For all that is said about 15 minutes of fame, people rarely talk about the 15 minutes that precede it.
Haub Vice President for Mission and Ministry Rev. Jack Butler, S.J., was sitting in his office at about 12:50 p.m. on Tuesday when he found out the Board of Trustees had elected him as the next University president of Boston College.
By 1:05 p.m., the news had been emailed out to the rest of the BC community.
Given just 15 minutes to reflect on this new role before being thrust into the spotlight, Butler isn’t ready to talk about comprehensive plans just yet. He won’t officially take over as University president until the summer of 2026, leaving him time to wrap things up in his current role, take a sabbatical, shadow current University President Rev. William P. Leahy, S.J., and, somewhere in the mix, decide the future direction of BC.
Still, after 23 years on campus, he’s no stranger to BC. and what he lacks in logistical specifics, he more than compensates for with vision.
Butler welcomed The Heights into his office for an interview, offering an early glimpse into who he is, how he leads, and where he plans to take BC.
Editor’s note: The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: Fr. Butler, let’s play hardball: Where are you from?
A: Atlanta, Georgia.
Q: Do you go back often?
A: Not as often as I’d like. And you know what? Honestly, I’ve been here for so long—this is my home. That’s my home of origin. Maybe that’s a better way of putting it.
Q: Was there a moment in your years as an undergraduate that led you to pursue a career in higher education?
A: Absolutely not. In fact, I never thought I’d be in higher ed. When I entered the Jesuits, I thought I was a “Decree 4 baby.” Decree 4 is a particular document for the Jesuits that was about social justice and working with the poor, and that got me interested in prisons and working with people in the street.
An opportunity came at Boston College, and I came here, fell in love with Boston College, fell in love with the students, and found that we can really do wonderful things here—that whatever tomorrow is, it already exists here with the students, and that’s going to change what the world is going to be 25 years down the road.
Q: Tell me a little bit about your work as the chaplain for the football team. What does your relationship with the players and coaches look like?
A: When I first started out, I had great relationships with the coaches and players and was around them quite a bit. COVID caused some changes. I couldn’t be as present. I couldn’t be around them as much.
I love the sport. I love athletes. I love football players, and they’re incredibly welcoming of me, and my job is to support them. They’ve got great coaches. They don’t need me to coach them. I need to support them as human beings, and that’s been wonderful.
Q: A lot of your work at BC has been very hands-on and involved with students. As University president, do you intend to maintain this outward-facing presence on campus?
A: Well, I sure hope so.
I don’t think Fr. Leahy gets enough credit. He might be one of the most student-engaged presidents I’ve ever known, but he does it under the radar.
I want to be known by lots of people, because I like people, and I want to be present in the community so students can see me. But I have a job to do that’s a little different, and I got to be responsible for making sure that BC is whole and that we’re growing.
Q: Speaking of Fr. Leahy—your predecessor raised more money than any University president in BC history. You have helped raise nearly $40 million over the past six years. Tell me a little bit about your method and strategy for raising capital at BC.
A: My method and strategy is to be a good human being and engage people relationally. BC sells itself, and when you talk about our needs, people want to help us. People are good and generous, so it’s not as hard as you might think.
Q: Many higher education administrators have attracted public scrutiny for their responses to campus conflicts over the past few years. Do you have a philosophy for handling any controversies that might come across your desk as University president?
A: I’m a realist, and I deal with the real. If there are controversies, you have to address them. The best you can do is to try to be present. The best you can do is try to give space for people to feel not only that they’re being heard, but they’re welcome.
And you’ve got to be honest—that’s the other thing. Sometimes people don’t want to hear what the truth is, or what you see it as. But I also have to make the space to listen to what other people are saying.
Q: Tell me a little bit about the search process for University president. When were you informed that you’d been selected as an official candidate?
A: They say it was an extensive Jesuit search, and they went to many different places. I know that I was asked by the Society of Jesus if I would be willing to interview. I was also told by my provincial that I should consider interviewing.
Even though the search committee might not have reached out to me until just a few months before we started the interviews, I started to have conversations internally with my provincial of “If I’m asked, do you want me to do this?” before then.
Q: Walk me through the vetting process for that.
A: I think they wanted to know what kind of person I am, what kind of Jesuit I am, what are my hopes for the University? Did I have a vision for the University they wanted to see? I think they also wondered, did I love the University, and did I love the people in the University?
Q: What does it mean to be a Catholic university today?
A: Surely, there’s a long faith tradition, there’s a history to the Catholic Church, but it’s a worldview. It’s a way of understanding that people are made in the image and likeness of God, that there’s a goodness to what life is about, that we’re made to give God glory by learning how to live life to the fullest.
And we’re sacramental people. I don’t necessarily just mean that in the church sense, but we express ourselves through signs and symbols and rituals to communicate deeper things and a worldview that also involves mercy and forgiveness.
But remember the university part—are we seeking to advance truth? Are we looking for knowledge? And, because we’re a liberal arts university, is there a way that that’s a whole-cloth approach, that we’re not just in silos, but as we do our research and as we study, does it come together in a whole picture of not only an understanding of life itself, but how to live that life?
Q: You’ve got about every design of crucifix on these walls that I can imagine. You spoke about the importance of Catholic symbolism—can you tell me about some of these?
A: I’m a man of faith, so I love the symbols of my tradition, but everything you see on the wall, everything you see here is because somebody gave it to me. Because people know that I love this Jesus, they’ve gifted me these crosses, and because they gave me a gift, they’re put up.
