Boston College
(BC) is a private research university located in the
village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
. Its name reflects its early history as a
liberal arts college and
preparatory school in
Boston
's South End
. It is a member of the
568 Group and the
Association of
Jesuit Colleges and Universities.
Its main campus is a historic district and
features
some of the earliest examples of collegiate gothic architecture in North America.
History
Early history
In 1825,
Benedict Joseph Fenwick,
S.J., a Jesuit from Maryland
, became the
second Bishop of Boston. He was the
first to articulate a vision for a "College in the City of Boston"
that would raise a new generation of leaders to serve both the
civic and spiritual needs of his fledgling diocese. In 1827, Bishop
Fenwick opened a school in the basement of his
cathedral and took to the personal instruction of
the city's youth. His efforts to attract other Jesuits to the
faculty were hampered both by Boston's distance from the center of
Jesuit activity in Maryland and by suspicion on the part of the
city's
Protestant
elite.
Relations with Boston's civic leaders
worsened such that, when a Jesuit faculty was finally secured in
1843, Fenwick decided to leave the Boston school and instead opened
the College of the
Holy Cross
west of the city in Worcester,
Massachusetts
where he felt the Jesuits could operate with
greater autonomy. Meanwhile, the vision for a college in
Boston was sustained by
John
McElroy, S.J., who saw an even greater need for such an
institution in light of Boston's growing immigrant population.
With the
approval of his Jesuit superiors, McElroy went about raising funds
and in 1857 purchased land for "The Boston College" on Harrison
Street in Boston's South End. With little fanfare, the college's two
buildings — a schoolhouse and a
church — welcomed their first class of
scholastics in 1859. Two years later, with as little fanfare, BC
closed again. Its short-lived second incarnation was plagued by the
outbreak of
Civil War and
disagreement within the Society over the college's governance and
finances. BC's inability to obtain a charter from the anti-Catholic
Massachusetts legislature only compounded its troubles.
On , more than three decades after its initial inception, Boston
College's charter was formally approved by the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts.
BC became the second Jesuit institution of higher learning in Massachusetts
and the first located in the Boston
area. Johannes Bapst,
S.J., a Swiss Jesuit from French-speaking Fribourg
, was selected as BC's first president and
immediately reopened the original college buildings on Harrison
Avenue. For most of the 19th century, BC offered a singular
7-year program corresponding to both high school and college. Its
entering class in the fall of 1864 included 22 students, ranging in
age from 11 to 16 years. The curriculum was based on the Jesuit
Ratio Studiorum,
emphasizing
Latin,
Greek,
philosophy,
and
theology.
Move to Chestnut Hill
Boston College's enrollment reached nearly 500 by the turn of the
20th century.
Expansion of the South End buildings onto
James Street enabled increased separation between the high school
and college divisions, though Boston College High School
remained a constituent part of Boston College until
1927 when it was separately incorporated. In 1907,
newly-installed President
Thomas I.
Gasson, S.J., determined that BC's
cramped, urban quarters in Boston's South End were inadequate and
unsuited for significant expansion. Inspired by
John Winthrop's early vision of Boston as a
"
city upon a hill," he re-imagined
Boston College as world-renowned university and a beacon of
Jesuit scholarship.
Less than a year
after taking office, he purchased Amos Adams Lawrence's farm on Chestnut
Hill, six miles (10 km) west of the
city. He organized an international competition for the
design of a
campus master plan and set about
raising funds for the construction of the "new" university.
Proposals were solicited from distinguished architects, and
Charles Donagh Maginnis'
ambitious proposal for twenty buildings in English Collegiate
Gothic style, called "Oxford in America", was selected.
Construction began in 1909.
By 1913, construction costs had surpassed available funds, and as a
result
Gasson Hall, "New BC's" main
building, stood alone on Chestnut Hill for its first three years.
