From the Stylus to The Heights, student-run publications have been a mainstay of the Boston College undergraduate experience for decades. In the past three years, four new academic journals have taken root in the fertile intellectual soil on campus. Together, they provide a new forum for student expression and represent a natural outgrowth of the University's Jesuit identity.
"It's so important for students to have these outlets," says Julie Bulman '08, editor-in-chief of the online bioethics research journal Ethos. "It continues the work of our Jesuit education by giving students another way to learn and express themselves on their own terms." The other three journals - Elements, Epicenter, and the Dialogue - also help tie together the undergraduate experience.
"It's exciting to see students bring conversations about philosophy and physics from the classrooms into their dorms. Student-run journals help break down the barrier between academic and residental life, " says Michael Camacho '09, editor-in-chief of Dialogue.
The student journal boom started with Elements, which first published original research work in humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences in 2005. Editor-in-chief Catherine Halsey '08 explains that the journal emerged from students' BC experiences. Halsey became interested in research during "The Courage to Know," her freshman Cornerstone course. "You're asked to find out what you're passionate about and make a difference in that area, so there's a lot of room for original research in your BC career. From day one, you're asked to read impactful literature and discuss it purely for the sake of learning," she says.
An essay journal, Dialogue allows students to tie intellectual thought to everyday experience. The online journal Epicenters showcases a variety of art, poetry, music, film, and literature from throughout the Univerisity community. Although the journals differ in focus, the one unifier is that they remain completely in students hands. "Since we started out, we've done everything ourselves from refining the concept of the journal to reviewing and editing submissions to working with designers and printers," emphasizes Dialogue's Camacho, who helped found the annual publication with his brother Paul Camacho '07 and Dimitri Phillips '08.
Boston College faculty often serve a advisors for the journals, and many University departemnts, including the Office of Marketing Communicatinos, have provided necessary monetary and logistical assistance. But supportive faculty and staff haven't tried to change the students' vision, stresses Camacho. "They trust us to do the job. They want our success not to be by their doing, but our doing."
Success has come in myraid of forms. "There's a huge motivation for students to get their work published because so many good things come out of it," says Bulman, who helped found Ethos as an extension of the Mendel Society's annual Bioethics Conference. She believes students who conduct research and navigate an exacting publication process are better prepared for the rigors of graduate work. "Plus, having students' work distributed and read exposes people to bioethics issues that they may have thought about before, or forces them to see them in a different light," she says.
Faculty members have been enthusiastic in their responses as well - and sometimes refer to certain journals in their courses and distribute the publications to their students. However, Camacho is most gratified to see the conversation generated outside the classroom.
"When the journals push academic discussion into greater BC life, students become more conscious about their own theories and beliefs," says Camacho. "There's an energy and excitement to this self-dialogue, which is then shared with others and can be brought back into coursework,"
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