Pulse 52

Kerry Cronin

Kerry Cronin is the Associate Director of Boston College’s interdisciplinary Perspectives Program and the Faculty Fellow in BC’s Center for Student Formation. She has taught in the Perspectives Program for over 20 years, mentoring students as they think alongside the great questions of the Western tradition. Additionally, she works extensively with undergraduates in retreat programs and is a regular speaker on college campuses, addressing topics of student culture and formation.

James DiZio

James (Jim) DiZio received the Master of Arts in Teaching History degree from Boston College in 1990. Since 1994 he has supervised PULSE students in his role as a teacher, supervisor, and director of education at the Suffolk County House of Correction in Boston. He enthusiastically connects PULSE students with incarcerated adult learners and adult educators to assist them in moving forward with their positive goals for the future.

Andrew Faiz

Andrew Faiz is a Boston Public Schools science educator and a Class of 2014 graduate of the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences. Andrew took PULSE during his sophomore year, where he served at the Kid’s Day After School Program in Jamaica Plain. He then served on the PULSE Council his junior and senior year. His transformative experiences in PULSE inspired him to pursue his Master’s in Secondary Education through the Boston Teacher Residency and UMass Boston in 2015. He has now been teaching biology in Boston Public Schools for seven years. His love for PULSE and dedication to meeting the needs of his students led him to establish East Boston High School as a PULSE Community Partner in 2018, where he has since served as the site supervisor.

Yuting Jiang

Yuting Jiang is a junior at Boston College majoring in Biology with a minor in Medical Humanities. She serves as a first-year member on PULSE Council and coordinates East Boston Neighborhood Health Center and Little Brothers Friends of the Elderly. She is also a member of the Boston College Marching Band, Vice President of the BC Chapter of American Chemical Society, and an undergraduate researcher in Professor Fofana’s lab on campus. Outside of school, she likes to snowboard, binge TV shows, and explore new restaurants with friends. She plans on pursuing medical school after graduation and is interested in the intersection between healthcare and social justice, especially how the portrayal/perception of illness and certain communities in the medical context affects the way patients are treated by physicians. 

Richard Keeley

Richard (Dick) Keeley, a member of the original PULSE Council, served as Director of PULSE from 1975-1991. In 1991, he moved to the Carroll School of Management where he served as Assistant Dean for Administration until 1995; he became Associate Dean for Undergraduates in 1995 and retired as Senior Associate Dean in  July, 2019.  During his time in the Carroll School, Keeley led an interdisciplinary faculty group from Management and the Morrissey College which created Portico, now the required introductory ethics course for all Carroll School undergraduates. He was a member of the core group which developed the university’s Intersections program and an original member of The Church in the 21st Century committee. His friendship with Jane Jacobs resulted in the donation of her papers to Boston College’s Burns Library. During a six month transition period, when the university sought new leadership for the Office of Global Education (then called the Office of International Programs), he served as its interim Director. He was the first Director of Programs for the university’s Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics.

Molly Malloy

Molly Malloy is a graduating senior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences majoring in philosophy and theology. In her PULSE core course, Molly served at Rosie’s Place, a shelter for poor and homeless women in Boston, as a friendly visitor in the overnight shelter. She has continued to return to the organization, preparing and serving lunch in the dining room once a week. Molly is currently a member of the PULSE Council and coordinates Women’s Lunch Place, the Boys and Girls Club of Dorchester, and the Watertown Boys and Girls Club. She has enjoyed accompanying other students along their journey of service, and she has also taken PULSE electives. Professor Byrne taught her PULSE core class, and he has remained a valuable mentor throughout her time at BC, meeting on several occasions over Zoom and acting as a faculty mentor for her Faith, Peace, and Justice thesis on the dynamics of homelessness and substance abuse in Boston. After she graduates, she will be pursuing a year of service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps.

David McMenamin

Dave McMenamin came to BC in 1990 to pursue his Ph.D. in Philosophy with a master’s degree in philosophy from Villanova and graduate studies in theology at the Washington Theological Union. He had been teaching at Villanova University where he was one of the founders of Villanova’s Center for Peace and Justice Education. Upon finishing his doctorate he applied for the recent opening for PULSE’s Director. He assumed that position in spring 1992, and directed the program for over twenty years. He taught in PULSE as well as in the Capstone Program and directed senior thesis seminars in the Faith, Peace and Justice Program and continued teaching in those programs until his retirement in 2021. In the larger network of Jesuit education, Dave was an original member of the national committee organizing conferences on The Commitment to Justice in Jesuit Higher Education and was part of that committee from 1998 to 2018, notably including the 2000 conference at Santa Clara University in which Fr. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, then-Superior General of the Society of Jesus, gave his now-famous speech, “The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education.”