Buildings of the former Lawrence farm, including a barn and
gatehouse, were temporarily adapted for college use while a massive
fundraising effort was underway. While Maginnis's ambitious plans
were never fully realized, BC's first "capital campaign" — which
included a large replica of Gasson Hall's clock tower set up on
Boston Common to measure the fundraising progress — ensured that
President Gasson's vision survived. By the 1920s BC began to fill
out the dimensions of its university charter, establishing the
Boston
College Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the
Boston College Law School, and the
Woods College of
Advancing Studies, followed successively by the
Boston College
Graduate School of Social Work, the
Carroll School of Management,
the
Connell School of
Nursing, and the
Lynch
School of Education. In 1926, Boston College conferred its
first degrees on women (though it did not become fully
coeducational until 1970). With the rising prominence of its
graduates, this was also the period in which Boston College and its
powerful Alumni Association began to establish themselves among the
city's leading institutions. At the city, state and federal levels,
BC graduates would come to dominate Massachusetts politics for much
of the 20th century. Cultural changes in American society and in
the church following the
Second
Vatican Council forced BC to question its purpose and mission.
Meanwhile, poor financial management lead to deteriorating
facilities and resources and rising tuition costs. Student outrage,
combined with growing protests over
Vietnam and the
bombings in Cambodia, culminated in student
strikes, including demonstrations at
Gasson
Hall in April 1970.
The Monan era
By the time
J. Donald Monan, S.J. assumed the presidency on
September 5, 1972, BC was approximately $30 million in debt, its
endowment totaled just under $6 million, and faculty and staff
salaries had been frozen during the previous year.
Rumors about the
university's future were rampant, including speculation that BC
would be acquired by Harvard University
. Monan's first order of business was to
reconfigure the Boston College Board of Trustees. By separating it
from the
Society of Jesus, Monan
was able to bring in the talents of lay alumni and business leaders
who helped turn around the university's fortunes.
This same
restructuring had been accomplished first at the University
of Notre Dame
in 1967 by Fr. Theodore Hesburgh,
CSC with many other Catholic
colleges following suit in the ensuing years. In 1974, Boston
College acquired
Newton College of the Sacred
Heart, a campus away that enabled it to expand the law school
and provide more housing for a student population that was
increasingly residential and geographically diverse. No less than
the university's rescue is credited to Monan who set into motion
the university's upward trajectory in finances, reputation, and
global scope. In 1996, Monan's 24 year presidency, the longest in
the university's history, came to an end when he was named
University Chancellor and succeeded
by President
William P. Leahy, S.J.
Recent history
Since assuming the Boston College presidency, Leahy's tenure has
been marked with an acceleration of the growth and development
initiated by his predecessor. BC's endowment has grown to $1.83
billion, it has expanded by almost , and undergraduate applications
have surpassed 31,000. At the same time, BC students, faculty and
athletic teams have seen unprecedented success — winning record
numbers of
Fulbrights,
Rhodes, and other academic awards;
setting new marks for research grants; and winning conference and
national titles. In 2002, Leahy initiated the
Church in the 21st Century
program to examine issues facing the
Catholic Church in light of the
clergy sexual
abuse scandal. His effort brought BC worldwide praise and
recognition for "leading the way on Church reform."
Recent plans to merge
with the Weston Jesuit School of
Theology
were followed by an article in The New York Times claiming "such a
merger would further Boston College's quest to become the nation's
Catholic intellectual powerhouse" and that, once approved by the
Vatican and Jesuit authorities in
Rome
, BC "would become the center for the study
of Roman Catholic theology in the United States." On
February 16, 2006, the merger was authorized by the
Jesuit Conference.
In 2003, after years of student-led discussions and efforts, the
University approved a Gay-Straight Alliance, the first
University-funded gay support group on campus. In 2004, between
1,000 and 1,200 students rallied behind a student-led campaign to
expand the school's non-discrimination statement to include equal
protection for gays and lesbians. Earlier that year 84% of the
student body voted in favor of a student referendum calling for a
change in policy. After several months of discussion the
university's policy was changed in May 2005.
On December 5, 2007, Boston College announced the Master Plan, a
$1.6 billion, 10-year plan to revamp the campus and hire new
faculty. The plan includes over $700 million for new buildings and
renovations of the campus, including construction of four new
academic buildings, a recreation center to replace the outdated
Flynn Recreation Complex, a university center to replace McElroy
Commons (which is slated for destruction), and the creation of 610
beds for student housing, as well as many other constructions and
renovations. The plan has been criticized by Boston city officials.
On February 21, 2008,
Boston Mayor
Thomas M. Menino warned the school to construct new
dormitory building on its main campus, rather than on the former
St. John's Seminary
property acquired from the Archdiocese of Boston. Student
misbehavior in the neighborhoods around the school has been a
problem for area residents.
