A Brief History of Boston College
Table of Contents
Prologue | Chapter I | Chapter II | Chapter III |
Chapter IV | Chapter V | Chapter VI | Chapter VII |
Chapter VIII | Chapter IX | Chapter X | Epilogue |
Prologue
We here at The New England Classic are proud to present an unprecedented discovery. We have, in our possession, the only known copy of A Brief History of Boston College, written in 2011 by an unknown author. Largely ignored by the historical research community and the wider public, the 69 copies that made it to print (which was thought to have been caused by a clerical error) were all presumed lost. That was until, by pure chance, we unearthed the original copy from deep within the stacks of O’Neill Library. The work, which tells the true story of how our beloved Boston College came to be, is presented by The Classic below in a serial fashion. We are extremely excited to finally share this incredible piece of BC history for the first time.
Chapter I
May 10, 1825 began like any other day for Benedict Fenwick, a priest and Jesuit in the new American Province, centered in Baltimore, Maryland. Like everyday, he rose before sunrise, so he could be the first Jesuit in the house to say good morning to God. He descended the spiral staircase that led to the terrace of the house, and walking out into the crisp morning air, he crossed himself and said, “Good Morning God! You are swell, because you made sand and fabric, and other things as well.”
Later in the day, as Fenwick sat in his study writing down all the things he loved less than Jesus, the superior of the House knocked on the door. As Fenwick opened it, the two greeted each other as all Jesuits of the house would:
Two! Four! Six! Eight! Jesuits are really great!
“Fenwick!” the superior exclaimed, “I come bearing a letter from the Pope, the old man who is our boss.”
“Eh Whaaaaaaa?” Fenwick said, with incredulity dripping from his big, dumb mouth. He was a humble priest, not accustomed to dealings with the Pope, the old man who is the boss of Catholics.
“The Pope wrote to say he’s making you a bishop. You’ve been a shiny bishop boy, and now the Pope has named you the new Bishop of Boston!” Fenwick fell to his knees with joy, and screamed:
“Thank you, Pope, my big old boss!”
Chapter II
Boston, in 1825, was rampant with Anti-Catholic sentiment. Catholics were small in number, comprised mostly of Irish longshoremen and whisky bottles. Fenwick was consecrated to replace Jean-Louis Cheverus, who himself had been granted the cushy job of being the Bishop of Montauban, France. The members of the Boston diocese had protested this, and begged their bishop to stay. Combining the efforts of nearly a hundred laborers, the parishioners baked a large cake, and presented it to Bishop Cheverus, as they sang:
O Bishop big, o Bishop strong
Be our Bishop all week long
We love thy hats, we love thy mouth
We love thee North, West, East and South
But Cheverus was unmoved by the gesture, and said to those gathered before him, “Be gone from here with your confectionary bribes. You’re all a bunch of bozos, and I refuse to be the Bishop of Bozos.” Three days later he retreated across the sea, never to return.
Several weeks later, Bishop Fenwick arrived in Boston. As he walked through the streets, he announced to those passing by, “I am Bishop Fenwick, and I’m the new Bishop of Boston, the town upon the sea that I’m told is filled of bozos. The Pope is my boss, and now I am your boss, so get used to it.”
The first two years in Boston were tough, to say the least. But one night, as he slept, the Bishop had a dream that would shape the course of his episcopacy. He described the dream in detail in his journal:
I was sleeping in my bed (that is to say, I was sleeping betwixt my blanket and my mattress, not that I was sleeping encased within my mattress. However, the latter habit I have myself, on occasion, indulged in, and found the sleep derived therefrom to be exceptionally restful, to the extent that I would become rapt with madness caused by my body being too rested, but I digress), when I was greeted by a most strange dream. I found myself in a room, and in the center thereof sat a lone chair, and therein sat a silly, little man. This man’s silliness was of a variety that exceeded the bounds of language, but I assure you he was most silly. Staring at me, he stretched out his hand, in which was held a lone piece of paper, on which was written: THIS IS YOUR DREAM ABOUT BOSTON COLLEGE.
When Fenwick awoke, he was confused, for he had never heard of Boston College. He thought about it long and hard, writing “Boston College is something I had a dream about, but about which I know very little” over and over on various pieces of parchment. Finally, he concluded that “Boston” most likely referred to Boston, the city where he was Bishop, and that “College” referred to a College, a place where children with wealthy parents went to learn about business and old things. Thus, he concluded that he had to build a college in Boston, and call it “Boston College,” because it would be a college located in Boston.
