Boston College

Boston College (BC) is a private Catholic Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order, the university has more than 15,000 total students, making it the seventh largest Catholic university in the U.S. by enrollment.

Boston College was originally located in the South End of Boston before moving most of its campus to Chestnut Hill in 1907. Its main campus is a historic district and features some of the earliest examples of collegiate Gothic architecture in North America. The campus is 6 miles west of downtown Boston. It offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees through its nine colleges and schools. Boston College is classified as a "Research 1: Very High Research Spending and Doctorate Production" university by the Carnegie Classification.

Boston College athletic teams are the Eagles. Their colors are maroon and gold and their mascot is Baldwin the Eagle. The Eagles compete in NCAA Division I as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports offered by the ACC. The men's and women's ice hockey teams compete in Hockey East. Boston College's men's ice hockey team has won five national championships.

Alumni and affiliates of the university include governors, ambassadors, members of Congress, scholars, writers, medical researchers, Hollywood actors, and professional athletes. Boston College alumni include three Rhodes, 22 Truman, and 171 Fulbright scholars.

History

Early history

Boston College was founded through the efforts of the first Jesuit community in New England, which was established at St. Mary's Church in Boston in 1849. Jesuit priest John McElroy maintained the vision for what became Boston College, recognizing the need for an educational institution for the Irish Catholic immigrant population. With the approval of his Jesuit superiors, McElroy raised funds and purchased land for "The Boston College" on Harrison Avenue in the Hudson neighborhood of South End, Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857.

On April 1, 1863, the college was granted a university charter by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, allowing the board of trustees to confer degrees typically awarded by colleges in the state. John Bapst served as the first President of Boston College and launched the collegiate instruction program on September 5, 1864.

The average age of students in its early years was fourteen, indicating a strong presence of high schoolers, which aligned with the Society of Jesus's preparatory tradition from Europe. The student body consisted mainly of local boys from greater Boston parishes, some of whom received scholarships, while campus life focused heavily on religious activities, requiring Catholic students to attend Mass, partake in confession, and join devotional societies. The curriculum was based on the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum, emphasizing Latin, Greek, philosophy, and theology.

Expansion of the South End buildings onto James Street enabled increased separation between the high school and college divisions, though Boston College High School remained a constituent part of Boston College until 1927, when it was separately incorporated.

Robert and Catharine Morris

In 1895, Catharine H. Morris, wife of the second African American to pass the bar in the United States, Robert Morris, bequeathed their family library to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was physically and administratively attached to the nascent Boston College. Morris, a civil rights leader and prominent legal defender of Boston's Irish immigrant community, maintained close relationships with the leaders of the young Boston College, including early president Robert J. Fulton.

Currently, the Burns Library holds just over 100 confirmed texts from the Morris library. The original donation is estimated to amount to 1000 volumes, and scholars and librarians at the university continue to recover books belonging to the original collection. This archive presents a valuable set of 19th century editions of literature, history, and anti-slavery texts. As historians Laurel Davis and Mary Sarah Bilder write, "Morris indeed may mark one of the first self-conscious African American collectors of the African American experience, placing him in the company of later collector Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, who sought to collect and understand the 'global black experience.'"

Campuses

The Boston College campus is known generally as the "Heights" and to some as the "Crowned Hilltop" due largely to its location and presence of buildings featuring gothic towers reaching into the sky. The main campus is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The University also encompasses the Connors Family Retreat and Conference Center in Dover, Massachusetts, the Weston Observatory in Weston, Massachusetts, and various other properties in the region.

Chestnut Hill Campus

Boston College's main campus is located in Chestnut Hill, 6 miles (9.7 km) west of downtown Boston, is 175 acres and features over 120 buildings set atop a hill overlooking the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.

The campus is accessible via the Boston College station, situated at St. Ignatius Gate. This station serves as the western terminus of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line's B branch (also known as the "Boston College" line), connecting the university to downtown Boston and other destinations.