On June 10, 2009, Mayor Menino and Boston's zoning commission
approved the university's Master Plan, signaling an end to the long
approval process, while opening up the opportunity for the
university to enter design and planning phases.
Campus
Chestnut Hill
Maginnis master plan
Boston College's main campus in Chestnut Hill, west of downtown
Boston, is and includes over 120 buildings.
Set on a hilltop
overlooking the Chestnut Hill Reservoir
the campus creates an almost rural setting.
A
"Boston
College
" "T"-station, located at St. Ignatius Gate, is the
western terminus of the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line's B-branch (also known as the "Boston College"
line) and provides transit to the city
center. Due largely to its location and architecture,
the Boston College campus is known affectionately as the "Heights"
or the "Crowned Hilltop".
The main campus is also listed on the National Register of
Historic Places.
St. John's Meadow
Designed by
Charles Donagh
Maginnis and his firm
Maginnis
& Walsh in 1908, the Boston College campus is a seminal
example of
Collegiate Gothic
architecture. Combining
Gothic
Revival architecture with principles of
Beaux-Arts planning, Maginnis
proposed a vast complex of academic buildings set in a
cruciform plan. Maginnis's design broke from the
traditional
Oxbridge models that had
inspired it — and that had till then characterized Gothic
architecture on American campuses. In its unprecedented scale,
Gasson Tower was conceived not as the
belfry of a singular building, but as the
crowning
campanile of Maginnis' new
"
city upon a hill". Though
Maginnis' ambitious Gothic project never saw full completion, its
central portion was built according to plan and forms the core of
what is now BC's iconic middle campus. Among these, the Bapst
Library has been called the "finest example of Collegiate Gothic
architecture in America" and
Devlin Hall
won the
Harleston Parker
Medal for "most beautiful building in Boston". The 1895
Louis K. Liggett Estate was acquired in 1941 and
developed into a Tudor style upper
campus, while an architecturally eclectic lower campus took shape
on land acquired by filling in part of the Chestnut
Hill Reservoir. Modernism had an enormous impact on
development after the 1940s, though most modernist buildings at BC
maintained decidedly un-modern rough stone facades in keeping with
Maginnis's original designs.
Chestnut Hill Reservoir
Boston College's eight research libraries contain over two million
printed volumes. Including manuscripts, journals, government
documents and microform items, ranging from ancient papyrus scrolls
to digital databases, the collections have some twelve million
items.
Together with the university's museums, they
include original manuscripts and prints by Galileo, Ignatius of
Loyola, and Francis Xavier as
well as world renowned collections in Jesuitana, Irish
literature,
sixteenth century Flemish tapestries,
ancient Greek pottery, Caribbean
folk art and literature, Japanese prints, U.S. government documents,
Congressional Archives, and
paintings that span the history of art from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Opened in 1928, Bapst
Library was named for the first president of Boston College
(
Johannes Bapst, S.J., 1815 to 1887)
and it was one of the few structures built according to Charles
Donagh Maginnis' original "Oxford in America" master plan. Bapst
served as the university's main library until 1984. A guide to the
building's famous stained glass windows is available online. The
Burns
Library of Rare Books and Special Collections is home to more
than 150,000 volumes, some 15 million manuscripts and other
important works, including a world-renowned collection of Irish
literature. A rare facsimile of the
Book
of Kells is on public display in the library's Irish Room, and
each day one page of the
illuminated manuscript is turned. It
also houses the papers of prominent Boston College alumni. The
library is named after the Honorable
John. J.
Burns (1901 to 1957), Massachusetts
Superior Court Justice and a member of the Boston College Class of
1921.
Gargan Hall, Bapst Library
Located in
Devlin Hall, the
McMullen Museum of Art houses a
prominent permanent collection and organizes exhibits from all
periods and cultures of
art history.
Recent exhibits and acquisitions, including works by
Edvard Munch,
Amedeo Modigliani,
Frank Stella,
Françoise Gilot,
John LaFarge, and
Jackson Pollock. Admission to the Museum is
free and open to the general public.
Other properties
In addition to the main campus at Chestnut Hill, BC's Newton Campus
is located to the west and houses the law school and residential
housing for roughly one third of the freshman class.