With that, the story of Boston College had begun.
Chapter III
Bishop Fenwick initially planned to call his school “Big Bishop Fenwick’s Boston College Boogaloo,” but his aides were able to dissuade him. Because the diocese was lacking in funds, and because local landowners were often unwilling to sell land to Catholics, the college was to be run from the basement of the Cathedral. Fenwick would play a large role in teaching the courses, of which there were originally just three:
- Jesus: What’s the deal with this guy? (THEO 101001)
- Understanding Genesis (BIOL 101001)
- Portico (PRTO 100001)
The first class was small, consisting of no more than a dozen strapping young men full of energy from their diet of salt pork and hardtack and the namesake for that one hit song by The Standells. Despite the small size of the school, Bishop Fenwick found himself increasingly inundated with work, and knew he would need help from his fellow Jesuits.
But Boston was hundreds of miles from Baltimore (the American headquarters of the Jesuit order), and the Protestant elite of Boston were weary of more Catholics entering the city. Upon hearing of Fenwick’s invitation of his fellow Jesuits, one Bostonian reportedly remarked, “Better that he should invite brunfers than those dastardly popemongers.” (Brunfer was an ethnic slur widely used in the early 19th century, although it had fallen out of use by the time of the Civil War. Surprisingly, written records give no indication of which ethnic group it referred to).
Eventually, in 1843 several Jesuits were sent from Baltimore to help staff the small, but growing college. The number of students and staff increased, and the school soon began to outgrow the Cathedral basement it still occupied. Seeing the need for a larger facility, Bishop Fenwick proposed digging a network of tunnels radiating from the Church basement, in which could be constructed classrooms and dormitories. These, he said, would form the basis of a great underground city, which he said would “Be the envy of every Protestant and Jew in Boston. Indeed all who do not call the Pope ‘Boss’ shall hang their heads and say: ‘Woe to us, for we do not call the Pope Boss, and thus may not enter the glorious mole-city built for those who do.’”
But the Bishop’s aides did not greet the plan with as much enthusiasm as did Fenwick, for they did not wish to subject themselves to tunnels, which they derided as “dank [in the negative sense of the word]” and “bad.” The bishop greeted their refusal with great anger, and he chided his aides saying, “Are you big bunch of dum-dums? How do you not see the great glory we shall enjoy once we have constructed our great city under the earth. Surely when it is done people shall see it and say:
Oh me! Oh my! Oh what to do?
I wish I lived in the tunnels, too!”
In this regard his aides could not be persuaded, for too deeply ingrained was their antipathy to tunnels. Unable to find sufficient support for his plan, both from his own staff and from the city zoning board (who denied permits for the city of mole-people because there would be more than four undergraduates living in one dwelling together), Bishop Fenwick, joined by several loyal Jesuits, left Boston for nearby Worcester (pronounced woo-stah, but everyone knows that, right?), where it was believed the group might enjoy better prospects in their plan to establish a underground university. (This effort eventually produced The College of the Holy Cross, a fine institute of higher education that sits, regrettably, above ground.)
Chapter IV
With Bishop Fenwick out of the picture, control of the still nascent university was left to John McElroy Commons, S.J. (Many today do not know that McElroy Commons is actually named after the McElroy Commons!) McElroy Commons was left understaffed and lonely, with the ballooning Irish population in Boston only exacerbating the situation.
In 1853, McElroy found a property in Boston’s South (the former city jail, left deserted ever since the city council voted to legalize Irish people) which appeared a promising location for the expanding college. McElroy Commons worked tirelessly to persuade the zoning board to approve the sale, but the board was skeptical. He described the endeavor in his journal:
I brought my case before the board, and eloquently made my plea. While they found no fault in the argument I had prepared, of my own personal character they could make no sound judgment, and for this reason they refused to pass a verdict on the issue. Not wishing to give up my plan, I was suddenly, thank Christ, struck with a most wonderful idea: I would win the favor of the board by demonstrating my most honorable character in the context of a date!