Other properties

In 2017, Boston College acquired the 24-acre Mishkan Tefila Synagogue property in Chestnut Hill, which was previously used for administrative services and event parking. The synagogue's 806-seat auditorium has since been transformed into the university's largest theater venue for the Robsham Theater Arts Center, alongside a ballroom-style multi-purpose room and a hexagon-shaped meeting room for various events. An outdoor quad is also available for performances and gatherings. In 2019, the City of Newton took approximately 17 wooded acres of the property through eminent domain. In 2020, Boston College further expanded its mission by acquiring Pine Manor College, a financially struggling liberal arts institution in Chestnut Hill that served a significant number of first-generation and inner-city students.

Newton Campus

In 1975, Boston College merged with Newton College of the Sacred Heart. The Centre Street campus of the Newton College has since become housing for freshmen of Boston College and the current location of the Boston College Law School. Athletic fields for some of Boston College's teams have also been constructed on Newton Campus. The campus is located 1 mile west of the main campus and is serviced by the university bus system.

Brighton Campus

Between 2004 and 2007, Boston College acquired 65 acres (260,000 m2) of land from the Archdiocese of Boston. This included the archdiocese's former headquarters, sold to the university in 2004 for $107,400,000. This land holds a variety of buildings for the school of theology, along with facilities for the men's baseball and women's softball team.

Organization and administration

Its annual operating budget is approximately $1.02 billion. The most recent and ongoing fundraising campaign, dubbed "Soaring Higher", was announced on September 28, 2023. The campaign aims to raise $3 billion, double the last campaign's goal. Of this goal, $1.1 billion is earmarked for student financial aid, $750 million is for student life initiatives, and $1.15 billion is for academic programs.

Catholic and Jesuit

As of 2005, there were 112 Jesuits living on the Boston College campus, including members of the faculty and administration, graduate students, and visiting international scholars.

The chapel for the university is located in St. Mary's Hall, the Jesuit residential facility. Additional BC chapels are Trinity Chapel on the Newton Campus, St. Joseph's Chapel in the Basement of Gonzaga Hall on Upper Campus, Simboli Hall Chapel on the Brighton Campus, and St. Catherine of Sienna Chapel in Cushing Hall. Over 70 Catholic Masses are celebrated on Campus each week during the Academic Year. The college also maintains close relations with the nearby Church of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

Affiliated institutions

St. Columbkille Parish is a Catholic Church and elementary school in Brighton, Massachusetts, that has an alliance with BC. Under the agreement, the parish school is to be governed by a board of members and a board of trustees comprising representatives from the Archdiocese of Boston, Boston College, St. Columbkille Parish and the greater Boston community.

Academics

Schools and colleges

Boston College is made up of a total of nine constituent colleges and schools:

• Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences
• Carroll School of Management
• Lynch School of Education and Human Development
• Connell School of Nursing
• Boston College School of Social Work
• Boston College Law School
• Gloria L. and Charles I. Clough School of Theology and Ministry
• Woods College of Advancing Studies
• Messina College

Rankings

Boston College tied for 39th among national universities and tied for 625th among global universities in U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges 2023–2024" rankings and 88th in the Forbes 2023 edition of "America's Top Colleges". In 2016, the undergraduate school of business, the Carroll School of Management, placed 3rd in an annual ranking of U.S. undergraduate business schools by Bloomberg Businessweek. A 2007 Princeton Review survey of parents that asked "What 'dream college' would you most like to see your child attend were prospects of acceptance or cost not issues?" placed BC 6th. Boston College is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.

Order of the Cross and Crown

The Order of the Cross and Crown, founded in 1939, is the College of Arts and Sciences honor society for seniors who have achieved an average of at least A−, as well as established records of unusual service and leadership on the campus. The selections committee, composed of the deans, faculty members, and administration, appoints specially distinguished members of the Order to be its officers as Chief Marshal and Marshals. Induction into the Cross and Crown Honor Society is one of the highest and most prestigious honors that BC students can receive.

