On June 24, 1947, a private pilot reported numerous dazzling objects rushing through the sky above Mount Rainier in Washington state. Within a few weeks, hundreds of sightings of flying saucers were reported to news media, followed by reports of a UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico. Boston College graduate Gordon Arnold cuts through decades of mystique and confusion and offers an account of what is known and unknown about the happenings in the skies over mid-century America. Flying Saucers Over America: The UFO Craze of 1947 (McFarland & Company Publishers, 2021) is based on many sources, including previously classified government records. As Arnold writes in the book’s introduction, whether you are a believer or skeptic, UFOs are “innately interesting as a historical and cultural phenomenon.” An educator, Arnold earned a doctorate in 1994 from Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development.
Unidentified flying objects
Harnessing disruption
Forward-thinking leaders must ready their organizations to respond to disruptions— such as the COVID-19 pandemic—if they hope to be successful, according to Carroll School Information Systems Professor Gerald C. Kane, co-author of The Transformation Myth: Leading Your Organization through Uncertain Times (MIT Press, 2021). Kane and co-authors Rich Nanda, Anh Nguyen Phillips, and Jonathan R. Copulsky have written a guide for surviving future disruptions—which are inevitable—and parlaying the lessons learned into greater growth. The authors identify and describe the traits that characterize successful organizations and the characteristics of their leaders, with examples from real-world organizations. According to Kane and his co-authors, the companies that emerge stronger because of disruption are those that used it as an opportunity for innovation. Read more from Carroll School News.
The way of the Franciscans
A new Lent devotional, written by Boston College graduate Daniel P. Horan, O.F.M., offers readers ways to revitalize their prayer life during Lent as well as to increase their understanding of Franciscan spirituality. The Way of the Franciscans: A Prayer Journey through Lent (SPCK Publishing, 2021) is split into six chapters, each focusing on a key Franciscan spiritual master and their way of prayer. The Way of the Franciscans explores the history of the different Franciscan spiritual traditions and how they are united in their focus on living according to the Gospels. A well-known author and public speaker, Fr. Horan is the Duns Scotus Professor of Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He earned a Ph.D. in systematic theology from Boston College. His other publications include The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton and Catholicity and Emerging Personhood.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged Lent, Saint Francis, spirituality, Theology Department
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Social scientists on global crises
According to Carroll School Ferris Professor of Management and Organization Jean Bartunek, experts in the natural sciences aren’t the only ones who have vital perspectives on crises such as climate change and COVID. Social scientists understand how such global crises are intertwined with us as individual human beings, in our relationships, our groups, our organizations, our communities, our institutions, and how we collaborate with each other and how we compete with each other. Bartunek is editor of the new book, Social Scientists Confronting Global Crises (Routledge, 2021), which presents contributions from some 20 respected social scientists that deepen understanding of social phenomena associated with global crises. Through the cases and stories presented, readers learn what social scientists who are involved in both research and practice “can do to address and mitigate (if not prevent) global crises confronting us now and predictably . . . in the future.” Read more in Carroll School News.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Carroll School of Management, climate change, COVID, social sciences
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Poet Claudia Rankine
The Lowell Humanities Series presents award-winning poet Claudia Rankine who will give a reading from her poetry collection Citizen: An American Lyric, followed by an audience Q&A, at a webinar on Mar. 2 at 7.p.m. Citizen: An American Lyric recounts “mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in 21st-century daily life and in the media,” according to her website. “In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen interrogates the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named ‘post-race’ society.” The author of six collections of poetry, Rankine is Yale University’s Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. She also is a playwright and co-editor of several anthologies. Rankine is the recipient of the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, and the National Endowment of the Arts. Her appearance is co-sponsored by the American Studies Program; the African and African Diaspora Studies Program; the English, History, Sociology departments; and the PULSE Program, with the support of an Institute for the Liberal Arts Major Grant Award. Details and registration here.