Flowers in hand, I arrived at the front steps of city hall and, straightening my collar, tepidly rang the doorbell. The board answered, each member donning a stunning cream-colored evening dress, their hair flowing in gentle curls down their breast. Laying a tender kiss on the cheek of all 15 members, I led them thence to a local restaurant. The dinner was splendid, and judging by their enthusiasm in our conversation, it would have seemed to me that each of the 15 elected officials had a time that was nothing short of delightful. Returning to City Hall, I was preparing to leave, when in unison the zoning board proposed I join them in the parlor for a nightcap. I was struck by their forwardness, and concealed my blushing cheeks with my hands and let out a nervous, girlish giggle. Mistaking my embarrassment at the proposition as coy acceptance, they reached to put a hand upon my shoulder, but were themselves dumbstruck when I recoiled. Angrily realizing the reality of the situation, they retreated into the Hall, but not before calling me a “prude bitch.”
Three days letter, McElroy Commons received a letter in the mail. The zoning board had rejected the sale of the property. Not wishing to abandon the dream of the Boston College, McElroy Commons and his fellow Jesuits persisted in their effort to secure a new property. They were lucky enough to find such a property, again in the South End, but they lacked the funds to purchase it. However, the Jesuits were elated to receive a letter from local philanthropist and Catholic, Andrew Carney, which read:
Dear Jesuits,
I share your love for our boss, the Pope, and for this reason I wish to help you in your endeavor to build a great big college in our fine city. Please find enclosed $5000. My only wish is that you name the ugliest building on campus after me, because I do not wish to have a beautiful building named after me. Surely then they shall say “There is Carney, he is certainly more beautiful than that building named after him.”
Signed,
Andrew Carney
With the money they received, the Jesuits were finally able to purchase the new property in 1857. Two years later, after scraping together their remaining money to purchase five balloons (one for each of Christ’s wounds) and a banner that read “College, College here it is,” the Jesuits officially declared the school open.
Chapter V
Boston College of The Immaculate Conception (shortened to “Bost,” after a clerical error, then re-lengthened to “Boston College of the Immaculate Conception Located in the South End of Boston… Right past the bank, on the right side…there’s a big, stone church, you can’t miss it” before finally being shortened to “Boston College”) operated for just two years before the nation was wracked with violence, forcing it to close. The Civil War, a war fought exclusively between a bunch of bearded brothers, prevented the enrollment of new students. Additionally, internal strife among the Jesuits (who could not decide whether to spend funds on the school or on the big party they had planned for Ignatius of Loyola’s birthday) had made operating the college nearly impossible. For two years the school remained closed, until in 1863, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts approved the school’s charter, finally allowing it to reopen.
The Jesuits now had to elect a University President, who would be tasked with collecting large amounts of personal wealth and prestige while remaining effectively invisible to the student body. They elected Johannes Bapst, SJ, a Swiss member of the order, widely known for his theory that all forms of talking (as well as coughing, sneezing, and even certain, more vociferous types of breathing) were sinful. The inaugural class consisted of 22 young men, and 1 turtle, all of whom enrolled in the 7-year curriculum offered by the school. Boston College grew steadily over the next few decades, and the South End campus soon became inadequate for the ever increasing population. Furthermore, the Jesuits wanted to sculpt students’ massive calf muscles, as well as their minds. This was hard to achieve and harder to maintain on the school’s flat, urban campus. And so began the quest for a more hilly location for Boston College.
Chapter VI
In 1907, with enrollment at over 500 students, University President Thomas Gasson, SJ, declared that the facilities (as well as the students’ flabby, un-toned calf muscles and glutes) were unacceptably small. In his search for a new property, he discovered a farm owned by Amos Adams Lawrence, located on Chestnut Hill, six miles west of the city.
The farm itself was set on a hill, and was regarded by most as a highly impractical location for a major university. But Gasson took one look at Lawrence and his family, with their sinewy, yet taught haunches and calves, and became so fixated on the property that there was no changing his mind. He knew that only on such a hill could he finally build the university of his dreams: A beacon of Catholic higher education, producing students with calves and buttocks that would shame a marathon runner. He purchased the property with $80, and a barrel of all-purpose seeds, planning to begin construction in 1909.
But first, a design was needed for the new campus. Gasson advocated a plan wherein the shape of the buildings, when viewed from above would spell out, “GO, EAGLES.” The board of directors rejected this idea, saying that eagles had nothing to with the school, and that if they were going to spell out a message with their campus, it should at least say: “dEaR gOd, tHiS wIlL bE oUr LiTtLe sEcReT <3,” arguing that only God would be able to see such a message. The debate grew acrimonious and both sides were unrelenting in promoting their respective plans. It seemed that Gasson’s dream of a city on a hill full of beefy-legged Catholic intellectuals was dead in the water.
