Boston College Front Row

David Karp, professor of sociology at Boston College, reads from and discusses his recent book, Is It Me or My Meds? Living with Antidepressants (Harvard University Press, 2006). In the book, Karp tells the stories of 50 teenagers and adults-himself included-who describe their ambivalent relationships and experiences with psychiatric drugs. Karp is the coauthor or author of six previous books, including Speaking of Sadness (1997) and The Burden of Sympathy (2002), both from Oxford University Press.

Richard Cobb-Stevens, professor of philosophy at Boston College, has been the director of BCs Core Curriculum since 1992. Speaking from this position, Cobb-Stevens introduces the long history of Jesuit core programs and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of BCs current program, inaugurated in 1992 after two years of deliberation by the Universitys Core Development Committee.

Tommie Shelby, Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences and African and African American Studies at Harvard University, speaks on how class differences between African Americans make it difficult to build black solidarity and a progressive politics. He is the author of We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundation of Black Solidarity (Harvard, 2005).

In the 13th Boisi Lecture, the Lynch School of Education welcomes Henry Braun as the Boisi Professor of Education and Public Policy. In his lecture, Braun argues that if accountability is to play a more constructive role in school improvement, then school management must accept that testing is only one component of a complex, dynamic system. Braun joins BC after 27 years at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey.

Braun is introduced by Joseph OKeefe, SJ, dean of the Lynch School. The lecture is given in honor of Albert E. Beaton, Augustus Long Professor Emeritus at the Lynch School.

Diarmaid Ferriter, historian and professor at St. Patricks College in Dublin City University, analyzes the career of John Charles McQuaid, archbishop of Dublin from 1940 to 1972. Ferriter dips into the 1960s archives of McQuaid-who is something of a historians dream due to his incisive opinions and legible handwriting-to look at McQuaids authoritarian archdiocese as it wrangled with the social upheaval of the time.

Ferriters books include The Transformation of Ireland (Overlook, 2005), What If? Alternative Views of Twentieth-Century Ireland (Gill MacMillan, 2006), and, with Colm Toibin, The Irish Famine: A Documentary (Thomas Dunne, 2002).

Maria Esposito Frank, chair of the department of modern language and cultures at the University of Hartford, presents an analysis and reading of the 14th canto of Dantes Purgatorio. Franks commentary is in English; the reading from the Divine Comedy is in Italian.

Gerald Grace, Sr. Dale McDonald, and Joseph OKeefe, SJ-sat down with Ben Birnbaum, editor of Boston College Magazine, to discuss the state of elementary and secondary parochial school education in the United States.

Earle Hitchner, music columnist for the Irish Echo and a contributing music writer for the Wall Street Journal, speaks on the accomplishments of button accordionist Joe Derrane and the role of the accordion in Irish-American music. Derrane, a fixture of Irish-American music scene since the 1940s and 50s, won in 2004 the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship-Americas highest honor in folk and traditional arts. Prior to Hitchners lecture, Derrane performs two songs on the button accordion.

Boston Colleges third annual academic convocation for first-year students features a keynote address by John McCain, Republican senator from Arizona, who makes a moral appeal to the students to look above self-interest in their lives and careers. He makes the same challenge to the government, saying the United States is an unfinished nation that must not sacrifice our values in the war on terrorism.

In weeks prior to the convocation, McCain had been critical of the Bush administrations interpretation of the Geneva Conventions standards on the treatment of prisoners of war. A fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, McCain was captured and tortured as a POW in North Vietnam for six years.

After a screening of his film WTC View: A Story of New York After 9/11, Brian Sloan 88 speaks on his career as an independent director and author as part of the Master Class: Alumni in Residence series. Sloans films include Boys Life (1994) and I Think I Do (1998); he is currently working on a comedy starring Carson Kressley. Sloan is also the author of two teen novels, A Really Nice Prom Mess and Tale of Two Summers (Simon Schuster, 2005 and 2006).

Sloan is interviewed by John Michalczyk, chair of the fine arts department.