The Dean’s List 2.0
In honor of Fr. Neenan’s legacy at Boston College, the Dean’s List tradition will be carried on as part of a new feature called the Beacon Book Club. Each issue, a leading member of the BC community will add a pertinent or favorite book to the list.
“I had the great blessing, when I was six years dean in Gasson Hall, of hosting the Baccalaureate Mass in December. Fr. Neenan’s homily every year was about Camus’ The Fall, and he certainly made you want to read that book, as I did several times in those years. In the great spirit of Fr. Neenan, I’ve got my copy of a book I haven’t read since junior year English—Camus’ The Plague. [It] is as powerful as I remember it, even as it seemed such an alien work back in 1983. Now, living through it in this very different moment as a middle-aged academic administrator, it is giving me a little much-needed sustenance these days.”
Before becoming provost, Quigley served as dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Boston College from 2008 to 2014. As provost and dean of faculties, he has served as co-chair of the University Strategic Planning Initiative, overseeing the hiring of 250 new faculty and guiding the University’s academic programs and curricula—all while teaching history classes of his own. Quigley lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his wife, Megan DeMott-Quigley, and they are the proud parents of three sons.
Find it at the BC Bookstore
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.