentlife initiatives.

By Jack Dunn Photograph by Caitlin Cunningham CV2

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By Luke O’Brien Photographs by Astrid Riecken

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By Jacob Feldman Photo-illustrations by Chuck Anderson

40 What in the World Is Going on with the Weather?

Skies clogged with smoke.

Record-shattering global temperatures. Deadly flooding. Warming seas. Were the horrifying weather events of this past summer an aberration, or are they our climate future?

By Lisa Weidenfeld

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Crimes and Misdemeanors…?

Ceara O’Sullivan ’14 and Griff Stark-Ennis ’14 resolve petty disputes on the hit podcast Petty Crimes, one feud at a time.

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Campus Digest Meet the Fenti Fried Chicken Guy How Joe McCartney ’19 became a social media comedy star.

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Dua Lipa and Me Brennan Carley ’13 landed the job of a lifetime.

10 Caring for Two Professor Karen Lyons is studying how supporting both patients and their care partners can lead to better health care outcomes.

CLASS NOTES 12 The Sweetest Thing With a new bakery, Ilona Znakharchuck ’21 honors her Ukrainian ancestry.

14 What the Supreme Court’s

Affirmative Action Ruling Means for BC

University administrators and faculty react to the controversial decision.

15 The Benefits of Teaching

44 Alumni News and Notes 45 Class Notes 70 Advancing Boston College

72 What I’ve Learned John Acampora

73 Parting Shot

Kids to Code

New BC Professor Marina Umaschi Bers studies how learning to code can benefit children’s overall development.

16 The First Ladies The novels of Heather Terrell ’90 make history come to life.

Photograph by Astrid Riecken

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Conversation

Baldwin Confidential

I enjoyed reading the current students’ mascot stories. One of my favorite memories as Baldwin was in 2007, during the BC-Virginia Tech game. I had the Baldwin suit in my dorm room from an earlier event that night.

After Matt Ryan led our second-ranked Eagles to a remarkable comeback in the last two minutes of the game, it seemed like the entire student body flooded the Mods to celebrate. Surrounded by thousands of classmates, I turned to one of my roommates and exclaimed “Baldwin needs to be here!” I ran back to my dorm, threw the suit on, and came back downstairs as Baldwin.

I hardly made it two steps out of the Walsh doors before the crazed fans picked me up and started crowd surfing Baldwin. I was up in the air for at least twenty minutes being passed all over the Mods before I finally touched my feet to the ground. It took all my strength to keep the helmet on and avoid losing Baldwin’s head during the commotion. It was one of my best nights on the Heights!

My best friends lived in the infamous “Strip Mod” during the 2009–2010 school year. To wrap up the second semester show with a bang, we decided to include Baldwin as a surprise performer in the closing act, when they danced to “Sweet Caroline.”

My friends all wore—and removed—their Superfan shirts before I walked out from the Mod in the Baldwin costume. The crowd went absolutely wild when Baldwin’s jersey and shorts came off. They went even wilder when I reappeared wearing nothing but Baldwin’s head, shoes, and a pair of tighty 2

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whities with a bunch of feathers glued on. I still can’t believe I got away with this stunt!

Greg Forkins ’10 Lakewood, Colorado I had wrestled the first three years at BC and decided to hang it up and try out my senior year to be the mascot. Back then it wasn’t Baldwin—it was simply known as “The Eagle.” The same rules applied, though—no speaking and you had to remain anonymous until graduation. The costume itself didn’t look much like the Baldwin costume today.

The head was made out of papier-mâché.

It was loose-fitting, so I had to tie T-shirts around my head to make it snug. The view for the person inside was through a mesh screen just below the beak. There were only two of us splitting time between the football, basketball, and hockey games. Job number one was to keep the fans happy. Job number two was to stir up a little trouble with the opposing fans. My weapon of choice was a giant Super Soaker water gun. My very first game as the mascot was at Michigan Stadium, with 100,000 football fans. The field security approached me right before the game and said “there is only one rule here— you don’t go over there!” while pointing toward the Michigan student section in the corner of the end zone. That was all I needed to hear. I walked in the direction he was pointing. As I got right up close, carrying my Super Soaker, the students were in a frenzy, upset I had crossed the imaginary line into the no-entry zone. They started throwing food and drinks at me, so I crouched down, pumped up the barrel of my giant water gun and returned fire, soaking all of them.

Mike Dullea ’95 Westborough, Massachusetts It was fun reading everyone’s accounts of their adventures being Baldwin. However, there was no shortage of adventure as trainers for Margo, the live eagle [who predated the Baldwin mascot] in the 1960s. We would walk up to the fifty-yard line as part of the game intro, and let Margo flare her wings, then fly to a perch in the end zone.

Sometimes we would have to sleep overnight in Roberts Center if there was a threat of someone “stealing” her. When transporting her in the backseat of a car, we had to put chain mail around our arm to protect it from the forceful grip of her talons.

Maurice “Moe” Giguere ’66 Vienna, Virginia

A letter from BC’s very first mascot

Maurice “Moe” Giguere ’66 with Margo, BC’s live eagle mascot who predated Baldwin, at Alumni Stadium in fall of 1963.

In the fall of 1976, we played Texas at Alumni Stadium. The night before the game, I said to my RA, “I can’t believe BC doesn’t have a mascot.” So I called Broadway Costume Shop in downtown Boston. They said it was $25 to rent an eagle costume. I talked to the RAs and they gave me the $25. I put the suit on and went down to the stadium. Somehow, security let me in. I was in the stands. I went on the field. We won the game and I ended up sitting on the front hood of a Cadillac driving up Beacon Street at 11:30 that night. The next home game, the cheerleaders put up the

illustration: Mark Fredrickson photo: Courtesy of Maurice Giguere

global marketing at Google]. The writing is fantastic and I felt like I really knew his story by the end of the article. It was inspiring.

Anna Petronzio ’86 Providence, Rhode Island

How the Right Learned to Take Comedy Seriously

Michael “Moe” Burness ’79 dreamed up the idea of a BC eagle mascot the night before a big game in 1976.

$25 to rent the suit. After that I talked to the athletic director but he was cold to the idea of a full-time mascot. Fortunately, Reid Oslin, who worked in BC sports media, loved the idea. He got some of the alumni to put up the money to buy a suit. From there it just took off. I did basketball, hockey, and football. I was Elliot the Eagle. I wasn’t Baldwin.

When I graduated I sent letters to six or seven teams about being their mascot. I actually got an offer from the Oakland A’s. But I had to pay my own way, and they were only going to pay me $25 a game. I wasn’t going to Oakland for that. Then my father told me the New Haven Nighthawks, a minor league hockey team, were looking for a mascot. I auditioned and I got the job. I did that for two years. Then I spent several years as a mascot for other teams, and even Coca-Cola.

But the profession changed drastically. You needed a trainer and all this stuff. I was more about being goofy and making people laugh.

I led the Continental Basketball Association by getting thrown out of five games in one year. The referees thought I was being a nuisance. I said, “Guys, I’m entertainment.”

Being the BC mascot was so much fun, and it led to many other great adventures.

Michael “Moe” Burness ’79 South Windsor, Connecticut

Meet Google’s Messenger

Kudos to Lisa Weidenfeld on her article about Marvin Chow ’95 [vice president of photo: Courtesy of Michael Burness

I found John Wolfson’s introduction to this article [Summer 2023] to be a farcical, unilateral statement that cannot possibly be believed. Perhaps you meant to say that you were referring only to the United States TV market in the last fifty years, but that was not written. Most educated BC graduates might think that you don’t know that political satire has been around since Aristophanes in Ancient Greek times. As a graduate of Newton College, I find this article to be a one-sided opinion piece rather than an article of interest for all grads. I feel that I have to speak up in opposition to this particular article and I am sure I am not the only alum who feels this way.

Beth Carroll, Newton College ’74 North Granby, Connecticut

Praise for the Summer 2023 Issue

I want to commend you all for a fantastic job with your Summer issue. I love the cover.

The background blue is beautiful and I like the typeface you used for the title. I thought all the stories were terrific, as were the visuals. I had no idea that the school once had a live mascot named Margo—a very clever name indeed. Kudos to you all.

Nancy Goldfarb P ’14 Editor’s note: In our Summer 2023 issue, we included a letter from Saya Hillman, whose hometown was listed as Chatham, Massachusetts, but should have been Chicago, Illinois. We regret the error.

Boston College Magazine welcomes letters from readers.

Letters may be edited for length and clarity. Please include your full name and address.

EMAIL: bcm@bc.edu MAIL: BCM, 140 Commonwealth

Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Connect with @BostonCollege

BOSTON COLLEGE MAGAZINE

VOLUME 83

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NUMBER 3

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FALL 2023

EDITOR

John Wolfson ART DIRECTOR

Keith Ake DEPUTY EDITOR

Lisa Weidenfeld STAFF WRITER

Elizabeth Clemente DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY

Lee Pellegrini SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Caitlin Cunningham

Please send address changes to: Development Information Services Cadigan Alumni Center 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 (617) 552-3440, Fax: (617) 552-0077 bc.edu/bcm/address Please send editorial correspondence to: Boston College Magazine 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 (617) 552-3350 bcm@bc.edu Boston College Magazine is published three times a year by Boston College, with editorial offices at the Office of University Communications.

ISSN 0885–2049 Standard postage paid at Boston, MA, and additional mailing offices.

Postmaster: Send address corrections to: Boston College Magazine Development Information Services Cadigan Alumni Center 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Please direct Class Notes queries to: Class Notes editor Cadigan Alumni Center 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 email: classnotes@bc.edu phone: (617) 552-4700 Copyright © 2023 Trustees of Boston College.

All publications rights reserved.

Printed in USA by Royle Printing.

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Linden Lane

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Crimes and Misdemeanors…?

Ceara O’Sullivan ’14 and Griff Stark-Ennis ’14 resolve petty disputes on the hit podcast Petty Crimes, one feud at a time.

BY ELIZABETH CLEMENTE

One morning last summer, Griff Stark-Ennis ’14 awoke to find a once-in-a-lifetime congratulatory text flashing across his phone’s screen. A bleary-eyed scan through his friend’s excited message revealed that Time magazine had just named Petty Crimes, the year-old podcast that Stark-Ennis cohosts with his friend Ceara O’Sullivan ’14, as one of the best of 2023. “It was a nice way to wake up,” Stark-Ennis recalled. But the good news didn’t stop there. A couple of weeks later, the New York Times named Petty Crimes one of “6 Podcasts to Help You Take an Actual Break This Summer.”

The podcast is a witty examination of everyday social transgressions and faux pas. It employs dramatic production elements typically found in the popular true-crime podcast category, but gives the whole thing a lighthearted twist. O’Sullivan, a comedian whose short comedy videos had already gained hundreds of thousands of fans on TikTok, came up with the idea for a podcast that investigated “crimes”—which would be its listeners’ gripes about inconsequential slights from their lives and relationships. The tone would be snarky and fun, like her favorite reality shows, and each episode would end with the hosts weighing the information provided and ultimately deciding which party was “guilty” of the “crime” in question. O’Sullivan and Stark-Ennis, friends from their days at Boston College, fleshed out the idea during long walks in Los Angeles, where they both live.

The podcast launched in March 2022 with O’Sullivan and Stark-Ennis as cohosts.

In the year and a half since, O’Sullivan and Stark-Ennis have dissected dozens of trivial dramas submitted by their listeners, and determined who was at fault in each of them. One episode, for instance, centered on a listener who was shamed by fellow airplane passengers for not giving up her seat so a young family could sit together. The hosts reviewed the situation from the point of view of all the involved parties, as they do in every episode, and decided that everyone was guilty, including the airline for not having assigned seats. “I dabble in true crime, but I like the light true crime that doesn’t keep you up at night,” O’Sullivan said. photo: Courtesy of SickBird Productions

Crimes covered by the podcast have included a post-breakup custody battle over houseplants, a dog that was being allowed to go to the bathroom on a shared rooftop deck in O’Sullivan’s building, and the inequitable sleeping arrangements at a bachelorette party.

(Why would a bridesmaid who had agreed to sleep on the top bunk sneak away from the festivities early and fall asleep in a better bed?)

For those new to Petty Crimes, O’Sullivan recommends an episode called “Blueberry Hoarders.” It was inspired by a listener who wrote in after she’d been asked by the owner of a blueberry bush to stop taking berries from the plant. Surely, the listener argued, inflated berry prices at the grocery store made her behavior acceptable. Stark-Ennis

“

The perfect petty crime is something that couldn’t matter less,” O’Sullivan explained, “but to the people involved, it matters so much.”

and O’Sullivan disagreed, taking the neighbor’s side instead.

Listener submissions account for most of the crimes discussed, but the hosts have learned that podcast ideas can come from anywhere. For example, when someone once asked Stark-Ennis for his opinion about a dispute over a parking spot at the gym where he worked, he brought the matter onto the podcast and had O’Sullivan make the final ruling. (She determined that the guilty party was the person who’d asked for Stark-Ennis’s opinion in the first place.) “The perfect petty crime is something that couldn’t matter less,” O’Sullivan explained, “but to the people involved, it matters so much.” Sometimes, though, there isn’t a clearly guilty party—“the situation is in the gray zone,” Stark-Ennis said.

Each episode ends with a segment called “Criminal or Minimal,” a kind of lightning round in which the hosts quickly cycle through submissions and decide whether the situations are really offenses, or whether the injured party should just get over it. (Sending voice memos instead of texts was deemed criminal, while rejecting a friend’s invitation to share an entree at a restaurant was found to be minimal.)

The bond between Stark-Ennis and O’Sullivan dates back to their days on the Heights. As he tells it, Stark-Ennis was a fan of O’Sullivan’s before he was her friend. He used to watch her perform with the BC comedy troupe My Mother’s Fleabag, and they eventually grew close. After graduation, they each worked in Boston for a few years before deciding to pursue careers in Hollywood. StarkEnnis moved in January 2018 to look for modeling and acting work, and O’Sullivan followed in 2020. Late last year she was hired as a staff writer on Saturday Night Live. The Writers Guild of America strike has shut down the show’s production, but Petty Crimes has given O’Sullivan and Stark-Ennis a sense of creative control amid the dispute. They released new episodes throughout the summer, and hope to eventually perform live shows as well. “Talking about what is going on in your life and is driving you nuts, and having someone else say, that would drive me nuts too—there’s comfort in that,” O’Sullivan said. n fa l l 20 23 v bc m

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Linden Lane // Campus Digest

Peter Lynch Art Collection Goes on Display Starting this fall, the Boston College community has the opportunity to view a number of important artworks, including an original sketch by Pablo Picasso, that are now part of the permanent collection at the McMullen Museum of Art, and displayed in the University Confernece Center. The legendary investor Peter Lynch ’65 donated the twenty-seven paintings and drawings—from renowned artists including John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and Winslow Homer— to BC in 2021. “Every item in this collection was selected in a joint manner by my late wife Carolyn and me, and in most cases, Carolyn was the lead advocate,” Lynch said. “It brings great joy to my family knowing that the collection will be enjoyed by BC students and the wider community for generations to come.”

READING LIST

Acclaimed Economist Paul M. Romer Joins BC Last month, the Nobel economics laureate Paul M. Romer began his new job as the Seidner University Professor in the Carroll School of Management. Romer will launch the Carroll School’s new Center for the Economics of Ideas, which Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley said will “expand on his pathbreaking accomplishments and open up new horizons to direct change for the common good.”

A former chief economist and senior vice president at the World Bank, Romer won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2018 alongside Yale University’s William Nordhaus for work that involved “integrating technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis.” Romer, a native of Denver, Colorado, comes to BC after thirteen years at New York University, and studied at the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Carroll School Dean Andy Boynton called him “one of the most respected and accomplished economists in the world.”

Romer said he was excited to join the community at BC and get to work establishing the Center for the Economics of Ideas.

“In the pursuit of progress, the market can be the vehicle, but the values of science, scholarship, and enlightenment must be the compass,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of disruption. What’s miss—Lisa Weidenfeld ing is direction.”

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Heather Cox Richardson on Rising Authoritarianism BC History Professor Heather Cox Richardson, whose Letters from an American newsletter has made her one of the country’s most influential pundits, recently released her new book Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America. We asked Richardson to tell us about the new work.

“It’s an attempt to understand how people in democracy willingly vote away democracy in favor of authoritarianism. And crucially, how they can get it back. What it argues is that the way authoritarians take over democracy is through their use of language and of history. The first third of the book is, how did we get to the place where people gave up on democracy? The second third is the Trump years, so what does it look like when you put a strong man in power? And the last third of it is how you reclaim a sense of the Declaration of Independence—the idea that we should have a shared common interest, that we have a right to a say in our government, and that we have a right to equality before the law.” photo: Joshua Dalsimer (Romer)

Campus News This fall, BC launched its new data science minor. The program, open to all undergraduate students, will prepare students to thrive in a job landscape that increasingly rewards data skills. The minor will emphasize the human-centered application of data analysis and modeling for the common good, and participants will learn to think critically about data and the ethics of using it.

The Woods College of Advancing Studies has a new director for its Master of Science in Leadership and Administration program.

Mary Ellen Joyce ’75 assumed the position in May, bringing decades of experience in leadership education, adult learning, and instructional design, including twenty years directing the executive programs division at the Brookings Institution.

CHARACTER SKETCH

Lily Dorton ’27

TK

Todd Interdonato has been named the new BC baseball head coach. Interdonato comes to the Heights from Wofford College, in South Carolina, where he spent sixteen years as head coach and led the school to two Southern Conference regular season championships.

He replaces longtime BC head coach Mike Gambino ’99, who recently took over the Penn State baseball program.

BC Facilities Management completed seventy-two renovation projects around campus over the summer. Included were a major facelift of the Higgins Hall auditorium and a refresh of the Fenwick and Fitzpatrick dorms. But the star attraction is the new Hoag Basketball Pavilion. (See page 73 for more on the new facility.)

Diana Bowser has been named Associate Dean for Research and Integrated Science at the Connell School of Nursing. Bowser started in the role in July, and comes to BC with twenty years of experience in health system analysis on the topics of health economics and health policy. photos: BC Athletics (Interdonato); Caitlin Cunningham (Dorton)

In spring 2020, Lily Dorton ’27 and her younger sister began searching for opportunities to learn about Civil Rights history in their hometown of Washington, DC. Finding a good tour proved challenging, however, so they decided to get creative. Last September they launched DC Civil Rights Tour, an app exploring seventeen DC civil rights landmarks they chose as essential parts of DC’s civil rights history.

—Elizabeth Clemente

We saw a need for a new kind of civil rights tour. We’re a big tour family, and after the murder of George Floyd we wanted to find one to teach us more about local civil rights history. But there weren’t many that went beyond mainstream locations such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial or Howard University.

Many important landmarks have been kept hidden. Many existing tours don’t give participants a deeper history about the locations they cover. Eliza and I not only selected which landmarks to include on the app, but also delved into why these historical landmarks were kept hidden for so long. So much of this history has been whitewashed and is not included in textbooks, and tourists coming to DC should know about it.

The app allows you to learn however you want. People can visit all seventeen sites or click on locations on the map to learn more about the destinations we picked, including the A. Philip Randolph statue honoring the labor activist, or the home of artist and educator Alma Thomas. Each landmark includes a description and an option to hear it read aloud, like an audio tour.

There’s a place for the app in high school curricula. We have begun working with our high school in DC, which is considering incorporating the app into future lessons. We hope other schools across the country will eventually follow suit. The tour currently only includes DC landmarks, but we plan to expand to Alexandria soon. fa l l 20 23 v bc m

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Linden Lane

Meet the Fenti Fried Chicken Guy How Joe McCartney ’19 became a social media comedy star.

BY ELIZABETH CLEMENTE

Joe McCartney ’19, who studied finance and information systems at BC, is four years into a successful corporate career.

But what he’s known for—what gets him recognized every weekend around Boston—are the wildly popular comedy videos he posts to social media. In his riffs on the minutiae of life in the city for a young professional, he portrays a variety of familiar characters—an exhausted participant in an office Zoom meeting, someone on a cringe-inducing first date, or, yes, one of the T subway lines. Capturing these absurdities of modern life has earned McCartney more than one hundred thousand followers on both TikTok and Instagram, and even given him a dose of celebrity in Boston. “Any Boston bar I go out to, someone’s going to point at me and be like, ‘You’re the TikTok guy,’” he said. His most popular video on that platform—in which his love of Hulu’s The Bear inspires him to act like the main character—has been viewed more than ten million times, a number that would have been unfathomable when he started. “Now, if I don’t even get ten thousand views, I’m like, ‘what a waste of time,’” he said. “It’s crazy how quickly the goalposts move as you grow.”

But if McCartney’s face is well known these days, his name is not. He posts his videos under the pseudonym Fenti Fried Chicken, a version of his original handle, Fentucky Fried Chicken, which was a play on his favorite fast food chain. McCartney, who made his first video in 2021, is usually the only person on camera, wearing just enough of a costume to suggest, say, an office worker or a diehard Boston sports fan as he speaks to an imagined character who is out of frame.

Growing up in Massachusetts, McCartney memorized the stand-up routines of his favorite comedians, including one by Brian Regan that he recited in a third-grade talent show. “Getting that initial laughter from my classmates was a rush,” he recalled. When he got to BC, he began writing for the New England Classic, the University’s satirical newspaper.

These days, McCartney has weekly stand-up gigs at Boston area venues such as Bleacher Bar and Bill’s Bar. He’s also diligent about his social media schedule, posting six new videos per week. “A lot of times I film three or four videos in one go and edit them all, usually on the bus or the train to a show,” he said. He manages all of this while succeeding in his day job as a senior associate at the professional services network PwC. “I like having two jobs,” McCartney said, “because it forces you to sit down and say, ‘All right, I can’t procrastinate.’”

McCartney said he plans to continue building his business career while doing comedy on the side, and to keep asking himself the important questions about his dual pursuits.

“It’s, am I enjoying myself? Am I having fun?,” he said. “That’s the best perspective.” n 8

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photo: Lee Pellegrini

Dua Lipa and Me

Brennan Carley ’13 landed the job of a lifetime.

BY ELIZABETH CLEMENTE

One morning in January 2022, Brennan Carley ’13 was having breakfast in his New York City apartment when Dua Lipa turned to him and asked an important question. Lipa, who is one of the world’s biggest pop stars and had just won her third Grammy, for her album Future Nostalgia, wanted to play him a new song. Carley, naturally, said yes, and thus became one of the first people in the world to hear “Sweetest Pie,” which featured fellow superstar Megan Thee Stallion and went on to peak at number fifteen on the Billboard Hot 100.

These kinds of experiences are just part of Carley’s nine-to-five these days. Over the past two years he has become a key member of Lipa’s creative support team, helping to build her lifestyle and pop culture newsletter Service95 and her critically acclaimed celebrity interview podcast Dua Lipa: At Your Service. His official title is US editor and culture director of Lipa’s global editorial platform Service95.

illustration: Jan Feindt

Carley, who studied English and Communications, first took note of Lipa in 2016, when he was a news editor for Spin magazine and on the hunt for the next big thing. While scouring the music blogs, he heard some of Lipa’s songs on the music streaming service SoundCloud. Intrigued, he decided to check out her performance at the South by Southwest festival in Austin. He was so impressed by the experience that he immediately texted his now-husband. “I think she’s gonna be the biggest pop star in the world,” he wrote. He would end up writing three articles about her as her star rose over the years. “I love interviewing. It’s one of my favorite things to do,” he said. “But I felt like I had a real connection with her.”

He wasn’t the only one to notice it. In 2021, Lipa and her team requested a meeting with Carley, who grew up outside New York City. “They were like, we’re starting this media thing, and we’re looking for a couple of editors,” he recalled. Carley accepted the opportunity, joining a small team that created the podcast and the newsletter, which launched in 2022. In each episode of the podcast, Lipa interviews a mix of experts and celebrities such as Elton John and Billie Eilish.

The newsletter, sent to subscribers every Thursday, contains original content and a collection of Lipa’s recommendations.

Carley books guests for the podcasts, works with Lipa on questions for interviews, and oversees the editing process.

In addition to their success with Lipa’s fans, the newsletter and podcast have generated positive reviews. New York magazine, for instance, praised the “editorially alive” choice of guests and Lipa’s hosting skills. Carley, who started off predicting that Lipa would become one of the biggest stars on the planet, now focuses on a different part of her skill set. “Whenever I see her,” he said, “I’m always like, There she is! World’s number one boss!” n

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Linden Lane // Research

Caring for Two

Professor Karen Lyons is studying how supporting both patients and their care partners can lead to better health care outcomes.

BY LISA WEIDENFELD

At some point in our lives, most of us will end up caring for a loved one as they go through an illness or even a terminal disease.

This experience can transform a relationship in complicated ways that can affect the physical and mental health of both the patient and their care partner. These relationships, called dyads, are a research specialty of Connell School of Nursing Professor Karen Lyons, a psychologist who believes that health care strategies focused on both people in the dyad can improve their mental health and their

relationship, and can even help them to better manage the sick person’s physical care.

Lyons’s most recent study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, focused on thirty-seven dyads in which the ill person had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. The study took place over the course of the pandemic, so the dyads met up for seven Zoom sessions with a mediator to talk through how both members were feeling.

“We’d ask them about symptoms for the person with heart failure,” Lyons said, “and

we’d ask each of them, What do you think the pain level is? And of course, they were rarely on the same page because they didn’t talk about it.”

The mediators encouraged the couples to talk about things like what they do together, as both partners and individuals, and whether there were other people in their lives or communities who could help contribute to the long-term care. They also worked with the study participants to strategize better communication tactics. “It was really about trying to get them onto the same page,” Lyons said. The dyads who went through the specialized counseling reported that they were better able to collaboratively manage the sick person’s disease. Plus, more than 90 percent of the participants said their relationship was in better shape and that they’d gained confidence in managing the illness.

For instance, patients were more likely to take helpful medication when needed.

With a master’s degree in social gerontology and a PhD in dementia caregiving, Lyons specializes in working with people in later stages of life. She’d originally planned to go into child psychology, but an early volunteering experience at a nursing home made her sharply aware of how often older people are abandoned by their families. “I had been a little naive in assuming that everybody aged in a good way,” she said. “That was a light bulb that went off, that this is where I’m needed, this is where I want to be—studying and supporting people as they age through older adulthood.”

Now Lyons hopes to use the positive results of her recent study to secure support for larger-scale research projects centered on other effective strategies that can help dyads navigate illness together. “The more we can optimize their health and keep their relationships strong, the better outcomes both of them will have,” she said. n

MORE FROM THE LAB Avneet Hira, assistant professor in the BC department of engineering, has received a five-year, $596,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

The funding will be used to recruit middle and high school students who are otherwise unlikely to engage with engineering to work on a research project with STEM instructors.

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High-earning American households overestimate their financial readiness for retirement more than middle-income households, according to new research published by BC’s Center for Retirement Research. The findings showed that 32 percent of highearning US households weren’t “worried enough” about their retirement savings, compared to 26 percent of middle-income earners. Higher earners were more likely to overrate their assets, among other issues.

Connell School of Nursing Associate Professor Andrew Dwyer is one of just two nurses nationwide to be selected as a 2023 Macy Faculty Scholar. The funding and mentorship provided will allow Dwyer, a boardcertified family nurse practitioner who studies inequities in genomic healthcare, to implement a two-year educational project at BC in which nursing students will participate in simulated patient interactions to improve their quality of care. illustration: Andrea Ucini photo: Lee Pellegrini

Eagles in the World Cup

“If you run into homeless people on the street, the biggest thing that Jim would say would be talk to them, look at them, smile at them. That is one of the biggest deficits that homeless people suffer—the sheer loneliness of their condition.”

—Author Tracy Kidder, speaking about his book Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People at the 2023 University Convocation

QUICK Q&A

When the planet’s best women’s soccer players gathered last summer in Australia and New Zealand for the World Cup, two former Boston College soccer stars stood prominently among them. Kristie Mewis ’13 played midfield for the United States, while Allyson Swaby ’18 was a defender for Jamaica.

