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Boston College
Boston College is a private university located in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Its historic campus, one of the earliest examples of Collegiate Gothic architecture in North America, is set on a hilltop six miles (10 km) west of downtown Boston. Although chartered as a university by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1863, Boston College's name reflects its early history as a liberal arts college and preparatory school in Boston's South End. It was the first institution of higher education established in the city of Boston, though it later moved to nearby Chestnut Hill. Boston College is one of the oldest Jesuit universities in the United States and the flagship of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.
About Boston College
Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities
Founded in part as a response to discriminatory policies against immigrants and Catholics at Harvard University in the 19th century, Boston College acquired the nickname "Jesuit Ivy" in a 1956 commencement address by then-US Senator John F. Kennedy . Its charter was among the first documents to stipulate that the institution "from its inception shall be open to youths of any faith," a policy since expanded to include those "of no religious faith at all."
Boston College is called The Heights, a reference to both its lofty aspirations — the college motto is "Ever to Excel" — and its elevated location on Chestnut Hill, or "University Heights" as the area was initially designated. The name has lent itself to a number of campus organizations — including the principal student newspaper, [http://www.bcheights.com The Heights] — and to those affiliated with the university: BC students were universally called "Heightsmen" until 1925 when Mary C. Mellyn became the first "Heightswoman" to receive a BC degree. Today, Heightsonians include over 140,000 alumni in over 120 countries around the world.
Admission to Boston College is among the most selective in the United States. In 2005, BC received more than 24,000 applications for an undergraduate class of approximately 2,100 - with over 11 applications for each position in the freshmen class. BC ranks fourth among private American universities in the number of applications it receives annually, though it is less than half the size of the three schools that rank above it. A study by Carnegie Communications in 2004 ranked BC 17th among national universities . The same study cited BC as the 8th "most popular" choice among US high school seniors . Boston College has not fared as well according to U.S. News and World Report, ranking 40th among national universities in 2005 , though it was ranked 16th among teaching universities by the same publication in 1995 .
AHANA is a term coined (and trademarked) by two BC students in 1979 in reference to students of African-American, Hispanic, Asian, or Native American descent. In recent years AHANA representation has grown to approximately one-quarter of BC undergraduates, due in part to the Office of AHANA Student Programs' inclusive mission towards diversity within the BC community. International students make up an additional 10% of the student population.
Boston College students have enjoyed tremendous success in winning prestigious post-graduate fellowships and awards, including recent Churchill, Goldwater, Marshall, Mellon and Truman scholarships, among others. In 2004, 2 BC students won Rhodes scholarships, and 11 won Fulbright Awards. In 2005, the number of Fulbrights rose to 14.
At over $1.4 billion, BC's endowment is among the largest in American higher education and the largest of any Jesuit university in the world. Its annual operating budget is approximately $600 million.
History
largest in American higher education
largest in American higher education
Early history
The history of Boston College is traced to the founding of the Society of Jesus in 1534 and the early activity of Jesuits in New England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Jesuit founder, Ignatius of Loyola, imagined a distinct mission that sought to engage intellectual inquiry, faith, and cultural contributions "in conversation with the city." His Society established colleges and universities in almost every part of the known world, and its members were among the great explorers of the Age of Discovery. In 1825, Benedict Joseph Fenwick, SJ, a Jesuit from Maryland, became the second Bishop of Boston. He was the first to articulate a vision for a "College in the City of Boston" that would raise a new generation of leaders to serve both the civic and spiritual needs of his fledgling diocese.
"A College in the City"
Bishop
Bishop
In 1827, Fenwick opened a school in the basement of his cathedral and took to the personal instruction of the city's youth. His efforts to attract other Jesuits to the faculty were hampered both by Boston's distance from the center of Jesuit activity in Maryland and by suspicion on the part of the city's Protestant elite. Relations with Boston's civic leaders worsened such that, when a Jesuit faculty was finally secured in 1843, Fenwick decided to close the Boston school and instead opened one 45 miles west of the city in central Massachusetts where he felt the Jesuits could operate with greater autonomy. Meanwhile, the vision for a college in Boston was sustained by John McElroy, SJ, who saw an even greater need for such an institution in light of Boston's growing immigrant population. With the approval of his Jesuit superiors, McElroy went about raising funds and in 1857 purchased land for "The Boston College" on Harrison Street in Boston's South End. With little fanfare, the college's two buildings — a schoolhouse and a church — welcomed their first class of scholastics in 1859. Two years later, with as little fanfare, BC closed again. Its short-lived second incarnation was plagued by the outbreak of Civil War and disagreement within the Society over the college's governance and finances. BC's inability to obtain a charter from the anti-Catholic Massachusetts legislature only compounded its troubles.
On March 31, 1863, more than three decades after its initial inception, Boston College's charter was formally approved by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In it, BC was granted the right to confer all university degrees, with the exception of the M.D. (a limitation that was later amended). Johannes Bapst, SJ, a Swiss Jesuit from French-speaking Fribourg, was selected as BC's first president and immediately reopened the original college buildings on Harrison Avenue. For most of the 19th century, BC offered a singular 7-year program corresponding to both high school and college. Its entering class in the fall of 1864 included 22 students, ranging in age from 11 to 16 years. The curriculum was based on the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum, emphasizing Latin, Greek, philosophy and theology. Revolutionary for its time, BC's charter emphasized that "the profession of religion will not be a condition for admission to the College."
"Oxford in America"
theology
theology
theology
theology
Boston College's enrollment reached nearly 500 by the turn of the century. Expansion of the South End buildings onto James Street enabled increased separation between the high school and college divisions, though Boston College High School remained a constituent part of Boston College until 1927 when it was separately incorporated. In 1907, newly-installed President Thomas I. Gasson, SJ, determined that BC's cramped, urban quarters in Boston's South End were inadequate and unsuited for significant expansion. Inspired by John Winthrop's early vision of Boston as a "city upon a hill," he re-imagined Boston College as world-renowned university and a beacon of Jesuit scholarship. Less than a year after taking office, he purchased Amos Adams Lawrence's farm on Chestnut Hill, six miles west of the city. He organized an international competition for the design of a campus master plan and set about raising funds for the construction of the "new" university. Proposals were solicited from distinguished architects, and Charles Donagh Maginnis' ambitious proposal for twenty buildings in English Collegiate Gothic style, called "Oxford in America," was selected.
By 1913, construction costs had surpassed available funds, and as a result Gasson Hall, "New BC's" main building, stood alone on Chestnut Hill for its first three years. Buildings of the former Lawrence farm, including a barn and gatehouse, were temporarily adapted for college use while a massive fundraising effort was underway. While Maginnis' ambitious plans were never fully realized, BC's first "capital campaign" — which included a large replica of Gasson Hall's clock tower set up on Boston Common to measure the fundraising progress — ensured that President Gasson's vision survived. By the 1920s BC began to fill out the dimensions of its university charter, establishing the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the Boston College Law School and the Woods College of Advancing Studies, followed successively by the Graduate School of Social Work, the Carroll School of Management, the Connell School of Nursing and the Lynch School of Education. In 1926, Boston College conferred its first degrees on women (though it did not become fully coeducational until 1970). With the rising prominence of its graduates, this was also the period in which Boston College and its powerful Alumni Association began to establish themselves among the city's leading institutions. At the city, state and federal levels, BC graduates would come to dominate Massachusetts politics for much of the 20th century.
