JOINT CUSTODY
The husband-and-wife team of Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair will share BC's new Norma Jean Calderwood University Professorship in Islamic and Asian Art. Both scholars hold Ph.D.s from Harvard University, he in fine arts and she in fine arts and Middle Eastern studies. Both have been visiting professors at Harvard, Dartmouth, and MIT. They are co-authors of three books, including Islam: A Thousand Years of Power and Faith (TV Books, 2000), and are the parents of two young children. Bloom and Blair will alternate teaching and childcare duties on a semester rotation.



FIRST CHAIR
The first endowed professorship in the School of Nursing, the Lelia Holden Carroll Professorship, has been awarded to Judith Vessey, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. Vessey is a certified pediatric nurse practitioner whose research is in developmental pediatrics and childhood pain. She holds an MA and a Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of Primary Care of the Child with a Chronic Condition (Mosby, 1996).




SOMETHING BORROWED
The Interlibrary Loan Department at Boston College has been named Interlibrary Loan Department of the Year by New England's 500-member library cooperative, NELINET.



MAKING THE CUT
Although BC accepted only 32 percent of applicants for the class of 2004, and sent out 400 fewer acceptance letters than last year, it wound up with a 1 percent gain in yield (now 34 percent). The result is a freshman class whose combined middle 50 percent range of SAT scores is 1230-1370, compared with 1200-1340 for the Class of 2000. AHANA students make up 21 percent of the entering class.

Related story from the BC Chronicle: Freshman Class Said to be Strongest In BC History



ONE VOICE
Coretta Scott King (center) linked arms with BC's Voices of Imani, joining in a rendition of "We Shall Overcome" before addressing a packed Robsham Theater audience on October 16. King met privately earlier in the day with President William P. Leahy, SJ, and with leaders of Undergraduate Government, which sponsored her visit. She also presented this year's Martin Luther King, Jr., Community Service Award.

Related story from the BC Chronicle: Three Honored for Service



TAXING MEETING
Tax and fiscal specialists from around the world attended the symposium "Globalization and the Taxation of Foreign Investment" in Munich last September, held in honor of Law Professor Hugh Ault. A special adviser to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Ault has served as advisor to the finance ministries of Sweden, Albania, China, and Japan.



ALL ABOARD
The Board of Trustees welcomes three new members: Peter W. Bell '86, president and CEO of StorageNetworks, Inc.; Kathleen A. Corbet '82, chief investment/operations officer of Alliance Capital Management Company; and Robert F. Cotter '73, president and chief operating officer of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Worldwide, Inc.



BEST OF BC
The BC chapter of Phi Beta Kappa has recognized Associate Professor of Communication Dale Herbeck for excellence in teaching and advising by bestowing on him its 2000 Teaching Award. Herbeck teaches courses on the First Amendment and communications law, including a popular offering on cyberlaw.

Related story from the BC Chronicle: Phi Beta Kappa Cites Herbeck



HIS EXCELLENCE
The Catholic Theological Society of America has bestowed its highest award for excellence in theology, the John Courtney Murray Award, on Canisius Professor of Theology Michael J. Buckley, SJ. Since 1992, Buckley has been director of the Jesuit Institute at Boston College.



FORE A GOOD CAUSE
Eighty-eight players competed in the first annual "Sonny" Nictakis Memorial Golf Tournament October 8 at the Bay Pointe Country Club in Bourne, Massachusetts. The tournament raised close to $3,000 for the Peter "Sonny" Nictakis Baseball Scholarship Fund, established this year in memory of Nictakis '99, who died of Hodgkin's disease in August. Nictakis was catcher for the Boston College baseball team, and 1998-99 team captain.



ORIGINALS
"The Art of the Book," an exhibit of early printed books and illuminated manuscripts, miniatures, and single leaves from the fifth to the 16th centuries, ran October 12 to November 19 at the Burns Library. Included in the 100 exhibit items were narrow strips from a mid-fifth-century rendering of St. Hilary's treatise on the Trinity--plundered centuries ago to make repairs to another manuscript--and a leaf from a Gutenberg Bible, circa 1455.



