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 Boston College

Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university located in the village ofChestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. It has 9,100 full-time undergraduates and almost 5,000 graduate students. The college's name reflects the university's early history as aliberal arts college and preparatory school in Boston's South End. It is a member of the568 Group and the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. Its main campus is ahistoric district and features some of the earliest examples of collegiate gothic architecture in North America.

Boston College's undergraduate program is currently ranked 31st in the National Universities ranking by U.S. News & World Report. Boston College is categorized as a research university with high research activity by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.Students at the university earned 21 Fulbright awards in 2012, ranking the school eighth among American research institutions.At $1.646 billion, Boston College has the 41st largest university endowment in North America,and the largest endowment among all Jesuit colleges and universities.

Boston College offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees through its nine schools and colleges: College of Arts & Sciences, Boston College Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Carroll School of Management, Lynch School of Education,Connell School of Nursing, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, Boston College Law School, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, Woods College of Advancing Studies.

Boston College sports teams are called the Eagles, and their colors are maroon and gold; the school mascot is Baldwin the Eagle. The Eagles compete in NCAA Division I as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports offered by the ACC. The men's and women's ice hockey teams compete in Hockey East. Boston College's men's ice hockey team is one of the most renowned programs in the nation, having won a total of five national championships since the team's inception.

History

In 1825, Benedict Joseph Fenwick, S.J., a Jesuit from Maryland, became the second Bishop of Boston. He was the first to articulate a vision for a "College in the City of Boston" that would raise a new generation of leaders to serve both the civic and spiritual needs of his fledgling diocese. In 1827, Bishop Fenwick opened a school in the basement of his cathedral and took to the personal instruction of the city's youth. His efforts to attract other Jesuits to the faculty were hampered both by Boston's distance from the center of Jesuit activity in Maryland and by suspicion on the part of the city's Protestant elite. Relations with Boston's civic leaders worsened such that, when a Jesuit faculty was finally secured in 1843, Fenwick decided to leave the Boston school and instead opened the College of the Holy Cross 45 miles (72 km) west of the city in Worcester, Massachusetts where he felt the Jesuits could operate with greater autonomy. Meanwhile, the vision for a college in Boston was sustained by John McElroy, S.J., who saw an even greater need for such an institution in light of Boston's growing Irish Catholic immigrant population. With the approval of his Jesuit superiors, McElroy went about raising funds and in 1857 purchased land for "The Boston College" on Harrison Avenue in the Irish neighborhood of South End, Boston, Massachusetts. With little fanfare, the college's two buildings — a schoolhouse and a church — welcomed their first class of scholastics in 1859. Two years later, with as little fanfare, BC closed again. Its short-lived second incarnation was plagued by the outbreak of Civil War and disagreement within the Society over the college's governance and finances. BC's inability to obtain a charter from the anti-Catholic Massachusetts legislature only compounded its troubles.

Move to Chestnut Hill

Boston College's enrollment reached nearly 500 by the turn of the 20th century. Expansion of the South End buildings onto James Street enabled increased separation between the high school and college divisions, though Boston College High School remained a constituent part of Boston College until 1927 when it was separately incorporated. In 1907, newly installed President Thomas I. Gasson, S.J., determined that BC's cramped, urban quarters in Boston's South End were inadequate and unsuited for significant expansion. Inspired by John Winthrop's early vision of Boston as a "city upon a hill", he re-imagined Boston College as world-renowned university and a beacon of Jesuitscholarship. Less than a year after taking office, he purchased Amos Adams Lawrence's farm onChestnut Hill, six miles (10 km) west of the city. He organized an international competition for the design of a campus master plan and set about raising funds for the construction of the "new" university. Proposals were solicited from distinguished architects, and Charles Donagh Maginnis' ambitious proposal for twenty buildings in English Collegiate Gothic style, called "Oxford in America", was selected.^{[citation needed]} Construction began in 1909.

