By Kevin Fagan, Asst. News Editor -

Tuesday evening, Smart Woman Securities hosted a panel entitled “Is Investing the New Shopping?” as a way to soft launch their group that has the goal of educating undergraduate women about investing. The panel, which included members of the Boston College administration, as well as students from the Carroll Graduate School of Management, led a discussion on a broad range of investment and financial topics.

The event began with a discussion on the basics of personal finance and investing. Saving was mentioned as the primary way to have money for investing. Andrea Bevis, MBA/MSF ‘10, said that a good rule of thumb was to save 10 percent of your annual salary and put it into an account that cannot be touched for at least few years. “Get yourself into the habit of putting money away ever month,” said Mary Lou DeLong, vice president and university secretary. “The sooner the better.”

The panel also discussed different investment strategies based on risk tolerance and the need for taking on additional risk to achieve higher returns. In response to the market’s rockiness in the past few years, Mary Ellen Fulton, assoc. dean for finance, research, and administration at the Lynch School of Education, said that it was necessary to watch what is happening currently in the market.

Panelists discussed the importance of utilizing retirement plans where an employer agrees to make a matching contribution up to a certain amount. The existence of plans that allow money to be taken out of each check tax-free allows individuals to pay themselves first. This makes the process of saving for retirement much easier, given the money is quite often not as missed if it were in each check.

At the end of the event, there was a brief discussion of how to get started with investing. Panel members brought up their favorite resources that students could use to start doing their research, including Yahoo! Finance, Investor’s Business Daily, and databases the library subscribes to, including Thompson ONE Banker. The panel emphasized the need to understand a company by reading its profile and knowing its competitors before investing in a company.

A brief education ensued to give attendees an awareness of the lingo needed to begin investing. Earnings per share and price to earnings ratio were described as some of the most important ratios needed to value a company. The panel used the example of J. Crew Company to show where these ratios and other important information appear in Yahoo! Finance.

The event concluded with a discussion of how women influence the stock market. Members of Smart Woman Securities stated that 85 percent of all consumer spending in America is done by women to the tune of $5 trillion. These spending decisions influence which stocks succeed in the market. The event concluded with a raffle of J. Crew gift cards.

By Michelle Martinez, News Editor -

To jumpstart the upcoming Women’s History Month, the Black Student Forum organized a panel of several female Boston College faculty and administrative officials to discuss their experiences in their academic, personal and professional preparation as women Thursday night.

Carole Hughes, executive director for planning and staff development in the Office of the Vice-President of Student Affairs, spoke of her experiences as a first-generation college student born and raised in Boston. At her all girls’ high school, people constantly spoke of her potential undergraduate pursuits as being limited to nursing or education. Instead, she decided to pursue management studies, which was not her true passion, at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

“I wasn’t the student I truly could have been, had I pursued something I was actually interested in,” Hughes said. “The challenge was that I chose a field that I wasn’t actually that good in. It was bad academic advising.”

Inés Maturana-Sendoya, director of AHANA student programs, had a slightly different experience, having grown up in Colombia. After graduating high school, she also faced the task of figuring out what she wanted to study. The only career path on which she and her father could agree, however, was modern languages, so she went to the United States in order to pursue this field of study.

“We were a middle-class family in Colombia. There were many times I felt very guilty for putting him through paying for me semester to semester,” Maturana-Sendoya said. “At other times I felt resentful because it wasn’t the career I had wanted to choose.” Several years later, however, Maturana-Sendoya found herself thanking her father for picking something for her that actually worked, and for giving her the opportunity to teach languages in the United States.

Neudy Nuñez, Resident Director for CLXF, was also a first-generation college student. As the oldest of six and daughter of Venezuelan immigrants, she wanted her parents to feel that immigrating and leaving their family behind had a successful end product. “I felt a sense of responsibility was already placed on my shoulders, knowing that I had to make them proud,” Nuñez said.

When the time to select a university came, Nuñez was sure that she wanted to attend a large college, but was also frightened to leave home.

“My mom was very supportive and didn’t want me to fear it, but rather to explore the world, which she hadn’t gotten to do,” Nuñez said. She eventually chose to leave her home state of New York for Florida International University, where she faced the challenges of paying for a costly tuition, as well as being far from home.

“There were two points when I considered transferring back to New York because I missed my family greatly, but this was the best thing my mom ever did, cutting the umbilical cord,” Nuñez said.