Other BC properties
include a seismology research observatory and field station in
Weston,
Massachusetts
, an retreat center in Dover,
Massachusetts
, and the Centre for Irish Programmes:
Dublin on St.
Stephen's Green
in Dublin
, Ireland. In a new building opened in 1996, the Law
Library is located on the
Boston College Law School campus
in Newton.
In June 2004, Boston College acquired of land from the
Archdiocese of Boston.
The new grounds, adjacent to the main campus (on the opposite side
of
Commonwealth Avenue),
include the historic mansion that served as the
Cardinal's residence until 2002. The
new grounds are referred to as Brighton Campus, after
Brighton, the area in Boston
where it is located.
Sustainability
Boston College utilizes
sustainable
energy,
water efficiency,
local food,
recycling, and
green
computing. Since February 2007, Boston College has
submetered electricity in 24 of its residence halls and
since 2008 the college holds an annual energy competition between
residential halls. During that time and throughout the year,
students can track their energy consumption in real time on their
computers using an
Energy
Dashboard application built by
Lucid Design Group Inc. Looking
forward, Boston College is considering the potential of
geothermal power,
solar panels, and
combined heat and power plants. A
student-run organic garden was started in spring 2008.
The college is also looking into implementing the practices and
ideology of
xeriscaping and
sustainable landscape
architecture to minimize water use on campus grounds.
Organization and administration
The gilded bronze eagle on Linden Lane
At
US$1.3 billion, BC's
endowment is among the
largest in
American higher education, which represents a 25% percent drop
from the start of the 2008-2009 academic year. Its annual operating
budget is approximately $667 million. The most recent and ongoing
fundraising campaign, dubbed "Light the World", was announced on
October 11, 2008. The 7 year campaign aims to raise $1.5 billion in
honor of the 150th anniversary of the college. Funds raised will be
used to support the strategic priorities of the University,
including academic programs, financial aid, Jesuit Catholic
identity, athletics, student programming, and capital construction
projects.
Jesuit Catholicism
An entrance featuring the Jesuit motto
Ad maiorem Dei gloriam
The 112 Jesuits living on the Boston College campus make up one of
the largest Jesuit communities in the world and include members of
the faculty and administration, graduate students and visiting
international scholars. The unofficial
chapel
for the university is the
Church of Saint Ignatius of
Loyola. The church is named after
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the
founder of the Jesuit
order. Although
not technically the university's church, St. Ignatius enjoys a
special relationship with Boston College through which the
university provides the parish with Internet access, e-mail
service, telephone and
voice mail
service, parking, and dormitory space for the
religious education program. Each year,
several Boston College students teach in the religious education
program. Jesuits priests from Boston College occasionally preside
at the church's liturgies. On their part, St. Ignatius provides a
spiritual home for many students during their time at Boston
College and for many alumni on their
wedding
day. The church building is also used by the college for some of
their larger events.
St. Ignatius Gate entrance
Affiliated institutions
St.
Columbkille's is a Roman Catholic
Church and elementary school
in Brighton,
Massachusetts which has made an alliance with BC. Under
the agreement, the school is to be governed by a North American
board of members and a
board of
trustees comprising representatives from
the Archdiocese of Boston, Boston
College,
St. Columbkille Parish and the
greater
Boston community. The board of trustees will authorize an audit
of the school's curriculum, faculty, finances, and facilities
before creating a strategic plan to guide the school in the future.
Lynch School of Education
faculty will work directly with the school's teachers on faculty
and curriculum development, presenting new approaches to education
and working to establish best practices in the classroom. The
agreement, announced in March 2006 by University President William
P.
Leahy,
S.J., and Boston Cardinal Sean
O'Malley, OFM,
Cap., represents the first such collaboration between a
Catholic university and a parochial
school in the United
States
.
Academics
Boston College Coat of Arms from a stained glass window in the
Gasson honors library
Boston College is a research university and comprises nine schools
and colleges:
Rankings
BC ranked 16th on the Forbes.com 2009 edition of "America's Best
Colleges" and 34th among national universities in
U.S. News & World Report's
"America's Best Colleges 2009" rankings. Boston College was added
to the "25 New Ivies" list in 2006 by
Kaplan/Newsweek.
