Around Campus

His legal name is Zhang Jei Ming, but at the orphanage in Qingdao, China, he is known as Hunter — and that is what Spencer Kim ’13 has called him since meeting him there almost six years ago.

Since then, Hunter has been a part of Kim’s life, if only for a few weeks every summer when Kim has made the trek to Qingdao with a church group from his hometown of Torrance, Calif., to volunteer at Sarang House, an orphanage run by his pastor’s mother. Their time with one another, and their contact, is concentrated solely within that small period of time, but it’s enough for Kim to know that his relationship with Hunter is a special one — for both of them.

“It is,” says Kim, “like having a little brother.”

Kim can’t quite put his finger on why the two hit it off so well. Their friendship began with Kim’s attempt at introducing himself in Chinese (“Probably the worst he’s ever heard,” quips Kim); Hunter was only a little farther along in his English, for which Kim provided assistance.

“He would always come to me,” recalls Kim. “There was just something there, right at the start. He had a tattered notebook and we would write and draw in it to help him with his English. I taught him games — ‘Sticks,’ thumb-wrestling, rock-paper-scissors — and we found ways to communicate.”

Kim would come to find out that Hunter had been placed in the orphanage by his widowed mother because she wanted him to have a Christian upbringing; otherwise, Hunter would have likely followed in the footsteps of his grandfather, whom Kim understood to be a village witch doctor of sorts.

The summer visits to Sarang House continued. Kim graduated high school and moved east to attend Boston College, where he majored in human development and sociology. Hunter went through the familiar strains and stresses of puberty, shot up in height, and struggled with his studies but continued to progress in English, making for improved communication between the two.

“We would have those few weeks together, and the rest of the year I’d worry about him,” says Kim. “Of course, I worried about all the other kids in the orphanage, too. But then it would be summer, and we’d be together again, and things were fine.”

Now there is uncertainty. This summer, there will be no trip to see Hunter — Kim says the orphanage’s Christian identity makes for a “complicated” relationship with the Chinese government, so the church group decided against going this year so as not to possibly exacerbate tensions.

Hunter, meanwhile, is almost 16. At some point in the next few years, Kim says, Hunter — who told Kim he would like someday to be a pastor — will likely leave the orphanage to seek work or some form of vocational training. So Kim, who is planning a year in Turkey with a missionary group, hopes the summer of 2014 will see a reunion with Hunter.

Contemplating the milestone of graduation and entry into adulthood, Kim looks on his relationship with Hunter as an integral part of his growth as a person.

“We read and hear so many stories about children in need, and for me, Hunter and the other kids at Sarang House have put a face on those stories,” says Kim, whose career aspirations involve working with children from families in need of support. “I think, in these six summers, I have seen the value of giving, and I’ve learned that love can make a difference.”

   —Sean Smith

The Graduate School of Social Work’s groundbreaking National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS marks its silver anniversary this year, its focus having changed in light of medical science’s progress against the disease over the past quarter-century. But as conference founder Vincent Lynch adds, the need for the forum — which takes place today through Sunday in Chicago — is as great as ever.

“Now, as then, it is social workers who confront the devastating impact AIDS has on individuals and families,” said Lynch, who is director of continuing education at GSSW. “The goal of the conference has always been the same: to share experiences, practices and ideas that will enable social workers to meet the needs of their clients. This kind of exchange is vital not only for social work professionals but for those who educate and train social workers.”

Lynch says the conference, in its first 25 years, has attracted more than 10,000 registrants — many of whom have attended multiple times — and been supported by some $1 million in external funding through various public or private sources. Several books have been produced based on conference proceedings, including four edited or co-edited by Lynch. It is still the only national conference of its type, says Lynch — organized by and for AIDS-care social workers.

Media and public awareness of HIV/AIDS was still relatively new when Lynch founded the conference in 1988 — it formally debuted at Boston College the following year — but his colleagues in the social work profession, including many in the Boston area, were already well aware of the challenges.