Mewis, who graduated as BC’s all-time leading scorer, helped the US make it to the round of 16 match against Sweden, even converting a penalty kick during the overtime shootout. In the end, though, it was not enough, as the US fell to the Swedes, ending a disappointing World Cup for the favored American side.

Swaby, who was team captain during her senior year at BC, scored the only goal in Jamaica’s win against Panama, the nation’s first-ever World Cup victory. Swaby also helped to hold the powerful Brazilian team scoreless in a 0–0 tie that sent Jamaica to the knockout stage for the first time. The Jamaicans were ultimately eliminated in the round of 16, losing a 1–0 heartbreaker to Colombia.

—Lisa Weidenfeld

Molly Levitt ’09

Director at Remarkable US, a disability tech accelerator.

How did you end up in a tech field that helps people with disabilities? My mom had ALS, so I learned about resources for people with disabilities early on. I went to the Lynch School to become a teacher for kids with special needs, and I developed a software program to track my students’ individual needs. Teachers around the world started using it, and that set me on the path to a career in assistive technology.

What do you do at Remarkable? I mentor companies whose technologies could help millions of people. In our first US cohort alone, our companies have developed a grasping tool for people who can’t use their hands, accessible maps for blind people, an affordable adaptive bra, a platform that lets people control computers with their voices or facial expressions, and two technologies that help people with spinal cord injuries and cerebral palsy navigate daily life.

You’ve pointed out that such breakthroughs are helpful to everyone. So much of the technology we use every day was initially created for folks with disabilities, from electric toothbrushes and touch screens to elevators and ibuprofen. I’m excited that the field is growing, because I think it can make the world more inclusive and comfortable for everyone.

—John Shakespear photos: Lee Pellegrini (Kidder); Courtesy of Molly Levitt illustration: Joel Kimmel

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Linden Lane

The Sweetest Thing

With a new bakery, Ilona Znakharchuck ’21 honors her Ukrainian ancestry.

BY LISA WEIDENFELD

Students pick up all kinds of jobs during their time at Boston College, but not many of them involve selling delicately crafted macarons to their classmates. Ilona Znakharchuk ’21 came up with the unusual idea after visiting the macaron shop of a family friend in Ukraine the summer before her sophomore year. “She gave me a few of her recipes to play around with and was just very encouraging and inspiring,” Znakharchuk said. “And that semester I started making macarons and giving them to my roommates.” Eventually, she said, one of her roommates told her, “you have to stop giving these to us and start selling them.” She did, at two dollars per cookie.

Today, that business has become Solodko Bakery, a Brighton shop that’s captured plenty of attention since it opened last year, including being featured in the Boston Globe and written up as one of the best new bakeries in the city by Boston magazine. Now Solodko, which is the Ukrainian word for “sweet,” has expanded beyond the French cookies that gave it its start.

Znakharchuk, who came to the US from Ukraine as a child, makes an array of Ukrainian-inspired pastries, as well as impeccably decorated cakes for birthdays, weddings, and other special events. She studied mathematics at BC and learned about the baking business by taking some online courses and interning at Jonquils Café & Bakery, on Boston’s Newbury Street, before working there full-time as a pastry chef. At Jonquils, she learned from pastry chef Dmitriy Shurygin.

“Watching him work and how he structured his work process really helped me to develop a personal style and a personal collection of recipes and creams and fillings that I like to work with,” Znakharchuk said.

Znakharchuk co-owns the shop with her sister, Irina, and they have two employees. She typically makes between seven and fifteen cakes a week, depending on how busy things get, with each cake taking up to twenty total hours. Here’s a look at how she makes the Anya cake, complete with carefully crumpled edible paper and gold foil. n 12

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photos: Lee Pellegrini

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Linden Lane

What the Supreme Court’s Affirmative Action Ruling Means for BC University administrators and faculty react to the controversial decision.

BY SEAN SMITH

The Supreme Court’s ruling last summer that gutted affirmative action policies at colleges and universities was met by Boston College administrators with frustration and disappointment, but also with a commitment to work within the law to further the University’s longstanding efforts to enroll diverse and talented classes.

“Boston College has greatly benefited from a student body of varied backgrounds, which has enriched intellectual discourse and social life on our campus,” University President William P. Leahy, SJ, said in a statement. Continuing, Fr. Leahy said that “while the law has changed, the values and goals of Boston College have not. The University remains committed to the transformative power of education and to enrolling a student body that reflects American society, in accordance with the law.”

Boston College Law Professor and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar Kent Greenfield, an expert on the Supreme Court, criticized the ruling. For missiondriven schools like BC, Greenfield said, “a diverse student body is essential. Diversity of all kinds—racial, sexual, socioeconomic, ideological—is important in constructing a student community that reflects the school’s commitments to social justice and searching for truth. The court’s ruling will make it much more difficult for us to achieve the kind of diversity we aspire to have here on campus. Diversity makes us better. It makes the classroom experience better. It makes the community stronger.

The court’s ruling harms us as 14

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a community, and our teaching and learning will suffer.”

Professor of History Martin Summers, who recently completed his term as director of the African and African Diaspora Studies program, said that future undergraduate classes are likely to be less racially diverse at predominantly white institutions across the country. “I find

campus culture will become impoverished.”

Dean of Undergraduate Admission and Financial Aid Grant Gosselin said that the court’s decision is likely to have a negative impact on the efforts of the nation’s elite universities to enroll representative populations of students. “In recent decades, each of the states

it interesting,” Summers said, “that the same people who are advocating for making higher education institutions more diverse in terms of political viewpoints have no problem with making the student bodies at those universities less diverse in terms of race, socioeconomic background, life experiences, and so forth. As our student body becomes more racially and socioeconomically homogenous, I think ultimately our

that have banned the consideration of race in college admission has seen measurable declines in the enrollment of students from underserved backgrounds,” Gosselin said. “The nation’s leading private universities are now likely to face these same challenges.” He expressed pride in the University’s work to increase the enrollment of underrepresented students at BC. Indeed, this fall’s first-year class is the University’s most

accomplished and racially diverse ever, with a record 38 percent of students identifying as AHANA, and 11 percent who are firstgeneration college students.

These numbers reflect more than just a commitment to enrolling a diverse student body, Fr. Leahy noted in his statement. They also speak to the University’s investment in the education of students from under-resourced communities. As a need-blind institution, BC will continue to allocate millions of dollars to need-based undergraduate financial aid—including an expenditure of more than $166 million in 2023–2024—and through its academic support programs offered through BC’s Pine Manor Institute for Student Success. Fr. Leahy said that BC will also continue to prioritize diversity “by building on its strong relationships with schools and community-based organizations and through its membership in QuestBridge, a national nonprofit program that helps outstanding high-need students earn scholarships to attend top colleges and universities.” And next year, the University will open Messina College, a twoyear residential program that will offer an associate’s degree program to approximately one hundred students each year, with the goal of preparing them to enroll in a bachelor’s degree program or begin their careers.

“The University,” Fr. Leahy said, “intends to remain faithful to its Jesuit, Catholic intellectual and religious heritage by enrolling talented, diverse students from across the United States and the world within the new parameters set by the court.” n illustration: Anthony Gerace

The Benefits of Teaching Kids to Code

New BC Professor Marina Umaschi Bers studies how learning to code can benefit children’s overall development.

BY SIMONE MIGLIORI

A quarter-century ago, computer programming and coding were the stuff of university campuses. These days, however, coding can seem like just another piece of the average elementary school curriculum. The idea is that even our youngest children can benefit from getting a leg up on a lucrative software engineering or cybersecurity career. But to new Boston College Professor Marina Umaschi Bers, who is one of the world’s leading authorities on the design of new technologies in education, teaching kids to code is about much more than vocational skills. Coding, Bers said, is an effective way for children to learn creativity, collaboration, generosity, and open-mindedness. “I understand coding as a way of expression, not only as a way to problem solve,” Bers said.

“And when you’re teaching coding, like when you’re teaching anything, you have an opportunity to reach human beings.”

Bers is the mind behind some of the biggest breakthroughs in coding education. She cocreated the wildly popular ScratchJr, one of the world’s most widely used programming languages for kids aged five to seven, photo: Caitlin Cunningham

which allows children to develop and customize interactive stories and games for free.

She also developed KIBO, a hands-on, programmable robot kit designed to get young learners started with coding and robotics without computers or screens. Bers likens coding to a playground. Children use their minds and bodies to interact, collaborate, invent, and problem-solve, she explained, allowing them to experience “all the richness of a playground.”

Bers comes to the Heights from Tufts University. She is a member of both the Lynch School’s Department of Formative Education, which focuses on how we educate young people to lead lives of meaning and purpose, and the Computer Science Department. The faculty in the year-old Formative Education department include a philosopher, a historian, an anthropologist, a humanistic psychologist, and a cultural psychologist. Bers, with her computer science background, may seem an unusual addition to this group, but she is a perfect fit, explained Lynch School of Education and Human Development Dean Stanton

Wortham. “It seems like her colleagues are very different from her,” Wortham noted, “but they all share this deep interest in the notion of whole human beings and how you facilitate their holistic development.”

Tess Levinson, a doctoral student at BC who followed Bers from Tufts despite the challenge of switching universities middegree, said the department is an excellent match for Bers. “I would have followed Marina anywhere,” Levinson said. “She cares about understanding who we are as whole people, which is why I think a formative education program is a nice fit for her.”

Among Bers’s many research projects is one funded by the US Department of Education, researching how kindergarteners through second graders in Boston and Rhode Island learn coding. Another project takes place at a school in Jerusalem, where teachers are trained to use coding to help Palestinian and Israeli kindergarteners find common ground, engage in a shared activity of expression, and overcome conflict.

Bers had her first experience with programming while growing up in Argentina during the eighties. When she was ten, her mother sent her and her brother to an IBM office to learn Logo, a new coding language for children. At first, Bers was more interested in the free soda and cookies than in the coding, but she said she quickly realized that she could use programming as a tool to tell stories. As a young adult in Argentina, Bers first followed her passion for stories into journalism and communication sciences. In the mid-nineties she moved to the States, earning a master’s degree in education at Boston University and then a PhD at MIT. While at MIT, she studied under Seymour Papert, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence and an early advocate of computer science as a tool for childhood development.

He also invented Logo, the coding language that Bers learned as a child.

Bers’s latest project, in collaboration with colleagues at Tufts and the University of California–Irvine, is a prototype for a smart playground at BC’s Children’s Center that will help children develop coding and computation skills while engaging in active play.

“We’re very pleased that she has joined us,” Wortham said of the Lynch School’s new hire. “She has extraordinary energy. She’s doing so many different high quality, impactful things all at once.”

“Technology has the potential to make us more human,” Bers said. “Coming to BC for me was a way to do that.” n fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Linden Lane // Books

The First Ladies

The novels of Heather Terrell ’90 make history come to life.

BY LISA WEIDENFELD

Heather Terrell ’90 has had a busy few years, publishing nine books of historical fiction since 2016. But you might be more familiar with her pen name: Marie Benedict. If that rings a bell, it may be because you’ve seen one of her novels soaring up the New York Times bestseller list, or caught her discussing them on Good Morning America, or read some of the review coverage calling her books “stunning” and “ingenious,” as the Washington Post did. Or maybe you picked up her book about the actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr, The Only Woman in the Room, after Barnes & Noble made it a national book club pick.

All nine of the Benedict books are meticulously researched novels telling lesserknown stories about undersung women in history—the type of brilliant, determined people who managed to leave their mark on the world despite the entrenched structures and misogynist cultural mores of their day.

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She’s written about Clementine Churchill (Winston’s wife), the DNA researcher Rosalind Franklin, and Belle da Costa Greene, J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian who spent her whole life passing as white.

Terrell cowrote the da Costa Greene book with Victoria Christopher Murray, and the colleagues have teamed up again for their latest effort, The First Ladies. The new book is a fictionalized account of the real-life friendship between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and the educator and civil rights icon Mary McLeod Bethune, who was known as the First Lady of the Struggle.

In the novel, McLeod Bethune meets Roosevelt while she’s still a stalwart supporter of the Republican party, but the women begin to bond over their efforts to get meaning-

ful civil rights measures passed during the Depression and World War II. Terrell said that Murray, who is Black, provides a perspective that helps the novels speak authentically to the experiences of Black women moving in white spaces. “It’s through the trust we have in one another that we’re able to have hard conversations about race,” Terrell said, “and then we in turn put that into our books and that’s what we see really resonate with people.”

Growing up in Pittsburgh as the oldest of six children, Terrell was a voracious reader, but she found the prospect of writing herself to be intimidating. “The idea that I could ever write something as profound and wondrous as the books I was reading—I couldn’t even envision that,” she said. That began to change over time, though.

“I had a wonderful aunt who was an English professor and a poet herself, and she was actually kind of a rebellious nun,” Terrell said. The turning point came when her aunt gave her The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s classic reimagining of the Arthurian legend, which is told from the perspective of the female characters. Particularly vivid was Arthur’s halfsister Morgan Le Fay, whose empathetic depiction contrasted with the villainous way she is portrayed in more traditional versions of the legend. “It completely opened up my eyes to the fact that all these legends and myths have a story we have never heard, and it’s almost always the women’s stories,” Terrell said.

She went on to major in history at BC, then got her law degree at Boston University before spending ten years as a corporate attorney. But her interest in narrative never wavered, and she worked in her spare time on a novel about Nazi art thefts that eventually became her first book, The Chrysalis, published in 2007. She produced two young adult series and two more historical fiction books before she began writing as Marie Benedict.

Terrell said she’s just getting started with her Marie Benedict books. “I have a long list of women I’d love to write about,” she said. “These women, some of them aren’t intentionally setting out to make great change or go up against the system. They’re just trying to pursue their passions. They’re just trying to fulfill the destinies they’re designed for.” n photo: Anthony Musmanno

Look for Me There

BRIEFLY

How Luke Russert ’08 learned to move forward.

In 2015, Luke Russert ’08 was twenty-nine years old, with an enviable broadcast journalism career. An Emmy-winning political correspondent for NBC, Russert had joined the network seven years earlier, after NBC executives saw Russert’s televised eulogy for his father, the legendary Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert, and thought he was a natural on camera. But a decade into his career, he was feeling anxious, unsure whether journalism was his true calling or if he was just trying to uphold the family legacy.

That’s when an encounter with former House Speaker John Boehner changed his life. Boehner called Russert into his office in the US Capitol and asked him if covering politics was truly his dream. “Time’s a flat circle here,” Russert recalled Boehner telling him. “There’s always the next election, there’s always some sort of a banquet scene of lobbyists. It’s a very interesting world, but it’s one you have to make sure you really want to be a part of.”

Boehner’s words never left his mind, Russert said, and in May 2016 he quit his job to travel the world. Originally intended to last six months, his adventure instead stretched on for more than three years, and inspired his new memoir Look for Me There: Grieving My Father, Finding Myself.

The book chronicles his solo odyssey to sixty-seven countries as he grappled with unprocessed grief from his father’s death, and the ways it had affected his life. Time spent alone in places including New Zealand, Japan, and Israel allowed him to slow down and sit with his uncomfortable feelings for the first time. “I think I did what a lot of young men do, which is store and ignore,” he said. “What I came to realize through travel is you may never move on, but you can certainly move forward.” —Elizabeth Clemente illustration: Joel Kimmel

The Moonlit Vine by Elizabeth Santiago In her debut young adult novel, Santiago, a member of the Woods College faculty, tells the story of fourteen-year-old Taina Perez, who takes care of her brother and grandmother while her mother works to support the family. After Taina discovers that she is a descendant of Anacaona, a revered leader, warrior, and poet among the Caribbean Taino people, she learns the stories of her ancestor and develops a renewed faith in herself.

Why We Forget and How to Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory by Elizabeth A. Kensinger and Andrew E. Budson Nobody likes being called forgetful, but in their new book, Budson and Kensinger, who is chair of the BC Psychology Department, explain why forgetting is a key function of memory, allowing insignificant details to be erased in favor of new information that could be more useful. Readers also learn about the brain’s memory storage system, and the profound influence memories have on human behavior.

Evidence of Things Not Seen: Fantastical Blackness in Genre Fictions by Rhonda Frederick Frederick, a professor of English and African & African Diaspora Studies at BC, explores how four works of American literature—by Colson Whitehead, Barbara Neely, Nalo Hopkinson, and Colin Channer—portray “fantastical blackness,” or the ability of the Black self to persevere despite society’s attempts to annihilate it. It’s an ability that Frederick argues is spectacular in and of itself.

Transformation Summer by Sean Smith In his debut novel, Smith, the editor of Boston College Chronicle, introduces readers to Seth, a man looking back on the bittersweet summer when he was sixteen and his newly divorced mother dragged him to a quirky camp devoted to personal growth. The twoweek program proves unexpectedly enlightening, changing Seth forever and leading him to ponder what memories of our youth mean as we age.

WHAT I’M READING

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi This powerful novel follows the lineages of two sisters born in eighteenth-century Ghana. After one sister is captured and enslaved in the United States, the novel traces her family’s history during the Civil War and postwar Reconstruction eras, through to the contemporary period. The other sister’s story provides a window into life in pre-colonial Ghana and the upheavals of British colonization. It’s a beautifully written book, illuminating the global linkages between Africa and the US and the family legacies that cross generations.

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boston college launches the

soaring higher capital campaign

The $3 billion campaign, the largest in University history, will raise funds for crucial academic, financial-aid, and student-life initiatives. by jack dunn

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n September 28, Boston College launched Soaring Higher, a $3 billion campaign to raise money for the University’s strategic priorities during the coming decade. Boston College Magazine sat down with Senior Vice President for University Advancement Andrew Davidson to learn more about the most ambitious campaign in University history.

The $3 billion Soaring Higher campaign is not only the largest in BC history, but it doubles the goal of the previous campaign.

It is an ambitious goal, no doubt. There are not a lot of colleges or universities in the world that can have a campaign of this size. So, this is elite company that we are in, and we are thrilled to be here.

What are the priorities for Soaring Higher?

The campaign’s priorities are core to the needs of the University.

First, Soaring Higher will focus on academic needs, including hiring additional faculty, endowing faculty chairs and fellowships, and investing in our academic programs across all nine of our schools and colleges. Second, it will focus on increasing resources for financial aid.

Our goal is to raise $1 billion for financial aid, to meet the growing needs of our students. And the third area of focus will be in support of student-life programs, such as retreats, service immersion opportunities, and foreign study; campus facilities, including undergraduate housing and space for student formation and wellness; and investments in our athletic programs. photo: Culligan Photo / Alamy

Why are endowed professorships and fellowships so important to attracting and retaining great faculty?

For many faculty, holding an endowed chair represents the pinnacle of their academic career and signifies that they are at the highest level within their field. Expanding endowed professorships is critical to our ability to attract and retain the very best faculty. We are in competition with the nation’s top colleges and universities, and Boston College needs to invest to stay competitive.

Why is $1 billion in financial aid so essential for Boston College?

Like at other universities, the number of students who depend on financial aid is steadily increasing at BC. Boston College is one of only twenty-one universities in the country that is need-blind in undergraduate admissions and meets the full demonstrated need of all accepted students. Among these twenty-one schools, however, BC has one of the smallest endowments, which results in fewer dollars available to allot to our students compared with those at wealthier schools. We will need a significant increase in gifts in support of financial aid to continue this important commitment. Boston College’s financial-aid allocation has nearly doubled in the past decade to $166 million in need-based undergraduate financial aid this academic year, providing access for lots of students who otherwise would not be able to afford a BC education. We need to continue meeting this financial need, especially for middle-income families.

Can you explain the importance of supporting the student experience at Boston College?

The education that we provide at Boston College is distinctive within higher education, especially when you look at the elite schools against which we compete for students.

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housing, in Campus Ministry activities, or on our athletic fields. Supporting student life and formative education is a key part of what we are looking to do in this campaign.

In addition to these three key priorities, what other University initiatives will Soaring Higher address?

One important initiative is the Pine Manor Institute, which was established through a $100 million investment from BC and its benefactors to enhance educational access and success for underrepresented students. Among the Pine Manor Institute’s many important initiatives are the Academy—which brings underserved kids in grades 8 through 12 to study at BC each summer, helping to prepare them for college—and Messina College, a residential, two-year associate degree–granting division of Boston College that will open in the summer of 2024. Messina College will provide students with the skills that they need to either go into the workforce or transition into an undergraduate degree program—whether at BC or other schools. And it is in keeping with BC’s mission of opening the door to education for people who might otherwise be excluded.

That was core to our mission in 1863, and it is core today.

When you meet with BC benefactors, what do they identify as their greatest desires for the University?

They are intent on Boston College continuing its momentum and trajectory. That is why Soaring Higher is such an appropriate name for this campaign. There is a deep desire within our community that BC not let up, that we continue to push forward, that we continue to invest in making BC the world’s best Jesuit, Catholic university.

You came to Boston College from Dartmouth, which had just surpassed its own $3 billion campaign goal. Before that, you helped Harvard reach its $6.5 billion goal. What was the key to their success, and how, in your view, can BC replicate it?

Boston College has a lot of the same elements that Dartmouth and Harvard have. We have excellent students and faculty, a beautiful 20

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meet the new svp Andrew Davidson was named BC’s senior vice president for university advancement in March. Davidson previously worked in leadership positions in fundraising at both Harvard University and Dartmouth College.

A collegiate oarsman at Rutgers, he rows competitively at the masters level.

“What drew me to Boston College? It was the mission. Jesuit education is an important part of who I am and an important part of my experience in life. My father-in-law, Francis P. O’Connor, was taught by the Jesuits at Boston College High School, the College of the Holy Cross, and BC Law School. His example was foundational for my family. My son Charlie is named after Charlie Dunn, SJ, who was a beloved Jesuit at Holy Cross, where my wife worked for close to twenty-five years. He was an important part of our lives, and we loved him dearly. Furthermore, when I met my birth family in my thirties, I learned that my sisters had both graduated from Santa Clara University, and I have come to know aunts and uncles who went there as well. I also have an uncle who became a Jesuit. So, the Jesuit roots and values are important to my family. The opportunity to work at a place where the mission is tied so closely with who I am as a person was something that really inspired me. I feel very blessed to be here and honored to have this opportunity to support BC.”

photo: Lee Pellegrini

campus, and a passionate and committed alumni base. We also have parents who are integral to our mission and success. Pulling those communities together will help us accomplish what we are hoping for in this campaign.

What is behind your belief that BC’s Jesuit, Catholic mission has never been needed more in higher education?

There are a lot of wonderful universities out there, and they provide a great service to our country and to the world. However, there is something distinctive about a Boston College education that other colleges and universities don’t have, and in fact might shy away from. BC’s commitment to providing a liberal arts education that integrates the intellectual, social, spiritual, and affective dimensions of a student’s life is not widely shared across higher education. BC graduates go out into the world looking to use their talents in the service of others. That component of their experience is going to have a lasting impact on their lives and the lives of others.

How can BC graduates and parents from different parts of the country and the world participate in Soaring Higher?

We just had an amazing campaign kickoff event on the Heights on September 28. This year, we will host alumni events in New York, California, and Chicago. We are also going to have smaller events in twenty other cities around the country in the coming year. We will have events in international locations as well. This will be a global campaign.

What do you say to those alumni and parents who say, “I can’t make a big donation, so my support really doesn’t matter?”

Every gift counts. Boston College was founded on philanthropy. Our institutional growth has been funded through the generosity and sacrifice of our benefactors, regardless of how much they are able to contribute. At every point in our history, when we have needed alumni to step up, they have. And it has made Boston College what it is today. This is a chance for this generation to step forward and provide the support that they have received from prior generations at any level they can. In 2022, 87 percent of the 55,000 cash donations we received were less than $1,000. There is colossal power in small gifts.

How was the campaign name Soaring Higher chosen?

Boston College is a university that is clearly in an upward trajectory, and we believe that Soaring Higher evokes upward momentum without bounds. It also marries well with our mascot, an eagle, soaring higher into the sky.

What do you say to those alumni from an earlier era who find a $3 billion campaign beyond anything they could have ever expected from their alma mater?

It’s daunting, but we have strong and experienced leadership in Fr. Leahy and his team, and the benefactors, alumni, leadership, University Advancement staff, and campaign priorities needed to succeed. I am honored and very excited for what is to come, and confident in our ability to meet this campaign goal on behalf of Boston College. n

campaign goal

$3 billion raised to date

$1.13 billion (38%) areas of focus Student Support: providing opportunity through financial aid and scholarships Academics: investing in world-class faculty and research Student Life: enhancing experiences at the Heights through formative education, facilities, and athletics

goal for alumni participation To have 60 percent of undergraduate alumni give at least once during the course of the campaign

campaign co-chairs Brigid Doherty ’96, Regent, and René Jones ’86, P’25, Trustee Cyndy and John F. Fish, Trustee Jonathan A. and Patti L. Kraft P’24, Trustee Kim Gassett-Schiller and Phillip Schiller ’82, Trustee Raymond Skowyra, Jr. and Marianne D. Short NC’73, JD’76, P’05, Trustee

learn more

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Breaking the Oath Keepers

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Prosecutors—and best friends— Lou Manzo ’06 and Brendan Downes ’07 are at the center of government efforts to take down the Oath Keepers extremist militia for its role in the January 6 insurrection.

BY LUKE O’BRIEN PHOTOGRAPHS BY ASTRID RIECKEN

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OU MANZO TURNED TO FACE THE JURY. It was January 2023, and it had been two years since former President Donald Trump called his followers to Washington, DC, and pointed them at the US Capitol. Two years since the mob tried to violently prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Two years that Manzo ’06, MA ’07, had spent preparing for this moment. The thirty-sevenyear-old federal prosecutor had drilled the closing argument he was about to deliver until midnight, then woken up before dawn to rehearse in the shower. As one of just five Department of Justice litigators tapped to take down the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia at the heart of the January 6 insurrection, he was part of an elite legal strike force, the best of the best at the DOJ. They hadn’t taken a day off in six months as they built their case. Now, after a five-week trial in a courthouse two blocks from where the extremists launched one the most brazen attacks on the American government in history, Manzo was ready to put an exclamation point on the government’s case against a group of men who’d helped fuel the whole thing. At stake was nothing less than the future of the republic.

“For over two hundred years, our country enjoyed the routine and peaceful transfer of power. It served as a core tradition in our democratic form of government,” he began, at ease in the spotlight, his slim-fitting light gray suit a sharp contrast to the standard-issue DC drab. “Over those two centuries, Americans saw many, numerous results that they disagreed with, were disillusioned or angry about. But each time power was transferred peacefully, because Americans respect the rule of law.”

He pointed at the four Oath Keepers in the courtroom: Roberto Minuta, David Moerschel, Joseph Hackett, and Edward Vallejo.

“Not these men.”

The Oath Keepers represented the ugly, serrated edge of America’s worsening political divide, a promise of authoritarian violence. The militia patrolled pro-Trump and far-right events. They handled security for felonious Trump advisors such as Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. They responded to the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in the summer of 2020 after George Floyd’s murder by “guarding” businesses while toting semiautomatic rifles and glowering at protestors. And their leader, Stewart Rhodes, responded to the 2020 election by urging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which Rhodes believed would give him legal cover to unleash his paramilitaries on demonstrators.

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For the Oath Keepers at the center of Manzo’s closing argument, January 6 was an even better opportunity to impose their will on the country. Minuta, a New York tattoo shop owner, purchased 5,500 rounds of ammunition in advance of the attack. On the day of the insurrection, he led a team of Oath Keepers in a military “stack” formation to a designated spot outside the Capitol. Moerschel, a neurophysiologist from Florida, was part of another stack, a human battering ram deployed to breach the building. Once inside, he went hunting for Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, whom some Oath Keepers wanted to execute. Hackett, a chiropractor and leader in the militia’s Florida chapter, did “unconventional warfare” training ahead of January 6 and drove up in a vehicle packed with guns. Vallejo, a US Army veteran from Arizona, helped to amass the arsenal the Oath Keepers stashed in a Northern Virginia hotel, beyond DC’s tight gun control laws. He participated in a heavily armed “Quick Reaction Force” that was on standby to deploy in support of the coup.