Cultural changes in American society and in the church following the Second Vatican Council forced BC to question its purpose and mission. Even Boston College's name was targeted for change. The desire for national recognition as a "university" was the stated reason the Board of Trustees opened debate on the issue ("Boston University" had in the meantime been chartered in a move that still puzzles some legal observers). The two sets of proposed names suggest that the real debate was one over BC's identity: secular (University of New England, Commonwealth University, Tremount University, Chestnut Hill University, Boston College University) or religious (Jesuit University, Boston Catholic University, Newman University, St. Thomas More University). Gasson University and Fenwick University were also considered, though in the end fierce alumni opposition and a highly critical editorial in The Heights closed the debate. Meanwhile, poor financial management lead to deteriorating facilities and resources and rising tuition costs. Student outrage, combined with growing protests over Vietnam and the bombings in Cambodia, culminated in student strikes, including the occupation of Gasson Hall for 23 days in April 1970.
Cambodia
The Monan era
By the time J. Donald Monan, SJ assumed the presidency on September 5, 1972, BC was approximately $30 million in debt, its endowment totaled just under $6 million, and faculty and staff salaries had been frozen during the previous year. Rumors about the university's future were rampant, including speculation that BC would be acquired by Harvard University. Monan's first order of business was to reconfigure the Boston College Board of Trustees. By separating it from the Society of Jesus, Monan was able to bring in the talents of lay alumni and business leaders who helped turn around the university's fortunes. In 1974, Boston College acquired Newton College of the Sacred Heart, a 40 acre (162,000 m²) campus 1.5 miles (2 km) away that enabled it to expand the law school and provide more housing for a student population that was increasingly residential and geographically diverse. No less than the university's rescue is credited to Monan who set into motion the university's upward trajectory in finances, reputation and global scope. In 1996, Monan's 24 year presidency, the longest in the university's history, came to an end when he was named University Chancellor and succeeded by President William P. Leahy, SJ.
Recent history
Chancellor
Since assuming the Boston College presidency, Leahy's tenure has been marked with an acceleration of the growth and development initiated by his predecessor. BC's endowment has grown to over $1.4 billion, it has expanded by almost 150 acres (600,000 m²), and undergraduate applications have surpassed 24,000. At the same time, BC students, faculty and athletic teams have seen unprecedented success — winning record numbers of Fulbrights, Rhodes and other academic awards; setting new marks for research grants; and winning conference and national titles. In 2002, Leahy initiated the Church in the 21st Century program to examine issues facing the Catholic Church in light of the clergy sexual abuse scandal. His effort brought BC world-wide praise and recognition for "leading the way on Church reform." In 2004, he announced plans to merge with the Weston Jesuit School of Theology and advance BC as the world's foremost Jesuit university. The announcement was followed by an article in the New York Times claiming "such a merger would further Boston College's quest to become the nation's Catholic intellectual powerhouse" and that, if approved by the Vatican and Jesuit authorities in Rome, BC "would become the center for the study of Roman Catholic theology in the United States."
During the 2004-2005 academic year, the Boston College administration found itself in the midst of a controversy surrounding the exclusion of sexual orientation in the university's notice of non-discrimination. Students and faculty in support of its inclusion cited Jesuit principles of justice and noted that other Jesuit institutions in the state, including the Weston Jesuit School of Theology with which BC had proposed a merger, did include sexual orientation in their notices of non-discrimination. A student referendum showing 84% support, a list of nearly 200 supporting faculty and Jesuits published in The Heights and a campus rally that drew over 1,000 culminated in an agreement for a revised notice of non-discrimination in April 2005.
The campus
Landscape & architecture
sexual orientation
sexual orientation
sexual orientation
Set on a hilltop overlooking the Chestnut Hill Reservoir and the distant Boston skyline ([http://at.bc.edu/webcams/bostonskyline/large.php/ see live webcam]), Boston College's 175 acre (700,000 m²) Chestnut Hill campus includes over 120 buildings in addition to athletic fields, rolling hills, wooded areas, three formal gardens, an orchard, and over 100 species of trees. The campus creates an almost rural setting, only 6 miles west of downtown Boston. A Boston College (MBTA station) "T"-station, located at St Ignatius Gate, is the western terminus of the MBTA Green Line's B-branch (also known as the "Boston College" line) and provides rapid transit to the city center. Travel time is approximately 30-45 minutes.
Due largely to its location and architecture, the Boston College campus is known affectionately as the "Heights," the "Crowned Hilltop" and "Oxford in America." This last moniker was the title of the original campus master plan and was confirmed by a visiting British journalist in 1915 who famously wrote, "Even in embryo, it is Oxford and Cambridge without their grime."
"The Crowned Hilltop"
Cambridge
Cambridge
Designed by Charles Donagh Maginnis and his firm, Maginnis & Walsh, in 1908, the Boston College campus is a seminal example of Collegiate Gothic architecture. Publication of its design in 1909 — and praise from influential American Gothicist Ralph Adams Cram — helped establish Collegiate Gothic as the prevailing architectural style on American university campuses for much of the 20th Century. Gasson Hall, BC's signature building, is credited for the typology of dominant Gothic towers in subsequent campus designs, including those at the Princeton University Graduate School (Cleveland Tower, 1913 to 1917), at Yale University (Harkness Tower, 1917-1921), and at Duke University (Chapel Tower, 1930-1935). Combining Gothic Revival architecture with principles of Beaux-Arts planning, Maginnis proposed a vast complex of academic buildings set in a cruciform plan. The design suggested an enormous outdoor cathedral, with a long entry drive at the "nave," the main quadrangle at the "apse" and secondary quadrangles at the "transepts." At the "crossing," Maginnis placed the university's main building, which he called "Recitation Hall." Using stone quarried on the site, the building was constructed at the highest point on Chestnut Hill, commanding a view of the surrounding landscape and the city to the east. Dominated by a soaring 200-foot bell tower, Recitation Hall was known simply as the "Tower Building" when it finally opened in 1913. Maginnis' design broke from the traditional Oxbridge models that had inspired it — and that had till then characterized Gothic architecture on American campuses. In its unprecedented scale, Gasson Tower was conceived not as the belfry of a singular building, but as the crowning campanile of Maginnis' new "city upon a hill."
Image:Oconnellhouse.jpg|Upper campus in summer
Image:BClowercampusfall.jpg|Lower campus in autumn
Image:Dustbowlsnow.jpg|The "Dustbowl" in winter
Image:BCrosegardenspring.jpg|The Rose Garden in spring
Expansion & eclecticism
city upon a hill
city upon a hill
city upon a hill
Though Maginnis' ambitious Gothic project never saw full completion, its central portion was built according to plan and forms the core of what is now BC's iconic middle campus. Among these, the Bapst Library has been called the "finest example of Collegiate Gothic architecture in America" and Devlin Hall won the Harleston Parker Medal for "most beautiful building in Boston." Subsequent campus expansions exceeded even President Gasson's vision and brought with them a new set of architectural vocabulary: Georgian, Neoclassical, Richardsonian Romanesque, and others. The 1895 Liggett Estate was developed into a Tudor style upper campus, while an architecturally eclectic lower campus took shape on land acquired by filling in part of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. Around this time, a Seattle newspaper ranked Boston College #2 in a list of "America's Most Beautiful Campuses" (the University of Washington ranked first). Notions of "beauty" meanwhile were challenged by the advent of modernism. The 1940 design for St Ignatius Church is an important hybrid of this period and is an example of what has been called "Modern Gothic." Modernism had an enormous impact on development after the 1940s, though most modernist buildings at BC maintained decidedly un-modern rough stone facades in keeping with Maginnis' original designs. By the 1960s, BC's severe space demands and poor financial health began to leave their mark, as evidenced by the construction of prefabricated modular apartments on the lower campus. Originally intended as temporary housing, the "Mods" have survived in large part because of their popularity among upperclassmen. Other legacies of this era include the hyperbolic-roofed Flynn Recreation Complex, constructed using laminated wood beams, and the later International Style O'Neill Library, designed by The Architects Collaborative. More recent campus development signals a return to Maginnis & Walsh's Collegiate Gothic designs, as reflected in the renovations of Fulton Hall (1997) and Higgins Hall (2002), and in the construction of Campanella Hall (2003) and the St. Ignatius Gate Residence Hall (2004).
