Remarks by Boston College President William P. Leahy, S.J.
University Convocation
September 4, 2002
Robsham Theater

We gather this year in a very different environment than one year ago. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and their aftermath continue to profoundly affect the Boston College community, just as they do our country and the rest of the world. And for those who are Catholics and others who admire the work of the Church and the faith of its people, the crisis in the Catholic Church because of sexual abuse by priests and bishops also has caused pain, questioning, and re-evaluation.

But universities are powerful institutions, and in spite of these challenges, our central work continues. As it has for decades, Boston College still is focused on offering quality education in an atmosphere of caring and faith. Another set of students, undergraduate, graduate, and professional, has arrived on our campus seeking knowledge and asking us to help prepare them for their future lives and careers.

As I have at past convocations, I would like to look back on the past year and highlight certain changes and achievements. Then look ahead and focus on specific challenges and initiatives that face us in our new circumstances.

People are at the heart of Boston College, and Pat Keating and Jack Neuhauser will provide information about accomplishments of faculty and staff in their areas. But I want to extend a warm welcome to four individuals in senior positions whose responsibilities touch various parts of BC:

Marian Moore, our vice president for information technology, comes to us from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where she was vice president for information technology; Jim Husson, vice president for development, formerly vice president for development at Brown University;
Tom Keady, associate vice president for governmental and community affairs, who held a similar position at Northeastern University;
And Tom Devine, a veteran at BC, but since February, vice president for facilities management.

Please join me in welcoming these individuals and all the others who are new to Boston College.

We have so many dedicated faculty, administrators, and staff at BC, people who are not always noticed but without whom we could not function. About a month ago I had the opportunity to tour a portion of the Big Dig, to see first hand what thousands have been doing for years under downtown Boston and around the Charles River. Their work is impressive and soon we will benefit from the tunnels, roadways, and the Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge they helped construct.

On our campus, too, we have so many people who help build BC in their own often quiet, unnoticed ways, who in classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and offices contribute to bettering the dream that is Boston College. I salute and thank you and your colleagues.

In my estimation, Boston College has never been stronger in students, faculty, staff, facilities, research success, financial position and stability, quality and reputation. We have recruited talented students once again, hired impressive faculty and staff, and completed some ambitious construction projects.

But this progress has not reduced but rather has intensified our challenges.

We face greater competition for students, and we enroll students who, with their families, come to BC with higher expectations in regard to academic advising, counseling services, facilities, and faculty availability.

We are increasingly successful in recruitment of faculty, but they also arrive with greater expectations regarding support for their teaching and research.

The overall quality of BC and its reputation have increased, but so have the pressures not simply to maintain our position but also to ‘move up,’ a pressure faced by competitive institutions that are investing heavily in their own improvement and advancement.

As we attract more external funding and more faculty time is devoted to research, we must assure ourselves and our students that increased research enhances teaching and learning. Students come to BC with the expectation that faculty will take an interest in them personally. They want contact with their teachers to discuss advising matters and career choices. Are we responding adequately to them? How many of our students last year could say that they knew faculty on a personal level and how many faculty had significant conversations with students? Our structures can facilitate this kind of personal contact and interest, but it is up to each of us as older adults in our community to take the lead in establishing ties with students.

The improvement of our facilities in the past two decades has been remarkable, but the pressure to keep on building and renovating puts great stress on our operating budget and long range financial plan.

We have never been more successful in fundraising. Currently, we have more than $375 million in cash and pledges toward our $400 million goal, and soon we will launch the faculty-staff component of our Ever to Excel campaign. But compared with most of our competitor institutions, BC’s endowment and fundraising efforts do not yet match our peers nor our ambitious goals. And the decline in the stock market has decreased endowment yields and will require us to reduce costs this year and in the immediate future, just as it will for other colleges and universities.

As we enter more into the mainstream of a fundamentally secular American higher education scene, we are challenged to maintain our identity as a Jesuit, Catholic university in a way that is both authentic and explicit, but also welcoming of the rich contributions of individuals of other faiths and values. BC has always offered a distinctive option in higher education. We must continue to offer that choice as well as offer to higher education generally the richness of Catholic intellectual, religious, and social justice traditions.

These challenges are a consequence of our success--which is a consequence of your talent and hard work, your commitment to teaching and scholarship, and your loyalty to your students and to BC. I say that if we could overcome the obstacles that threatened the University’s very existence 30 years ago, we can meet the new pressures that face us in the 21st century.

Let me now focus on two efforts that will be priorities this year: 1) the "Church in the 21st Century" initiative; and 2) an institution-wide commitment to assessment and strategic planning.

As you recall, in response to the clerical abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, I announced in mid-May that Boston College would undertake a special two-year academic initiative in response to the crisis. As a Catholic institution of higher education, Boston College has a special responsibility to help the Catholic community and wider society better understand Catholic perspectives on various matters and also to assist the Catholic Church in appreciating and responding to concerns and issues in contemporary society.