BC placed
11th in a ranking of national universities (published in
Forbes Magazine) by the
Center for
College Affordability & Productivity, a research group in
Washington,
D.C.
. The undergraduate school of business, the
Carroll School of
Management, placed 14th in an annual survey of US undergraduate
business schools by
BusinessWeek, which noted that "Alumni and
professors love helping students find jobs, making BC's campus
networking an invaluable resource." A study by
Carnegie Communications in 2004
ranked BC 17th among national universities. The same study cited BC
as the 8th "most popular" choice among U.S. high school seniors. A
Princeton Review survey of parents
that asked “What ‘dream college’ would you most like to see your
child attend were prospects of acceptance or cost not issues?”
placed BC 6th. In 2008
U.S. News & World Report
ranked the full time BC MBA program 34th in the nation, and the
evening MBA program climbed to 15th, the 5th year it has been in
the top 20 nationwide. Furthermore, BC also has commendable
graduate programs in the Arts and Sciences. The
U.S. News and World Reportrated
its economics, sociology, and psychology programs 31st, 41st, and
66th in the nation, respectively. Its sociology program,
specifically, is the second best program in the Boston area behind
Harvard.
Admissions
The middle half of the class of 2012 had test scores that ranged
from 1950-2220 on the
SAT
and 30-33 on the
ACT. Admission to
Boston College is among the most selective in the United States.
For the class of 2012, BC received a record 31,000 applications
from prospective undergraduates, admitting 26%, making it the most
selective class in the school's history.
BC ranks fifth (after
NYU
, USC
, BU
, and Northeastern
) among private American universities in the number
of applications it receives annually, though the four schools that
rank above it are 50% larger.
Presidential Scholars Program
The Presidential Scholars Program is a competitive undergraduate
program offered to a subset of early action applicants of Boston
College. Students who accept an invitation to apply for the program
are asked to spend a weekend at Boston College, where they complete
several interviews and a timed essay. The Presidential Scholars
Program is very competitive; out of the Boston College applicants
invited to apply to the PSP program, 15 are awarded the
scholarship. Since the entire early application pool is evaluated
in determining who to grant application invitations to, the overall
admissions rate of the program is less than 1% . The scholarship
includes several summer programs, among them a month-long cultural
study in France and "high-level" internships. Students who have
completed the Presidential Scholars Program have often gone on to
attend prestigious graduate schools and have successful
professional careers. They have been the recipients of some of the
highest awards including Rhodes Scholarships and Marshall
Scholarships .
Research
Scholarly publications
Student life
AHANA is a term coined (and trademarked) by BC
students in 1979 to refer to students of
African-American,
Hispanic,
Asian, or
Native American descent. In 2006-07,
AHANA students comprised 24% of BC undergraduates. International
students make up an additional 5.3% of the student
population.
Athletics
The mascot for all Boston College athletic teams is the
Eagle, generally referred to in the plural, i.e., "The
Eagles". The character representing the mascot at football, hockey,
and basketball games is an American bald eagle named
Baldwin, derived from the "bald" head of
the American bald eagle and the word "win". The school colors are
maroon and
gold. The fight song,
For Boston, was composed by T.J. Hurley,
class of 1885. The Eagles compete in
NCAA Division I-A as members of the
Atlantic Coast Conference
in all sports offered by the ACC. The men's and women's ice hockey
teams compete in
Hockey East. (Skiing,
fencing, and sailing are also non-ACC.) Boston College is one of
only thirteen universities in the country offering NCAA Division I
Football Bowl Subdivision (Formerly, I-A) football, Division I
men's and women's basketball, and Division I hockey.
In hockey
and (less famously) baseball, Boston College participates in the
annual Beanpot tournaments held
at TD Banknorth
Garden
and Fenway
Park
, respectively. Boston College
competes in the Beanpot against the three other major sports
colleges in Boston: the Northeastern University
Huskies,
Harvard
University Crimson, and Boston University Terriers. BC has reached
the championship game 29 times and has won the Beanpot 14 times,
including the 2008 championship. The less renowned baseball
tournament, was first played in 1990 and out of seventeen baseball
Beanpots, Boston College has won nine, last winning in 2008.
The
baseball team also plays an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox at City Of
Palms Park
in Ft.