International Style
In June 2004, Boston College acquired 43 acres of land from the Archdiocese of Boston [http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories5/042104_sale.htm|1], [http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories5/042104_statement.htm|2]. The new grounds, adjacent to the main campus (on the opposite side of Commonwealth Avenue), include the historic mansion that served as the Cardinal's residence until 2002.
Other BC properties
In addition to the main campus at Chestnut Hill, BC's 40 acre (160,000 m²) Newton Campus is located 1 mile (2 km) to the west and houses the law school and residential housing for roughly half of the freshman class. Other BC properties include a 20 acre (80,000 m²) seismology research observatory and field station in Weston, Massachusetts; an 80 acre (320,000 m²) retreat center in Dover, Massachusetts; a sea-side estate in Cohasset, Massachusetts designed by Henry Hobson Richardson; and a campus on St Stephen's Green in Dublin, Ireland.
Libraries & museums
Dublin, Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
Dublin, Ireland
Boston College was the first institution in the 400-year history of Jesuit education to construct a building dedicated solely as a library. Today, Boston College's eight research libraries contain over twelve million printed volumes, manuscripts, journals, government documents and microform items, ranging from ancient papyrus scrolls to digital databases. Together with the university's museums, they include original manuscripts and prints by Galileo, Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier as well as world renowned collections in Jesuitana, Irish literature, sixteenth century Flemish tapestries, ancient Greek pottery, Caribbean folk art and literature, Japanese prints, US government documents, Congressional Archives, and paintings that span the history of art from Europe, Asia and the Americas.
O'Neill Library
BC's central research library, the Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr. Library is named for the legendary former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a member of the Boston College Class of 1936. Opened in 1984, it houses approximately two million volumes in the humanities, the natural sciences and the social sciences. It also contains US government documents, administrative offices of the Boston College Libraries, and a museum dedicated to "Tip" O'Neill, whose papers are housed in the Burns Library (see below). The O'Neill Library was among the first libraries in the world to digitize its card catalog. A glass-enclosed atrium on the library's fourth and fifth floors offers sweeping views of the Boston skyline.
Bapst Library
When it opened in 1922, Bapst Library was the only designated library building in Jesuit history. Named for the first president of Boston College (Johannes Bapst, SJ, 1815-1887), it was one of the few structures built according to Charles Donagh Maginnis' original "Oxford in America" master plan and served as the university's main library until 1984. It has been widely praised as the "finest example of Collegiate Gothic architecture in America." In 1987, it reopened after a two-year, multimillion dollar restoration and now houses the university's fine arts collection. Designed as a "cathedral to learning," it is the most elaborate of the original Collegiate Gothic buildings on campus with extensive stained glass windows, vaulted ceilings and carved wood paneling. Gargan Hall, the soaring reading room on the library's upper floor, has been named the most beautiful room in Boston. Also on the upper floor are the Chancellor's office and the Lonergan Institute. The reading room on the ground floor features a gold-leaf and wood-beamed ceiling that was carefully restored with funds from the Kresge Foundation. A guide to the building's famous staned glass windows is available [http://www.bc.edu/publications/atbc/features/innerfire/slideshow/01.html/ online].
Burns Library
Kresge Foundation
The Burns Library of Rare Books and Special Collections is home to more than 150,000 volumes, some 15 million manuscripts and other important works, including a world-renowned collection of Irish literature. A rare facsimile of the Book of Kells is on public display in the library's Irish Room, and each day one page of the illuminated manuscript is turned. Other significant holdings include original works by Samuel Beckett, T.S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Seamus Heaney, Gerard Manley Hopkins, James Joyce, Francis Thompson, George Bernard Shaw, and William Butler Yeats, among others. It also houses the papers of prominent Boston College alumni, including House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, Jr.; legal scholar and former US Congressman Robert F. Drinan, SJ; US Representative Edward P. Boland; and Margaret Heckler, Congresswoman, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, and US Ambassador to Ireland. The library is named after the Honorable John. J. Burns (1901 to 1957), Massachusetts Superior Court Justice and a member of the Boston College Class of 1921. The library's lofty Ford Memorial Tower is considerably more elaborate than Gasson Tower, though not as tall. Inside, the Thompson Room features a magnificent oriel window depicting epic poetry, while the Trustee Room includes stained glass depictions of 54 Jesuit armorial crests. Exhibits are held frequently on the library's main level and guided tours are available on request.
Law Library
Opened in 1996, the Law Library is located on the Boston College Law School campus in Newton, Massachusetts and contains approximately 500,000 volumes covering all major areas of American law and primary legal materials from the federal government, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the European Union. The library also features a substantial treatise and periodical collection and a growing collection of international and comparative law material. The library's Coquillette Rare Book Room houses works from the fifteenth through nineteenth centuries, including works by and about Saint Thomas More.
McMullen Museum of Art
Located in Devlin Hall, the McMullen Museum of Art houses a prominent permanent collection and organizes exhibits from all periods and cultures of art history. Recent exhibits and acquisitions, including works by Edvard Munch, Amedeo Modigliani, Frank Stella, Françoise Gilot, and John LaFarge, have widened both the scope of the collection and its audience. Saints and Sinners, a 1999 exhibition on the work of Caravaggio, attracted the largest audience of any university museum up to that time. Related museum activities include musical and theatrical performances, films, gallery talks, symposia, lectures, readings, and receptions that draw students, faculty, alumni and visitors from around the world. Admission to the Museum is free and open to the general public.
Other libraries & museums
Other BC libraries include dedicated facilities for the schools social work and education, an undergraduate library on the Newton Campus (nicknamed "the morgue" both because of its absolute silence and its location in the former crypt of Trinity Chapel), and a geophysics library at the Weston Observatory. Additional exhbition spaces include a student art gallery on the Bapst Library's mezzanine level as well as exhibition space in the Robsham Theater and Campanella Hall. Items related to BC history and athletics are on display at the Hall of Fame in Conte Forum and the BC Football Museum in the Yawkey Athletics Center.
Academics
Boston College is comprised of eight schools and colleges:
- The College of Arts and Sciences
- The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
- The Carroll School of Management
- The Lynch School of Education
- The Connell School of Nursing
- The Graduate School of Social Work
- The Boston College Law School
- The Woods College of Advancing Studies
- In December 2004, Boston College announced plans to create a Divinity School by merging its existing Theology department, its Institute for Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The new school would be located on the BC campus on land recently acquired from the Boston archdiocese.
