Writing Boston College’s History

In 1864, the Society of Jesus opened their doors in the South End of Boston with the hopes of being a quaint, small place where Irish male teenagers could gather under a common religion to study the Catechism and classical literature. Now 160 years later, more than 14,000 undergrad and graduate students gather on 223 acres across its campuses on Brighton, Newton, and Chestnut Hill, continuing the legacy of education, but not exactly carrying out the mission in the way Fr. McElroy had intended.

On a Thursday afternoon in Burns Library, home of the Boston College’s institutional archives, James O’Toole held a conversation with Fr. Greg Kalscheur, a Jesuit and dean of the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, and Margaret McGuiness, a professor at La Salle who specializes in American Catholic history. The topic of this dialogue was O’Toole’s new book titled “Ever to Excel: A History of Boston College,” and specifically why it is important to reflect on the history of institutions. President Leahy, S.J. had commissioned him for this job because of O’Toole’s activism in the Boston archdiocese and his previous works on Boston and American Catholicism. 

The conversation began with Professor McGuiness’ remarks on the school’s transition to being fully coeducational. In 1970, the nearby all-girls liberal arts college, Newton College of the Sacred Heart, was experiencing diminishing enrollment and heavy financial stress. Seeing an opportunity to help out their Catholic sisters, Boston College decided to merge and bring men and women together in education. Though Boston College admitted women to the nursing and educational schools starting in 1926, it was not defined as a co-ed university. Now they could claim that title. 

She brought up the fact that no records exist commenting on the first women’s experience at BC. McGuinness knew the first women to attend La Salle and found their experiences fascinating and wondered how the first women brought into the common curriculum on Chestnut Hill felt. 

McGuinness then commented on the universality of higher education and how BC now fit into that race. The combination of genders under the same classroom was a big change from 1913 when the school oversaw four sports and nine clubs. Higher education by the 1950s was becoming all encompassing. The first dorms on upper campus were built in 1955. Clubs, athletics, and other extracurriculars entered this new phenomena of “college life.” 

A big theme throughout the talk was continuity, more specifically whether we were falling away from our mission of Jesuit education, furthering it, or complacent. For the 22 first students at BC, it was five and a half days of Latin, Greek, and the Catechism. All three of the panel remarked that the idea of electives would’ve seemed outlandish and pointless to the early Jesuits. Building on this point, Fr. Kalscheur discussed how confident we can be that we have been truly teaching Jesuit education. He used the concept of “creative fidelity,” using this as a means to remaining faithful to St. Ignatius while not simply repeating him.

Formation was a huge part of Fr. Kalscheur’s insights. Since the teacher was the center and spirit of the students, it was important that they were forming rather than merely informing. He then asked, “Do lay teachers truly have an understanding of this formative role?” How things are taught is more important than what is taught from an apostolic position. O’Toole played with this point saying how students understood that they were receiving something much more than an education. 

A question from the crowd sparked an interesting back and forth between the group: how does the introduction of a lay board affect Boston College’s mission? In the 1970s, schools around the country threw off their religious identity. In a similar fashion, 1972 saw the exit of the Jesuit board at BC. But because of the strong commitment to its founding principles, O’Toole claimed it retained its faith, unlike a number of other institutions. In his closing thoughts, O’Toole concluded that all systems grope towards some kind of ideal. This has been present at Boston College from the very beginning.