Scholarly publications

Boston College Law Review

C21 Resources, a progressive journal of contemporary Catholic issues, published by BC's Church in the 21st Century Center.

Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College, a journal featuring undergraduate work in philosophy from around the world.

The Eagletarian, published by The BC Economics Association.

• Guide to Jesuit Education
• Journal of Technology, Learning and Assessment
• Lumen et Vita: The Graduate Academic Journal of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry,
• New Arcadia Review
• Religion and the Arts Journal

Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, the official journal of the Council of Centers of Jewish-Christian Relations (CCJR) and is published by the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College and the Boston College Libraries.

Teaching Exceptional Children / Teaching Exceptional Children Plus

Uniform Commercial Code Reporter-Digest

Libraries and museums

Boston College's eight research libraries contain over two million printed volumes. Including manuscripts, journals, government documents and microform items, ranging from ancient papyrus scrolls to digital databases, the collections have some twelve million items. Together with the university's museums, they include original manuscripts and prints by Galileo, Ignatius of Loyola, and Francis Xavier as well as collections in Jesuitana, Irish literature, sixteenth-century Flemish tapestries, ancient Greek pottery, Caribbean folk art and literature, Japanese prints, U.S. government documents, Congressional archives, and paintings that span the history of art from Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

Libraries include: O'Neill, Bapst, Burns Library, Educational Resource Center of the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, BC Law Library, O'Connor Library at Weston Observatory (Boston College), Social Work Library at the Boston College School of Social Work, and the Theology and Ministry Library.

McMullen Museum of Art

The McMullen Museum of Art, located on Boston College's Brighton campus, was established in 1993 and named in 1996 to honor John J. McMullen's parents. In 2016, it moved to a new facility with nearly double the exhibition space and enhanced features. The museum is recognized for its multidisciplinary exhibitions that contextualize art within broader political and cultural narratives, with notable collections including works by prominent artists such as Winslow Homer and Pablo Picasso. Significant exhibitions have included "Carrie Mae Weems: Strategies of Engagement" and "Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image," which helped establish the museum's reputation.

O'Neill Library

Before the Thomas P. O’Neill, Jr. Library opened in 1984, Bapst Library had served as BC's main research facility since 1925. During Monan's tenure, the university transformed from a small college into a national institution. Monan played a key role in planning O’Neill Library to meet the needs of this transformation. In a 1992 interview, Monan expressed pride in the library's impact, noting how it was often filled with students studying and contributing to the overall learning experience for both students and faculty.

Bapst Library

Opened in 1928, Bapst Library was named for the first president of Boston College (Johannes Bapst, 1815 to 1887) and it was one of the few structures built according to Charles Donagh Maginnis' original "Oxford in America" master plan. Bapst served as the university's main library until 1984.

Student life

AHANA

AHANA is the term Boston College uses to refer to persons of African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American descent. The term was coined at Boston College in 1979 by two students, Alfred Feliciano and Valerie Lewis, who objected to the name "Office of Minority Programs" used by Boston College at the time. They cited the definition of the word minority as "less than" and proposed, instead, to use the term AHANA, which they felt celebrated social and cultural differences. After receiving overwhelming approval from the university's board of trustees and UGBC president Dan Cotter, the Office of Minority Student Programs became the Office of AHANA Student Programs. The term, or one or its derivative forms, such as ALANA (where "Latino" is substituted for "Hispanic"), has become common on a number of other American university campuses. Boston College, which has registered the term AHANA as a trademark, has granted official permission for its use to over 50 institutions and organizations in the United States. Many more use the term unofficially. Other institutions that use the AHANA acronym include Suffolk University, Cleveland State University, Eastern Mennonite University, Saint Martin's University, Le Moyne College, and Salem State University. There have been cases of racist graffiti and vandalism on dorm walls.

Student media

Newspapers

The Heights, the principal student newspaper, published weekly; established in 1919

The Gavel, an independent progressive student magazine; launched on October 27, 2009. The Gavel publishes most articles online, but brought back its print edition in the Spring of 2018.

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