Departments & programs
Research centers & institutes
Jesuit tradition
Weston Observatory
Weston Observatory
Weston Observatory
BC's Jesuit identity is rooted in the distinct vision of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, who believed in "finding God in all things." Jesuits are characterized by a dedication to both "the life of the mind and the encounter with the world," a mission distinguished by their intellectual and humanitarian activities — notably in the fields of higher education, human rights, and social justice. As explorers, scientists, artists, diplomats, and writers, Jesuits have historically been at the forefront of scientific discovery and cultural expression. As a result, they have had a sometimes tumultuous relationship with the Catholic Church — and were officially suppressed by the Vatican from 1773 to 1814 — though their work has always been dedicated Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, or "to the greater glory of God." The 150 Jesuits living on the Boston College campus make up the largest Jesuit community in the world and include members of the faculty and administration, graduate students and visiting international scholars.
The balance between faith and reason, coupled with BC's inclusive founding mission, attracts students and faculty from diverse religious traditions and a broad range of convictions. Campus spiritual activities are open to all, though entirely optional and include Catholic liturgies as well as religious services in various Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and other traditions. The Jesuit call to justice is evident in work across religious boundaries in community service, reflection retreats, and immersion programs both on campus and abroad. Alumni/ae also reflect this commitment to humanitarian work: BC ranks 9th among Peace Corps volunteer-producing colleges and 1st among Jesuit Volunteers-producing colleges.
Athletics
Jesuit Volunteers
Boston College athletic teams are called the Eagles. They compete in NCAA Division I-A as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference in all sports offered by the ACC. The men's and women's ice hockey teams compete in Hockey East. (Skiing, fencing and sailing are also non-ACC.)
The BC mascot is an American bald eagle named Baldwin, derived from the bald head of the eagle and the word 'win'. The school colors are maroon and gold. The fight song, "For Boston!," was composed by T.J. Hurley, Class of 1885.
Principal athletic facilities include Alumni Stadium (capacity: 44,500), Conte Forum (8,606), Kelley Rink (7,884), Shea Field, the Newton Soccer Complex and the Flynn Recreation Complex. The Yawkey Athletics Center opened in the spring of 2005. BC students compete in 33 varsity sports, as well as a number of club and intramural teams. Boston College's Athletics program has been named to the College Sports Honor Roll as one of the nation's top 20 athletic programs by U.S. News and World Report (March 18, 2002).
A founding member of the Big East Conference, the Eagles moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference on July 1, 2005.
Journals, publications & media
Campus publications & media
- [http://at.bc.edu/ @BC], an online multimedia magazine, published monthly
- The [http://at.bc.edu/bulletins/ BC Bulletin], a monthly alumni newsletter
- The [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/chronicle.html Boston College Chronicle], the official campus newspaper
- [http://www.bc.edu/publications/bcm/ Boston College Magazine], a quarterly magazine
- The [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/lwsch/counselor/ Counselor], the weekly newsletter of Boston College Law School
- [http://frontrow.bc.edu/ Front Row], an online video database of lectures and performances at Boston College
- The [http://www.bc.edu/offices/mission/publications/ Little Red Book], "What Are We? An Introduction to Boston College and Its Jesuit and Catholic Tradition"
Academic journals & scholarly publications
- [http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/environmental/ Boston College Environmental Affairs Review]
- The [http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/bclawreview/ Boston College Law Review]
- [http://www.bc.edu/church21/c21resources/ C21 Resources], a progressive journal of contemporary Catholic issues, published by BC's Church in the 21st Century Center. Begun in 2003, it is now the second largest Catholic publication in the United States.
- The [http://www.bc.edu/offices/mission/publications/guide/ Guilde to Jesuit Education]
- The [http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/iclr/ International & Comparative Law Review]
- The [http://www.bc.edu/research/intasc/jtla.html Journal of Technology, Learning and Assessment]
- The [http://www.bc.edu/publications/newarcadia/ New Arcadia Review]
- [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/relarts/ Religion and the Arts Journal]
- [http://escholarship.bc.edu/scjr/ Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations]
- [http://escholarship.bc.edu/education/tecplus/ TEACHING Exceptional Children / TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus],
- The [http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/thirdworld/ Third World Law Journal]
- The [http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/lawreviews/uccrd/ Uniform Commercial Code Reporter-Digest]
Student media
- [http://www.bcgongshow.blogspot.com Gongshow@BC], an entertaining and popular student life blog
- [http://www.the-bc.com The BC], a widely-accaimed online sketch comedy series
- The [http://www.thebcreview.com/ Boston College Review], an undergraduate journal for non-fiction essays
- The [http://www.bostoncollegian.com Boston Collegian], a humor and parody magazine
- [http://www.bc.edu/research/elements/ Elements], the undergraduate research journal
- The [http://www.bcheights.com Heights], the principal student newspaper, published twice-weekly; established in 1919
- [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/svp/st_org/nsing/ Naked Singularity], a left-leaning art, literary, and editorial magazine
- The [http://www.thebcobserver.com Observer], a right-leaning student newspaper
- The [http://www.bcpatriot.com Patriot], a left-leaning student newspaper
- The Stylus, the undergraduate art and literature quarterly, founded in 1883
- Sub Turri [http://www.bc.edu/clubs/subturri/], the Boston College yearbook, published since 1913
- [http://ugbc.org/ugbctv/index.htm UGBC-TV], the student run cable television station, featuring the sketch comedy show [http://ugbc.org/ugbctv/basic/index.asp Basic Cable], the campus news desk [http://ugbc.org/ugbctv/nowyouknow/index.asp Now You Know], and a score of other student programming
- [http://www.wzbc.org/ WZBC, 90.3 FM], a student-run radio station which provides independent and experimental music
Notable Heightsonians
The Heights is a nickname given to Boston College. It recalls both BC's lofty aspirations--the college motto is "Ever to Excel"--and its hilltop location, an area initially designated as "University Heights." The name has lent itself to a number of campus organizations, most notably the principal student newspaper, [http://www.bcheights.com The Heights].
BC students were universally called "Heightsmen" until 1925 when Mary C. Mellyn became the first "Heightswoman" to receive a BC degree. Today, "Heightsonian" refers invariably to students, alumni, faculty and others associated with the university. Other monikers include Boston Collegians and Eagles, though the latter is usually reserved for members of the university's athletics teams. Prominent Boston College alumni and faculty as well as a chronology of BC presidents are compiled in separate articles, listed below.
- Notable Boston College Alumni
- Notable Boston College Faculty
- Presidents of Boston College
External links
- [http://www.bc.edu Boston College website]
- [http://www.bc.edu/schools/ Boston College Schools & Colleges]
- [http://www.bceagles.com Boston College Athletics website]
- [http://www.bc-blog.com Boston College blog (unofficial)]
- [http://atleagle.blogspot.com Boston College Sports blog (unofficial)]
Footnotes
# [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Jesuit_Ivy The Jesuit Ivy], John F. Kennedy's 1956 commencement address
# [http://www.carnegiecomm.com/resources/pcform.html Carnegie Communications "Project Connect"]
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Category:Boston College
Category:Universities and colleges in Boston
Category:New England Association of Schools %26 Colleges
Category:Jesuit universities and colleges in the United States
ja:ボストンカレッジ
University
A university is an institution of higher education and of research, which grants academic degrees. A university provides both tertiary and quaternary education. University is derived from the Latin universitas, meaning corporation (since the first medieval European universities were simply groups of scholars).
medieval European universities]
History
Because of the above definition, the oldest universities in the world were all European, as the awarding of academic degrees was not a custom of older institutions of learning in Asia and Africa. However, institutions of higher learning considerably older than the most ancient European universities existed in countries such as China, Egypt and India.
