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A memorial service will be held on campus later this spring for Professor Emeritus Andrew Buni, who taught courses in American history at Boston College for 38 years until his retirement in 2006. Dr. Buni died on Feb. 12 at age 80.
Dr. Buni’s courses covered a wide range of the American experience and reflected his own life interests and concerns: immigration, African-Americans, sports, and the city of Boston. His class on Boston’s neighborhoods was one of the University’s most popular courses.
College of Arts and Sciences Dean David Quigley, who once occupied a neighboring office to Dr. Buni when the history faculty was housed in Hovey House, recalled frequent conversations with his neighbor about basketball, jazz, politics and history.
“My favorite memory, though, was sitting with him at a back table for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Dinner,” said Quigley. “At the end of the evening, the speaker announced that Andy was being honored for his decades of commitment to AHANA students at Boston College. He was stunned by the news and couldn’t fight back the tears. We had to push him forward to receive the award while the rest of the crowd stood applauding.”
Dr. Buni earned a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of New Hampshire in 1958 after serving in the US Army, a master’s from UNH the following year and a doctorate from the University of Virginia in 1965. He joined the BC faculty as an assistant professor in 1968 and was promoted to full professor in 1975.
“He was on the forefront of all progressive causes at BC,” recalled Associate Professor Cynthia Lyerly, another of Dr. Buni’s History Department colleagues. “Andy fought to bring Black Studies and black faculty to BC. He fought for hiring and tenuring more women. He fought for gay and lesbian faculty and he was probably one of the first faculty members to assign a book about lesbians in a class. He was honorable, quick to anger – but quick to get over it – and tenderhearted. Injustice and bigotry were the things he hated most.”
Former History chairman Professor Peter Weiler said Dr. Buni’s interest and concern extended to his colleagues in addition to his many students. “When I was chair, Andy would tell me every year that I should not increment his salary, but that I should give the money to the ‘kids,’ as he called the junior faculty. It was a remarkably generous action.”
Dr. Buni is survived by his wife, Joyce Buni of Needham. Funeral services were private.