“Don’t get numb to this,” Manzo told the jury, aware that he was describing events so abnormal and disturbing that they could stupefy the average citizen’s faculties. A seasoned trial attorney with a background working violent crime and fraud, including a stint on an opioid task force that cracked down on pill mills in Appalachia, Manzo had seen a lot in his career, but January 6 astonished even him.

As he explained the charges, he couldn’t help but think back to when he first started doing conspiracy cases—ones involving far more rudimentary wrongdoing. Back then, he’d tell jurors that while a “conspiracy” might sound like a grandiose plot in which people from around the country agree to do something awful, it didn’t have to be anything more complicated than two bad guys agreeing to steal a pair of shoes. Often, it wasn’t. But January 6 was a grandiose plot. It was a sprawling nationwide scheme to snuff out the American experiment itself.

The Oath Keeper defendants had been charged with seditious conspiracy, a statute that deals with an agreement to use force against the government. The rarely used charge carries a high burden of proof, and the most notable previous seditious conspiracy conviction had come against Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “blind sheikh” behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But just months earlier, Manzo and his colleagues had used the same statute to win a guilty verdict against Rhodes, the Oath Keepers leader, and one of his top assistants in a blockbuster trial that garnered international headlines and set the standard for January 6 accountability. (Three other Rhodes assistants were acquitted in that trial of seditious conspiracy but convicted of other charges.) Then, as in this second case, Manzo had to distill a staggering amount of evidence into a grim, inescapable truth.

“American democracy is fragile,” he told the jury, nearing the end of his presentation. “It cannot exist without the rule of law and respect for that rule of law. It will not survive if people who are dissatisfied with an election result use force and violence to try and change that outcome. That is what these defendants tried to do. They conspired to and then they did use force to halt the transfer of power. That is unacceptable. That is sedition. That is a crime.”

In the audience, Brendan Downes ’07 watched as Manzo, his best friend from Boston College, brought the government’s case to a decisive close. Downes, a federal litigator himself, had more than a casual interest in the Oath Keepers.

When Downes found Manzo a few minutes later outside the courtroom, he pulled “Louie” in for a hug. Downes, more than most, knew what can happen when domestic terrorists act out their violent fantasies. So did his mother Debbie ’74, who’d also attended the closing. They were part of a small group of Boston College alumni and relatives who’d assembled in the hallway of the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse. Manzo’s parents, Noreen and David ’77, were down from Boston. They’d held hands in court. Manzo’s aunt had come. So had his girlfriend, Britt. And his college roommate, Pete Boogaard ’07, and Alex Neckles ’07, another close friend. They all knew each other, a proud group there to celebrate one of their own as he performed a vital service to his country.

Soon, it would be Downes’s turn. Incredibly, he was also going after the Oath Keepers in court. As Manzo and the DOJ worked to put the militia members behind bars, Downes and his colleagues in the DC Attorney General’s Office were preparing to deliver the knockout blow—a civil case designed to bankrupt the organization.

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TEWART RHODES WAS UNFIT for com-

bat. The Oath Keepers leader, fifty-five years old at the time of the insurrection, had an extra tire around his gut and a dwindling number of gray hairs on his head. His brief career in the US Army, in the 1980s, had been cut short by a training accident that injured his back, and the only menacing aspect of his mien—an eyepatch covering his hollow left socket—had a pitiable provenance: According to his ex-wife, Rhodes lost the eye after accidentally shooting himself in the face with a handgun. Despite his physical liabilities, however, he was considered to be one of the most dangerous extremists in the country.

Within days of the 2020 election, Rhodes began readying his militia for a “civil war” to prevent Joe Biden from taking office. In numerous private and public statements leading up to January 6, Rhodes told his Oath Keepers that they would have to march on the Capitol and start a “masfa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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nously up the east steps of the Capitol during the attack. sively bloody revolution.” They would need to “rise up in “It just kind of struck me, like that’s the most terrifying insurrection.” He stocked up on weapons, ammunition, and thing,” Manzo recalled. “How did those people know to be night vision equipment, then made his way from his home together and move in formation and go up the steps? That in Texas to Washington. On the eve of the attack, he was doesn’t seem random.” He wanted to know who they were filmed in an underground parking garage near the Capitol, and what they were doing. He wanted that case. He fired scheming with other right-wing leaders, including Henry off messages to more people in the US Attorney’s Office.

“Enrique” Tarrio, the head of the Proud Boys gang. The Soon, he was on the team. groups would spearhead the uprising.

By March 2021, Manzo was helping his colleagues map On January 6, Rhodes entered the Capitol grounds out the scope of the conspiracy. They worked fast, with FBI around 2:12 p.m. and moved into position on the northeast agents cranking through evidence. Everyone knew about side of the building. The area was familiar to him: He’d once Rhodes. But who were the other individuals? As investigaworked for former Republican Congressman Ron Paul of tors gained access to phones and reviewed social media, they Texas. Rhodes watched the attack unfold for a few minutes, saw that the conspiracy was bigger than they’d originally then issued orders over his phone for the militia to move thought. The DOJ had indicted several Oath Keepers within to the south side of the Capitol, where rioters had “taken weeks of January 6 and kept going. One name led to two, ground” against the police line of defense. Even in the melee, then three, then more. Notably, Rhodes was not yet among his troops stood out, clad in military fatigues, tactical vests, them. Then, a year into the investigation, prosecutors added and helmets, snaking through the mob in tight formation. a stunning wrinkle: the seditious conspiracy count. Nobody In his home a half mile away in the Capitol Hill neighhad studied it in law school, but the Civil War–era statute borhood, Manzo watched in horror as the insurrection offered a better prosecutorial option to charge the Oath played out on his television. He’d sensed something terrible Keeper organizers for what they had done: attempt to wage was coming. The city had been on edge the day before, a war against the United States government. On January 12, crawling with angry Trump supporters. Still, the violent 2022, Rhodes’s name was placed scenes at the Capitol were atop the new indictment. unimaginable, surreal. An earlier Though Manzo couldn’t generation had experienced the discuss the details of the prossame shock on 9/11. This time, “A lot of what informs us is ecution, court documents and however, the attackers were media reports reveal that he radicalized Americans, laying having lived in countries focused his attention on the siege to the seat of democracy in where democracy is very Quick Reaction Force units their own nation. “All the shoutfragile,” Manzo said. that the Oath Keepers staged ing about revolution, and it was in Northern Virginia. The units actually beginning to happen,” “Everything can fall apart were poised to enter the fray on Manzo said. He was staring at an very quickly. And I don’t January 6 and speed guns to the enormous crime scene. “I started know if everyone in this militia on Rhodes’s orders. One thinking, What could I do?”

Oath Keeper even wrote about a Manzo hurriedly messaged country understands that.” plan to use a boat to ferry “heavy one of his mentors at the US weapons” across the Potomac River.

Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, where he’d After the seditious conspiracy indictments, US District started his career in the DOJ. He volunteered to assist with Judge Amit Mehta split the case into two trials—the first any prosecutions that came out of January 6, and he had an involving Rhodes and four other top-level Oath Keepers, ideal background to help. Because DC is not a state, most the second for the lieutenants. For months, Manzo and his litigators in the US Attorney’s Office practice in Superior colleagues would work all day, then hold a two-hour conferCourt, essentially acting as local prosecutors. But Manzo ence call at 10 p.m. after people had gone home to see their had moved to “main Justice” after four years to do opioid families. As trial dates neared, the hours increased. The cases and financial fraud prosecutions, giving him extenlawyers worked every night, every weekend until 2 a.m. sive trial time in federal court, which is where the January The Rhodes trial began on October 3, 2022, and lasted 6 cases were bound. He was also highly regarded in the nearly eight weeks. It was a spectacle. When Manzo crossUSAO, both for the caliber of his work and his upbeat manexamined defense witnesses, he got them to acknowledge ner. Trials could be a slog. Manzo was fun to work with. that they wanted to obstruct Congress and were willing to He got his first look at the Oath Keepers a day or two kill Americans. Rhodes, a Yale Law School graduate, took later, watching on video as militia members moved omifa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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the stand and all but admitted to sedition. Manzo’s colleague, Kate Rakoczy, shredded the militia leader during cross-examination, deconstructing every piece of his defense in what Manzo calls the most impressive performance he’s ever seen in court. He knew he was watching history.

The most damning moment of the trial came when prosecutors played a surreptitiously recorded tape of Rhodes talking to associates four days after the insurrection. “We should have brought rifles,” he said. “We could have fixed it right then and there. I’d hang [expletive] Pelosi from the lamppost.” The courtroom went silent after that.

On November 29, 2022, the jury found Rhodes guilty of seditious conspiracy and other charges. In May, he was sentenced to eighteen years in prison, at the time the longest sentence for any January 6 participant. (In September, Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader, was sentenced to twentytwo years for seditious conspiracy.) “I never have said this to anyone I have sentenced,” Judge Mehta told Rhodes at sentencing. “You pose an ongoing threat and peril to our democracy and the fabric of this country.”

Manzo—and Downes—understood the danger all too well.

winter break in 2004 while on an Arrupe International service immersion trip to a migrant shelter in Tijuana, where they prepped meals, cleaned houses, and learned about immigration issues. Manzo suddenly made a different impression on Downes. One day, a Mexican migrant yelled out that he was going to cross the border, then walked out of the shelter. “I gotta go talk to that guy,” Manzo said, and rushed after the man. Downes watched through a window.

“Lou just went and gave him a hug,” Downes recalled. “And I was like, ‘That’s a good human being. I should probably be friends with that guy.’”

After Tijuana, they hung out constantly. Downes took Dave Manzo’s PULSE program classes and would later become his teaching assistant in one of them. During his junior year, Downes decided to study abroad. Originally, he planned to go to Italy. Everyone wanted to visit. Then he switched to Kenya. “Not only does he go to Nairobi, but he goes and works in Kibera, which is the largest slum in Nairobi, might be the largest slum in all of Africa,” Dave Manzo said. “I’m like, Man, what kid does this? Brendan does this.”

What kid goes to visit him? Lou Manzo. He was the only one.

When Manzo arrived, Downes took him to Kibera, HE FIRST ENCOUNTER between Lou where Downes was tutoring children. As the lanky Manzo and Brendan Downes was not an Americans strolled along, residents greeted Downes auspicious one. It happened their freshman warmly. “They knew he was there for a good reason,” year at BC in the McElroy dining hall, when Manzo sat Manzo said. “If people respect you and trust you, you’re down with a mutual friend at Downes’s table. Downes, going to be safe. Just go for it. He was just going for it.” a self-described introvert, didn’t know what to make of They later traveled through Kenya and East Africa the boisterous Manzo, who was together, into Uganda, the goofing around, commanding Democratic Republic of the attention. “Laying it on thick,” Congo, and Rwanda, a journey Downes recalled. “I just rememseminal to both their friendship While Manzo’s group ber thinking, ‘I don’t know about and their understanding of the worked on criminal that dude.’” world. In Rwanda, they visited a His wariness would soon subchurch where people were masconvictions of the Oath side. Downes had grown up in sacred during the 1994 genoKeepers, Downes ’07 and his Cambridge and attended Boston cide. The building was now a team in the AG’s Office were College High School, while memorial to the dead. Inside, the Manzo was from Boston’s South victims’ bones and clothes were preparing the knockout End neighborhood and had gone piled up where they’d been killed, blow—a civil case designed to Roxbury Latin. Both came a reminder and a warning of what to bankrupt the militia. from families committed to helpcan happen when the state breaks ing their communities. Downes’s down and factional violence takes mother and father were Cambridge public school teachers. over. Afterward, Manzo and Downes, still contemplatManzo’s mother, a former nun, did affordable housing work ing the somber scene, crammed into a matatu, one of the for the homeless. His father, Dave, ran a special education shared and overcrowded minivan taxis that serve as public program for high-risk youth and for four decades has been a transportation in the region. They were cheek to jowl with beloved adjunct professor in BC’s acclaimed PULSE service about twenty Rwandans when Bob Marley’s “Redemption learning program.

Song” came on. Downes turned to his friend. “Listen to this It was fitting, then, that their friendship blossomed over song,” he said. “Remember this moment. Be here.”

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After graduating in 2007, they each returned to Africa for a year to work with humanitarian organizations. Manzo helped get a women-run, Black newspaper off the ground in Acornhoek, a township in northeast South Africa.

Downes lived in a South Sudanese refugee camp in Nimule, coordinating with local leaders to improve the educational system in a place where kids sometimes attended classes perched atop crates of ammunition the military had stashed in schools. The work was taxing. They were lonely. Downes got malaria and worried constantly about his safety. “Is this too hard for you?” he wrote on the wall of his hut. It was intended as motivation but Downes also found himself wondering if he’d taken things too far.

Hardship in Africa, however, brought clarity. Manzo, who’d been considering a career in journalism, discovered he no longer wanted to just cover issues. He wanted to be part of the change. And Downes, who felt immense fulfillment during his year in South Sudan, which he calls the “most formative” of his life, realized he needed to seek out a career that offered similar satisfaction but more emotional balance. Law school beckoned.

“A lot of what informs us is having traveled and lived in a number of places around the world, especially in Africa, where democracy and peaceful governance is very fragile,”

Manzo said. “America is the exception, not the rule.

Everything can fall apart very quickly. And I don’t know if everyone in this country understands that.”

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OWNES AND HIS COLLEAGUES are cur-

rently deep into litigating their case against the Oath Keepers, which also includes the Proud Boys. It’s the first civil case brought by a government entity against the militia and other January 6 insurrectionists.

But it’s a long process and a trial might not start for many months. The objective is to make the extremist groups pay civilly, much in the way the Southern Poverty Law Center attorneys helped to effectively bankrupt powerful factions of the Ku Klux Klan and their members in the 1980s.

The case seeks to hold the “would-be insurgents” accountable for assaulting DC police officers who, rushing to defend Congress, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with insurrectionists for hours. At least sixty-five city cops were injured during the attack. One was electrocuted multiple times with a stun gun while rioters beat him unconscious. He was also beaten in the face with his own baton, which caused cranial injuries. Another officer was hit in the face with a metal pole, causing permanent injuries to fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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his head and neck. The officer later killed himself.

“It’s easily forgotten that DC is a place a lot of local people call home, and we have our own police department, and they were on the front lines. That local perspective is often lost in the national discussion,” said Downes, who is thirty-eight, and before joining the DC Attorney General’s Office in 2020 spent six years working on voter discrimination cases for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where he mainly represented the NAACP. Like Manzo’s case against the Oath Keepers, Downes’s civil litigation, though complex, boils down to a simple truth stated plainly in court: January 6 was a “coordinated act of domestic terrorism.” On that subject, he has had ample personal experience.

Downes was in his second year of law school at American University when he heard the news about the terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Two bombs had gone off near the finish line a little before 3 p.m., as onlookers gathered to cheer on the runners. Three people were dead. Hundreds were injured, with many losing limbs.

Downes started making phone calls. His parents were on Cape Cod for Marathon Monday. They were safe. But his brother, Patrick, wasn’t picking up. Patrick Downes ’05 and his wife, Jessica Kensky, had run the marathon before. Cheering on others was something they’d do. Downes’s frantic calls kept going to voicemail. His parents couldn’t get through either. The only way Patrick wouldn’t answer was if he couldn’t. He must have been there.

Manzo at the time was a month away from graduation at Georgetown Law school, only a few miles from American.

When he heard about the bombing, he called Downes, who by then had learned that Jessica was badly injured and in a hospital. There was still no word about Patrick, but a cousin had found a picture online of him being taken away in a wheelchair, a distraught look on his face, a blanket cover30

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ing his lower body. Manzo rushed over from Georgetown.

He had a gray 2005 Honda Civic, and when he pulled up, he found Downes in a daze, unsure what to do. Was his brother even alive? “Get in the car,” Manzo said, piling his friend into the passenger seat. “You need to be in Boston.

Let’s go right now.”

They spoke sparingly as they drove north on I-95, an eight-hour ride, the sun dipping below the horizon.

The attack was personal for Manzo too. Boston was his hometown. The bombs had detonated ten blocks from his parents’ house. As they passed Manhattan in the night, they saw the new One World Trade Center illuminated, nearly complete, a towering reminder of the pain that ter-

rorists had visited on New York and Washington in 2001.

Downes’s father called. “Brace yourself,” he said. Patrick was in surgery at Beth Israel. He’d lost his left leg.

They reached Boston around 2 a.m. Manzo dropped Downes off at the hospital, waiting for him to get inside.

Patrick was partially sedated in the ICU. He was going to survive. He’d later hear about what Manzo had done for Downes, and for him. “That drive really forged their friendship and certainly forever indebted me to Lou,” Patrick said. “It’s like one of those blood brother moments.”

“It’s every parent’s dream that their child has the support of great friends,” Dave Manzo said. “On the toughest night of Brendan’s life, Lou was there for him. And I know that if the roles had been reversed, Brendan would be there for Lou. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

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OLLOWING MANZO’S CLOSING remarks

in the second Oath Keepers trial, the jury deliberated for three days before making a decision. As the foreperson read the verdict in January, Roberto Minuta, David Moerschel, Joseph Hackett, and Edward Vallejo stood impassively in court. The extremists, having traded tactical gear for coats and ties, were found guilty, all of them, of seditious conspiracy. They were also convicted of two other conspiracy charges, and of obstructing an official proceeding—which is to say stopping Congress from certifying the 2020 election. Mehta would eventually give them light prison sentences, ranging from two to four and a half years—less than a third of what Manzo and his colleagues recommended—but for the DOJ, the outcome was a triumph. US Attorney General Merrick Garland credited prosecutors for their “excellent work on this case.”

A few months later, Manzo and Downes met up at a pizza restaurant in northeast DC. Manzo drank a Manhattan. Downes sipped a beer. They reminisced about the ice fishing trips they used to take to Quebec, and also about another tradition they created, still going, called the Creekside Cup. It’s an absurdist annual golf tournament they play with other Boston College friends, and its rules have evolved over time into a comically impenetrable thicket of ordinances. “At first I tried to understand it and then I realized the whole point is not to understand it,” Patrick said.

Over pizza, the friends discussed their work. Their jobs had never been mere jobs. They were vehicles by which Manzo and Downes, like their parents, could do good in the world. “The Jesuit calling of being men and women for others resonated with them,” Downes’s mother Debbie explained. While it’s true that prosecutors seek to punish, what often goes unmentioned is what they stand in defense of. For Manzo and Downes, it had always been the margin-

alized, the poor, the people treated unfairly by life. They were actually living that calling.

Just in May, for instance, Downes had won a major ruling against a slumlord who owns the Marbury Plaza apartment complex in southeast DC. Downes primarily did housing cases for the DC Attorney General’s Office, using the court system to recoup money for residents forced to live in substandard conditions. He loved the work, which was “squarely about doing good” and had a clear racial justice angle in a historically segregated city. In the Marbury Plaza case, tenants were living with leaks, mold, malfunctioning elevators, rodents, and inadequate security. At the height of summer, the air conditioning broke. People slept on balconies for weeks to escape the heat. When the owner failed to fix up the buildings as agreed, Downes convinced a judge to award the tenants retroactive rent credits worth around $5 million.

It was one of the largest awards the DC Attorney General’s office had ever gotten for a housing-conditions case.

“Good job, Downsie,” Manzo said in the pizza restaurant.

Their conversation returned to January 6. Back to Americans traveling hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to Washington, armed, talking about fighting a civil war over the results of a fairly contested election. They both agreed that it was a “miracle” the coup attempt ended how it did. And it wasn’t over. Millions of Trump’s supporters still refuse to accept that he lost, with some inclined toward violence. The January 6 prosecutions might deter them from coming to Washington, but Manzo and Downes held little hope that the guilty verdicts would change minds so warped by lies.

“Democracy is incredibly fragile,” Manzo said. “When I’d be on the road talking to people, you still see how very fragile it is. I would say even beyond the word fragile. Perilous.”

As they finished their pizza, a short walk away from the Capitol, they tried to place a quote they’d paraphrased, something about America being the last greatest hope. The quote was from Abraham Lincoln, from a speech he gave to Congress one month before signing the Emancipation Proclamation: “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” But there was more to the speech, and another part of it felt equally apt to describe both the critical work Manzo and Downes were doing for their country and the lives they’d chosen to lead.

“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history,” Lincoln said.

“We … will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” n Luke O’Brien is a writer based in Washington who has covered political extremism since 2016. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Fortune, Rolling Stone, ESPN, Fast Company, and many other publications.

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Building a Champion Before Head Coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein took over, the Boston College women’s lacrosse team had never won a game in the NCAA postseason tournament. Today, she’s turned the program into a national powerhouse.

Here’s the inside story of how she did it.

BY JACOB FELDMAN PHOTO-ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHUCK ANDERSON PORTRAITS BY CAITLIN CUNNINGHAM

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photos: BC Athletics

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ollie Schleicher ’23 can still picture the jittering legs.

It was 2021, and the Boston College women’s lacrosse team was about to play in the Final Four. When Head Coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein entered the locker room, she found her players sitting silently in front of their stalls, an intense focus vibrating through the group. “I get chills talking about it,” Schleicher, a defender, said of the moment. “Like a good shaking, ready to just burst out of the gates.”

The winner of the game that day would move on to play for the collegiate championship, which certainly accounted for much of the tension in the room, but some of it had to do with the team BC was about to battle. “Maybe a little bit of fear,” recalled attacker Jenn Medjid ’22. “That UNC team was like the best women’s lacrosse team ever.” Indeed, the University of North Carolina Tar Heels weren’t just the top-ranked team in the country … they hadn’t lost a game in 735 days, and had beaten the Eagles 21–9 just a couple months earlier.

Before the game, Walker-Weinstein did everything she could to keep her team calm. She made their final practice a quiet one, sending the message that the Eagles had already done enough training to win. The night-before meal was nothing special, either: chicken parmesan, a team staple.

“We were trying to strip the moment of its glamour,” Walker-Weinstein said. And now, as the coach surveyed her players, nervously sitting in their locker stalls before 34

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the game, she decided against a rah-rah speech to pump the team up. She had tried that before.

Entering that 2021 season, BC had already accomplished what would have seemed impossible just a decade earlier. The Eagles had made three straight Final Fours, after having never won a single game in the women’s college lacrosse tournament prior to Walker-Weinstein taking over the program in 2012. Walker-Weinstein put BC on the map in 2017 with that first run to the NCAA Championship game, even if it did end in a loss. The Eagles proved they were for real in 2018, again making the championship game, before again losing it. But what had once seemed an exhilarating result—losing in the finals—by 2019 felt like bitter disappointment, as the Eagles once again came up short in the championship game. That thirdstraight final defeat stung.

Walker-Weinstein thought about those losses on a daily basis. At her lowest, she said, “I had considered…maybe I should not coach. You feel like you’ve just disappointed your kids so much.” But within days of the 2019 season ending, she was back on the phone, recruiting potential transfers who could help take the Eagles to new heights.

She also looked at every aspect of the program, wondering where the team could get just that much better. Now, a year after the canceling of the 2020 season because of the pandemic, Walker-Weinstein and the Eagles were one win away from BC’s fourth consecutive appearance in the championship game. The only thing standing in their way was that juggernaut from North Carolina. In keeping with her strategy, the coach kept her pregame speech simple and reserved, concluding with seven words: “I love you guys. We’re gonna win.”

And that’s what BC did, building a five-goal lead in the second half, and holding on to defeat UNC 11–10. Then, in the championship game, the Eagles beat third-ranked Syracuse 16–10 to at last capture its first national title. “‘Guys, I love you, and we’re going to win,” Schleicher said, recalling her coach’s words from before the game.

“We talk about that line, as a team, still today.”

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he women’s lacrosse team has followed up that

2021 title by advancing to the NCAA championship game in each of the next two seasons, extending its streak to six consecutive years.

But it still has just the one championship. In 2022, the year after the Eagles’ triumph, UNC got its revenge, defeating BC 12–11 in the title game. And an 18–6 loss to Northwestern ended the 2023 season on the doorstep of greatness. And yet, as the team prepares for the upcoming

season, which begins in February, it’s undeniable that BC is on a roll, hungry for additional championships. In fact, that became a rallying cry last season.

It started as a mid-game plea from Walker-Weinstein to the team’s midfielders to give just a little more effort, to be a little more aggressive. Instinctively, the coach pinched her five fingers together on each hand and jabbed them at each other: the American Sign Language sign for “more,” which she’d taught her daughters so they could communicate before they could speak. Her players picked up on it, repeating the motion. “We said it a few times here and there and then it just became the bigger theme of, We want more for this team,” said assistant coach Sam Apuzzo ’19, who graduated as one of the greatest players in program history. “We want it all.”

“MORE” eventually became the standard ending to practice notes handed to players, and it was stretched across

on the bad leg. “I’m gonna be ready in a couple weeks,” she told Timchal. “I can play.” “She was just that wonderful, brave soul on the field by leading in that way,” Timchal recalled. “Just a warrior. She’ll tape herself and get herself back out after it.”

After graduating from Maryland, Walker-Weinstein continued to play internationally (she was a member of the US Women’s National Team from 2002 to 2012, winning gold at the 2009 World Cup) while working her way up the coaching ranks. She helped Northwestern win titles in 2006, 2007, and 2008 as an assistant coach, and was an associate head coach on the University of Massachusetts team that won the A-10 championship in 2009 and 2010.

Then, before the 2011 season, she came to the Heights as associate head coach. The next year, Bowen Holden left BC. “I wanted the job badly,” Walker-Weinstein recalled. “I went for it hard.”

“BC wasn’t a lacrosse school four years ago, and now it is,” Walker-Weinstein said after a heartbreaking loss in the 2019 NCAA final. “Now, because of these players, lots of little girls want to come and play at BC. Because of what they’ve built.” the back of T-shirts. It was a recognition of how much work is required to reach the top, and it demonstrated WalkerWeinstein’s effectiveness at motivating her team. To think that she easily could have been using these strategies, and building this dynasty, somewhere else.

Acacia Walker-Weinstein grew up a multi-sport star in Maryland, smoothly transitioning from soccer to basketball to lacrosse. The latter ultimately stuck, and she led her high school lacrosse team to multiple state titles and was named a 2000 first-team All-American. She also represented her country as a member of the undefeated US team that won the Under-19 World Lacrosse Championships in 1999.

In 2002, Walker-Weinstein joined the powerhouse University of Maryland lacrosse team that had won seven straight NCAA women’s titles under coach Cindy Timchal.

Maryland made the NCAA Tournament all four years Walker-Weinstein played for the school, reaching the Final Four in 2003. A captain in her senior year, WalkerWeinstein showed elite stick skills and field vision to go with her natural athleticism. Walker-Weinstein graduated Maryland among the top ten in program history in both assists and draw controls. But what Timchal remembers most about her former player is how she responded to a knee injury in her senior year. Rather than shut her season down, Walker-Weinstein chose to delay surgery and play

Of course, that hardly assured Walker-Weinstein of the position, since coaching staffs are often cleared out when the top job turns over. So she looked around at other head coach openings as well. In fact, she said, she was so close to accepting an offer from Bryant University that she was actually on the school’s Rhode Island campus when BC’s athletic director at the time, Gene DeFilippo, called. “Don’t think about Bryant anymore,” he told her.

“I immediately knew that she was destined for greatness,” DeFilippo recalled.

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rad Bates still remembers the binder. Bates

took over for DeFilippo as BC athletic director in 2012, soon after Walker-Weinstein was hired. “She already had a playbook as CEO of this lacrosse organization,” he said. It wasn’t just lacrosse schemes and recruiting plans, Bates said, but how she planned to have her players engage with their academics and develop as people.

First though, Walker-Weinstein needed money. Building a donor base, she realized, would give the team more resources, but more importantly would give it respect within the athletic department. Her pitch to potential supporters was simple: I will bring a national championship trophy to fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Chestnut Hill. “People thought I was nuts,” she recalled. But the line worked.