Régine Michelle Jean-Charles, Assistant Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies and founder of “A Long Walk Home, Inc.,” spoke of her experiences as a Haitian-American, who, though not a first-generation college student, was part of her family’s first generation born in the U.S. From her days in a prep school in Boston, it seemed definite that she would end up at an Ivy League school.

“I applied to every Ivy outside of Massachusetts, and ended up going to UPenn. I just loved my undergraduate, mainly because I took my whole advising thing very seriously, always knocking at professors’ doors,” Jean-Charles said. “Mentoring has been really important to me. I’ve been blessed by having great mentors at every institution I’ve been at, even here at BC.”

As an activist in her undergraduate years at Penn, Jean-Charles witnessed a heartbreaking incident between males and females that tore at the fibers of the African American community. “We’re always forced to put race before gender,” Jean-Charles said, “but these two things cannot be separated, but must each be respected on its own right.”

All four successful women gave considerable advice on how to balance and manage their personal, academic and professional lives, especially in times when overwhelmed by work or other circumstances.

“Making a plan is a good idea, but you have to be exit plans for yourself in case some whacky thing happens. Definitely make a plan, but keep it fluid so you can cut yourself some slack,” Hughes said. “The most important advice is to pick the best possible partner: someone that when you work full-time and have kids with, will be there with and for you.”

“Listen to your internal voice and your heart,” Maturana-Sendoya said. ”Be in tune with what your heart is telling you, because that is the path that is going to work for you.”

“The older you get, the thought process doesn’t get any easier,” Nuñez said. ”It actually gets blurrier. But you have to give yourself a choice. I had a ten-year plan in which love and children weren’t a part of it, but it happens. You have to be ok with yourself if that plan goes off a bit.”

“College doesn’t prepare you for the reality of life. There’s no one way to do things, and you never know what’s going to happen,” Jean-Charles said. “One of the important things for all of you to take away is there is not one plan. We can’t give you prescriptive narratives on how to make it work.”

By Sue Byun, Assoc. News Editor -

Thursday night the Boston College Hillel Association hosted a Chocolate Seder for a pre-Passover celebration, looking back to history for spiritual nourishment as well as embracing the enjoyable things in life such as sharing good food with friends. Continue Reading

By a vote of 219 to 212, the House passed the Senate’s health care reform bill Sunday night. All votes in favor of the bill came from Democrats. The House also passed its reconciliation bill, which has modifications to the Senate’s bill. That legislation will go to the Senate for a vote.

By Kevin Fagan, Asst. News Editor -

Senator Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, put forward a proposal last week, calling for the most sweeping changes to financial rules since the Great Depression. Continue Reading

By Sue Byun, Assoc. News Editor -

On Tuesday, students from the Cuban-American Student Association (CASA) put on a demonstration in the academic quad to raise awareness about the human rights violations occurring in Cuba. Continue Reading

By Kevin Fagan, Asst. News Editor -

In an event sponsored by the College Democrats of Boston College, BC Students for Sexual Health, and the Americans for Informed Democracy, two representatives from the Sierra Club and the Population Justice Project gave presentations on Tuesday on how family planning and global warming are linked, as well as the need for activism to raise awareness on the connection.

Laurie Mazur, director of the Population Justice Project, described this time as a pivotal moment for the environment; she said there are probably less than ten years to take a serious stance about climate change on a global scale. She argued that population plays a big part in this, since the two primary factors contributing to the pollution of the environment are the number of people living and the way they live. She said that the generation that encompasses current college students is the largest generation of all time: it is twice as large as the baby boomer generation.

Mazur stated that given current growth rates, our population could grow from its current 6.8 billion to anywhere from 8 to 11 billion by 2050. In many countries with high rates of childbirth and poverty, much of this population growth is driven not by intention, but rather by lack of choice about childbearing. Many women in these countries are subject to arranged marriages from very young ages and are forced to reproduce in relationships with older men. She cited the example of a young Indian girl of age 11 preparing to marry a much older man.

The solution provided to the problem of high population growth rates is giving women the means and power to access family planning resources. In many countries, access to comprehensive sexual health resources is limited, mostly because of lack of funding. The other major issue deals with power and equality and getting women the education they need to advance both socially and economically. In many countries, lack of water is driving a cycle in which women are forced to spend more time searching for water instead of getting a job or education.