Specifically, the "Church in the 21st Century" program is intended for our own students, faculty and staff, BC alumni and friends, the Catholic community of Boston and beyond, and for all people who are concerned about the present crisis in the Catholic Church. Since our primary and distinctive contribution will be academic, the various events will draw from our intellectual and scholarly resources and seek to promote analysis, reflection and conversation. We can be a meeting place that seeks to help revitalize the Catholic community.

We plan to focus on three broad issues: 1) the roles and relationships of lay men and women, priests and bishops and how to enhance them; 2) sexuality in Catholic teaching and in current culture; and 3) the challenge of living and handing on the Catholic faith to succeeding generations.
I have asked the BC campus community and alumni groups for suggestions and ideas on how we might proceed, and we have received more than 200 specific and practical responses. I have appointed Bob Newton, Special Assistant to the President, and Mary Ann Hinsdale, Director of the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, to be co-directors of this initiative. Also an advisory committee of more than 30 faculty, deans, students, and alumni has been established, and it met three times during the summer.

A web site describing the goals and activities of this initiative can be found on InfoEagle. The opening event, called "From Crisis To Renewal: the Task Ahead," will be on Sept 18 at 7:30. I will review the goals and focal issues of the initiative, and Ken Woodward, Religion Editor of Newsweek, will be the keynote speaker, followed by comments from Lisa Cahill and Roberto Goizueta of our theology department and Jack Connors, alumnus, prominent Boston civic leader, and long-time BC trustee. I hope you can attend this event, which will be broadcast on the Web and televised via satellite so that interested groups around the country, especially at other Catholic colleges and universities, can watch. Our Alumni Association will host special alumni gatherings in four cities.

I envision the "Church in the 21st Century" project as a university-wide project; not only will the advisory committee plan events like September 18, but it will also ask schools, departments, and centers to participate with programs of their own. To name a few, events have been or are being planned in the Graduate School of Social Work, theology, the law school, the Lynch School, the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry, and the Jesuit Institute.

I ask that those of you who can contribute in some way to think about becoming involved in this initiative and to encourage your students to participate.

It is obvious that the Catholic Church has been deeply wounded by this scandal. I am confident that Boston College can help, not by substituting itself for the laity, priests, and bishops who must eventually renew the Church, but by being a meeting place for serious discussion and by providing scholarly resources that can promote needed healing and revitalization.

The second major initiative I want to discuss this afternoon concerns assessment and strategic planning.

Let me start with planning in the context of the past three decades. As is well known, Boston College in the early 1970s faced a financial crisis, and it was able to surmount those difficulties in part because it engaged in university-wide planning efforts that first put BC on a firm financial footing, and then articulated a comprehensive academic plan. In the mid-1980s, a university planning council developed the five-year strategic academic plan, "The Goals for the Nineties," followed in the early-1990s by another planning effort that produced "Advancing the Legacy: The New Millennium." Each of these planning efforts, integrated into our long-range budget and capital plan projections, set an ambitious, but steady course for Boston College when other institutions, including many local universities, were struggling in regard to goals or finances or both.The UAPC implementation is now virtually complete. Approximately $13 million has been added to academic budgets to pursue objectives determined by the planning and review process. BC’s continuing success is testimony to the effectiveness of our planning.

It is now time for a new strategic planning effort, one that will be a multi-year project. As with any good planning process, we must begin with a sharp and thorough assessment of strengths and weaknesses and a careful scan of the environment for opportunities and threats. In this context and recognizing that choices must be made, we need to develop our next set of strategic targets, those steps that will take us to the next level of institutional quality. Once tentative goals have been identified, we need to evaluate them according to such criteria as academic potential, need, cost, required personnel and space, and fit with institutional mission.

The strategic vision and plan that emerge from this process will guide goals for our next fundraising campaign. The plan may also result in reallocation of resources to meet new opportunities or to fund current initiatives meriting additional support. While we will continue choosing niches and supporting certain areas for excellence, I think it also is important to acknowledge that Boston Colleges has to have some level of strength in all the programs it offers. If that cannot be the case, we should not offer the program.

During the fall semester, I will appoint a university planning council to make recommendations to me about how to achieve the goals outlined earlier. This council will include faculty, students, staff, and administrators; some of you will be invited to serve on it; all of you will be asked for your ideas and suggestions. It will also draw on alumni and outside experts for advice. My charge to this council: continue the strong tradition that has brought Boston College to its current success; indicate what we need to do to reach the next level; propose a plan that makes us the best possible institution of higher education we can be and that will advance our mission and heritage as a Jesuit, Catholic university.

We have been through a year made more difficult by the effects of September 11 and scandal in the Catholic Church. But, like so many other people and institutions, we have pulled together and have been a supportive, caring community of faculty, students, and staff. Boston College has many assets, and it will develop many more in the years ahead. The strengths rooted in our traditions and sense of community are the foundation for all that we do, and for that Boston College owes all of you its gratitude.

I wish you the best in this new academic year.