The Academy, founded in 387 BC by the Greek philosopher Plato in the grove of Academos near Athens, taught its students philosophy, mathematics, and gymnastics, and is sometimes considered a forerunner of modern European universities. Other Greek cities with notable educational institutions include Kos (the home of Hippocrates), which had a medical school, and Rhodes, which had philosophical schools. Another famous classical university was the Museum and Library of Alexandria.
About a thousand years after Plato, institutions bearing a resemblance to the modern university existed in Persia and the Islamic world, notably the Academy of Gundishapur and later also al-Azhar University in Cairo.
In Asia, there were a number of institutions of higher learning that vaguely resembled universities in the Western sense of the word. In general, these are of considerable antiquity, predating western institutions of higher learning by centuries. In China, it's recorded that the education system had been established during the Yu period (2257 BC - 2208 BC) and the imperial central academy was named Shangyang (Shang means higher and Yang means school) at the time. The higher learning institution - imperial central academy, was called Piyong in Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC - 249 BC), Taixue in Han Dynasty (202 - 220) and Guozijian in Sui dynasty. For example, Nanjing University traces its source back to the imperial central academy at Nanking founded in 258 by the Kingdom of Wu. The early Chinese state depended upon literate, educated officials for operation of the empire, and an imperial examination was established in the Sui Dynasty (581 -618) for evaluating and selecting officials from the general populace. The ancient cities of Nalanda, Vikramasila, Kanchipura and Takshasila were greatly reputed centres of learning in the east, with students from all over Asia. In particular, Nalanda was a famous center of Buddhist scholarship, and as such it attracted a vast number of Buddhist scholars from China, central Asia and Southeast Asia.
In the Carolingian period, a famous academy was created by Charlemagne for the purpose of educating the children of aristocrats to help train the professionals needed to run an empire. It was a foreshadow of the rise of the University in the 11th century.
The first European medieval university was the University of Magnaura in Constantinople
(now Istanbul, Turkey), founded in 849 by the emperor Bardas, followed by the University of Salerno (9th century)University of Bologna (1088) in Bologna, Italy, and the University of Paris (c. 1100) in Paris, France. Many of the medieval universities in Western Europe were born under the aegis of the Catholic Church, usually as cathedral schools or by papal bull as Studia Generali. In the early medieval period, most new universities were founded from pre-existing schools, usually when these schools were deemed to have become primarly sites of higher education. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries.
In Europe, young men proceeded to the university when they had completed the study of the trivium–the preparatory arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic–and the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. (See degrees of Oxford University for the history of how the trivium and quadrivium developed in relation to degrees, especially in anglophone universities).
Universities are generally established by statute or charter. In the United Kingdom, for instance, a university is instituted by Act of Parliament or Royal Charter; in either case generally with the approval of Privy Council, and only such recognized bodies can award degrees of any kind.
Universities around the world
The funding and organisation of Universities is very different in different countries around the world. In some countries Universities are predominantly funded by the state, while in others funding may come from donors or from fees which students attending the University must pay. In some countries the vast majority of students attend University in their local town, while in other countries Universities attract students from all over the world, and may provide University accommodation for their students.
Universities and student life in different countries
- British universities
- Dutch universities
- French universities
- Irish universities
- Italian universities
- Spanish universities
- US universities
- Egyptian universities
Selective admissions
Unlike community colleges, enrollment at a university is generally not available to all. However, admission systems vary widely around the world, as discussed in the article college admissions.
Colloquial usage
Colloquially, the term university is used around the world for a phase in one's life: "when I was at university…"; in the United States, college is often used: "when I was in college…". See college, §3, for further discussion. In the United Kingdom and Australia "University" is often contracted to simply "Uni".
The usual practice in the United States today is to call an institution made up of several faculties and granting a range of higher degrees a "university" while a smaller institution only granting bachelor's or associate's degrees is called a "college". (See liberal arts colleges, community college). Nevertheless, a few of America's oldest and most prestigious universities, such as Boston College, Dartmouth College and the College of William and Mary, have retained the term "college" in their names for historical reasons though they offer a wide range of higher degrees.
See also
- Corporate universities
- List of colleges and universities
- List of oldest universities in continuous operation
- List of academic disciplines
- Medieval universities, including list of
- Muslim educational institutions
- Private university
- Public university
- School and university in literature
- University ranking
- College applications
- Wikiportal/University
- [http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikiversity Wikiversity]
Related terms
: academia - academic rank - academy - admission - alumnus - aula - [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brain_farm Brain farm ]-Bologna process - business schools - Grandes écoles - campus - college - college and university rankings - dean - degree - diploma - discipline - [http://wiktionary.org/wiki/Dissertation dissertation] - faculty - fraternities and sororities - graduate student - graduation - lecturer - medieval university - medieval university (Asia) - mega university - perpetual student - professor - provost - rector - research - scholar - senioritis - student - tenure - tuition - undergraduate - universal access - university administration
References
- Walter Ruegg (ed), A History of the University in Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (3 vols) ISBN 0521361079 (vol 3 reviewed by Laurence Brockliss in the Times Literary Supplement, no 5332, 10 June 2005, pages 3-4).
Category:Educational stages
ko:대학교
ms:Universiti
ja:大学
simple:University
th:มหาวิทยาลัย
Campus)]]
Campus (plural: campi) is Latin for "field" or "open space". English gets the words "camp" and "campus" from this origin. In English, the plural form campuses is commonly used.
The campus is the area in which a college or university and surrounding buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, student residential areas and park-like settings.
The word first was adopted to describe a particular urban space at the College of New Jersey (Princeton) during the early decades of the eighteenth century. Other colleges later adopted the word to describe individual fields at their own institutions, but campus did not yet describe the whole university property. A school might have one space called a campus, one called a field, and another called a yard. The meaning expanded to include the whole property during the twentieth century, with the old meaning persisting into the 1950s in some places.
Sometimes the land on which company office buildings, with the buildings, are called campuses as well, e.g. the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, Washington, as are also hospitals with similar usage.
Sources
[http://www.dartmo.com/index.php?p=213 Dartmo: The Buildings of Dartmouth College]
See also
- Campus university
- Campus novel
Category:Colleges and universities
ja:キャンパス
Collegiate Gothic: Gothic details provided by A.W.N. Pugin]]
The Gothic Revival Style was a European architectural movement with origins in mid-18th century England. In the 19th century, increasingly serious and learned neo-Gothic styles sought to revive mediæval forms, in distinction to the classical styles which were prevalent at the time. The movement had significant influence in Europe and North America, with perhaps more Gothic architecture built in the 19th and 20th centuries than had originally ever been built.
In literature, the architectural Gothic Revival and classical Romanticism birthed the Gothic novel genre, beginning with Walpole's Castle of Otranto, and inspired a 19th-century genre of medieval poetry which stems from the pseudo-bardic poetry of "Ossian." Poems like Alfred Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" recast specifically modern themes in medieval settings of Arthurian romance.
