Coffee and Conversation Series
Please join us as BC Beyond Lifelong Learning presents our Coffee and Conversation series!
The purpose of this series is to provide lifelong learning opportunities with University faculty and administrators on a wide variety of topics, including local and world history, science, technology, social issues, the arts, and more. We are pleased to offer a series of eight lectures and conversations to Boston College alumni, friends, and community members from January through April 2022.
Spring 2022 Lectures - Online
Wednesdays, 10:00 a.m.–11:30 a.m. ET
- Online participants are required to have a computer with video and audio capability.
- Participants must create a Zoom account in advance according to Boston College security requirements.
- All programs offered online via Zoom will be delivered live and will not be recorded unless stated otherwise.
- These programs have a maximum capacity to allow for participant engagement. Register early to avoid disappointment!
REGISTER TODAY
Register for individual sessions for $15 each or register for the entire series for $100 and attend one session for free!
Wednesday, January 19, 2022 • On Campus Magic: Fulfilling the Dreams and Desires of the BC Community
Online via Zoom, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Patricia Bando, MA, RDN
Each of the departments that compose the Boston College Auxiliary Services has a unique functional purpose for operation of a large university campus. In this mix, the managerial team is responsible for everything, including the “kitchen sink”. Learn the daily joys, challenges, and “reasons why” for operating the many essential campus resources as separate businesses: cafeterias, nutrition counselling, event space reservations and planning, text books and supplies, campus logo merchandise, print services, internal employment recruitment and training, athletic concessions, vending machines, bus services, and on campus parking. Join Associate Vice President Pat Bando to explore the inner workings of Boston College operations!
Online via Zoom, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Alan Kafka, PhD
For many years, Professor Kafka has taught a course at BC called Geoscience and Public Policy (GSPP), the theme of which is "Life is uncertain." There will always be uncertainty and risks one has to accept as part of life. In GSPP, students explore how the search for certainty in an uncertain world affects peoples' understanding of science and of science-based public policy issues. The course uses examples from geoscience topics as a springboard for exploring the nexus of science and public policy. In this presentation, Professor Kafka describes how the framework of GSPP is based on his personal experiences as a scientist and citizen of planet Earth—in particular, his experience watching the Earth quake in New England and around the world.
Online via Zoom, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Stanton Wortham, PhD
Immigration is woven into the fabric of American history and culture, but in the current political climate debates about immigration are particularly salient. Stories about immigration in the U.S. tend to be simplistic, following predictable, widely circulating patterns. These stories inform policy initiatives and shape how hosts and immigrants position themselves with respect to each other. Both everyday experience and many academic analyses have shown that these simple accounts of immigration are empirically inaccurate. Even demographically similar immigrants and immigrant-receiving communities have widely divergent experiences. But oversimplified folk and academic accounts of immigration are often powerful enough to obscure this fact. The presentation draws on 11 years of ethnographic data in a community that experienced a 1000% increase in its Mexican population over two decades. It contains three short films and presents arguments from the book Migration Narratives, which is available for free download here.
Online via Zoom, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: David Quigley, PhD
The era of the American Civil War and Reconstruction stands as a second founding of the United States and its public life. Abraham Lincoln's speeches and other writings transformed the ways that many Americans understood the relationship between politics and ideas. Various contemporaries - politicians and intellectuals, reformers and generals, among many others - engaged in a sustained argument about the nation's fundamental values and future aspirations. Those long-ago arguments have helped to set the terms of ongoing debates about how Americans might forge a more just nation over the century and a half since Appomattox.
Online via Zoom, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Shawna Cooper-Gibson, EdD
As a Jesuit Catholic Institution, it is our role to encourage students to pursue their own passions and interests to create an experience unique to themselves that will enrich the culture at Boston College, the community, and the world. The goals are rooted in the pillars of a Jesuit education of 1) Magis; 2) Finding God in All Things; 3) Forming and Educating Agents of Change; 4) Cura Personalis; 5) Women and Men for Others; 6) Unity of Heart, Mind, and Soul. By working with leadership in Academic Affairs, Mission and Ministry, and Student Affairs, we will help students navigate their spiritual, curricular, and social connections through various hallmarks and signature experiences at Boston College.
Online via Zoom, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Katherine Gregory, PhD, RN, FAAN
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted health care in unprecedented and unimaginable ways. While the full impact of the pandemic will not be fully understood for decades, there has been an immediate impact on the nursing workforce. As a result, there is a need to develop next generation strategies for nursing education that prepare graduates to serve as clinicians, educators, scientists, innovators, and leaders. Please join us as Katherine Gregory, Dean at the Connell School of Nursing since July 2021, shares her vision for the school and her plan to address this important and timely challenge.
Online via Zoom, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Timothy Mangin, PhD
How do Africans position themselves as citizens of the world through music? This presentation examines African cosmopolitanism through mbalax, an urban dance music distinct to Senegal, West Africa. Though Senegalese, mbalax relies on revitalization with musics from abroad such as jazz, salsa, and hip hop. By examining the cosmopolitan processes through which musicians continually combine and interpret these genres from the African diaspora, each with its own meanings and histories, Senegalese popular culture thrives not despite but because of foreign influence. Drawing on two decades of ethnographic research in Senegal, Cape Verde, and the United States, Professor Mangin takes a deep dive into the politics, histories, performances, and musical collaboration between Senegalese and foreign artists.
Online via Zoom, 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Presenter: Juliet Schor, PhD
Since its inception about ten years ago, app-based work on platforms such as Uber, Instacart, and DoorDash have been controversial. Professor Schor has done more than a decade of research on multiple platforms, including hundreds of interviews with workers and analysis of company data. She will explain what the controversy is all about, how workers experience life on these apps, and what consumers should know about them. Join us for this presentation that will include a discussion of the current fight in Massachusetts over a company-sponsored effort to exempt this work from existing labor laws.
About the Instructors
Program Pricing
General Admission
General Admission for the Coffee and Conversation series is as follows: Individual sessions for $15 each, or the entire series for $100.
No discounts are available.
General Information:
You must be 18 years old to participate in the BC Beyond Lifelong Learning Coffee and Conversation series. All sales are final; we are not able to offer refunds. Registrations may not be transferred to another person or to another course, workshop, or program.
Online registration is required to participate in the program. The fee for individual sessions is $15 each; the fee for the entire series is $100, to be paid by debit or credit card. Registrations will be processed upon receipt of payment. Payment is due in full in order to enroll.

Getting to Campus
Parking is available at the nearby Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue Garages. Discounted parking passes are available upon registration.
Boston College is also accessible via public transportation (MBTA B Line - Boston College).