She used it on recruits too. In September of her first offseason, Walker-Weinstein was able to bring Apuzzo, then a highly regarded sophomore in high school, to campus for an official visit. In the coach’s office, Walker-Weinstein laid out her vision for Apuzzo, who was also being recruited by established powerhouses such as UNC and Northwestern.

Walker-Weinstein told Apuzzo that BC would compete for titles just like those schools. And she said that Apuzzo would be a critical figure in making that plan come to life.

“I don’t know if I believed her at the beginning,” Apuzzo said, but Walker-Weinstein’s confidence stuck with her. So did the coach’s commitment. Walker-Weinstein promised to help Apuzzo reach her own potential. “I hadn’t heard that from any other coaches,” Apuzzo said.

Later that trip, Walker-Weinstein and her husband, Morgan, invited Apuzzo and her parents to watch a BC-Clemson football game with them in a VIP area on the fifty-yard line. The families instantly clicked. “Immediately after, I knew what I wanted to do,” Apuzzo said. In the winter of her sophomore year, she committed to Boston

ent. Every offseason, Walker-Weinstein worried about losing Jennifer Kent, her top assistant. Kent, who focuses on the team’s defense, was a volunteer member of the staff when Walker-Weinstein took over, but the new head coach fought for the resources to keep and promote her. “It was really important to get her situated with a good salary and solid benefits and a title that she was proud of,” WalkerWeinstein said. “It took me a few years, but we got it.”

Since 2022, Kent has been the team’s associate coach.

Kent’s contributions are crucial because BC often builds its attack from the back of the field, converting turnovers and key stops into momentum, and ultimately goals. The Eagles play a risk-taking defensive style that relies on individual players running all over the field while trusting that their teammates are shifting behind them to cover any open spaces. “Sometimes it’s really hard for teams to even understand what we’re doing because it is so aggressive,” Apuzzo said. “Jen is like a mastermind.”

Timchal, Walker-Weinstein’s former coach at Maryland, who now leads the Navy program, acknowledged BC’s growing lineage of star attackers, but said that what sets the Eagles apart is a “really, really, really tough, tough, tough

As the team prepares for the upcoming season, it’s undeniable that BC is on a roll, hungry for additional championships. In fact, that became a rallying cry last season, crystallized in a single word: MORE. College. Apuzzo can still remember the screams of excitement coming from Walker-Weinstein and her assistant coaches on the other end of the phone line when she told them of her decision.

“You have to work really hard to get a kid not to go to the University of Virginia or UNC or Duke,” said Morgan Weinstein, who used to volunteer as an assistant coach when his wife’s program had a smaller staff budget. “It’s hard to get the really special—top one, two, three, four, or five kids—to look away from the shiny items and come to BC.” To level the playing field, Walker-Weinstein pressed the University for quality gear and comfortable travel accommodations. She also pushed for the Eagles to play at Alumni Stadium, rather than on the Newton Campus field, where the team couldn’t play at night, have goal scorers announced over the loudspeaker, or reliably expect the pitch to be plowed. “I just said things have to change,” she recalled. The team hasn’t played a regular season game in Newton since February 2021.

Funding was also important for retaining coaching tal36

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defense.” And the key to making it work, she said, is player buy-in.

It didn’t take long for BC players to develop that kind of buy-in for the system Walker-Weinstein was developing.

The Eagles tied their program record with twelve wins in 2013, her first season in charge. By 2014, BC reached number four in the national rankings, and made it to number three the following season.

But when everything really came together, WalkerWeinstein said, was midway through 2017, in the middle of a blizzard. That was Apuzzo’s first full year with the team, after losing much of her freshman season to an ACL injury, and BC got off to a slow start, beginning the year with a 1–3 record in ACC play as the team prepared for a matchup with seventeenth-ranked UVA. To complicate matters heading into the important game, just as signs of spring were beginning to pop up around campus, a winter storm dropped more than two feet of snow. Walker-Weinstein and Kent decided to embrace the challenge nature was presenting, hoping to motivate their girls despite the dreadful conditions. They showed videos of snow storms and

Antarctica. Apuzzo, who wound up leading the nation in goals that year, said the off-the-wall clips took some of the pressure off what was a make-or-break game, and helped the players view their team as a robust force in itself.

On game day, the snow stuck to players’ cleats. “It felt like we were literally running in high heels,” Apuzzo recalled. If the box score is to be trusted, 101 brave souls attended the contest. What they saw, Walker-Weinstein said, was the turning point for an entire program. UVA and BC went back and forth in the first half, but the Eagles returned from the locker room looking like a different unit.

They scored nine second-half goals to Virginia’s three in a 17–10 victory. In the face of adversity, BC’s young team recognized what it was capable of. Apuzzo scored a gamehigh six goals. Junior Kenzie Kent ’18—Jennifer Kent’s daughter, and another all-time Boston College great in both lacrosse and ice hockey—finished with three goals and five assists. The message to the team was clear: If the elements can’t slow us down, what can?

The newly toughened BC squad ended up qualifying for the NCAA tournament, making it all the way to the photos: BC Athletics

championship game before losing to Walker-Weinstein’s alma mater, Maryland. Looking back on the buildup to that game in the snow, Walker-Weinstein said it transformed her program. “It was the week that I think changed Boston College forever,” she said. A photo from the game, showing Apuzzo and others confidently walking through the conditions, still hangs in the coach’s office.

Over the next two seasons, BC’s core of Apuzzo, Kent, and midfielder Dempsey Arsenault ’19 established themselves among collegiate lacrosse’s elite tier. Apuzzo won the 2018 Tewaaraton Award as the country’s top player, finishing her career with a BC-record 283 goals. Kent holds the assist record with 133. And Arsenault, a versatile player who often connected the defense with the attack, was a Tewaaraton finalist in 2019. That spring, Apuzzo, Arsenault, and Kent were taken first, second, and third in the Women’s Professional Lacrosse League draft, a nearly unheard-of feat in any sport. But the trio never got to hoist an NCAA trophy, as the Eagles lost in the finals in both 2018 and 2019.

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seniors to reporters following the defeat in the 2019 championship game. “Boston College wasn’t a lacrosse school four years ago, and now it is,” she said. “Now, because of them, lots of little girls want to come and play at BC, and a lot of the top players in the world want to come and play at BC. Because of what they’ve built, the legacy will live on.”

Yes, BC had become a lacrosse school. But to become a superpower, it needed a championship. And to get one, Walker-Weinstein realized, the status quo wouldn’t be enough. She needed more.

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n 2019, the superstar attacker

Charlotte North ’21 decided that she wanted to transfer after two years, and one hundred forty-one goals, at Duke. The very first coach to call her, North recalled, was Acacia WalkerWeinstein. North said she wasn’t sure what she was looking for in a new program—until the BC coach called. “I knew right away when I talked to her,” North said. “You

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could feel energy and passion and love.” Walker-Weinstein also wooed the goalkeeper Rachel Hall, who’d led the nation in saves as a freshman at Oregon.

Having secured commitments from the two players, Walker-Weinstein turned her attention to updating her program. She made further investments in nutrition and sports psychology, and she shortened practices in order to focus on player recovery and ensuring that the team would have plenty of energy at the end of each season. Walker-Weinstein was also able to add an additional coach to the staff— Apuzzo, in a newly created graduate assistant position—and to promote assistant coach Kayla Treanor to associate head coach, giving her more control over the offense. (Treanor is now the Syracuse University head coach.)

The pandemic-shortened 2020 season prevented Walker-Weinstein from fully realizing the results of the changes she’d implemented, but in 2021 everything came together. After stumbling early with a blowout loss to top-ranked UNC, BC bounced back to win nine games in a row. And when the season came to an end, the Eagles were finally champions. When the final whistle of the title

game blew, Walker-Weinstein’s face found the shoulder of Treanor, and tears began to run. She looked up just in time to see her players sprinting onto the field, mobbing each other at its center.

Grad senior Jill Reilly ’20 was the first to grab the trophy, running it into the maroon and gold mass. Then the whole team couriered it back to the sideline, toward their coach. When North, who won the Tewaaraton Award that year, tried to hand the trophy to her coach, it was instead thrust back in her direction, and then up above in a clamoring collection of hands. From there, the team and their prize made their way to the stands, where family and former players waited.

“All of our kids are very grounded in that they’re always

book, using intricate combinations of overlapping runs to get their players open.

As in years past, BC suffered some early-season losses only to find itself midway through the campaign. The team eventually claimed its first ACC title—and just the second in BC history in any sport—by avenging an earlier defeat to UNC. From there it was on once again to the NCAA tournament. BC won its first game in the tournament, but it was closer than it should have been. “I feel like I’m going to throw up,” Walker-Weinstein told her team afterward.

Walker-Weinstein doesn’t believe in hiding her emotions from her players. “I just think when you’re trying to rally young women or coach young women, they have to believe you,” she explained. “If you’re anything other than yourself,

BC plays a risk-taking defensive style that feeds the attack. “Sometimes it’s really hard for teams to even understand what we’re doing because it’s so aggressive,” said assistant coach Sam Apuzzo ’19. saying, This is for our alums,” Walker-Weinstein said.

“Because those players, they really created the path and then the team that won finished the job. But the work was in the years before that.”

As the on-field celebration continued, Walker-Weinstein retrieved her older daughter, Wesley, from the stands.

“Mom,” the seven-year-old yelled, “we finally did it!”

“And I just looked at her and I just—,” Walker-Weinstein teared up as she recalled the moment. “I said, ‘Don’t ever give up.’”

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fter beginning the 2022 season as defend-

ing champions, the Eagles once again made it to the championship game, but lost 12–11 to a UNC team that finished the season undefeated. The loss left WalkerWeinstein looking for an edge heading into last season, the 2023 campaign, which would be her first since 2015 in which the offense wasn’t anchored by either Sam Apuzzo or Charlotte North. The coach has always taken a flexible approach when it comes to strategy, tinkering with her game plan to fit both her players and their opponents.

She and her assistants also look outside of lacrosse for concepts, studying basketball and hockey in the constant hunt for new ideas. In a single game, BC might run two or three different offensive strategies. As the 2023 season got underway, the Eagles added more motion sets to the play-

photos: BC Athletics

they’re not going to believe you. So if I cry, if I yell, if I’m pissed, if I’m distracted, if I’m disorganized—whatever it is, take it or leave it, it’s me. I’d rather them believe me than to pretend that I’m some perfectly organized person or someone who can keep it all together when I’m pissed or emotional.”

BC rallied after the close opening-round win and eventually made it back to the Final Four. In the semifinal game, Medjid, the latest attacker to thrive under WalkerWeinstein, scored five goals and the Eagles defeated Syracuse 8–7. An 18–6 loss to Northwestern in the final, however, meant that it was time for Walker-Weinstein to reassess her program once again.

With the 2024 season set to begin in just a few months, BC looks loaded. Walker-Weinstein used both the transfer portal and high school recruiting to bring in plenty of exciting new talent. Among the new players is Rachel Clark, whose sixty-three goals at UVA last season were good for third in the ACC. Also joining the team are two defenders who’ve transferred from the University of Florida, and another from Stanford. Meanwhile, three of last year’s top-ten-ranked high school players in the country chose to attend BC this year. They’re all here to help deliver exactly what Walker-Weinstein and her entire program remain hungry for: MORE. n Jacob Feldman is a sports business reporter at Sportico and the founder of The Sunday Long Read, an email newsletter celebrating the web’s best stories. A Boston resident, his work has previously appeared in Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and Boston Magazine.

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WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON WITH THE WEATHER? Skies clogged with smoke. Record-shattering global temperatures. Deadly flooding.

Warming seas. Were the horrifying weather events of this past summer an aberration, or are they our climate future?

BY LISA WEIDENFELD

The skies in New York City were turned an eerie orange this past June by dangerous smoke from out-of-control wildfires in Canada.

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photo: Nikolay Pokrovskiy/Alamy

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HE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE have been visible for a long time now, but the summer of 2023 may represent a watershed moment in the public’s understanding of humanity’s impact on the global climate. Extreme weather events struck all summer long, from the Canadian wildfires that cloaked the East Coast of the United States in unhealthful smoke and the catastrophic flooding that submerged the capital of Vermont to the rising temperatures of the ocean in Florida and the stretch of four days in July in which the average global temperature was the hottest ever recorded. To put these terrifying events in perspective, and learn what they may tell us about our climate future, we spoke with Yi Ming and Hanqin Tian, two internationally renowned climate change researchers who last year joined Boston College’s Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. Climate change, they told us, is happening now, and it’s threatening our existence on the planet. We won the lottery, getting to live on this wondrous blue world tucked within the darkness of space, Ming said. If we want to keep it habitable, we’re going to have to make changes, and soon.

This summer’s weather was shocking, even for people who have been bracing for the effects of climate change. As researchers who are quite familiar with the climate data, what did you make of these events?

Yi Ming: People, especially climate scientists, have been predicting this stuff for ages, but suddenly seeing things manifesting in this kind of a rapid succession—I have to confess, even for someone who has been thinking about this stuff for decades, it’s still quite eye-opening unfolding in front of you. It’s pretty crazy.

One important note is that right now we also have the El Niño condition in the East Pacific.

That’s an abnormal warm condition in the seawater that can last up to seven years. Normally that’s thought of as a part of the natural variation, the fluctuation in the system. So, maybe that’s one reason why suddenly it’s getting so bad so quickly.

Hanqin Tian: El Niño impacts places differently.

Like in the tropics, they got really high temperatures. And in the middle latitude, like in China, there was a flood. Many people died. In the US, the situation is also getting very serious now. One thing this year that made a lot of news were the wildfires in Canada. These fires are getting more and more frequent, and more fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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and more evidence shows they are linked to climate and warming.

In 2015, at the UN’s annual Climate Change Conference in Paris, approximately two hundred countries agreed to a goal of limiting the increase in the mean global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The Paris Accords was hailed as a landmark achievement at the time, but what are your thoughts on it seven years later?

Yi Ming: One thing that is pretty clear is that the 1.5-degree goal laid out by the United Nations is probably not attainable, because we’re breaking 1.5 degrees already, as we speak. It’s always been my personal view that it would be very hard to hit that goal. Obviously, at the end of the day, whatever prediction we have of trending temperatures has to be supported by the empirical evidence. But it’s pretty clear what’s going on. We’re already there.

That’s pretty scary, considering the goal was only set in 2015. What do we need to do?

Hanqin Tian: Communication with the public, I feel, is very important—how this could be serious for your daily life, and more so in the future. Some may still doubt the science, but the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is made up of more than five thousand scientists, and they have provided evidence that climate change is real. I fear that, even after this year’s high temperatures, people will continue business as usual, and continue the emission of greenhouse gases. And that high temperatures and extreme weather will become the new normal.

Yi Ming: A lot of the warming is built into the system already, so it’s very hard to reverse the trend quickly because of the built-in inertia of the climate system. It takes a while to warm up the ocean, but it will take a while to cool it down. So we have to be ready for what’s to come.

Hanqin Tian: The food security issue of climate change is a big topic. As temperatures increase, you have the process of what’s known as evapotranspiration. Normally, when rain falls and evaporates, some portion of the 42

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Hanqin Tian

Schiller Institute Professor of Global Sustainability Tian, who came to BC last year, studies interactions among humans, climate, and ecosystems in search of solutions to climate change and sustainability problems.

He previously held the Solon and Martha Dixon Endowed Professorship and Alumni Professorship at Auburn University, and was also director of the International Center for Climate and Global Change Research.

Tian is a fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the Ecological Society of America. He was formerly a researcher at MIT and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Cape Cod.

water goes back to the atmosphere through the evapotranspiration process. But if evapotranspiration is too high, then the soil gets really dry. So plants and crops will not be able to grow. Large portions of Africa will experience this kind of drought in a very serious way.

Climate change also involves extreme climate events. One year it’s very dry. Another year, there’s flooding. How can people adapt to this kind of change? In some regions, like northern China, they want more people to grow a rice crop. But the problem is that this area could be warm early in some years, and then other years it could still be cool, and that year-to-year variation could affect crop production, making it unstable. New technology developments could genetically improve the rice, so it could adapt to temperature change and drought, but it would take probably four to five years to make that change. But by that time, the climate will probably already have changed again. That’s really challenging—technology cannot catch up with climate change.

What are some measures we can take to mitigate climate change?

Hanqin Tian: Natural, basic climate solutions can contribute to the removal of greenhouse gas. In photosynthesis, plants uptake carbon dioxide—it’s food for them. It gets stored in trees, so we can plant trees as a mitigating effort. There’s also mulch, which can be placed as a cover on depleted soil to prevent carbon dioxide from seeping into the atmosphere.

And mitigating methane emissions could have an immediate effect. There are high methane emissions in the production of meat—because cows emit a lot of it—and rice. So eating less meat will help the climate, and so will changing the irrigation systems used in rice paddies.

Some countries are very good at developing irrigation technologies, which can reduce methane emission in rice paddies by half.

Those are what we call nature-based solutions, which we can do now. They’re very good for developing countries. If they’re economically limited and technology limited, they can still plant trees, or they can improve water usage.

In 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included incentives to encourage the

transition to green energy. How has this affected your work?

Yi Ming: I’m working with Richard L. Sweeney, an economics professor at BC, to look at wind energy especially. If you want to have any green transition, wind turbines will have to be a big part of that. But because winds are intermittent, to say the least, we’re thinking about how to use climate models to predict the future variability of winds, and how you can include that kind of insight in the design of the power grid. But I have to tell you, it’s very hard to gain traction even with the Inflation Reduction Act. It’s just the system we built.

We have to break our bad habits that depend on fossil fuels.

How can we adapt to our changing climate patterns?

Yi Ming: It’s very important to realize that to adapt to climate change, there will be a physical side, and there will also be a mental side. You have to take care of both. At a community level, for example, the tremendous inequality built into society means that more disadvantaged neighborhoods have less green space. As a result, it’s all pavement and concrete that heat up more quickly than a well-vegetated part of the town. Part of the adaptation efforts will be how we increase green space. Not just for heat waves, but also for recreational purposes. It is very important to identify areas of what we call a co-benefit.

You’re investing in something that’s going to benefit you on multiple fronts. Besides taking care of people physically, you have to think about the mental health implications, especially for children and younger folks, because they’re growing up in a new climate state. My colleagues here at BC study the impacts of natural disasters on early childhood development. It’s very, very important to take care of people mentally.

There’s a lot of research out there about climate change. Are there ways to better frame the data to help people truly understand what’s happening?

Yi Ming: All different levels of planning and governance have to be conscious of what’s photos: Lee Pellegrini

Yi Ming

Schiller Institute Professor of Climate Science and Society Ming, who joined BC last year, studies the physical mechanisms that affect our climate system. Previously, he was at Princeton University, where he was a faculty member of the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and a senior scientist and divisional leader at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. Ming has been a recipient of the US Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers; the World Meteorological Organization Norbert Gerbier-Mumm International Award; the American Meteorological Society Henry G. Houghton Award; and the American Geophysical Union Ascent Award.

to come. So that has to be tied to the charge for climate scientists—how to make the latest science more actionable and more useful for local communities. When I speak to finance majors at BC, I talk about insurance premiums. You’re really speaking their language.

Homeowner’s insurance companies are refusing to write new homeowner’s insurance in the state of California because of wildfires.

So I tell finance majors, “Think about this as a business opportunity. As a climate scientist, you may perceive me as the front of the line in this fight. But you, as finance majors, will have to deal with real people on a daily basis.

They will have real concerns. It will affect your bottom line. You’ll have to be very practical. It’s something on your doorstep, and it’s affecting the bottom lines everywhere.” This is the same message being given by some of the faculty members at the Carroll School.

They just organized their annual finance conference and there was a big section devoted to climate change.

Given that there are so many countries and companies and other large, intractable entities driving global warming, how can the average person feel like their individual actions have an impact?

Yi Ming: You have to be a good citizen. You cannot just look around and say, they’re not doing their part, why should I? That’s absolutely the classical definition of racing to the bottom. You think about the spirit of this country, how it was founded. It’s a pursuit of a more perfect union. Everything has to circle back to education. We’re here at BC educating future leaders and we need to make them aware of the latest climate science and put all the facts out there. I’m trying to be hopeful that the next generation is going to do a much better job because they’re so aware of what’s going on. That’s the future they’re going to inherit, for good or bad. I think we shouldn’t perceive everything as static. The younger folks are really living up to the expectation, the commitment. If you look at the youth movement around the world, it’s heartening. They’re fully engaged. And they’re not just saying, you’re doing a bad job. They’re actively asking the current leaders to do a better job. That makes me hopeful. n fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Class Notes // Alumni News & Notes

Called to Service The incoming president of the BCAA is as proud of his roots at the Heights as he is excited about the future the University is charting.

From his first day at Boston College, being an Eagle just came naturally to Wynndell Bishop. Now, the Dorchester native and founding member of the AHANA Alumni Advisory Council (AAAC) is following the footsteps of his classmate and friend Eric Silva ’00 to serve as president of the Boston College Alumni Association. We sat down with Wynndell to talk about his time at the Heights, what makes him tick, and his goals entering this new role.

Can you talk a bit about your experience at BC? WB: I had a great, diverse group of friends and got involved in activities on campus early on. Some of my best memories are from my time on the programming committee for UGBC—we booked Chris Rock and even got OutKast to perform, with Eminem opening for them! It’s crazy to think about now, but we put together some great shows, and they really brought everybody together.

That—and my tenure as VP of the Minority Engineers of BC—was an early introduction to how you can get things done on campus.

You’re a very service-oriented person— where does that come from?

WB: Family, for one. I was always taught to advocate for others and be a voice for the voiceless. Since graduating, I’ve served as the social and professional development chair in the Urban League of Massachusetts’ Young Professionals Network, I ran the political action committee for the Boston branch of the NAACP, and I remain active in a lot of service work in my local community.

At the end of the day, I just like to help people. And given how extroverted I am, being around people and engaging folks is what energizes me and brings me life.

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How has BC formed you?

WB: It’s interesting—I’ve never been overly religious, but I think there was a lot of alignment with the Jesuit ideal of being “men and women for others.” That resonated with me and formed my desire to give back, probably more so than I initially realized— there must be something in the water.

Why did you say ‘Yes’ to the opportunity to lead the BCAA? WB: Anything that I participate in, I want to have a say in how it’s run. What was nice about my (previous) role as a VP of the BCAA was that it allowed me to work with the LGBTQ+ Council, the Real Estate and Wall Street councils, the AAAC, and the Council of Women for BC. And because that’s the stuff I love to do anyway, it didn’t feel like work. Working with those groups and trying to identify how the alumni board could enhance their messaging and support them better, it was just natural.

Those conversations were not only fulfilling, but have proven fruitful—breaking down silos and leveraging the skills and talents of one another for the benefit of all.

What are your biggest priorities as the new president of the BCAA? WB: How can we support the capital campaign? How do we engage our alumni base—we have about 4,000 alumni volunteer leaders—and leverage those folks to reach out to their networks and communicate the message of why it’s important to support BC? Ultimately, I want to do whatever I can to lift up BC. I think that’s what the AAAC and the BCAA are all about—how we ensure that BC is a place that’s comfortable and welcoming to everyone.

Wynndell Bishop ’00, MBA’07 President, Boston College Alumni Association Board of Directors, Purchasing Agent for the City of Alexandria, Virginia

Alumni Class Notes STAY CONNECTED Submit your news and updates for inclusion in Class Notes at bc.edu/classnotes Follow us on social media at bc.edu/socialmedia View upcoming chapter, class, and affinity group events at bc.edu/alumni

recently and continues to be a lifelong learner with the Osher Lifelong Learning program at UMass Boston, taking courses in English poetry, opera, and history.

Consistent with Jesuit teaching, one can never stop learning.

NC 1953

Barbara Gould Henry was honored by the Associated Alumnae & Alumni of The Sacred Heart (AASH) with its Courage and Confidence Award at the biennial meeting at the Portsmouth Priory on May 20, 2023, “in recognition of her lifetime of living the Sacred Heart values and the gift of herself in the service of others” and acknowledging Barbara’s role in the desegregation of the New Orleans school system in 1960.

To get the latest info on programming and to stay in touch with your BC family, update your profile in our alumni directory at bc.edu/update

1951

1953

John Cheney became a great-grandfather with the birth of Elijah Benjamin Cahill

1956

James Melloni celebrated his 89th birthday with family and friends. Jim is in good health and tries to keep active with his many social activities. Due to a recent accident, he is now using a cane, but this does not deter him from his normal routine. Jim still lives in Somerville, which has undergone many changes since he moved there in the late ’60s. He continues to look forward to the BC football season and is as optimistic as ever. He wishes good health to his fellow 1956 alumni!

1957

Some alumni notes have been edited for length and clarity. To view the full notes, visit bc.edu/bcmnotes or scan this code

Robert J. Jepsen ’51, MBA’76, of Dorchester passed away peacefully surrounded by his family on March 19, 2023. He was the beloved husband of Mary Jepsen and loving father (and father-in-law to their spouses) of Ann Marie, John, Joseph, Patricia, Kathleen, the late Joanne, Stephen, Michael, James, Christopher, and Mary Catherine.

He was also the cherished grandfather of 26 grandchildren and three greatgrandchildren. He was survived by many loving nieces, nephews, and friends and was the lifelong friend of Fr. James Woods.

the Barrington of West Chester, Ohio, for nine years. He is in good health and still follows sports and activities at BC. He sends his best wishes to his 1954 classmates from the business school.

COURTESY OF WILLIAM KENNEY ’54

1954

William “Bill” Kenney turned 90 in October 2022, and he and his wife, Anne McCarron Kenney, celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on May 30, 2023. They are doing well and live in Huntington Beach, California. They receive frequent visits from their six children, 17 grandchildren and 10 greatgrandchildren (about to be 12). BC has played an important role in their lives, and they are proud of what it has become since 1954. // Edward Silva is 90 years old and has resided in a retirement home,

Lawrence “Larry” Hojlo retired in 1995 after 25 years as principal of Duxbury Middle School. He married Maureen T. Norton on June 24, 1961. Larry and Maureen raised a wonderful family of six children, four boys and two girls.

Maureen passed away after 57 years as a mother and wife. He misses her presence greatly! The Hojlo clan presently has 15 grandchildren and two greatgrandchildren. They were very blessed. // Nancy Gegan Doyle passed away on March 16 in Evanston, Illinois. She is mourned by her husband, Bob, three sons, and five grandchildren.

Class correspondent: Frank Higgins // higgs92@comcast.net

1958

William “Bill” Shook regrets that he cannot attend this landmark class Reunion this year. He will miss seeing old classmates, should he recognize them and should they recognize him! Thanks to BC Magazine, he does keep up on University matters. Although retired from his career in public health, he remains active as a board member of an agency providing recovery services to victims of substance abuse, serves as a corporator of a regional hospital system, and sings in his church choir.

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Class Notes

PMC 1958

Cynthia Burke moved to Rhinebeck, New York, from the 12th floor of an apartment building in Manhattan to a ground-floor two-story condo by a pond.

Living in “the woods” is an astounding change. Instead of pigeons, she has a great blue heron!

NC 1958

Sue Fay Ryan attended the Brown graduation ceremonies for her twin granddaughters, Audra and Elise Curtin, daughters of Fay Ryan ’89. Audra will be a research assistant working on an Alzheimer’s project at Yale. Elise will attend Stern School of Business at NYU for her masters. Sue just published her second children’s book to honor the memory of her son. Written in English and Spanish, it is entitled Thaddeus, Hold Your Horses! (¡Tadeo,Controla Tus Caballos!). // Patty Schorr and husband attended Newton’s 65th Reunion. On Saturday, Anne Berra joined her via Zoom. On Sunday, Fran Delachapelle, Rosemary Stuart Dwyer, and Peg Keane Timpson met her at the Reunion brunch.