The price of this solution for the entire developed world would be about $30 billion per year. Although this may sound like a lot, Mazur pointed out that bankers received a comparable amount in 2009 in year-end bonuses. The United States’ share of this is about $1 billion a year, the same as the amount we already spend in Afghanistan every 13 hours. In addition to money, commitments of time are needed at organizations like the Sierra Club, which advocates for population justice and environmental issues.

This event is a part of BCisGreen Week, which continues later this week until its conclusion on Thursday, March 18th.

By Andrew Slade, News Editor -

Among college students nationwide, the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) of 21 is perhaps the law most frequently broken. According to internal studies at Boston College, just 25 percent of incoming freshmen describe themselves as non-drinkers. While some point to numbers like these as evidence that current drinking laws are ineffective and drive students to drink behind closed doors, others argue that lowering the MLDA would lead to adolescents beginning to drink at younger ages. Continue Reading

By Sue Byun, Assoc. News Editor -

This semester, several Boston College students have formed a new student activism group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The group, which is still waiting for the administration’s approval of their constitution, plans to work closely with the Student Programs Office, along with other groups such as BC Hillel and the Arab Student Association, toward pursuing a just peace to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Continue Reading

By Sue Byun & Michelle Martinez, Gavel Editors -

Since its inception on Jan. 27, the Boston College chapter of the Association for the Advancement of University Professors (AAUP) boasts a steadily growing membership and a speaking appearance by AAUP Secretary General Gary Rhoades. It was founded in the hopes of achieving greater faculty governance and academic freedom, and a greater faculty participation in University operations overall.

The chapter’s executive committee, which consists of Susan Michalczyk, Michael Clarke, Michael Malec, Tim Duket, Pam Grace, Joyce Pulcini, and Alan Lawson, was elected into office at the first meeting last month. This marked the fruition of an effort started this past December when a group of faculty voted to move forward with forming a chapter.

Membership is currently at about 60, expanded from 47 in late January. “We hope to triple that membership by next year,” Malec said.

The chapter, which is less than one month old, is still in the recruiting and strategy planning phases, but Rhoades’ speech this past Tuesday served as a morale booster, crystallizing and provid¬ing national context for what the chapter members were trying to achieve. He spoke about academic freedom and responsibility in hard economic times.

“BC has a history of issues that deal with issues fundamental to AAUP, such as academic freedom of faculty as a core component of quality education,” Rhoades said. “Particularly in colleges such as yours, with a social justice mission, this responsibility is especially important in the political environment of today.” He mentioned the controversy surrounding the cancellation of a scheduled lecture by Bill Ayers, and Prof. Mary Daly’s disputes with the administration in the late 1960’s.

According to Rhoades, the current trend in America is what he termed as corporatization and commercialization of universities. “Especially with having to worry about building large endowments and moving up in rankings such as U.S. News, these kinds of politics really play out in program elimina¬tion, creation, and continuation,” Rhoades said.

“Shaping academic initiatives should be based on an academic calculus, more than by anticipated short-term revenues, to the benefit of students and society,” he said.

Specifically for BC to achieve this, Rhoades indicated a need for budget transparency, a faculty senate, and a reworking of contract language.

According to Rhoades, academic freedom is a collective responsibility and a prerogative that faculty in a school should especially as compared to other workplace environments, because the professors’ principal loyalties are to society, the students, and the discipline they work in.

“Sometimes those things are not entirely in concert with the economic interests of an institu¬tion, which is why faculty input is especially important in tight financial times, for maintaining the integrity of academic initiatives,” he said.

“For shared governance to be meaningful, it needs to include contingent, and not just tenured track faculty.” He also said that in order to make informed decisions, faculty access to financial information directly followed.

The majority of the BC chapter members are adjunct, though there are some tenured professors. Michael Resler, who is tenured as chair of the German Studies Department, said, “Basically I am here to show support for my colleagues. There absolutely ought to be a faculty senate, it’s shameful that there isn’t.”

Within the BC chapter, there is a desire for what Malec referred to as fiscal accountability and transparency. He said, “Some of us have concerns that we aren’t compensated appropriately because of having been critical of [the] administration. We could be wrong, but any faculty member that feels aggrieved has no way to really verify if indeed they are undercompensated.

“None of us know anything about the University. We have worked assiduously to shed some light on faculty compensation. At BC you just cant do it, it’s a well kept secret,” Malec said.

BC’s human resources depart¬ment regards information such as pay rate, past earnings, and home address as confidential and will release it only with the written permission of the employee or a court order.

