FALL 2014 MAGAZINE MISSION MEETS A FAST-MOVING WORLD EMMANUEL COLLEGE’S STRATEGIC PLAN Emmanuel_FALL14_Cover_final.indd C1 11/17/14 4:23 PM contents 4 17 FEATURES DEPARTMENTS 8 Mission Meets a Fast-Moving World 1 Message from the President Emmanuel’s strategic plan provides a vision for the 2 College Journal College’s future—and a road map for achieving it. 14 Alumni Report of Giving 2013-14 26 Emmanuel is pleased to recognize the generosity of the 2,373 alumni, parents and friends who made gifts to the College last year. Their philanthropic support sustained ON THE COVER: Emmanuel College’s historic the transformative impact of an Emmanuel education, Administration Building refl ected in the windows while strengthening the College’s ability to provide of the Maureen Murphy Wilkens Science Center. fi nancial aid to talented and promising students. PHOTO BY BRIAN CROWLEY. EDITOR CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHY Emmanuel Magazine is published by the Office of Sam O’Neill WRITERS Brian Crowley Development and Alumni Relations. Please address Aine Cryts ’95 Esto Photographics all correspondence to Editor, Emmanuel Magazine, DESIGN Caitlin O’Donnell Mark Flannery 400 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02115 or to Kaajal Asher Amy Stewart Tom Kates [email protected]. Carla Osberg Merrill Shea EC_Fall14_Pgs_C2-7_FOB.indd C2 11/14/14 1:10 PM message from the president PRESENT IS PROLOGUE uring Labor Day Weekend, 560 new students arrived on campus from 22 states—including Cali- fornia, Colorado, Florida, Wash- ington, Wisconsin and Texas— Dand from 11 countries spanning Asia, Europe, and Central and South America. It was a particular joy to meet gradu- ates of earlier College classes who had come to help their sons, daughters and grandchildren launch their own Emmanuel experience. Following the Family Welcome Liturgy, as I spoke with members of the Class of ’18, I imagined all they would achieve in the years ahead—an exciting prospect. Meet Emmanuel students, and thoughts turn natu- rally to the impact they will have in the future. When recruiters from EY (Ernst & Young) interviewed accounting major Taryn Medeiros ’15, they saw her promise and offered her an internship. Based on her outstanding performance, the global professional ser- vices fi rm offered her a full-time position beginning next fall. When staff at Brigham and Women’s Hospital These ongoing discussions led recently to the formu- met biology major Nick Verdini ’17, they engaged him lation of the Emmanuel College Strategic Plan 2014- in a 140-hour program that is accelerating his career 2019. Its vision for the future and fi ve strategic goals by providing him valuable on-site experience at the represent the College’s determination to capitalize on academic medical center. Taryn and Nick are just two new and emerging opportunities and to live ever more of the many Emmanuel students poised to make fully into its Catholic educational mission. The strategic distinctive contributions in a host of fi elds. plan’s fi rst goal, “Celebrate Emmanuel’s Distinctive Tomorrow’s leaders, innovators and creators are Mission and Heritage,” provides the basis and starting here, now. More are on the way; in fact, this year our point for the rest. It is this spirit of celebration that admissions team is recruiting the centennial Class of animates us as we cultivate the intellects and hearts of 2019. The potential so evident in our students is part today’s students—and as we constantly anticipate the of what prompts us to continually look at the future demands of the world they will inherit. and to ask: What’s next? What human qualities will be Advent is a season of anticipation, when students join most vital in a world increasingly driven by algorithms in traditions such as the lighting of the Christmas tree and divided by inequities? What professions will be in the Quad and the Lessons and Carols performance in thriving, and what expertise will be most in demand? the Chapel. During this special time for the College, and And what of the College itself—what must it do to for you and your family, I hope you will experience the fl ourish in a changing higher education landscape? blessings and peace of our God with us, Emmanuel. How can it maximize its capacity to open doors and Sister Janet Eisner, SND transform lives in its second century? Fall 2014 1 EC_Fall14_Pgs_C2-7_FOB.indd 1 11/14/14 1:10 PM college journal RECENT GRANTS SUPPORT INITIATIVES IN RESEARCH, TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH | NEUROIMMUNOLOGY RESEARCH ssociate Professors of Biology Josef Kurtz and Todd Williams recently received a three-year, $357,300 grant from the National Institutes of A Health (NIH). The funding will support the College’s faculty- and student-run Neuroimmu- nology Research Project (NIRP). Since founding NIRP in 2005, Kurtz and Williams have teamed with Emmanuel under- graduates to investigate the interplay between the immune and central nervous systems. Their research could