A Conversation with Jack Butler, S.J., Boston College's Next President

What was it like for you when you received the news that you would be BC’s next president?

I found it exciting and humbling. The idea of presiding over a family, a community that I have worked in for twenty-three years and that I love and want to care for, was a bit daunting. It is a great deal of responsibility, but I am honored to have been chosen. In my prayers, I have always drawn great comfort from God in the idea that I am supposed to do what I have always done. And I really do see my job as caring for this University and, therefore, caring for the individuals who comprise it. Yes, I want Boston College to be a top-flight academic institution. I want us to be leaders in formative education. I want us to have a great athletics program. But ultimately, my job is to love this family that God has given me, and if I do that well, hopefully it will be inspiring and enable us to continue on our upward trajectory.

What are BC’s greatest strengths?

Our greatest strength by far is the BC community itself. We have a remarkable Boston College family, from our alumni right through to our employees and, of course, our students. The faculty is at the heart of the University. I am proud of them and what they do for our students. We also have a beautiful campus in a vibrant city. But the best thing about Boston College is our commitment to formative education. It is a distinctive kind of education, and that is one of our greatest strengths for sure.

And BC’s biggest challenges?

Right now, higher education is under assault from many different directions. There are concerns with funding from the federal government for research and financial grants and loans for students. College athletics is also changing right before our eyes. How is that going to be resolved and funded? Also, the number of college-age children is decreasing, and Catholic higher education is in a period of transformation. Many of our smaller Catholic schools are going out of business. So, there is a lot of flux within higher education, and these are major challenges for us right now.

Boston College has emerged as a national leader in formative education, and you are one of its main architects. How has formative education transformed the BC student experience?

Formative education comes out of the Jesuit tradition. It is an education with a heart, a soul, and an imagination, meaning you become educated not for an end in and of itself, but to learn how to live life, to enjoy life, to find joy. It is an education that helps you learn how to handle disappointment and frustration. One that makes you more resilient. It teaches you to take responsibility for the world around you, your life, and the lives of the people with whom you are going to engage. And lastly, formative education is an education with an imagination. How can you envision a future? How can you envision yourself? How can you see new things, and new possibilities? I tell students, I want you to be a great scholar, engineer, businessperson, nurse, or teacher, but if you don’t know how to wipe away tears, or to give a hug, or to give encouragement to your child, then you haven’t learned what a BC education is all about.

How did your family shape you and help you to become the person you are today?

As proud as I am to be a Jesuit, and as much as being a Jesuit has become the prism through which I understand and live my life, the most important part of my formative education was through my parents, and the family and friends who have been woven into my life. I learned how to love in that nuclear family. My mom and dad taught me about faith without ever reading the Bible to me. They taught me what it meant to make decisions, to be committed to each other, which is the foundation of love. Growing up, we had some difficult times in our lives, but I never knew they were difficult. And looking back on them, I can see how hard they were for my parents, and maybe even how it had some effect on me, but I never felt that I wasn’t cared for or loved, and I never had a time in my life where I felt hopeless. That was all because of them. I think that was the very beginning of my vocation, which allowed me to seek in my heart a deeper way of taking what they gave me and expressing it and living it, and I found that in the Society of Jesus.

You attended Marist High School in Atlanta, played linebacker on the football team, and planned to play college football before injuries shortened your career and forced you to change your plans. What did you learn from that setback?

If I hadn’t been injured, if I hadn’t had parents and friends who challenged me to find a different way to be me, then I don’t know how things would have gone. I am fortunate that I went to an Augustinian school, and they were the ones who said, “It is time to learn how to use your mind and engage your brain.” There is more to life than one path and you need to explore other paths. It was my injuries and not being able to fulfill what I had hoped to do that opened up new horizons, which allowed me to see myself in a different way, to end up doing things I would never even have imagined doing. And so, having the road altered on me showed me how resilient we are, how much God’s love allows us to grow.

What was college like for you?

