On a beautiful, not-too-hot August day, I made Visit #99 to Boston College, one of the country’s leading institutions of higher education. And the Boston Eagles did not disappoint!
I was met by two experienced college staff: Peter Martin and Seth Meehan. Peter is BC’s Accreditation Liaison Officer (or ALOs, as NECHE calls them). ALO’s are our agency’s main point of contact with the institution, and Peter is a particularly gifted one. Seth is the program director for the Catholic Historical Research Initiative at Boston College Libraries and has also done extensive research on the history of BC. As a tour guide, he’s a tour de force, but he acknowledged you can’t let him near a student-led tour because they have a time limit, and he can’t help himself from correcting even the most innocuous of historical gaffes.
After Seth’s tour, but before joining a group of faculty and staff for lunch, (who are all preparing for BCs comprehensive evaluation this Spring), I spent an hour with BC’s new president, Father Jack Butler. One of the reasons that BC has fared so well through the years is the stability of its leadership. The two presidents who preceded Father Jack served a total of 54 years and while Father Jack is a new president and looks young to me, I can’t imagine he will serve three decades at BC …but I’m not betting against him! It was also a pleasure to see Provost David Quigley, who served on the Commission and was central to the committee that hired me more than six years ago.
My first interaction with Boston College occurred in 2020 when one of NECHE’s
institutions, Pine Manor College, was facing serious financial challenges. Rather than close its doors after more than a century, the historic institution joined BC in a common mission to serve underrepresented, first-generation, low-income students. The former PMC campus has received substantial improvements and is now home to Messina College, BC’s first Associate Degree program (approved by NECHE in 2023), and part of the Pine Manor Institute for Student Success at Boston College. Speaking of success, the vast majority of inaugural Associate Degree graduates just matriculated to four-year institutions, with about 75% continuing their education at BC.
Walking around BC’s spectacular main campus, you’d never imagine the college wasn’t
always a financial powerhouse. But it’s the ups and downs of a college’s history that I
find so fascinating.
Boston College was founded in 1863 by the Jesuits to educate Boston’s predominantly
Irish Catholic immigrant community. It opened on September 5, 1864 in a modest building on Harrison Avenue in Boston’s South End, a “small streetcar college” for commuting students. When the school first opened its doors, only 22 young men showed up, provoking Rev. Robert Fulton, SJ, the first dean of Boston College, to offer a candid assessment of those first students: “Many came gratuitously, and only one or two had talent.” Ouch!
The reality, however, was that their parents were poor, uneducated immigrants who BC Jesuits eventually realized “were not eager to pay for what could be had for nothing in the schools and academies of the city.” Nonetheless, the people possessed a deep, abiding faith in Catholic education and in the Jesuits who offered it. By 1909, the college had outgrown its South End home and optimistically purchased 36 acres of Lawrence Farm in Chestnut Hill, breaking ground on a new campus fondly known today as “The Heights.”
However, during World War I, BC’s enrollment, which had climbed to 671 in 1916, fell to 125 by 1918. Had the war not ended that year, Boston College may well have closed. Instead, it prospered. The Law School and Evening College were founded in 1929, the Graduate School of Social Work in 1936, and the College of Business Administration in 1938. Yet once again, a global war brought big challenges. BC’s enrollment of 1,200 students in 1941 dropped to 236 by April 1944. The Jesuits, faced with the grim reality that the college could not sustain itself, found their fortunes were reversed only by the Army Specialized Training Program and the Allied victory of 1945.
After World War II, Boston College’s enrollment was bolstered by the GI Bill and the
dedication of its Jesuit and lay faculty who would steer the school through the next 25
years of transition from a college to a university. Boston College added undergraduate
schools of Nursing and Education in 1947 and 1952, with graduate and doctoral programs soon to follow. And in 1970, Boston College welcomed 247 women to campus as members of the first coed College of Arts and Science class.
However, this was also the period of Boston College’s most serious financial challenge.
The upward social mobility of Boston’s Irish Catholics meant they were now free to consider other elite private universities, and as admissions dropped, BC found itself on the verge of bankruptcy. Five consecutive years of major financial deficits followed. Fortunately, with excellent leadership and strong fiscal governance, Boston College staved off bankruptcy and began its transformation from a regional to a national and ultimately an international university.
Today, Boston College has an annual budget of $1.54 billion and its endowment is among the top 40 in America. Undergraduate applications have surpassed 41,000, and BC students hail from all 50 states and 81 countries. With the soaring cost of college, it’s also inspiring to know that this institution has committed to provide its students aid to meet their full, demonstrated financial need.
BC’s narrative of resilient transformation is particularly relevant amidst these challenging times. Five NECHE schools closed their doors last year, and we will doubtless continue to see others close or merge over the next decade. The Boston College story is a reminder that schools on the edge, (even more than once) can recover and, once healthy, help other institutions like Pine Manor to continue their mission in new and innovative ways.
