Boston College netted a record 21 Fulbright Scholarships this year, 13 of them emanating from that zealous Fulbright factory, the German studies department. Economics major Bryana McGillycuddy ’09, a member of the University’s five-year-old equestrian team, finished third in “Intermediate Equitation Over Fences” in this year’s national championships, the furthest any Eagle rider has ever progressed in intercollegiate competition. Pedro Beauchamp, who dropped out in 1972 and went on to a career as a medical doctor in Puerto Rico, returned in May to receive his bachelor’s degree at the same time as his daughter Giovanna ’07. Said A&S Associate Dean William Petri, who arranged for the elder Beauchamp to transfer credits from an undergraduate program near his home, “It’s never too late to finish your BC degree.” Also receiving degrees in May, albeit honorary ones, were John M. (Jack) Connors, Jr. ’63, an advertising executive, philanthropist, and twice the chairman of the Boston College board of trustees; former Vatican astronomer George V. Coyne, SJ; Boston anti-violence advocate Isaura Mendes; former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney; and pioneering sports journalist Lesley Visser ’75. Massachusetts congressman Edward Markey ’68, JD’72 spoke at the Law School commencement. In an effort to save trees and money, Boston College will now limit free student use of its public printers to 500 pages per semester. After that, a charge of three cents per page will apply in aid of stopping students from using the printers to churn out issues of Wired or the volume of Chaucer or Spinoza required for a course. The first annual Boston College Venture Competition Prize of $10,000 went to student developers of the website CampusNites, a portal to home pages that list social activities at universities across the country. Q-Note, an advertising supported text messaging service, came in second. Bands Director Sebastian Bonaiuto, who turned BCbOp!, a jazz big band, into a formidable artistic presence on the Heights and in national competitions, and who invented (and directs) the University Wind Ensemble and Concert Band, was honored at the annual Arts Festival in April with the faculty award for arts development. The Catholic Press Association gave prizes to two books published by the Church in the 21st Century Center: a volume on sexuality that was edited by BC faculty John Garvey, Lisa Cahill, and T. Frank Kennedy, SJ; and a book titled Handing on the Faith, edited by BC theologian Fr. Robert Imbelli. Imbelli, it happens, was also the first person to discover that Pope Benedict had misidentified a New York diocesan priest as a Jesuit in his book, Jesus of Nazareth. A storm of predictable “Pope Not Infallible” headlines followed. Imbelli, also a New York diocesan priest, has himself had occasion to play a Jesuit in journalists’ reports. The Heights awarded its “person of the year” award to walk-on Steve Aponavicius ’09, the soccer player who stood in for a suspended football kicker at mid-season and went on to become the team’s leading scorer, academic all-ACC, and the only Aponavicius with a Wikipedia entry. The Dropkick Murphys, a local band that performs the world’s most terrifying version of “For Boston” (among other energetic excesses), was for its sins declined Boston licensing board permission to perform at the annual Modstock Festival. Harvard University’s chemistry and chemical biology departments presented Vanderslice Professor Amir Hoveyda with the Max Tishler Prize for “outstanding contributions in chemistry.” Where print and “acceptable electronic” formats of a research journal are both available, the University libraries will now only acquire the online version. The libraries expect to close about 800 print subscriptions. Also on the electron front, the libraries have subscribed to databases that include 40 years’ worth of New York Review of Books articles, and 250 significant video recordings of theater performances, including a 1936 As You Like It, with a baby-faced Laurence Olivier as Orlando, and a 1960 version of William Saroyan’s Once Around the Block, with the lead roles occupied by Larry Hagman, Walter Matthau, and Orson Bean. Mr. Tux once again offered its $49.99 BC commencement ball special, including “over 75 hot colors so that you can coordinate with your date.” All five seniors nominated for Boston College’s most prestigious graduation honor—the Rev. Edward Finnegan, SJ, Award—were women, and the winner was nursing graduate Kristin Jacques. According to a story in the July 6 Science, Boston College mathematician Robert Meyerhoff and colleagues at Princeton and the University of Melbourne developed a proof that a “tiny snarl” of twisted geometry known as the Weeks manifold is the smallest bit of hyperbolic space possible.

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