Finally, unable to solve the issue themselves, the Jesuits turned, naturally, to the spirit of St. Theophilus of Ephesus, the patron saint of people engaged in debates about what should be spelt out with a series of large buildings. They placed a relic of the saint on the altar, and in front of it placed drawings of the two designs. On top of each drawing they placed a candle, and they lit the two simultaneously. They all then kneeled and prayed:
O Holy Saint, my shiny pal
Open up those ear canals
We’ve got some prayers for you to hear
So please listen to our prayers
The Jesuits left the chapel and locked the door. They were to return the next day, and whichever candle was still burning, the design that sat underneath would be chosen. At sunrise the next morning, they opened the chapel door, and Gasson, sure the saint had sided with him, ran eagerly to the altar. But to his, and everyone’s shock, both candle’s had burned out, and both drawings were gone! As Gasson let out a mournful “Aaaaouou”, the other Jesuits noticed something on the floor.
In a circle of light that seemed to come from under the floor sat a single piece of paper. Tepidly, Fr. Scrim lifted it from the floor, and examining it, found it to be a new plan for the campus! The other Jesuits gathered around Scrim in astonishment. But this soon turned dismay, for they all soon realized that the buildings in this plan spelled nothing at all! Rather, in the center sat a lone H-shaped building. This, the Jesuits took to represent “Helpsmanship,” a key Jesuit value. The saint had taught them a powerful lesson.
Chapter VII
With a design settled upon, construction began in 1909. Helpsmanship Hall (later renamed Gasson Hall) was the first structure to be completed. However, soon after the tower’s completion, funds ran dry. Construction halted. In order to secure their vision’s future, the Jesuit’s resolved to collect the money needed from the people of Boston. It was then that Fr. Gasson remembered a dream he had had some months prior. As he later described it to a biographer:
“I was sitting in a bathtub, only I was still wearing my cassock, and the tub, rather than being filled with water, was filled with a fine dust that was grey and smelled angry. Looking around, I saw an empty room, whose walls were a color I had never before seen. Sitting at the foot of the tub sat a Golden Eagle, who looked at me the way a bitter man would look at a small trinket. I felt paralyzed with fear, and was relieved to have woken up at that moment.”
It was because this dream that Gasson had proposed his design for the campus. He hoped that the message “Go Eagles” would repel eagles from the campus, and thus preventing him from being looked at like trinket by a bitter man. When St. Theophilus had foiled this plan, he realized that clearly he could not hope to rid his life of eagles. He thus concluded that he must have some use for eagles in his life, and this he figured to be as aides in collecting funds. Scraping the last of their money together, the Jesuits purchased seven golden eagles, each with a bucket fixed to one foot, and to the other a sign reading, “WE ARE MONEY EAGLES, HUNGRY FOR MONEY.” These they released from the top of Helpsmanship Hall, and watched as they soared toward Boston, hope gleaming in their eyes.
But, inconceivably, the plan failed. Of the seven eagles, only two returned to campus; of these only one had anything within its bucket. Within that bucket was $0.64, a dead rabbit, and two toes: one human, the other seeming to have belonged to one of the other eagles. Needless to say, the Jesuits were without hope. It was then that Fr. Glimbt, the youngest among them (but the most pure of heart), remembered the collection bucket they had set up earlier in Boston Common. What fools they had been! They ran like fools to the Common, cassocks aflutter all six miles.
When they arrived, they were stunned to find the bucket brimming with coins, overflowing on all sides with strawpennies, dimes and nickels! After the money had been counted, they found they had enough to complete several more buildings. Construction began again, and the Jesuit’s thanked God for divorcing so many people from their money.
Chapter VIII
In the decades that followed, the school flourished. The Schools of Arts and Sciences, Education, Management, and Nursing were opened by the mi[CONGRATULATIONS!!!! YOU’VE MADE IT THROUGH YOUR FIRST 100 YEARS OF BOSTON COLLEGE HISTORY! KEEP GOING, YOU’RE DOING GREAT]d 1920’s, and in 1926, the school issued its first degrees to women (the school was not fully coeducational until 1970, when the Jesuits were finally convinced that women could achieve muscular calves comparable to men’s). Boston College graduates began to gain prominent roles in politics (both county or otherwise) and business, and the Jesuits grew plump on the tuition of the ever increasing student body.
The schools growth slowed only for six years during the Second World War. During those years, part of the campus was used as a makeshift boot camp for the thousands of young men being sent overseas. It would not have been uncommon during that time to see battalions of GI’s standing in formation beneath Helpsmanship Hall, and when examining photographs from the era, one can almost hear the distant shouting of cadences, such as:
Adolf Hitler’s really bad!
