On Friday, May 31, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston issued a ruling with regard to interviews from the Belfast Project, Boston College's oral history project on the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

According to the Boston College Chronicle, the Academic Quad-located in the center of Devlin, Fulton, Lyons and Gasson Halls-will undergo landscaping changes this summer. The renovation will begin the day after Commencement, May 21, and is scheduled to finish before classes resume in the fall.

Boston College's Provost and Dean of Faculties Cutberto Garza announced on May 6 that he will be stepping down from his position on June 30 of this year. He will take a yearlong leave of absence from the University and will return to BC as a professor in the fall of 2014.

A lot  has changed in the chemistry department since Lawrence Scott first came to Boston College.

The current Louise and Jim Vanderslice and Family professor in chemistry arrived on the Heights in 1993, just after the construction of Merkert Hall, still the only academic building on campus dedicated to a single department.

A little girl runs into the room beaming with joy. She's just seen a towering star.

"We just saw Ryan Anderson," she exclaims. "He's so tall."

Dick Kelley turns his head, and as Anderson walks through the door followed by fellow Boston College basketball players Lonnie Jackson and John Cain Carney, Kelley lights up brighter than his starstruck niece.

Starting during the Vietnam War, average grades at universities nationwide began to climb steadily, a trend that has not stopped since. At the time, professors were unwilling to give students low grades, as a poor GPA could jeopardize their military exemption status and result in their being sent to fight and possibly die overseas.

During the last academic year, the Office of AHANA Student Programs (OASP) and the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs conducted a climate survey about diversity on campus. This past spring, smaller focus groups were convened in order to gather more information about questions that sprang up as a result of the original survey and could not be answered with any preexisting institutional data.

This year's Modstock concert, set for May 2 and headlined by the rapper Macklemore, will be ticketed in order to limit the number of attendees.

Boston College, which has operated without a vice president for student affairs (VPSA) since former VPSA Patrick Rombalski left in November of 2012, announced today that Barbara Jones has been hired to fill that position. Jones will officially begin work at BC on July 1 after she finishes the year at Miami University of Ohio, where she has worked as the vice president of the division of student affairs since 2008.

The University announced today that Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny will be the Commencement speaker for the Class of 2013. Kenny assumed office as Taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland in March of 2011. He is a member of the Irish Fine Gael political party and established a coalition government with the Labour Party at the beginning of his term. Before his election as prime minister, Kenny served as Ireland's Minister for Tourism and Trade from 1994 to 1997, and has served as a Teachta Dala-a parliamentary representative-since 1975.