A global perspective has been a hallmark of the Society of Jesus since founder St. Ignatius Loyola dispatched his companions as missionaries to foreign lands four centuries ago. "The early Jesuits said, 'The world is our house,'" notes Rev. Francis Herrmannn, SJ, rector of BC's Jesuit Community, where an international spirit continues to prevail. Students from more than 90 countries attend Boston College, and an increasing number of BC undergraduates are choosing to spend part of their college career studying abroad. Boston College faculty conduct research across the world, and a number are prominently involved in affairs on the world stage. Additionally, the University's libraries and museums showcase the talents of writers and artists from many nations. At Boston College one feels a part, in Fr. Herrmann's words, "of a global community."

Asian Studies enables students to study the languages and cultures of Asia from a number of disciplinary perspectives. Students may select courses from several departments or may design an independent major. German Studies offers an interdisciplinary approach to the language and cultures of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Among the subjects studied are literature, art, music, history, theology and philosophy of the German-speaking peoples.

International Studies examines the cultural, political and economic relations among nations, international institutions, and broader social or intellectual movements. Students may design their own programs that focus on international issues, theoretical questions or geographic regions. Students pursuing a minor in International Studies at the Carroll School of Management choose a geographical area of specialization, such as Romania or the Caribbean Islands, and are required to spend at least a semester of study there.

Boston College Irish Studies is an internationally-recognized, comprehensive program that includes an exchange with University College Cork and a summer program at Dublin's Abbey Theatre. Irish Studies also has joined with the Music Department and the Burns Library to develop a traditional Irish Music Center, and offers an array of Irish music programs under the direction of internationally-known fiddler Seamus Connolly (see "Irish Programs and Studies" entries).

Italian Studies focuses on the prominent role that people of the Italian peninsula have played in the development of Western civilization. Latin American Studies offers a look at the diverse cultural, social, economic and political history of the people of Central and South America.

Middle Eastern Studies examines the socioeconomic, political and cultural issues of the Middle East. Russian and East European Studies offers study of the language, history, literature and social structure of Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet republics from a number of disciplinary perspectives.

All undergraduates must fulfill a core curriculum requirement in the area of "cultural diversity," which may be fulfilled by a course in Asian, African or other non-Western cultures, minority cultures in the United States, Native American culture, or by a course blending these elements.

The number of Boston College students who study abroad has increased significantly in the 1990s as the University has built an array of direct exchange partnerships with schools around the world. In 1991 perhaps 10 percent of BC students studied abroad; by 1998, that figure had risen to more than 30 percent. Through more than 45 foreign partnerships and programs, more than 600 undergraduate students and an increasing number of graduate students annually spend a year or semester at a college or university in another country, while some 120 additional students take part in summer programs abroad. In addition, Boston College annually hosts more than 50 exchange students from foreign countries. Exchange programs are in place with schools in France, Holland, Scotland, Germany and China, among others. BC was the first American university to offer a graduate program in Russia. The Center for International Studies at Boston College oversees the university's 40 partnerships with foreign universities, as well as external foreign-study programs. The Center, directed by Marian St. Onge, was formed in the 1997 by the merger of the Office of International Programs and the Foreign Study Program.

Study-abroad opportunities available to Boston College students include the following:

In Australia, undergraduate and graduate students may spend a semester or academic year at either Monash University or the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Boston's Australian Sister City. Monash was named Australian University of the Year in 1994 and is known for its science curriculum. The University of Melbourne is one of Australia's top research universities and offers excellent programs in arts and sciences and management based on the lecture-tutorial system. A Melbourne summer internship opportunity also is available.

A three-week program in May and June in Louvain, Belgium, introduces students to the European Community. In Britain, program offerings include Advanced Studies in England, with a semester or full-year program based in Bath and run in collaboration with Oxford University, and study-abroad programs at King's College, Lancaster University, London School of Economics, Oxford University and University of Glasgow. In the Caribbean Islands, a three-week program in Barbados is offered in conjunction with the Black Studies minor.

In China, offerings include undergraduate and graduate programs at Nanjing University, a leading university in one of China's most ancient cities. Students with intermediate or advanced language skills take courses in Chinese, while others enroll in intensive language classes and choose from a selection of courses in English. An English-language program for management students also is offered at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In addition, the Graduate School of Social Work sponsors a 24-day field experience in China that examines local social policy, and the university offers a six-week summer work opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students in the Shanghai-Hangzhou area. Also, Students in the Carroll School of Management have the opportunity to spend a semester studying in Beijing under a new international MBA program. The Carroll School joined Peking University and 24 other American Jesuit business schools in creating the first foreign MBA program in China to offer a curriculum of American management courses.

In Cuba, a two-week trip enables Graduate School of Social Work students to study social policy on the island. In Denmark, opportunities are available for study at Copenhagen University and Copenhagen Business School. In Ecuador, a study-abroad program at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito is open to students with Spanish-language skills across all disciplines. The Environmental Studies Program at Boston College has field-research programs in the Galapagos Islands, the Andean Highlands and the Amazon River basin. BC Nursing students may participate in two-week field experience in Guayaquil.

In France, opportunities for study include a Critical Studies interdisciplinary program focusing on contemporary French thought; a program at the University of Paris; a graduate program at Ecole Normale Superieure, the leading French teachers' college; summer internships and exchange programs for political-science and management students at the University of Strasbourg; a program for management or economics students at the Institute for Management and Business Administration of Paris, and exchange programs for MBA students in Bordeaux, Brest and Clermont-Ferrand.

