Boston College - Heights

Five years after the first students registered for a Middle Eastern and Islamic studies (MEIS) minor, Boston College may approve an Islamic civilizations and cultures major this spring, which would be a huge step for a university often questioned for its consideration of cultural diversity.

Learning why walls won't work on the border is about more than reading the New York Times. Any professor will tell you that primary sources are preferable to secondary sources. Newspapers, God love them, are full of facts. But these are also balanced against what, in the opinion of the editors and writers, will interest the reader.

In a remarkable policy change, Boston College has decided to remove all major declarations for students in the College of Arts and Sciences class of 2010. All freshmen who currently have a designated major will be reclassified as undeclared after this semester's drop/add period.

Faculty, football players, students, and musicians expressed their desire for a more unified, tolerant campus in front of an audience of around 1,000 students in O'Neill Plaza Friday. The Unity Rally, the culmination of Unity Week activities, explored diverse topics amid candid reflection by those who spoke.

Caroline Beimford
On a campus where students spend a significant portion of their time and energy composing literary and analytical works, it seems only logical that these creations deserve to be shared with a larger audience. Dialogue, Boston College's new undergraduate essay journal, operates on this assumption and is a medium for the publication of compositions that merit more than just a grade.

Talking about the University core curriculum usually doesn't generate a lot of buzz or excitement - unless you're talking about the history core, that is. In particular, this topic has been brought to the forefront once again after Oct. 12's hate speech incident as student leaders have reminded the community of the importance of diversity in education.

Though it may seem unlikely, there are more people willing to volunteer in certain service groups than there are placements for them. This has been the current trend on campus, in which increasing numbers of eager volunteers are being turned away from some of their choice service groups or immersion trips.

Questions of academic freedom are likely to arise again, now that the speaker policy in the Office of the Dean for Student Development's Student Guide has been revised to state explicitly that the University has the power to balance and even cancel speakers it finds are not "sensitive to and respectful of the Catholic heritage of the institution."

Despite the proliferation of legal downloading programs like iTunes, Ruckus, and Napster, it seems Boston College students still favor illegal, and typically free means to fill up their iPods. As of Tuesday, the University had received 145 notices since the start of the school year from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other copyright organizations citing BC students for downloading everything from Green Day's American Idiot to Warner Brothers' movie Beerfest to Microsoft Office software.

When asked to name the most prominent feature of the Class of 2010, John Mahoney, director of admissions, doesn't say it's the dramatic spike in applications; he doesn't point to the Boston College record mean SAT score; he doesn't say it's the fact that BC now has students whose academic pedigree was once considered the sole domain of the Ivy League.

The University declined a late request Friday made by controversial former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami to visit the McMullen Museum's new exhibit on Islamic art, Cosmophilia, on Monday - the five-year anniversary of Sept. 11. Administrators cited the heightened security required by the State Department on the date and the lack of advanced notice as primary factors behind their decision.