I’m sure glad he’s not my dad
The decade following the war proved the one of the best in the school’s history, marked by ever increasing enrollment and a massive expansion of the campus. It was during this time that the Jesuits fulfilled a longstanding dream of buying one of two reservoirs which sat at the base of Chestnut Hill, such that they might convert it into the world’s largest Baptismal Font. However, the Vatican was not forthcoming in approving the plan, (they had their own plans for such a font, but this too was abandoned by the end of the decade) and instead the lake was drained. After no gold was found on the lakebed, it was converted into what is now Lower Campus.
The Second Vatican Council, (which, to the great joy of many Jesuits, abolished rules) caused the Jesuit Order to refocus its mission. They as well shifted their focus away from toning student’s calves, saying “modern” Catholics would benefit more from firm, globular buttocks.
In keeping with it’s new, reformist vision, Boston College admitted its first ever Jewish student in August 1971: Larry Rubinsteinbergsky, a native of Weston, Massachusetts, who sought an education that would “let him marry a shiksa.” So as not to frighten the Catholic students, the Jesuits had Larry shorten his last name to Rubinstein; this, however, was to no avail, as in April 1972, after arriving to class on a 50 degree day donning a hat because “it was too cold,” it became obvious to all that he denied Christ. Having been run out of the school, Rubenstein never returned again, at least not without his lawyer. Facing a massive lawsuit in the midst of rising debt and falling enrollment, Boston College yielded to Larry’s demands and promised to rename a newly-built residence hall after him. Unfortunately, the school lacked funds enough to install central air conditioning, adding yet another to the long list of grievances of the Jews against the Roman Church.
By this time, J. Donald Monan, SJ (who doesn’t have a building named after him yet but just you wait…just you fucking wait) assumed the Office of University President, he gained control of a school that was greatly in debt. Much of this was owed to the Jesuits, who had grown fond of luxury cars and spacious accommodations (in accordance with their vow of “poverty”), but incidents such as the Rubenstein Affair did not help. Rumors circulated that the school would be sold to Harvard University, (documents have recently surfaced showing the Harvard Board planned to make the college a preserve for Catholics, that they might be studied by the school’s research students (many of whom had only ever read about Catholics, let alone ever seen one in the flesh). It was only after restructuring the Board of Trustees that Monan was able to turn the school’s fate around.
Chapter IX
By the end of the 1970’s, it seemed Fr. Monan had managed to save the school from impending financial ruin, and had laid the groundwork for what would be the greatest period of expansion in the school’s history. In 1974, the school purchased Newton College of the Sacred Heart, a small school about two miles away that was itself experiencing financial troubles. The University purchased the school that they might use it to banish students as part of disciplinary process. Four years later, the campus housed six students, who had been sent there for various crimes, ranging from hanging Christmas lights in October (and thus violating the order of the liturgical calendar), to using the word “condom” within earshot of a church. The students were forced to wear sackcloth, eat a meager diet of legumes and hard grains, and walk each day to their classes on the Main Campus (a distance that, while relatively short, was just long enough to be a “huge fucking pain in the ass”). That same year, to the dismay of many, the Massachusetts State Supreme Court ruled that year that exile (according to their limp, baseless “liberal” principles) somehow represented “cruel and unusual punishment;” the program was forced to cease.
Not wishing to sell the property, they decided to convert several of the buildings into dormitories for the ever growing student body (due to a housing shortage, many students had for some time been forced to live in yurts or hovels on the main quad, most of them constructed from crude materials such as clay, twigs, and their own saliva). The school continued to grow, as did its prestige.
The Ballad of Doug Flutie
December 6, 1983 was a particularly cold night. As the sunset, a cold wind picked up, and did not relent until nigh on sunrise. At around two in the morning, Fr. Primblteton was awoken by a great clamor outside his bedroom window. Knowing that the Jesuits’ nativity scene sat just below, he threw on his robe, and heading downstairs, went to expect the matter. As he approached the scene, he was shocked to find that everything appeared to be in order, right down to the frills on Balthasar’s mantle. But as he approached the crib, he was shocked by what he saw.
