Big man leaves campus

Francis B. Campanella will depart Boston College in August after occupying the executive vice president's position almost continually since 1973. Along with former president J. Donald Monan, SJ, former treasurer John Smith, and the late Charles Donovan, SJ--who was academic vice president for much of the 1970s--Frank will be remembered, probably as long as BC stands, for being part of that small band of University leaders who steered the institution away from what appeared to be inevitable bankruptcy in the early 1970s and turned it toward the U.S. News top-40 list.

Frank's piece of the action over nearly three decades has been large. He was the guardian of finances, construction, technology, and personnel, among other matters. And he has been a trusted adviser to two presidents on every other possible topic. But he was more than an influential university manager. He was a campus figure: the impeccable banker's outfits; the shock of combed white hair; the ambling, confident gait of the largest ruminant on the prairie.

People always said Frank was tough, a Marine. And he is tough enough, even if his daughters do get away with calling him "Daddyo." But the fact is that he remains after all these years a ruminant and not--despite opportunity--a carnivore. Notwithstanding his immense power at this University, and the provocations that sometimes flew his way because he was often the largest target on the horizon, he always tried to turn (sometimes with red-faced effort), toward humor, fairness, and goodness.

Once, believing he had hurt a friend with something he said at the annual Faculty Convocation, he stood up a year later in the same forum, before the same audience, and apologized for any hurt he'd caused a year earlier. And once, witnessing a student rally that had gone ugly with personal insult, he took the microphone and earnestly talked the protesters into dignity. These were unforgettable public moments, whether you think they showed toughness or tenderness.

When Queen Victoria died in 1901, Henry James wrote that she was more than a royal; she had been "a sustaining symbol." And so has Frank been at Boston College. When Fr. Monan left the presidency in 1996, the University was inevitably different the day after he walked away. This August, the departure of an individual will once more make a considerable and sudden change.

Ben Birnbaum

Photo:Frank B. Campanella: 'sustaining symbol'. Photo by Bill McCormack

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