Policing the American city
Rosa Brooks, the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy at Georgetown University Law Center and founder of Georgetown’s Innovative Policing Program, will deliver the Winston Center’s Chambers Lecture on March 1 at 6 p.m. in Gasson 100. Brooks is an expert on national security, international law, constitutional law, and criminal justice. She is the author of Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City (Penguin Books, 2021), in which she recounts her four years of experience as a sworn, armed reserve police officer with Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, and argues that a nation increasingly divided by race, class, ethnicity, geography, and ideology needs a truly transformative approach to policing. The program she leads at Georgetown rethinks the role police should play in today’s society and helps communities, police, and the broader legal system to work together to address the legacy of racial discrimination and over-criminalization. Brooks is also the author of the book How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, and a frequent guest on MSNBC, Fox, CNN, and NPR.
Saslow on white nationalism
Eli Saslow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with The Washington Post, will give a lecture on his book, Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist, on Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. His presentation will be in webinar format followed by a moderated discussion and audience Q&A. Rising Out of Hatred tells the story of how Derek Black, the one-time heir to America’s white nationalist movement, came to question the ideology he helped spread and went on to publicly denounce white nationalism in an open letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Saslow is the winner of two George Polk Awards, a PEN Literary Award, a James Beard Award, and other honors. Saslow is also the author of Voices from the Pandemic: Americans Tell Their Stories of Crisis, Courage and Resilience. His lecture is presented by the Lowell Humanities Series, and co-sponsored by the Journalism Program, the American Studies Program, and the Communications Department. Details and a registration link here.
Posted in Guest Authors, Lowell Humanities Series
Tagged Pulitzer Prize winner, racism
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Slavery, smuggling, and chocolate
Mutiny on the Rising Sun: A Tragic Tale of Slavery, Smuggling, and Chocolate (NYU Press, 2021), written by Boston College graduate Jared Ross Hardesty, recounts the deadly 1743 mutiny aboard the Rising Sun, a schooner involved in smuggling. After completing a routine smuggling voyage where the crew sold enslaved Africans in exchange for chocolate, sugar, and coffee in the Dutch colony of Suriname, three sailors sneaked below deck, murdered four people, and seized control of the vessel. In Mutiny on the Rising Sun, Hardesty shows how illegal trade created demand for exotic products like chocolate, and illustrates the centrality of smuggling and slavery in early American society. He is also the author of Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in 18th Century Boston and Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England. Hardesty earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in history from Boston College and is an associate professor of history at Western Washington University. Learn more in this Q&A with WWU.
China, Russia, and the U.S.
Sarah Paine, the William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College, will deliver a lecture on Feb. 16 about the different security paradigms followed by continental and maritime powers as it applies today to Russia and China versus the West. Her talk will take place in Fulton Hall, room 511, beginning at 5 p.m. Paine is author of the prize-winning book The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949 (Cambridge University Press). She has spent more than eight years overseas, with multiple yearlong stints in Taiwan and Japan, and a year each in China, Russia, and Australia. She is an expert on geopolitics, Mao Zedong, World War II, the Chinese Civil War, the Russo-Japanese, Korean, Vietnam and Cold wars, operational and strategic effects of naval blockades, commerce raiding, and non-military uses of navies. Sponsor: Asian Studies.
Helping students in a volatile world
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, students’ well-being was an increasingly prominent concern among educators, as issues related to mental health, global crises, and social media became impossible to ignore. But what, exactly, does well-being look like, and why is it so important, and what can school systems do to promote it? World-renowned education experts Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley have collaborated on a timely resource for teachers, leaders, and policymakers: Well-Being in Schools: Three Forces That Will Uplift Your Students in a Volatile World (ASCD, 2021). Hargreaves and Shirley offer an in-depth exploration of the underlying ideas and research findings related to well-being, coupled with examples of policies and implementations from around the globe. Hargreaves is professor emeritus at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development. Shirley is professor at the Lynch School. They are also co-authors of Five Paths of Student Engagement and The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change.
BC Bookmarks 