Joseph Quinn, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences since 1999, announced that he will return to the economics department in May 2007. Quinn, 59, said he was timing his return to teaching and research so as to allow the University to hire his successor before it begins to implement the strategic academic plan currently in development. Associate Professor of History Seth Jacobs was named the Phi Beta Kappa “teacher of the year” by the Boston College chapter. Jacobs, who has been on the Heights for five years, is said to be the most junior faculty member ever to win the award. Among the more hyperbolic student claims about his qualities was “Seth Jacobs walks on water.” Brian Steinberg, a chemistry doctoral student in Professor Lawrence Scott’s laboratory, constructed the world’s largest open geodesic polyarene, a carbon-based molecule that does not appear in nature. Steinberg’s record-setting creation, known as tetraindenocorannulene or C44H18, is distinguished for the number of its carbon atoms. Another of Scott’s students assembled the previous geodesic polyarene record holder. The housing selection lottery went digital this spring, eliminating the need for prospective suite-mates to send their most intellectually agile members to the Vanderslice Cabaret Room to hear their numbers called and negotiate amended living arrangement deals at high speed. President Leahy was named one of the “top 100 Irish Americans” of 2006 by Irish America magazine. Boston College was one of six Division IA universities with a football graduation rate exceeding 90 percent in 2006. The others were Duke, Northwestern, Notre Dame, SMU, and Southern Mississippi. A Boston College student who jumped into the Boston Marathon near BC’s main gate to accompany a plainly exhausted runner to just short of the finish line turned out to be freshman Joseph Turnage, a former high school distance runner from Dallas. The marathoner, Kim Aarden, 38, of Hop­kinton, Massachusetts, found the young man she had known as “Joe” by making inquiries with the help of the Office of Public Affairs and the Heights. Some 1,500 alumni, representing 17 chapters nationwide, took part in the first National Day of Service sponsored by the Alumni Association. Boston College has set new records for the number of research grants and dollars won by faculty and staff this year: a total of 358 awards worth $44.4 million. The previous best year was 2004, when 328 projects brought in $42.2 million. Secretary Rice may have received the lion’s share of publicity (story page 11), but three others did receive honorary degrees from Boston College this year: Kenneth Hackett ’68, president of Catholic Relief Services; Pierre Imbert, director of the Common­wealth’s Office for Refugees and Immigrants; and Elizabeth White, RSCJ, a founder of Newton College of the Sacred Heart, which was sited on the Newton Campus from 1946 until 1974, when the women’s college merged with Boston College. News stories about the scholarship of BC faculty and students appeared in more than 1,000 major-market journals and broadcasts, with a combined audience of more than 300 million, according to Office of Public Affairs estimates. The subjects ranged across campaign finance reform, Foucault’s travel habits, and the light-emitting properties of gold particles. The 20 megabytes of storage capacity allotted to WebMail student accounts was increased to 200 megabytes, earning a Heights “thumbs up.” Brooke Queenan ’06 was drafted by the New York Liberty at number 23 in the WNBA draft—the highest basketball draft selection to date for a Boston College woman. Only five BC men have been drafted higher in the NBA draft since it was instituted in 1947. John Feudo ’82, who recently directed alumni programs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and at the University of Connecticut, was named to head the Boston College Alumni Association. The sticker price of a year at Boston College rose by $1,958, to $44,226, including tuition, room, board, and fees. As always, institutional financial aid was budgeted to increase at the same rate as the price. Moakley Professor Kay Schlozman, a scholar of political activism, was named cowinner of the American Political Science Association’s highest award for distinguished service to the profession. Schlozman shares the Goodnow Award with Norman Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, and John A. Garcia, of the University of Arizona. Because security for Secretary Rice’s commencement appearance required that students pass through metal detectors before entering Alumni Field, the undergraduate band that usually plays about 45 unbroken minutes worth of “Pomp and Circumstance” and “Die Meistersinger” was this year required to carry its two tunes for twice that length of time. “I don’t know if it’s a record, but if it is, it isn’t one we want to break,” said Director of Bands Sebastian Bonaiuto.

Ben Birnbaum

Read more by Ben Birnbaum