Myers, Florida
during Major
League Baseball's spring
training. The men's hockey team won the 2008 NCAA Championship on
April 12 with a 4-1 victory over the University of Notre Dame in
Denver
, Colorado
.
Principal
athletic facilities include Alumni Stadium
(capacity: 44,500), Conte Forum
(8,606), Kelley Rink
(7,884), Shea Field
(1,000), the Newton Soccer Complex (1,000), and the
Flynn Recreation
Complex. The
Yawkey
Athletics Center opened in the spring of 2005. BC students
compete in 31 varsity sports as well as a number of club and
intramural teams. On March 18, 2002, Boston College's Athletics
program was named to the College Sports Honor Roll as one of the
nation's top 20 athletic programs by
U.S. News & World
Report.
Although a founding member of the
Big East Conference, the Eagles left the
Big East and joined the
Atlantic Coast Conference on July
1, 2005. Boston College athletes are among the most academically
successful in the nation, according to the NCAA's
Academic Progress Rate (APR). In 2006
Boston College received Public Recognition Awards with fourteen of
its sports in the top 10% of the nation academically.
The Eagles tied
Notre
Dame for the highest total of any Division I-A
university. Other schools having ten or more sports
honored included Navy
(12), Stanford
(11), and Duke
(11). Teams honored were football, men's fencing, men's
outdoor track, men's skiing, women's rowing, women's cross country,
women's fencing, women's field hockey, women's indoor track,
women's outdoor track, women's skiing, women's swimming, women's
soccer, women's tennis, and women's volleyball. Boston College's
football program was one of only five Division I-A teams that were
so honored.
The other four were Auburn
, Navy, Stanford, and Duke.
Football
The Boston College Eagles have achieved much success in college
football. On November 16, 1940, BC's
Frank
Leahy-coached championship team took a win from two-season
undefeated Georgetown in the final seconds in a game that renowned
sportswriter
Grantland Rice called
the greatest ever played. The Eagles completed their only
undefeated season with a bowl victory over Tennessee that year, and
many historians argue that the Eagles deserved a share of the
national championship.
In 1942, the team spent three weeks ranked
at #3 in the nation and one week at #1, but they were upset by a
then-dominant Holy Cross, 55-12. As a result, the team canceled a party at
the Cocoanut Grove, which ended up as
a wise thing to do because that night the club caught
fire
.
Boston College's two most famous football victories came in
dramatic fashion, on the final play of the game. On the day after
Thanksgiving, November 23, 1984, before a national audience on
CBS,
Doug Flutie
became a legend when his
Hail Mary
found its way into the arms of Gerard Phelan for a 47-45 victory
over Miami in the
Orange Bowl.
This was also the year Flutie won the
Heisman; the only Eagle to date so honored.
(
See also: Flutie effect)
Nine years later almost to the day (November 20, 1993), the Eagles
went into South Bend and defeated top-ranked Notre Dame 41-39 on a
41-yard field goal by
David Gordon as
time expired. A win would have completed Notre Dame's season at
11-0 with a berth in the national championship game. (
See also:
Holy
War ) An additional nine years later, BC again thwarted a
potential Notre Dame perfect season, defeating the #2 Fighting
Irish in South Bend, 14-7. Boston College ran their football
winning streak over Notre Dame to five games in 2007 with a 27-14
victory, helping the Eagles rise to #2 in the BCS rankings.
Two of Boston College's alumni hold special places in the NFL
record-books.
Mike Woicik, a history
major, holds the record for most
Super
Bowl rings won by a non-head NFL
coach. Having gained (as a strength and conditioning coach) three
with the
New England Patriots
and three with the
Dallas Cowboys.
Bill Romanowski, a business major,
holds the defensive record as an NFL player for most consecutive
games played at 243, is the only linebacker in history to start in
5 Super Bowls, and also shares a record as one of only three
players in NFL history to win back to back Super Bowls with two
different organizations, the
San
Francisco 49ers and the
Denver
Broncos. On October 21, 2007, Boston College received its
highest ranking since 1942, coming in at #2 nationally in both the
AP Poll and in the
USA Today/
Coaches'
Poll.
The Eagles beat
Virginia Tech on
October 25, 2007, led by
Matt Ryan with two touchdown
passes in the final 2:11 of the game. This win solidified their
spot at #2 in both the AP and Coaches' Poll as well as the
BCS rankings.
