2024 Bellarmine Award
Professor of Economics Joseph Quinn, a leading expert on Social Security and retirement, and a highly respected teacher, mentor, and colleague who has held key leadership positions at Boston College is this year’s recipient of BC’s Saint Robert Bellarmine, S.J., Award.
Presented at Commencement by University President William P. Leahy, S.J., the award recognizes a distinguished faculty member whose significant contributions have consistently and purposefully advanced the mission of Boston College. It is named for Saint Robert Bellarmine, S.J., an Italian cardinal and one of the leading figures in the Counter-Reformation.
Quinn “is an important scholar of the economics of retirement, and has been a great University citizen across the entire modern history of Boston College,” said Provost and Dean of Faculties David Quigley, praising Quinn’s 50 years of service to BC.
Quigley also commended Quinn’s “outsized contributions” to Boston College and said the University is a “far better, more humane place” because of them.
“It’s no accident that the modern trajectory of Boston College’s rise from near bankruptcy to national recognition as one of America’s great research universities has coincided almost precisely with Joe’s tenure in the Economics Department.”
Quinn said, “I have loved my time here, interacting with bright undergraduate and graduate students, wonderful colleagues in the Economics Department and across the University, and excellent administrators who lead this great University.
“We have had two terrific presidents [Fr. Leahy and J. Donald Monan, S.J.] during my five decades here, and I have enjoyed 40 years as a teacher and researcher in Economics, and nine years in the administration: eight as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences—which I loved—and one as interim provost.”
During his long tenure, Quinn also served as Economics Department chair, was the James P. McIntyre Professor of Economics, and the inaugural NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative and chair of the Boston College Athletics Advisory Board.
He has written on the economics of aging, the determinants of individual retirement decisions, recent trends in the retirement patterns of older Americans, and Social Security reform. Quinn co-chaired the Technical Panel on Trends and Issues in Retirement Savings for President Clinton’s 1996 Social Security Advisory Council.
“I have loved my time here, interacting with bright undergraduate and graduate students, wonderful colleagues in the Economics Department and across the University, and excellent administrators who lead this great University. ”
Quinn co-authored the books Passing the Torch: The Influence of Economic Incentives on Work and Retirement and The Economics of an Aging Society, and has written more than 100 journal articles, monographs, and book chapters. A popular and respected professor, he has taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
He also is a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance, where he has held leadership positions. Quinn received a doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, where he recently served as a member of its board of trustees.
“Whatever contributions I have made during my time at Boston College, I have received so much more in return,” Quinn said. “I came here from the graduate economics program at MIT, expecting to stay for two years, and I am still here nearly 50 years later!
“Boston College is a happy place, and I am so grateful to have spent my professional life here. Thanks to all who made this such a rewarding experience,” he added.
Quinn “has done just about every job on the Chestnut Hill Campus and seems to know almost everyone,” Quigley said. “It’s no accident that the modern trajectory of Boston College’s rise from near bankruptcy to national recognition as one of America’s great research universities has coincided almost precisely with Joe’s tenure in the Economics Department.”
Previous recipients of the Bellarmine Award are Thomas F. Rattigan Professor of English Mary Crane, Professor of Philosophy Patrick Byrne, Professor and Biology Chair Welkin Johnson, and Lynch School of Education and Human Development Professor Emerita Mary Walsh.