Based on citations of its articles in other academic publications, the Boston College Law Review’s “impact ranking” in the profession recently rose from 31st to 23rd in the nation. E-mail was shut down between 5 p.m. and midnight on October 6 while servers were moved from the Middle Campus to a new information technology facility on the Brighton Campus. It was the University’s longest scheduled e-mail interruption since the service was provided to students in 1995, and some 100,000 messages were delayed in their delivery, including, this writer can attest, intriguing investment offers from Mrs. Mary Mohammed and the Wujiang Wanlinda Textile Co. The Office of Student Affairs put in place a policy that requires presentation of balancing views by registered student organizations that propose using University funds to bring to campus individuals who speak in opposition to Catholic teachings. While many questions remain about how and when the policy will be enforced and how great a change it represents (policy already required that registered student organizations respect “values and principles espoused by Boston College as a Jesuit Catholic university”), a Heights editorial said the rule “suggest[s] an overemphasis on being Catholic at the expense of being a university.” The annual undergraduate Dance Marathon, which raises money for Franciscan Children’s Hospital ($73,000 last year), will run from noon to midnight this year instead of through the night, to permit more students and more hospitalized children to participate. The Heights outed sophomore Tien Tran, a biology and pre-med major, as a child actress who appeared on the 1990s PBS children’s series Ghostwriter. Of 724 faculty queried by a group of their fellows as to whether to establish a faculty senate, 272 voted yes, 37 voted no, and 415 did not vote. Varsity games have since September been available live and on demand at www.accselect.com on a fee per event or per month basis. Included so far are men’s and women’s soccer, men’s ice hockey, and women’s volleyball and field hockey. Thirty percent of last year’s graduates completed two majors and another 30 percent completed a minor, says the Office of Student Services, while 5 percent completed two minors. Majors standing at a 25-year high this semester are finance (805), secondary education (175), art history (66), physics (62), classics (37), Slavic and Eastern languages (34), and German studies (27). Professor George Brown, a scholar of legal ethics and of federal-state relations, was named the inaugural holder of the Robert F. Drinan, SJ, Chair at the Law School. Boston College has founded the nation’s first joint graduate degree in business administration and pastoral ministry. The brainchild of Thomas Groome, director of the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, the program will be offered with the Carroll School of Management and is aimed at training individuals who have management responsibilities in parishes and church-related organizations. A “verbal and physical confrontation” among six women students in Roncalli Hall on October 12, in which racial epithets were allegedly voiced, is being investigated by the University. Rourke Professor of Physics Kevin Bedell, a former Los Alamos researcher who is held to have revivified BC’s physics department since becoming its chair in 1995, has been named vice provost for research, a new position created by Provost Bert Garza. The University held its first-ever “Come Meet Your Neighbor Night” for students and residents of Brighton. The September 21 block party on Radnor Road was attended by 250 and featured a barbecue, a DJ, and a scavenger hunt that compelled participants to unearth details of one anothers’ lives such as languages spoken and odd pets owned. On August 7, campus parking, which had historically been free in public garages, became a pay-as-you-go affair, with lift gates at the garages and transponders available for purchase by employees. Evening and weekend visitors do receive two hours of courtesy parking. Based on a survey, Men’s Fitness magazine named BC students the third most fit in the nation. More than 100 institutions were surveyed, and the two whose students out-buffed BC’s were Dickinson College and Colgate University. Harvard, Tufts, BU, Northeastern, and BC collectively pledged $5 million in funds and $5 million in services to the Boston Public Schools. The only state not to send an undergraduate student to Boston College in September was Mississippi. According to Dining Services figures, BC’s students spend $22,000 on campus coffee each week—not including, of course, coffee purchased at the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts or at French Press, where an employee told the Heights: “I haven’t had a decaf order yet from an undergraduate student.”

Ben Birnbaum

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