I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do. I came from a family of faith, so when they asked me what I wanted to study, I told them theology, because I figured God had to be part of the answer and I could probably get through that. The Augustinians and my lay professors helped me understand that I could be more than I imagined. They pushed me to go beyond what I thought my limits were, when in fact there weren’t any limits at all. Through that experience, I saw how important faculty are in forming students. Because it was the faculty there that allowed me to dream bigger than I had ever dreamed in my life. Even now, at sixty-two, I can still dream big dreams and maybe I haven’t even dreamed big enough yet.

A vocation is an intensely personal experience. Can you describe your calling and what attracted you to religious life?

As a young man, I was surrounded by lots of people who were religious, and priests, all of whom had a great effect on me. But I really wanted to play football, I really wanted to be married, I really wanted to have children. At a very young age, I wrestled with this idea of religious life and priesthood, and it scared me. So, I ran from it. And anytime I thought that I was being pulled to it, I ran in the opposite direction. It was at St. Thomas where I saw these Augustinians who could engage young people that I started to feel even more intensely about it. Then, when I was in grad school, somebody challenged me and said, “When are you going to be brave enough to really explore things you are supposed to explore?” So, I went back to see the Augustinians. They said, “We thought this would happen, we thought you might be back. But you need to go and talk to the Jesuits because we think you have a lot of qualities of a Jesuit.” I talked to the Jesuits, and I fell in love with their vision. It took me until I was twenty-eight to be secure enough and brave enough to be able to say that I wanted to become a priest. And so, I have freely chosen Jesus, and I haven’t looked back once in thirty-four years.

When you entered the Society of Jesus, you were assigned to social justice ministry, including working with the incarcerated. What did you learn from that experience?

My work with people on the margins, and particularly in prison, taught me that God’s love is all-encompassing. That His love is freely given, and you either receive it or you don’t. I also learned from people in prison how to endure real hardship. How to get up every day and live life to the fullest in conditions that were really difficult and sometimes even inhumane. They taught me resiliency is a real thing, and that faith can give rise to hope. I learned as much, or more, from the people in prison as I was ever able to teach them. I have been going to Mass every day in my life for a long time. That is the center of my prayer. But I came to find God in prison more easily than in any cathedral I’ve ever walked into in my life.

For fifteen years you have served as Haub Vice President for University Mission and Ministry. Looking back, what were your proudest accomplishments during those years?

Fr. Joe Appleyard, who was the founding VP, was truly a giant of a Jesuit. He set a foundation that a guy like me could build off. We have since expanded University Mission and Ministry to ten offices, and we work in collaboration with the Provost and the VP for Student Affairs and their two divisions. Our scope is to facilitate not only the mission, heritage, and history of Boston College as a Jesuit, Catholic university, but the implications of formative education across the board for faculty, staff, students, and administrators. That is what I am happiest about.

You meet regularly with Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley and Vice President for Student Affairs Shawna Cooper Whitehead to discuss formative education and address the intersection between academics and the student experience. What have you learned from those meetings?

What we do at the University, first and foremost, is educational. The heart of formative education and the number one formator is a faculty member—the person in the classroom. So sharing Jesuit pedagogy, our history, and how Jesuits were taught to engage the intellect and to insert reflection into the curriculum of the different disciplines—that is the number one thing we do here. And then Mission and Ministry and Student Affairs are the laboratories where what students are learning in the classroom is lived out in the residence halls, on the service trips, and on the retreats they experience. The more they take that information and integrate it into the self, the better they are as human beings, the fuller they are in the expressions of their emotions and feelings. And that is what those meetings are about—how we work together in a way that not only makes us a better community but enhances the learning of our students.

Since 2010, you have also served as chaplain to the BC football team. What has working with student-athletes taught you?

As a frustrated jock who never got to fulfill what he had hoped to do, working with our student-athletes on the football team has allowed me to fill a hole in my life that most people never get to fill. I’d love to be able to tell you that I gave something to them. But in fact, the coaches, and the staff, and most importantly, the players, helped me heal and fulfill a part of this life that was unfulfilled and unresolved. And so, for that alone, I am grateful.