In Germany, course offerings in the humanities, social sciences and business are offered at Dresden Technical University, while a program at Eichstatt Catholic University has a special emphasis on German studies. In India, an interdisciplinary program for undergraduates is offered at Loyola College of the University of Madras. The curriculum includes a core course in Indian religious traditions.

In Ireland, varied offerings include a cross-disciplinary program at University College Cork; a program in management and the humanities at Trinity College Dublin, one of Europe's oldest universities; a program for MBA students at University College Dublin; a program at University College Galway; a program in Northern Ireland, at Magee College of the University of Ulster; a six-week theater workshop at the Abbey Theatre; a six-week summer internship in Dublin, and a three-week field study program in Northern Ireland run in conjunction with the University of Ulster.

In Israel, a cross-disciplinary program with an option for pre-medical studies is offered at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In Italy, offerings include a program for junior classical studies majors or minors in Rome, a program at the University of Parma for students with at least intermediate-level skill in the Italian language, and a three-week summer program in Florence, taught in English, that focuses on the art of the Italian Renaissance.

In Japan, a program covering a wide range of disciplines is open to undergraduate and graduate students at Sophia University Tokyo. Course offerings are in English. In South Korea, an academic exchange program with Sogang University in Seoul offers a wide range of courses in Korean as well as a number of courses in English.

In Mexico, a program requiring at least an intermediate level of skill in Spanish is offered at Iberoamericana University in Mexico City. In Morocco, a program is offered at Ifrane at Al Akhawayn University, a private, English-language university. In the Netherlands, programs include study at the University of Amsterdam and at the University of Nijmegen, the latter emphasizing English literature and American studies.

In New Zealand, a program for MBA students is offered at the University of Otago. Through the Overseas Student Teaching Program, students in the School of Education students may spend a semester teaching abroad at an elementary or secondary school with which Boston College has established ties. Close relationships exist with schools in the British Isles, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.

In the Philippines, an English-language program at Anteneo de Manila University combines coursework with a one-month service project. In Poland, Jagiellonian University offers a program in politics, sociology and Polish language, literature and culture.

Students in the university's Presidential Scholars Program travel to France the summer after their sophomore year to study contemporary European history and politics. In Russia, a program at the Russian Academy of Science offers courses in Russian literature, history and language. In South Africa, studies are offered in a variety of disciplines at Rhodes University in Grahamstown.

In Spain, offerings include business courses at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid, study across disciplines at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, and courses in economics at Universidad Pompeu Fabra Barcelona. Programs are open to students with Spanish language skills.

The university continues to expand the international focus of its programs of study. Undergraduates in the College of Arts & Sciences and the Carroll School of Management must demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language in order to graduate, while MBA students in the Carroll School are required to take a course in international management. The School of Nursing offers a course that examines health-care resources around the globe, and instruction in "transcultural" nursing that prepares students to serve people of different ethnicities and varying attitudes toward health care. The School of Education has an international program that allows students to put overseas experience toward their certification requirements here. Other programs and resources include:

An important academic asset of the German Studies Department, the Heinz Bluhm Memorial Library contains some 4,000 volumes from the collection of the late Professor Heinz Bluhm (1907-1993), founder and longtime chairman of the department. Located on the second floor of Lyons Hall, it consists chiefly of Germanic volumes from Bluhm's own extensive personal research library, amassed over six decades and left to Boston College upon his death in 1993. Particularly strong holdings are found on Martin Luther, the Age of Goethe, and Nietzsche, though the full spectrum of German life and letters from the Middle Ages to the 20th century is richly represented.

Law students active in the Boston College Immigration and Asylum Project visit the BC Neighborhood Center in Brighton and the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center in the North End to counsel people seeking political asylum or waivers of deportation. The supervisor of the project, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law Daniel Kanstroom, says: "This is a great experience for the students. They are very motivated by the clients and their cases, and it forces them to think hard about the law and their role in it."

INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIPS

BC students in recent years have enjoyed great success at landing competitive international fellowships, including numerous federal Fulbright grants and the school's first Marshall Scholarship in 30 years. In 1999, five BC students won Fulbright Fellowships to study in Germany, Finland and Belgium; two BC students won National Security Education Fellowships to study in Bulgaria and Poland, and Broderick Bagert '98 prepared to study at Oxford University in England under a Marshall Fellowship. In 1998, 13 Boston College students won Fulbrights to study in Europe, Africa and the Pacific Islands. Administrators credit the increasingly strong caliber of students at Boston College and the dedicated efforts of a faculty committee that grooms students for fellowship success.

The College of Arts and Sciences offers a full range of modern and ancient language courses and requires all of its students to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language prior to graduation. The Carroll School of Management has instituted a similar requirement. Meantime, a range of clubs and specialized residential floors offer students opportunities to immerse themselves in foreign languages or cultures. They include the AHANA (African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American) Caucus; Armenian Club; Asian Caucus; Caribbean Culture Club; Cape Verdean Student Association; Chinese Student Association; Club Espanol; Colombian Association of BC; Cuban-American Students Association; French Club; French honor society Pi Delta Phi; German Academy; Graduate International Students Association; Hellenic Society; Hong Kong Club; Il Circolo Italiano; Indian Association; Indonesian Club; International Club of Boston College; Irish Society of BC; Japan Club of BC; Korean Students Association; Middle Eastern Club; Organization for Latin American Affairs; Philippine Society; Portuguese Cultural Association; Presenting Africa to You; Puerto Rican Association; Slavic Circle; Southeast Asian Student Association; Vietnamese Students Association, and the Undergraduate Government of Boston College Vice Presidency for International Affairs.

PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS PROGRAM

The Presidential Scholars Program, which draws some of the nation's brightest students to Boston College, includes a strong international component: Students in the program spend four weeks in Paris and Strasbourg, where they study French language, culture and society as well as the workings of the European Economic Community, and several of the scholars have done professional internships abroad, in settings from London to Nepal.

HURRICANE RELIEF

The Boston College community raised more than $32,000 to aid victims of Hurricane Mitch in Central America in 1998. More than $10,000 was raised through special collections taken at student Masses on campus, while another $11,500 was collected from fans at a BC-Notre Dame football game at Alumni Stadium in November. And Molly Moore '99, who had traveled to Nicaragua as an Ignacio Volunteer, raised more than $11,000 for the effort after speaking to parishioners at Chicago's St. John Fisher Church.

Psychology Professor Ramsay Liem and Education Professor M. Brinton Lykes helped organize the Ignacio Martin-Baro, SJ, Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights in 1996 to support victims of political oppression and social injustice. The fund was established in honor of Ignacio Martin-Baro, SJ, one of six Jesuits murdered by Salvadoran government troops at the University of Central America in 1989.

The Ignacio Volunteers Program was established in commemoration of the 1990-91 Ignatian Year, which marked the 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Ignatius Loyola and the 450th anniversary of the founding of the Society of Jesus. The program offers six volunteer trips of varying lengths to Belize, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica that enable Boston College students to serve people in need. Student travelers work with children and assist in community-service projects while living in rural conditions.

In the Jamaica Experience, student volunteers spend the week of spring break working with the elderly, handicapped and homeless in Kingston, Jamaica. The students live with local families, and gather in the evening for reflection and discussion. In the Jamaica Summer Camp, students work with grade-school children in rural Highgate, Jamaica, teaching academic lessons in the morning and supervising crafts and games in the afternoon.

Students accepted into the Belize Summer Camp spend three weeks volunteering at a summer camp for 250 children from poor families in Dangriga, Belize. Mornings are spent teaching English, math, geography, history and art, and afternoons are devoted to supervising sports activities. In the Belize Winter Camp, a dozen students spend two weeks during semester break working with children in the same area. Volunteers supervise educational workshops, arts and crafts, science experiments and sports.

In the Mexico Experience, 15 students spend two weeks during their semester break helping the poor in Tijuana, Mexico. Volunteers work at a center for migrant workers and their families, and at a shelter established by the late Mother Teresa. In the Dominican Republic Summer Camp, student volunteers spend two weeks in the rural mountain village of Banica, where they have lived with families, taught children and helped build a community center.

Student nurses travel to Ecuador during the semester break under the Por Cristo-School of Nursing Health Project. Por Cristo is a medical missionary organization that provides medical care to the poor of Latin America. Services offered include facial reconstruction surgery, cardiac and burn treatment, pre-natal care and physical therapy. Nursing students conduct classes in health and hygiene, treat patients and conduct home visits. In 1995, the coordinator of the Por Cristo-SON Health Project, School of Nursing Associate Professor Ronna Krozy, was honored by Por Cristo as "Volunteer of the Year." In 1997, University Chancellor J. Donald Monan, SJ, was presented with the 18th annual Por Cristo Award in recognition of the support BC gave the medical charity during Fr. Monan's 24-year tenure as president of the university.

(See also "Irish Programs and Studies" entries for the Irish Music Center and other Burns Library events.)

The John J. Burns Library houses the university's rare books and special collections as well as the University Archives, and regularly mounts exhibitions of these materials. Notable holdings include:

-The Irish Collection

The Irish Collection, which marked its 50th anniversary in 1998, contains manuscripts and memorabilia of some of Ireland's greatest writers. It is the largest and most comprehensive collection of Irish research materials in the United States. Founded in 1948, the collection has been enhanced in recent years by major acquisitions of materials relating to Nobel laureates William Butler Yeats and Samuel Beckett, among others. The Yeats manuscript collection, presented by the late poet's family in 1993, is considered the most comprehensive outside Ireland. Acquired in 1997 were the collected works of the late Flann O'Brien, an acclaimed novelist and columnist, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, considered one of Ireland's finest contemporary poets writing in the Irish language. The Irish Collection also includes the Irish Music Center, founded in 1998 to document and preserve traditional forms of Irish music (see separate entry). In 1999, The BC Libraries struck a resource-sharing partnership with the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that created between them the largest repository of Irish publications in the world.

The British Catholic Authors Collection features the manuscripts and published works of leading Catholic writers in the British Isles from the mid-19th century to the present. Noted for its extensive holdings on Francis Thompson and Hilaire Belloc, this collection also boasts strong holdings on John Henry Newman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Elizabeth Jennings, Frederick Copleston, and Alice and Wilfrid Meynell Its Graham Greene Archive is the largest existing official archive of the late British author, with 3,000 volumes and 60,000 individual documents that include letters from Charlie Chaplin, Richard Attenborough, Margaret Thatcher, Vladimir Nabokov and several thousand carbon copies of Greene's own letters. Greene's library contains his own works, including The Quiet American, The Power and the Glory and The Third Man, as well as 500 books, some bearing inscriptions, from such authors as George Moore, Evelyn Waugh and Ford Madox Ford. The collection also includes impressive holdings from several British Catholic presses, including the Stanbrook Abbey Press, St. Dominic's Press, the Burns, Oates & Washbourne Press, and the Aylesford Press.

- The Bulgarian and Balkan Collections

St. Kliment Ohridski Press in Bulgaria has chosen Burns Library as its American archive, and has donated upward of 2,500 books, making Boston College home to one of the largest repositories of Bulgarian books in the United States. The Bulgarian Collection is part of a larger Balkan Collection which is expected to ultimately include as many as 6,000 volumes. The arrangement with the St. Kliment Ohridski Press, one of the largest in that region of Europe, came when Boston College established a special Balkan Studies Program in 1995.

Assembled by the Jesuit missionary and ethnologist Joseph Williams, SJ, and named in honor of his father, this collection includes more than 10,000 volumes documenting the history, life and culture of the people of Jamaica and their African ancestors. It includes the largest manuscript collection of Anansi folk tales in existence.

This collection contains 18th- and 19th-century Japanese prints assembled by the late James W. Morrissey and presented to Boston College in his memory by his family. The collection has been enhanced by the collector's brother, Arthur Morrissey. The collection is especially rich in artists of the Golden Age of Japanese print-making from 1694 to 1858.

Each academic year, Burns Library welcomes a distinguished scholar, writer or artist who has made significant contributions to Irish cultural and intellectual life. The Burns Library Visiting Scholar in Irish Studies uses the library's Irish collection for his or her own research, and teaches one Irish Studies course and delivers two public lectures per semester. The presence of a Burns scholar at Boston College since 1991 has enhanced the intellectual life of the university and proved a tremendous asset to Irish studies. The 1999-2000 scholar is Paul Bew, political scientist and professor at Queens University in Belfast. Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, considered one of Ireland's finest contemporary poets in the Irish language, was the Burns Scholar for 1998-99. Past Scholars have included Bernard Meehan, keeper of the Book of Kells and other manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin (Spring 1998), and literary critic and author Maurice Harmon of University College Dublin (1993-94), whose edited volume of the correspondence between playwright Samuel Beckett and director Alan Schneider was released in 1998.

Since its 1996 launch as a flagship of "outreach scholarship," the Boston College Center for Child, Family and Community Partnerships, directed by Anita L. Brennan Professor of Education Richard M. Lerner, has been involved in a wide range of community-oriented projects, several of them international in scope. With funding from the Johann Jacobs Foundation of Switzerland, an alliance has been struck with the International Youth Foundation to bring Third World educators to Boston College for doctoral study. A project to better educational opportunities for girls in Laos has drawn support from the Norwegian branch of Save the Children.

Directed by Monan Professor of Education Philip Altbach, the Center was established at Boston College in 1995 to provide Jesuit colleges and universities around the world with a central clearinghouse for information and a forum for the thoughtful analysis of issues in higher education. In May 1998, 30 academic leaders from Latin America and other parts of the world attended a conference at the center on the challenges of private higher education across the globe. With its Ignatian roots, BC was a fitting venue, Altbach said, "for the beginning of a conversation about what private higher education should be doing in the world. We're particularly pleased to host this conference to bring the social-responsibility question front and center and have private universities place it atop their agendas." Among the presenters at the conference was Xavier Gorostiaga, SJ, rector of the Universidad Centroamericano in Managua, Nicaragua, and former Nicaraguan minister of education, who was a visiting scholar at the Center for International Higher Education in 1998.

CHARTES PRAYER LABYRINTH

A touch of Chartres came to Boston College in Fall 1998 with the painting of a medieval-style labyrinth on the Burns Library lawn. The labyrinth, a 50-foot circle of concentric rings forming a single path to the center, is like those used in the Middle Ages as an aid to meditation and prayer. Members of the BC chapter of the French honor society Pi Delta Phi had the idea of using Burns Lawn for a prayer circle fashioned after the labyrinths at Chartres and other Gothic cathedrals of medieval France.

Philosophy Professor Francis Soo heads the China Project, which offers fellowships to Chinese professors of Western philosophy to come to Boston College and arranges for American professors of Western philosophy to teach in China. In the first 10 years of the project, between 1985 and 1995, eight fellowships were accepted by Chinese professors and five American professors were sent to China. Soo says the aim of the project has been to introduce Western thought to China in a "quiet" way and to encourage a climate of open thought and free inquiry. Soo also has joined with retired Peking University Professor Wang Yony-Jiang to establish the Boston Institute of American and Chinese Cultures, a non-profit academic organization incorporated in 1997. The Institute is to publish a book series, American Society and Culture, and a bilingual journal, Society and Culture, which will provide information on American culture to a Chinese audience.

The University Chorale performed at Sunday Mass at St. Peter's Basilica and at a public audience with Pope John Paul II during a spring-break tour of Rome in 1997.

BC enjoyed an active year in the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program in 1998-99, hosting four researchers from overseas after dispatching two BC faculty members for study abroad.

From Boston College, Classical Studies Professor Dia Philippides traveled to Greece to teach at the University of Athens and develop a CD-ROM on modern Greek literature, while Associate Professor of Romance Languages Elizabeth Rhodes visited the University of Barcelona to research the novellas of Baroque Spanish writer Maria de Zayas.

Visiting Boston College were Tatyana Kalkanova, a teacher of language and literature at the American College of Sofia in Bulgaria, who was researching naming traditions among Bulgarian families; University of Sarajevo economist Dragoljub Stojanov, a former Bosnian minister for foreign trade who taught in the BC Economics Department; Jan Peter Stromsheim, a consultant to the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Education, who did research at the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Educational Policy in the Lynch School of Education, and Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith, a lecturer in modern Irish at University College Dublin, who did research on Gaelic poetry at Burns Library.

Notably, the Department of German Studies, though one of the smallest in the University, has enjoyed outsized success in the annual fellowship sweepstakes. While graduating only a dozen or so majors or minors combined in a given year, German Studies since the 1980s has averaged better than one Fulbright Fellowship winner per year traveling for post-graduate study in Germany or Austria. In 1998, no fewer than seven students who studied German at Boston College won fellowships to study or teach in Germany.

Solidifying its position as the leading American university in Ireland, Boston College in 1999 purchased property on the east side of St. Stephen's Green in Dublin to house the Boston College Center in Ireland. The Center will provide a permanent Dublin address for the Boston College Irish Institute as well as accommodations for the Irish Studies Program, Burns Library and Student Exchange Program (see separate entries).

Each June, the BC campus resonates with the sound of tin whistles and harps and the rap of step-dancers' heels during the Gaelic Roots Music and Dance Summer School and Festival. Organized by Seamus Connolly, music programs director of the BC Irish Studies Program, Gaelic Roots features instruction by the some of the best traditional musicians, singers and dancers in Celtic music today. Hundreds of music and dance enthusiasts from around the world attend the week-long June festival, which is capped by a Masters Concert starring some of the world's finest Celtic performing artists. Gaelic Roots evolved from a weekend festival begun in 1993, expanding to the current week-long format in 1997. A double CD set, "Boston College Irish Studies Program Celebrates Gaelic Roots," contains musical highlights from the festivals. Gaelic Roots underscores the dynamic Irish music scene at BC, establishing the university as home of the premier Irish music, song and dance festival in the United States.

The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College has hosted several major exhibitions of Irish art since 1993, when the gallery's inaugural exhibit was a presentation of watercolors and drawings from the National Gallery of Ireland, Visualizing Ireland: National Identity and the Pictorial Tradition. In 1996, the museum hosted America's Eye: Irish Paintings from the Collection of Brian P. Burns, which was accompanied by a day-long symposium titled "Irish America." In 1997, the museum presented Re/Dressing Cathleen: Contemporary Works from Irish Women Artists, which showcased the contributions of Irish women to European and American visual arts in the late 20th century. Accompanying the exhibition were a catalogue and a series of lectures on Irish women in the arts.

Several notable exhibitions of Irish art have been mounted at Boston College in recent years. In 1998, the Bapst Library displayed large-scale paintings by Northern Irish artists whose murals in the Catholic "Bogside" neighborhood of Derry have been among the signature political artwork of the Ulster strife, while the Burns Library exhibited contemporary paintings and sculptures inspired by Ireland's Great Famine.

A panel discussion, "The Great Famine Commemoration: An Gorta Mor 1845-1850," was held at Boston College in 1996 in observance of the 150th anniversary of the Irish famine. Irish studies scholars from BC, Notre Dame and Dublin spoke at the event, moderated by Irish Minister of State Avril Doyle, chairwoman of the Irish government's Famine Commemoration Committee.

Contemporary paintings and sculptures inspired by Ireland's Great Famine were exhibited at Burns Library in June 1998. Commissioned by the George Moore Society of County Mayo, the 45 pieces expressed the deep suffering of the Irish people during the famine years. The display at Burns coincided with the unveiling of the Irish Famine Memorial in downtown Boston.

The Irish Institute at Boston College was launched in December 1997 with a visit by Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who praised the University's relationship with his country as "a connection we're very proud of." The Institute promotes economic development in Ireland by offering programs in management, education and political leadership for Irish business and community representatives. The successor to the Center for Irish Management founded in 1992 at Boston College, the Irish Institute administers 21 programs that combine classroom sessions led by university faculty with visits to area businesses and community organizations. Directed by Sean Rowland, the Institute has hosted women business executives from Ulster and the Irish Republic, has developed the Ron Brown Business Development Program for small-business executives, and has staged conferences in Ireland on technology and education. Prime Minister Ahern said the BC center has made "a very valuable contribution to peace and economic development in Ireland." Members of the new Northern Ireland Assembly created under the Good Friday Peace Accord attended preparatory courses offered by the Boston College Irish Institute under a special program unveiled at BC in September by British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mo Mowlam.

The university sponsors the Irish Literary Supplement, a major scholarly publication in the field of Irish studies. Published twice annually, the ILS offers extensive reviews of Irish books and occasional articles and poetry. Boston College Irish Studies Program directors Adele Dalsimer and Kevin O'Neill serve on the editorial board, and BC faculty members regularly contribute reviews.

The Irish Music Center, established in 1998, is dedicated to the collection and preservation of traditional Irish music, especially as performed and recorded in the United States. The center will document traditional forms of Irish music from hundreds of years ago to the present, through a collection of recordings, sheet music, musical instruments and other items. A part of the Boston College Irish Collection housed in the John J. Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections, the Irish Music Center is an outgrowth of the Irish Music Archives founded in 1990 and containing hundreds of recordings and pieces of sheet music dating to the turn of the century.

Said Burns Librarian Robert O'Neill: "There was clearly increasing responsibility to collect, preserve and make these materials accessible to document Ireland's musical heritage and promote greater awareness of the contribution of Irish traditional music to Irish and American culture." Elizabeth Sweeney, an experienced librarian as well as a talented performer of Irish music on fiddle and piano, was named to oversee the center.

Boston College is noted for its Irish Studies Program, created in 1978, which has been praised by former Irish President Mary Robinson and others for its interdisciplinary approach to the study of Irish culture and society. In 1999, Irish Studies Program Co-Director Adele Dalsimer received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland for her contributions to Irish studies, a year after she had received an honorary degree from the University of Ulster, while Irish Studies Program Associate Director Robert Savage Jr. was appointed to a commission that will establish a national music archive for Ireland. Program co-directors Dalsimer and Kevin O'Neill serve on the editorial board of the Irish Literary Supplement, a major scholarly publication in the field of Irish studies. The Boston College Irish Studies Program also is host site for two new Fulbright scholarships in Irish music and dance. Recipients of the Riverdance Scholarship in Irish Dance and the Claddagh Records Scholarship in Traditional Irish Music will study performing arts at BC in 1999-2000.

Boston College is a regular venue for Irish performance and visual arts. The university's Robsham Theater has staged the one-man shows "Joyceman" and "Patrick Gulliver" featuring Abbey Theater actor Eamon Morrissey, as well as productions of well-known Irish plays such as "Ulysses in Nightown" and "Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme." In September 1994, a group of Boston College graduate students primarily in Irish Studies and English formed the Bridge Theater Company, performing both contemporary works as well as dramas by Yeats and Beckett. The troupe, in conjunction with acclaimed British actress Billie Whitelaw, presented a performance of "Catastrophe" and other Beckett monologues in April 1995 as part of a week-long celebration of the Burns Library's acquisition of the correspondence between Samuel Beckett and American director Alan Schneider. An annual festival of contemporary Irish films is staged in late winter by the Irish Studies Program and the Boston-area cultural group Irish Focus. Films shown have included early works by Neil Jordan and other directors.

Leading figures in Irish politics, among them a prime minister, a head of state, and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, have visited Boston College in recent years. They have included:

Irish President Mary McAleese

The president of Ireland visited Boston College in 1998 for the formal opening of the new offices of the Irish Institute and the Irish Studies Program in Connolly House.

Prime Minister Bertie Ahern

Irish Prime Minister Ahern received an honorary degree and delivered the address at Commencement Exercises in May 1998. He used the occasion to endorse the historic Northern Ireland peace accord, which was approved in a nationwide vote in the Irish Republic and Ulster later that week. Ahern played a significant role in the drafting of the so-called Good Friday Agreement, which advocates hoped would bring an end to sectarian violence in Ulster. Six months previous, in December 1997, the Irish prime minister visited Boston College to speak at the opening of the university's Irish Institute.

Mary Robinson

Then-president of Ireland Mary Robinson spoke at BC in October 1996 at an event sponsored by the Center for Irish Management, precursor to the Irish Institute. She praised the University's commitment to Irish studies, a field she said was vital to the preservation of a sense of shared culture and heritage among the millions worldwide descended from the Irish diaspora.

John Hume

Northern Irish politician and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume, widely credited with helping initiate negotiations between Britain and the Irish Republican Army, received an honorary degree and gave the address at Commencement Exercises in 1995. Earlier that year, the Catholic Hume spoke at a dinner at Boston College sponsored by the non-profit New England Circle, which also helped organize an appearance on campus by Northern Irish Unionists. Hume returned to BC in 1997 as a lecturer on contemporary Ireland, and was featured speaker at its annual Laetare Sunday alumni breakfast.

Northern Irish Loyalists

Six representatives of Northern Ireland's Loyalist political parties visited Boston College in October 1994 to discuss prospects for peace in their country. Their visit, co-sponsored by the Irish Studies Program and O'Neill Library in cooperation with the non-profit foundation New England Circle, was the first by Unionists to the United States in more than a decade.

A major conference on Jesuit cultural history drew scholars from across the world to BC in 1997 for seminars and artistic performances that cast the Jesuit saga in a new light. The scholarly gathering, hosted by the Jesuit Institute, was marked by fresh appraisals of the Society of Jesus' historic contributions to culture and the arts. The conference paid special attention to Jesuit missionary interactions with the native peoples of Asia and the Americas. Included on the itinerary were presentations on Jesuit ballet in 18th century Paris, the influence of the Chinese on Jesuit culture, and Jesuit aesthetics in book publishing, as well as a recital of baroque music played in the China missions. A highlight of the conference was the international premiere of "San Ignacio de Loyola," an 18th century chamber opera from the Jesuit Reductions of the ancient Province of Paraguay.

Jesuits from around the world have found Boston College an ideal location to study or begin a teaching career. In 1996-97, the university hosted 21, the largest number of Jesuit graduate students in the country, as well as 10 visiting scholars. These Jesuits came from across the United States as well as from 10 different foreign countries, including Indonesia and Portugal. In 1997-98, 17 visiting faculty and graduate students from Africa, Europe, Asia and the Pacific were in residence at the University's Jesuit Community. Twenty-five Jesuits from 15 different countries are currently in residence while pursuing graduate degrees.

"They have heard the community is attractive, that it is a lively academic environment with a distinctive Jesuit presence," says Vice President for University Mission and Ministry Joseph Appleyard, SJ, former rector of the BC Jesuit Community. "It is a testimony to BC's reputation that it attracts people who have the choice to go anywhere in the world."

Jesuit Community Rector Francis Herrmann, SJ, noted a global perspective has been a hallmark of the Society of Jesus since founder St. Ignatius Loyola dispatched his companions as missionaries to foreign lands four centuries ago. " The early Jesuits said, 'The world is our house,'" said Fr. Herrmann. "The presence of so many foreign students and scholars has markedly enriched our community life and our sense of being part of a global community."

