A Signal Moment

light the world: the 150th anniversary campaign for boston college

Boston College has long served as a beacon. At its founding in 1863, the small Jesuit school in Boston's South End offered hope to immigrant families. For much of the first century of its existence, this commitment—to light a path of opportunity—defined Boston College and brought it first local and then regional respect and affection. In more recent decades, Boston College cast its light farther and deeper, signaling hope far beyond the borders of its home city and New England. From across the United States, and then from around the world, students, faculty, and supporters have hearkened to Boston College's determination to honor reason and faith, to seek intellectual excellence, and draw, from a historic Jesuit, Catholic mission, the wisdom and inspiration to meet the evolving needs of the world.

Now Boston College stands prepared for a farther casting of its light. As the University approaches its 150th anniversary, it finds itself with the ability to secure a place as one of the handful of American universities that exercise a singular and profound influence upon culture and society.

Decades of strong financial growth have brought Boston College to this moment, as has the maturation, through careful nurturing, of the University's academic programs and faculty. The community of 150,000 alumni, parents, and friends is not only larger than ever before but more accomplished and capable. And Boston College has prepared us well by the high regard in which it is held by prospective parents and students across the nation, and by a growing international reputation.

The Light the World campaign has been designed to gather the means to build on this strong foundation of accomplishment.

The phrase "light the world" is highly resonant. Wisdom, charity, knowledge, and faith have often been thought of as forms of light, and in Christian teaching, Christ is "the light of the world." The name of the campaign draws, as well, from Jesuit history. In Jesuit headquarters in Rome stands a statue of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus. Incised into its base are the words Ite inflammate omnia, translated as "Go set the world aflame." These were the words with which Ignatius charged Francis Xavier as the younger man departed for India in 1540. They are the words today with which Boston College charges each succeeding freshman class, in a torch-lighting ceremony held annually in front of Gasson Tower. Now Light the World charges each member of the University community to join Boston College's effort to make itself a more powerful brightness in the world, a greater hope.

Light the World, which will conclude in 2015, encompasses four initiatives. It will seek to raise $1.5 billion, building the financial resources needed to fund the University's strategic academic plan. (Of that goal, $520 million has already been pledged.) It will seek to double the number of volunteers engaged in service to the University and wider society. It will seek to vastly increase the number of alumni who include Boston College among their annual philanthropic priorities. And it will seek to motivate community members to include Boston College as a part of their charitable legacy. These four initiatives are bold, but so too are Boston College's abilities and aspirations as it nears the 150th anniversary of its founding.

Light the World represents a rare and profound opportunity for Boston College. Secure in its mission, true to its intellectual and religious roots, able and ambitious, dedicated to the full development of students and to meeting the needs of society, Boston College seeks now to assume a secure place among the greatest universities, to stimulate minds with the light of knowledge, wisdom, and faith—to be, on the heights of Chestnut Hill, a light to the world.