This article will cover the Gothic revival in architecture and the arts of design. A separate article discusses the Gothic novel and other neo-Gothic literature.
History
Survival and revival
Gothic architecture did not die out completely in the 15th century but lingered on, solely in some on-going cathedral-building projects and for churches in increasingly isolated rural districts of England, France, Spain and Germany. In Bologna, in 1646, the Baroque architect Carlo Rainaldi constructed Gothic vaults (completed 1658) for the Basilica of San Petronio which had been building since 1390; there the Gothic context of the structure overrode considerations of the current architectural mode [http://www.bolognaracconta.com/chiesa_s_petronio.php]. Similarly, an urbane Gothic survival in the later 17th century can be traced in Oxford and Cambridge, where some additions and repairs to Gothic buildings were apparently considered more in keeping with the style of the original structures than contemporary Baroque. Sir Christopher Wren's Tom Tower for Christ Church College, Oxford University, and, later, Nicholas Hawksmoor's west towers of Westminster Abbey blur the boundaries between what is called "Gothic survival" and the Gothic revival.
Westminster Abbey is a rare example of the Russian Gothic style.]]
In the mid 18th century with the rise of Romanticism, an increased interest and awareness of the Middle Ages among some influential connoisseurs created a more appreciative approach to selected medieval arts, beginning with church architecture and the tomb monuments of royal and noble personnages, and stained glass and late Gothic illuminated manuscripts. Other Gothic arts continued to be disregarded as barbaric and crude, however: tapestries and metalwork, for examples. Sentimental and nationalist associations with historical figures were as strong in this early revival as purely esthetic concerns. A few English, and soon some Germans, began to appreciate the picturesque character of ruins— "picturesque" becoming a new esthetic category— and those mellowing effects of time that the Japanese call wabi-sabi— and which Horace Walpole independently admired, mildly tongue-in-cheek, as "the true rust of the Barons' wars." The "Gothick" details of Walpole's Twickenham villa, "Strawberry Hill," appealed to the rococo tastes of the time, and by the 1770s thoroughly neoclassical architects like Robert Adam and, especially, James Wyatt were prepared to provide Gothic details in drawing-rooms, libraries and chapels, or a romantic vision of a Gothic abbey, Fonthill Abbey in Wiltshire. The "Gothick" style was an architectural manifestation of the artificial "picturesque" seen elsewhere in the arts: these ornamental temples and summer-houses ignored the structural logic of true Gothic buildings and were effectively Palladian buildings with pointed arches. The eccentric landscape designer Batty Langley even attempted to "improve" Gothic forms by giving them classical proportions.
Batty Langley designed by Henry Keene and completed in 1755. Described by Pevsner as one of the most important early Gothic revival churches in England. It is octagonal with twin towers.]]
A younger generation who took Gothic more seriously provided the readership for J. Britten's series of Cathedral Antiquities, which began appearing in 1814. In 1817 Thomas Rickman wrote an Attempt to name and define the sequence of Gothic styles in English ecclesiastical architecture, "a text-book for the architectural student". Its long title is descriptive: Attempt to discriminate the styles of English architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation; preceded by a sketch of the Grecian and Roman orders, with notices of nearly five hundred English buildings. The categories he used were Norman, Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular. It went through numerous editions and was still being republished in 1881 [http://w4.ed.uiuc.edu/faculty/westbury/Paradigm/Vaughan.html].
Romanticism and nationalism
French neo-Gothic had its roots in a minor aspect of Anglomanie starting in the late 1780s. In 1816, when French scholar Alexandre de Laborde said "Gothic architecture has beauties of its own" the idea was novel to most French readers. Starting in 1828 Alexandre Brogniart, the director of the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, produced fired enamel paintings on large panes of plate glass, for Louis-Philippe's royal chapel at Dreux. It would be hard to find a large, significant commission in Gothic taste that preceded this one, save for some Gothic features in a handful of jardins à l'anglaise.
The French Gothic revival was set on sounder intellectual footings by a pioneer, Arcisse de Caumont, who founded the Societé des Antiquaires de Normandy at a time when antiquaire still meant a connoisseur of antiquities, and who published his great work on Norman architecture in 1830 (Summerson 1948). The following year Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris appeared, in which the great Gothic cathedral of Paris was at once a setting and a protagonist in a hugely popular work of fiction. In the same year the new French monarchy established a post of Inspector-General of Ancient Monuments, a post filled in 1833 by Prosper Merimée, who became the secretary of a new Commission des Monuments Historiques in 1837. This was the Commission that instructed Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to report on the condition of the abbey of Vézelay in 1840.
Meanwhile in Germany, at Cologne Cathedral, started in 1248 and unfinished for over 500 years, in the 1820s the Romantic movement brought back interest, and work was started again in 1824, significantly marking a German return of Gothic architecture.
Cologne Cathedral
Because of Romantic nationalism in the early 19th century, the Germans, French and English all claimed the original Gothic architecture of the 12th century as originating in their own country. The English boldy coined the term "Early English" for Gothic, a term that implied Gothic architecture was an English creation. In his 1832 edition of Notre Dame de Paris Victor Hugo appealed "Let us inspire in the nation, if it is possible, love for the national architecture", implying that Gothic was France's national heritage. In Germany with the completion of Cologne Cathedral in the 1880s, at the time the world's tallest building, it was truly seen as the height of Gothic architecture.
Victor Hugo]]
In Florence, the Duomo's façade was demolished in 1587-1588, but then stood bare. In 1864 a competition was held to design a new facade suitable to Arnolfo di Cambio's structure and the fine campanile next to it, and was won by Emilio De Fabris. Work to his polychrome design that includes panels of mosaic was begun in 1876 and completed in 1887 (illustration right).
Pugin, Ruskin and the Gothic as a moral force
In the late 1820s, A.W.N. Pugin, still a teenager, was working for two highly visible employers, providing Gothic detailing for luxury goods. For the Royal furniture makers Morel and Seddon he provided designs for redecorations for the elderly George IV at Windsor Castle in a Gothic taste suited to the setting. For the royal silversmiths Rundell Bridge and Co., Pugin provided designs for silver from 1828, using the 14th-century Anglo-French Gothic vocabulary that he would continue to favor later in designs for the new Palace of Westminster (see below) [http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/pugin/bio.html].
In Contrasts (1836), Pugin expressed his admiration not only for mediæval art but the whole mediæval ethos, claiming that Gothic architecture was the product of a purer society. In The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (1841), he suggested that modern craftsmen seeking to emulate the style of medieval workmanship should also reproduce its methods. Pugin believed Gothic was true Christian architecture, boldly saying "The pointed arch was produced by the Catholic faith". Pugin's most famous building is The Houses of Parliament in London, which he designed in two campaigns, 1836 — 1837 and again in 1844 and 1852, with the classicist Charles Barry as his co-architect. Pugin provided the external decoration and the interiors, while Barry designed the symmetrical layout of the building, causing Pugin to remark, "All Grecian, Sir; Tudor details on a classic body".
Charles Barry]]
John Ruskin supplemented Pugin's ideas in his two hugely influential theoretical works, The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1853). Finding his architectural ideal in Venice, Ruskin proposed that Gothic buildings excelled above all other architecture because of the "sacrifice" of the stone-carvers in intricately decorating every stone. By declaring the Doge's Palace to be "the central building of the world", Ruskin argued the case for Gothic government buildings as Pugin had done for churches, though only in theory. When his ideas were put into practice, Ruskin despised the spate of public buildings built with references to the Ducal Palace, including the University Museum in Oxford.