lead to new treatment methods for neurodegenerative and infl ammatory diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclero- sis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. According to Kurtz, the project’s interdisciplin- ary approach and engagement of undergraduate students may have set NIRP’s proposal apart from competing proposals. Williams added, “All of the research on this project, all of the work, happened right here at Emmanuel.” NIH GRANT RECIPIENTS: SCIENCE PROFESSORS TODD WILLIAMS AND JOSEF KURTZ. GEORGE I. ALDEN TRUST | TECHNOLOGY NEW BALANCE FOUNDATION | URBAN FOOD PROJECT $100,000 grant from the George I. Alden Trust he New Balance Foundation announced in of Worcester, MA, will help optimize the fl exibil- September that it will underwrite the inaugural ity and capacity of two computer classrooms. As year of Emmanuel College’s Urban Food Project. part of the overhaul, fi xed desks and mounted Based at Emmanuel’s recently opened Notre desktopA computers will be removed from the spaces. Replac- DameT Campus in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, the ini- ing them will be movable armchairs and mobile carts contain- tiative brings Emmanuel students together with neighbors ing 40 laptops each. The College will also upgrade the wireless and local community groups with the aim of enhancing network in these classrooms to support a high density of food availability and nutrition, particularly among families devices. These improvements will propel the College’s con- who may not qualify for government assistance but are tinuing efforts to provide highly functional, connected and unable to afford the healthy food they need. The Urban collaborative learning environments for students. Food Project connects directly with the New Balance Foundation’s goal of promoting healthy lifestyles while EMMANUEL working to prevent childhood obesity. STUDENTS EMMANUEL’S NEW NOTRE DAME WORK IN “Our support for Emmanuel’s Urban Food Project is CAMPUS WILL SERVE AS THE HUB A PILOT rooted in our belief that the best community work hap- OF THE URBAN FOOD PROJECT. VERSION pens on a small scale, neighborhood by neighborhood,” OF THE said Anne Morello Davis ’69, Managing Trustee of the New Balance Foundation. “What is NEW LAPTOP also very appealing about this project is that it is being driven by college students who CLASSROOMS. have the passion and energy to make it a success and whose own lives will be transformed by their experience.” AMY STEWART CAMPUS: DAME NOTRE KATES; TOM TECHNOLOGY: BRIAN CROWLEY; PROFESSORS: SCIENCE 2 EMMANUEL MAGAZINE EC_Fall14_Pgs_C2-7_FOB.indd 2 11/14/14 1:10 PM STORIES BY AMY STEWART CARTIER ’16 OBSERVES PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN FINLAND n reviewing curricula from around the world during her 2013 winter break, Molly Cartier ’16 found that Finland’s public schools consistently placed fi rst in rankings and test scores. Last May, she spent three weeks in the Nordic country to examine what makes its education system so I successful. Cartier, a mathematics and secondary education major, received an Emmanuel College Travel Fellowship for Advanced Study to observe the Finnish curriculum fi rsthand. Her school visits—most notably to Sammon Lukio, an upper secondary school in Tampere—left an indelible impression. “Both students and teachers are granted more autonomy,” she noted. “As a result, the students really take responsibility for themselves.” Cartier’s research will inform her senior distinction project, which she will present in the spring. GREEN ADDRESSES ETHICAL QUESTIONS IN THE GENOMIC ERA f you were given access to information about your genetic makeup, including data about potential health compli- cations, how would you use it? Would you want to access it at all? Dr. Robert C. Green, a physician-scientist in the Division of Genetics and the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Brigham’s Genomes to People (G2P) Program, addressed these and other I bioethical questions at Emmanuel’s Fall 2014 Wyant Lecture in October. Green discussed the implications of providing a person with a valuable piece of genetic information—for example, the presence of genes such as ApoE-e4, which carries a signifi cant risk of Alzheimer’s. He also explored ethical issues sur- rounding “incidental fi ndings”—variants discovered during sequencing for an unrelated issue that would be of medical interest to the patient—and the responsibility of medical professionals to disclose the information to the patient. The Wyant Lecture Series and endowed professorship were established by the late Louise Doherty Wyant ’63 and her husband, Dr. James Wyant, in honor of Sister Anne Cyril Delaney, SND. Sister Anne Cyril was a professor of English at Emmanuel for 26 years. A GREAT FRIEND OF EMMANUEL REMEMBERED efore attending the funeral of former Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino on November 3, Emmanuel College President Sister Janet Eisner, SND, shared this refl ection: “Mayor Thomas M.