Patty’s trip to Ireland with her children and grandchildren was a joy. She looks forward to the wedding of her grandson, Tim, in Dennis in September and the arrival of her grandson, Matthew, to teach at The Lawrenceville School in NJ. He will be the third generation in the family to teach there. Class correspondent: Patty Peck Schorr // dschorr57@verizon.net

1960. // Karen “KC” Conway Morrish reports that life in Florida is good. She is active in the Guardian Ad Litem program and The Lord’s Place and plays bridge.

She sees Pat Sweeney Sheehy and talks with Meg Dealy Ackerman and others.

She has eight grandchildren, including a new seven-month-old.

1960

John Walgreen wintered in Tampa and saw his daughter Alice and granddaughter Meredith. Class correspondent: John R. McNealy // jmcnealy@juno.com

NC 1960

Charlie Battaglia is looking forward to the Class of 1959’s 65th Reunion. // Paul Mahony retired from BASF after 40 years.

Class correspondent: William Appleyard // bill.appleyard@verizon.net

The Newton Class of 1960 has generously supported the initiative to dedicate the Conference Room in the McMullen Art Museum to Sr. Carol Putnam, RSCJ, H’92. Sr. Putnam was chair of the art department at Newton and later at BC. // The 27th Annual Newton/Boston College Tea in the DMV area will be held at Congressional Country Club on Sunday April 14, 2024. Pat Winkler Browne is the chair. // Stella Clark O’Shea on Long Island plays bridge every week with Norah McGinity Frei in California. Stella plays golf twice a week and keeps in touch with Martha Miele Harrington and Jane Wray. // Berenice Hackett Davis lunched with Pat McCarthy Dorsey, Carole Ward McNamara, and Elaine Holland Early.

She attended a 7th grade choral recital, granddaughter’s dance recital at Babson, and was her granddaughter’s confirmation sponsor. She plans to luncheon with Lita Capobianco Mainelli, Ferna Ronci Rourke, and two other Elmhurst classmates. // Mary Lou Foster Ryan died on May 15, 2023. Class correspondent: Patricia Winkler Browne // enworb1@ verizon.net

NC 1959

NC 1961

1959

Helen Marian Byrne McConnell of Kalamazoo, Michigan, died at home on Saturday, June 3, 2023. She was born on October 22, 1937, in Detroit to Helen and Dan Byrne. Helen graduated from the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Detroit in 1955, Newton College of the Sacred Heart (now part of Boston College) in 1959, and Katharine Gibbs School in New York in 46

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Judy Vollbrecht has moved to Avila, a retirement community in Albany, New York. It’s a great place, and she’s with 11 other RSCJs. If you are coming to Albany sometime, do get in touch; Judy hopes to see you! // Sandy Irwin Heiler has been getting together regularly with Mary Sue Flanagan for lunch/dinner.

A few months ago, Mary Sue hosted

Mickey McQueeny, Judy Thompson, Maryann Morrissey, and Sandy for a terrific evening of dinner, catching up, and remembering our years at Newton.

On her retirement from Verizon Labs, Sandy got an MA in history from Boston University and has been giving talks on various history topics. She and her husband live in a historic house in Brookeville, Maryland.Class correspondent: Missy Rudman // newtonmiz@aol.com

PMC 1961

Katherine Emory is so glad to be a part of this group, not only as a PMC graduate, but also as the grandparent of a BC High student and ice hockey player. She is so proud!

COURTESY OF RICHARD MAHONEY ’62

1962

James “Jim” Hooley attended the 65th graduation anniversary from Boston College High School in June with some of his BC classmates, Jack Murray, Paul Horrigan, Ed Quinn and Jack McKinnon. // Paul Horrigan (Army veteran 1962– 1969) retired from Weldship Corporation, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 2019. He is the Commander of Post 0163 of the American Legion in Westborough and a member of the Westborough Town Veteran Advisory Board. He was selected as Veteran of the Year in 2022. // Dick Mahoney and Bill Nagle made a 5,000mile road trip occasioned by Dick’s invitation to speak at the 2023 Baseball Hall of Fame annual symposium. He has taught an Osher Lifetime Learning

Institute (OLLI) continuing education baseball course at the University of Alabama for several years. // John Hackett was reflecting on the occasion of his 83rd birthday and is so grateful for the role Boston College has played in his life and the legacy for his family.

It started with his grandfather, John J. Ruddy (1905). John was next to attend, and then his brother, James ’67. The tradition continued with John’s daughter, Carolyn ’88, and has been furthered with two of his grandchildren. John’s grandson, Kyle, will be a senior this year, and his granddaughter, Paige, started this fall. // Mark Dullea’s website climateplanning.city might be helpful to classmates concerned about climate and global warming issues. It’s based on his work in urban planning as well as his longstanding involvement in renewable energy. // Peter Derry died on April 24 while in hospice. Peter practiced law for 45 years in the DC area where he was not only admitted to the DC Bar Association, but also the state bars of Maryland and Florida. He opened his practice with a friend. His free time was spent with family, golfing and reading. Classmates extend their condolences to his wife Anna, three children, their spouses, and Peter’s grandchildren. // John T. Murray’s well-loved wife Barbara died in April after 59 years of marriage. Jack and Barbara lived in Nashua, New Hampshire, for 50 years before moving to Hingham to be closer to family. Classmates send their condolences to Jack and his family. // William “Bill” Lundregan ’62, JD’67, hosted classmates at a delicious luncheon and opportunity for camaraderie at the scenic Marblehead Corinthian Yacht Club in June. All thanked Bill for his thoughtfulness and generosity. // Joseph McKniffe gave a shout-out in the last BC Magazine to his eight fellow geology majors. Sadly, Francis Accetta has died.

Classmates join Joe in his effort to hear from his geology classmates, as they were successful when they did this before.

They asked, “Where is Paul Apholt?”

Paul answered saying, “I’ve been right here in plain sight.”// Eileen Faggiano was recently invited to attend Mass at Holy Apostles Church in Cranston and the installation of The Homeless Jesus, one of sculptor Tim Schmalz’s works.

Tim, a world-renowned sculptor, gave a

short presentation after the dedication.

He detailed the impressive project he is currently working on, The Stations of the Cross in Orlando. Listen for news of one of Tim’s works perhaps coming to the campus soon. Class correspondent: Eileen Faggiano // efaggiano5@gmail.com

1963

Diana Newman is fully retired now. She participates in many online prayer groups: the St. John Henry Newman on Tap group, and other online opportunities.

She also enjoys kayaking on Herring Pond in Plymouth and is active in her parish, St. Bonaventure, in Manomet as a lector, Eucharistic minister, and religious education teacher. She wishes God’s blessings on the BC community, living and deceased. Class correspondent: Ed Rae // raebehan@verizon.net

1964

Emeritus Professor Dan Tannacito recently published two works, Autoethnographic Perspectives on Multilingual Life Stories (IGI) and his autobiography, In My Life: A Memoir and Family History (Outskirts Press). Dan lives in Oregon with his wife, Sumon. // Dennis Rossi has been married to his wife, MaryAnn, for 56 years. He is a retired radiologist and has three children and six grandchildren. He lives in Lawrence, New York, and snowbirds in Aventura, Florida.

He remembers the BC days like it was yesterday. // Joseph DeNatale’s eldest son, Joe Jr., will be married in July in Michigan. He is the lead exterior designer of the Ford Bronco, and his wife-to-be is the lead designer of the interior, so the Bronco must be the DeNatale mobile. // Robert “Bob” Fuicelli has spent 38 years out in Denver and has three kids, eight grands, and one great-grandchild, all in the 303. His grandson was in B town for hockey and visited the Heights. He and his brother are headed to Bishop College School for hockey, and he will perhaps be an Eagle in his future. Bob met Coach H at a Denver BC alumni gathering and offered his”coaching” expertise. He respectfully declined.

1965

Eugene D. Zoller ’65, MAT’71, died on

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

May 19. He taught for 51 years, with 32 of them as a social studies teacher at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami, Florida. He was a great mentor, teacher, and coworker. He shaped several generations of community leaders for the community and beyond. Mr. Zoller was a big promoter of BC. He recommended quite a few of his students to BC and was very happy when they went to study at BC. His favorite subject to teach was civics to eighth graders. BC had a great influence on his life as a person and professional. Class correspondent: Patricia Harte // patriciaharte@me.com

NC 1965

Marylou Comerford Murphy visited Cape Cod in June. She and her husband, Andy ’64, thoroughly enjoyed their visit with Jim MacInnis ’64 and Kathy Heffernan. Kathy and Marylou reminisced about fun times with Judy Clune and Chris Bassett, who couldn’t join because they were in Italy. They were all saddened by the news of the passing of classmates Gini O’Hara and Karen Kinnealey, as well as Richard Stanton ’63, Annmarie O’Connor’s husband. Class correspondent: Linda Crimmins // mason65@me.com

1966

Dr. Marie Thonis Colucci, spouse of Dr. Steve Colucci ’65, died on March 10, 2023. // James J. Napoli ’66, MA’69, retired in 2013 after a five-decade career, including stints as a newspaper reporter, editorial writer, journalism professor, and print media consultant that brought opportunities to live and teach abroad. To fight off boredom during the Covid lockdown, James and his wife, Luanne, coauthored their first novel, Death in Venison: Maine Newspaper Mysteries with Nate and Nasty, through the cooperative organization Maine Authors Publishing. // Tim O’Leary has published his fourth novel, The Woman in the Road, a mystery/ murder suspense thriller laced with humor, interesting characters, and plot twists. This is the fourth in his Connor McNeil series. // Peter Veneto is still doing volunteer work with SCORE, helping people who want to start or grow a small business in the South Carolina Lowcountry. SCORE is the largest fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

47

Class Notes

volunteer organization with 230 chapters nationwide and 10,000+ volunteers. It is affiliated with the Small Business Administration (SBA). // Ed Ansello has retired from Virginia Commonwealth University after more than 32 years, where he was executive director of the statefunded Virginia Center on Aging and director of the federally funded Virginia Geriatric Education Center. His career in higher education totaled 51+ years. He and his wife, Paulette, celebrated with a series of travel adventures to the US Southwest, Austria, and Portugal.

1967

Paul Coran’s wife of blessed memory, Brenda Roth Coran, died on June 30, 2021, after 52 years of marriage. // Jim Peters and Jack Lambert played golf in the member-guest at Sea Trail in NC. Later, they went boating off the coast with their wives and friends. // The McElroy table group, Janet Rogers, Lynda Butt Nicholson, Kathy Harrington Bell, Pam Crowley, Bill Gavin, Joe Hill, Peter Ciampi, and John Crowley, broke into two groups and raced to finish the Globe crossword puzzle. All they got were bragging rights.

Now, they get together every so often to brag about their kids, grandchildren, and survival! They had their recent “reunion” at the Capital Grille in Burlington in May. The special event was simply that John and Pam were in Massachusetts to visit their grandchildren. They realized they don’t really need an excuse to get together. When the waitress asked what the occasion was, John said, “Well, we are still alive!” They vowed to do it again before the end of the year. Class correspondent: Charles and Mary-Anne Benedict // chasbenedict@aol.com

NC 1967

Jacquie Werner Scarbrough has written and published a book, Cape Courage: Readings in Resilience, under the pen name Ava Jennings. It’s about 13 women who exhibited strength and resilience in the face of overwhelming obstacles. // Donna Shelton continues to travel and enjoyed an Iberian cruise in March, two weeks after a heart valve replacement! In late spring, she and husband Frank 48

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headed by land into Alaska, followed by a 10-day cruise. (Despite all the traveling they have done, it was their first time to that region.) In May, they celebrated her oldest grandson graduating college. They are so glad he will be closer when he starts a fellowship at the US Army Medical Research Institute in Silver Spring. // Marilyn Santos Velayo and her husband, Ronnie, both have some health problems, so they have “retired,” but she gets out when she can in between the weather issues. At a certain time of year they can face typhoons—wind and rains—in the Philippines. Reach out to Adrienne Free if you want to connect with Marilyn. Class correspondent: Adrienne Free // thefrees@cox.net

1968

Mark Schwartz is recovering from pancreatic cancer surgery and welcomes his first great-grandchild from the oldest of nine grandchildren. // Bill Plunkert and his wife of almost 50 years, Donna, have moved from the Washington, DC, area to the central part of Virginia along the Chesapeake Bay. Life along the river certainly is different from DC. Thanks to the wonders of technology, Bill is able to continue his retirement activity of Ignatian spiritual direction remotely for now. The kids and grandkids still visit. // Anne Wilayto Bishop has retired from the Boston Public Health Commission as a school-based health center nurse practitioner and from Simmons University as an adjunct professor in the graduate nursing program. She is now working for the Senior U program presenting health education, historical backgrounds, and educational opportunities for people in retirement and assisted living communities, as well as in other senior outreach programs.

Class correspondent: Judith M. Day // jnjday@aol.com

1969

Leo “Buddy” Kruger came to BC in 1965 from Lackawanna, New York, on a four-year full academic and athletic scholarship. His proudest accomplishment was playing football for the BC Eagles.

Until his death, he proudly wore his BC ring. He had a long career with Bethlehem Steel and Buffalo Milk-Bone Company.

Buddy is survived by his wife, Colleen, of 35 years; his children, Christopher (Jade), Kim (Ed), Lisa (Tom), Dominic (Jeymie); his grandchildren, Justin, Olivia, and Evan; and his great-granddaughters, McKenna and Maeve. // Richard J. Berman, JD’69, has recently been made chairman of the board of Stellar Corp, a $100 million private solar company based in Phoenix, and Context Therapeutics Inc., a public biotech company based in Philadelphia. He is also a director of four other public companies. Richard’s son, Luca, will be a freshman at BC in September and will be a member of the fencing team. // Linda Westervelt recently published her second book, Where Bluebirds Fly: Inside the World of Roger Tory Peterson and Virginia Marie Peterson. Roger Tory Peterson, one of the world’s greatest naturalists, is Linda’s stepfather and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work

by President Jimmy Carter. Linda is now happily retired in Florida and lives in The Villages, a large retirement community near Orlando. // Jim Littleton had the pleasure of meeting classmates Jay Kavanah, Jim Cadigan, Kevin Delano, and Dave Haley for lunch at BC. They were all members of the BC ROTC program. // Jay Kavanah ’69, JD’72, started his professional career with Arthur Anderson, specializing in taxation. As a CPA, Jay moved on to Coopers and shortly thereafter became a partner. Later he went into industry, working at a few high-profile international companies. Jay and his wife, Carol, had two children, and his daughter, Jennifer, graduated from BC in 1997. Jay is currently retired. He and Carol are living in Hanover, where they have lived for 50 years. He has two teenage grandchildren who he enjoys immensely. // Jim Cadigan served in the US Army as a lieutenant at Fort Knox for two years after graduating.

Upon his return home, he worked in both public accounting as well as private industry. Jim was the CFO for a mediumsized general contractor for many years and was the president of the MA Chapter of the Construction Financial Managers Association. Today, he is still working and is enjoying his two grandchildren immensely. Jim and wife, Colleen, raised their family of three in the town of Hanover, where they lived for 37 years prior to relocating to the coast of Scituate.

Jim has quite a BC legacy. His grandfather,

John, graduated from BC in 1891; his father, James, in 1939; Jim in 1969; and his daughter, Jennifer, in 2007. // Kevin Delano and wife of 53 years, Christine, reside in South Easton. They have two children and three grandchildren. After graduating and commissioning, Kevin and Chris were stationed in Kaiserslautern, Germany, for three years. Kevin worked for New England Telephone for 17 years and then operated his own business, Delano Associates, in the management training, development, and consulting business before fully retiring in 2015. Kevin and Chris enjoy traveling (they took a trip to Ireland in September), gardening, music, and genealogy. Kevin is grateful to have had the dedicated and loyal support of his classmates and the Jesuit community over the years. BC and St. Mary’s Chapel have always made him feel at home. // Dave Haley and wife Bonnie have resided in Scituate, where they raised their children, since 1983. They are the proud grandparents of two granddaughters. From December 1971 to January 1995, Dave worked primarily in state and local government in MA and NY, holding a range of positions along the course of his career. In 1995 Dave joined the national senior executive search firm Isaacson Miller as a partner and remained in that role until his retirement in 2013. Class correspondent: James R. Littleton // jim.littleton@gmail.com

1971

John Mashia and his wife, Janet, have been spending time at their home in Naples, Florida. They recently had visits from their sons, John and Chris, and their grandkids, as well as former classmates Joe Collins, Russ Pavia and his wife, Roberta, and Vinnie Costello. Good times were had by all. John occasionally practices his karaoke skills at a local nightclub. // Marybeth Flynn retired a few years ago and is happily spending retirement singing in a jazz band on the South Shore. // Joe Thornton just completed 47 years as a licensed private investigator in his home state of Maine.

He remains active with a number of highprofile cases. He served as a director of the National Association of Legal Investigators and a certified legal investigator and received an award from NALI for 25 years of service in 2011. He

COURTESY OF THOMAS HERLEHY ’72

was a staff investigator in the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defender Office in Philadelphia from 1999 to 2005, where his clients were granted relief. // John Thomas Flynn enjoyed a golf trip at the Delaware shore with his Gonzaga High School buddies. John was on the golf and football teams during his prep school tenure and currently lives in the DC area. Class correspondent: James R. Macho // jmacho@mac.com

NC 1971

Melissa Robbins has been enjoying good health while resuming normal daily activities after the completion of chemotherapy and radiation. She exercises five days a week at the local YMCA and, in May, spent a week in Iceland with her daughter, Sarah, and her sister, Eileen. In July, she traveled to Idaho to fly fish with her husband, Mike Lombardo. In October, Melissa and Mike visited France for a river cruise from Paris to Normandy. Life is good! Class correspondent: Melissa Robbins // melissarobbins49@gmail.com

1972

Adelaide Corvelle spent 45 wonderful years as an LCSW with Catholic Charities on Long Island before retiring to Florida.

After five years, she returned to the

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

Boston area to enjoy her two grandchildren, aged 3 and 10 months; the best decision she has ever made! She hopes to hear from some of her former classmates of 1972. // Mac Regan and wife Tracy have joined the grandparent ranks with the arrival of Magnolia MacVeigh Hessberg. They look forward to having her visit Rhode Island frequently with daughter Caroline and her husband, Albert. Mac is currently working on his third book, a nonpartisan voter support tool for the 2024 elections.

Mac is also looking forward to the annual golf outing with Jim Sullivan, Tom Finn, Tom Kenny, Greg McDermott, Steve Johnson, Jack Ackroyd, John Capone and Guy Peregrin. // Tom Herlehy and his wife, Mary, are enjoying retirement through international travel. They spent five weeks in France in 2022 and a month in Italy in 2023, but then Mary fell on the cobblestone streets of Verona and broke her left ankle. Tom and Mary returned to Italy to finish their tour in midSeptember through the end of October, including the wine regions of Tuscany and Umbria. // Linda Markol Lynch ’71 and Tom Lynch celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in May. Tom is a permanent deacon in the diocese of Springfield, serving at the UMass Newman Center, St. Brigid Parish in fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Class Notes

Amherst and as a Catholic chaplain at Amherst College. // Dr. Pat McGovern continues to work as a surgeon in Marlboro, New Jersey, to which he commutes from his home in Avon. // Jimmy Morris is both a pastor at a Russian Orthodox Church and a theology teacher at a Catholic high school on the Massachusetts North Shore. // Art Makar is retired as the CEO of a New York City nonprofit and continues to live there. // DeeDee Covino is retired as a teacher but continues to tutor students.

She spends winters in Boca Raton, Florida, and the rest of the year near Boston. // Condolences to family and friends of Jeannette Cardia, who passed away. She was both an attorney and a math teacher. Class correspondent: Lawrence G. Edgar // ledgar72@gmail.com

NC 1972

Sadly, Mary-Catherine Deibel passed away on June 1. Her husband, Reid Fleming, and her siblings and their families survive her. Her smile and her robust laughs as well as her zest for life will be missed, especially at reunions.

The Boston Globe published an article entitled, “Mary-Catherine Deibel dies at 72; UpStairs on the Square co-owner was ‘unofficial mayor of Harvard Square.’”

She also was the director of development at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Class correspondent: Nancy B. McKenzie // mckenzie20817@comcast.net

1973

Tom Palaima was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Tom currently serves as the Robert M. Armstrong Centennial Professor and program director in Aegean scripts and prehistory at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating with a BA in mathematics and classics at BC, Tom received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980. // Steve Lappen rediscovered his deeply appreciated formative years at BC as he celebrated with unbridled enthusiasm his 50th Reunion. Not only did it rekindle old memories, the newest magnificent iteration (e.g. Schiller and Stokes) will create new memories. What a stellar campus with a vision to match. Steve is very proud to call BC his academic home.

50

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// Mary Coswin, OSB, graduated in 1973 and worked in education, spirituality, spiritual direction, and as director of St. Benedict’s Retreat Center for 23 years.

The monastery that she belongs to sold their property and monastery in 2021, so she has basically retired apart from leadership in the community. She’d love to hear from fellow graduates. // Randy and Trish Mudarri have moved to Mashpee. // Michael Palmieri thought the 50th Class Reunion was great: Red Sox game, East Coast pizza, freshman dorm mates rooming together. Good times. Class correspondent: Patricia DiPillo // perseus813@aol.com

NC 1973

Marilyn Kenney Shaw reported that since retiring from teaching in 2018, she has enjoyed time with her grandchildren in RI, sailing charters with her husband, and being ready to receive her NCSH classmates who want to visit south of Boston! // Kathleen Dennen Morris thought the Newton College 50th Reunion was fantastic! It began with the lovely gathering at Joan Garrity Flynn’s home on Friday, continued with the conversation led by Sr. de la Chappelle and then a lively class party on Saturday night, and concluded with the moving Mass of Remembrance and brunch on Sunday. It was wonderful to experience how quickly classmates could reconnect, share memories, and enjoy each other’s lives and accomplishments.

Class correspondent: Mimi Reiley Vilord // mimivi@optonline.net

1974

Ellen O’Connell lives in Tewksbury and is of counsel to Price, Meese, Shulman & D’Arminio, P.C. She represents churches and religious organizations in defense of clergy abuse allegations and counsels businesses in employment matters. She is secretary of the Somerset Hills Kennel Club, which hosts 2,000 dogs at its September show. Ellen volunteers with the 4H, training children how to handle dogs in show. She is having too much fun to make retirement plans. // Jim Sennett passed away on June 25, 2023, after a long battle against a rare neurodegenerative disease, multiple system atrophy (MSA). His wife of 40

years and his three children were very honored that they were able to fulfill his wish of donating his brain to MSA research, because he was so passionate about advancing the research to prevent this disease. Jim was an attorney for over 40 years in Cleveland, Ohio. Class correspondent: Patricia McNabb Evans // patricia.mcnabb.evans@gmail.com

NC 1974

Bobbie Kemp Brackemyre is still living in Indiana after 40+ years and must get on the road to choose a new homestead for herself and her awesome cocker spaniel. She is enjoying life, which includes plenty of exercise. She always misses the beauty of New England and so many great things to do in Boston and its surroundings. She lost her husband, Mark, of 41 and a half years on April 23, 2023. // Shortly after Margot Morrell and Cathy Comerford Smyth graduated from Newton, they were walking along Central Park South on their way to lunch when Cathy grabbed Margot’s arm and whispered, “There’s us in 50 years!” Two very proper, white-haired ladies in pastel suits were walking toward them. Well, here they are, 50 years on. Margot still doesn’t own a pastel suit, perhaps soon.

But, excitingly, their 50th Reunion is on the horizon. // Madeline Sherry and the NC’74 Book Club are doing some planning for the 50th Reunion and would love your input. A stroll along the Freedom Trail? A visit to the Kennedy Library? What do you think? To help plan or to let them know you’ll be there, email Madeline at madsherry@gmail .com. Class correspondent: Beth Docktor Nolan // nolanschool@verizon.net

1975

Thomas Cannon’s youngest son Robert graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University and Officer Training School and now is a lieutenant in the US Marines. // Joyce Gomes McSweeney ’76 and Terence McSweeney live in Connecticut and enjoy retirement— especially time with their four grandchildren in New Jersey and Florida.

Terry was in business and taught and now spends time traveling, painting, and writing. He published seven books, including an adventure-type trilogy and

COURTESY OF WALTER FEY ’75

sequel (print + audio): The Quest, The Twelve Gates, Redemption + Illumination, and Between the Folds. They attended this year’s Reunion with daughter Cara McSweeney Hansen ’13 and son-in-law Daniel Hansen ’13. // Walter Fey is looking forward to tying one on at the 50th Reunion with all surviving classmates! // Jayne Saperstein Mehne, Tricia Jordan Graeber, Mary Peters Cammarata, and Judy Rainha Whitney enjoy getting together for long lunches and talking about all of their grandchildren. There are 19 in all, ranging from 14 down to two years old. // Michael Redmond, not only on back nine, but almost in the clubhouse, has the best job of his life as the executive director of the Upper Valley Haven, a nonprofit located in White River Junction, Vermont, providing shelter for adults and families, supportive housing, community food programs, community outreach, and children’s services.

Everyone deserves a home, no one should be hungry. He is pleased to be able to be of service. Men and women for others. // Fr. Bob Shaldone, SOLT, celebrated his 25th anniversary of priesthood on June 7, 2022, at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Robstown, Texas! Fr. Bob earned his degree in accounting. After serving the nation for five and a half years as an internal auditor with the US Naval Audit service in Arlington, Virginia, and Newport, Rhode Island, as well as the Dept. of HEW in Boston, Fr. Bob changed careers.

He entered into the human services field serving adults with intellectual challenges in both day and residential programs. After discerning a vocation to the priesthood for several years, he entered Holy Apostles Seminary in Cromwell, Connecticut, in 1992 and was ordained a priest in 1997 as a member of the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity. Fr. Bob recently published his first book, Chosen One: From Homeless Infant to a Priest at Home in His Heavenly Father’s Heart. It is available from Amazon. He extends his priestly blessing to all his classmates, their families, and to the BC community! GO EAGLES! // Jose Ayala is finally going to retire and is moving to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. This will be his second retirement. In June of 2008, he retired as a special agent from the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS in Philadelphia. After retirement, he moved to Oviedo, Florida, where he and his wife finished raising their two daughters. In 2009, he opened Ayala Tax Services and earned the title of enrolled agent. Jose plans to continue working part time in the DR, just to keep busy. It seems like yesterday that he was taking classes at BC; those were some of his happiest days. Thanks to BC, he came a long way from being raised by a single mother in the public housing projects of NYC. He wishes the Class of 1975 happiness and good health. His email is jose1040tax@gmail.com. God bless. // Kevin Kane completed an EdD from Creighton University in interdisciplinary leadership. The subject of his dissertation was “Jesuit Influences on Executive Leadership.” Class correspondent: Hellas M. Assad // hellasdamas@hotmail.com

NC 1975

Helen Fox-O’Brien and Dana welcomed their first grandchild in April. Since she lives a block down the street, there are ample opportunities for babysitting and cuddles. When not pushing the carriage, wedding planning for their younger daughter’s September wedding in the lush Carmel valley is happily underway.

Pickleball socials and Dana’s Long Island Sound racing schedule also keep them active. A May visit to Boston with their new puppy, Maisie, was the perfect

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

opportunity to catch up with Lee Costello and reminisce about all things Newton! // Kim Marshall had a surprise 70th birthday party on July 21. Mary Ellen Quirk and classmates Ann Vernon, Beth Reifers, and Enid Hatton celebrated the birthday girl on a beautiful summer night. It is always fun to be together, especially for Kim’s milestone birthday! Class correspondent: Karen Foley Freeman // karenfoleyfreeman@gmail.com

COURTESY OF LAWRENCE HERSH ’76

1976

Larry and Kathy Hersh celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on June 17.