By 1913, construction costs had surpassed available funds, and as a result Gasson Hall, "New BC's" main building, stood alone on Chestnut Hill for its first three years. Buildings of the former Lawrence farm, including a barn and gatehouse, were temporarily adapted for college use while a massive fundraising effort was underway. While Maginnis's ambitious plans were never fully realized, BC's first "capital campaign" — which included a large replica of Gasson Hall's clock tower set up on Boston Common to measure the fundraising progress — ensured that President Gasson's vision survived. By the 1920s BC began to fill out the dimensions of its university charter, establishing the Boston College Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the Boston College Law School, and the Woods College of Advancing Studies, followed successively by the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, the Carroll School of Management, the Connell School of Nursing, and the Lynch School of Education. In 1926, Boston College conferred its first degrees on women (though it did not become fully coeducational until 1970). With the rising prominence of its graduates, this was also the period in which Boston College and its powerful Alumni Association began to establish themselves among the city's leading institutions. At the city, state and federal levels, BC graduates would come to dominate Massachusetts politics for much of the 20th century. Cultural changes in American society and in the church following the Second Vatican Council forced BC to question its purpose and mission. Meanwhile, poor financial management lead to deteriorating facilities and resources and rising tuition costs. Student outrage, combined with growing protests overVietnam and the bombings in Cambodia, culminated in student strikes, including demonstrations at Gasson Hall in April 1970.

Recent history

Since assuming the Boston College presidency, Leahy's tenure has been marked with an acceleration of the growth and development initiated by his predecessor. BC's endowment has grown to $1.83 billion, it has expanded by almost 150 acres (610,000 m²), while dramatically reducing the greenery of its middle campus. During this period, undergraduate applications have surpassed 31,000. At the same time, BC students, faculty and athletic teams have seen indicators of success — winning record numbers of Fulbrights, Rhodes, and other academic awards; setting new marks for research grants; and winning conference and national titles. In 2002, Leahy initiated the Church in the 21st Century program to examine issues facing the Catholic Church in light of the clergy sexual abuse scandal. His effort brought BC worldwide praise and recognition for "leading the way on Church reform." Recent plans to merge with the Weston Jesuit School of Theology were followed by an article in The New York Times claiming "such a merger would further Boston College's quest to become the nation's Catholic intellectual powerhouse" and that, once approved by the Vatican and Jesuit authorities in Rome, BC "would become the center for the study of Roman Catholic theology in the United States." On February 16, 2006, the merger was authorized by the Jesuit Conference.

Collegiate Gothic buildings on Chestnut Hill.

In 2003, after years of student-led discussions and efforts, the school approved a Gay-Straight Alliance, the first university-funded gay support group on campus. In 2004, between 1,000 and 1,200 students rallied behind a student-led campaign to expand the school's non-discrimination statement to include equal protection for gays and lesbians. Earlier that year 84% of the student body voted in favor of a student referendum calling for a change in policy. After several months of discussion the university changed its statement of nondiscrimination to make it more welcoming to gay students in May 2005, but stopped short of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

On December 5, 2007, Boston College announced the Master Plan, a $1.6 billion, 10-year plan to revamp the campus and hire new faculty. The plan includes over $700 million for new buildings and renovations of the campus, including construction of four new academic buildings, a sharp reduction in the size of the legendary "dustbowl" campus green, a 200,000 sq ft (19,000 m²) recreation center to replace the Flynn Recreation Complex, a 285,000 sq ft (26,500 m²) university center to replace McElroy Commons (which is slated for destruction), and the creation of 610 beds for student housing, as well as many other constructions and renovations.^[20][21] The plan has been criticized by Boston city officials. On February 21, 2008, Boston MayorThomas M. Menino warned the school to construct new dormitory building on its main campus, rather than on property acquired from the Archdiocese of Boston. The school was long an institution that targeted commuter students from the Boston area, however in the school's pursuit of a national legacy, that function has been forgotten as the number of commuter students enrolled dropped from well over 50% to a mere three students, according to statistics published by the alumni magazine.

On June 10, 2009, Mayor Menino and Boston's zoning commission approved the Boston College Master Plan, signaling an end to the long approval process, while allowing the school to enter design and planning phases.

Boston College Main Campus Historic District

Boston College Main Campus Historic District located at 140 Commonwealth Avenue in the village of Chestnut Hill in Newton, Massachusetts was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 9, 1990.