In Memoriam: John G. Boylan
John G. Boylan Jr., a retired Chemistry Department staff member whose encounter with spirituality at Boston College transformed his life and career, died on May 9. He was 73.
A requiem Mass will be said for Dr. Boylan on Saturday, May 25, at 10 a.m. in All Saints Episcopal Church, 209 Ashmont Street in Dorchester.
John Boylan received the Boston College Community Service Award in 2003. (Gary Wayne Gilbert)
Dr. Boylan joined the Chemistry Department in 1992 as manager of its newly operational Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory in the Merkert Center. For the first five years of his tenure at BC, he mainly focused on the lab’s operations and teaching graduate students to use the facility.
“I have always been very consumed with my career in science,” explained Dr. Boylan in a 2003 interview with the Boston College Chronicle. “I had always sort of knuckled down on my career path.”
That changed as Dr. Boylan began to take notice of BC’s activities and programs geared to exploring faith, and in particular in 1997 when he went on a retreat for the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises—a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. He went on to help direct the retreat for four years.
Another turning point was in 1999 when, still looking for ways to connect with the larger community at BC, Dr. Boylan enrolled in the Ignacio Volunteers program and wound up leading a group of 15 students on a work project at a shelter for homeless migrant workers in Mexico, undertaking various assignments from preparing meals to visiting youth detention centers and prisons.
“It turned out to be a really life-changing experience in a number of ways,” recalled Dr. Boylan, “not only from my own perspective of service, but also in terms of the connection I was able to make with students—a very different connection than I had here in the laboratory.”
Two years later, when he took a group of Ignacio Volunteers to a small village in Belize, brought another life-changing event. He met Rosebelle, a young girl who had just graduated from elementary school, but had little in the way of family relationships and was unable to go on to high school. When the principal of Rosebelle’s school asked if there was any way the group might be able to help her, Dr. Boylan and his wife, Rebecca, agreed to support her financially.
“She’s a marvelous young girl, very engaging,” he said. “We have made a couple of trips down on our own to visit her. Rosebelle has become very dear to us.”
In fact, Dr. Boylan had met Rebecca because of his spiritual awakening. About a year after his introduction to the Spiritual Exercises, Dr. Boylan began volunteering one evening a week at Rosie’s Place. Since his volunteer shift at the shelter coincided with that of BC students in the PULSE program, he wound up shuttling them to and from campus in the PULSE van. Rebecca also was a Rosie’s Place volunteer and sat on the board of directors. As Dr. Boylan recalled, “They sort of fixed us up.”
In June of 2002, the two were married in Gasson Hall. The flower girls were from the couple’s neighborhood church and among the wedding guests were Belize residents who had flown in for the occasion.
Dr. Boylan found other ways to engage with the BC community, such as co-leading a course in the University’s Capstone program, Decisions for Life, and another in the Perspectives IV program, New Scientific Visions. He also served on the BC Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Committee and co-facilitated diversity awareness sessions for faculty, staff, and administrators.
In recognition of his various outreach activities, both on campus and far away from it, Dr. Boylan received the 2003 Community Service Award.
“Wouldn’t it be great if everything in life was so easy,” he mused on being presented with the award, “to be recognized for doing those things that really animate you, the things that you love to do, and being with the people that you love to be with?
“This is a part of the Boston College community that I value: the ideals around service—and to be a part of that is a great honor.”
Dr. Boylan earned a degree in biology from St. Louis University and a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Missouri. He completed postdoctoral study in chemistry at Boston University Medical School prior to arriving at BC.
He retired in 2016.
Dr. Boylan is survived by his wife, Rebecca (Petty) Boylan, and his sisters, Nancy Thomas and Deborah Boylan; he was predeceased by his sister, Elizabeth St. Angelo.
In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Dr. Boylan may be made to All Saints Ashmont.