Their three children put on a surprise party for them a week before! They also celebrated by spending eight days in the Galapagos Islands. // Kathy Rosa recently welcomed her first grandchild, Harry. She traveled to Ireland in June with a group of BC alums and is planning another trip to Northern Italy with associate professor of Italian at BC, Laurie Shepard. // Bette Johnson, PhD’76,’s oldest grandson, Max Hoffman, and his relay team were in the New Balance National Outdoor Track Meet in Philadelphia in June 2023. He’s a junior at Wellesley High. Bette took his 15-year-old brother, James, to the Nike National Outdoor Track Meet in Eugene, Oregon, and he competed in the fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Class Notes

Freshman 100 meter dash. They are both very good runners. // Wayne Hachey just went on his second, and hopefully last, retirement. He parted ways with Sanofi as medical director and is now devoting time volunteering with the local rescue squad and Remote Area Medical clinics. // Coral Grout, MEd’76, has been serving as the national secretary of the American Legion Auxiliary for the past two years. It is a volunteer appointment, and the organization has nearly 600,000 members. In August, she will begin her appointment as children and youth national chairman. The American Legion Family (Legion, Auxiliary, Sons, and Riders) supports the enlisted, veterans, families, and communities throughout the USA and several other countries. // Dennis Ronan retired as a special needs teacher from the Braintree Public Schools following 36 years of service but continues as an educational tutor there.

Gail Armour Ronan retired as a publicschool-based speech-language pathologist after 40 years in the role.

Their days are now filled playing with their two young grandchildren, James and Rory, in Westwood. // Joe Sweet, Dennis Ronan, Gail Armour Ronan, Noreen Lovett, Patty Malone, Joe Hogan, Barbara Hogan, Susanne Barrett, Karen Chenette, Ginny Greeley, and Dorna Devaney attended a mini reunion in Westwood for a group of “commuter” friends to display their artistic skills! They revisited old times at the Heights with a glass of wine and a dab of paint. Old friends are the best. // Joyce Gomes McSweeney and husband Terence “Terry” ’75 enjoy retirement and life with four grandchildren. They’re attending this year’s reunion with daughter Cara McSweeney Hansen ’13 and son-in-law Daniel Hansen ’13. Joyce retired from the state of Connecticut.

She now spends time visiting family and traveling. She published a cookbook titled Palfrey Square and Beyond: Generational American & Portuguese Family Recipes (2022). // Patricia Finnegan-Zaccardo went on a fabulous trip to Ireland, planned by Rosemary Gavin Coughlan ’84 and her husband Mossie Coughlan! Many alums from all different years took part in this adventure. They went to so many great places starting with Shannon and 52

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covering Killarney, Adare, and Limerick. // Rev. Dr. Robert R. LaRochelle, MEd’76, has recently published a book entitled Is Anybody There? Does Anybody Care? (Energion Publications). He has served as a school counselor as well as a pastor in churches within the United Church of Christ and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This is his ninth published book. Class correspondent: Gerald B. Shea // gerbs54@hotmail.com

1977

Penninah Kanzi finds that gardening is healthy for the body, mind, and soul! // Elizabeth “Lolly” Santini Katz, Jeanne Windbiel, Cynthia Catalane Templeton, and Maureen O’Connor Hurley are still best of friends and realize just how precious their friendship and time together is. They had a super gettogether at Jeanne’s home in Lake Katonah. It was a fabulous weekend with a little Marvin Gaye and Creedence Clearwater blasting in the neighborhood.

Class correspondent: Nicholas Kydes // nicholaskydes@yahoo.com

COURTESY OF ROSEANNE GUCCIONE ’78

1978

45th Reunion, October 2023 Roseanne Guccione Fullam retired from teaching after 44 years. She taught in New York and New Jersey, and the last

34 years were spent in Norwalk, Connecticut. She also had the pleasure of reconnecting with Julie Vittoria Atkinson when she traveled east from California at Thanksgiving in 2022. Julie and Roseanne have been classmates since first grade, attending high school together and up through BC! // Timothy Stack still resides in the Los Angeles area acting, producing, and writing. He says: “I’m still at it. I can’t help it—I still love the work.” His daughter got married last year, and Covid brought his son back to the West Coast. // Atim Eneida George is the proud recipient of a Fulbright Specialist grant. Dr. George’s name has been placed on the Fulbright Specialist roster, and she has two years within which to complete this prestigious award. // Pat McCarthy has retired from Factory LLC, a private equity firm in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he was the head of sourcing and product development. At BC, Pat played a lot of music at O’Connell House, the Rat and Dust Bowl gigs. His fellow ’78 musicians were RJ, Elmo, Mark Elmendorf, Mike Cooney, and Mark Lowenthal. Pat plans on traveling with his wife, Cherie, visiting their kids, playing a lot of guitar, and hitting the gym. // David Anderson, PhD’78, retired as president emeritus of St. Olaf College after 17 years in that role. // Larry Ehren, M’Div’78,’s daughter, Lia, married Scott Inman in Kansas City, MO, on June 3, 2023. It was a wonderful day, full of promises. Lia is currently a dental assistant for an endodontic practice, and Scott is a pilot for American Airlines.

May their future flights be turbulencefree. // Al “Buns” Gallo retired this past January after 25 years as a clinical nurse at Mount Sinai in NYC. Nursing was his second career, and he misses his colleagues and helping patients.He retired due to spinal fusion surgery that prevented him from continuing as a nurse. // Leo Holland has spent his time traveling since retirement—six months volunteering and hiking at the Y of the Rockies. He also traveled to Italy for three months. Class correspondent: Julie Butler // julesbutler33@gmail.com

1979

Mike Ronayne, MBA’79, recently retired to The Villages, Florida, after 25 years as a special agent of the FBI, followed by 17

and the Suffrage Movement: The Journey to Holistic Freedom, published by Lexington Books. // Anne C. McSweeney, aged 66, passed away on July 17 in Des Moines surrounded by her loving family. She bravely battled endometrial carcinosarcoma. Anne said that what made her life worth living was family, joy, and justice. She graduated from BC with a degree in political science. At BC, she was part of the South African Liberation Support Group, advocating for divestment from apartheid. She spent most of her life and raised her family in Nicaragua. Class correspondent: Peter J. Bagley // peter@ peterbagley.com

1980 COURTESY OF PATRICIA HUDSON ’79

years as a self-employed private contract investigator. He would welcome correspondence from fellow BC alums in The Villages at mpronayne@msn.com. // Gary Kayakachoian attended the 2023 Boston College Finance Conference. As usual, it was very insightful. He is still a finance professor at URI. // John Stiglmeier recently served as the executive producer for a new TV comedy, PUMP, featuring The Office’s Brian Baumgartner. The ensemble cast includes SAG-AFTRA/AEA industry vets: Mia Matthews, Glenn Fleary, and Jack McAllister (Stiglmeier) and follows the day-to-day trials and tribulations at a local Brooklyn neighborhood gym. They are currently seeking a showrunner and a content distributor to take the project to the next level. // Patricia Hudson Johnson retired from Detroit public schools community district after 28 years of counseling at Communication and Media Arts High School and will truly miss her students, especially her seniors! // Joe Cunneff has made a profound impact in financial consulting over four decades. Joining the Noble Group in Sugar Land, Texas, Joe’s expertise has guided clients toward financial success.

Adapting to industry changes, Joe remains at the forefront, shaping strategies for turbulent times. Actively mentoring others, he has become a pillar

of the industry. // Bruce Chalupka has finally retired after 41 years of owning and operating Grafton Liquors Inc. He is also a first-time grandfather with a baby boy born to his son. Bruce’s daughter is also expecting. It’s a great year. // Peter Bagley was hired in January as the chair of the entrepreneurship department of Hult International School of Business in Cambridge, applying his experience at Bentley University and Babson College as an adjunct professor. He also kicked off a new program for individuals aged 55+, “Ageless Entrepreneurship,“ this fall. // Alicia Connors had an amazing year of travel, visiting her sister in Sosúa, Dominican Republic; three weeks in Italy to celebrate her fifth wedding anniversary with her childhood sweetheart, Bob Clemente; and heading out on a volunteer trip to Malawi with the Trees and Seeds organization. It’s been an awesome year! // Dr. LewisMosley, RN, MAPM, MSJ, received the Dominican Peace Award from the Sisters of Saint Dominic-Caldwell Dominicans and the National St. Katharine Drexel Justice Award (2023). She is a contributing preacher for CatholicWomenPreach.org. She was chosen as a Delaplane Scholar at the Aquinas Institute. She is a contributing author of Preaching Racial Justice (Orbis Books) and to Religion, Women of Color,

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

Michael Voccola and his wife Nancy are new grandparents once again—this time with Madeline, courtesy of daughter Ami and son-in-law Tim. Madeline joins her slightly older siblings, Luke and Lennon.

Michael and his wife couldn’t be more pleased at the marriage of son Michael and daughter-in-law Chivonne; they make a great couple. Fortunately, they are all local, so they can share a great deal of time together. Class correspondent: Michele Nadeem-Baker // michele.nadeem@gmail.com

1981

Linda Fitzgerald retired last year after 20 years as an administrative law judge for California. Prior to that, she spent six years as a Navy JAG, three years in private practice, and 10 years as VP/ general counsel. Her husband is retired from the Navy, so they spend their time traveling in their RV to see their three grandsons in Virginia, and they recently went to Tahiti. Life is good! // James Provenzano is now semi-retired from environmental work and management of hydrogen-fuel infrastructure projects. He continues to live in Southern California, riding, rehabbing, and caring for his and clients’ horses. // Pete del Vecchio, JD’81, is planning on leaving Big Law this December after parsing out his professional life in six-minute increments for the past 42 years. Rumor is that retirement will have to wait (perhaps permanently), since Pete is busy building a standalone battery projects business and developing much needed wind farm fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Class Notes

American University. But he is most proud of the fact that his daughter Jenna has started a master’s in social work at BC! Go Eagles! Class correspondent: Alison Mitchell McKee // classnotes@bc.edu

1982

COURTESY OF CHARLES MCCULLAGH ’82

and battery projects in the USVI and elsewhere in the Caribbean. // Tim Kilcoye ’81, MEd’86, is currently working in Catholic Radio with his show, Talk Catholic, on the internet at wqphradio.org every Saturday at 12:30 p.m. on 89.3 FM in N.Central Mass. He is also a life member with the PGA of America. In addition, Tim recently played his horn for retired Jesuits in Weston as part of an Easter/Celtic presentation. He is covering all bases as an Evangelist! // David Murphy is currently working as a senior VP and portfolio management director with Morgan Stanley’s Graystone Consulting Group in NYC. He has two children, Jennifer, a senior at Boston College, and Alex, who is an incoming first-year. He is excited to have two new Eagles in the family! He continues to tailgate at football games with classmates Tim Chapman, Paul Finn, Dave Crugnale, Mike Giunta, Michael Burke, and Geoff Grant. He also fundraises to support BC baseball. // Ken Troccoli retired in mid-2021 from his position as senior litigator in the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Eastern District of Virginia (Federal Court), where he worked for almost 20 years. He is now an adjunct professor at the Washington College of Law at 54

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Richard Lindquist was recently elected to the board of governors at The New York Athletic Club (NYAC). The NYAC has a large contingent of BC alumni as members, and he is currently one of three board members that graduated from BC. // Dianne Weigel Heislein is thoroughly enjoying her recent retirement after a very fulfilling 40-year nursing career at Mass General Hospital.

Her husband, Rick, also recently retired, so they are having fun traveling, hiking, skiing, and spending time with family. // Carmen Alvarez and her husband, Tony Fadhel, just welcomed their eighth grandchild in March. // Chuck McCullagh retired as chief financial officer of the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton after 24 years. He was acknowledged this spring by the National Business Officers Association (NBOA) with the Ken White Distinguished Business Officer Award, the association’s highest honor, for “outstanding contributions as a leader and role model over several years to independent schools.” He was also awarded Williston’s Distinguished Service Award for “exceptional devotion” to the school. Class correspondent: Mary O’Brien // maryobrien14@comcast.net

Lockwood of Bethlehem Township, New Jersey, passed away on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Christine was born October 10, 1961, in Brooklyn, New York. She worked in the computer industry for many years and married Greg Lockwood ’79 on May 17, 1997.

Together they raised their twin daughters, Nicole ’24 and Victoria. // Rev. Peter Sousa, CSsR, MA’83, completed his tenure as pastor of Our Lady of the Hills Parish in Columbia, South Carolina. During his service to the Diocese of Charleston, he was awarded the Pro Ecclesia et Pontífice award from the Holy See. He is currently parochial vicar at the Immaculate Conception Church in the South Bronx and codirector of initial formation for his Redemptorist community. Class correspondent: Cynthia J. Bocko // cindybocko@hotmail.com

PMC 1983

Diane Trester sends a shout-out to PMC 1981–1982, especially Sara Jane Greenblott-Gould and Janet DeLucia Cimmino. Get in touch with her on Facebook or LinkedIn.

1983

40th Reunion, October 2023 Regina LaBelle founded and teaches in a master’s program at Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Arts and Science. The unique master of science in addiction policy & practice provides students with an understanding of the science of addiction, combined with coursework in policymaking. Regina was acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in the first year of the Biden Administration and also served eight years in the Obama Administration at ONDCP. // Michael DiChiro has been a magistrate at the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal since 2019. // Christine Jannone

COURTESY OF GLORIA MONAGHAN ’84

1984

Madeleine Marken, MSW’84, continues to work as a medical social worker and is now the social worker at the two sites of Cape Cod Healthcare in their cardiac rehab programs. // Jay Sullivan released

1985

COURTESY OF VALERIE WROBEL, MS’84

his third book, The New Nimble: Leading in the Age of Change. He interviewed leaders in a wide array of industries regarding how they have dealt with recent societal changes. The book includes a chapter about BC classmate US Rep Tom Suozzi’s experience in the House Chamber on January 6. // John Park Yasuda ’84, JD’87, recently attended the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution located in Malibu, California, where he obtained his LLM degree in dispute resolution in 2021. He is now a full time mediator, having joined a panel of mediators with IVAMS. IVAMS has offices in Irvine, Ontario, and Pasadena, California. // Gloria Monaghan is a professor at Wentworth University. She has published six collections of poetry.

Her poems have appeared in Alexandria Quarterly, NPR, Poem-a-Day, Lily Poetry Review, Mom Egg Review, Quartet, and River Heron, among others. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, as well as the Massachusetts Book Award and the Griffin Prize. Her sixth book, Cormorant on the Strand (2023) was recently published with Lily Poetry Review. // Valerie Wrobel, MS’84, a dedicated nurse practitioner for 35+ years and member of Virginia Council of Nurse Practitioners, has excelled in her roles, including president and government relations chair. She tirelessly advocates for autonomous practice licensure, organizing legislative events and meetings with lawmakers. Her commitment to the NP profession has earned her the prestigious NP Advocate Award. Class correspondent: Carol A. McConnell // classnotes@bc.edu

Debra Caplan was named one of five “Dew Gooders” by Honey Dew Donuts and awarded $2,500 for the charity Keep Framingham Beautiful. Her BC friend Ben “Chip” Montenegro nominated Debra because of her dedication and passion to reduce litter and trash. Debra is very dedicated to this organization, which has grown to over 1,800 members. Her actions, talent, and enthusiasm are truly making a difference in Framingham.

Debra devotes up to 20 hours each week to volunteer work. // Doug Flutie had an opportunity to join Biz Bracher ’91, MA’95, PhD’03’s section of The Courage to Know seminar at BC via Zoom. Flutie shared with the class the valuable life lessons he learned at BC about mentoring, passion, team, trust, confidence, leadership, living a life of service to others, and how his experiences at BC set the stage for those lessons. // Mark Arduino enjoyed a three-day, post-Thanksgiving visit to the Heights in 2022 with his wife, Terri, and daughter, Elena. They attended the BC-Notre Dame men’s hockey game on Friday, BC-Syracuse football on Saturday, and BC-URI men’s hoops at Conte Forum on Sunday. Elena, a sports media prodigy, photographed all three games.

It was a terrific experience thanks to the efforts of BC Athletics/Flynn Fund teams!

Go Eagles! // Julie Kuhn Chacona was recently named chief development officer at United Way of Erie County. Her work is focused on crushing poverty through education. The Institute for Educational Leadership recognized Erie’s United Way because of their success with the Community School Model. // Richard DeBona recently retired from a lifetime of serving the USA Catholic Church as a high school religion teacher, college campus minister (Le Moyne), and a parish and diocesan worker for Parish Social Ministry—charity, justice, and peacemaking—including St. Louis’ Jesuits’ “college church!” He now runs a Holy Land Ministry focused on Palestine under apartheid inspired by Jesuit Fr. David Neuhaus. // John Gibbons ’85, MEd’92, retired after 38 years as an educator at the end of June 2023. John served as a middle school teacher and middle school principal for his career and most recently at Weston Middle School

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

for 31 years, including 22 years as the principal. In 2021, John received the Terrel H. Bell Award for Outstanding School Leadership from the US Department of Education. John still often connects with with alums Steve Simoes, Ed Lynch, Joe Castro, Matt Troy, and Paul Mignini. // Michele Sherban retired in June 2023 from New Haven Public Schools after 35 years of service as a teacher and educational leader. She resides in Connecticut and looks forward to having more time for travel. // Christine Smith ’85, JD’88, is assistant general counsel at the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game. She specializes in the area of land conservation, protecting the state’s wildlife species, plants, natural communities, and the habitats that support them. Class correspondent: Barbara Ward Wilson // bww415@gmail.com

1986

Colette Pervais van Breems is celebrating her seventh wedding anniversary this year along with raising stepkids (three teenagers) with her husband, Martin. She worked in HR for Unilever for 17 years before transitioning to the family sailing business in 2020 as senior HR business partner. Colette, her family, and their loving doodle “Sailor” reside in Redding, Connecticut. // Michael Hickey, MDiv’86, has received approval for his seventh book to be published. Hamilton Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield, will publish Rising Light: The Promise of Resurrection of the Body. Class correspondent: Leenie Kelley // leeniekelley@hotmail.com

PMC 1986

Claudette Pervais Lebowitz and her husband, Arthur, recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary with their family in Italy. They have 22-year-old twins, Mazie and Jacob, who graduated from college in May/June, Mazie from Dartmouth College and Jacob from Bentley University.

1987

Karen Walker Beecher, Liz Wall Lee, Laura Tobin Ketchum, Caroline Kates, fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Class Notes

COURTESY OF CHRIS HARDING ’87

and Eileen Keefe spent a week in March 2023 skiing the steeps in Fernie, British Columbia. They had an absolute blast— many, many laughs. // Virginia Buckingham took early retirement as a vice president at Pfizer, Inc. in 2021 and opened a consulting company focused on corporate governance and public affairs.

In 2022, she helped launch a nonprofit newspaper in Marblehead to fill the void left when a media giant bought and decimated its predecessor. She’s board president of the Marblehead Current and writes a weekly column, “Everything will be Okay.” She and husband David Lowy have two children, Jack (24) and Maddy (21). // Marie Doherty, MSW’87, is married with two adult children and living in Franklin. She retired after spending 22 years as the school adjustment counselor at Walpole High but recently filled in for the current adjustment counselor’s maternity leave.

Marie’s daughter got married this summer. She hopes all her School of Social Work classmates are doing well. // Frank Sarra and his wife, Michelle, celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary with a Rhine River cruise from Amsterdam to Switzerland in June and returned to the Cape this summer after a Covid hiatus. They enjoyed watching BC men’s basketball beat Florida State in Tallahassee a few months before their daughter’s university graduation in May. They also saw BC women’s LAX play Denver at Jacksonville University. // Jodi RomeAvrus, MEd’87, is switching careers one last time—from photojournalist to 56

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special ed teacher to handy-ma’am and now to tabletop-game store owner. She is living her childhood dream to move out west and have some fun while earning a living selling and playing games! The Queen’s Realm is in Ogden, Utah; it will be a great place to meet people in her new home while creating a community gathering space. She also just bought her first house, so there is a lot on her plate, but she loves a challenge. // Chris Harding recently rejoined the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as the chief of staff and undersecretary for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services. In this capacity, Chris will be supporting all 12 agencies that make up the secretariat as well as the executive office itself. Chris returns to state government after a four-year position as managing director with Slalom, Inc., a firm focused on strategy, technology, and business transformation.

1988

35th Reunion, October 2023 Christine Mcginniss Marque teaches French and English in Paris. Her clients include an international tech firm and a top professional sports agency. She and her husband, Yves, have three children: Samuel, Cecilia, and Sebastien, who recently graduated from McGill and celebrated his marriage to his high school sweetheart, Aïcha, in France last

COURTESY OF KAREN WALKER BEECHER ’87

August. They split their time between Paris, Normandy, and Mallorca, and Christine recently saw fellow Parisian Catherine Doody and spent time with former roomie Christy Kelly Adams. // Michelle Egan, APR, Fellow PRSA, serves as the 2023 Chair of the Board of the Public Relations Society of America, the nation’s largest association of communications professionals and students. // Dick Doyle proudly celebrated his daughter Kara’s BC graduation (cum laude) with the Class of ’23. She followed her brother Keegan who graduated in ’20 as a fourthgeneration Eagle, thus ending the seven-year run of having a child at the Heights. It was so great for Dick to reconnect with BC. He will miss Parents’ Weekend and other events they were able to share as a family. BC is a special place for the family, and it has been great watching the children enjoy their time there as much as Dick did 35 years ago! // Sheila Campbell Corkhill, Joan Cloherty Hillmer, Kathy O’Connor Morrisroe, and Julie and Peter Veale had an incredible time at Erin Puleo’s daughter Brigid’s wedding to David Collerd. It was an outstanding mini BC reunion for the black tie reception at the University Club, NYC. It’s always a great time with this crowd at an absolutely perfect event. Class correspondent: Robert K. Murray Jr. // murrman@aol.com

Class Notes // Weddings

Teresa Sullivan ’17 to Shawn Quinn ’17, 9/23/22 Lindsay Anne Ehrhardt to J.J. Johnston ’99, 3/11/23 // Eagles in attendance: James Antoine ’99, David DiAngelo ’01, Robert Burkhart ’01, Alfredo de Quesada ’98, Jessica Johnston Walsh ’05, Chris Iannacone ’98, Kristin Porcu Iannacone ’97, Michael Arquilla ’99, and Lisa Sechrest-Ehrhardt ’84 Sarah Doelger, JD’20, to Bryan Connor ’08, 6/10/23 // Eagles in attendance: Tom Kennedy ’10, Nick Blake ’08, Brad Griffiths ’08, Chris Miller ’09,

Dorothy ’08 and Rich Liu ’08 , Matthew Carroll ’08, Zeke Hughes ’07, Katherine Walsh ’08, Katie Fernandez Blake ’08, Brian Corio ’08, Julia Gabbert ’10, Mike Sokolowski ’09, Mike Smith ’08, Robbie Stein ’10, Tom Bourdon ’11, and Dave Jones ’08 Molly McCarthy ’12, MEd’13, to Kyle Lick, 6/18/22 Andrea Stanton Hemborg, MA’14, to Scott Hemborg, 10/8/22

Michelle Gordon ’15 to Michael Conor O’Rourke ’15, 6/24/23 Molly Javes ’15 to Tyler Schaeffer ’15, 6/9/23 Amanda Lynn ’17 to Michael Gaziano ’17, 6/16/23 Christian Rodriguez, MDiv’19, to John Winslow, MDiv’19, 7/23/22 Kennedy Gibson DePalma ’19 to Sam DePalma, 4/23

Marina White ’14 to Will Bourgeois ’14, 10/14/22

COURTESY OF WILLIAM BOURGEOIS ‘14

COURTESY OF KENNEDY GIBSON DEPALMA ‘19

COURTESY OF CHRISTIAN RODRIGUEZ, MDIV‘19

COURTESY OF AMANDA LYNN ‘17

COURTESY OF MOLLY MCCARTHY ‘12

COURTESY OF MICHELLE GORDON ’15

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

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Class Notes

1989

Paul Anzuoni and Marion recently started dating by going to karaoke, where they have several friends. They have also traveled to York, Maine, together. They took Paul’s mother, Theresa, to visit his sister, Marianne, and her husband, Michael. Marion’s song is “The Dance.” Her aunt, Emily, has sung for the couple at several places, and they listen to the song “Jesse’s Girl” as they remembered her son. Paul and Marion also took his mom to visit one of her sons, Christopher, and her two grandchildren, Anthony and Christopher. // Fr. Brian Smail, OFM, is at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Manhattan. He is also involved in the development office of the Franciscans, working with Saint Anthony’s Guild and Franciscan Bread for the Poor. Brian is also a certified spiritual director. // Pamela “PJ” Szufnarowski is campaigning for RFK Junior. She used to watch the garden parties the Kennedys would have in the spring from her balcony on Commonwealth Ave. She ended up buying an oceanfront condo in the Upper Keys during the pandemic because she was yearning to be free!

She’s back in Boston for the time being, but it’s nice to have options. All these years later, she still resides adjacent to BC’s Brighton Campus, in her two-family home on Trapelo Street. She is a very proud Boston Eagle! // Ted Thibodeau Jr. moved from greater Boston to Springfield in June 2020, midway through chemo treatment for colorectal cancer.

(PSA: Get your colonoscopy! At least every five years upon age 45!) He expects to be declared “cancer-free” in another couple of years. He is now a 90-minute drive from campus and will be less likely to drop in on other Reunion years—but let me know if you’ll be there. // Megan Carroll Himmer lives on Governors Island on Lake Winnipesaukee with her husband and Andover classmate, Alan. She continues training in Boston for national ballroom/Latin dance competitions. She is adding the NH bar to her MA, IL, and DC bars so that she can serve the arts community near home. She served on the Board of the BC Club for 30 years. // Todd Laggis attended the annual golf gathering of ’89 friends, which “upgraded” this summer, meeting instead at the Travelers golf 58

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tournament. Mike Deluca was asked to play and wrote a nice piece on it in the Connecticut Post. Other classmates in attendance included: Deluca, golfer; Steve Lefkowitz, caddy; Pat Barbera, caddy; Jack McKinnon, Rich Brunaccini, Tim Pisinski, John Sulick, Bill Hogan, and Pat Fay. Class correspondent: Andrea McGrath // andrea.e.mcgrath@gmail.com

1991

Elizabeth Melahn Stroika and her husband, Matt, celebrated 20 years of marriage in October. They are pleased to announce the engagement of their oldest son as well as the high school graduation of their second son. There are three more sons coming down the pike for great accomplishments too! Elizabeth continues to teach kindergarten—her passion—at Saint Augustine School in Andover. Life is busy and good! // Lisa and Morten Hallgren’s company, Ravines Wine Cellars, was listed as one of the Top 100 Wineries in the World by Wine and Spirits Magazine. // Jennifer Opalinski took a 180-degree turn from high school administration to restauranteur. She has owned the Dutch Treat Restaurant and Bar in Franconia, New Hampshire, since 2003. In 2022, Jennifer took an active role in day-to-day restaurant operations. In November, Robert Irvine’s Food Network Show Restaurant Impossible turned the Dutch Treat into a destination. Jennifer and her husband adopted many of Robert Irvine’s principles and are working hard to make a go of it together. // Shaun Spencer ’91, JD’95, has been promoted to professor of law at the University of Massachusetts School of Law, where he also serves as associate dean for academic affairs and director of legal skills. // Heather Smith Burke and her husband have been having a great time joining their youngest son Brendan, Class of 2026, at BC football and hockey games, as well as engaging with the campus in general. She still regularly meets up with Christine Horrigan Davidson, Jaimini Parikh Fugiel, Laura Kiley Keating, and Susan Somlyody Rakowski. Heather is director of advancement marketing and communications at Providence College.