There’s no other great reason for them being up besides that I want to value and highlight the love that people showed me by putting up and displaying their gifts.
Q: Before coming to BC, you spent a lot of time working in prison ministry incarcerated individuals. How does that aspect of your service influence your ethos?
A: I was assigned to prisons when I first entered the Jesuits. Within the first few weeks, I was told that that was going to be a ministry that I had to do, and I fell in love, because we all need to be loved. We’re all broken, and we all need to have signs of hope and signs of new life and forgiveness.
In a prison, there’s no masks. We tend to wear masks. And in prison, you actually start to see humanity for what it is. And I fell in love with a God that wants to be in the mess and wants to love people where they are.
It gave me a different sense of what it means to be a human being, and it gave me this passion that you don’t wait for people to look right and get it together before you love them.
Q: On that note, do you have a message to any students of color, students with disabilities, or LGBTQ+ students who feel as though BC is not a safe or welcoming place for them?
A: Yes—that’s disappointing for me to hear because I believe we are a safe place. We have to be a welcoming place. The gospel of Jesus Christ is to welcome all peoples. To be a Jesuit means you have to be at the center, but you have to know how to go to the margins, and you’re always trying to bring the margins to the center.
So I understand that we’ll always have disagreements, or we might not understand faith or dogmas and doctrines in the same way. I understand that we can even have different ideologies. But the fact of the matter is, everybody’s made in the image and likeness of God, and there’s no exclusion when it comes to respect and love, and we can fight through hard and difficult conversations.
This is Jack Butler’s home, but it’s everybody’s home that works here, that comes to school here, that comes onto our campus to visit here. You’ve got to know you’re welcome to be here.
Q: Do you remember the moment you first felt called to the priesthood?
A: I’ve always felt called to follow this Jesus that I fell in love with, and it scared me, and I ran from it for a long time, and I tried to forget about it, and I tried to put it away. It wasn’t until I was 28 and people in my life, in different ways, told me I had to be authentic and real, and I had to face the things maybe I was afraid of.
I came to terms with the fact that I want to serve this God, and I want to serve the people that this God created. I thought that would be all good and well, and then I found out that’s not always good and well—some people are open to it, some people aren’t open to it. Some people like you, some people don’t like you. And yet, what I do is because I love God, and I’m trying to love God’s people, as imperfect as that is.
Q: There’s been some fanfare in the world of college athletics about what your tenure means for sports at this school. What are your hopes for the future of BC athletics?
A: I think athletics are, have been, and hopefully will be an important aspect of who we are as a university. We’ve always been about educating the whole person, and the whole person means the physical person also—athletics is a great way to bring a community together. I mean, this year, when I heard that over 7,000 of our students were attending football games, what a way to come together and bond and become a community.
So right now, athletics is going through a difficult time, and what the future is, I can’t look you in the eye and tell you I understand how it’s all going to come out in the wash 10 or 15 years from now. But right now, we’re a proud school that has a great academic heritage, and we have a good legacy within our athletic programs. I hope to continue both.
Q: Do you believe college campuses are a place for limitless free speech as protected by the Constitution, or does maintaining a functional campus involve some restrictions?
A: Well, I believe in free speech, but even free speech, as we understand in the Constitution, doesn’t mean you can berate people, intimidate people, hurt people, or marginalize people. I want academic freedom, and I want people to be able to have free speech, but not at the expense of being racist, not at the expense of being hateful, and not at the expense of hurting other people.
Q: To clarify, if speech were constitutionally protected but came at the expense of hurting other people, do you believe there would be room to limit or censor it on campus?
A: Hate speech will never be accepted where I am. How could you have a community of love? How could you have a community of support where people grow? I can handle divergent ideologies, and I can handle disagreement, but why would we let people degrade or hurt? Why would anybody let that happen?
Q: As national policies continue to change rapidly, how do you think BC can maintain a consistent and dependable identity?
A: I think we just be ourselves. We live out of our gospel values, we live out of our heritage, we live out of our Jesuit tradition. I don’t see that as difficult as the question might imply.
Q: For those asking how BC might change once you take over in 2026, what, as of now, might you say to them?
A: I couldn’t give an honest answer to that that has any real credibility to it right now. My hope is to get up to speed so I can take the reins as the 26th president, and then I want to maintain our momentum, our continuity, and our stability.
Q: What do you anticipate the period between now and the fall of 2026 will look like for you?
A: There’s always a lot to learn, and I have to start by finishing the job I have. Right now, I have a job as the Haub vice president for mission and ministry, and that goes right through graduation, and then after graduation, hopefully somebody’s going to let me have some time off, and then I’ll come back.
I don’t need to get to know the community. I don’t need to get to know the people—I’ve been here for 23 years—but I need to start looking at it from different vantage points.
Q: You found out that you had been selected as the next University president about 15 minutes before the rest of the community. Did you know that the turnaround process would be so fast?
A: I knew that there was going to be a vote. I knew there was the possibility that I would be elected or appointed. So, we did all the appropriate things beforehand, because once you do that in the world today, it’s going to come out pretty quickly. I got to Zoom into the board. They asked if I had anything to say. And honestly, for a guy who has spent a lifetime talking, I had a hard time speaking because I was humbled.
I’ve got to tell you, the support and the love I’ve received since the announcement is almost overwhelming to me. I am so grateful.
Q: When someone asks you to describe the mission of Boston College, what do you tell them?
A: We’re a Jesuit Catholic University specializing in formative education, and we’re trying to get our students to do more than get a job. We want them to live life to the fullest and to maximize the potential in their humanity.
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