SHE'S NU
First place in the health sciences category of the Alpha Sigma Nu Book Awards has gone to a 1999 publication by Nursing Professor Calista Roy, CSJ. The honor society of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities recognized The Roy Adaptation Model-Based Research: 25 Years of Contributions to Nursing Science with its first award in the new category. Roy has developed a holistic approach to nursing that considers clients (whether individuals or whole communities) as adaptive bio-psycho-social beings.



ANNIVERSARY WALTZ
Twenty years ago, Robert VerEecke, SJ, premiered "A Dancer's Christmas" before a modest audience of about four dozen people. Now an annual event, the creation of BC's Jesuit-Artist-in-Residence will be seen by some 3,500 spectators in a production that runs December 8-17. The professional dancers, alumni, BC students, and local children who make up the 50-member cast have become part of a Jesuit tradition of dance that dates back to the 16th century, when, says VerEecke, "dance was part of the curriculum--a way of communicating gospel and scripture--in Jesuit schools."

Related story from the BC Chronicle: Dancing in the Spirit of the Season



IT'S OFFICIAL
Formal dedication of the Carolyn A. and Peter S. Lynch School of Education took place on November 2, with the symposium "Educational Excellence and Equity through Partnerships." Boston Superintendent of Schools Thomas Payzant served as moderator, and U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) delivered the keynote address. Last year, the Lynches donated more than $10 million to the University. Peter Lynch '65 is a BC trustee and vice chairman of Fidelity Management and Research Company. Carolyn Lynch is a graduate and trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and president of the Lynch Foundation.




LESSONS IN PREJUDICE
The Lynch School of Education has entered into a partnership with Facing History and Ourselves, a Massachusetts organization that trains teachers and develops curricula examining racism, anti-Semitism, and prejudice. Eighteen BC undergraduates will take part in Facing History seminars, design curriculum units, and train in secondary-school classrooms alongside mentors.



TV GUIDE
James Erps, SJ, Director of BC's Campus Ministry, had a cameo role on the television program ER on October 19. He played a priest called in to baptize a premature infant. The part grew out of a conversation between Erps and Jack Orman, the executive producer and a friend from Erps's days in the chaplaincy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Erps pointed out that in cities with large Catholic populations like Chicago, where ER is set, priests are often seen in emergency rooms. "I told him there weren't enough priests on the show," says Erps. "So he wrote a part for a priest and I volunteered for it."



THIRD DIMENSION
Three Boston College scientists have joined with colleagues at Boston University to form a cross-disciplinary team working to develop three-dimensional glass micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). They are Associate Chemistry Professor John Fourkas, Assistant Chemistry Professor Scott Miller, and Physics Professor Michael Naughton. MEMS, which draw on the technology used in making computer chips, are now essentially two-dimensional. Going to three dimensions will greatly increase their range of functions. The team recently received a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Related story from the BC Chronicle: NSF Grant to Aid BC Researchers' Project in Micro-technology



DABRU EMET
Assistant Professor of Theology Rabbi Ruth Langer was among more than 160 rabbis and Jewish scholars who signed a landmark statement on Jewish-Christian relations calling for Jewish appreciation of Christian steps toward reconciliation between the faiths. The statement, Dabru Emet ("speak the truth"), appeared September 10 as a full-page advertisement in the New York Times and the Baltimore Sun.

Read the full text of Dabru Emet



THE CEOS
The roster of speakers scheduled for the luncheon series of the Boston College Chief Executives Club this year includes Perot Systems Corp. chairman and CEO H. Ross Perot, Dell Computer Corp. CEO Michael S. Dell, General Motors Corp. chairman and CEO Richard Wagoner, Jr., and the chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Corp., Carly Fiorina.



WHO'S COOKING
The University's Dining Service, under the direction of Patricia Bando, has been honored for its multiethnic menus as well as for the diversity of its workforce by the Multicultural Foodservice and Hospitality Alliance. The service's full-time staff of 245 is 50 percent AHANA, 40 percent female, 9 percent senior citizens, and 12 percent persons with special needs.


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