Campus Digest: Summer 2024

Campus News

Boston College was recently ranked as the twelfth-safest college campus in the country. Academic Influence, the organization behind the rankings, gave BC high marks for the presence of security officers, lighting, student shuttle buses, and mental health offices on the Heights, as well as the University’s surveillance systems and technology.

Karen Bullock, the Louise McMahon Ahearn Endowed Professor in the School of Social Work, received a major award in March in recognition of her long-standing work to improve serious illness care for underserved patient populations. The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine presented Bullock with the Richard Payne Outstanding Achievement in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award for her advocacy related to serious illness care.

Ana M. Martínez-Alemán, an associate dean and professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, was recently named one of forty outstanding women in higher education by the respected publication Diverse: Issues In Higher Education. Martínez-Alemán’s research has explored complex issues such as student anti–sexual violence activism and online racialized aggression, and she wrote one of the first books about social media’s impact on students.

Forbes recently named Boston College one of its twenty “new Ivies.” The group is made up of public and private US universities with high achieving graduates that the magazine says are often preferred by employers over those from Ivy League institutions. BC is the only New England school that made the list.

Lee Pellegrini, director of photography in the Boston College Office of University Communications, was honored last spring with the Boston College Arts Council’s annual Faculty/Staff Art Award. The honor is bestowed upon a faculty or staff member who has made an outstanding contribution to the arts at BC in a variety of ways.

Course Spotlight

Name: Food and Identity in Latin/o American Literature and Culture
Instructor: Ali Kulez, assistant professor of Hispanic studies
Focus: The relationship between food and identity in Latin American and US Latino cultures from the 1920s to now.

Taught entirely in Spanish, this new undergraduate course explores food imagery in Latin American literature. Far from experiencing the cuisine just on the printed page, however, students make field trips to Boston restaurants, hear from restaurateurs, chefs, and food-justice activists, and actually cook up some of the dishes they read about. In the classroom, they analyze texts by learning about the social forces behind food in Latin America, and also explore the influence food has had on Latinx identity. “I’m always fascinated by how strongly people feel about their own food,” Kulez said. “It’s often a matter of pride, and shows particular dynamics about the way they imagine their communities.” —Elizabeth Clemente

BC Law Grad Places Second on Survivor

After charming a national audience for months, Charlie Davis JD’24 was selected as the Season 46 runner-up on the hit TV show Survivor. “I’m so proud of my game, and so grateful to have gotten as far as I did, as painful as it is to lose,” said Davis, a Massachusetts native who attended Harvard as an undergrad and is a noted Taylor Swift fan. Beating out sixteen other competitors while spending twenty-six days on an island enduring grueling physical challenges with limited access to food, hygiene products, and shelter was no easy task. “You really have to have your head in the game from day one,” Davis said. “A five-second conversation can cut your lifeline in the game, so you have to just be so deliberate about the relationships you’re building.” The show was shot last summer in Fiji, and Goodwin Procter, the Boston firm where Davis will soon be practicing business law full-time, accommodated his schedule when filming interfered with part of his summer internship. He also received ample support from the BC community, including his BC Law classmates, who regularly attended watch parties he hosted around Boston. Asked about his craziest memories from the show, Davis said some made it to air—like the time a castmate melted down after not winning an Applebee’s burger—while others did not, including his tribe’s desperate attempt to hunt, cook, and eat a sea cucumber using only a machete and a pot. “It’s so incredible,” he said. “When people say it’s the adventure of a lifetime, that’s 100 percent true.” —Elizabeth Clemente