Rather than the plump, cherubic Bambino he had grown so accustomed to seeing, he could not believe his eyes when he instead saw a fully grown, 5’ 10”, 21 year old man in his place! Running towards the crib, he shouted, “Who are you! And Where—”, but quieted himself when he saw that the boy was asleep. Tepidly approaching, he found pinned to the boy’s swaddling cloth a note which read:
Hello,
I am a footballer boy.
Thank You
O What joy! Fr. Primbleton scooped the boy up in his arms, and brought him into St. Mary’s. The next morning, he informed his fellow Jesuits of the miracle he had witnessed, and showed them all the football boy. He was finally awake, but he could not speak, save for the word “helmet,” which he was able to say only with great difficulty.
They decided that a Baptism was in order, and after providing the boy with proper clothing, led him to the Chapel. For a Christian name, they settled on “Doug,” the lot of them agreeing that the boy “looked like a Doug” For a surname, they agreed to use Primbleton, after Fr. Primbleton who had discovered him. But Primbleton, being too humble, suggested instead that the boy take the name “Flutie” after his favorite album, Tuttie Flutie, by Japanese jazz musician Toshiko Akiyoshi.
Seeing as he was a football boy, the Jesuits soon parted with young Doug, handing him over to head football coach Jack Bicknell. Feeding him on a simple yet hearty diet of oats and squab, he trained Doug day in and day out, and to his great delight, found Doug to be a natural at football (seeing as he was a football boy). His training proceeded individually, until finally in the summer of 1984, he was introduced to the rest of the team, who found his skittish disposition and garbled English offputting, but who were nonetheless enraptured by his ability on the field.
It was this great ability that would cement Flutie’s position in the history of Boston College. On November 23, 1984, the Boston College Eagles faced off against the Miami Hurricanes. By the end of the fourth quarter, with less than a minute remaining, the Eagles trailed Miami by 4 points. Worse yet, they were 63 yards from the end-zone. With the just 28 seconds left, the final snap was made. Flutie, the Eagles’ quarterback, realizing the gravity of the situation, sarcastically quipped, “We’re gonna need a larger boat” The reference, while expressing Flutie’s sentiment, was ultimately irrelevant to the situation and did not change the fact that the football remained in his hand; clearly, he would have to do more than misquote Jaws.
Realizing he had spent 21 of the remaining 28 seconds completely fucking up Roy Scheider’s iconic line from the 1975 film, a desperate Flutie threw the ball, and like and good Catholic, prayed a Hail Mary. The prayer, while winning him the merciful intercession of the Mother of God, did little to affect the course of the football, which nonetheless landed right in the hands of Boston’s receiver. The Eagles had won by the skin of their teeth, rendering it all the more sweet when, later that night, they indulged in the time-honored practice of scalping the defeated team.
Chapter X
In 1996, after serving 24 years as University President (the longest term of any President in the school’s history), J. Donald Monan stepped down, and the office passed to William P. Leahy, SJ. Leahy’s choice as president was controversial. He was relatively unknown, both to the Jesuits and even more so to students. So scarce was the information concerning this man (there are no confirmed photographs of him, a few highly disputed sightings, and his birth certificate, discovered in 1999, which claims he was born in “Omaha, Nebraska,” is now regarded as an obvious forgery), that conspiracy theories began to appear alleging he did not exist at all.
The University continued to expand both its enrollment and endowment under Leahy, and he continued the school’s noble tradition of not winning football championships. Under Leahy, the school, like the wider Catholic Church, faced more smooth sailing! At the heart of Leahy’s administration is his $1.6 Billion Strategic Plan: a comprehensive plan that promises to expand the school’s facilities, faculty and the Jesuits’ ego over the coming 15 years. The plan was announced in 2006, and has so far seen the completion of new academic buildings such as Stokes North and Stokes South (the plans for Stokes East and Stokes West are still under review by the city zoning board), as well as the forthcoming destruction of Walsh Hall (plans also provide for the earth there to be salted so that nothing will grow again, should sufficient funds be acquired). Leahy has reportedly subjected himself to many dates with the city zoning board in order to expedite the approval of new construction (as is Jesuit tradition).
Epilogue
As Boston College enters further into the 21st Century, it shall no doubt face more challenges, but will undoubtedly rise above them. Like the many who have passed before them, the Jesuits will assuredly continue to serve both their boss, the Pope, and their students in a spirit of Christian Helpsmanship and vague doublespeak. God willing, Boston College will continue to be the beacon of education and faith in America’s trashiest city. The End?
We’re Gonna make it short, ’cause we don’t want it long
This is gonna be our Boston College Song!
—Boston College Fight Song