BC Debuts New Academic Wall of Honor
Campus Digest: Winter 2026
News and happenings from around Boston College.
Saying Goodbye to a Legendary Ice Cream Shop
I broke the news to my sister, Tara, in a text message: White Mountain Creamery was closing in one week. The beloved BC campus-side ice cream parlor, which had provided countless students with scoops and part-time paychecks since 1983, would no longer serve chocolate, black raspberry, or maple walnut–flavored memories like the ones Tara and I had made together since my childhood. Back then my sister, BC class of 1990, hosted me for a couple of overnights on campus that would end with a sweet stop at White Mountain. It was my first glimpse of student life at the university where I, too, would eventually graduate (I’m class of 2004).
My sister’s text response was swift. “No!” she immediately replied. So along with my brother-in-law John, we decided to give the place a proper sendoff by meeting up for one last scoop. When we arrived, though, we found a locked door and a paper sign explaining that the shop had run out of ice cream two days earlier than anticipated. “The outpouring of love and emotion was overwhelming. I never expected it,” George Coufos, who owned White Mountain with his brother, Peter, told me later. Once word spread of the shop’s imminent fate, he explained, lines formed down the sidewalk, quickly depleting the supply.
Retiring from running such a cherished establishment is bittersweet, said Coufos, whose family bought the business in 1993 and has now sold it to the regional ice cream chain New City Microcreamery, which opened in December. “It’s a metaphor,” he said. “They’re starting a new tradition.” —Scott Kearnan
BC Student Breaks World Record in Running
Photo: Caitlin Cunningham
Last fall, after completing the Berlin Marathon at age twenty, BC political science major James Redding ’27 became a Guinness World Record holder as the youngest male athlete to finish all six races that are collectively known as the World Marathon Majors. Redding’s journey of many miles began during high school, when the Brookline native would jog with his mother around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. After running the Boston Marathon in 2024, Redding made quick work of the other five majors—Chicago, New York City, Tokyo, London, and finally Berlin—in under two years. Redding, who intends to run the Sydney Marathon, which last year became the seventh major, said training for races is a great way to train for life. “In life most of our challenges aren’t chosen,” he said. “By fulfilling the running goals I set for myself, I’ve been able to more easily navigate the unchosen challenges.” —Elizabeth Clemente
In Memoriam: Joe Dobbratz ’51
Photo courtesy of the Dobbratz Family
Marine Corps Col. Joseph R. Dobbratz, a decorated naval aviator and combat veteran, passed away in December at age ninety-eight. In 2021, I chronicled Dobbratz’s remarkable feats of aviation while flying in some of the most dangerous conditions in the world to supply academics conducting government research during the early 1960s in Antarctica. Impressed with Dobbratz’s extraordinary courage and skill, the researchers named a glacier in his honor. Despite his many aviation and military accomplishments, Dobbratz remained self-deprecating and humble. He never stopped calling me a couple of times a year just to say hello and to see if he could get me to laugh. He usually succeeded. —John Wolfson
Campus News
Professor of Chemistry Dunwei Wang has been named interim Seidner Family Executive Director of the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society. Wang brings to the position decades of experience as an educator and researcher and holds the Margaret A. and Thomas A. Vanderslice Chair in Chemistry. His appointment follows the decision of Laura J. Steinberg, the Schiller Institute’s inaugural director, to step down to return to research and teaching.
The Boston College Prison Education Program has been expanded to serve a Massachusetts women’s prison. The pilot expansion program allows women incarcerated at MCI-Framingham to take classes taught by BC professors. Since its launch in 2019, BC’s Prison Education Program has enrolled more than 100 students at the men’s prison MCI-Shirley.
The National Science Foundation has awarded two BC physicists a $1 million research grant. Assistant Professor of Physics Qiong Ma and Associate Professor of Physics Fazel Tafti will use the NSF funding to study a new class of high-efficiency quantum materials for use in electronics. Ma also received one of five 2025 grant awards from the Moore Inventor Fellows Program, recognizing groundbreaking scientist-inventors.
Lynch School of Education and Human Development Assistant Professor Ido Davidesco will lead a three-year project to investigate how AI can be used as a creative learning and computational thinking tool in high school classrooms. He will work with colleagues from three other universities and institutions on the initiative, which is funded by a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
BC’s Clough School of Theology and Ministry is one of seven inaugural members of the new Collaborative Theology Initiative, a partnership among Jesuit theology centers around the world. Through cooperative projects, including international symposia, these institutions will work to develop and strengthen theological education to prepare students to respond to contemporary global challenges. ◽
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