“Cumulatively, it’s frustrating. The past fiscal year nobody got a raise, but faculty never had the chance to discuss the matter with the University,” Malec said.

Malec also said that for about two years, the faculty has tried to elect a senate but was not supported by the administration. Currently, there is no formal mechanism for faculty to speak with the Board of Trustees. The student governing body, UGBC, meets regularly with the board in an advisory setting.

Rhoades said, “I think it’s foolish for a president or provost to try to do things without faculty input. Why should they be so afraid of advice?” Still, he acknowledged the advantage of a “nimble” stream¬lined process of academic decision-making versus a more deliberative process.

Rhoades, who participated in an analysis of language on academic freedom across various university handbooks, cited University of Minnesota’s clause on free speech as an effective example, which allowed employees “to speak or write without institutional discipline or restraint on matters of related to… the functioning of the university… whether or not as a member of an agency of institutional governance.”

“The BC employee contract’s clause on academic freedom of faculty is not really defined, only invoked,” Rhoades said.

BC’s employee handbook states, “An individual employee has the right to speak publicly and to express personal opinions regard¬ing campus issues or issues that have no connection with Boston College. However, care should be exercised to avoid public criticism of University policy whenever such a stance is incompatible with the responsibilities of an employee’s position at Boston College.”

On the formation of a BC AAUP chapter, Patricia DeLeeuw, Vice Provost for Faculties, said, “These are all BC’s values as well. We are very pleased. A university is only as good as its faculty, and a good faculty brings good students. So as a community of scholars, the values of the AAUP, such as academic freedom and rigorous standards of higher education, are very important.”

“The more voices we have on campus the better,” DeLeeuw said.

Rhoades encouraged the BC chapter to be alert of the spirit it maintains in its discourse, to make sure that it works toward produc¬tive activities and presents feasible solutions, rather than just advocat¬ing grievances.

“Part of what an AAUP chapter can and should do is to establish the spirit – not only the structures – of accountability,” Rhoades said.

Malec lauded the chapter’s formation as a substantial effort to¬wards forming a dynamic of being proactive rather than reactive.

“When did education become a business? We as a university are moving more towards a business model, and I think we’re really at a crossroads. My hope is that we come together to address the elephant in the room and have our voices heard,” Michalczyk said.

Background of the AAUP and Faculty Unionization

In 1900, Stanford University economist Edward Ross lost his job because Mrs. Leland Stanford disapproved of his stance towards immigrant labor and railroad monopolies. This incident led Arthur O. Lovejoy, philosopher at Johns Hopkins University, to form the American Association of Uni¬versity Professors (AAUP) along with John Dewey in 1915. This organization sought to ensure that faculty members’ academic free¬dom would no longer be violated, define fundamental professional values and standards for higher education, and to ensure higher education’s contribution to the common good.

Ever since its founding, the AAUP has aided the faculty of numerous universities in tackling issues beyond those pertaining to academic freedom. These include matters of national security, discrimination, institutional mat¬ters, tenure, intellectual property, and economic security for faculty members, among others.

According to a publication by the AAUP, up until recently only 25 percent of professors are unionized, with over 96 percent of the union-represented faculty members in the public university sector. The lack of academic unionization in the private academic sector seems to be changing, however. In 2001, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), in charge of governing collective bargaining in the private sector, issued two decisions allow¬ing faculty members and graduate assistants to bargain collectively under the National Labor Rela¬tions Act (NLRA).

The varying factor as to what professors are considered “professional employees” and not “managerial” positions, and therefore eligible to bargain collectively, is a determination made on a case-by-case basis at each academic institu¬tion. This complexity was proven in the 1980 case NLRB v. Yeshiva, where certain faculty members were deemed to be managerial employees rather than professional, and there¬fore not covered by the NLRA.

In 2000, however, the NLRB upheld that faculty members in Manhattan College, were of employee status, given that they exercised “advisory, and not actual governance authority.” In spite of this legal victory, Manhattan Col¬lege professors delayed the process by rejecting union representation. Later that year, the NLRB ruled that New York University graduate assistants can also be considered “employees” under the NLRA, and thus able to unionize. This went against the NYU administration’s policy that stated that allowing graduate assistants to unionize “undermined academic freedom.” Contrary to the Manhattan College professorate, however, the NYU graduate assistants voted in favor of unionizing.