Their other son studies engineering at Northeastern. Class correspondent: Peggy Morin Bruno // pegmb@comcast.net

1992

Cat Del Buono is heading back to Italy to receive a Fulbright 75th Anniversary Award for her recent Fulbright project that focuses on domestic violence. The Fulbright Commission flew her to Rome to accept the award at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, followed by a reception at the US Ambassador’s private residence. It was an exciting day. As the only artist to receive the award, she was honored. // Brian Pinheiro has been named as the managing partner, finance and operations of the law firm Ballard Spahr LLP. // Steve Courtiss is still living in Southern California with his wife, Beth, son John (16), and daughter Katherine (20). Katherine just finished her sophomore year at BC and was accepted to Trinity College in Dublin for next spring. Beth, John, and Steve had a great time at the Alumni event in Malibu in February watching the BC baseball team play Pepperdine. They also loved following the team for a really solid year and are looking forward to being back on campus for Family Weekend! // Jason Leong and his wife, Keahi, will be dropping off their daughter Hi’ilei for her freshman year at BC in the fall. // Donna Volpe Strouse was recently hired as the chief financial and operations officer at Montrose School, an independent girls’ school in Medfield. Donna and her husband Jim live in Sherborn with their two sons, Evan and Cameron. // James Sullivan celebrated three graduations this year, including the college graduation of son Luke from Webb Institute and the high school graduations of son Benen and daughter Kateri. Benen will be attending BC in the fall. James expects to be a regular visitor to BC over the next four years. // Elise Marie DiCarlo was recognized as an Idealist of the Year during City Year Kansas City’s Idealist Gala on April 19, 2023. The award is given “for personifying the spirit of service, for a commitment to those in need, for the unselfish gift of time to better our community, and for putting idealism into action to make a difference in Kansas City.” Elise is the executive director of Talk 2 Me—a program of hope that supports mental health, physical health, and suicide prevention. // Bishop Timothy Senior, MSW’92, MBA’92, was appointed by Pope Francis on April 25,

1994

COURTESY OF LISA RE REDDING ’94

2023, as the 12th Bishop of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His installation in the Cathedral of Saint Patrick in Harrisburg was on Wednesday, June 21, 2023, the feast of the Jesuit Saint Aloysius, Gonzaga. // Lisa Noller has been appointed chair of the litigation department of Foley & Lardner LLP, effective March 1, 2023. Lisa is chair of the government enforcement defense and investigations practice group and is a former member of the management committee. She lives in Chicago.

Class correspondent: Katie Boulos Gildea // kbgildea@yahoo.com.

1993

30th Reunion, October 2023 Steven Piluso was elected to the National Board of Directors of the Angelman Syndrome Foundation (ASF).

In addition to steering and upholding the ASF’s general mission, he will have oversight of all marketing and communications related to fundraising, promoting ASF’s services, and general awareness of Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic developmental disorder affecting fewer than 50,000 people in the US, including his five-year-old son, Tommy.

Find out more about the ASF at angelman.org. Class correspondent: Laura Beck // laurabeckcahoon@gmail.com

Cheryl Mastrogiovanni recently traveled to South Africa to play soccer in an international soccer tournament for women over 50! Her local women’s team has a partnership with an organization there that promotes health and wellness for older women, and she was grateful to have this opportunity to meet so many amazing South African women and families. // Lisa Re Redding, proud mom, celebrated her son James’s graduation from high school. James is an incoming Eagle and was surrounded by Eagles at his party—aunt and uncle Jennifer Plourde DeNisco ’92 and Ralph DeNisco ’92, and cousin Christopher Burke ’05 and his wife, Dominique Pradella Burke ’05. // Michele LaMura Meek recently published the book Consent Culture and Teen Films: Adolescent Sexuality in US Movies through Indiana University Press.

Class correspondent: Nancy E. Drane // nancydrane@aol.com

1995

James Chretien recently started as director of finance for Marin Health Medical Network in Northern California. // Toni Buranen, MA’95, is currently working as a theology teacher at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, the second oldest Catholic girls’ school in the country, in Washington, DC. She primarily teaches sacraments and Catholic social teaching. In 2022, she received a second masters in library and information studies from Old Dominion University in Virginia and focused a lot of her library education on DEI work. She has three teenage children, the eldest heading off to college in the fall! // Michael Kelly, CAES’95, met for lunch in Plymouth with John “Spider” Reardon ’62, Ed McCarthy ’65, 50-year veteran of the Eagles basketball scorers table, Paul Gorman ’68, and wives. Larry Donoghue ’62 joined them virtually.

They have all been getting together regularly for 65 years. // David R. Sanabria, MEd’95, was named head of school of The Palmas Academy in Palmas Del Mar, Puerto Rico. // Ofer Markman, PhD’95, just ended a decade as the GM of GMCE Life Science Innovation Hub in Haifa, Israel. He joined FILO systems Ltd. as VP, business development. // Deirdre

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

Sanders, JD’95, a principal at Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds, has been elected to serve on the advisory board for the newly established chapter of the National Academy of Inventors at Northeastern University. Northeastern’s chapter of the National Academy of Inventors serves to empower inventorship and entrepreneurship across the innovation ecosystem by recognizing, inspiring, educating, and connecting members of the academic and industrial communities. Class correspondent: Kevin McKeon // kmckeon@gmail.com

1996

Dawn O’Brien is proud to announce that her son, AJ Wladyka, entered CSOM this fall as an entrepreneurship major and a member of the Class of 2027! AJ joins his sister, Faith ’26, who majors in theater and minors in dance. // Juan Alexander Concepción ’96, MEd’97, MBA’03, JD’03, was recently promoted to senior legal director at Boston Scientific, where he leads and supports the global med tech giant’s urology, endoscopy, and neuromodulation businesses in the US, including Puerto Rico, and Canada. For his commitment to community service, Juan received BC’s Rev. John Dinneen, S.J., Hispanic/Latino Alumni Community Service Award on March 25, 2023. In March, Juan was also recognized as one of Boston’s Most Influential Men of Color. // Tracey Gilroy Giglia recently joined the Slalom Consulting team in

COURTESY OF ERIN DUNSTON ’96

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Class Notes

COURTESY OF TONYA DE MELO ’97

their Boston office as a client partner.

Her husband, Chris Giglia, just celebrated his 20-year anniversary at Fidelity Investments, where he is a VP of finance. Their son John just finished his first year at BC in CSOM, their son Tommy is headed to Tufts University to study engineering, and their daughter Katie will be a high school sophomore. // Erin M. Dunston, a partner at intellectual property law firm Panitch Schwarze Belisario & Nadel LLP, is included in the 2023 IAM Patent 1000, a guide to the firms and attorneys deemed outstanding in the field of patent law.

The IAM Patent 1000 is commonly regarded as the definitive “go-to” resource for those seeking to identify world-class, private practice patent expertise and leading expert witnesses in the US. The 2023 rankings are the result of exhaustive qualitative research. // M. Scott Knox has been hired to serve as director of the Equality Fund, the Boston Foundation’s endowed fund supporting Greater Boston nonprofit organizations that serve and strengthen the LGBTQ+ community. Prior to joining the Equality Fund, Scott served as executive director of Root, a youth workforce development social enterprise, in a number of senior roles for the Brooke Charter Schools, and in leadership roles at the Steppingstone Foundation and Jumpstart.

1997

Romina Vasandani Dadlani’s son, Darshan, committed to the BC Class of 2027. He is majoring in finance. // Tonya L. De Melo has been selected as top

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female talent at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. She is included in the Women’s Executive Program and continues to mentor folks within the organization. // Karen Tarzia Uttaro graduated with a doctorate of nursing practice in executive nursing leadership from Baylor University in December 2022. Karen is the senior director of professional practice, quality, and regulatory for UMass Memorial Medical Center. // Ian Green is entering his fifth year as president and founder of Greenlight Retirement Plan Consultants. With 25 years of institutional investment analysis experience, Ian now provides executives and boards of companies and nonprofits with independent investment monitoring and advice services for 401k and 403b plans. Class correspondent: Margo Gillespie // margogillespie@gmail.com

1998

Peter I. Dunn, JD’98, Casner & Edwards attorney, has been named a 2023 Thomson Reuters Stand-Out Lawyer.

Honorees are chosen by senior in-house counsel as part of Thomson Reuters’ Sharplegal study, which surveys the legal market on an ongoing basis. Stand-out

research administration at Columbia University in New York City. // Peter Wolf, MSW’98, is approaching retirement! // Jennifer Driscoll Maclachlan is the 2023 recipient of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) Teen Workplace Health and Safety Committee Award for empowering young workers to promote a culture of health and safety through education and practice of health and safety fundamentals. AIHA is the association for scientists and professionals committed to preserving and ensuring occupational and environmental health and safety (OEHS) in the workplace and community. // Beverly Mather-Marcus is joining the US Department of State’s sustainability team this summer! She has been a foreign service officer since 2008 and is returning from six years abroad as a section chief and acting deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy Belmopan, then as a senior advisor to the US delegation to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Bev will be working in DC and living in Maryland. // Juv Marchisio, MBA’98,’s son, Christian, attended the BC Summer Experience for High School Students this July. He took part in a two-week course on Government, Globalism, and World Affairs. Class correspondent: Mistie Lucht // hohudson@yahoo.com

1999

COURTESY OF PETER WOLF, MSW’98

lawyers are recognized for improving client satisfaction, increasing client advocacy, and strengthening brand. // Samanta Padalino, MA’97, after an eventful career in public policy started in Boston and advanced in England, has moved with family back to the US, where she has embraced a new career in

Sandra Rodriguez, JD’99, has been appointed by the New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, to be the chief administrative law judge at the New York City Tax Appeals Tribunal. // Mary Jane McDermott Rosenfield, MSW’99, retired from mental health work and various board memberships and is now focusing on her original love of drawing and painting. She has had works exhibited at Centre Street Arts Gallery, Boothbay Region Art Foundation, and River Arts Damariscotta, all in Maine.

Class correspondent: Matt Colleran // colleran.matt@gmail.com

2000

Liz Perry Wiliamson, MEd’00,’s son Holden is part of the BC Class of 2027! He is so excited to be an Eagle and to study

human-centered engineering. // Lindsey Doering Mahanna has started her own business, Clutter to Clarity Home Organizing LLC, servicing Northern New Jersey. // Shannon Cook Ewer opened Vine Bar, a wine bar & restaurant, in Scituate. The menu features a large by-the-glass, wine flight, and bottle selection focusing on small production, minimal intervention wines, as well as a variety of craft beer and spirits, accompanied by delicious shareable plates. Vine Bar is her second wine venture, joining wine shop Barrel & Vine in Cohasset. // Meredith Geller, JD’00, has joined the faculty of Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law as the director of the Writing Lab. Prior to joining the Northwestern faculty, she worked for 20 years as the director of legal writing at Northern Illinois University College of Law. // Dr. Rodney Coe opened the doors to a new solo medical practice in the specialty of vitreoretinal surgery and disease at the end of summer 2022.

The office is located in Bayside, NY. Dr. Coe had previously been providing care in the Long Island community for the past decade. Class correspondent: Kate Pescatore // katepescatore@hotmail.com

2002

Hans Gustafson published an academic book, Everyday Wisdom: Interreligious Studies in a Pluralistic World. // Peg McGowan, MSW’02, has been retired from the Department of Developmental Services for four years, after 43 years of service as a social worker. The last three

years, she has been working as a crossing guard for her home city of Fall River. She works at the high school, elementary school, and preschool and loves it. // Rick Klein recently moved from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, with his husband, Andrew, to further his career. A school psychologist for the past 11 years, Rick is joining a private practice with good friends. // Tim Dube and Ken Skrien both ran the Mad Marathon in Waitsfield, Vermont, in July, and congratulated numerous other Eagle participants and parents. Ken will run a marathon in his 50th state (Maryland) in October’s Baltimore Running Festival.

Class correspondent: Suzanne Harte // suzanneharte@yahoo.com

2003

20th Reunion, October 2023 Velma Evans, MSW’03, LCSW, is planning to retire in March 2024. She has maintained her own private practice since 2016. She is thankful for her education from BC, as it has been helpful in her life career of providing therapy services to a wide range of individuals in Maine. She is very happy to no longer work but feels she will always be a social worker in her heart. // Patrick Murphy and his family are currently calling Ridgefield, Connecticut, home after a move during the pandemic from Milton.

He hopes you all are well. // Kate Gilmore is coming up on two years as the curator of primates at the Oregon Zoo. She is working to connect the local community to the wonders of wildlife both at home and abroad and expand conservation efforts to assist chimpanzees and orangutans in their native habitats. // Jeff Ritchie released his new fantasy/sword and sandal novel, The Murder of Heracles: An Amazon Odyssey, under the pen name J. Edward Ritchie.

2004

COURTESY OF HANS GUSTAFSON ’02

Sara Birnbaum Hood recently played the cello on the national tour of Hamilton.

She performed in several cities including Dallas, Cincinnati, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. // María José Morales has been working as a mental health counselor for the past 12 years in New Bedford. // Navy Lieutenant Commander Steve Buckley

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

COURTESY OF JEFF RITCHIE ’03

and Army Lieutenant Colonel Allie Weiskopf graduated from the Naval War College with master’s of arts in national security and strategic studies. Steve is now assigned as a Navy attorney at the Pentagon, and Allie is the public affairs officer for the US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida. // Amy Chapman ’04, MA’05, CAES’11’s first book, Social Media for Civic Education: Engaging Youth for Democracy, was published in October 2022 by Palgrave Macmillan. Amy leads a center for research and teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University, which supports educators in supporting the spiritual development of young people. // Emily Weissbach passed away after a short battle with cancer. She was roommates with Katherine Fiorile Burgess in Walsh, off campus, and in the Mods. Emily started off in CSOM but decided to pursue her passion for film and after college had a career in the culinary industry. She was living in San Diego and leaves behind a young son.

Class correspondent: Allie Weiskopf // allieweiskopf@gmail.com

2005

Colleen Frens was recently appointed as the county solicitor of Chester County, Pennsylvania, by the Chester County Board of Commissioners. As the county solicitor, she leads the team of county lawyers as they provide legal advice to and litigate on behalf of the board and all county departments. // Katie Williams Conrad was an RA while at BC. She adopted her twins in 2017 after they fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Class Notes

Meet the newest BC Alumni Board president, vice presidents, and members!

PRESIDENT

VICE PRESIDENTS

As volunteer leaders of the Boston College Alumni Association (BCAA), the Alumni Board of Directors strengthens relationships among more than 207,000 Eagles worldwide by promoting alumni interests, generating meaningful engagement opportunities, and serving as our on-the-ground ambassadors. We are thrilled to announce the new board president, this year’s vice presidents, and five new members. To learn more and see a full list of members visit bc.edu/alumniboard.

Gloria “Glori” Alvarez ’88, P’16 Guaynabo, Puerto Rico

James J. “JJ” Conners, Jr. ’92, MA’94, P’24 Jacksonville, Florida

Arivee Vargas Rozier-Byrd ’05, JD’08, H’22 Newton, Massachusetts

Michael P. “Mike” Dunford ’82 Dennis, Massachusetts

Alexis D. Teixeira ’17 New York, New York

Christopher A. “Chris” Vassilopoulos ’92, MS’98 Andover, Massachusetts

MEMBERS

Wynndell G. Bishop ’00, MBA ’07 Cheverly, Maryland

Dr. Francisco J. “Paco” Arraiza, Jr. ’93 Guaynabo, Puerto Rico

Esther Chang, Esq. ’02, JD’07 Chicago, Illinois

lost their mom to cancer. Katie has been on dialysis since 2020 and is seeking an altruistic individual to get tested to become a kidney donor. If you’d consider learning more about living kidney donation or to initiate the process of being tested, please visit brighamandwomens.org/surgery/ transplantation/kidney-transplant/ living-donor. // Katherine Carvalho, MS’05, recently had a research paper accepted for publication by The Journal of Interprofessional Education and Practice, titled “Exploring a social pragmatic approach to overcoming barriers to interprofessional communication and across functional boundaries: A 62

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qualitative case study.” // Peter Fritz, MA’05, was recently promoted to the rank of full professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, where he teaches and does research in Catholic theology and the history of Christianity.

Class correspondents: Joe Bowden // joe.bowden@gmail.com; Justin Barrasso // jbarrasso@gmail.com

2006 COURTESY OF ANTHONY NUNZIATA ’06

Anthony Nunziata recently sold out his debut engagement at the legendary Café Carlyle in New York City with many fellow Eagles in the audience. He is currently in production to film his first

community health center. They see primarily un- and underinsured patients.

Kristin has also been lecturing and consulting on a national level for health centers interested in offering eye care services. Class correspondent: Maura Tierney Murphy // mauraktierney@gmail.com

2009 COURTESY OF MICHELLE GOODALL FAULKNER, MBA’06

national television concert special. // Michelle Goodall Faulkner, MBA’06, is celebrating 15 years as founder and CEO of Big Swing PR, which specializes in launching tech startups. Faulkner’s company has helped launch dozens of well-known startups including Instacart and Standard AI and works closely with high-profile accelerators and investors. // Ty Frankel ’06, JD’09, founded the employment law firm of Frankel Syverson PLLC with his law partner, Patti Syverson. The Arizona-based law firm focuses on the fair treatment of workers, primarily representing employees in class actions to recover unpaid overtime and minimum wage. The attorneys at Frankel Syverson PLLC also provide employment law advice to employees and employers, taking an employee-centric approach that proactively addresses potential liability by ensuring workers are treated fairly. Class correspondent: Cristina Conciatori // cristina.conciatori@gmail.com

Bryce Rudow, after three years in Madagascar working with Catholic Relief Services, has accepted a position with Environmental Defense Fund’s EDF+Biz division, which brings together scientists, economists, and analysts to transform sustainable business practices into competitive advantages. // Eileen Byrne McKinnon entered public service as an attorney for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in 2011, where she had the pleasure of working with her friend and BC classmate, Michael McCarthy. Go BC 2009! Currently, Eileen oversees 60 attorneys at airports across the country. Both Eileen and Mike are dedicated to serving others, which is something that they learned at BC. // Tim Rice just celebrated his 10-year anniversary as the director, Office of University Events at the UMass Chan School of Medicine in Worcester. Class correspondent: Timothy Bates // tbates86@gmail.com

2010

Grant Salzano appeared on the March 30 and March 31 episodes of Wheel of Fortune for its WWE Week tournament, winning both episodes and the tournament championship. Grant was partnered with WWE superstar Natalya, winning the first Wheel of Fortune tournament week format since 1998.

Kofi Sarkodie-Mensah ’03, better known as Kofi Kingston in the WWE, also appeared on the March 30 episode. // Ben Kimmerle and his wife, Isabella Biedenharn ’11, packed up and moved to Cincinnati last year after almost nine years in Brooklyn. They have settled nicely into the slower Midwestern life and the first months of being new parents. Ben works as a product designer and creative coach, Isabella as a marketing copywriter, both remote, and though they occasionally miss office gossip, the coffee and commute are so much better now.

2011

Becky McDougal completed a master’s in organizational psychology, with a concentration in talent management, at William James College in Newton. She completed this one-year accelerated program while working full-time and adjusting to life as a new parent. In her role at the Center for Women and

2008

15th Reunion, October 2023 Ryan Welch Gould graduated in May 2023 from Tufts University School of Dental Medicine with a DMD. He is currently in a one-year Residency Program at Rhode Island Hospital. Ryan resides in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, with his wife, Becca, and their son, Liam. // Kristin White and her husband, Kevin, both optometrists, recently moved to South Carolina where they established an optometry department for a nonprofit

COURTESY OF GRANT SALZANO ’10

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

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Class Notes

COURTESY OF BECKY MCDOUGAL ’11

Business at Bentley University, this degree supports her work consulting with organizations to develop programs and practices to advance intersectional gender equity and inclusion in the workplace.

2012

Jeff Cohen, MBA’12, is excited to share that his youngest son Andrew has started at BC, Class of 2027. With his eldest already at university, Jeff and his wife are preparing to be empty nesters. Class correspondent: Riley Sullivan // sullivan.riley.o@gmail.com

2013

Emily Bierman Norweg received her PhD in history from Georgetown University. She defended her dissertation, “Massachusetts Incarceration and Higher Education: The Deep Origins and Contested History of College Behind Bars in the Bay State,” in March 2023 and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. // Tom Fee is now director of business development for Kinimatic Logistic Solutions, an agile, technology-driven warehousing and fulfillment service based in Boston. Class correspondent: Bryanna Mahony Robertson // bryanna.mahony@gmail.com

2014

Alexa Canales is a composer, pianist, and educator. Alexa received a master’s degree in 2016 and has now completed a doctoral degree in music composition 64

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(2023). Congratulations, Dr. Canales! // Matt Arnold ’09, MS’14, has been a development officer for over 15 years now, starting in the basement of the former More Hall, which was once a law school building. In 2017, he married a woman from Dedham, and they are busy raising three boys: five, three, and nine months. Matt is halfway through another degree in the Woods School and is grateful for his education and friendly colleagues. Tooting his own horn, you may hear him play in the symphonic band sometimes. // Anna Lizzul was named one of Wall Street’s Rising Stars of Equity Research by Business Insider in May 2023. Lizzul was recognized as a “standout analyst” for her research on household, personal care, and beauty stocks, from Clorox to Elf Beauty.

2015

Nanci Fiore-Chettiar ’15, MSW’16, has passed away. She was the 2014–2015 UGBC class president, a double Eagle, and was married to a triple Eagle, Sean Haggerty ’14, JD’17, MA’17. // John Carter, ThM’15, PhD’22, received a PhD in theology after successfully defending his dissertation entitled “The Communitarian Conscience: A Theological Response to Legal Debates about Religious Freedom.” In July 2023, he began a two-year dual appointment at Wake Forest University as visiting assistant professor of law at the School of Law and in the Program for Leadership and Character and visiting assistant professor of religion, law, and public life at the School of Divinity. // Devon Kemp McCormick, MA’15, graduated from Fordham University with a doctorate in ministry. Tom Beaudoin, PhD’01, a fellow STM grad, was her dissertation director! // Christian Coletta recently graduated from New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine. In July he started a residency in psychiatry at a hospital near his home on Long Island. Having graduated from BC with a psychology major (and an FPJ minor!), he is extremely grateful to be entering this profession, with the opportunity to care for those struggling with mental illness. // Amir Reza, PhD’15, was elected president of the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA). He is currently

COURTESY OF AMIR REZA, PHD’15

dean of Babson Academy and Global Education at Babson College. // Toni Watson-Braxton, MSW’15, was recently given the 2023 Award for Clinical Excellence through the Department of Mental Health for her contributions to the forensic social work field. This award is presented to an experienced clinician whose daily work reflects a high level of professionalism and clinical excellence and who routinely seeks creative solutions to difficult problems in forensic contexts. Toni currently works as a social worker with the Massachusetts Trial Courts and owns a private practice.

Class correspondent: Victoria Mariconti // victoria.mariconti@gmail.com

2016

Haley Wallace graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in May 2023. // Robert Miller, MTS’16, was

COURTESY OF FABIOLA DE ARMAS ’16

May 2023. They were additionally inducted into the Omicron Kappa Upsilon dental honors society. David is beginning his oral surgery residency in Illinois, and Grant is beginning his general dentistry residency in Nebraska.

Class correspondent: Joshua Beauregard // joshf94@charter.net

2018

COURTESY OF GRANT NEIL ’17

ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City by Archbishop Paul S. Coakley on August 6, 2022, the Feast of the Transfiguration. Fr. Miller was appointed parochial vicar of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Norman, Oklahoma, where he briefly served until March of 2023. Fr. Miller was then appointed parochial vicar of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church and St. Joseph’s School in Enid, Oklahoma, where he currently teaches Latin and theology to fifth- and sixth-grade students. // Megan Greeley started at the University of Georgia School of Law this fall. // Fabiola De Armas opened her own law firm, Fabiola De Armas P.A., and she focuses her practice on estate planning and tax law.

For now, she represents clients in Florida, Illinois, and Washington, DC. She’s a proud BC alum and has even hosted two current BC students as interns for the semester! // Courtney Bensinger, MBA’16, is the cofounder and CEO of her recently launched consultingmeets-creative firm, Cooth. They provide monthly advisory support and creative project execution to founders who are disrupting industries. // Todd Cormier was awarded with Liberty Mutual’s GRM President’s Award. This prestigious annual award honors individuals and teams who create extraordinary value within their department and across Liberty Mutual. Todd’s contributions toward modernizing the company’s telephony systems through the use of automated AI-backed chatbots helped

drive operating expense reductions in excess of $12 million. Todd is among the thought leaders in the field of virtual assistant technology. // Connor Gray, MD, has started his residency at NYU Langone Hospital Long Island after graduating from NYU Long Island School of Medicine earlier this year.

2017

Emily Whapham has created a new number logic puzzle called “Frequency,” which relies on sums and pattern recognition to solve. She has published a book of them at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. // Fnu Amanullah, MEd’17, recently joined the National Assessment Wing of the Pakistan Institute of Education as assessment expert. He is working as the focal person for Literacy and Numeracy Assessment. He is happy that at last he has found the right job. // Jonathan Shaffer and Brendan Lynch are heartbroken to announce that they are finally splitting up as direct roommates! Jonathan and Brendan have shared many dorm rooms and apartments since their quad on the fourth floor of Fitzpatrick freshman year.

After meeting at freshman orientation, they were an instant match for lifelong best friends and have since spent the last 10 years as roommates. Cheers to BC, for all of the wonderful friendships made on the Heights. // Grant Neil and David Cartier ’16 graduated summa cum laude from Boston University Dental School in

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

Amelia Ali, MEd’18, experienced the pandemic from home after graduating, with her son in kindergarten virtually.

She was unable to get work in a school and had to drive for Lyft and work for Amazon as a graduate with a master’s degree. She is now teaching music at Boston Public Schools and couldn’t be happier. // Sarah Kilduf, MSW’18, has continued to grow in her career since graduation. Recently, she became the clinical director at Equilibria Mental Health and has started teaching in the BSW program at Simmons University. As she continues to expand her career, she finds more and more BC grads in high positions! // Danielle Osterman, MSW’18, has recently announced her candidacy for Ward 2 City Council in Revere. Her priorities include increasing affordable housing, investing in public transportation, improving access to workforce development opportunities for youth and adults, and universal childcare. Danielle has spent her career advocating for economic justice for working class families and is ready to fight for the residents of Ward 2. // Matthew Apeseche, MSW’18, opened the doors for Heartwood Expeditions, a

COURTESY OF AMELIA ALI, MED’18

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Class Notes // Baby Eagles

Rita McGurk Riccardi ’84 and Vincent Riccardi ’80, Sofia Alexis and Milo Rain, 4/24/23 Elizabeth Lewis-Hairston and James M. Hairston ’04, Isaiah, 4/12/23 Allison Puca ’04, Brooke Lorraine, 10/23/22 Alyson Boulanger Smith ’06 and Andrew Smith ’06, Quinn Elizabeth, 3/9/22 Stacy ’07, MEd’08, and Ryan Elman ’07, Harper Rose, 6/17/23 Emily Weiss Salsky ’07 and Andy Salsky ’09, Joanna Claire, 5/24/23 Heather ’09 and Dominic Kim ’08, Casey, 9/12/22 Sadie Holdridge ’08 and Emmett Maguire, Jack, 2/25/23 Kristin White ’08 and Kevin Cornwell, Nathan John, 3/30/23

Caitriona Taylor, MBA’08, Anya, Sorcha, and Lorcan, 6/13/23

Kyndal Michel Marks ’11 and Sam Marks, Helen Elizabeth, 11/4/22

Lynda Tooker and Armando Ortiz ’09, Xavier, 4/15/23

Pilar and Mike Kaczka ’11, Nolan Donovan, 3/23/23

Krystle DaSilva Boyce ’09 and Brendan Boyce ’07, Lina Theresa, 2/19/23

Jessica Calandra ’11 and Colin Dolan, Anthony James, 5/5/23

Caroline Hayes Lopez ’09 and Daniel Lopez ’08, Sean Alexander, 5/25/23

Laura Amrein ’11 and Sjur Hoftun ’11, Hazel James, 11/23/22

Sonia Kohli ’10 and Adam Farley, Arianna Olivia, 11/29/21

Emily Wlazlowski ’11, MA’12, and Jon Wlazlowski ’12, Finnegan and Adelaide, 2/17/23

Miriam Bischoff Brisbin ’10 and Ted Brisbin ’10, Theodore Callan, 12/24/22 Bridget Ronan ’10 and Teddy Hickes, Maeve, 3/30/22 Isabella Biedenharn ’11 and Ben Kimmerle ’10, Phoebe, 7/18/22 Caroline and George Somi ’10, Mary-Caroline, 3/14/23

Mary Pfeffer Feak ’12 and Daniel Feak ’12, Caleb Matthew, 5/21/23 Brittney Wetzel Stewart ’14 and Charles Stewart ’13, Renate Andrea, 4/21/23 Emily Barry ’16 and Brady Conley, ’16, MA’17, Charlotte, 4/21/23 Kristina and Patrick Murphy ’03, Maia, 4/23

COURTESY OF STACY ELMAN ‘07, MED‘08

COURTESY OF JESSICA CALANDRA ‘11

COURTESY OF MIRIAM BISCHOFF BRISBIN ‘10

COURTESY OF LAURA AMREIN ‘11

COURTESY OF SADIE HOLDRIDGE ‘08

COURTESY OF DOMINIC KIM ‘08

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Class Notes

nature therapy and adventure therapy program in Western Massachusetts.

