Boston College - Sub Turri Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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Isn’t a College Father Monan sees continued constriction of the resident population because of the increasing numbers of applicants who want to live on campus. “Since 1972 we have more than doubled the resident’s facilities. There were places for about 2,100, there are now over 5,000. Most of this was not by design, but by response,” noted Monan. “Increasing numbers of students have asked for housing. Out of the 12,000-13,000 who apply, 11,000 have asked to live on campus.” Father Monan attributes this phenomenon to the increasing popularity of “going away to school” as well as an increasing number of out-of-state applications. Boston College has in some respects grown beyond its identification as “Boston’s college” (since BC was the first school founded in Boston) but the University will never lose sight of the significant role it plays for, and with Boston. The school was founded, in part, to educate the children of Irish immigrants in Boston and the Boston area still contributes a large percentage of students. Boston College is, “a collection of very different schools with ideals that reflect the very best of the whole school,” concluded Monan, “students, faculty and staff have a rapport such that each learns from the other, none are merely narrow academics, they are sensitive to human interests and motivations.” So, Boston College is not a college, and it is not in Boston. Boston College is an institution of incredible “wholeness.” by Peter Van Hecke ' “ There is No Institution I’d Rather Be President Of:’ — Father Monan Jack Maguire, Dean of Admissions, Records and Financial Aid. The original arrangement of the buildings at the Old Boston College, photographed sometime before 1875 by Oliver Wendell Holmes. 23

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Boston College: Isn’t in Boston, For many years the phrase “Boston College; not a college, not in Boston”, has been used to introduce BC to prospective undergraduates, newcomers and visitors. Like any catchword, it is designed to merely whet one’s appetite, to elicit curiosity and interest. Thus, it is not surprising that the undergraduate admissions office was responsible for its initial introduction in the early 1970’s. From 1973-1976, “Boston College . . . Isn’t in Boston, Isn’t a College” adorned the cover of the pre-bulletin admissions pamphlet. The phrase was catchy and performed the purpose that it was intended to perform, to stick in a high school student’s mind and get them curious about the contents of the pamphlet and also Boston College. Dean of Admissions, Records and Financial Aid, Jack Maguire explained that the phrase had been in use among the admissions staff for quite some time. Maguire, back then Director of A dmissions, along with Reid Oslin, an Associate Director of Admissions at the time, worked with the other admissions staff to put the slogan down in print as the first pre-bulletin pamphlets. “I used to use this as an opening line when addressing high school students who were interested in attending BC,” notes Oslin, “We had decided to do a small brochure as an initial mailing so we put our heads together and decided to use this phrase.” Oslin left the admissions office in 1974 to become Director of Sports Publicity but the slogan has continued on through various derivations. And while it is no longer used in the admissions brochures, admissions directors still use it on visits to high schools. Not long after its initial widespread distribution, the slogan began cropping up in other publications, from within BC and from some outside sources. One of these outside sources still uses a derivation of the phrase in a description of the school. The New York Times publishes the Insiders Guide to Colleges and the description in the 1981 edition begins: “Despite its name, Boston College is not in Boston, nor is it a college. Though bordering on the city of Boston, BC is actually located in the plushy, affluent suburb of Chestnut Hill (which is itself a part of Newton). A full fledged university, BC is comprised of undergraduate schools of arts and sciences, management, nursing and education, a broad graduate program, and a law school.” Rev. J. Donald Monan, S.J., University President, employed the phrase “Boston College . . . not a college, not in Boston” in some of his first addresses to freshman classes, including the Class of 1982. He explains, “As the words suggest, this is to indicate that there is not just a college here but a collection of colleges with all of the implications that involves; a level of research capability, of teaching capability, a range of academic and social offerings that you wouldn’t expect at a normal college.” Since its founding in South Boston in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, the University has not stopped growing. From the moment in 1913 when President Thomas I. Gasson, S.J., moved the campus to its present location at Chestnut Hill (thus laying the groundwork for “not in Boston”) to the moment in 1981 when groundbreaking took place for a new research library, the University has not stopped expanding its committment under motto “Ever to Excel”. With the close of the academic year, Father Monan will complete his tenth year as University President. In this period the school has seen a rate of growth unparalleled with any previous decade. “There have been a number of significant