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242 employees, 4,000 years of service
Service Recognition Dinner honors longtime BU employees

By Brian Fitzgerald

A university is composed of brick, mortar, and wood. But it's also composed of people who breathe life into the university, giving it both purpose and direction. Members of the BU community recently gathered together to express gratitude to those employees who have dedicated a large portion of their lives to the institution.

Honored at the annual Service Recognition Dinner at Metcalf Hall May 3 were 39 workers who are retiring from BU -- including CGS Dean Brendan Gilbane, with 45 years under his belt -- 72 who have been here for a quarter-century, and 131 who have become members of the decade club.

	President Jon Westling, honored for a quarter-century of service to BU, presents a Chelsea clock to a fellow 25-year man: Dennis Berkey, provost and dean of Arts and Sciences. Photo by Kalman Zabarsky

"The colleagues whom we are gathered here tonight to recognize are the enduring aspect of this wonderful place called Boston University," said Senior Vice President Joseph Mercurio. "You are the people who provide the service to the students and the community year in and year out. You provide the framework, the structure, and the continuity -- when, taken in its entirety, defines Boston University."

Among those who were given Chelsea clocks for 25 years of service were President Jon Westling and Dennis Berkey, provost and dean of Arts and Sciences. Earle Cooley, chairman of the BU board of trustees, called Westling the "Buck Rogers of the 21st Century." Westling, he said, "came to us in the last quarter of the 20th century and is about to sponsor this university as one of the great universities in the world and for all time."

Gilbane (COM'52), the longest-serving current BU dean at 25 years, came to the University in 1948 as a student and has been here ever since, except for a short stint in Germany as an Army artillery sergeant during the Korean War. "Brendan Gilbane's association with Boston University would be remarkable if only for its longevity," said Westling. "This tenure can be understood best by realizing that many of the freshmen he taught in his first year on the faculty are now retired. Brendan Gilbane did not found the College of General Studies, but he nurtured and preserved it to a degree that has made his name inseparable from that of the College.

"For more than a quarter of a century, Brendan Gilbane has maintained this remarkable institution and its service to its students and to our society," Westling continued. "He leaves a very large space to fill, and provides a magnificent example for those who will try to fill it."

Westling also had praise for several other retiring employees, including Domenic Raneri, a leader carpenter for BU's Physical Plant. "At Boston University, with its heritage of 19th-century buildings, its people live and work in an environment of wood," said Westling. "Carpenters are very important to us, and Domenic Raneri has, for 31 years, been an exemplary carpenter. His exceptional talents were recognized early in his career: within five years of his appointment, he was appointed a leader carpenter, the post he has filled with unvarying distinction for 27 years. His mark on the University is everywhere, but nowhere in greater evidence than in our numerous brownstone renovations. These have been illuminated by Mr. Raneri's own remarkable skills as a carpenter, as by the work of a generation of carpenters for whom he has been mentor and leader."

Helen Shannon, a secretary for the Office of Residence Life at the Towers residence hall, retired after three decades of work there. "It is not for nothing that the Towers remains a very popular residence hall," said Westling. "Helen Shannon has understood the needs of her residents for what has come to be called customer service, but also for the example and company of experienced adults. In her annual evaluations, made by a series of supervisors through 30 years, two themes prevail: experienced knowledge and willingness to work hard. She has provided the constancy without which no institution can preserve an identity through the rapid flow of time."

The work ethic of Dan Fitzgerald, senior programmer analyst for application services at University Information Services, is "legendary," says Westling. "By the time his colleagues came through the door, he had a half-day's work under his belt, and snowy days he always left home extra early, lest he hear that the University had closed for the day. During Dan Fitzgerald's almost four decades of service to Boston University, the amount and variety of administrative data we must process has phenomenally increased in volume and variety. It is through the dedicated and skilled work of the Dan Fitzgeralds that far more often than not we get it right."

School of Social Work Professor Leonard Bloksberg joined the SSW faculty in 1962. "Professor Bloksberg's principal interest has been the formulation of social welfare policy, and he has urged that social workers should be trained not merely to implement such policy, but to be active in its formulation," said Westling. "As he has observed the continuing devolution of welfare policy from the federal government to the several states, he has developed seminars in state welfare policy at the Massachusetts State House for his students. Within this understanding, he has focused on the problem of poverty, dealing with child welfare, social welfare, and family services. He has also been active in integrative teaching and learning in social work education."

Westling added that the Service Recognition Dinner is "a great event" because it reminds us that "bricks and mortar -- even, in a way, programs and curriculum -- come and go and change. What makes an institution work, and what makes an institution great, is the commitment and the dedication" of its employees. "The trustees and I are so grateful for all that you have done to make Boston University one of the great success stories in American higher education."

1 June 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations