The Boston College Office of Public Affairs
Boston College Chronicle  
Contact: smthsen@hermes.bc.edu
Date Posted: 9-06-96 
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Remarks by Academic Vice President and Dean of 
Faculties William B. Neenan, SJ
Annual Faculty Convocation
Robsham Theater
Sept. 4,1996

	In what ways does the beginning of this academic year 
differ from the beginnings of other academic years?  In a 
moment I will give my answer to that question but first let 
me review the familiar topics associated with faculty 
convocations--the welcome to faculty, administrators, and 
students.

	Twenty-four new tenure-track faculty will be enriching 
our ranks this fall, fresh from the leading graduate programs 
in the nation.  The group includes  seventeen men, seven 
women, two of them African-Americans and three Jesuits.  
Having induced them to come, there now remains the challenge 
to see that these new colleagues become full and active 
participants in the Boston College community.

	A sign of the further maturation of Boston College 
this September is the appointment of seven new endowed 
professors:  Philip Altbach, Lisa Cahill, and Daniel 
Coquillette are the inaugural J. Donald Monan, S.J. 
Professors.  Other distinguished professors occupying newly 
created professorships are Richard Lerner in the Brennan 
Chair, Michael Buckley, S. J. in the Canisius Chair, Lucius 
Outlaw, Jr. in the Judge David Nelson Chair, and Jaroslav 
Pelikan in the Joseph Chair.  Richard Blake, S.J. will occupy 
the Gasson Chair for two years and Alvin Jackson will sit in 
the Burns Library Chair in Irish Studies.  These appointments 
bring to twenty-three the number of endowed professorships, 
all established in the past seventeen years.

	Two distinguished members of the faculty have 
become deans in their respective schools, Mary Brabeck in the 
School of Education and Hassell McClellan in the Carroll 
Graduate School of Management.  Clare Dunsford  replaces 
Associate Dean Carol Hurd Green this year while she is 
researching in Central Europe on a Fulbright grant.

	The life of a university most obviously renews 
itself through the annual arrival of new students.  Since the 
average age of the student body remains constant, this allows 
us to maintain the pleasant illusion of residing in a valley 
of eternal youth.  There was a bit of a falloff in the number 
of undergraduate applications this year--16,501 from last 
year's historic high of 16,680 and this despite a six percent 
increase in applications from Iowa.  But all in all, very 
good.  Forty-eight states and thirty-two foreign countries 
are represented in this year's freshman class of which 17.5 
percent are AHANA students including 101 African-Americans. 
Thus the geographic reach and the cultural diversity of this 
class are as impressive as its undoubted academic quality.  
One indicator of this academic quality is the significant 
increase in the number of advanced placement courses taken by 
the matriculating freshmen.  So be prepared to challenge and 
be challenged.

	The graduate and professional admission picture 
this year is generally positive with peaks and valleys across 
the programs that replicate fairly closely what is happening  
nationally.  The Law School has enrolled 270 first-year 
students comparable in quality to last year's class but from 
a smaller applicant pool though still approaching 5,000.  Law 
schools and management  programs nationally seem to be in a 
zero-sum game--what one gains in enrollment the other loses--
and this is the experience at Boston College.  Both the MBA 
and the master's of science in finance programs in the 
Carroll School enjoyed sizable increases in applications and 
improvement in the quality of their matriculating students.  
Enrollment in the Graduate School of Social Work remains at 
an historic high.  Enrollment trends among the various 
masters and Ph.D. programs in the graduate schools of Arts 
and Sciences, Education and Nursing remain strong.  And the 
College of Advancing Studies in the first year under its new 
banner has attracted a sizable cohort to its new master's 
degree program.

	This has been the familiar picture I sketch for you 
each year--arguably the strongest freshman class yet to 
matriculate at Boston College, professional and graduate 
programs that continue to thrive, the arrival of a cohort of 
talented new faculty and endowed professorships.  But this 
year is different--Father Monan has become the Chancellor of 
the University after a remarkable 24-year run as President. 
We wish him well in his new role.  And we welcome to the 
Presidency of Boston College Father William Leahy who has 
enjoyed significant academic and administrative experience at 
a large sister Jesuit University after completing his 
graduate study at Stanford University.  He comes to Boston 
College with a broad understanding of American Catholic 
higher education and the desire to move Boston College to the 
next level of excellence during his tenure as president.  I 
have worked with him during the past six weeks and I can say 
to you that Boston College has a new president and that  I am 
confident that his steady hand, his engaging personality and 
ambition for our university will successfully lead us into 
the next millennium.  

	So, how does September 1996 differ from other 
Septembers?  September 1996 is a watershed moment in our 
history, one of a few such defining moments and one that will 
determine the nature and stature of Boston College well into 
the next century.  Let me elaborate.
		
	Contrast the beginning of this new presidency with the 
beginning of the last.  In 1972 Boston College's financial 
house was not in order and cultural changes in the Catholic 
Church and in society at large had eroded Boston College's 
institutional self-confidence just as it was defining itself 
as an emerging university.  In 1972 higher education was 
still broadly respected and universities still enjoyed the 
generous financial support of government.  And college 
professors were then held in higher esteem than network talk 
show hosts.
		
	Fast forward to 1996.  Boston College is academically 
strong and financially healthy and possesses  a quiet self-
assurance of its place in American higher education as a 
Catholic and Jesuit University.  In contrast, the mood in 
American higher education today is pessimistic with many 
institutions facing bleak prospects.  Fiscal and political 
pressures at the national level will undoubtedly  further 
limit financial assistance for students and support for 
research.  Students and their parents, facing a price tag of 
$100,000 for a college education, are becoming increasingly 
careful consumers of higher education, seeking value for 
their tuition dollars.  The intersection of these  factors 
will lead to greater stratification of higher education in 
terms of faculty and students--the more prestigious 
universities, able to provide value to their students for 
their high tuition, will increasingly distance themselves 
from those institutions perceived as providing merely a 
"satisfactory"education but scarcely worth a high price.  
		
	The congruence of Boston College's emerging strengths as 
a university and the prospect of a widening gap between the 
cohort of elite universities and "all of the rest" is an 
historic opportunity.   While not taking satisfaction in the 
travails of others, I believe this is the moment for Boston 
College to be bold in its ambition and selective in defining 
its actions.  It is in this context that I consider September 
1996 to be a watershed moment in BC's history. 
 		
	What kind of an institution will Boston College be in 
2005?  What will be its academic quality?  What students will 
be attracted to the university?  And from where?  Will the 
quality of the new faculty welcomed to our midst today still 
be attracted to Boston College?  Will our place among the 
leading universities of the nation be more firmly 
established?  I am confident that the answers to these 
questions will be yes--but only if we make the appropriate 
decisions now.  By most criteria--selectivity of the 
undergraduate student body, scholarly productivity of our 
faculty, institutional resources devoted to instruction, 
academic reputation of our professional programs--Boston 
College in 1996 is numbered among the lower ranks of the 
truly elite universities in the United States, and as a new 
arrival.  The intent of the university academic planning 
effort has been both to secure this position and, through 
selective strategic decisions, to move Boston College to a 
new level of excellence.

	There have been other defining moments in the history of 
Boston college--1929 was one.  The establishment of the Law 
School in that year launched the university on the path of 
professional education which today also encompasses social 
work, management, nursing and education.  1952 was another 
such moment with the creation of the first three doctorates 
in economics, education and history.  Today the university 
offers twenty-three doctoral programs in the Graduate School 
of Arts and Sciences and the various professional schools.  
In 1955 the first residence halls for undergraduate students 
opened on upper campus.  Today the vast preponderance of our 
students live on campus.  The freshman class this year 
numbers scarcely 50 commuters.  In 1976 a few years after the 
arrival of coeducation in the College of Arts and Sciences 
and the Carroll School of Management, the target 
undergraduate enrollment was increased to 8,500, and has 
remained constant to the present.

	All of these defining moments in our history shaped who 
we are today and constrain our options.  Thus in 1996 Boston 
College is a university with significant graduate and 
professional programs; our undergraduate student body is 
residential and national; and we educate 8,500 full-time 
undergraduates.  No longer do we have the option of choosing 
to be a small liberal arts college; nor to be a college with 
no significant graduate and professional programs; nor of 
serving only students in Greater Boston.  		

	Previous defining moments place one choice before us --
either to settle down as a mid-sized university offering a 
broad menu of professional and graduate programs supported by 
a relatively large undergraduate enrollment and face an 
uncertain future that might find us on the wrong side of the 
divide--one of the  "have nots" peering across at the "haves" 
of higher education.  Or we can continue along the path that 
the university has been pursuing in recent years and the one 
chosen by the University Academic Planning Council.  In the 
words of the UAPC Report "Boston College commits itself to 
the highest standards of teaching and research in 
undergraduate and professional programs....It seeks both to 
advance its place among the nation's finest universities and 
to bring to the company of its distinguished peers and to 
contemporary society the richness of the Catholic 
intellectual ideal of a mutually illuminating  relationship 
between religious faith and free intellectual inquiry." (UAPC 
Report, p.2)

	How does the UAPC envision Boston College advancing "its 
place among the nation's finest universities"?  You all have 
copies of the Report so I will simply indicate the principal 
initiatives for the next decade intended to place us among 
the elite universities and then conclude with a few words on 
the implementation efforts that are already underway.                                                           

	There are five initiatives:
  
1) Emphasize rigorous intellectual development and personal 
formation as the distinctive marks of a Boston College 
undergraduate education.
2) Advance and promote the critical role of graduate and 
professional education in the university and strengthen 
infrastructure support for graduate and professional 
programs.
3) Strengthen and support research as a central aspect of 
the mission of Boston College.
4) Emphasize the distinctive Jesuit tradition of liberal 
education and of intellectual engagement between religious 
faith and contemporary culture.
And 5) Enhance the following characteristics of Boston 
College: the special sense of community, increased diversity, 
greater internationalization, technology as a competitive 
advantage and stewardship (UAPC Report, p.9).

	The Implementation Committee, consisting of Father Leahy 
as Chairperson, Frank Campanella, Peter McKenzie, Bob Newton, 
Mick Smyer and myself have been meeting over the summer and 
will be working  with the deans and faculty to identify the 
graduate and professional programs which the university will 
look to for national and international preeminence.  The 
criteria for determining these programs are indicated in the 
report:  they should currently possess high quality, be 
central to Boston College's distinctive mission, enjoy strong 
student demand and for which career opportunities exist for 
its graduates, and which can be developed with reasonable 
costs.  

	In addition to targeting these graduate and professional 
programs of special opportunity, the Implementation Committee 
is addressing the assertion of the UAPC Report that 
undergraduate education "is a traditional and widely 
acknowledged strength of Boston College" while reaffirming 
"in the strongest terms that initiatives in other areas 
should not detract from the emphasis on teaching" (p. 10).  
The commitment to undergraduate education will be 
strengthened through emphasizing full-time faculty 
responsibility for undergraduate teaching, including the  
core curriculum.  The Implementation Committee recognizes 
that this will require the addition of new faculty including 
nontenure-track full-time faculty.  Additional faculty 
resources will also be needed in some departments to permit 
teaching loads commensurate with the responsibilities of 
researching faculty.  Some of these initiatives will be 
implemented this year; others requiring more planning in 
subsequent years. 

	The Implementation Committee will be consulting with 
deans, faculty, representatives from Student Affairs and 
other areas of the university to pursue other important goals 
of the plan.  Many of these goals have the potential to 
transform the university, such as the reaffirmation of the 
Jesuit commitment not only to the intellectual development of 
our students but also to their personal, moral and spiritual 
development; the improvement of the quality of graduate and 
professional students and their integration into the life of 
Boston College; the determination of strategies that will 
improve the infrastructure for research and the development 
of a stronger university-wide research culture; seeking ways 
to increase the diversity and internationalization of the 
Boston College community--these are just a few of the goals 
whose implementation will involve many offices and 
individuals across the campus.

	In all these efforts specific goals will be associated 
with measurable outcomes, strategies will be devised to 
achieve these outcomes and mechanisms put in place to measure 
their effectiveness--all with a view to move Boston College 
to a level of preeminence among American universities.

	You have been generous of your time, your imagination 
and your intelligence in developing the broad consensus 
contained in the UAPC Report.  I ask you now to make a 
similar commitment to complete the task.  We have a new 
president, a new vision, and a watershed opportunity to move 
to the next level of excellence.  That's why this September 
is different from all others.