advances. In terms of physical growth, acquisition of Newton College in 1974 certainly stands out.” Father Monan came to Boston College in 1972 at the height of student unrest, on and off campus, and with a financial picture that was bleak. Since his taking on the presidency, the University has achieved a much more level and successful financial base, partly because of the growth but also partly due to the building of an administrative team that is “competent, dedicated, open, and cooperative, in relating the intellectual, religious and cultural ideals of the University community to the diversity of the student population.” As for future growth, Father Monan remarked that “the size of student body will be capped at its present levels. This is being done for two reasons: Our present facilities are about 100 percent utilized; and the decline in student populations nationally.” Rev. J. Donald Monan, S.J., University President. 22

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Overseeing the Boston College Dr. An Wang, Chairman of the Board and President, Wang Laboratories, Inc. “As spring burst upon the land in April of 1863, a war weary nation waited expectantly for news of Grant’s offensive against Vicksburg and of Lee’s forthcoming campaign in Pennsylvania. With all eyes turned to these historic events on the national scene, few even in Massachusetts were aware of an important event taking place in the state capitol.” On April 1, 1863, Governor John Albion Andrews signed the Charter entitled “An Act to Incorporate the Trustees of the Boston College,” and the first trustees, “a handful of hardy Jesuits who had fought tirelessly and determinedly to bring Catholic education to the people of Boston,” founded what would become the largest Catholic university in the nation. One hundred and nineteen years have passed since that April 1, 1863, and the role of today’s trustee has evolved tremendously since the day when Boston College was only a single building in the South End. The Board of Trustees is rarely shown as the group of people who interact with students and administrators to carry on the functions of the University. Rather, for the past ten years or so, the prime image of the Trustees has been one of “that group of people who meet each February to raise the tuition.” But this year, with the Board having met with the Coalition for a Student Trustee, and with them having lowered the administration’s proposed tuition and board increases, the image of the “high powered businessman” Trustee is eroding. The reality of the role of a Trustee is one which reaches deeply into their lives and has a profound effect upon them, as well as, the University community. Today’s Board numbers 39 men and women drawn from various vocations, backgrounds and geographical locations, with nearly a third of them being members of the Society of Jesus. “This is a group of very talented and committed individuals,” said Margaret A. Dwyer, “a Frank B. Campanella, University Executive Vice President with William F. Connell, Chairman of the Board and President, Ogden Food Service, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Board of distinguished people whose contribution to the University make it function.” Dwyer, University Vice-President and Assistant to the President, has worked with the Board of Trustees since coming to Boston College in 1972. “Basically, their function is to be constantly evaluating and listening, really supervising the institution,” Dwyer explains. The responsibilities of the Board of Trustees run the gamut from selection and evaluation of the University President and officers, to deciding on major policy changes, be they academic or financial, to deciding upon the University budget and planning for the long range stability John G. McElwee, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., and Rev. J. Donald Monan, S.J., University President. and viability of the University. University President J. Donald Monan, S.J., himself a member of the Board, sees their function as one more akin to supervisors. “The trustees oversee. They listen, they evaluate, they advise you to go in a different direction. We are constantly reporting to them and providing information for them,” noted Father Monan. But Boston College’s Board of Trustees is a far cry from the picture often painted of similar institution overseers, that being a group of old, established, highpowered businessmen, unsympathetic to the plight and needs of students. Of the 39 members on the Board, over two thirds hold undergraduate or graduate degrees from Boston College, while some hold both. Well over half of the current Trustees either have children enrolled here or have had them enrolled in the past, and contrary to a popular myth, they pay the full price for tuition. John G. McElwee, Chief Executive Officer of John Hancock Life Insurance, feels “there is a stereotype which, in a lot of ways, is unfortunate. The stereotype often takes the form such as we are personal friends of the President or someone in the upper part of the administration; or that we are people who have a thirst and a need for status or recognition; or that we are in one way or another acceptable in the sense that we would be rubber stamps. I don’t know that one can ever break the myth, but I have found as a practical matter in 36 years of business experience, that the education that I received there was a very valuable one and I am glad to be able to keep in touch with the University as a Trustee.”