Author Archives: Bill McDonald '68

Pardon the interruption

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View this morning on BC Gasson quad webcam

Well. It’s been a while. Hope you all are well.

Many students are back on campus. Classes begin Monday, August 31. Classrooms have been sanitized and “de-densified” (coronaviruses beget new words). Everyone is to wear face masks.

You can see all sorts of information, including testing results, at Reopening Boston College.

Fall “Olympic” sports, i.e., non-revenue athletics, have been delayed ACC-wide and will start during the week of September 7-12. Football is due to begin the same week, with Miami opening against Alabama-Birmingham on Thursday, September 10, and a full slate on Saturday, September 12. Well, not exactly full. BC was to play Ohio University on September 12, but the Middle America Conference canceled play. An alternative was UMass, but it announced there would be no season for the Minutemen.

UPDATE: BC announced today it will play Texas State on September 26 at Alumni Stadium. The Bobcats are a Division 1 FBS team from the Sun Belt Conference. Unless BC finds another team in the next few days, the Eagles will open a 10-game, all-ACC, season at Duke on September 19. Here’s the full schedule, times TBA.

  • September 19 — @ Duke
  • September 26 — Texas State
  • October 3 — North Carolina
  • October 10 — Pitt
  • October 17 — @ VaTech
  • October 24 — Georgia Tech
  • October 31 — @ Clemson
  • November 7 — @ Syracuse
  • November 14 — Notre Dame
  • Friday, November 27 — Louisville
  • December 5 — @ Virginia

There has already been a reschedule in the ACC because of coronavirus testing results. N.C. State was to open the season on September 12 against Virginia Tech. Due to a cluster of positive test results at N.C. State, the Wolfpack will open on September 19 against Wake Forest and play the Hokies on September 26. 

There are no prospective schedules yet announced for BC hockey and basketball teams.

Anybody have any ideas about how we can do game watches on Zoom?

Stay tuned and be flexible.

A look back at Lynch School

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A screen capture from the video shows Campion Hall under construction.

Back in 2002, I worked at BC’s Lynch School of Education as director of communications and alumni relations. The School celebrated its 50th anniversary that year. Part of the celebration was a gathering at which a video about the School’s half-century was shown.

I had been among the people who had worked on the video, and it had been probably at least 15 years since I had last viewed it. Until this year, when a young BC alumna doing research on the early years of women at BC, tracked me down. She had found mention of the video on a page on the BC website published in 2006, but the link there was not functional.

I remembered the guy in Media Technical Services who had put the elements of the video together and, looking on the BC website, learned Dave Corkum was now in charge of that office. A few email exchanges and he was able to send me a link to the video, which I was able to download and then put on YouTube.

The video is 22:24. It includes vintage film from the early years of the Lynch School; interviews with an alumna from the inaugural Class of 1956, other alumni, faculty, and students, as well as Carolyn and Peter Lynch; and information about programs current in 2002. It’s also a bit of a history of the University overall, of course.

The School of Ed (a Heights feature for incoming freshmen of my era [1964] asked “Who’s Ed?”) was notable for being BC’s first “professional school,” but its principal impact came from introducing women to the Chestnut Hill Campus. San Diego Eagles interested in BC history and especially alumnae may find this of interest.

I cleared putting this online with the BC Office of Communications. Their only request was that it be mentioned that the School of Education, which became the Lynch School in 2000, is now the Lynch School of Education and Human Development.

Game on, Notre Dame!

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We’ve got another contest with Notre Dame . . . and it’s local.

Chapter member Bob Nascenzi ’78 (second from left, above) is president of Cristo Rey San Diego High School, set to open with its inaugural freshman class this fall. He has issued a challenge to us and to members of the local Notre Dame alumni chapter — which group of alumni can first raise $7,500 to sponsor a student at Cristo Rey.

Get more info and donate!

This is an opportunity, if you have the means, to be men and women for others in our San Diego community. The families served at Cristo Rey are getting hit the hardest financially by current conditions. Given their limited economic means, the gap between what families can be expected to contribute and the cost to educate each student amounts to $7,500 a year.

Let’s rise to the challenge and sponsor one student for the upcoming year!

Go Eagles! Beat the Irish!