The team faced
Virginia Tech again on December 1, 2007 in Jacksonville
, Florida in the 2007
ACC Championship Game as Atlantic Division champions, but lost
30-16. Boston College won the Atlantic Division for the
second consecutive year in 2008 but would again fall to
Virginia Tech in the
conference championship
game. The Eagles won the
2007 Champs Sports Bowl over
Michigan
State, extending their bowl winning streak to eight consecutive
victories—at the time the longest active bowl win streak in the
nation. The streak ended the following year with their loss to
Vanderbilt
in the
2008 Music City
Bowl.
Ryan
broke the Boston College single-season touchdown record previously
held by College Hall of Famer
, Doug Flutie. He
was awarded the 2007
Johnny Unitas Golden Arm
Award, given annually in the United States to the nation's most
outstanding senior quarterback in college football and was selected
third in the
2008 NFL Draft by the
Atlanta Falcons, making him the
highest-chosen BC player in
NFL Draft
history.
Student media
- Newspapers
- The Heights,
the principal student newspaper,
published twice-weekly; established in 1919
- The Observer, a conservative student newspaper founded
on the principles of the Catholic Church
- The Gavel, an independent progressive student
newspaper; launched on October 27, 2009. The Gavel is a
mainly web-based publication and updates twice-weekly, while it
prints monthly.
- Broadcasting
- The BC, a widely-acclaimed
parody of The OC featuring students,
Jesuits, and administrators
- UGBC-TV, the student-run cable television station featuring the campus'
longest running TV show, Now You
Know, a news-variety show occasionally including taped
broadcast coverage of campus events
- WZBC
, 90.3 FM,
the student-run radio station which
provides independent and experimental music
- Other notable publications
- Sub Turri, the Boston College
yearbook, published since 1913
- The Stylus, the undergraduate art and literature
magazine, founded in 1882
- Elements, the premier
undergraduate research journal of Boston College, published
biannually
- Ensembles
School songs
Alma Mater
Alma Mater was written by
T.J.
Hurley, who also wrote
For Boston (the Boston College
Fight Song) and was a member of the Class of
1885.
Hail! Alma Mater! Thy praise we sing.
Fondly thy mem'ries round our heart still cling.
Guide of our youth, thro' thee we shall prevail!
Hail! Alma Mater! Hail! All Hail!
Hail! Alma Mater! Lo, on the height,
Proudly thy tow'rs are raised for the Right
God is thy Master, His law thy sole avail!
Hail! Alma Mater! Hail! All Hail!
For Boston
"For Boston" is America's oldest college
fight song, composed by T.J. Hurley in 1885. It
has two verses but the most commonly sung one is the first verse.
Boston-based band
Dropkick Murphys
covered this song on their album
Sing Loud, Sing Proud!.
For Boston, for Boston,
We sing our proud refrain!
For Boston, for Boston,
'Tis Wisdom's earthly fane.
For here all are one
And their hearts are true,
And the towers on the Heights
Reach to Heav'ns own blue.
For Boston, for Boston,
Till the echoes ring again!
For Boston, for Boston,
Thy glory is our own!
For Boston, for Boston,
'Tis here that Truth is known.
And ever with the Right
Shall thy heirs be found,
Till time shall be no more
And thy work is crown'd.
For Boston, for Boston,
For Thee and Thine alone.
Notable persons
"The Heights" is a nickname given to Boston College. It recalls
both BC's lofty aspirations — the college motto is "
Ever to Excel" — and its hilltop location, an
area initially designated as "University Heights". The name has
lent itself to a number of campus organizations, most notably the
principal student newspaper,
The Heights. BC students were
universally called "
Heightsmen" until 1925 when
Mary C. Mellyn became the first "
Heightswoman" to
receive a BC degree. "
Heightsonian" was originally
conceived as a way to gender neutralize the original term
"Heightsmen", though "
Eagles", once exclusively
used for members of the University's athletics teams, is more
commonly used. Contrary to its occasional usage by misinformed
sportswriters and announcers, the term "Golden Eagles" refers
strictly to BC graduates who have celebrated their 50th anniversary
reunion.
There are 143,000 alumni in over 120 countries around the world.