A remarkable 50-year project drew to a close in 1998 with the long-awaited completion of the German Studies Department's Martin Luther Index Verborum, an exhaustive index of every German word used by Luther in his writings between 1516 and 1525. The index will provide a unique reference resource for historians, theologians, German linguists and Luther scholars who seek to parse the writings of the great religious reformer. The irony has been noted in the housing of such a massive scholarly project on Luther, father of the Reformation, at Jesuit Boston College. The project was launched at Yale University in the 1940s by the late Professor Heinz Bluhm, who brought it with him when he came to BC in the mid-1960s to establish the German Studies Department.

In pre-computer days, the project entailed filling out an index card for every German word written by Luther -- and due to the difficulty of scanning old Gothic text, it still does today. At least 150 drawers of index cards are stored in the basement of Burns Library. The family of Professor Bluhm has financed the project, which has been used by many students as a springboard to graduate studies. Plans called for the completed Index to be made available on the Internet.

McMULLEN MUSEUM EXHIBITIONS (see also "Irish Exhibitions" entry)

- Caravaggio

The long-lost Caravaggio masterpiece "The Taking of Christ" had its North American debut at the McMullen Museum of Art in 1999. More than 65,000 guests visited the gallery in Devlin Hall between February and May to view the painting and the accompanying show, "Saints and Sinners: Caravaggio and the Baroque Image," which explored the style of Catholic religious art in Italy between 1580 and 1680. The show's centerpiece work had been believed lost for 200 years before being discovered in a Jesuit residence in Dublin, and was shown at Jesuit Boston College under a special concession granted by the Society of Jesus in Ireland.

Finely executed shields from Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands were exhibited at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College in 1995. The show, "Protection, Power and Display: Shields of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia," depicted shields as cultural works of art rather than anthropological artifacts.

"J. M. W. Turner and the Romantic Vision of the Holy Land and the Bible," a 1996 exhibition at the McMullen Museum of Art, was the most comprehensive ever assembled of the artist's work. The exhibition and its related symposia and film series on Jerusalem and the Holy Land were designed to foster a spirit of ecumenism and positive dialogue among Jews, Christians and Moslems. Honorary patrons for the event were Prince Ali Bin Nayef and Princess Widjan Ali of Jordan, former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Bernard Cardinal Law, archbishop of Boston.

Professor of Fine Arts John Michalczyk has been traveling to world hot spots to make a documentary film series on sectarian conflict and the people caught in its grasp. The first installment in the series, "Out of the Ashes: Northern Ireland's Fragile Peace," had its broadcast premiere on PBS in 1998. Shot on location in Belfast, Derry and Dublin, the film chronicles nearly three decades of Ulster unrest through interviews with Catholic and Protestant leaders, former paramilitaries and prisoners, and children. Serving as an executive producer of the film was colleague Raymond Helmick, SJ, a Boston College theologian and an expert in conflict resolution who has worked with many of the principal figures in Northern Ireland. Further installments in the series are planned on Bosnia, Rwanda and the Middle East.

Michalczyk is an accomplished documentary filmmaker whose previous works include two on the Holocaust, "The Cross and the Star: Jews, Christians and the Holocaust" (1992) and "In the Shadow of the Reich: Nazi Medicine" (1997), and one on the immigrant experience, "Of Stars and Shamrocks: Boston's Jews and Irish" (1995).

Two BC seniors who helped launch a service program in El Salvador were presented with the first Congressman John Joseph Moakley Award for International Service at a ceremony in Burns Library in 1999. The Moakley Award, named for the veteran Democratic congressman from South Boston, honors BC students who have shown commitment to human rights and social justice across the world. The inaugural award was shared by Akbar Rahman '99 and Joey Shanley '99.

Chief Prosecutor Telford Taylor and six other men who prosecuted Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials participated in a conference at Boston College Law School in 1995 commemorating the 50th anniversary of the trials. Two United Nations Bosnian war-crimes investigators also attended the conference, "Judgments on Nuremberg: The Past Half Century," which examined the trials' impact on international criminal justice and present-day war crimes prosecutions.

The Boston College Law School hosted members of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation during a four-day visit to Boston in November 1994 to study the American judicial system. Two justices of Russia's equivalent of the Supreme Court were among delegates who heard remarks by Law School faculty on historical aspects of American law.

A major study directed by Boston College researchers has shown American high-school students perform well below the international average in mathematics and physics, while their European counterparts are the best in the world at the two subjects.

These findings released in 1998 were among the latest of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, the largest international study of student achievement ever undertaken, with more than 500,000 pupils in 45 countries tested at five grade levels.

The TIMSS International Study Center, located at Boston College, managed the study, which was ponsored by the Amsterdam-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, an independent international cooperative of research centers.

The researchers previously had examined math and science achievement by middle- and elementary-schoolers across the world. Singapore topped rankings released in November 1996 of math and science skill in 41 countries at the seventh- and eighth-grade levels, while Singapore and South Korea topped results released in June 1997 for 26 countries at the third- and fourth-grade levels.

It seems the unlikeliest of dreams: a "University of the Middle East" where Arabs and Israelis can study side by side, debating their region's problems in an atmosphere free of acrimony. Yet School of Education doctoral candidate Hala Taweel '03, sister-in-law of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, is determined that this vision become a reality in her strife-torn homeland.

Taweel is president of the board of directors of the University of the Middle East Project, an initiative by a group of Arab and Israeli graduate students in Boston to establish a system of colleges across the Middle East and North Africa. Plans call for three flagship campuses in Israel, Palestine and Egypt, with Israelis required to study for a year in an Arab country and Arabs for a year in Israel.

"We know what our differences are. We want to find out what we have in common," said Taweel in a 1997 interview. "The University of the Middle East should be a place where we can talk openly of our feelings about the past. We should debate without fear, without bombs."