“HIV/AIDS is a medical disease, but it has a psychosocial component,” explained Lynch. “For social workers whose clients were diagnosed with AIDS during the early years of the epidemic, that meant they were dealing with the need for mental health services, family counseling, housing-related issues and other things.

“But HIV/AIDS-related education then was more medically focused, so my feeling was, ‘Why, as a profession, are we not doing more about this?’ I believed we needed expertise, and a sense of what people were seeing, and a conference seemed the best way to achieve that.”

Lynch gives credit to Manuel Fimbres MSW ’65, a pioneer in shaping the social work response to AIDS, for helping him plan and organize the original conference. Fimbres will join Lynch and GSSW Associate Dean Thomas Walsh on a panel discussion at this year’s event, which is expected to draw some 500 social workers from the US and abroad and feature more than 100 presentations.

“AIDS, while still a serious illness, is not the death sentence it was when the first conference was held,” said Lynch. “Far more is known about the disease, and there are more options for treatment. So, one question social workers look at is, are we getting to the point where AIDS could be treated, even managed, more as a chronic disease — like diabetes? If so, what are the implications for the social work profession, and what role should social work education play?

“The National Conference on Social Work and HIV/AIDS is where the answers to these and other questions take shape. But after 25 years, it’s become more than a conference —almost a family reunion. For many people, it is their professional event of the year.”

   —Sean Smith

A team of Boston College-Ireland researchers has collaborated with major Irish cultural and educational institutions to produce an innovative website, Century Ireland, that chronicles Irish life during a key historical era.

Launched earlier this month, Century Ireland [http://www.rte.ie/centuryireland] will serve as a nexus of valuable information and perspective in the coming decade as Ireland commemorates a series of important events that occurred from 1912-23, the period in which the Irish Republic was founded.

Century Ireland is an historical “you are there”-style newspaper covering major news headlines of a century ago, as well as other stories — from the routine to the unusual — that offer a window onto early 20th-century Irish society.

On one recent day, Century Ireland featured a report on the 1913 debate over home rule for Ireland and clashing views of nationalists and unionists on the proposal. News briefs included a new plan for treatment of tuberculosis in Belfast, a forthcoming direct telephone connection between Dublin and England, and the plight of a family in County Tyrone whose house appeared to be haunted. 

Complementing the news site is a daily blog and Twitter feed to bring information about the 1913-1923 period to the widest possible audience in the most easily accessible way, Cronin said. Links on the main page provide access to video clips and other features offering expert analysis and background on the home rule controversy, Irish-British relations of that time, and Irish life in 1913, among other topics.

Hosted by the Irish broadcast service Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), Century Ireland is a partnership between BC-Ireland and the National Library of Ireland, National Archives of Ireland, National Museum of Ireland, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin City Gallery: The Hugh Lane, Dublin City Library and Archives, University College Dublin, National University of Ireland-Galway and Dictionary of Irish Biography.

BC-Ireland Academic Director Mike Cronin, project director for Century Ireland, explained that its purpose is to go beyond conventional, political-centered approaches to Irish history.

“Much of the teaching of history has been based around the idea that independence, when it came, was inevitable and a direct product of the actions of the men who led the 1916 Easter Rising,” he said. “Century Ireland is designed to show that, in fact, nothing was inevitable: At the time nobody really knew what was going to happen next, and that whatever the political trajectory, most people were getting on with their lives.

“As we will see in the news stories, they were interested in sport, fashion, shopping, the early cinema, food, motor cars, crime and gossip. Politics went on around them, and the detail of their lives was a complex mix of the social and everyday. This, of course, invites comparisons with our lives today, and our perceptions of politics.”

Cronin said that over the next decade, the project will produce 2,600 issues of Century Ireland, and some 8,000 tweets and blog entries. Much of the archival material — including documents, diaries, photographs, art and ephemera — to be presented via Century Ireland has never been available for viewing, he noted.

“Century Ireland will bring the 1913-23 period to life,” Cronin said. “This rich mix of digital content, supported by social media, will engage viewers through a decade of centenaries in a unique and informative way."

   —Sean Smith