Heartwood is a collaborative of providers in Massachusetts interested in coleading nature-based therapeutic experiences for teens, adults, and families. They are currently offering day and overnight trips for teens and mindfulness retreats for adults in the Pioneer Valley. Please feel free to contact him if you are interested in collaborating. // Yvonne Castaneda, MSW’18, LICSW, CLC, director of Community-Based Initiatives at the BC School of Social Work, has joined the Board of Doc Wayne Youth Services, a Boston nonprofit specializing in sport-based youth mental health. Yvonne has worked with Latinx/Hispanic populations in the greater Boston area as an integrated behavioral health clinician. In private practice, she works with first-generation Latinx individuals, couples, and mixedstatus families.

2019

Peter Klapes, as president of the George Demeter Unit of the National Association

of Parliamentarians, was invited to the MA State House to receive the Governor’s Proclamations commemorating Rep. George Demeter Day and Parliamentary Law Month in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

2020

Clayton Scott recently received a master’s in education in curriculum and teaching from Boston University’s Wheelock College of Education and Development in 2022. Clayton is now a Juris Doctor candidate at BC Law School and will graduate in 2025.

2021

Brittney Klein, MA’21, was awarded a Fulbright ETA award to Budapest, Hungary, for the 2023–2024 academic year. Brittney will work with EducationUSA to advise Hungarian students and scholars wishing to come to the US, while also teaching English and American culture to teachers-in-training at Eötvös Loránd University’s Bárczi Gusztáv Faculty of Special Needs

FOND FAREWELLS on pages 68–69 The “Fond Farewells” section is compiled from national obituary listings as well as from notifications submitted by friends and family of alumni. It consists of names of those whose deaths have been reported to us since the previous issue of Boston College Magazine. Please send information on deceased alumni to Advancement Information Systems, Cadigan Alumni Center, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 or to infoserv@bc.edu.

COMMUNITY DEATHS Jane Harrington, of Burlington, MA, on April 21, 2023. She was a Fiscal Assistant, Legal Assistance Bureau from 1988 to 2010.

Richard Arnott, of Worcester, MA, on April 21, 2023. He was a Professor of Economics, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences from 1988 to 2007.

John Kennedy, of Hyde Park, MA, on April 26, 2023. He was a Custodian, Facilities Services from 1980 to 2017.

Edward Londergan, of Hull, MA, on May 11, 2023. He was a Custodian/Maintenance Worker, Jesuit Community from 2003 to 2023.

Elliott Smith, of Chestnut Hill, MA, on July 12, 2023. He was a Senior Lecturer, Finance, Carroll School of Management from 1996 to 2023.

James Cunningham, of Foxborough, MA, on August 1, 2023. He was a Custodian, Facilities Services from 1991 to 2023.

Robert Faulkner, of Auburndale, MA, on August 3, 2023. He was a Professor of Political Science, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences from 1968 to 2014.

Education. // Max Mendelshon has been promoted to associate at Goldman Sachs. // Peter Mvondo, ThM’21, is doing well and is very happy with his experience in Central Africa. There is an impressive cultural mix at the Catholic Institute of Arts and Crafts, where he teaches humanities and holds the post of head of department. // Kyle Ronkin graduated from New York University in May 2023 with an MS degree in public relations and corporate communication. // Javier Del Angel, MDiv’21, a Franciscan friar of the Holy Name province, was ordained to priesthood by Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, at St. Camillus Parish in Silver Spring, Maryland, on May 29, 2021. Javier was assigned to Rome in order to pursue studies of licentia and doctorate in biblical theology at the Gregorian University. He obtained the STB at the Pontifical University Antonianum in June 2022. In October 2022, he started the STL program at the Greg. // Galie Benshoshan, JD’21, joined Fox Rothschild LLP in New York as an associate in the real estate department.

Galie represents clients in a range of real estate matters across the commercial, industrial, and multifamily residential sectors. She counsels owners, developers, and operators on compliance with administrative regulations and land use and development issues. Galie has experience managing corporate and securities transactions, including sophisticated real estate structures and joint ventures.

2022

Alexander Schroeder, MA’22, spent his first postgraduate year as a finance staffer for a house member of the Alaska Legislature. Additionally, he applied his master’s research toward drafting and pushing legislation on competency to stand trial reform. This area of law is focused on the intersection of the criminal justice system and mental illness, a fitting follow-up to his thesis on Kant’s reconciliation of consent and punishment.

Jeffery Byers, of Newton, MA, on August 18, 2023. He was a Professor, Chemistry Department from 2011 to 2023.

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

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Class Notes // Fond Farewells

1940s

Carroll Jenkinson Bolger PMC’41 Willie Capen Ramsey PMC ‘41 Mary Skold PMC’43 Josephine Abercrombie PMC’44 Sally Havens PMC’45 Lynie Riggs Bernardin PMC’47 Julia Stockton Madison PMC’47 Christie Lasater Savage PMC‘48

Hubert Meehan ‘53

Robert Moll ‘58

Francis Bifano ‘62

Beatrice Williamson O’Hara ‘53

William “Red” O’Brien ‘58

Maria Cosco ‘62

John O’Neil MA’53

Janet Corcoran O’Neil ‘58

Peter Derry ‘62

Jane MacKenzie ‘53

Carmine Piscopo ‘58

Frank Duffy ‘62

John Sullivan ‘53

Barbara McDonald Quigley ‘58

Robert Freccero ‘62

Edward Wall ‘53

Paul Andrews ‘59

Bernie Logan ‘62

Margaret McIntyre Weinstock ‘53

Ann Gordon Berg PMC‘59

Frank Reynolds ‘62

James Welch ‘53

Theresa Bibeault ‘59

Connie Morgan Ruisi PMC’62

James Carroll ‘59

David Watson ‘62

Beverly Driscoll Conway ‘59

Margaret Bailey PMC’63

Robert Dunn ‘59

Judith Dempsey Bartlett ‘63

Thomas Larkin ‘59

Peter Blum JD’63 Anne Brennan Carolan, MEd’63

Eloise Welch Wilding NC’53 John Ford ‘54, MSW’61

1950s

Marie Foisy Kurys ‘54

Henry Breen ‘50

John Merna ‘54

Helen Byrne McConnell NC‘59

Robert Casey ‘50

Constantine Mourginis ‘54

Sheila Gallagher Murphy, MA’59

Dave Collins ‘63

Ralph Hiltz ‘50

George Rice ‘54, MBA’61

Frances Galassi Slagle ‘59

Dorothy Adrian Dahl, MA’63

Tom Lyons ‘50

Robert Taranto ‘54

Thomas Sullivan ‘59

John Danahy ‘63

James Tierney ‘50

Ann Tierney ‘54 MS’59 David Farrell ‘55

Louise Kelley Collins, MA’51

Joan Mullevey Filippone ‘55

1960s

Carol Clougherty Dauphinee ‘63

John Vigneau ‘50

Paul Byron ‘60

George Grasso ‘63

Francis Corcoran ‘51

Richard Foley JD’55

Frederick Colman ‘60

Diana Makarevich Harvey ‘63

Edward Curran ‘51

Roger Hankins ‘55

Patricia Gannon Demeo ‘60

Paul Kelley ‘63

Francis Driscoll ‘51

John Higgins ‘55

Brian Dooley ‘60

John Murphy JD’63

Richard Faulstich ‘51

Carol O’Hara Labelle ‘55

Francis Ennis ‘60

John O’Brien ‘63

Richard Frank ‘51

John MacDonald ‘55, MS’57

William Falla ‘60

Donald Phillips ‘63

Hervey Gautreau ‘51, MA’57

Louis Shurtleff ‘55

Vivienne Foster-Erlandson ‘60

Bob Reilly ‘63

Russell Jacobson ‘51

Edward Dunford ‘56

Norah McGinity Frei NC’60

Mary Anne True Yezukevich ‘63

Robert Jepsen ‘51, MBA’70

Matthew Ferraro ‘56

Charles Goddard ‘60

Bruce Angelini ‘64

Paul Lydon ‘51

John Kennedy ‘56

Barbara Hennessey Linfield ‘60

William Barry ‘64

Philip Marino ‘51

Paul Lee ‘56

John McKenna JD’60

Francis Boucher, MS’64

William Murphy ‘51

Mary Looney O’Regan ‘56

Robert Patterson ‘60, EdD’83

John Carrigan ‘64

Arthur Murray ‘51

Albert O’Neal ‘56

Alexandra Pozzo PMC’60

Helen Herbert Hand NC’64

Richard O’Leary ‘51

Vito Roscigno ‘56, MBA’70

Joe Resha ‘60

Marcia Hill, MSW’64

George Port ‘51, MEd’52

Patricia McNary Sullivan ‘56

Liam Kelly ‘64

Mary Fahey Schwarzer ‘51

Edmund Zicko ‘56

Mary Lou Foster Ryan NC’60, MSW’85

Margaret Shea ‘51

James Cantwell ‘57

Lawrence Ryan ‘60

Thomas Neylon ‘64

Mary Wyllie Singleton ‘51

Walter Diehl ‘57

Brenda Conlon Abely NC’52

Deborah Holt PMC’57

Jim Corbett ‘52

Frank Keohane ‘57

Thomas Lane ‘54

Walter Shea ‘60 John Solan ‘60 Edward Sullivan ‘60 Moses Ward ‘60

Bob Devin ‘63, JD’66

William Mullen ‘64 Rosaire Paradis ‘64 Anne Sheehan Pressman, MA’64 Mary Seidel ‘64

John Hester ‘52

Santo Listro ‘57

Mary O’Toole Kerrigan, MSW’52

John Manfreda ‘57

Leo Winkel ‘60

Genevieve Szczepaniak, ‘64 MBA’83

Susan “Suey” Kinnaird PMC ‘52

Janet Black Rohan McKillop NC’57

John Ahearn ‘61, MA’66

Emily Tobin Westfield ‘64

Mary LaPlante ‘52

Jorge Casteleiro ‘61

Dave Wish ‘64

Frederick Tarpey ‘52

Joseph Mirabile ‘57

Lawrence Corr, MA’61

Robert Boland ‘65

Richard Tilley ‘52

Andy Picariello ‘57

Edmund Ferullo ‘61

William Breitling, MS’65

Genevieve Doonan Tyrell ‘52

Kathleen Lane Rice, MSW’57

Scott Foster JD’61

Carol Dupuis Clark ‘65

Edward Antoon ‘53

David Sheehan ‘57, CAES‘76

William Kingsbury ‘61

Jeanne Flyntz DeJoseph ‘65

James Armstrong ‘53, MEd’55

Mary Coppolino Bevilacqua ‘58

Mary McDonough ‘61

James Gadbois ‘65, MA’67

Robert Cento ‘53

Leo Clougherty, MS’58

David Oberhauser ‘61

Timothy Gauntner, MSW’65

Albert Contons, MA’53

Jack Donahue ‘58

James O’Reilly ‘61

Elizabeth Walsh McGahan ‘65

Marion Fahey, MEd’53

Richard Hartigan ‘58

Bob Popeo, JD’61

Dick Montminy ‘65

Tony Gargiulo ‘53

Joe Hughes ‘58

Mary “Sissy” Sullivan NC’61

Edward Montminy ‘65

Charles Gilday ‘53

Carol Vaughan Landon NC‘58

Bill Barry ‘62

David Walsh ‘65

Richard “Dick” Glennon ‘53, LLB’56

Barbara Pietsch Mitchell PMC’58

Richard Bartley ‘62

Charles Adie, MA’66

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Charles Haffner, MA’66

Robert Lusardi, JD’71

Eugene Boyle, MEd’77

Susan Martin MBA’88

Warren Hartwell ‘66

Joan Delery Opiela ‘71

Elaine Goldrick, MSW’77

Lois Blum Reitzas, JD’88

Donna Phillips Higgins ‘66

Anne Duffey Phelan NC’71

Joann LaCamera-Otteson ‘77

John Hunt ‘66

Brian Straw ‘88

Agnes Therrien ‘71

Eleanor Shea Mannix ‘77

Cyril Krenzer, JD’66

Fred Willis ‘71

Terrence Crimmins ‘78, MAT ‘05

Gaylord Taylor ‘89

Michael Lahan ‘66

Maureen Berube ‘72

Stephen Duffy, MA’78

Jim McDevitt ‘66

Albert Caliguri ‘72

Tom Lavin ‘78

Ed O’Connor ‘66

Mary-Catherine Deibel NC’72

Thomas McCauley ‘78

Maureen Callahan Saunders ‘66

Pearl Duncan NC’72

John McGuire ‘78

John Donaghy, PhD’90

Marilyn Morency Brunelle-Nay ‘67

Craig Fenwick ‘72

Kevin Bagnasco ‘79

Diane Klebanoff Gordon, JD’72

Neal Boyle ‘79

David Jenkins, MBA’90, MSW’90

Brendan Glynn ‘79

Sean Mace, MA’90

Diane Lewis, MAT‘72

Patrick Henaghan ‘79

Mary St. Louis, MA’90

Walter Loth ‘72

Anne McSweeney ‘79

Steven Vanden Boogard, MEd’91

Terrence McGee ‘72

Barbara Orlowski, MA’79

Donald Moroz ‘72

Ian Klimon ‘91

Barbara Riley, MEd’79

Dolores Ritter ‘72

Mary Uek, MEd’92

Jan Sullivan ‘79

Mary Lawless Scobbo ‘72

Alison Kealy ‘93

1980s

Motoko Ueta, MA’93

Denise Lardner Carmody, MA’67, PhD’70 Kathleen Dunn, MEd’67 Frances Ferguson Esposito, PhD’67 Ken Ford ‘67 Ralph Hannabury ‘67 Paul Ladd ‘67 Mike Maguire ‘67 Virginia Monahan, MEd’67

Bridget Avenia ‘73 Brian Caldwell ‘73

Timothy Downey ‘80

1990s Richard Clancy ‘90

Ann White, EdD’93 Kinsley Hyland Alexander, MA’95, PhD’07

Linda Gillis Cochran NC’73

Judith Jones ‘80

Frank Ix LV ‘73

Moira Kelsey ‘80

Doreen McGrath ‘73

Dennis McCormack ‘80

Clement O’Brien, MSW’73

Robert Jones MEd’81

Elaine Tipping O’Reilly ‘73

Marcy Foley Palus ‘81

Stephen Siwek ‘73

Lucianne Siers, MA’81

Roy Thompson, JD’73

Paul Waters ‘81

Harvey Alford ‘74

Verna Zuttermeister MS’81

Peter Fernandez ’98

Paul Byron ‘74

Pat Flaherty ‘82

Philippe Moufflet ‘98, MS’05

Rosemary Driscoll O’Reilly, MA’68

John Hall, MEd’74

James Hurley ‘82

Maurice Barrett, MSW’99

William Klessens ‘74 ‘87

Jeffrey Pofit JD’82

LaVerne Bertin, MEd’99

Richard Roth ‘68

Thomas Lyons ‘74

Barbara Travers, MEd’82

Ellen Tenney, MEd’68

Mary Miller, MEd’74

Rebecca Nutley, MA’99

Marilyn Devine ‘83

Robert Wilson ‘68

Robert Wilson ‘74

Judith Hughes ‘83, MA’89

Donald Barry ‘69

Peter Anzenberger ‘75

Bill Beauchamp ‘69

Michael Brien ‘75

Christine Jannone Lockwood ‘83

Robert Ellis, MBA’69

Ellen Canavan, MEd’75 CAES’78

Patricia Walsh Maltese ‘83

Luke Laidley ‘01

Barbara Roche ‘83

Douglas White, PhD’01

Anne Lipscomb PMC’75

Douglas Anderson, CAES’85

Matthew Conley, MBA’04

Cathy Brown Barker NC’70

Daniel McLaughlin ‘75, MA’81

Joseph Levin, PhD’85

Jill Button ‘06

Richard Bowers, JD’70

Mike Moore ‘75

Tracie Longman, JD’85

Lorraine Popowicz, PhD’75

Pablo Stalman ‘85

Amanda Donahue ‘07

Joseph Farrell ‘70 Peter Lupoli ‘70

Paul Sullivan ‘75

Susan Bergin ‘86

Joan Geoghegan Lydic, MEd’70

Nicola Leeming Brickley ‘76

Katherine Detherage, PhD’86

Joseph McMahon ‘70

Jack Corcoran ‘76

John Strebb ‘86

Jack Militello ‘70

Mary Humenay, MEd’76

Richard VanHorn ‘86

Robert Sacher, PhD’70

Brian McGeady ‘76

Therese Lydon, MEd’87

Margaret Mullen Schmid ‘70

Helen Tipping Murphy ‘76

Jane Parker, JD’87

Martin Yablonski, MEd’70

Patricia Ouellette, JD’76

John Santos, PhD’87

Gary Dancewicz ‘71

Bonnie Orlick Showstack ‘76

Richard Desrosiers, MSW’88

Larry Dolan ‘71

Pam Mallon Siguler ‘76, MEd’77

Patricia Follansbee ‘71

Paul Sussenguth ‘76

Nancy Yocom Leinbach, PhD’88

Bob Greeley ‘71

Cheryl Tracy, JD’79

Louise Leblanc, MA’71

Stephen Urquhart ‘76, JD’79

Mike Panik, MA’67, PhD’70 Dick Sullivan, MBA’67 Donald Sullivan ‘67 Bob Zimmerman ‘67 Robert Clohosey, MSW’68 Thomas Dolan ‘68, MA’71 William Hicks JD’68 Gertrude Mahoney, MBA’68 Kathleen McDonald ‘68

1970s

To submit your note, visit bc.edu/cla ssnotes or email cla ssnotes@bc.edu.

Mary Lou Burke, MTS’95 Theodore Letendre, MTS’97 Janet McCauley-Cate, MEd’97, PhD’03 William Denehy, MBA’98

2000s Ann Michaud, MTS‘00

Jennifer Quinlan, MSW’09, MA’24

2010s Kathleen Ingraham, PMC MFA’11, MFA’13 John Burns ‘18

2020s Steffano Montano, PhD’20

Community Deaths can be found on page 67. fa l l 20 2 3 v bc m

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Class Notes // Advancing Boston College

Celebrating Our “Sheroes” How Women Helped Shape the Heights

BY DIANA GRIFFITH

One of Boston College’s most beloved landmarks is Ford Memorial Tower, the imposing entrance to Burns Library that faces Linden Lane. Long rumored to be named for an unknown washerwoman, the iconic tower was recently discovered to be named for Margaret Elizabeth Ford, a successful milliner in Boston whose 1926 estate provided the funds needed to complete the library’s previously stalled construction.

Thanks to an enterprising librarian’s research, Ford now has a place in the long line of women who have advanced the BC mission from its earliest days. While women did not attend classes until the 1920s, and then only in some nursing and education programs, they have always been active ambassadors for the University, raising funds and public support at every step in BC’s upward trajectory.

Consider the 1907 announcement in the Boston Globe, just days after BC’s purchase of land in Chestnut Hill, that “a poor widow” had been the very first to make a gift—of one dollar—toward construction of buildings at the Heights. Her anonymous gift was followed by a flurry of activity led in no small part by the mothers, wives, sisters, and friends of BC alumni—women eager to show their support for the fledgling school and its impact on their community. Mostly Irish and active in church and civic groups, these women organized dozens of events to raise funds for the new campus, including a garden party in 1909 that drew over 35,000 people to the otherwise empty Heights.

Boston Globe, 1907

70

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“The Fairy Godmother” A few of these early benefactors remained close to the University and, in 1915, formed a women’s auxiliary group in support of athletics. Naming themselves The Philomatheia Club (after the Greek word for “love of learning”) they quickly expanded their remit to include academics, student life, and every other aspect of the University.

Many women contributed to the club’s success, but none more than Mary Werner Roberts—wife of Vincent Roberts ’29—who was the club’s third president and whose tenure lasted a half century. Roberts encouraged Philomatheia women to improve BC’s resources with successful fundraisers and, in turn, she found ways to share those resources—through faculty lectures and other activities—with members who, as women, could not enroll at BC. The Philomatheia Club grew into one of the most important fundraising organizations in the University’s history. In the 1923 Sub Turri yearbook, students praised the club for enriching every aspect of their BC experience, calling it “the fairy godmother of Boston College.” At least four pieces of key real estate were donated to BC

by Philomatheia or its members, and the group raised money for undergraduate scholarships, Jesuit mission work, academic and athletic prizes, equipment for new science labs, and even the University’s first endowed professorship.

Philomatheia remained active until the 1960s, when women began to take a more prominent role on campus. By 1970, Boston College became fully co-ed and, in 1974, it merged with the all-women Newton College of the Sacred Heart, bringing the total number of female students past 900.

As the student body changed, so too did the administration. In 1971, the first two women were appointed to the BC Board of Trustees. In 1992, Mary Lou DeLong NC’71 was appointed vice president of university advancement (UA)—the first woman VP to lead a large division.

A mentor to many within UA and across campus, DeLong oversaw the University’s record-breaking Ever to Excel campaign and

Women at BC

3

BC deans are women

23

women are on the BC Board of Trustees

56%

of living Boston College alumni are women

is credited with strengthening BC outreach to alumni, parents, and friends, including the launch of an alumnae group that continues to shape the BC experience today.

The Council for Women of Boston College In 2002, DeLong met with a small group of women to discuss how to harness the energy and expertise of BC’s alumnae, and out of that meeting, the Council for Women of Boston College was born. Cathy Brienza ’71, one of the council’s founding members, recalls: “We thought it might be a social group or a group that focused on students and alumni with programming, or we thought it might be a financially supportive group for the University and, in the end, it turned out to be all of those things and more.”

Two decades later, the council provides BC alumnae with multiple ways to engage with the University and each other. In 2015,

they launched the CWBC Colloquium with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright as inaugural speaker and, in 2020, the group established both an endowed and a current-use scholarship to support undergraduate students.

As with the Philomatheia Club, CWBC members are also benefactors, giving generously of their time and resources as a group and individually. Founding Chair Kathleen McGillycuddy NC’71, who served until earlier this year, was the first woman to chair the BC Board of Trustees and co-chaired BC’s successful $1.5 billion Light the World campaign. Incoming co-chairs Pat Bonan ’79 and Elizabeth Vanderslice ’86 are also founding members as well as BC trustees and have given generously to support BC priorities.

In recent years, women have made truly transformational gifts to Boston College. In 2008, McGillycuddy and her husband, Ronald Logue ’67, MBA’74, established The McGillycuddy-Logue Center for Undergraduate Global Studies. The Margot Connell Recreation Center opened in 2019 thanks to support from BC parent—and grandparent—Margot Connell. In 2022, the Marianne D. Short, Esq., Law School Deanship was endowed by Marianne Short NC’73, JD’76. And, in fall of 2023, the Hoag Basketball Pavilion is set to open thanks to Michaela Murphy Hoag ’86.

As the University launches Soaring Higher: the Campaign for Boston College, one thing will remain the same—women philanthropists will play a vital role in raising the funds necessary to ensure the University’s continued excellence and longterm security.

Below: Members of the Philomatheia Club’s junior auxiliary, October 18, 1931.

From top: Building Campaign, Boston Sunday Post, April 3, 1921; CWBC members celebrating 30th anniversary in 2012; Ford Tower under construction, circa 1928; Philomatheia President Mary Werner Roberts received an honorary degree in 1928; Mary Matalin (far left) and Donna Brazile (far right) with BC students at the 2016 CWBC Colloquium.

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ness especially. And if you can do that, you become successful.

Craft something you can be proud of. The quality ingredients and the preparation make the sandwiches good. I’ve got a young man, Mynor, who’s been with me for twenty-five years. Not only is he fast, he’s impeccable in the design of the sandwiches and the execution of the menu. There’s nothing worse than getting a sandwich that doesn’t taste like what you think you ordered. And I think we achieved that goal of giving people what they wanted. Virtually nobody would ever come back and say that it was a bad sandwich.

Invest in people. Mynor came here, unbeknownst to me, as an undocumented immigrant. And his first paycheck didn’t go through because of that. And I was driving home and I was compelled to call back and bring him back in. In that whole process, I found out a lot about the young man, and chose to mentor him and create a path to legalization. I brought him to an immigration attorney who still consults for us. We laid out a plan and six years later, he and I were at the Worcester Mechanics Hall. Six hundred people on the floor, and there he was with his American flag waving up, becoming a citizen. One of the happiest days of my life. In that whole relationship, he’s become more than a son.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED

John Acampora Generations of Boston College students have fueled up for class by stopping in at Flat Breads, the Commonwealth Avenue sandwich shop that celebrated its thirtieth anniversary this year.

As familiar as the store’s trademark wraps and loyalty cards is owner John Acampora, who mans the cash register and greets each customer with a hearty hello.

—Lisa Weidenfeld Life’s a game of zigs and zags. You face the challenges all at once, no matter how strong you think you are. Mine were life challenges.

You’re raising a family and life is wonderful. You’ve got a great corporate job and your career is fulfilled and you’ve got the big house in Weston and all the accoutrements to go with it. And all of a sudden, that is diminished, and you’re in a different place, in a different game plan. That’s where I found myself. With the help of God, and this little store, and the people that have been around me, I’ve managed through it. And here I am, at the bright, bold age of eighty-four, not 72

bcm v fa l l 20 2 3

lamenting my fate, but being very grateful for the hand that I’ve been dealt.

Build connections to people. I spent years training with Hilton in Chicago, and would often speak at Cornell at the hotel school.

And you get all these people that have got these grand and elaborate plans for profit and loan statements, but the bottom line is, it’s a business to serve. And in that experience, you create better things because you amplify the relationship. Whatever you do, it’s an extended part of human relations, and that’s inherent in the DNA, in this busi-

Remember your commitments. You’ve got to be here for Alumni Weekend when they come back. I had one last year, a young lady, graduated fifteen years ago, moved to San Francisco, had not been back. And she came back and presented herself with a loyalty card that I guarantee you made every cycle in her laundry for fifteen years. It was frayed beyond recognition, but it was legible. There were eight on there. She bought two sandwiches and got a free one. You’d think she had died and gone to heaven.

Everyone can use a kind word. It’s those kinds of special interactions that you have with people on the way through that I find significant in my life. Especially at this stage. I’m not running any race. I’m here to do the best I can to help as many people as I can. And that’s where self-gratification is extreme because everybody here needs a little something. Whether it’s a kindhearted expression, or it’s a thank you. For me, it’s an acknowledgement. And the support of a community that I think really cares about us. n

photos: Caitlin Cunningham (Acampora); Lee Pellegrini (Parting Shot)

Parting Shot

Hang Time Workers add the finishing touches for the grand opening of the Hoag Basketball Pavilion. The 35,700-square-foot facility, the practice home for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams, includes new sports medicine, nutrition, and strength and conditioning centers, locker room and lounge areas, and a renovated 10,700-squarefoot practice gym. The pavilion was made possible by a $15 million gift from University Trustee Michaela “Mikey” Hoag `86 and her husband Jay. —Lisa Weidenfeld

connect

WITH THE HEIGHTS

we connected. we gathered.

Visit bc.edu/annualreport or scan the QR code to see what the Boston College Alumni Association did this year and how you can get involved.