Conversations with Leaders
Social Impact Voices: Protecting Our Neighbors
Brian Garvey, executive director of Massachusetts Peace Action (MAPA), the Commonwealth’s largest grassroots peace coalition, spoke about the intersection of peace activism and immigration policy in Massachusetts. Founded during the nuclear freeze movement to advocate for nuclear abolition, MAPA mobilizes communities to challenge powerful systems that perpetuate harm.
Garvey shared that the Saudi Arabian–led war in Yemen inspired his involvement with MAPA and highlighted how the organization’s activism contributed to the first War Powers Resolution passed since the law’s creation. He connected this work to immigration policy, noting that abuses of power also occur at the state level through the inhumane treatment of undocumented individuals by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
In an international city like Boston and across Massachusetts, residents are often denied due process. Garvey emphasized MAPA’s advocacy to expand the Boston Trust Act statewide, which would prohibit collaboration between state officials and ICE. He concluded with a call to action, urging residents to advocate for stronger protections for their neighbors.
Morgan Keating, SSW '27, Winston Center Graduate Assistant
Common Ground Series: Leadership Is Everyone’s Business
Effective leadership requires compassion and care for other people, not just management skills, according to Sarah Cabral, a professor at Santa Clara University.
“When you think of exemplary leaders, did they want to be the best in the world, or the best for the world?” said Cabral, CGSOM ’13.
Cabral hopes to challenge the idea that leadership is all about the individual—a mindset she said many students hold at the beginning of her class.
“Our motto that’s shared between Santa Clara University and Boston College and all the other Jesuit universities is ‘People, for others, for and with others,’” Cabral said. “And the biggest myth that I love to bust is that leadership is climbing the ladder.”
Cabral emphasized her goal of developing leaders with conscience, competence, and compassion through five main tenets of leadership—modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart.
“The best leaders care about the people that they’re with,” Cabral said.
Cabral related this model through a case study of the Vietnamese American Service Center (VSAC) in San Jose, Calif. The center, fully funded by Santa Clara County, was among the first to offer culturally sensitive care aimed at reducing social and health disparities in the Vietnamese community.
In recent decades, Santa Clara County has become home to the second-largest Vietnamese American community in the United States, driven by mass immigration following the Vietnam War. More than a quarter of Vietnamese adults do not have health insurance, and many Vietnamese immigrants face significant health disparities, according to Cabral.
“There was a health assessment that was completed in the 2010s, and it found that over 26 percent of Vietnamese adults lacked health care coverage, and 16 percent were unable to afford doctor visits,” said Cabral.
Cabral also discussed language barriers that limit health care access for Vietnamese Americans and their effects on the quality of care they receive. She shared the story of Betty Duong, the first manager of the VASC, who had to function as her mother’s translator for much of her childhood.
“[Duong] remembers being a kid and having to travel with her mom to health care appointments to translate for her,” Cabral said. “She’d be in third grade, she’d get there and be told, ‘Sorry, we can’t let your kid translate for you’, or ‘But we don’t have a translator, so you’re going to have to go home today and come back another time.’”
Creating VASC and advancing its mission of alleviating inaccessibility in health care was a challenging, hard-fought effort, Cabral said.
“If you talk to those in the Vietnamese community, they at first went through the city of San Jose to try to establish even a cultural center where they could gather,” Cabral said. “And then for one reason or another, that project fell through, and then they sort of regrouped and focused on pursuing a services center.”
From dental care to English as a second language classes to after-school programs, the VASC now supports the Vietnamese American community in a multitude of ways.
More than 7,000 people have attended classes and workshops at VSAC, according to Cabral. Its pharmacy has filled 41,000 prescriptions, and the center responded to more than 30,000 service requests in 2024 alone.
“[Duong] really refers to it as a second home for Vietnamese Americans of Santa Clara,” Cabral said. “And the evidence is certainly there in the numbers.”
Cabral connected VASC’s success to the five tenets of leadership. By implementing the values of care and respect for others, VSAC became one of the most influential organizations of its kind, she said.
“The best leaders are building—they build up others,” said Cabral.
As a Jesuit university known for its management programs, Boston College students have a unique stake in the quest for meaningful leadership, Cabral said. Everyone should work to develop leadership qualities to make a social impact, she added.
“Every single day, leadership is everyone’s business,” Cabral said. “The goal is to become an even better leader every day. “We’re all on that journey. We’re all maybe at different points on that journey, but it’s everyone’s business, and we’re all becoming a better leader every day.”
Adapted from The Heights article by Danica Bergen '29 and Leon Gopaul '28