Biography

In fall 1969, the Undergraduate Government of Boston College (UGBC) worked with the Revitalization Corps to establish a credit-bearing community action program, funded through an increase in the student activities fee with a budget of approximately $20,000. Announced in November 1969, it was known interchangeably as the Community Action Association and the Social Action Agency before settling on the name PULSE later that month; the program was also referred to as the Community Action Agency. The program involved partnerships with Boston-area agencies including the National Welfare Rights Organization.

Carol Proudfoot, a graduate student in the Psychology Department, and Patrick Byrne, a graduate student in Philosophy and the previous year's head of the BC Sodality, were hired as the program's two full-time consultants; by December 1969 the two were identified as Director and Assistant Director. By late November 1969, the program had organized field placements across five areas: housing, education, drug use, health, and the economic analysis of nonprofit organizations. As course credit required departmental approval, a non-credit pilot of approximately forty students ran during 1969-70; students registered in April and worked with the consultants to develop individual community action projects, with credit awarded according to the time and commitment required.

By October 1970, credit was accepted by six philosophy and three theology courses, and PULSE coordinated seventeen social action programs. That fall, the PULSE directorship was placed within the University organizational structure under Weston M. Jenks, University Director of Counseling, and PULSE established the Joshua Center, an on-campus drop-in center addressing student problems including drug use, following the closure that spring of an earlier PULSE-run drop-in center in Jamaica Plain. By October 1972, PULSE had grown to over 200 student volunteers and approximately 27 affiliated field projects, coordinated by a Director together with the PULSE Council, a body of fifteen students who each organized and supervised one or two field projects.

Today, PULSE is administered as a core program within the Philosophy and Theology Departments of the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences. The majority of students enrolled take Person and Social Responsibility, a two-semester, twelve-credit Core course combining classroom study in philosophy and theology with a twelve-hour-per-week field placement at a community partner organization. The program maintains partnerships with more than fifty Boston-area agencies and enrolls more than 500 undergraduates annually. Over its history, the program has offered 3.2 million hours of service to the greater Boston community.

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