Boston College Facts - Boston College Boston College
students have enjoyed success in winning prestigious post-graduate
fellowships and awards, including recent
Rhodes,
Marshall,
Mellon,
Fulbright,
Truman,
Churchill, and
Goldwater scholarships, among others. BC's yield rate for
Fulbright awards is the highest in the country. In 2007, the
German department was awarded a
record 13 Fulbright scholarships, five more than the previous
number from a single department. Though formal numbers are not
kept, the number of award winners from one department to study in a
specific country is thought by academic scholars to be the largest
in the 60-year history of the Fulbright program.
File:John F. Kerry.jpg|John F.
Kerry
United States Senator from
Massachusetts
2004 Democratic
Presidential
nominee
J.D. '76
File:SpeakerO'Neill.jpg|Tip
O'Neill
Speaker of
the United States House of Representatives
'36
File:Cellucci paul.jpg|Paul
Cellucci
Governor of
Massachusetts
United States
Ambassador to Canada
'70, J.D. '73
File:Cushing-mosaic.jpg|Richard Cushing
American Cardinal of
the Roman Catholic
Church
'17
See also
References
- History - Boston College
- http://www.wjst.edu/File/BC_Weston_Press_Release.pdf
- http://www.vhb.com/bostoncollege/imp/pdf/masterplan07.pdf
-
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/07/ChronicleSupplementDec07.pdf
-
http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/voices/200111/1112homecoming.html
-
http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/2005/10/26/bawdy-boston-college-students-bother-brighton/
-
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/newton/2009/06/boston_signs_off_on_bc_expansi_1.html
- Reference#: 90000109
-
http://www.bc.edu/publications/atbc/features/innerfire/slideshow/01.html
@BC
-
http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories5/042104_sale.htm
The
Boston Globe
-
http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories5/042104_statement.htm
The
Boston Globe
- Wilson, Julia. " Group brings garden to BC", The Heights,
(2008-09-18). Retrieved on 2009-07-03.
- Cultivating Change, the 2008 Annual Report for
Real Food BC.
- Boston College Chronicle,
November 4, 2008.
- Voosen, Paul. " Disambiguation." December 7, 2005,
Boston College Magazine.
Accessed on December 26, 2006.
- The Parish of St. Ignatius of Loyola
-
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v14/mr30/partnership.html
Boston College Chronicle
-
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/94/colleges-09_Americas-Best-Colleges_Rank.html
- Undergraduate B-School Profiles
- "Project Connect" Carnegie
Communications
- http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/07/DreamCollege07.pdf
- http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC/ec.php
- Selecting the Class - Boston College
- http://www.bc.edu/centers/psp//
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- http://www.bc.edu/admission/undergrad/
- Ibid.
-
http://www.studentscholarshipsearch.com/Detailed/Scholarships/Free_Ride_Full_Tuition_Scholarships/Boston_College_Presidential_Scholars_Program_147.php
- http://www.bc.edu/admission/undergrad/
- C21 Resources
- A Pocket Guide to Jesuit Education
- Journal of Technology, Learning and
Assessment
- Boston College Environmental Affairs Law
Review
- Boston College Law Review - Boston College Law
Review
- http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/lwsch/interrev.html
- http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/iclr.html
- Third World Law Journal
- Uniform Commercial Code Reporter-Digest
- The
New Arcadia Review
- Religion and the Arts Journal
- Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations
- Council of
Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations
- Teaching Exceptional Children / Plus
- Boston College - General Releases
-
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/020318/archive_020363.htm
U.S. News & World
Report
- SI.com - 2008 NFL Draft - Matt Ryan
- The
Heights
- " The
Observer at Boston College"
- The Gavel:
The Progressive News Source of Boston College
- Welcome to
The BC
- The BC
- http://www.ugbc.org/ugbctv/index.asp
- Now You Know
- WZBC
- Sub Turri
- The Stylus
- http://www.bc.edu/offices/odsd/bands/ensembles/bcbop.html
-
http://www.bc.edu/offices/odsd/bands/ensembles/marching.html
- http://www.bc.edu/offices/odsd/bands/ensembles/pep.html
-
http://www.bc.edu/offices/odsd/bands/ensembles/concert.html
-
http://www.bc.edu/offices/odsd/bands/ensembles/symphonicband.html
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