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 The Critical Years: Excerpts from the Oral History Project on the years 1948–72 at Boston College. |
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 Professor
John MahoneyHolder of the Thomas F. Rattigan Chair in English Literature at Boston College, Mahoney came to BC to teach in 1955. He retired in spring 2002 and will stay on part-time as professor emeritus. Mahoney was interviewed by John Dennehy, a doctoral student in history. |
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Q: I read a piece you wrote some time ago regarding the turmoil of the ’60s. You said that the important question was: Were institutions changed for the better? Do you think BC has changed for the better? A: I have to say yes. I’m an optimist. It certainly wasn’t changed for the worse. Those were tough times and we all lived through them, I as a faculty member. We had cancellation of classes for a time. I remember sitting on the floor of my office with a group of students who still wanted to meet [in spite of the student strike]. On the one hand, I didn’t want to violate the decision that had been made, but I had these wonderfully eager students. I can still see one of them saying, "It wouldn’t violate the spirit, if we had discussions." There was a lot of idealism at the time. There was a lot of rambunctiousness too. And there was a lot of cynicism. "Let’s cancel classes and discuss the future of the university." Often times, there’d be sunny days and everybody would disappear and you wouldn’t find these discussion groups that were scheduled. Q: What do you think is the most important thing for people to know in order to understand the evolution of BC from the time you came here until 1972? A: A small, almost exclusively male, Jesuit, Catholic, Greater Boston institution with some small population beyond Greater Boston developed a sense of direction that had to be taken, if it was to survive as an institution of higher learning with a religious mission. Along the way, the resolve became firm. The resolve soon encountered a cultural and religious crisis that challenged it mightily, that brought great disappointments with it, that brought a decline in the number of Jesuits, but brought with it a new, revitalized sense of what Jesuit, Catholic education is about in its essence. We see it at no time more vividly than right now. It is a commitment to academic excellence, scholarly teaching and research, accompanied by an openness to the spiritual transcendent dimension in human experience. I didn’t memorize that. But you challenged me. |
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