University Museum]
In England, the Church of England was undergoing a revival of Anglo-Catholic ideology in the form of the Oxford Movement and it became desirable to build large numbers of new churches to cater for the growing population. This found ready exponents in the universities, where the ecclesiological movement was forming. Its proponents believed that Gothic was the only style appropriate for a parish church, and favoured a particular era of Gothic architecture — the "decorated". The movement's magazine, The Ecclesioligist, was so savagely critical of new church buildings that were below its exacting standards that a style called the 'archaeological Gothic' emerged, producing some of the most convincingly mediæval buildings of the Gothic revival.
Viollet-le-Duc and Iron Gothic
If France had not been quite as early on the neo-Gothic scene, she produced a giant of the revival in Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. As well as being a powerful and influential theorist, Viollet-le-Duc was a leading architect whose genius lay in restoration. He believed in restoring buildings to a state of completion that they would not have known even when they were first built, theories he applied to his restorations of the walled city of Carcassonne and Notre-Dame and Sainte Chapelle in Paris. In this respect he differed from his English counterpart Ruskin as he often replaced the work of mediaeval stonemasons. His rational approach to Gothic was in stark contrast to the revival’s romanticist origins, and considered by some to be a prelude to the structural honesty demanded by Modernism.
Throughout his career he remained in a quandary as to whether iron and masonry should be combined in a building. Iron had in fact been used in Gothic buildings since the earliest days of the revival. It was only with Ruskin and the archaeological Gothic's demand for structural truth that iron, whether it was visible or not, was deemed improper for a Gothic building. This argument began to collapse in the mid-19th century as great prefabricated structures such as the glass and iron Crystal Palace and the glazed courtyard of the Oxford University Museum were erected which appeared to embody Gothic principles through iron. Between 1863 and 1872 Viollet-le-Duc published his Entretiens sur l’architecture, a set of daring designs for buildings that combined iron and masonry. Though these projects were never realised, they influenced several generations of designers and architects, notably Antonio Gaudi.
Antonio Gaudi in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, by Charles Donagh Maginnis, 1908-1913]]
The 20th century and beyond
At the turn of the 20th Century, technological developments such as the light bulb, the elevator, and steel framing caused many to see architecture that used load-bearing masonry as obsolete. Steel framing supplanted the non-ornamental functions of rib vaults and flying buttresses. Some architects used Neo-Gothic tracery as applied ornament to an iron skeleton underneath, for example in Cass Gilbert's 1907 Woolworth Building skyscraper in New York and Raymond Hood's 1922 Tribune Tower in Chicago. But over the first half of the century, Neo-Gothic became supplanted by Modernism. Some in the Modern Movement saw the Gothic tradition of architectural form entirely in terms of the "honest expression" of the technology of the day, and saw themselves as the rightful heir to this tradition, with their rectangular frames and exposed iron girders.
Modern Movement. Late neo-Gothic by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, 1954-59.]]
In spite of this, the Gothic revival continued to exert its influence, simply because many of its more massive projects were still being built well into the second half of the 20th century, such as Giles Gilbert Scott's Liverpool Cathedral. In the USA, Charles Donagh Maginnis's early buildings at Boston College helped establish the prevalence of Collegiate Gothic architecture on American university campuses. Ralph Adams Cram became a leading force in American Gothic, with his most ambitious project the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York (claimed to be the largest Cathedral in the world), as well as Collegiate Gothic buildings at Princeton University. Cram said "the style hewn out and perfected by our ancestors [has] become ours by uncontested inheritance."
Though the number of new Gothic revival buildings declined sharply after the 1930s, they continue to be built. The cathedral of Bury St. Edmunds was constructed between the late 1950s and 2005 [http://www.hughpearman.com/articles5/lastgothic.html]. In 2002, Demetri Porphyrios was commisioned to design a neo-Gothic residential college at Princeton University to be known as Whitman College (illustration, right). Interestingly, Porphyrios has won several commissions after votes by student bodies, not university design committees, confirming what archiects have suspected: that neo-gothic architecture may be more popular among the public than among the architectural establishment.
Gothic revival architects
- William Burges
- Richard Carpenter
- Richard Cromwell Carpenter
- Ralph Adams Cram
- Alexander Jackson Davis
- Andrew Jackson Downing
- Viollet-le-Duc
- Francis Goodwin
- Charles Donagh Maginnis
- Benjamin Mountfort
- George Fellowes Prynne
- Augustus Welby Pugin
- James Gamble Rogers
- George Gilbert Scott
- William Strickland
- Alfred Waterhouse
- William White
Gothic revival buildings
William White .]]
- Alban Towers, Washington, D.C.
- Albert Memorial, London
- Cathedral of Jesus' Heart, Sarajevo
- Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, St. John's
- Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal
- Fonthill Abbey
- Gasson Hall, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
- Hungarian Parliament Building, Budapest
- Manchester Town Hall
- Oscarshall, Oslo
- Palace of Westminster, London
- Parliament Buildings, Ottawa
- Scot's Church, Melbourne
- Scott Monument, Edinburgh
- St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney
- St. Michael's Basilica, Chatham, New Brunswick
- St Pancras Station, London
- St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne
- St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne
- Saint Stephen's Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Scott Monument, Edinburgh
- Tower Bridge, London
- Trinity Church, New York
- University of Glasgow, Glasgow
- University Museum, Oxford
External link
- [http://w4.ed.uiuc.edu/faculty/westbury/Paradigm/Vaughan.html John Vaughan, "Thomas Rickman’s essay on Gothic architecture"] from Paradigm, No 7 (December, 1991)
Further reading
- Clark, Sir KennethThe Gothic Revival: An Essay in the History of Taste ISBN 0719502330
- Hunter-Stiebel, Penelope, Of knights and spires: Gothic revival in France and Germany, , 1989 ISBN 0916849059
- Summerson, Sir John, 1948. "Viollet-le-Duc and the rational point of view" collected in Heavenly Mansions and other essays on Architecture.
Related topics
- Victorian architecture
- Middle Ages in history
Category:Gothic architecture
Category:Architectural styles
Category:British architecture
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the United States of America.
Name
Mass-adchu-et
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was named after the indigenous population, the Massachusett, whose name can be segmented
:mass-adchu-et
where mass is "great", adchu is "hill" and et is a locative suffix.
It has been translated as
:at the great hill, or at the place of large hills, or at the range of hills
with reference to the Blue Hills, or in particular, Big Blue Hill, located on the boundary of Milton and Canton, to the southwest of Boston.
Commonwealth
Massachusetts officially designates itself a "commonwealth", although "state" is commonly used.
History
Early settlement
Various Algonquin tribes inhabited the area prior to European settlement. In the Massachusetts Bay area resided the Massachusett. Near the Vermont and New Hampshire borders and the Merrimack River valley was the traditional home of the Pennacook tribe. Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and southeast Massachusetts were the home of the Wampanoag, whom the Pilgrims met. The extreme end of the Cape was inhabited by the closely related Nauset tribe. Much of the central portion and the Connecticut River valley was home to the loosely organized Nipmuc peoples. The Berkshires were the home of both the Pocomtuc and the Mahican tribes. Spillovers of Narragansett and Mohegan from Rhode Island and Connecticut, respectively, were also present.
