Biz Bracher ’91, MA’95, PhD’03, P’22
Director, Cornerstone Program, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences
Let Your Life Speak
Cornerstone Program director Biz Bracher ’91, MA’95, PhD’03, P’22, shares her book selection.
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Michigan native Elizabeth “Biz” Bracher ’91, MA’95, PhD’03, P’22, first came to BC in 1987 as a first-year student and has since spent all but two years at the Heights. She first met Fr. Neenan while waiting in the cold for a bus back to Newton Campus. Fr. Neenan had brought cookies for the waiting students. The two became great friends.
Now director of the Cornerstone Seminar Program in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences—which offers course-based advising opportunities for first-year students—Bracher, a voracious reader, keeps a copy of Fr. Neenan’s complete Dean’s List pinned to the wall by her computer.
“Fr. Neenan and I would have this conversation about not just the books on his list, but also what books you should read again every couple of years,” she says. “Charlotte’s Web. Tuesdays with Morrie. A Lesson Before Dying. Crossing to Safety. To Kill a Mockingbird. Let Your Life Speak.”
The latter is Bracher’s choice for Beacon Book Club. She chose it because of the ways in which Parker Palmer’s book so closely aligns with her work and says this passage best summarizes its message: “Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about—quite apart from what I would like it to be about—or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions.”
Bracher is one of several teachers of the popular elective Courage to Know, which is designed to confront students with the most fundamental formational questions that guide their years at BC and beyond: Who am I? What am I good at? Who am I called to become? For as long as she can remember, Bracher has given away copies of Let Your Life Speak to graduating seniors because of its ability to take on new meanings.
“Every five years or so, you’re in a very different space developmentally—you might be in a different job, your relationships are in a different place,” she says. “I knew that when I started teaching in the Cornerstone program, that it had to be in a fundamental spot. And it’s amazing how much seniors appreciate the book.”
Let Your Life Speak – Parker J. Palmer
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The legacy of William B. Neenan, S.J., at Boston College is beyond measure. For nearly 35 years, he personally curated the “Dean’s List” of recommended reading and shared it with the BC community. We honor and continue that treasured tradition through Beacon Book Club.