Nineteen secondary-school teachers affiliated with the project visited Boston College during the summer of 1999 for seminars offered by the Irish Institute, noted for its programs on conflict resolution (see separate entry).

Boston College professors are involved in a broad range of international research projects. The following sampling gives a flavor of the variety of BC faculty pusuits:

Monan Professor of Education Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, has edited a Carnegie Foundation survey that finds professors worldwide are largely happy with their choice of profession, despite widespread social upheavals that have often diminished their teaching resources. The report, released in 1997 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, was based on a survey of nearly 200,000 faculty members in 14 countries.

Psychology Professor Ali Banuazizi has authored a book, The New Geopolitics of Central Asia.

Associate Professor of Theology Francis Clooney, SJ, specializes in Hindu theology and philosophy, and has authored a book, Seeing Through Texts: Doing Theology Among the Sri Vau Snavas of South India.

History Professor Emeritus Radu Florescu was named by the Romanian government in 1996 an honorary consul for New England, the first to be appointed to such a position in the United States by the eastern European country. His first job as honorary consul was to oversee voting by Boston-area Romanian citizens in one of the first democratic Romanian elections since the collapse of communist rule. Florescu, a Romanian native and scholar, is director of the East European Research Center of New England.

Florescu and History Professor Raymond McNally are among the leading figures in Dracula scholarship. Their 1972 book, In Search of Dracula—the first of a number of books on the topic—brought to light the existence of a real-life 15th-century Romanian warrior prince, Vlad the Impaler, upon whom Bram Stoker is believed to have based his vampire. In November 1997, McNally organized a major conference for students and fans of the mythical vampire. Scholars from the United States, Canada and Europe gathered at Boston College for "Stoker Undead," which marked the centenary of the publication of Stoker's masterpiece, Dracula, and the 150th anniversary of Stoker's birth, as well as the 75th anniversary of the first Dracula movie, "Nosferatu."

Law Professor Sanford Fox is an advisor to Defense for Children International, an organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, that promotes children's rights worldwide. Fox founded the United States branch of the organization and served as its chairman through much of the 1980s.

Sociology Professor Jeanne Guillemin was among a team of investigators from the United States and Russia who linked a deadly outbreak of anthrax in Siberia in 1979 to the accidental release of bacteria used by the Soviets in the manufacture of prohibited biological weapons.

Associate Professor of Political Science Kenji Hayao's Japanese Prime Ministers and Public Policy was one of the first analyses by a political scientist of the Japanese premiership.

Rev. Raymond Helmick, SJ, a member of the BC Theology faculty who has helped mediate disputes in Northern Ireland and the Middle East, was among the US religious leaders who traveled with Rev. Jesse Jackson to Yugoslavia to negotiate the freedom of three American soldiers held prisoner by the Serbs during the Kosovo crisis in May 1999. Fr. Helmick also played a behind-the-scenes role in the historic 1993 peace accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. An expert in conflict resolution and a founder of the US Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East, Fr. Helmick frequently met and corresponded with the major players in the negotiations, including PLO chairman Yasir Arafat. Fr. Helmick's efforts to bring about peace were recognized when he was invited to witness the signing of the accord at the White House.

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law Daniel Kanstroom studies immigration and asylum law, and has led a group of law students to Miami to assist Haitian asylum-seekers.

Associate Professor of English Robert Kern, in his book Orientalism, Modernism and the American Poem, examines Ezra Pound and others who brought an appreciation for Chinese language and culture to English poetry.

Assistant Professor of Geology and Geophysics Gail Kineke's studies of mud flow in marine environments have taken her to the Sepik River in New Guinea and the Amazon.

Associate Professor of Education Brinton Lykes has trained widows in the highlands of Guatemala to provide psycho-social assistance to young survivors of war.

Boisi Professor of Education George Madaus has worked with St. Patrick's College in Dublin and the University of London and has numerous publications on Irish and English education and comparative testing programs.

Assistant Professor of Theology John Makransky, whose courses in comparative theology focus on Roman Catholicism and Buddhism, has written a book on differing conceptions of Buddahood in ancient India and Tibet.

Associate Professor of Sociology Michael Malec has written a book on the socioeconomic effects of cricket and other sports on Caribbean society.

Assistant Professor of Economics Douglas Marcouiller, SJ, a specialist in political economy and international trade, has served as an advisor to Jesuit provincials in Latin America.

For his service to French culture and language as a scholar of French literature and film, Professor of Fine Arts John Michalczyk has been awarded Les Palmes Academiques by the French government.

Psychology Associate Professor Gilda Morelli and her husband direct the Ituri Forest Peoples Fund, which promotes the health and education of Pygmies in the Congo. Their work there has been dealt harsh setbacks by the recent civil war, in which a clinic, school and field station the Fund had built over eight years were destroyed. Morelli planned to return to the Congo ito continue her efforts on behalf of the native forest peoples.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Jennifer Purnell has studied the relations between peasants and the state in turn-of-the-century Mexico.

Associate Professor of Romance Languages Elizabeth Rhodes has studied manuscripts in Spain for a book on the spiritual lives of 16th- and 17th-century women religious.

Professor of Political Science Robert Ross traveled several times to China and interviewed former US Secretaries of State Alexander Haig and William Rogers and former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski for his book Negotiating Cooperation: US-China Relations 1969-89. Ross was in Hong Kong in 1997 to witness its handover to the Chinese by the British.

Assistant Professor of Slavic and Eastern Languages Maxim Shrayer, a Russian poet, is at work on a book, Terrifying Magnetism: Modern Russian Writers Confront the Jewish Question.