Issuu

INDEX

INSIDE

THIS ISSUE

NEWS...........A2 MAGAZINE...A6 METRO..........A3 A R T S . . . . . . . . .A7 SPORTS.......A4 OPINIONS.....A8

www.bcheights.com

Monday, November 1, 2021

Chestnut Hill, Mass.

SPORTS

METRO Tatte opens a new store in Newton Centre and serves up lattes and pastries to Newtonians.

Northeastern breaks BC women’s hockey’sv winning streak with two straight wins in a homeand-home series.

BC Endowment at All-Time High HALEY HOCKIN Special Projects Editor ERIN SHANNON Copy Chief

NICOLE WEI / FOR THE HEIGHTS

Mystērion Finds Success AMY PALMER Asst. News Editor

Like many students at Boston College, Dennis Wieboldt, MCAS ’22, took Perspectives on Western Culture—a six-credit philosophy and theology course—his freshman year. The class became the stepping stone for Wieboldt’s studies in theology, he said, motivating him to take more classes, pursue the major, and eventually launch BC’s first undergraduate theology journal, Mystērion. “I was trying to think more about different ways for students to engage in conversations like that outside of

just the classroom,” Wieboldt, founder and editor-in-chief, said. “So one idea that I pitched to the director of undergraduate studies, Professor Cooley, … [was] about maybe starting a journal for the theology department.” Mystērion’s inaugural issue was published on Aug. 31, and featured six articles from undergraduates at BC, Princeton University, and Fordham University. Wieboldt said the editorial board was pleasantly surprised by the volume of submissions for the first issue. “We got a good number of submissions for our first edition, which was something that we were pleas-

antly surprised by,” Wieboldt said. Associate Editor Conor McCormick came up with the name Mystērion, which means hidden things in Greek, Wieboldt said. “It’s supposed to refer substantively to the idea that there are hidden things that we can explore through theological inquiry, and then also it’s supposed to honor Father Michael Himes,” Wieboldt said. Himes, a former theology professor at BC, frequently referred to God in his lectures as a “Sovereign Mystery.” Mystērion draws its name from these two things.

See Theology, A2

SPORTS

COURTESY OF AP PHOTO

Eagles Drop to .500

BC Football fell to Syracuse, marking fourth straight loss. See Football, A4

In the 1970s, when Boston College’s endowment hovered around $5 million, it would have been difficult to predict the powerhouse that BC’s endowment would eventually become. This past fiscal year, the endowment reached its all-time high: $3.8 billion. An endowment is a group of donations given to a school to support its educational mission. Schools then invest this money to further develop the endowment, ensuring future financial stability. The main goal of an endowment is to provide a buffer against economic fluctuations, according to Thomas Parker, senior associate emeritus at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. “I have to say that one of the primary functions of an endowment is to provide a financial buffer during bad economic times,” Parker said. “And that’s been the most important factor in most of the outstanding universities in America, in their ability to survive and to be outstanding.” Endowments typically have strict rules on what money can be spent, with most schools never touching the principal balance, but only the interest that builds each year. Most modern endowments invest in a variety of assets, like stocks, bonds, and real estate, among others. Timeline of BC’s Endowment In 1970, BC students went on strike. The University had announced it was raising tuition by $500—a sizable amount at the time—and students were outraged. One cause of this tuition raise was the University’s precarious financial situation. “It was ‘significant deficits’ in fiscal years 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972 which brought the University to the brink of financial ruin,” an administrator told The Heights in 1973. As BC struggled to overcome these budget deficits, it faced another problem: a comparatively small endowment. A Heights article from 1970 reported that while Harvard University’s endowment was over $1 billion, BC’s was just $5 million. In 1980, BC decided to implement a new investment strategy that would focus on the future instead of immediate operating costs. John Smith, financial vice president and treasurer at the time, said that BC would reinvest most of the endowment’s income and buy growth stocks. He

hoped this method would average an endowment growth of 15 percent per year, not including gifts. “Smith believes an endowment fund should provide academic enrichment through the establishment of chairs, provide scholarships for needy people, benefit the physical plant, assist the school in times of financial need, and enhance the whole balance sheet,” reads a Heights article from December of that year. “But, Smith says BC’s $8 million endowment fund is ‘too’ small to perform adequately.” BC no longer discloses its investment portfolio, but a Heights article from 1980 showed the shares BC had in oil companies at the time: 3,200 in Exxon Corporation and 1,200 in Royal Dutch Petroleum. BC’s endowment experienced bumps in subsequent years—such as a dip in the endowment following the stock market crash known as Black Monday in 1987—but by 1995, BC’s endowment had increased to $447 million, ranking first among the nation’s Jesuit colleges. Passing the billion dollar mark in 2000, BC’s endowment had doubled in value since early 1995. Recent Developments In the past fiscal year, BC’s endowment jumped by around $1.2 billion, bringing the endowment’s total to $3.8 billion. This 46 percent increase reflects a year of broad endowment growth for colleges nationwide, though BC performed particularly well, with gains 19 percent above the median. This increase is significant compared to recent growth—the endowment was $2.2 billion in 2016, $2.4 billion in 2017, $2.6 billion in 2018, $2.5 billion in 2019, $2.6 billion in 2020, and now, $3.8 billion. “This year’s increase was attributable to a strong market and the excellent leadership of the Investment and Endowment Committee of the Boston College Board of Trustees and BC’s Chief Investment Officer John Zona,” wrote Senior Associate Director of Communications Ed Hayward in an email to The Heights. A BC Perspective Peter Ireland, professor in the economics department at BC, said that because the main source of funds for endowments is philanthropy, endowment management is done with the goal of managing lumpy payments to ensure that the expenses paid out of the endowment are smooth.

See Endowment, A2