The Church in the 21st Century Center has launched a new series, Veritas et Vinum. Intended for graduate students, and cosponsored by the Office of Graduate Student Life, the monthly Friday night sessions offer a mix of personal storytelling by a guest faculty member or senior administrator (“How I Got to BC,” as one speaker described the topic) and informal discussion—a chance to think about career trajectories and an occasion to consider the Jesuit Catholic educational experience.

The speakers have included Lisa Sowle Cahill, the Monan Professor of Theology, who told of bends in her career path: “I started out in bioethics and in basic systematic theology in its relation to ethics, [but] when I came out of grad school . . . everybody wanted me to write about sex,” she said. “The reason was that sex was still considered a women’s issue. . . . So for the first 20 years of my career I would say the majority of my writing was in sex and gender. . . . [You] make the contribution that you can.” Patricia DeLeeuw, the associate provost for faculties, recalled the transition from being a medievalist to being a dean, noting, “I liked thinking about the University as a university. . . . I don’t miss all those blue books.”

“It is not an oxymoron to think about the Catholic intellectual tradition at a great university,” Provost Cutberto Garza told the students. Cahill cited the diverse BC faculty’s overall commitment to an “important part of the Catholic and Jesuit mission, . . . educating our students for social justice and social participation.” Veritas et Vinum, says Robert Niebuhr, at work on a Ph.D. in history, gives graduate students “a sense of where the University fits within the broader world of post-baccalaureate education, regardless of why they chose to study here.” Future speakers will be Professor Callista Roy, CSJ (nursing), University President William P. Leahy, SJ, and A&S Dean Patrick Maney.

Read more by Anna Marie Murphy