Richard Regan

Richard F.X.  Regan, a member of the first PULSE Council and former Director of PULSE from 1973-75, has enjoyed a legal career now spanning near four decades. Best known by his fellow “Pulsaders” as F.X., F.X. received his law degree from Seton Hall University and began his legal career as a judicial law clerk in Chancery Court to Hon. Reginald Stanton, P. J. Ch.  In his professional life, he  has specialized in criminal defense work, complex civil litigation, attorney ethics and labor union law. He adeptly served as the election attorney for the City of Clerk during the tumultuous mayoral contests between now U.S. Senator Corey Booker and former Newark Mayor Sharpe James. He has been recognized as one of Bergen County’s Top Lawyers and Super Lawyer in New Jersey; and, has served as a Trustee of the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers – NJ and Barrister in the Seton Hall Law and Hudson Inns of Court.  During his career, first as partners with fellow BC graduate Joe Hayden (‘66) and presently as senior partner at the DeCotiis law firm, he has represented a wide spectrum of individuals and entities, including  a British seaman run aground on an oil tanker in Kill Van Kull, an NFL Hall of Famer, Hudson County mayor, U.S. congressman, regular folks and young adults, with the most rewarding results often being where no criminal charges, civil litigation or trial ever come to pass.  For several years, he coached youth baseball in his hometown Glen Ridge, where he resides with his wife Jane Ellen Doran, Esq. and son James F.X.

Jane Rodeheffer

Jane Kelley Rodeheffer is the Fletcher Jones Chair in Great Books Emerita at Pepperdine University in California. She retired in 2021. She received her B.A. from Boston College (literature and philosophy), where she served on the PULSE Council for two years and was active at Rosie’s Place in its earliest days. She received her graduate degrees from Harvard and Vanderbilt Universities, where she wrote her M.A. thesis under Alasdair MacIntyre and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy. She has published a range of articles in philosophy, literature, and Asian studies, and she is the co-editor of three collections of essays. Awards include the William J Kenealy S.J. award for Academic Excellence and Commitment to Social Justice (Boston College), the Brother J. Robert Lane Chair in Humanities and the Brother Charles Severin Award for Teaching Excellence (Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota), the Graven Humanitarian Award (Wartburg College), and the Academic Excellence Award and Howard White Excellence in Teaching Award (Pepperdine University). She has twice served on the Board of the Lilly Fellows Program and was the founding Faculty Mentor of the Lilly Graduate Fellows program for which she has served as Faculty Mentor to cohorts 1, 6, and 11. She is an active ceramic artist and calligrapher in the East Asian tradition.

Paul St. Amour

Paul St. Amour received his B.A./M.A. in philosophy from Boston College, and his Ph.D. from Fordham University.  He is currently an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.  Scholarly and teaching interests include Philosophy of Religion, Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, Aquinas, Contemporary Thomism, Kierkegaard, Ethics, and Philosophy of Economics.  Articles applying the thought of Bernard Lonergan to a wide range of philosophical issues appear in The Thomist, Analecta Hermeneutica: International Institute for Hermeneutics, Lonergan Workshop, Method: Journal of Lonergan Studies, The Lonergan Review, Theoforum, Journal of Macrodynamic Analysis, Contemporary Philosophy, and Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.

Eileen C. Sweeney

Eileen Sweeney, PhD, is Professor in the Philosophy Department at Boston College. She has taught in the PULSE Program almost continuously since 1997. Her research and publications are in Medieval Philosophy, especially on theological language, the relationship of philosophy and theology, the history of affectivity and moral psychology, and science vs. the liberal arts. She is the author of numerous articles on these topics as well as Words in the Absence of Things: Logic, Theology and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard and Alan of Lille, and Anselm of Canterbury and the Desire for the Word. She has taught in the Perspectives program at Boston College and teaches upper level and graduate courses in philosophical accounts of the passions, Medieval science and the liberal arts, theories of social change, political philosophy, and philosophy of language.

Meghan T. Sweeney

Meghan Sweeney, Associate Professor of the Practice of Theology, has been teaching in the PULSE Program since 2006, and in 2014 became the inaugural Cooney Family Director of PULSE. Meghan earned her PhD in theological studies at Emory University, where she taught undergraduate and seminary students. As part of her work and ministry, Meghan has served in a variety of contexts, including in the areas of refugee resettlement, jail tutoring, legal aid, hospital and university chaplaincies, and with current PULSE partners common cathedral, Boston Health Care for the Homeless, and St. Stephen’s After School Program. Meghan also has degrees from the College of the Holy Cross (BA) and Harvard Divinity School (MDiv).

Mary Troxell

Mary Troxell is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Philosophy, and she has taught in the PULSE Program for 18 years. She received her PhD from Boston University, and she has published on Schopenhauer, Kant and Heidegger. She currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Martin Luther King Scholarship Subcommittee and is the Co-Chair of the C21 (Church in the 21st Century) Advisory Committee. 

Aneesa Wermers

Aneesa Wermers (they/them) is a first-year member of the PULSE Council. They are currently a junior at Boston College studying applied psychology and getting a Master’s in Clinical Social Work. Prior to coming to Boston College, Aneesa grew up in Pennsylvania where they noticed how all of their identities impacted their life. After beginning college, Aneesa has spent their time working on LGBTQ+ advocacy and dismantling mental health stigma through their leadership and service positions. One of the most prominent roles Aneesa has taken on is being the Vice-Chair of the LGBTQ+ leadership council, where they have been able to speak on the needs of queer students on campus and find ways to build community. They hope to continue working on these skills and find ways to promote a more inclusive environment in the healthcare and social work field to uplift all LGBTQ+ folks. In their free time, they take photography commissions and perform on a Bollywood fusion dance team.