The Massachusett, as were all the native Americans on the coast of New England, were heavily decimated by waves of smallpox both before and after the arrival of Captain John Smith in 1614. They had developed no immunity to the disease, a common story when Europeans visited parts of the world remote from Europe. If the tribe had survivors, there is no record of them after this point.
The Pilgrims from the Humber region of England established their settlement at Plymouth in 1620, arriving on the Mayflower. One of their first tasks was to form a government, the Mayflower compact. They also suffered grievously from the native smallpox, but they were assisted in their time of trouble by the Wampanoags under chief Massasoit. In 1621 they celebrated their first Thanksgiving Day together to thank God for their survival. About half survived the first year.
From that time on the English settlers spread rapidly into clearings and fields depopulated by smallpox, their numbers swelled by the harsh treatment of puritans by Charles I at home. The natives called them the Yengeeze, their pronunciation of English, which became yankee. A shared culture prevailed for a time.
Massachusetts Bay Colony period (1629-1686)
The Pilgrims were soon followed by the Puritans from the River Thames region of England, who established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It eclipsed Plymouth in numbers and economy, the chief factor being the good harbor at Boston. The English Revolution began and Massachusetts Bay Colony became a Puritan stonghold.
Relations with the natives were still good at this time. In 1646 the Long Parliament gave John Eliot a commission and funds to preach to the Wampanoags. He succeeded in converting a large number. The colonial government placed them in a ring of villages around Boston as a defensive strategy. They were called praying indians. The oldest, Natick, was built in 1651.
Although the Puritans came to Massachusetts for religious freedom, they were not tolerant of any religion other than theirs. Pilgrims, as well as Anglicans, Quakers, and a handful of other denominations were grudgingly accepted in the Puritan communities for a time. Then Quakers were banned, and in 1660 four were hanged on Boston Common (see Mary Dyer). People such as Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and Thomas Hooker left Massachusetts and went South because of the Puritans' lack of religious tolerance. Williams ended up founding the colony of Rhode Island and Hooker founded Connecticut.
The colonists' policy toward natives fared no better than their religious tolerance. They treated natives as simpletons, leading at last to a sanguinary attempt to drive the English into the sea under Massasoit's son, Philip. King Philip's War (1675-1676), the bloodiest Indian war of the early colonial period, included major campaigns in the Pioneer Valley and Plymouth Colony. It took many years for the colonies of southern New England to recover from the effects of the war.
The praying indians had attempted to give warning, but they were scorned and ignored. When the blow fell in 1675 the praying indians were caught in the middle. Most left Massachusetts.
The colonists took those who stayed into internment on Deer and Long Islands in Boston Harbor, partly for their own protection. The government succeeded in preventing the colonists from massacring them there, but they died of deprivation and disease. Only 400 emerged in 1677, to reoccupy Wampanoag lands in southeastern Massachusetts.
Until they merged in 1691, Massachusetts Bay Colony and Plymouth Colony were separate colonies.
Dominion of New England (1686-1692)
In May of 1686, the Massachusetts Bay Colony came to an end, as Joseph Dudley became President of New England under a commission of King James II. He established his authority later in New Hampshire and the King's Province (part of today's Rhode Island), maintaining this position until Sir Edmund Andros arrived to become the Royal Governor of the Dominion of New England. Dudley continued on as a member of Governor Andros' council.
At the news of the accession of William and Mary, the Boston colonials rebelled. Andros and his officials were held on Castle Island and then sent back to England as prisoners. Andros was exonerated and went on to become Governor of Virginia (1692–98).
Royal Colony of Massachusetts (1692-1774)
Notable governors during this period were Thomas Hutchinson, Sir Francis Bernard, and Thomas Gage. Gage was the last British governor of Massachusetts.
Revolutionary Massachusetts (1760s-1780s)
Massachusetts was the first colony to revolt against the Crown, and thus the instigator of the American Revolution. On February 9, 1775, the British Parliament declared Massachusetts to be in rebellion, and sent additional troops to restore order to the colony.
In Boston on March 5, 1770, an African-American named Crispus Attucks, from Framingham, was killed (along with four other American colonists) at an event that became known as the Boston Massacre; Attucks is often considered the first casualty of the American Revolution.
Several early Revolutionary battles took place in Massachusetts, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord (where the famous shot heard 'round the world was fired), the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1780-present)
A Constitutional Convention drew up a Constitution drafted mainly by John Adams, and the people ratified it on June 15, 1780. At that time, Adams along with Samuel Adams, and James Bowdoin wrote in the Preamble to the Constitution of the Commonwealth, 1780:
"We, therefore, the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe, in affording us, in the course of His Providence, an opportunity, deliberately and peaceably, without fraud, violence or surprize, on entering into an Original, explicit, and Solemn Compact with each other; and of forming a new Constitution of Civil Government, for Ourselves and Posterity, and devoutly imploring His direction in so interesting a design, Do agree upon, ordain and establish, the following Declaration of Rights, and Frame of Government, as the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."
Other notable history
- Battles of the American Revolution - Battles of Lexington and Concord, Siege of Boston, Battle of Bunker Hill.
- Shays' Rebellion - Western Massachusetts uprising after the Revolution.
- First Governor of the Commonwealth - John Hancock was the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
- U.S. Constitution - On February 6, 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the United States Constitution.
- Slavery - According to a 1790 census, Massachusetts had a zero population of slaves.
- District of Maine - On March 15, 1820, Maine was separated from Massachusetts, of which it had been a non-contiguous part, and entered the Union as the 23rd State. (See Missouri Compromise)
- Massachusetts contains many historic houses.
- Invention of sports:
:
- Basketball was invented in Springfield, Massachusetts.
:
- Volleyball was invented in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
:
- The earliest reference to Baseball was also in Massachusetts, in Pittsfield.
Geography
Pittsfield, much more rural than Springfield, in the southern part of the valley, or Boston, which is on the coast.]]
Massachusetts is bordered on the north by New Hampshire and Vermont, on the west by New York, on the south by Connecticut and Rhode Island, and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. At the southeastern corner of the state is a large, sandy, arm-shaped peninsula called Cape Cod. The islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket lie to the south of Cape Cod.
Massachusetts is known as the Bay State because of the several large bays that give its coastline its distinctive shape: Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay on the state's east coast, and Buzzards Bay to the south. A few cities and towns on the Massachusetts–Rhode Island border are also adjacent to Narragansett Bay.
Boston is the largest city, located at the inmost point of Massachusetts Bay, at the mouth of the Charles River, the longest river entirely within Massachusetts. Most of the population of the Boston metropolitan area (approximately 5,800,000) does not live in the city; eastern Massachusetts on the whole is fairly densely populated and largely suburban. Western Massachusetts is more rural and sparsely populated, especially in the Berkshires, the branch of the Appalachian Mountains which forms the western border of the state. The most populated part of western Massachusetts is the "Pioneer Valley," alongside the Connecticut River, which flows across Western Massachusetts from north to south.
Economy
Connecticut River produces the paper for Federal Reserve notes]]
[http://www.bea.gov/ The Bureau of Economic Analysis] estimates that Massachusetts's total state product in 2003 was $297 billion. Per capita personal income in 2003 was $39,504, 4th in the nation.
Its agricultural outputs are | | |