Why is athletics important to the University?

Boston College is about whole-person education—mind, body, and spirit. And so, athletics is another way of educating our students—whether it is intramurals, club, or Division I athletics, they are vitally important to their personal development. And being in the Atlantic Coast Conference and associating with other top-tier universities allows us to have greater exposure than just in the Northeast.The early Jesuits who founded Boston College chose as the school’s motto the line from the sixth book of Homer’s Iliad, “Ever to Excel.”

How has Boston College lived up to its motto and where do you see future opportunities for excellence?

As a university, we punch way above our weight. If you look at our endowment, the size of our faculty, and the different measures we use to compare ourselves to our top competitors, we shouldn’t be doing as well as we are. We shouldn’t be a top-tier research university. And what does that tell me? That our administrators, faculty, and staff are not only dedicated, but they believe in this place, and they believe in our students, and they do heroic work. I think that is “Ever to Excel.” Every year our students get even better. The standardized test scores go up, the GPAs go up, and class ranks go up. Some of our students are already starting companies and nonprofits while at BC. Some are already trying to solve problems and bring solutions to major issues that are going on in the world. Our students are well-rounded. They like to have a social life, but they are excellent in the classroom. They are trying to be full human beings. That to me is “Ever to Excel.”

You have worked closely with Fr. Leahy and his senior leadership team since 2010. What have you learned from him?

Just about everything. I thought I was going to be a therapist. I thought I was going to work with those on the margins, maybe with street gangs and people who are in prison. And then I found myself at Boston College. I found myself under the tutelage of Fr. Leahy who, just like the Augustinians, expanded my horizon about the essential purpose for the ministry of higher education, and the need for higher education in the world today, and then in both theoretical and very practical ways, how you manage, how you lead. He has taught me from the bottom up what a university is and what a Jesuit and Catholic university can be and should be, while giving me the freedom to realize that everybody’s vision is different. And as he has worked with me, he has told me that how I understand things and how I envision Boston College in the future will be my way, and that I have to have faith in who I am, and in the vision that I have. Well, that is a great gift he has given me.

What are your plans for the coming year?

After a sabbatical, I’d like to talk to presidents at other Jesuit, Catholic schools and at non-faith-based schools. I would like to explore other ways of being in higher ed and dream a bit. And I think the sabbatical will allow that time to renew, refresh, and to dream. Then, from January until graduation in May, I will shadow Fr. Leahy and have discussions with him about implementations and decisions that are being made, so that after he takes that last graduating class of his presidency and he ushers them into the world and gives them their mission that we Jesuits so value, it will be my turn to take over in the summer of 2026. And I am very grateful that I will have this time to prepare.

BC just admitted its most impressive class in University history. What advice do you offer to these students as they prepare to begin as first-year students in August of 2025?

Trust who you are. And in places where you don’t trust who you are, get to know yourself a little bit more. Don’t try to get through the four years quickly and easily. Challenge yourself while you’re here. Remember, this is the best place in the world to fail, because we will be there to pick you up and get you to fly again.

What do you like to read?

In the morning I like to read something for my head, either theology or psychology. But at night I just like to read a good story. I like to read about good relationships and good triumphing over evil.

What is the best advice you were ever given?

The best advice I have ever been given has been given to me repeatedly: Be yourself.

Is there something about you that most people don’t know?

I am a true, honest-to-God introvert. Sometimes what God has asked me to do, and what BC has asked me to do, has developed this other person in me. But at my very core, I am an introvert, and I need some quiet and alone time so I can process all the things that happened during the day so I can pray, think about it, and respond to it. It allows me to come to understand that God is always with me, even when I missed Him, and that while the day has come to an end, there is another day ahead, so maybe l will get it right tomorrow.

At the end of your presidency, what do you hope people will say about you?

That he tried to love us and, as imperfect as it might be, that he did his best. ◽