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 MONUMENTAL
Viewable only through the strongest electron microscopes, these freestanding carbon nanotubes were grown by Associate Physics Professor Zhifeng Ren on a nickel substrate. They are 1/5,000th the size of a human hair and stronger than steel. Ren's work was recently cited in a White House report accompanying the launch of a National Nanotechnology Initiative. Potential uses for nanotube forests such as the one shown here include water filtration, flat-panel computer screens, and electromagnetic sensors to detect poisonous gases or car emissions. • Related information from the National Nanotechnology Initiative • Related story from the BC Chronicle: One in a Million Scientist • Zhifeng Ren's BC Web site  MAJOR LEAGUE For the first time, communication is the top choice of major at Boston College, with 865 undergraduates currently signed on. It replaces English, which is now the second most popular with 863 students. Finance is third with 732. • Related article from the BC Chronicle: A Major Change in Enrollment SEARCH BEGINS With Frank B. Campanella stepping down after 24 years as executive vice president in August, a search committee has been formed to find a successor. Chaired by Board of Trustees Chairman Charles I. Clough, Jr., the committee includes John J. Neuhauser, academic vice president and dean of faculties; Thomas A. Vanderslice, chairman of the trustees' Academic Affairs Committee; and R. Michael Murray, Jr., chairman of the board's Finance and Audit Committee. DUBLIN DIGS With the October 23 opening of the Boston College Center for Irish Programs, BC's Irish Institute gained a permanent Dublin home. Located on St. Stephen's Green in the city's historic Georgian Square, the site will also serve as an in-country resource for the University's Irish Studies Program, the Burns Library, and international student programs. BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Daniel Glickman was among the speakers at the Ecological Cities Conference held November 10 and 11 at the BC Law School. Hosted by the two-year-old Watershed Institute of Boston College, which conducts research on urban ecosystems, the conference was the first of a planned nationwide series of regional events aimed at bringing together government officials, scientists, academics, and community leaders. • Web site of the Ecological Cities Conference • Related article from the BC Law School newsletter  NORTHERN
LIGHT"Illness, insanity, and death," the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944) once said, "were the black angels that kept watch over my cradle and accompanied me all my life." Munch's paintings, with titles like "Ashes," "Melancholy," and "The Scream," were both personally passionate and symbolic of modernity's painful grant of independence. The McMullen Museum of Art is presenting a major exhibition of the art of Edvard Munch that includes 16 paintings and 50 prints gathered from museums and private collections in Norway and the United States. The exhibit runs through May 22. At left is "Vampire," a lithograph over woodcut (1895/1902). • McMullen Museum's Munch Exhibit Web site • Self portraits by Munch • Other works by Munch  VATICAN
VISITORNigerian-born Francis Cardinal Arinze met with students and faculty and addressed a standing-room-only crowd at Gasson Hall on October 31. Arinze, who is president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, spoke of the dual responsibility of Catholic universities to maintain their Catholic nature while engaging people of other religions in dialogue and collaboration. • Related article from the BC Chronicle: Cardinal Discusses Need for Dialogue During BC Visit BOOK MARK The Boston College libraries have been invited to join the Washington, D.C.-based Association of Research Libraries, which represents more than 120 major research libraries in North America. Membership is extended to libraries that support comprehensive research collections and contribute to scholarship beyond their own universities. BC libraries house 1.8 million volumes.  MAKEOVERChris Giovanis '02 (foreground) on the new mezzanine in the renovated Flynn Recreation Complex. The facility reopened on January 10 with $8 million in improvements, including new tennis, basketball, and volleyball courts, saunas, a 1/8-mile track, and an enlarged fitness center with three times the equipment previously on hand. CITY LIFE Jane Jacobs, author of the landmark treatise The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), was honored at a November 18 symposium cosponsored by the Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, the Carroll School of Management, and the University's Burns Library. The topic was "Jane Jacobs and the New Urban Ecology." Jacobs has donated her papers to Boston College. SCHOOL AID As part of the Lynch School of Education's teacher-training program in partnership with Boston schools, BC students will act as mentors to urban high school students who show an interest in teaching; University faculty will also help high school teachers integrate technology into the classroom and improve instructional practice. Funded by a $1.4 million U.S. Department of Education grant, the project is an outgrowth of the Title II Teacher Quality Enhancement Program, a statewide initiative aimed at strengthening the preparation of teachers in urban public schools. . GLOBAL MARKETPLACE A transatlantic symposium on corporate citizenship, held November 2 and 3 in London, was organized by BC's Center for Corporate Community Relations; the event was cosponsored by the Smith Institute and the Corporate Responsibility Group of Great Britain. BC sent a delegation of 30 US participants to the colloquium, which explored how corporations in the United States and Europe become involved in their communities in a mutually beneficial way, and the role that government can play in facilitating such symbiosis. FINISHING SCHOOL According to the annual graduation survey conducted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Boston College ranked fifth among Division I and Division I-A schools in graduating its student-athletes, behind only Notre Dame, Duke, Northwestern, and Stanford. Eighty-three percent of BC's scholarship athletes who entered as freshmen in the fall of 1993 have earned their degrees. The average rate in Division I is 58 percent. • Related article from the BC Chronicle: BC Athletes Again Rank High in Graduation Rates FILM STUDIES A new documentary by Fine Arts Professor John Michalczyk chronicles the evolution of Northern Irish paramilitaries from the beginning of "the Troubles" through the tenuous peace. The film, "Unexpected Openings: Northern Ireland Prisoners," had its premiere at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts September 22. Michalczyk shot on location at the Maze and Crumlin Road prisons and other sites in Ulster. • Related Article from the BC Chronicle: Opening 'Unexpected' Doors Top of page
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